WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.259 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are standing 00:00:02.259 --> 00:00:06.259 at what I think is the absolute precipice of 00:00:06.259 --> 00:00:08.599 Western history. That's a big claim, but I think 00:00:08.599 --> 00:00:10.279 you're right. You know, usually when we talk 00:00:10.279 --> 00:00:12.179 about history, we talk about eras, the Bronze 00:00:12.179 --> 00:00:14.259 Age, the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, 00:00:14.439 --> 00:00:18.579 these broad sweeps of time. But sometimes an 00:00:18.579 --> 00:00:22.179 entire era, an entire golden age, is practically 00:00:22.179 --> 00:00:25.359 engineered by a single human being. It is rare, 00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:28.500 but in this specific case, it's undeniably true. 00:00:28.920 --> 00:00:32.159 The shadow this man casts is so enormous that 00:00:32.159 --> 00:00:35.539 even now, 2 ,500 years later, we are, well, we're 00:00:35.539 --> 00:00:37.439 arguably still living in it. We are talking about 00:00:37.439 --> 00:00:39.799 Athens in the 5th century BC. If you close your 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:42.859 eyes and picture ancient Greece, you know, the 00:00:42.859 --> 00:00:45.100 white marble columns of the Parthenon, the philosophers 00:00:45.100 --> 00:00:47.899 debating in the Agora, the radical idea that 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:49.560 people should vote on their own laws. Right. 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:51.780 You are basically picturing the vision of one 00:00:51.780 --> 00:00:55.990 man. Pericles. Pericles. Roughly 495 to 429 BC. 00:00:56.170 --> 00:00:59.170 He is the titan of the era. But the mission for 00:00:59.170 --> 00:01:01.049 this deep dive, I think, is to shatter that marble 00:01:01.049 --> 00:01:03.789 statue. We have this idea of him largely from 00:01:03.789 --> 00:01:06.629 school books as the stoic, perfect father of 00:01:06.629 --> 00:01:09.629 democracy. But when you actually read the source 00:01:09.629 --> 00:01:12.209 materials, specifically Thucydides, Plutarch, 00:01:12.250 --> 00:01:15.409 and the comic playwrights of the time, you find 00:01:15.409 --> 00:01:18.010 a figure who is so much more contradictory. And 00:01:18.010 --> 00:01:20.170 that's the tension I really want to explore today. 00:01:20.930 --> 00:01:23.760 Thucydides. the great historian. He famously 00:01:23.760 --> 00:01:26.480 called Pericles the first citizen of Athens. 00:01:26.780 --> 00:01:29.000 Which sounds so noble, doesn't it? It sounds 00:01:29.000 --> 00:01:31.340 noble. It sounds like a compliment. But then 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:33.540 you have his critics, both ancient and modern, 00:01:33.659 --> 00:01:37.519 who paint him as a populist manipulator, an imperialist 00:01:37.519 --> 00:01:40.439 hawk, and this is my personal favorite detail, 00:01:40.599 --> 00:01:43.159 a man with a very strangely shaped head. The 00:01:43.159 --> 00:01:45.480 Squill Head. We absolutely have to get into the 00:01:45.480 --> 00:01:47.260 Squill Head. But we will. We're going to unpack 00:01:47.260 --> 00:01:49.959 all of it. So our goal today is to answer a fundamental 00:01:49.959 --> 00:01:52.849 question. Was Pericles the benevolent genius 00:01:52.849 --> 00:01:56.810 who gifted us democracy and art? Or was he, you 00:01:56.810 --> 00:01:59.030 know, the first great demagogue who bought the 00:01:59.030 --> 00:02:01.209 people's loyalty with stolen money and led them 00:02:01.209 --> 00:02:03.689 into a war that destroyed them? It is the ultimate 00:02:03.689 --> 00:02:06.950 great man history debate. And to answer it, we 00:02:06.950 --> 00:02:10.069 have to understand that Pericles... Well, he 00:02:10.069 --> 00:02:11.969 didn't start as a man of the people. He wasn't 00:02:11.969 --> 00:02:14.210 some grassroots organizer. He started as the 00:02:14.210 --> 00:02:16.949 ultimate insider. Okay, let's do the origin story. 