for the proletariat in the erection of temples and of public works. Periander further appears as a patron of literature, for it was by his invitation that the poet Arion came to Corinth to organize the dithyramb. He devoted no less attention to the increase of Corinthian commerce, which in his days plied busily on both eastern and western seas. With this end in view he established colonies at Potidaea and Apollonia in Macedonia, at Anactorium and Leucas in north-western Greece, and he is said to have projected a canal through the Isthmus, In Greece proper he conquered Epidaurus, and with the help of his fleet of triremes brought the important trading centre of Corcyra under his control, while his interest in the Olympian festival is perhaps attested by a dedication which may be ascribed to him—the famous “chest of Cypselus.” He cultivated friendly relations with the tyrants of Miletus and Mytilene, and maintained a connexion with the kings of Lydia, of Egypt and, possibly, of Phrygia In spite of these varied achievements Periander never entirely conciliated his subjects, for he could not trust himself without a bodyguard. Moreover his family life, according to all accounts, was unfortunate. His sons all died or were estranged from him, and the murder of his last remaining child Lycophron, the governor of Corcyra, is said to have broken his spirit and hastened on his death.
Periander was reckoned one of the seven sages of Greece, and was the reputed author of a collection of maxims (Ὑποθῆκαι) in 2000 verses. The letters ascribed to him by Diogenes Laërtius are undoubtedly spurious.
Herodotus iii. 48–53, v. 92; Aristotle, Politics, v. 6, 10–12; Heracleides Ponticus in C. Müller’s Frag. hist. graec. ii. 212; Nicolaus Damascenus, ibid, iii, 393; Diogenes Laërtius, De vitis clarorum philosophorum, i. ch. 7. (M. O. B. C.)
PERICLES (490–429 B.C.), Athenian statesman, was born about 490 B.C., the son of Xanthippus and Agariste. His father[1] took a prominent part in Athenian politics, and in 479 held high
command in the Greek squadron which annihilated the remnants
of Xerxes’ fleet at Mycale; through his mother, the niece of
Cleisthenes, he was connected with the former tyrants of Sicyon
and the family of the Alcmaeonidae. His early training was
committed to the ablest and most advanced teachers of the day:
Damon instructed him in music, Zeno the Eleatic revealed to
him the powers of dialectic; the philosopher Anaxagoras, who
lived in close friendship with Pericles, had great influence on
his cast of thought and was commonly held responsible for that
calm and undaunted attitude of mind which he preserved in the midst of the severest trials.
The first important recorded act of Pericles falls in 463, when he helped to prosecute Cimon on a charge of bribery, after the latter’s Thasian campaign, but as the accusation could hardly have been meant seriously Pericles was perhaps put forward only as a lay-figure. Undue prominence has commonly been assigned to him in the attack upon the Areopagus in 462 or 461 (see Areopagus, Cimon). The Aristotelian Constitution of Athens shows conclusively that Pericles was not the leader of this campaign, for it expressly attributes the bulk of the reforms to Ephialtes (ch. 25), and mentions Ephialtes and Archestratus as the authors of the laws which the reactionaries of 404 sought to repeal (ch. 35): moreover, it was Ephialtes,[2] not Pericles, on whom the Conservatives took revenge as the author of their discomfiture. To Ephialtes likewise we must ascribe the renunciation of the Spartan alliance and the new league with Argos and Thessaly (461).
