The definitive biography of the legendary first citizen of Athens
Pericles has the rare distinction of giving his name to an entire period of history, embodying what has often been taken as the golden age of the ancient Greek world. Periclean Athens witnessed tumultuous political and military events, and achievements of the highest order in philosophy, drama, poetry, oratory, and architecture. Pericles of Athens is the first book in decades to reassess the life and legacy of one of the greatest generals, orators, and statesmen of the classical world. In this compelling critical biography, Vincent Azoulay takes a fresh look at both the classical and modern reception of Pericles, recognizing his achievements as well as his failings. From Thucydides and Plutarch to Voltaire and Hegel, ancient and modern authors have questioned Pericles's relationship with democracy and Athenian society. This is the enigma that Azoulay investigates in this groundbreaking book. Pericles of Athens offers a balanced look at the complex life and afterlife of the legendary first citizen of Athens.
In Pericles of Athens, Vincent Azoulay has offered humanity two valuable threads in one well-woven book. The obvious gift is image revealed in the weft of Pericles' life in Athens, balancing his strengths and weaknesses, his tendency to placate the populous and then to offer vision, his strategic thinking and his reactionary moments. For that alone we could be greatly thankful. But perhaps the second gift, while more subtle, is the more valuable. It is the warp of history as Pericles' reputation was transformed by cultural context, making his character appear to change even as the life's story lay unchanged for thousands of years. Then it is the ideological and political use of that story over time in ways that presented wildly varying portraits of our protagonist. This second gift on any topic of history is usually hard won through many years of study. With that effort we earn the self-awareness that each of us sees history tinted, not by the dyes chosen by the first historian, but by the light in the cultural room where we live, and by the glasses we choose to wear at the moment. That self-awareness can come quickly to the thoughtful reader now in any age if they have Azoulay's book. Then this understanding can be applied to all that comes their way from the ages. Reading the story of Pericles in Thucydides first from my father's shelf as a child I smiled at the Hero. I can still smile with admiration towards him, but now with a much greater clarity of who he was, and of my own situation as a reader of history. Thank you Vincent Azoulay!
Forse meno appassionante dell'altro saggio che ho letto di Azoulay, ma approfondito e critico nel rivedere e collazionare le fonti, così come nello spiegare l'eclissi fino al XIX secolo e la successiva fortuna della figura dello statista ateniese. E alla fine, sì: il secolo di Pericle merita pienamente il suo nome. Nessun altro della Grecia classica gli va vicino per lucidità, visione sistemica e strategica; e nessun democratico per avere reso sostanziale l'applicazione della democrazia in una polis.
Très bon travail sur les sources et l'analyse de celles-ci afin de tenter d'ecrire une biographie le plus fiable possible malgré le manque d'informations existantes sur le personnage et le biais dans les sources disponible.
Très bon livre pour les personnes qui ont un grand intérêt dans le Vème siècle av JC, l'époque florissante de la cité d'athènes, le developpement de la démocratie et la guerre du peloponèse.
This brilliantly balanced and well researched book has been divided into 12 chapters:
1. An Ordinary Young Athenian Aristocrat? 2. The Bases of Periclean Power: The Stratēgos 3. The Bases of Periclean Power: The Orator 4. Pericles and Athenian Imperialism 5. A Periclean Economy? 6. Pericles and His Circle: Family and Friends 7. Pericles and Eros: Caught between Civic Unity and Political Subversion 8. Pericles and the City Gods 9. After Pericles: The Decline of Athens? 10. The Individual and Democracy: The Place of the “Great Man” 11. Pericles in Disgrace: A Long Spell in Purgatory (15th to 18th Centuries) 12. Pericles Rediscovered: The Fabrication of the Periclean Myth (18th to 21st Centuries)
In keeping with the problem regarding historiographic embellishment, the author warns us at the very outset:
‘A project centered on Pericles has to walk a tightrope. We should take care not to idealize Athens but, at the same time, not to deny the rupture introduced by the invention of democracy; if possible, we should also avoid misleading parallels without, however, renouncing certain carefully controlled anachronisms, given that history, even when positivist, always feeds on present-day debates; and finally, we should succumb neither to the illusion of the power of one great man nor to that of the all-powerful masses…’
And he suggests:
‘Rather, we should inquire into the productive tension that developed between the stratēgos and the Athenian community. If we accept those three conditions, we have some hope of plumbing the true historical depths of both Pericles and the city, at the same time emphasizing the profound differences as well as the few resemblances that it has with our own contemporary democratic life…’
The author does his job brilliantly.
