The Policies of Pericles
The idea that democracy was best served by involving a cross-section of the male
citizenry received further backing in the 450s B.C. from the measures proposed to the
assembly by a wealthy aristocract named Pericles (c. 495-429 B.C.), whose mother had
been the niece of the famous democratic reformer Cleisthenes.
Pericles
successfully proposed that state revenues be used to pay a daily
stipend1 to men who served
on juries, in the Council of the Five Hundred, and in other public offices filled by
lot. The stipend was modest, in fact less than a skilled worker could have made on a
good day. Without the stipend, however, poorer men would have found it virtually
impossible to leave their regular work to serve in these positions, which required much
of a man's time. By contrast, the board of ten annually elected
generals2—the most influential public officials, who had broad responsibilities
for the city-state's military, civil, and financial affairs—were to receive no
stipends despite the heavy demands of their post. Mainly rich men like Pericles won
election as generals because they were supposed to have been able to afford the
education and training required to handle this top job and to have the personal wealth
to serve without financial compensation. They were compensated by the prestige conferred
by election to their office. Like Cleisthenes before him, Pericles was an aristocrat who
became the most influential leader in the Athens of his era by devising innovations to
strengthen the egalitarian tendencies of Athenian democracy. Pericles and others of his
economic status had inherited enough wealth to spend their time in politics without
worrying about money, but remuneration for poorer men serving in public offices was an
essential foundation of Athenian democracy, if it was truly going to be open to the
majority of men, who, along with their wives and children, had to work to support
themselves and their families. Above all, Pericles' proposal that jurors receive state
stipends made him overwhelmingly popular with the mass of ordinary male citizens.
Consequently, he was able to introduce dramatic changes in Athenian domestic and foreign
policy beginning in the 450s B.C.
The Citizenship Law of Pericles
In 451 B.C. Pericles introduced one of most striking proposals with his sponsorship
of
a law stating that henceforth citizenship would be conferred only on children
whose mother and father both were Athenians.3 Previously, the offspring of Athenian men who married
non-Athenian women were granted citizenship. Aristocratic men in particular had tended
to marry rich foreign women, as Pericles' own maternal grandfather had done. Pericles'
new law enhanced the status of Athenian mothers and made Athenian citizenship a more
exclusive category, definitively setting Athenians off from all others. Not long
thereafter, a review of the citizenship rolls was conducted to expel any who had
claimed citizenship fraudulently. Together these actions served to limit the number of
citizens and thus limit dilution of the advantages which citizenship in Athens'
radical democracy conveyed on those included in the citizenry. Those advantages
included, for men, the freedom to participate in politics and juries, to influence
decisions that directly affected their lives, to have equal protection under the law,
and to own land and houses in Athenian territory.
Citizen women4 had less rights because they were excluded from politics, had to have a
male legal guardian5 (kurios), who, for example, spoke for them in
court, and were not legally entitled to make large financial transactions on their
own. They could, however, control property and have their financial interests
protected in law suits. Like men, they were entitled to the protection of the law
regardless of their wealth. Both female and male citizens experienced the advantage of
belonging to a city-state that was enjoying unparalleled material prosperity. Citizens
clearly saw themselves as the elite residents of Athens.
Periclean Foreign Policy
Once he had gained political prominence in the 450s at Athens, Pericles devoted his
attention to foreign policy as well as domestic proposals. His intial foreign policy
encompassed dual goals: 1) continuing military action against the Persian presence in
Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean and 2) greater attention to Athenian relations and
disputes with other Greek states. This latter part of his policy reflected above all
the growing hostility between Athens and Sparta.
Hostilities with Sparta and its
allies6 had become more and more frequent following the
rebuff
of Cimon's expedition to Sparta in 462 B.C.7 The former
part of the policy suffered a severe setback when
a campaign to liberate Egypt
from Persian control8 ended with the
catastrophic loss of over two hundred ships and their crews in 454 B.C.
The
Delian League treasury was thereupon transferred to Athens from Delos 9 to move it farther away from a potential Persian raid. The decision to move
the alliance's funds, apparently taken unilaterally, confirmed Athens' absolute
superiority over the other allies. Even after the Egyptian disaster the Athenian
assembly did not immediately renounce further action against the Persians.
Cimon, now returned from the exile imposed by his ostracism, was in fact sent
out in charge of a major naval expedition10 to the
eastern Mediterranean to try to pry the large island of Cyprus from Persian control.
When he was killed on this campaign in 450 B.C., however, the assembly apparently
decided not to send out any further overseas expeditions against Persian territory.
Rather,
Athens would focus its military efforts on containing Spartan power in
Greece and preventing the Delian League from disintegrating through revolts of
allies. 11 When neither Sparta nor Athens was able to achieve a clear-cut dominance in
Greece in the battles that followed in the early 440s,
Pericles in 445
engineered a peace treaty with Sparta12 designed to freeze the current balance
of power in Greece for thirty years and thus preserve Athenian dominance in the Delian
League.
The Breakdown of Peace
After making peace with Sparta in 445,13 Pericles was free to turn his
attention to his political rivals at Athens, who were jealous of his dominant
influence over the board of
ten annually elected generals14, the highest magistrates of Athenian democracy. When the voters in 443
expressed their approval of Pericles' policies by
choosing to ostracize not him
but rather his chief political rival, Thucydides15 (not the same man as the historian of the same name), Pericles'
overwhelming political prominence was confirmed.
He was thereafter elected
general fifteen years in a row.16 His ascendency was again challenged, however, on the grounds that he
mishandled
the revolt in 441-439 of Samos,
17 a valuable and consistently loyal Athenian ally in the
Delian League. Instead of seeking a diplomatic solution to the dispute, Pericles
quickly opted for a military response. A brutal struggle ensued that extended over
three campaigning seasons and inflicted bloody losses on both sides before the Samians
were forced to capitulate. With his judgment under attack for this incident, Pericles
soon faced an even greater challenge as relations with Sparta worsened in the
mid-430s.
When the Spartans finally threatened war unless the Athenians ceased
their support of some rebellious Spartan allies,18 Pericles prevailed upon the assembly to
refuse all compromises. His critics claimed he was sticking to his hard line against
Sparta and insisting on provoking a war in order to revive his fading popularity by
whipping up a jingoistic furor in the assembly.
Pericles retorted that no
accommodation to Spartan demands was possible because Athens' freedom of action was
at stake.19 By 431 B.C. the Thirty Years' Peace made in 445 B.C. had been shattered beyond
repair. The protracted Peloponnesian War (as modern historians call it) began in that
year, not to end until 404 B.C., and ultimately put an end to the Athenian Golden
Age.
