Pericles of Athens
Page 8
PERICLES AT THE TRIBUNE: KNOWING HOW TO BEHAVE
Oratorical Codes and Political Innuendo
In the Assembly, as in the Agora, Pericles’ behavior was, according to Plutarch, marked by order and balance. “He not only had … a spirit that was solemn and a discourse that was lofty and free from popular and reckless effrontery, but also a composure of countenance that never relaxed into laughter, a gentleness of carriage and cast of attire that suffered no emotion to disturb it while he was speaking, a modulation of voice that was far from boisterous [athorubon], and many similar characteristics which struck all his hearers with wondering amazement [thaumastōs].”17 Plutarch, the moralist, presents Pericles as the very embodiment of a model orator, in sharp contrast to demagogues such as Cleon.
According to the author of the Constitution of the Athenians, the death of Pericles in fact ushered in new oratorical codes: “When Pericles died, Nicias, who died in Sicily, held the headship of the men of distinction and the head of the People was Cleon, son of Cleaenetus, who was thought to have done the most to corrupt the people by his impetuous outbursts and was the first person to use bawling and abuse on the platform, all other persons speaking in an orderly fashion.”18 Thucydides described Cleon as “the most violent of the citizens of his day,” and Aristophanes declared him to be a “thief, brawler, roaring as Cycloborus roars.”19 To the horror of members of the traditional elite but in keeping with democratic ideology, Cleon broke with the current conventions. Although the origin of his wealth and his way of addressing the public shocked some of the Athenian elite, they in no way offended the sensibilities of the people, as was proved by his brilliant career and his numerous reelections to the post of stratēgos.
Cleon initiated a new mode of communication between the leaders and the dēmos, and it was destined to enjoy a fine future. In the fourth century, the orator Aeschines reminisced about a time in the past when orators spoke in a more measured fashion, with one hand placed beneath a fold in their clothing—the himation—thereby conveying their moderation and distinction:
So decorous were those public men of old, Pericles, Themistocles and Aristides (who was called by a name most unlike that by which Timarchus here is called), that to speak with the arm outside the cloak, as we all do nowadays as a matter of course, was regarded then as an ill-mannered thing and they carefully refrained from doing it. … See now, fellow-citizens, how unlike to Timarchus were … those men of old whom I mentioned a moment ago. They were too modest to speak with the arm outside the cloak, but this man, not long ago, yes, only the other day, in an assembly of the people, threw off his cloak and leaped about like a gymnast, half-naked.20
Quite apart from its nostalgic tone, this passage shows how much oratorical gestures and techniques had changed since the age of Pericles. But even if he praises the eloquence of the past, the better to draw attention to the lack of dignity of Timarchus, his opponent, Aeschines in no way calls for a return to the conventions of the past that—in any case—would no longer have suited the fourth-century audience.
Pericles thus founded his oratorical successes upon a way of addressing the people that was somewhat out of date. All the same, the reason he fascinated his listeners so much was not just because he was the last representative of a form of eloquence that was on the way out. Far from invariably respecting well-trodden paths, as an orator he broke away from the customary codes of behavior, in that he never responded with violence to attacks launched against him. Throughout his career, Pericles manifested an unrivaled ability to suffer outrageous assaults without striking back. This set him apart from his contemporaries and lent a particular solemnity to his words.