The picture that becomes clear is something like this:
i. Percles’ wealth and parentage afforded him the means of acquainted intercourse with most of the renowned persons in the field of knowledge and art, who were resorting to Athens as a common seat of learning.
ii. Among the persons, besides Damonides and Anaxagoras, he received lessons from Pythoclides, Zeno and others. But Philosopher Anaxagoras appears to have exercised the most authoritative and durable influence on his mind and character, while Damonides developed in him a bias for democracy.
iii. Temperamentally he was an aristocrat rather than a commoner, he was reserve, shy of society, ostentatiously devoted to public duty and when his authority became unassailable brutally frank and truthful. He was never a demagogue but as a speaker ranked by his contemporaries as unrivalled in persuasive eloquence.
iv. There have never been better judges of oratory than the Athenians of Periclean Age and in their verdict Pericles was a mighty speaker and his eloquence was not one of clear expression alone but the outcome of clear thought as well. His love of art was as unquestioned as his democratic professions.
v. As a military commander he was nothing extraordinary and could never claim to be ranked with Cimon, Myronides or Alcibiades. His foreign policy, down to the conclusion of the Thirty Years' Peace was based on a miscalculation, both of the resources of Athens, and of the attractive power of the democratic ideal; in spite of its initial successes, it brought Athens to the brink of Abyss.
vi. It was in his domestic rather than in his foreign policy that his genius stood revealed. Democracy insofar as it meant government by the people and for the people, the Athenian constitution as created by the intellect of Pericles was certainly the most complete. Yet it was this constitution that proved Athens' undoing in the long run.
The author says: ‘Pericles was neither a hero nor a nobody. He should be restored to his full complexity, and we should endeavor to free ourselves from a historiography that, over a long period, either ignored him or exposed him to public contempt, before eventually transforming him into a veritable icon of democracy. The Periclean myth is a recent re-creation. Up until the end of the eighteenth century, Pericles was for the most part judged with disdain, if not arrogantly ignored. Blinded by Roman and Spartan models, the men of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment regarded the stratēgos as an unscrupulous demagogue who headed a degenerate regime.’
To conclude we say this:
The question naturally arises as to why Pericles should be regarded as ‘great’ and on what should his claim to ‘greatness’ rest? As this book would tell you, the greatness of Pericles was inseparable from the greatness of Athens. In an age when the whole energy of the Athenian society, a society perhaps the most gifted known to history, was determinedly directed to a given end by a single will, Pericles' claim rests on having given that singleness of will, unity of perseverance and audaciousness of direction which made Athens what it was in the Periclean Age. Without Pericles, the debt of the posterity to Athens would have been far less.
Give this book a try if you choose. Despite the fact that the narrative is overdramatic in places, I recommend it.
Εξαιρετικά ενδιαφέρον ανάγνωσμα! Καλογραμμένο, ισορροπημένο και με εμπεριστατωμένη επιχειρηματολογία. Φωτίζει την προσωπικότητα του Περικλή από πολλές πλευρές.
Initially I thought book will be organized chronologically and based on Pericles biography, but in fact it was organized by topics that the authors thought were relevant to understand 5th century BC Athens and Pericles role in city's life.
Over centuries since fall of ancient Greek civilization educated establishment in the West took mutually exclusive view of Pericles. Until 19th century, most writings dedicated to ancient Greek considered Pericles in negative light due to Athens legacy in Peloponnesian war that ended in its defeat by Sparta and its allies. Many blamed Pericles for initiating this great war and leaving Athens unprepared.
However, opposite view shared by the author of this book suggests that Pericles was not in a position to single handedly decide the fate of Athens but rather he was a great statesman that skillfully operated within the framework of Athenian democracy. The fact that Athens ultimately lost the war to Sparta indicates that Athenian democracy as it is existed in 5th century BC simply had not developed sufficient check and balances that ensures that state properly directs its resources independently who is nominal head of the state.
Pericles of Athens provides a well-researched and well-rounded biography of the titular figure. Azoulay's ten chapters on the life and times of Pericles, corresponding to themes rather than narrative chunks, are followed by a surprisingly thorough and interesting two chapters on Pericles's legacy to the present day. Despite the stability of his regime, Pericles has been subject to the wildest vicissitudes of popular and academic opinion for the last ~2500 years. Azoulay gives all these interpretations a hearing, dismisses the slanders, and then offers a careful assessment of what we can know or assume. In the end, Pericles the man remains something of a cipher, but Azoulay's neat study brings as as close as we may come to the feet of the mystery.