00:02:17.150 --> 00:02:19.310 Because if you look at his family tree, this 00:02:19.310 --> 00:02:21.710 is not a rags -to -riches story. This is more 00:02:21.710 --> 00:02:25.509 like a Kennedy or a Roosevelt. It is actually 00:02:25.509 --> 00:02:28.150 even more intense than that. He was born into 00:02:28.150 --> 00:02:31.330 the Alkmeonid family on his mother's side. And 00:02:31.330 --> 00:02:33.469 to understand Pericles, you have to understand 00:02:33.469 --> 00:02:36.050 the Alcmeonids. What's their story? They were 00:02:36.050 --> 00:02:39.289 powerful, incredibly wealthy, and they were considered 00:02:39.289 --> 00:02:42.710 accursed. Accursed, like just historically unlucky 00:02:42.710 --> 00:02:44.449 or something? No, I mean religiously cursed. 00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:47.340 Generations before Pericles, the family had been 00:02:47.340 --> 00:02:49.800 involved in a coup attempt, the Salonian affair, 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:52.639 and they killed their rivals who had taken sanctuary 00:02:52.639 --> 00:02:55.199 at a holy altar. Oh, that's a huge no -no in 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:57.419 Greek religion. It's a massive sacrilege. It's 00:02:57.419 --> 00:03:00.259 a stain on the soul of the family. So Pericles 00:03:00.259 --> 00:03:03.319 enters the world with this stain on his lineage. 00:03:03.719 --> 00:03:06.280 His political enemies would literally throw the 00:03:06.280 --> 00:03:08.360 word pollution around whenever his name came 00:03:08.360 --> 00:03:10.479 up. That's a heavy backpack to carry into public 00:03:10.479 --> 00:03:14.810 life. But his mother... She was also kind of 00:03:14.810 --> 00:03:17.509 royalty in a democratic sense. She was. She was 00:03:17.509 --> 00:03:20.189 the niece of Cleisthenes. And Cleisthenes is 00:03:20.189 --> 00:03:22.469 the man who, a generation earlier, basically 00:03:22.469 --> 00:03:24.669 invented the framework of Athenian democracy. 00:03:25.250 --> 00:03:29.110 So Pericles has this dual inheritance, political 00:03:29.110 --> 00:03:32.050 genius on one hand and a religious curse on the 00:03:32.050 --> 00:03:34.530 other. And his birth itself comes with a legend. 00:03:35.110 --> 00:03:38.009 The sources mention a specific dream his mother 00:03:38.009 --> 00:03:40.689 had right before he was born. Yes, Herodotus 00:03:40.689 --> 00:03:43.389 and Plutarch both record this. A few days before 00:03:43.389 --> 00:03:46.409 Pericles was born, Agares dreamed she gave birth 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:49.189 to a lion. Now, in Greek culture, a lion is usually 00:03:49.189 --> 00:03:51.539 a good omen, right? Strength. Royalty, courage, 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.139 all that. Generally, yes. It connects him to 00:03:54.139 --> 00:03:56.699 figures like Alexander the Great. Legends say 00:03:56.699 --> 00:03:59.379 Philip II of Macedon had a similar dream before 00:03:59.379 --> 00:04:01.520 Alexander was born. It's like the universe is 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:04.120 announcing a heavy hitter is arriving. It implies 00:04:04.120 --> 00:04:06.680 he'll be a king among men. Exactly. But knowing 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:08.979 the Greeks, and especially knowing Herodotus, 00:04:09.020 --> 00:04:11.219 there's usually a double edge to these prophecies, 00:04:11.240 --> 00:04:14.120 isn't there? Precisely. There is a much more 00:04:14.120 --> 00:04:17.800 subversive reading of the lion dream. A lion 00:04:17.800 --> 00:04:20.240 is dangerous. A lion cannot be domesticated. 