Periclean Imperturbability: An Ambiguous Solemnity
At the Assembly’s tribune, Pericles was several times confronted by the people’s anger, but never betrayed the slightest annoyance. This imperturbability was highlighted in 430 B.C., when the Athenians accused him of being responsible for the many disasters that had struck them. As Plutarch, following Thucydides, points out: “Pericles was moved by no such things, but gently and silently underwent the ignominy and the hatred [tēn adoxian kai tēn epekhtheian].”21 Far from being dictated by the circumstances, this imperturbability was a deliberate strategy on the part of the Athenian leader, who observed this line of conduct not only in the Assembly but also when in the Agora, engaging in the exchanges of daily life. Plutarch records a particularly striking episode: “Once, at a time when he had been abused and insulted all day long by a certain lewd fellow of the baser sort, he endured it all quietly, though it was in the market place, where he had urgent business to transact, and towards evening went away homewards unruffled, the fellow following along and heaping all manner of contumely upon him. When he was about to go indoors, it being now dark, he ordered a servant to take a torch and escort the fellow in safety back to his own home.”22 Rather than react as any citizen normally would, Pericles remained unmoved and refused to lose his temper despite repeated insults. This was, to put it mildly, an unusual reaction. Faced with such a torrent of insults, the normal reaction would have been to respond to the affront by giving as good as he got—a form of negative reciprocity—or else to set the matter before the judges, for to insult serving magistrates was behavior liable to heavy punishment.23 Not only did the stratēgos refrain from replying but he chose to respond to the humiliation with a kindness—in accordance with a positive form of reciprocity: he had the offender escorted back to his home.
In Plutarch’s account, Pericles thus stands out by reason of his imperturbable behavior, at the risk of compromising his honor as a citizen and his dignity as a magistrate.24 It is tempting to link this phlegmatic attitude with his sculpted effigy, which represents him as impassive, parading a serenity untouched by emotion, as if whoever commissioned the sculpture (either himself or his relatives) wished to emphasize this particularly detached way of behaving and appearing.25
This representation of a Pericles of bronze, draped in all his dignity, was, however, not devoid of a measure of ambiguity. His opponents suggested that this carefully studied pose was simply a disguised form of arrogance. A refusal to respond to insults might well pass for a manifestation of an excessive distance, for it was a way of refusing to communicate with ordinary citizens, even in an aggressive mode. Such was the reproach expressed by Ion of Chios, who was always quick to criticize the stratēgos, to the advantage of Cimon: “The poet Ion, however, says that Pericles had a presumptuous [hupotuphon] and somewhat arrogant manner of address and that into his haughtiness [megalaukhiais] there entered a good deal of disdain and contempt for others; he praises, on the other hand, the tact, complaisance and elegant address which Cimon showed in his social intercourse.”26
When he displayed such emotional detachment, Pericles shocked his contemporaries as much as he fascinated them: when solemnity (semnotēs) was not tempered by a dose of affability, it always risked being taken badly and considered to reflect an anti-democratic stance.27 That is precisely the gist of a line by the comic poet Cratinus, who presents Pericles as “a man full of haughtiness and frowning brows [anelktais ophrusi semnon].”28 Weird though it might seem, in Athens, certain facial expressions conveyed well-established political meanings. Frowning eyebrows were considered as an external sign of oligarchical or even tyrannical aspirations. So when the orator Demosthenes wanted to discredit his opponent Aeschines, he reproached him not only for his sumptuous clothing and his imposing trailing train but also for his frowning brows: “But since he has perpetrated wrongs without number, he has become mighty supercilious [tas ophrus anespake]. … Behold him, pacing the market-place with the stately stride of Pythocles, his long robe reaching to his ankles, his cheeks puffed out, as one who should say ‘One of Philip’s most intimate friends, at your service!’ He has joined the clique that wants to get rid of democracy.”29 As a reflection of a misplaced solemnity, frowning brows—here rendered as “superciliousness”—could be interpreted as a manifestation of overweaning
scorn. So when he dwelt on this seemingly anodyne facial detail, Cratinus was launching a particularly grave accusation against Pericles.30
When Pericles addressed the people with such imposing solemnity, he was bound to attract virulent criticism from all those bent on representing such behavior as tyrannical haughtiness. To counter that suspicion, the stratēgos devised a new stratagem to protect himself from similar accusations: he would take care to limit his public declarations and appearances so as not to have the people tire of him.
