Text 4. The Age of Pericles

Read the text and do the tasks that follow.

The Greeks defeated the Persians in 479 B.C., just one year after the invasion of Athens. Pericles then returned home. As a young man, he became well known in the law courts, where he won many cases because of his intelligence and his excellent speaking ability. The Greek historian Plutarch wrote the following about Pericles’ ability: “Like Zeus, he was said to speak with thundering and lightning, and to wield a dreadful thunderbolt in his tongue”.

Because he was a persuasive speaker, Pericles was able to convince the citizens that his ideas were important. As a result, in 460 B.C. they elected him as one of the generals, the main elected officers in the Athenian democracy. The term for generals lasted just one year, but Pericles was elected over and over again.

Pericles set three major goals for Athens. His military goal was to protect Athens. His artistic goal was to make Athens beautiful. His political goal was to strengthen democracy.

Pericles’ first goal was to protect Athens from its enemies. He was determined to prevent another disaster such as the burning of the city by the Persians just 20 years earlier.

The Athenians had already built a strong stone wall around Athens after the war with Persia. But enemies could still surround the city and block Athens from Piraeus, its harbor five miles away.

So the Athenians extended the wall to the sea. The new barricaded corridor became known as the Long Walls.

To protect their city further, the Athenians also built up a very powerful navy.

Pericles’ second goal was to make Athens the most beautiful city in the world. To do that, the Athenians built new public buildings and temples.

The most magnificent of these buildings were built on the Acropolis. The Acropolis was a flat-topped, fortified hill in the middle of Athens. It stood about 200 feet above the rest of the city and covered a little more that 10 acres. Temples had adorned the Acropolis for many years. But the Persian troops had destroyed all of them when they invaded the city.

The most beautiful new temple, called the Parthenon, was dedicated to Athene, the city’s patron goddess. The Partheon was 60 feet high, built from marble, and surrounded by 46 tall, graceful columns. The Partheon was a tribute to the Athenians during the Golden Age.

Pericles wanted to make Athenian democracy even stronger by spreading power more evenly between rich and poor. He said to the citizens of Athens:

“It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.”

As many as 20,000 citizens were on the public payroll during the Golden Age of Athens. Everyone in the government received a salary. As a result, even poor citizens could afford to hold office and have their voices heard.

During the Golden Age, Athens was called the “school of Greece”, because it was a center for art, literature, and ideas. In the same speech in which he praised the Athenian democracy, Pericles stated some of the basic beliefs of the Athenians:

“Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measure to escape from it. Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the sate as well.”

The citizens of Athens generally enjoyed a pleasant life during the Golden Age. A typical household included a mother, father, two or three children, and one or two slaves or hired servants.

Everyone in the family ate a light breakfast of pieces of bread soaked in wine mixed with water. Afterward, the father headed down the narrow, crooked streets toward the agora, or marketplace. The agora was a large, open square located near the Acropolis. Beautiful public buildings and temples lined two sides of the square. On the other sides of the square, men debated the issues of the day.

Men also might go to the Assembly or serve as jurors at the law courts. At the Assembly, citizens debated current political issues. Some of these debates were so important that citizens walked into the city from 10 to 20 miles away to hear them. At the law courts, jurors listened to speeches for and against an accused person. Then the jury members cast votes of guilty or innocent. Juries in Athens consisted of between 201 and 2,501 citizens.

In the afternoons, Athenian men went to one of the outdoor gymnasiums and exercised. In the evenings, the men socialized together as well.

While men were in the agora, women were at home. Women were not allowed to vote or hold office. Instead, a woman spent much of her time in a double room called the looming room. There she made the family clothes. Next to the looming room was a small kitchen. There women ground grain for bread and baked the bread in small clay ovens. Preparing bread was an important task, because bread was a staple of the family’s diet.

Women also cared for their young children. Once sons reached the age of seven, they attended school during the day. Daughters stayed home and learned how to do household tasks.

Many rich citizens could have lived in more luxury. However, they believed that their wealth should be used for the good of the whole community. The famous Greek speaker Demosthenes noted that the Athenians made public buildings that “their successors can never surpass; but in private life, they practiced so great a moderation” that an observer would not be able to tell the homes of the rich from the homes of the poor.

One reason wealthy citizens enjoyed a pleasant lifestyle was that noncitizens did much of the work. Two groups of noncitizens, metics and slaves, lived in Athens.

In order to live and work in Athens, metics were required to register with the government and pay a monthly tax. They could not own property in Athens. Metics were allowed to attend the theater and religious festivals, and they had the right to use the law courts.

Citizens looked down on metics as inferior or second-class people.

In contrast to metics, slaves had no legal rights. Most Athenian citizens owned at least one slave. Wealthy landowners often kept several slaves to farm their land, including one slave to oversee the others. Even an ordinary farmer kept one slave so the farmer could be free on certain days to go into Athens and attend the Assembly.

Slaves often did the same jobs as other Athenians, working alongside them.

Slaves who saved enough of their earnings could buy their freedom. Once freed, however, slaves did not become citizens. They could only move into the rank of metics.