00:04:20.439 --> 00:04:23.379 A lion in a city is a threat to the safety of 00:04:23.379 --> 00:04:25.740 the herd. So Herodotus might be hinting that 00:04:25.740 --> 00:04:28.459 Pericles would become a tyrant. A lion that would 00:04:28.459 --> 00:04:31.180 eat up the democracy from the inside. Exactly. 00:04:31.220 --> 00:04:34.139 That's fascinating. The dream basically sets 00:04:34.139 --> 00:04:36.339 up the central question of his life from day 00:04:36.339 --> 00:04:39.759 one. Is he a protector or a predator? But then 00:04:39.759 --> 00:04:42.720 there's the third interpretation. The biological 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:45.319 one, which is just hilarious. Right. The lion 00:04:45.319 --> 00:04:47.240 dream might have just been a post hoc explanation 00:04:47.240 --> 00:04:50.420 for a physical deformity. Pericles was born with 00:04:50.420 --> 00:04:53.639 an unusually large, elongated skull. A big head. 00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:56.279 A massive head. We think it was a condition called 00:04:56.279 --> 00:04:58.420 scaphocephaly, where the skull plates fuse too 00:04:58.420 --> 00:05:00.720 early and so the head grows long instead of round. 00:05:00.899 --> 00:05:03.160 And the Athenian public, who were never shy about 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:05.120 roasting their leaders, absolutely destroyed 00:05:05.120 --> 00:05:07.759 him for it. Oh, ruthlessly. You have to understand, 00:05:07.939 --> 00:05:10.420 Athenian democracy wasn't polite. It was rowdy. 00:05:10.720 --> 00:05:13.540 The comic poets of the day, Kratonis, Tillichlides, 00:05:13.639 --> 00:05:16.839 they nicknamed him Squill Head. Squill. That's 00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:20.439 a sea onion, right? It's this big, bulbous, layered 00:05:20.439 --> 00:05:23.199 plant. So imagine the most powerful man in the 00:05:23.199 --> 00:05:25.620 Western world walking into the assembly and the 00:05:25.620 --> 00:05:27.720 hecklers are yelling, here comes old Onion Head. 00:05:28.139 --> 00:05:30.699 It really humanizes him. I mean, we see these 00:05:30.699 --> 00:05:34.959 marble busts and think godlike, but his contemporaries 00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:39.240 saw a guy with a funny head. Plutarch actually 00:05:39.240 --> 00:05:42.019 mentions that in almost all the statues we have 00:05:42.019 --> 00:05:45.240 of Pericles, he is wearing a helmet. Plutarch 00:05:45.240 --> 00:05:47.240 thought this was vanity, that the sculptors were 00:05:47.240 --> 00:05:50.060 trying to hide his onion head. Is that true? 00:05:50.300 --> 00:05:52.560 It's a great story, but it is probably a misunderstanding 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:55.300 by Plutarch, who is writing, you know, hundreds 00:05:55.300 --> 00:05:57.500 of years later. So it's not about the head shape. 00:05:57.850 --> 00:05:59.610 Probably not. The helmet he wears on the bus 00:05:59.610 --> 00:06:01.949 is a Corinthian helmet. But notice how it's worn. 00:06:02.110 --> 00:06:04.170 It's pushed back on his head, resting on the 00:06:04.170 --> 00:06:06.370 forehead, revealing his face. Right. He's not 00:06:06.370 --> 00:06:08.170 actually wearing it for protection in the statue. 