Pericles of Athens
Page 32
The stratēgos thus continues to enjoy a brilliant career in occidental schools and universities, while regularly being mobilized in arguments about the European identity and its supposed Greek origins.161 But there is another side to this gleaming medallion; this “official” Pericles now arouses only indifference in popular culture worldwide. As a result of being used as a mouthpiece for democratic values, the stratēgos has become a mere symbolic sketch, a silhouette possessing neither substance nor charm, a symbol that, although, to be sure, admirable, is insipid. One might apply to him Marguerite Yourcenar’s remark about Greek studies in general: “We have no use for this all too perfect statue sculpted from marble that is all too white.”162
Transformed into a didactic implement, Pericles is, in effect, conspicuous by his absence from contemporary imaginary representations: no costume drama, no video game, virtually no comic strip is devoted to him. In the cinema, it is the Romans, the Spartans, and mythical heroes who are favored by the public.163 A list of recent Hollywood productions speaks for itself: Gladiator, Troy, Alexander, The Three Hundred; nothing that deals, even remotely, with Pericles or even Athens.164 The fact is that what seems to be fascinating about Antiquity is above all its violence and its urge to acquire power: by this yardstick, the stratēgos seems rather a dim subject. How can one get excited about an orator who died in his bed and was famous for his prudence rather than as a heroic warrior? And although we find a character named Pericles in a recent film made by Tim Burton, it is no more than a derisory name given to a primate trained to be an astronaut, in The Planet of the Apes (2001)!
Nor are the creators of video games any more charitable to the stratēgos. In this cultural industry, the budget of which now exceeds that of the cinema and music, there is no trace of Pericles; in the 157 titles that relate either closely or distantly to Antiquity, Alexander and ancient Rome take the lion’s share, leaving no more than a few crumbs to the rest.165 The same disappointing tally relates to comic strips, with but one exception: the Orion series launched by Jacques Martin, the creator of Alix. However, Pericles is no more than a secondary character in the plot and is, moreover, not a sympathetic figure, for he betrays the confidence of the young hero, in the name of national interests; he is left out of the latest volume.166
Although embalmed or even canonized by official culture, Pericles elicits boredom rather than fantasy. Indeed, it is only in bureaucratic imaginary representations that the stratēgos still arouses some interest, albeit in an unexpected manner. His name has become one of the favorite acronyms used by national and European administrations. In Wallonia, there is a Partenariat Economique pour le Redéploiement Industriel et les Clusters par l’Economie Sociale (PERICLES); the European Union has launched a Programme Européen de Renforcement des Institutions des Collectivités Locales et de leurs Services (likewise PERICLES); and as for UNESCO, it has set up a Programme Expérimental pour Relancer l’Intérêt de la jeunesse en faveur des Cultures et des Langues limitrophes à partir de l’Environnement naturel et des Sites patrimoniaux (PERICLES again)! More disturbing is the fact that the name of the Athenian leader has also been given to a number of repressive projects, such as the programme de lutte contre le faux monnayage ou le futur fichier informatisé (the European program to counteract counterfeit coinage and the future computerized database envisaged by the law of “internal security”) adopted in January 2010. Transformed into a name devoid of content, Pericles has become the symbol of an Antiquity that hardly makes any sense today beyond a close circle of specialists—except as a jokey wink or a decontextualized citation.
Faced with such a diagnosis, what room for maneuver remains for a historian? Should one launch into an apology for Pericles or, on the contrary, expose him to public contempt in the hope of provoking some debate? To limit oneself to such an alternative would be intellectually questionable and, in any case, be doomed to failure. Rather than attempt by any means to reconnect Pericles to the present world and establish him as our great ancestor, perhaps it would be better first to accept his radical strangeness so as to restore to his “all too white statue” the vivid colors that it has lost and, above all, accept that he has no useful lessons for our times. Only if we recognize all these differences will Pericles be able to return to the present day, liberated from the problems surrounding the whole question of the Greek origins of Western democracies.
NOTES
FOREWORD: INTRODUCING AZOULAY’S PERICLES
1. For his Périclès. La Démocratie athénienne à l’épreuve du grand homme (Paris: Armand Colin, 2010), Dr. Azoulay was awarded the Prix du Sénat du Livre d’histoire. This was not his first monograph; that was Xénophon et les grêces du pouvoir: De la charis au charisme (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004), the book of his 2002 Sorbonne thèse directed by Professeure Pauline Schmitt Pantel, for which—I declare an interest—I was one of the examining “jury” that granted him the degree of Doctor with highest distinction. Dr. Azoulay is currently Maître de conférences en histoire grecque at l’Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée and a leading member of the research “Equipe Anhima,” which devotes itself to studying “Anthropologie et histoire des mondes antiques.”