Not long after, however, when Ephialtes fell by the dagger, Pericles undoubtedly assumed the leading position in the state. The beginning of his ascendancy is marked by an unprecedented outward expansion of Athenian power. In continuance of Cimon’s policy, 200 ships were sent to support the Egyptian insurgents against Persia (459),[3] while detachments operated against Cyprus and Phoenicia. At the same time Athens embarked on several wars in Greece Proper. An alliance with the Megarians, who were being hard pressed by their neighbours of Corinth, led to enmity with this latter power, and before long Epidaurus and Aegina were drawn into the struggle. On sea the Athenians, after two minor engagements, gained a decisive victory which enabled them to blockade Aegina. On land their general Myronides beat off two Corinthian attacks on Megara, which had been further secured by long walls drawn between the capital and its port Nisaea, nearly a mile distant. In 457 the Athenians and their allies ventured to intercept a Spartan force which was returning home from central Greece. At Tanagra in Boeotia a pitched battle was fought, in which both Pericles and the partisans of Cimon distinguished themselves. The Spartans were successful but did not pursue their advantage, and soon afterwards the Athenians, seizing their opportunity, sallied forth again, and, after a victory under Myronides at Oenophyta, obtained the submission of all Boeotia, save Thebes, and of Phocis and Locris. In 455 Tolmides ravaged Laconia and secured Naupactus on the Corinthian gulf; in 454[4] Pericles himself defeated the Sicyonians, and made a descent upon Oeniadae at the mouth of the gulf, and in 453 conducted a cleruchy to the Thracian Chersonese. These years mark the zenith of Athenian greatness. Yet the drain on the country’s strength was severe, and when news arrived in 453 that the whole of the Egyptian armament, together with a reserve fleet, had been destroyed by the Persians, a reaction set in, and Cimon, who was recalled on Pericles’ motion (but see Cimon), was empowered to make peace with Sparta on the basis of the status quo. For a while the old anti-Persian policy again found favour in Athens, and Cimon led a great expedition against Cyprus; but on Cimon’s death hostilities were suspended, and a lasting arrangement with Persia was brought about.[5] It was probably in order to mark the definite conclusion of the Persian War and to obtain recognition for Athens’ work in punishing the Mede that Pericles now[6] proposed a pan-Hellenic congress at Athens to consult about the rebuilding of the ruined temples and the policing of the seas; but owing to the refusal of Sparta the project fell through.
Pericles may now have hoped to resume his aggressive policy in Greece Proper, but the events of the following years completely disillusioned him. In 447 an Athenian army, which had marched into Boeotia to quell an insurrection, had to surrender in a body at Coronea, and the price of their ransom was the evacuation of Boeotia. Upon news of this disaster Phocis, Locris and Euboea revolted, and the Megarians massacred their Athenian garrison, while a Spartan army penetrated into Attica as far as Eleusis. In this crisis Pericles induced the Spartan leaders to retreat, apparently by means of a bribe, and hastened to reconquer Euboea; but the other land possessions could not be recovered, and in a thirty years’ truce which was arranged in 445 Athens definitely renounced her predominance in Greece Proper. Pericles’ foreign policy henceforward underwent a profound change—to consolidate the naval supremacy, or to extend it by a cautious advance, remained his only ambition.
- ↑ He must have been born before 485–484, in which years his father was ostracized. On the other hand, Plutarch describes him as νεος ὤν, i.e. not yet 30, in 463.
- ↑ The later eminence of Pericles has probably misled historians into exaggerating his influence at this time. Even the Const. Ath. (ch. 27) says that Pericles took “some” prerogatives from the Areopagus; this looks like a conjecture based on Arist. Pol. ii. 9 (12), 1273; τὴν ἐν Ἀρείω πάγῳ βουλὴν Ἐφιάλτης ἐκόλουςε καὶ Περικλῆς, a passage which really proves nothing. Plutarch, who is clearly blinded by Pericles’ subsequent brilliance, makes him suddenly burst into prominence and hold the highest place for 40 years (i.e. from 469); he degrades Ephialtes into a tool of Pericles.
- ↑ The chronology of these years down to 449 is not quite certain.
- ↑ An abortive expedition to reinstate a Thessalian prince probably also belongs to this year; there is also evidence that Athens interfered in a war between Sellnus and Segesta in Sicily about this time.
- ↑ The “peace of Callias” is perhaps a fiction of the 4th century orators. All the earlier evidence goes to show that only an informal understanding was arrived at, based on the de facto inability of either power to cripple the other (see Cimon).
- ↑ 448 seems the most likely date. Before 460 Pericles’ influence was as yet too small; 460–451 were years of war. After 445 Athens was hardly in a position to summon such a congress, and would not have sent 10 envoys out of 20 to northern and central Greece, where she had just lost all her influence; nor is it likely that the building of the Parthenon (begun not later than 447) was entered on before the congress.