00:06:08.350 --> 00:06:10.569 Exactly. That wasn't a hat. It was the specific 00:06:10.569 --> 00:06:13.329 insignia of the rank of Strategos. We should 00:06:13.329 --> 00:06:14.910 probably define that term because it's going 00:06:14.910 --> 00:06:17.689 to come up a lot. Strategos. Strategos translates 00:06:17.689 --> 00:06:21.709 literally to general. But in Athens, it wasn't 00:06:21.709 --> 00:06:24.089 just a military rank like we think of a general 00:06:24.089 --> 00:06:27.720 today. It was an elected political office. So, 00:06:27.740 --> 00:06:30.379 like Secretary of Defense, but also more? Much 00:06:30.379 --> 00:06:34.160 more. There were 10 Strategos elected every year, 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:37.040 one from each of the 10 tribes. They commanded 00:06:37.040 --> 00:06:39.579 the armies, yes, but they also guided foreign 00:06:39.579 --> 00:06:41.959 policy. They were the executive branch, really. 00:06:42.300 --> 00:06:44.980 Pericles held this title for decades, elected 00:06:44.980 --> 00:06:47.579 year after year. So wearing the helmet and a 00:06:47.579 --> 00:06:50.519 statue is like a modern president being painted 00:06:50.519 --> 00:06:52.980 with the presidential seal. It's about authority. 00:06:53.300 --> 00:06:56.240 It's about his office, not vanity. Though I'm 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:57.959 sure he didn't complain if the helmet happened 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:00.019 to cover the, you know, the peak of the squill 00:07:00.019 --> 00:07:01.839 head. I'm sure it was a convenient side effect. 00:07:02.079 --> 00:07:03.699 But let's look at the mind inside that large 00:07:03.699 --> 00:07:06.339 head. He wasn't a rabble rouser initially, was 00:07:06.339 --> 00:07:09.379 he? He was an introvert. Very much so. As a young 00:07:09.379 --> 00:07:11.639 man, the sources tell us he avoided the marketplace. 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:13.740 He didn't go to dinner parties. He wasn't out 00:07:13.740 --> 00:07:16.220 drinking with the boys. He's a serious kid. He 00:07:16.220 --> 00:07:19.220 focused entirely on his education. And this is 00:07:19.220 --> 00:07:22.459 crucial. Pericles was really the first politician 00:07:22.459 --> 00:07:25.439 to be trained by philosophers. His mentor was 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:28.360 a man named Anaxagoras. And Axigoras. Now this 00:07:28.360 --> 00:07:31.620 is the guy who brings science, or at least rationalism. 00:07:32.079 --> 00:07:34.360 into the picture. Exactly. And Akseggers was 00:07:34.360 --> 00:07:37.259 a natural philosopher. He believed that the world 00:07:37.259 --> 00:07:40.379 was governed by nous, which means mind or intellect, 00:07:40.620 --> 00:07:43.379 not just the whimsical emotional outbursts of 00:07:43.379 --> 00:07:46.480 the gods on Olympus. He taught Pericles to look 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:48.660 for rational explanations for natural phenomena. 00:07:49.310 --> 00:07:51.170 There's that famous story about the ram's horn 00:07:51.170 --> 00:07:53.709 that I love. It really illustrates the clash 00:07:53.709 --> 00:07:56.629 between the old superstitious world and Pericles' 00:07:56.889 --> 00:07:59.329 new world. It captures their dynamic perfectly. 00:07:59.670 --> 00:08:02.509 So a ram was born on Pericles' estate with one 00:08:02.509 --> 00:08:04.790 single horn growing out of the center of its 00:08:04.790 --> 00:08:07.610 forehead. Like a unicorn. Pretty much. A soothsayer, 00:08:07.790 --> 00:08:10.750 a seer named Lampon, saw it and immediately said, 00:08:10.870 --> 00:08:12.870 this is a sign from the gods. It means power 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:15.370 will be concentrated in one man Pericles. It 00:08:15.370 --> 00:08:17.449 was the supernatural validation of his authority. 