50 Fun Facts About Pericles

Ancient busts of the Athenian statesman Pericles almost always show him wearing what on his head?

A helmet appears on nearly every bust of him. An ancient story claimed it hid his oddly long skull, which comic poets mocked as 'squill-head'.

Which temple, the largest on the Athenian Acropolis, was the centrepiece of Pericles' building programme?

Parthenon construction began in 447 BC, replacing a temple that invaders had razed a generation earlier. The project also gave paid work to the city's people.

What killed Pericles in 429 BC, about two and a half years into the war with Sparta?

A plague struck the overcrowded city in 430 BC and also killed Pericles' sister and both of his legitimate sons. Its exact identity is still debated.

According to Herodotus, Pericles' mother dreamed days before his birth that she had given birth to what animal?

A lion stood for greatness in Greek lore. A similar dream was later told of Philip II of Macedon before the birth of Alexander the Great.

Which Abraham Lincoln speech is often compared to Pericles' Funeral Oration?

Gettysburg Address parallels include opening with revered ancestors, praising a democratic ideal and urging the living to finish the work. Scholars still argue over whether Lincoln drew on it directly.

Which woman from Miletus, noted for her conversation and advice, was the longtime partner of Pericles?

Aspasia was attacked by comic poets for her influence as a foreigner. The couple's son, who shared his father's name, later commanded Athenian forces.

Under the law Pericles proposed in 451 BC, what did a person need to be a citizen of Athens?

Two Athenian parents became the rule, which barred Pericles' own son by his foreign partner. The assembly later granted the boy an exemption.

Which Athenian historian, who lived through the war with Sparta, preserved Pericles' Funeral Oration in his history?

Thucydides admitted that the speeches in his work keep only the main ideas of what was said, so the famous wording is partly his own.

Because Pericles' speeches were said to thunder and flash like Zeus, what nickname did Athenians give him?

The Olympian was not always a compliment. Comic playwrights cast him as Zeus to mock his lofty manner and his grip on the city.

Pericles paid for much of his building programme with tribute from which alliance of Greek states?

Delian League funds were meant for common defence. After the treasury moved to Athens in 454 BC, rivals accused Pericles of dressing up the city with other people's money.

The colossal goddess statue Pericles commissioned combined precious metal plates with flesh carved from what material?

Ivory formed the face, arms and feet over a wooden core. The metal plates were treated as a financial reserve that could be melted down in an emergency.

Which sculptor, a close friend of Pericles, supervised the great building works on the Acropolis?

Phidias also made the colossal seated Zeus that ranked among the Seven Wonders. Enemies of Pericles struck at the statesman by putting his friend on trial.

Pericles introduced state pay so that poorer Athenians could afford to perform which civic duty?

Jury service in the people's courts now carried a wage, so labourers could sit in judgment. Later critics grumbled that the fees made Athenians idle and greedy.

Which elected office, one of ten filled each year, did Pericles hold for about fifteen years in a row?

General, or strategos, was the only office he ever officially held. Because it could be won year after year, it let one man steer a city that was wary of kings.

The years when Pericles led Athens fall within the era that is remembered as the city's what?

Golden Age Athens produced the great tragedians and the temples of the Acropolis. The stretch from about 461 to 429 BC is also called the Age of Pericles.

Pericles' war plan relied on the Long Walls, which joined Athens to which port?

Piraeus lay about six kilometres away. The walled corridor meant grain ships could feed the city even while an enemy army camped in the fields outside.

Pericles urged Athenians to avoid pitched land battles with Sparta and to trust instead in what?

Their fleet could raid enemy coasts and keep tribute flowing. The policy followed Themistocles' principle that Athenian power rested on the sea.

Rather than fight a land battle, Pericles let Spartan armies ravage which region, the countryside around Athens?

Attica's farmers had been evacuated into the city beforehand. Watching their fields burn made them furious with Pericles, who refused to change course.

By what Athenian vote, scratched on broken pottery, could a rival of Pericles be exiled for ten years?

Ostracism removed two of his leading opponents. A surviving shard shows that some Athenians scratched the name of Pericles himself.

Which conservative rival and admirer of Sparta did Pericles prosecute in 463 BC and see exiled two years later?

Cimon had marched 4,000 hoplites to help the Spartans, only to be told to go home. The snub wrecked his popularity and opened the way for Pericles.

Which democratic reformer and mentor of Pericles stripped the Areopagus council of its powers before being murdered?

Ephialtes was assassinated in 461 BC, and ancient writers disagreed about who did it. His death left Pericles to lead the democratic faction.

Which philosopher, who taught that the Sun was a mass of red-hot metal, was a close friend of Pericles?

Anaxagoras was later charged with impiety and left Athens for Lampsacus. His calm, sceptical outlook is said to have shaped the statesman's famous composure.

Which sophist, known for calling man the measure of all things, was a friend of Pericles?

Protagoras and Pericles reportedly spent a whole day debating who was legally to blame when a javelin accidentally killed a man at an athletic contest.

Which Aeschylus tragedy about the Battle of Salamis did the young Pericles pay to stage in 472 BC?

The Persians is the oldest surviving Greek play. Funding its chorus was a costly public duty that marked Pericles out as one of the city's wealthier men.

Pericles' father Xanthippus led the Athenians at which victory of 479 BC, fought on the coast of Ionia?

Mycale came only five years after Xanthippus had been voted into exile. He was back in time to command the city's contingent in the win.