PERICLES OFFSTAGE: KNOWING HOW TO KEEP QUIET
The Art of Delegation
Whoever intervened on every point on the political stage, was bound, eventually, to aggravate his fellow-citizens. In his Precepts of Statecraft (811E), Plutarch enjoys reminding his readers of this fact: “Those who strip for every political activity … soon cause themselves to be criticized by the multitude; they become unpopular and arouse envy when they are successful, but joy when they meet with failure.” Pericles seems to have been deeply aware of this danger. In the course of his career, he limited the number of his public interventions by getting his friends to speak in his place. It was often those close to him who, in the Assembly, stepped up to the tribune to propose the decrees that Pericles wished to submit for public approval. In this way, his authority was protected from envy yet without being any the less effective. As Plutarch, again, remarks: “Pericles made use of Menippus for the position of general, humbled the Council of the Areopagus by means of Ephialtes, passed the decree against the Megarians by means of Charinus, and sent Lampon out as founder of Thurii. For, when power seems to be distributed among many, not only does the weight of hatreds and enmities become less troublesome, but there is also greater efficiency in the conduct of affairs.”31
So Pericles resorted to a practice that was well-attested in the fourth century. At that time, certain citizens had no compunction whatever about selling their names and proposing decrees of which they were not the true authors: “[Stephanos] was not yet a public speaker, but thus far merely a pettifogger, one of those who stand beside the platform and shout, who prefer indictments and informations for hire, and who let their names be inscribed on motions made up by others.”32 Seen in this light, it is perhaps not simply by chance that no decree proposed by Pericles is attested epigraphically among the dozens that cover the period in which he is said to have wielded such decisive influence.
Cleverly delegating power in order to strengthen his own authority, Pericles made use of a number of “straw men,” who functioned as so many lightning conductors that distracted the people’s hatred. In this way, Metiochus (or Metichus), totally unknown in any other respect,33 is described by Plutarch as the clumsy victim of his own activism. This understudy of Pericles seems to have become the target of the comic authors, who mocked him mercilessly: “Metiochus, you see, is general, Metiochus inspects the roads, Metiochus inspects the bread and Metiochus inspects the flour, Metiochus takes care of all things and Metiochus will come to grief.”34 As Plutarch correctly points out, “He was one of Pericles’ followers and seems to have used the power gained through him in such a way as to arouse odium and envy [epiphthonōs]” (Precepts of Statecraft, 811F).
The same applies to the seer Lampon, another of the stratēgos’s trusted followers.35 The scene unfolds in 444/3 B.C., when the Greek world was finally enjoying some respite from warfare. After trying in vain to convene a pan-Hellenic congress (Pericles, 17.1), Pericles made the most of the “Thirty Years’ Peace” signed with Sparta and its allies and launched an ambitious project: the founding of a new colony at Thurii, in Magna Graecia, on the site of the ancient Sybaris. Even though the Dorian cities of the Peloponnese did not take part, the expedition was a propagandist success, involving numerous Greeks such as the architect Hippodamus of Miletus, the historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus, and the sophist Protagoras of Abdera. Rather than take any leading role, Pericles sheltered behind Lampon in carrying out this operation: the seer, placed at the head of the colonists, even acted as one of the founders (oikistēs) of the colony (Diodorus, 12.10.3–4). However, this sudden notoriety of his made him the butt of attacks from the comic poets, as can be seen from several fragments of Cratinus.36 Concealed behind Lampon, Pericles was sheltered from attack at the very moment when he had to confront the increasingly virulent opposition of Thucydides of Alopeke; less than one year later, his opponent was ostracized, having failed to come to grips with the stratēgos lying low in the shadows, carefully concealed behind his political allies.
A Strategy of Light and Darkness
To preserve his authority, Pericles felt it necessary to secure a shadowy zone for himself: “Pericles, seeking to avoid the satiety which springs from continual intercourse, made his approaches to the people by intervals, as it were, not speaking on every question, nor addressing the people on every occasion, but offering himself like the Salaminian trireme, as Critolaus says, for great emergencies” (Pericles, 7.5). Skilfully handled, this measure of obscurity was not solely designed to disarm the envy of the people; it also had the advantage of imparting a particular dignity to Pericles’ rare appearances.