00:08:17.709 --> 00:08:19.970 And Magsagoras. wasn't having any of it. No. 00:08:21.230 --> 00:08:23.610 Anaxagoras took the ram's skull, cut it open 00:08:23.610 --> 00:08:25.689 right there in front of everyone, and showed 00:08:25.689 --> 00:08:29.350 the audience the brain. He explained scientifically 00:08:29.350 --> 00:08:31.949 that the deformity was caused by the brain not 00:08:31.949 --> 00:08:34.389 filling the cavity correctly, which forced the 00:08:34.389 --> 00:08:36.909 horn to grow in the center. He debunked the miracle 00:08:36.909 --> 00:08:39.929 with anatomy? He ruined the magic trick. But 00:08:39.929 --> 00:08:42.029 Plutarch notes that Pericles learned something 00:08:42.029 --> 00:08:45.009 valuable from this. He learned to be unflappable. 00:08:45.169 --> 00:08:48.230 He learned what he called his proverbial calmness. 00:08:48.230 --> 00:08:51.409 In an era where politicians would scream, cry, 00:08:51.769 --> 00:08:54.429 tear their clothes, and invoke the wrath of Zeus 00:08:54.429 --> 00:08:57.529 to get a reaction, Pericles was Spock. He was 00:08:57.529 --> 00:09:01.669 ice cold. He used logic and rhetoric, not hysteria. 00:09:01.789 --> 00:09:03.409 That must have been terrifying for his opponents. 00:09:03.629 --> 00:09:05.549 You can't get a rise out of him. It was. They 00:09:05.549 --> 00:09:07.450 couldn't provoke him. If someone insulted him, 00:09:07.529 --> 00:09:09.559 called him a tyrant or an onion head, head, he 00:09:09.559 --> 00:09:11.279 wouldn't react. He would just dismantle their 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:13.980 argument with logic. So we have this intellectual, 00:09:14.100 --> 00:09:16.620 wealthy, slightly odd -looking aristocrat entering 00:09:16.620 --> 00:09:19.899 the political arena in the 460s BC, but he has 00:09:19.899 --> 00:09:22.419 a problem. The political lane for aristocratic 00:09:22.419 --> 00:09:25.279 leader is already taken. Enter Simon. Simon. 00:09:25.740 --> 00:09:28.220 This guy seems like the archetype of the good 00:09:28.220 --> 00:09:31.299 old days leader. Simon was everything Pericles 00:09:31.299 --> 00:09:34.639 wasn't. He was a war hero. He was gregarious, 00:09:34.639 --> 00:09:37.740 outgoing, and incredibly rich. But his leadership 00:09:37.740 --> 00:09:40.960 style was, well, it was futile. What do you mean 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:42.960 by that? He would literally take the fences down 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:45.019 around his orchards and let the public come in 00:09:45.019 --> 00:09:47.440 and eat his fruit. He would pay for dinners for 00:09:47.440 --> 00:09:50.419 his neighbors. If he saw a poor man with threadbare 00:09:50.419 --> 00:09:52.419 clothes in the street, he'd order one of his 00:09:52.419 --> 00:09:55.000 slaves to swap clothes with the man right there 00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:57.350 on the spot. So he's buying popularity with his 00:09:57.350 --> 00:09:59.830 personal fortune. It was patronage. I take care 00:09:59.830 --> 00:10:02.929 of you. You vote for me. It's a very old conservative 00:10:02.929 --> 00:10:06.570 model of power. And he was also very pro -Sparta, 00:10:06.570 --> 00:10:08.669 which appealed to the conservatives. So Pericles 00:10:08.669 --> 00:10:11.629 wants to challenge him. But Pericles, despite 00:10:11.629 --> 00:10:14.950 being rich, isn't Simon Rich. He can't outspend 00:10:14.950 --> 00:10:17.149 Zion personally, so he needs a new strategy. 00:10:17.429 --> 00:10:19.809 And this is the pivot point for Athenian democracy. 