M. has written a very enjoyable and thoughtful book. To many, Pericles represents fifth-century Athens in so many ways. His story is the story of the city that enjoyed its so-called golden age under his auspices. He was both a democrat and an imperialist. In these two traits he embodies the Athenian legacy. M.’s book illustrates the life of the man, his city's rise to power and much more besides. The book's subtitle, A Biography in Context, accurately describes its purpose. It places Pericles' life against the backdrop of events and in the milieu of the people who framed his experiences. We are presented with a vision of Athenian history from the individual to the universal in a most illuminating way, whether following Pericles as a child evacuated from his home and watching on as the Persians burned his city or Pericles the friend of controversial philosophers like Aristagoras or Pericles as a statesman advancing Athenian interests and controlling the Athenian demos.
The book aims to introduce Pericles and the fifth century to readers from non-Classics backgrounds and those interested in learning more about Athens. Pleasingly M. starts out pleading that his readers explore the ancient sources for themselves. This, as M. knows only too well, is the only way to understand the ancient world. To this notion, he remains consistent throughout the work. He states early that he prefers contemporary evidence to that of later writers. Thus, for example, the observations of Thucydides will trump those of Diodorus and Plutarch.
To M., two events shaped Pericles more than anything else. The first was the ostracism of his father Xanthippus in the 480s bce when Pericles was just a boy. The second was the Persian invasion of Attica and destruction of Athens. The first event hardened him to political opposition at home, while instilling a fear of his own ostracism, and the second led to him to ensuring absolute power for Athens abroad. Both events explain Pericles' relationships with fellow Athenians, his support of democracy and his pursuit of Athenian security, especially through the navy and protection against Greeks (as well as Persians), but also through walls on land and military innovations.
M. begins his account of Pericles with the ancient sources (pp. 1–21) and then with his family and the world of Athens (pp. 25–63) before democracy and empire (pp. 99–117). He takes the reader through the events of the Persian Wars, the rise of Athenian power and the emergence of Pericles on the political stage. The narrative follows a familiar process. M. discusses the events and then presents analysis of them. Where necessary, M. identifies controversy, and the arguments on both sides of a debate. He lays out the discussion and then gives his opinion on much debated issues like the Peace of Callias (did it happen? what was it?), Pericles' Citizenship Law (cui bono) or the origins of the Peloponnesian War.
The book's tone remains positive. Pericles and Athens, unsurprisingly, are the heroes of the story. Persians and Spartans are treated more peripherally, perhaps from an Athenian perspective they were indeed peripheral, but M. might be guilty of bias against these Athenian rivals. Sparta, in particular, receives almost scant regard and less balanced treatment. Sparta threatens Athens in the aftermath of the Persian defeat (p. 102), the Spartans are blamed for abandoning the Greek cause against the Persians in favour of Athens, while Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, is an ‘arrogant and treacherous Spartan’ (p. 104). Spartan action at Tanagra in 457 bce was led by its shrinking population making them ‘resolved to assert their power in relations with their flourishing enemies the Athenians’ (p. 151).
M. generally takes a benign view of Athenian ambitions. He suggests that the Athenians did not plan to enslave their fellow Greeks from the beginning of the Delian League. The introduction of the phoros at its inception is a case in point (pp. 105–7). Despite Persian parallels and empire driven itself by such contributions, M. suggests that phoros did not mean ‘tribute’ in imperial terms in 478/7 bce and only gleaned imperial associations later in the century. He highlights the allies' willingness to make contributions to the war and the general naivety in the league's constitution, especially regarding the agreement to remain allies forever (as long as lumps of lead remained submerged under the sea). M. rightly does not read history backwards. We are all aware of what the Delian League looked like in the 420s bce after the failed defections of many allied states, their enslavement and the imposition of punitive repayments alongside higher tributes. Later imperial interest should not cloud our view of the early relationship of League members, but we need to be mindful that a contribution of phoros from allies to an imperial centre does indeed look imperial especially if Persian models had been applied even at the start of the Delian enterprise.
In similar fashion M. discusses the league developing towards empire in forgiving terms. He sees the movement of the treasury to the Acropolis after the Egyptian disaster not as imperial as it might appear (p. 153), noting that one source (Plutarch, Aristeides 25) tells us that Samos proposed the idea. M. agrees with Thucydides regarding the key period of the movement to empire as later in the century. As with phoros, he reads the word archê in more neutral terms and not as necessarily symbolic of empire and oppression. Given that the 450s and 440s bce are usually the focal points for those who seek a moment that the league transformed into empire, M. could have done more to discuss the murky history of Athens between 451 and 446 bce (pp. 160–5). Pericles clearly played a role in this period, and he emerged for the first time as strategos in 446/5 bce at a time when Athens appears increasingly imperial, especially in light of inscriptions like that concerning Chalcis (IG1(3) 40), which M. acknowledges.
M.’s discussion of the famous Coinage Decree follows a similar line of thinking to his benign perspective of Athenian power (pp. 165–6). Rather than reading the decree, whether dated to the 440s or 420s bce, as a statement of Athenian aggression enforcing Athenian coinage on reluctant allies, M. argues (as he did in his excellent book Sovereignty and Coinage in Classical Greece [1985]) that higher quality and more prolific coins will dominate currencies everywhere they circulate because of their quality and quantity and not due to the suppression of other currencies. Nevertheless, he does concede that the use of league funding for Athens' building programme from 460/59 bce onwards does reflect a more imperial and managerial mood (pp. 166–70).
One might argue that, for a book focused on Pericles, M. could have paid more attention to the events concerning the origins of the Peloponnesian War. This remains the pivotal moment in Greek history and arguably in Pericles' life and legacy. Later writers like Plutarch and Diodorus blamed Pericles for the war, and even Aristophanes hints at his culpability. M. of course concentrates on Thucydides, whose focus beyond the fear Athenian power caused at Sparta concentrated on the events at Corcyra and Potidaea rather than the potentially more damning treatment of Megara and Aegina. M. does reference the different debates about who started the war. More discussion on all sides of the debate might have created a more conclusive crescendo to the narrative.
Finally, M. surveys Pericles' legacy in ancient writers and more recent commentators. Prior to Grote's History of Greece from 1846–1856, Pericles enjoyed no special place in Greek history, and only in the past century or so have works promoted Periclean significance. M. concludes with his own observations returning to Pericles as protector of Athens and promoter of Democracy. His assessment of Pericles is mixed, one of success and failure. After all, the war into which Pericles led Athens ended in defeat, though Pericles can hardly be held responsible for its outcome. M.’s final analysis of Pericles' reputation is, therefore, a mixed one, as he states at the very end of this excellent book, ‘both good and bad’ (p. 229).