Which reformer, often called the father of Athenian democracy, was the uncle of Pericles' mother Agariste?

Cleisthenes belonged to the Alcmaeonid clan, a family said to carry an old curse. Sparta later invoked that curse to try to discredit Pericles.

Which future Athenian commander, notorious for switching sides in wartime, grew up as a ward of Pericles?

Alcibiades lost his father at the Battle of Coronea in 447 BC, so his kinsman Pericles became his guardian. He later defected to Sparta, then abandoned the Spartans too.

Which tragedian, the author of Antigone, was elected a commander alongside Pericles in 441 BC?

Sophocles sailed as a junior colleague of Pericles during an island revolt. He had already served the city as a treasurer shortly before.

Pericles led a nine-month siege of which rebellious Aegean island, an ally of Athens, in 440–439 BC?

Samos surrendered, tore down its walls and agreed to pay a war indemnity. Back home, Pericles gave a funeral speech for the men lost in the campaign.

Pericles' trade ban of about 432 BC shut the merchants of which neighbouring city out of Athenian markets?

Megara was accused of farming land sacred to Demeter. Sparta threatened war unless the ban was lifted, and Pericles persuaded the Athenians to refuse.

Which treaty did Athens and Sparta agree in 446–445 BC, while Pericles led the city, only to fight again in 431 BC?

Thirty Years' Peace proved an optimistic name, since the deal held for only about half that time. Each side had promised not to poach the other's allies.

Which Spartan king, a personal friend of Pericles, led the invasion of Athenian territory in 431 BC?

Archidamus II gave his name to the first ten years of the fighting. Pericles promised to give his own estate to the city if his friend's army spared it.

In which modern country was Thurii, the Panhellenic colony that Pericles sponsored?

Italy was home to Thurii, built near the ruins of Sybaris in 443 BC. Its first settlers reportedly included the historian Herodotus and the orator Lysias.

What is the monumental gateway to the Athenian Acropolis, begun under Pericles in 437 BC, called?

Propylaea building stopped in 432 BC and the gateway was left unfinished, with lifting bosses still on its blocks. Its architect was Mnesikles.

Which hall for musical contests did Pericles build beside the Theatre of Dionysus, with a roof likened to a tent?

The Odeon was roofed with timber from captured enemy ships and was said to copy the tent of Xerxes. Comic poets joked that Pericles wore it like a cap.

Enemies of Pericles accused his sculptor friend of carving the statesman's face on which part of a goddess statue?

Her shield showed Greeks fighting Amazons, and one warrior was said to be a fine likeness of Pericles. The impiety charge was really aimed at the statesman.

Which ancient writer's twin biographies paired Pericles with the Roman Fabius Maximus?

Plutarch wrote more than five centuries after Pericles died. His Roman match was the commander who wore Hannibal down in a long war.

Which playwright co-wrote Pericles, Prince of Tyre, whose hero is a fictional prince, not the Athenian statesman?

William Shakespeare is credited with roughly half of it, and the play was left out of the First Folio. A collaborator, possibly George Wilkins, wrote the opening acts.

In the Jacobean play Pericles, Prince of Tyre, what name is given to the prince's daughter?

Marina is born aboard ship during a storm in which her mother, Thaisa, appears to die. The sailors insist the body go overboard to calm the waves.

In the Funeral Oration, Pericles sums up his praise by calling Athens the school of what?

Hellas was the Greeks' own name for their homeland. The boast cast the city as a living lesson for every other Greek state.

In the Funeral Oration, what does Pericles tell the widows of the fallen is a woman's greatest glory?

Not being talked about by men, whether in praise or blame, is his only advice to them. The line is often cited as typical of Athenian views on women in public life.

In the Funeral Oration, Pericles says happiness depends on freedom, and freedom depends on being what?

Brave citizens, he concludes, should never shy away from the risks of war. The chain from happiness to freedom to courage is the climax of the speech.

Pericles' Funeral Oration says Athens' government is called a democracy because it favours whom?

The many instead of the few, in his words. He adds that the laws give equal justice to all and that poverty bars no able man from serving the state.

In the Funeral Oration, Pericles says Athenians regard a man who takes no part in public affairs as what?

Useless, not merely unambitious, is his verdict. He goes on to say that Athenians treat discussion as a necessary step before any wise action.

In the Funeral Oration, Pericles boasts that Athens needs no praise from which epic poet?

Homer's verses, he says, charm only for the moment. The city's true monuments are the deeds its daring has left on every sea and land.

In the Funeral Oration, Pericles says that heroes have what as their tomb?

The whole earth, he says, because their memory lives on in hearts far from home, and not only on a column carved with an epitaph.

In his last recorded speech, Pericles warns Athenians that they hold their empire like what kind of rule?

A tyranny, he says bluntly: it may have been wrong to take, but it is unsafe to let go. The angry public still fined him soon afterwards.

A wartime historian wrote that Athens under Pericles was a democracy in name but was really governed by whom?

Its first citizen was the historian's phrase for Pericles. His successors, the same writer complained, chased popularity and let policy drift.

On his deathbed, Pericles reportedly said his proudest boast was that no Athenian had ever done what because of him?

Worn mourning was his point. Friends at the bedside were listing his nine war trophies when he interrupted to name this as his finest title to praise.

In which Athenian district, home to the public cemetery, was Pericles' Funeral Oration delivered?

Kerameikos was the potters' quarter, named from the Greek for potter's clay, the root that also gave English the word ceramic. The public graveyard lay just outside the city gate.