00:10:20.470 --> 00:10:23.049 Aristotle analyzes this shift. He says Pericles 00:10:23.049 --> 00:10:25.909 was advised by a man named Daemonides, and the 00:10:25.909 --> 00:10:29.029 advice was essentially this. Pericles, if you 00:10:29.029 --> 00:10:31.389 cannot beat Simon with your own money, beat him 00:10:31.389 --> 00:10:33.730 with the public's money. I can't buy you dinner, 00:10:33.830 --> 00:10:37.009 but I can pass a law that says the state buys 00:10:37.009 --> 00:10:40.039 you dinner. Precisely. This is the birth of radical 00:10:40.039 --> 00:10:43.600 populism. Pericles begins systematically transferring 00:10:43.600 --> 00:10:46.460 wealth from the state treasury directly to the 00:10:46.460 --> 00:10:49.440 citizens to buy their loyalty. Let's break down 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:51.460 the mechanics of this because it's not just welfare 00:10:51.460 --> 00:10:53.580 in the modern sense. It was structural, right? 00:10:53.659 --> 00:10:55.740 Absolutely. The biggest change was jury pay. 00:10:55.940 --> 00:11:00.480 In Athens, juries were huge. I mean, 201, 501, 00:11:00.539 --> 00:11:03.019 sometimes over a thousand people. Wow. Before 00:11:03.019 --> 00:11:05.710 Pericles, you didn't get paid to serve. And that 00:11:05.710 --> 00:11:07.789 meant only the wealthy or the retired elderly 00:11:07.789 --> 00:11:10.370 could afford to sit on a jury. The working poor, 00:11:10.549 --> 00:11:13.190 the farmers, the rowers, the potters, they couldn't 00:11:13.190 --> 00:11:15.850 just take a day off work. So the justice system 00:11:15.850 --> 00:11:17.970 was inherently biased toward the rich because 00:11:17.970 --> 00:11:20.370 they were the only ones who could show up. Exactly. 00:11:20.610 --> 00:11:23.210 Pericles introduced a wage two or three obols 00:11:23.210 --> 00:11:25.529 a day for jurymen. Now, it wasn't a fortune, 00:11:25.629 --> 00:11:27.389 but it was enough to cover food for a family. 00:11:27.570 --> 00:11:30.850 Suddenly, the demos, the common people, flooded 00:11:30.850 --> 00:11:33.029 the courts. And they controlled the justice system. 00:11:33.049 --> 00:11:35.240 They controlled it. Which, of course, effectively 00:11:35.240 --> 00:11:37.740 meant Pericles controlled the justice system 00:11:37.740 --> 00:11:39.940 because those jurors knew who was signing their 00:11:39.940 --> 00:11:42.120 paychecks. That's the cynical view, and it's 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:44.539 probably true. Simon couldn't compete with the 00:11:44.539 --> 00:11:47.799 state treasury. Pericles also introduced the 00:11:47.799 --> 00:11:50.700 theoric fund subsidies, which paid for the poor 00:11:50.700 --> 00:11:53.240 to attend the theater festivals. Democratizing 00:11:53.240 --> 00:11:55.580 culture. He was democratizing culture and law, 00:11:55.799 --> 00:11:57.980 but it was also building a political machine. 00:11:58.620 --> 00:12:02.639 But then in 451 BC, he passes a law that seems 00:12:02.639 --> 00:12:05.759 to completely contradict this man of the people 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:09.279 vibe, the citizenship law. This is one of the 00:12:09.279 --> 00:12:11.220 most controversial things he ever did. And it's 00:12:11.220 --> 00:12:15.120 really telling. Before 451 BC, to be an Athenian 00:12:15.120 --> 00:12:17.460 citizen, you just needed an Athenian father. 00:12:18.110 --> 00:12:19.950 Your mother could be from another city, Sparta, 00:12:20.129 --> 00:12:23.529 Corinth, Miletus. Which makes sense. Aristocrats 00:12:23.529 --> 00:12:25.429 marry foreigners all the time to build alliances. 