2. In his bibliography, Dr. Azoulay lists several works addressed to a supposed “Periclean Age” or to “Periclean Athens”—for example, Chêtelet 1982; Cloché 1949; Flacelière 1966; Hurwit 2004; and Samons II ed. 2007. I myself have contributed (“Pericles-Zeus: a study in tyranny”) to a fairly recent such collection titled (in Greek) The Democracy of Pericles in the 21st Century, edited by Ch. Giallourides (Athens: I. Sideres, 2006). The publication of a “sourcebook and reader” titled just Pericles by a leading U.S. press (University of California Press, 2009, ed. S. V. Tracy) is symptomatic.
3. Anglophone readers may wish to consult Louise Bruit Zaidman and P. Schmitt Pantel, Religion in the Ancient Greek City, ed. and trans. P. Cartledge (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992 and repr.).
4. Helen Roche, Hitler’s German Children: The Ideal of Ancient Sparta in the Royal Prussian Cadet-Corps, 1818–1920, and in National Socialist Elite Schools (the Napolas), 1933–1945 (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2013).
INTRODUCTION
1. “Prayer on the Acropolis,” in Renan 1929, 50.
2. See later, chapter 12.
3. Loraux 1993a.
4. See, for example, Cloché 1949; Flacelière 1966; and Chêtelet 1982. In the Anglo-Saxon world, Robinson 1959; and Samons II ed. 2007. In the Germanic world, Filleul 1874–1875; and Schmidt 1877–1879.
5. See Loraux 2011.
6. See the remarks of Schmitt Pantel 2009, 204.
7. Lahire 1999, 121–152.
8. The date is probable but not certain. See the remarks of Lehmann 2008, 30 and 273.
9. See later, chapter 10.
10. See Keesling 2003, 193–195; Hölscher 1975, 191.
11. See later, chapter 2.
12. See Pelling 2002 and Schmitt Pantel 2009, 175–196 (“Plutarque, biographe et historien”).
13. See Strasburger 1955, 1–25, here p. 3, who traces the idea to Eduard Meyer, Ulrich von Wilamowitz, and Victor Ehrenberg.
14. Histories, 6.131. On this ambiguous dream, see later, chapter 1.
15. See later, chapter 1 and chapter 4. On Herodotus’s nuanced opinion of Pericles, see Schwartz 1969, 367–370, according to whom the historian’s remark about illegitimate children among the Lycians incorporates a slur against Pericles and Aspasia (at 1.173); cf. also Thomas 1989, 265–272.
16. On Cratinus and Pericles, see McGlew 2002, 42–56, and Bakola 2010, 181–208.
17. See later, chapters 6 and 7, and, more generally, Vickers 1997.
18. Saetta Cottone 2005.
19. See Geddes 2007, 110–138. Although his work is ostensibly apolitical, in truth it reflects the social position of its author, Ion, who lived under an oligarchic government in Chios and himself belonged to the elite, was critical of the democratic and patriotic politics promoted by
Pericles, and preferred Cimon, who was more in step with his own pan-Hellenic political ideals.
20. Banfi 2003, 46 ff.
21. See Schmitt Pantel 2009, 12–13 and 197–205.
22. That admiration of his was by no means without reservations, according to Foster 2010, 210–220. She suggests that Thucydides did indeed admire the stratēgos, but implicitly criticized his imperialist policy and his overconfidence in Athenian military power. It is a view that is shared by Taylor 2010. She radicalizes that analysis to the point of maintaining that Thucydides “implicitly censures Pericles” and the Athenian imperial project itself (p. 1). But this “reading between the lines” is not convincing: given that Thucydides openly criticizes democracy and the way that it functions, there seems to be no reason for him to praise Pericles but at the same time to slip in a covert negative message intended to be picked up by the “happy few” capable of detecting it.
23. See the remarks of Gribble 2006, 439.
24. See Dodds 1959, 325–326, for references to “great men” by orators. See, in particular, Isocrates, Antidosis, 111 and 234–235, and Lysias, Against Nicomachus (30), 28.
