Pericles Biography

Pericles was an important Greek statesman, orator, patron of the arts, politician, and general of Athens who lived from 495–429 B.C. He had such a profound influence on the society that historian Thucydides named him “the first citizen” of democratic Athens. His era is also often referred to as the ‘Age of Pericles’ or broadly as the ‘Golden Age of Athens’. He encouraged the flourishing of arts, literature, philosophy and freedom of expression. Under his influence, Athens became the hub of art, culture, education, and democracy. Artists, sculptors, playwrights, poets, architects and philosophers considered Athens a thrilling haven for their work. Hippocrates practiced medicine in Athens then while sculptors like Phidias and Myron created statues in marble and stone. Playwrights like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes invented the modern-day theatre during this period. The great philosophers Protagoras, Zeno of Elea, and Anaxagoras were all his close friends. Moreover, the ‘father of western philosophy’ Socrates lived in Athens at the time. His era also witnessed the building of the Acropolis and the glory of the Parthenon. He is the first politician to credit great importance to the study of philosophy as a realistic subject. After his death, the golden age of Athens eventually slipped away.