In a very attenuated way, such behavior was reminiscent of a “hidden king,” who reigned in his palace, sheltered from the eyes of the masses. Being shut away and kept secret indeed constituted means whereby royal authority was strengthened—this voluntary seclusion being the essential element in the “imperial mysteries” that the Greeks could observe from their contact with the palaces of eastern potentates. In his account of the Persian Wars, Herodotus had, precisely, described how the Median king, Deiokes, had adapted an imposing ceremonial that cut him off from his subjects in such a way that he remained surrounded by a quasi-divine aura. Many decades later, Xenophon likewise emphasized the role played by ceremony in the construction of the authority of Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire: the great king chose to live partly cloistered away, so as to appear only at particularly ritualized and majestic moments. To some extent, Pericles appropriated certain elements of that Eastern tradition, adapting it to the democratic context—just as he seems to have been inspired by the architecture of the Persian Empire when he built the Odeon on the slopes of the Acropolis.37
In truth, the fourth-century Athenians were not fooled by such stratagems and were wary of men who calculated their public appearances too carefully. When accused of speaking in the Ekklēsia in too parsimonious a fashion, Aeschines, for example, found himself obliged to justify his behavior to his fellow-citizens: “You blame me if I come before the people not constantly but only at intervals … [yet] the fact that a man speaks only at intervals marks him as a man who takes part in politics because of the call of the hour and for the common good; whereas to leave no day without its speech is the mark of a man who is making a trade of it and talking for pay.”38 So, to convince his audience that he was behaving as a perfect democrat, Aeschines presented himself as an ordinary citizen—not a professional orator—who spoke in the Assembly only from time to time, as circumstances demanded. He hoped in this way to disarm critics who regarded his fleeting appearances as a sign of his unconfessed and unconfessable oligarchic aspirations.
Even if such calculated reticence sometimes aroused suspicions, it clearly benefited Pericles. His measured appearances impressed the masses all the more because they evoked not just an imperial ceremony, but possibly even a form of religious epiphany. That is the implication of the comparison that Plutarch draws between, on the one hand, Pericles and, on the other, the Salaminian and Paralian triremes—two sacred vessels used only for exceptional events. Plutarch makes his meaning clear in his Precepts of Statecraft when, without actually naming Pericles, he declares: “Just as the Salaminia and the Paralus ships at Athens were not sent out to sea for every service, but only for necessary and important missions, so the statesman should employ himself for the most momentous and important matters, as does the King of the Universe.”39 Political leaders and deities in the same boat! It is i
n this context of a quasi-divine apparition that the nickname given to Pericles—he was called “the Olympian”—deserves to be analyzed.40
In this interplay of shadow and light, there were inevitably both winners and losers. Metiochus, about whom nothing is known, or even Ephialtes, reduced to a mere silhouette, are the forgotten ones in this story of light and darkness. Having been exposed to the full glare of publicity, they were condemned to remain in the glorious shadow of Pericles, the past master of both speech and silence.
CHAPTER 4
Pericles and Athenian Imperialism
The power of Pericles, founded on speech as much as on action, developed within the framework of an Athenian city that, from 450 onward, was caught up in a rapid process of democratization. Yet the increasing liberty of the dēmos was accompanied by the enslavement of its allies within the framework of the Delian League. This league, founded in 478 B.C., progressively became an instrument in the service of Athens. The democratization of the city progressed at the same rate as its increasing power over its allies.
What exactly was the role that Pericles played in the establishment of Athenian imperialism? Did he try to check the imperial dynamic or did he, on the contrary, act as its catalyst? And, anyway, is it possible to speak already of Athenian imperialism at the time when the stratēgos was exercising a decisive influence on the destiny of the city? Today historians are still arguing about these questions. Some represent Pericles’ “reign” as the pivotal moment in the construction of Athenian imperialism, while other scholars, on the contrary, endeavor to exonerate the stratēgos from all responsibility in this matter, either by emphasizing his personal moderation or by maintaining that the cusp of imperialism was reached only after his death.
However, it will not do to look no further than that alternative. The stratēgos was swept up in a dynamic that, both upstream and downstream, shaped far more than his own individual actions, for it had already involved what was, broadly speaking, a policy embraced by Cimon and it would affect Cleon’s rise to power. Pericles was simply continuing an imperialist system that was initiated before him and that went on after him, a system that was backed by a general consensus both among the Athenian elite and also more widely in the city of Athens.