25. Aubenque 1986, 53–60.
26. Pericles, 12.1. Cf. Plutarch, Were the Athenians More Famous in War or in Peace?, 348C and 351A.
27. Aelius Aristides, To Plato, In Defence of the Four (3), 11–127, and, in particular, 20 (see also Panathenaica, 383–392). The speech was composed between 161 and 165 A.D. See Behr 1986, 460.
28. Pausanias, 8.52.3. See the remarks of Pébarthe 2010a, 273–290.
29. See later, chapter 11.
CHAPTER1. AN ORDINARY YOUNG ATHENIAN ARISTOCRAT?
1. Aristotle, Politics, 4.4.1291b14–30.
2. Callias I, who was a priest of Eleusis, is the only notable exception, for he also promoted several decrees in the mid-fifth century and negotiated the peace that bears his name, in 449. It was not until the defeat at Chaeronea in 338 B.C. and the rise of the orator Lycurgus, a member of the Eteoboutadae (who held the priesthood of Poseidon Erechtheus) that a member of a genos played an important political role. There is also another historiographical myth that needs to be refuted: there is no attested link between the Philaid genos—which may or may not have existed—and the Cimonid family, the origin of which is said to go back to Philaius (Herodotus, 6.35.1). On this subject, see Parker 1996, 316–317.
3. Ps.-Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, 28.2.
4. Historians of Greek religion do not agree about the roles of the Bouzygae: were they a true priestly family (genos) or did they just exercise a religious function in the city? See Parker 1996, 287–288. Whatever the case may be, their function concerned the earth’s fertility and the ritual purity of the soil.
5. Eupolis, fr. 103 K.-A., probably from his play, The Demes. On this subject, see Storey 2003, 135.
6. See Bourriot 1976, 1270–1275.
7. In Athens, the kinship system was bilateral, with a patrilinear bias. The importance of the maternal branch was strengthened by the law that Pericles himself promoted in 451. See later, chapter 5.
8. Isocrates, Concerning the Team of Horses (16), 25.
9. Plutarch is mistaken when he claims that Agariste was the legislator’s granddaughter (Pericles, 3.1). It is a mistake that is sometimes repeated in certain modern works, such as that of Kagan 1991, 68.
10. According to Thucydides (1.126.10–11), Cylon himself escaped and only his followers took up the position of suppliants at the altar on the Acropolis.
11. See later, chapter 8.
12. Herodotus, 5.59–61.
13. See Gernet 1981, 289–302.
14. Herodotus, 5.131. The historian furthermore suggests that Cleisthenes the Athenian introduced his reforms modeling himself on his grandfather, Cleisthenes of Sicyon, as if his action resembled that of a tyrant (5.65).
15. IG I3 1031 = ML 6C = Fornara 23C. See Pébarthe 2005. Was it in order to wipe out the memory of his ancestor’s collaboration that Pericles stressed the action of the tyrannicides in 514, rather than the reforms introduced by Cleisthenes? He certainly seems to be the one who proposed that the descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton should thenceforth live at the expense of the city in the Prytaneum, to commemorate the liberating act of their ancestors. Cf. IG I3 131 (between 440 and 432 B.C.), where the proposal is made by a certain “… ikles” (unfortunately, the inscription is mutilated), which many historians believe to be part of the stratēgos’s name, on the strength of Wade-Gery 1932–1933, 123–125.
16. Herodotus, 6.115.
17. On this matter, see Williams 1980.
18. Herodotus, 5.92.3.
19. The fact that Pericles physically resembled Pisistratus, the founder of tyranny in Athens, cannot have favored the young man’s reputation (Plutarch, Pericles, 7.1). On this matter, see later, chapter 10.
20. Plutarch, Pericles, 16.2–3.
21. See Pericles, 6.2 and 16.5. See later, chapter 5.
22. Plutarch, Pericles, 33.2. See later, chapter 6.
23. Thucydides, 2.13.1.
24. See, for example, Kagan 1991, 39.
25. On the number of liturgists in Athens, see Gabrielsen 1994. The group of men liable for liturgies numbered around 1,000 to 1,200 individuals. Demosthenes’ law of 340 was not designed to reduce their number to 300, but simply to make sure that most of the burden fell upon the 300 Athenians who were the most wealthy.
