Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens
Pericles lends his name to an entire era of ancient Greek history, but we know little about him for certain. Statesman, demagogue, or Athenian original: who was he really?
Such is the fame of Pericles that, when we talk about the Hellenic world, we sometimes talk about ‘Periclean Athens’, ‘Periclean Greece’, even a ‘Periclean age’. But Pericles’ grand stature rests on scant evidence: he was an Athenian born and bred, who lived from about 495 to 429 BC, but such is our ignorance that we cannot say for sure in which year he was born, nor do we know the name of his wife.
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