26. Balot 2001a, 125–126.
27. Herodotus, 6.125.5.
28. Author unknown [adespota], fr. 403 Edmonds.
29. Plutarch, Pericles, 8.4. On this, see Banfi 2003, 57–58.
30. See for example, Aristophanes, Clouds, 1015–1019.
31. Isocrates, Antidosis (15), 235: in defense of the role of the sophists, the orator pointed out that “Pericles was the pupil of two sophists, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae and Damon, who was considered the wisest of the citizens in his day.”
32. Phaedrus, 269e–270a. See later, chapter 6.
33. The same goes for the relations between Pericles and Zeno of Elea, who is mentioned only by Plutarch, Pericles, 4.3. See later, chapter 6.
34. According to Plato (Republic, 400c), he also had Socrates as a pupil.
35. Plato the comic poet, fr. 207 K.-A.
36. Wallace 2004a.
37. Pericles, 4.2. See the doubts expressed by Raaflaub 2003, 317–331, and later, chapter 6.
38. Plutarch, Cimon, 4.4.
39. See Lysias, The Defence of an Anonymous Man Accused of Corruption (21), 1 (3,000 drachmas for a tragic khorēgia in 410), and Lysias, On the Goods of Aristophanes (19), 29 and 42 (5,000 drachmas for a tragic khorēgia in 392).
40. Wilson 2000, 133–134.
41. Other spectacular liturgies were undertaken by very young citizens: see Demosthenes, On the Crown (18), 256–267; Lysias, The Defence of an Anonymous Man Accused of Corruption (21), 1 (a tragic khorēgia at the age of 18).
42. Constitution of the Athenians, 56.2. On the matching of poets to khorēgoi, see Antiphon, On the Choreutes (6), 11, for the Thargelia (but the procedure was probably similar for the Dionysia).
43. After that first success, Aeschylus won five victories in as many competitions. See Podlecki 1966, 1–7, on Aeschylus’s career.
44. Pericles, 7.1. Schmitt Pantel 2009, 35.
45. See the doubts expressed by Fornara and Samons II 1991, 158–159.
46. Plutarch, Cimon, 14.3–4, recording the testimony of Stesimbrotus of Thasos.
47. This means not that more experienced politicians never attacked their enemies, but rather that they divided their energies between attack and defense. Lycurgus of Athens, who remained an accuser throughout his career, was in this respect a notable exception. On this subject, see Azoulay 2011, 192–204.
48. See Osborne 1990, 83–102; and Christ 1998.
49. Herodotus, 6.104.
50. Herodotus, 6.136. One ostrakon describes Xanthippus as alitērios, “accursed,” a term that probably alludes to the curse lai
d upon his family-in-law: see Duplouy 2006, 93. However, for a different view, see Valdes Guia 2009, 313–314 (who regards Xanthippus as a member of the Bouzygae genos).
51. See Loraux 2001, 71–75.
52. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 11.77.6. See also Antiphon, On the Murder of Herodes, 68; Ps.-Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, 25.4; Plutarch, Pericles, 10.8. On the murder of Ephialtes as an aborted “great cause,” see the remarks of Payen 2007a, 30–31.
53. Idomeneus of Lampsacus, On the Demagogues, FGrHist 338 F 8 (= Plutarch, Pericles, 10.6).
54. On this matter, see Fornara and Samons II 1991, 27–28.
CHAPTER2. THE BASES OF PERICLEAN POWER: THE STRATĒGOS
1. Thucydides, 1.139.4.
2. Contra, for example, Jouanna 2007, 17 or 31. According to one circular argument, the fact that he served as a stratēgos proved that Sophocles, the son of a craftsman, “came from a census class that allowed him to serve as a stratēgos” (p. 31). But this involves accepting, without criticism, the a priori assumptions of the late biography, The Life of Sophocles, 1: “For it is unlikely that a man born from a modest father should be judged worthy of the office of stratēgos alongside Pericles and Thucydides, the foremost leaders of the city.” But this in no way proves the existence of any kind of census-barrier denying access to the post of a stratēgos.
3. Ps.-Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians, 58. Stratēgoi also presided over the people’s tribunal for affairs concerning military law and conflicts between trierarchs.
4. This idea, already present in Grote 1870 (vol. 5), 429, stems from an initial reading of Thucydides, 2.59.3, in which Pericles seems, on his own initiative, to convene an assembly. On this matter, see Hansen 1991, 133 and 229.