00:12:25.970 --> 00:12:28.610 Pericles' own ancestors had done it. But Pericles 00:12:28.610 --> 00:12:31.610 changed the rules. The new law stated, you are 00:12:31.610 --> 00:12:34.029 only a citizen if both your mother and your father 00:12:34.029 --> 00:12:36.769 are Athenian born. Why restrict it? If you're 00:12:36.769 --> 00:12:38.509 a populist, don't you want more people on your 00:12:38.509 --> 00:12:41.009 side? Not if you were running a welfare state. 00:12:41.480 --> 00:12:44.039 Think about it. If you're handing out jury pay, 00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:46.580 festival tickets and eventually grain subsidies, 00:12:47.000 --> 00:12:50.960 every new citizen is a new cost. Right. By restricting 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:53.860 citizenship, Pericles was protecting the value 00:12:53.860 --> 00:12:57.200 of the share that each citizen received. He was 00:12:57.200 --> 00:12:59.559 making the club more exclusive so the benefits 00:12:59.559 --> 00:13:02.000 would be higher for the existing members. That 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:05.120 is incredibly cynical. It's basically we're going 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:06.980 to share the wealth. But first, let's make sure 00:13:06.980 --> 00:13:08.519 there aren't too many of us to share it with. 00:13:08.750 --> 00:13:11.649 It was democracy for the Athenians, exclusion 00:13:11.649 --> 00:13:14.830 for everyone else. It solidified his base, but 00:13:14.830 --> 00:13:17.690 it created a very rigid and some would say xenophobic 00:13:17.690 --> 00:13:20.909 society. And ironically, as we'll see, this law 00:13:20.909 --> 00:13:23.110 would eventually come back to destroy Pericles' 00:13:23.269 --> 00:13:25.990 own family line. The ultimate tragic irony. We 00:13:25.990 --> 00:13:28.549 will definitely get to that. But first, the strategy 00:13:28.549 --> 00:13:31.149 worked. Pericles was destroyed politically. Completely. 00:13:31.389 --> 00:13:35.519 In 461 BC. Pericles and his allies managed to 00:13:35.519 --> 00:13:38.299 ostracize Simon. We need to explain ostracism 00:13:38.299 --> 00:13:40.460 because it's such a foreign concept to us. It 00:13:40.460 --> 00:13:43.059 wasn't a criminal trial, was it? No, not at all. 00:13:43.080 --> 00:13:46.100 It was a popularity contest in reverse. Once 00:13:46.100 --> 00:13:48.100 a year, the assembly would vote on whether to 00:13:48.100 --> 00:13:51.360 hold an ostracism. If they said yes, everyone 00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:54.259 would take a piece of broken pottery, an ostracon, 00:13:54.500 --> 00:13:56.840 and scratch the name of the person they wanted 00:13:56.840 --> 00:13:59.080 to leave the city. A literal piece of pottery. 00:13:59.240 --> 00:14:01.970 Yeah, that's where the word comes from. If you 00:14:01.970 --> 00:14:04.309 got 6 ,000 votes against you, you were exiled 00:14:04.309 --> 00:14:06.690 for 10 years. You didn't lose your property. 00:14:06.809 --> 00:14:08.730 You weren't charged with a crime. You just had 00:14:08.730 --> 00:14:11.970 to go. It was a political timeout for politicians 00:14:11.970 --> 00:14:14.370 who were getting too powerful. Or just too inconvenient. 00:14:14.929 --> 00:14:17.610 Simon was ostracized for being too pro -Sparta 00:14:17.610 --> 00:14:20.269 and for opposing the democratic reforms. Shortly 00:14:20.269 --> 00:14:22.629 after that, Pericles' co -leader, a man named 00:14:22.629 --> 00:14:25.269 Ephialtes, was assassinated, murdered in the 00:14:25.269 --> 00:14:27.649 night. Do we know who did it? It's still a cold 00:14:27.649 --> 00:14:29.750 case, but the result was clear. That left Pericles 00:14:29.750 --> 00:14:32.389 standing alone at the top of the hill. Precisely. 00:14:32.690 --> 00:14:36.669 By 460 D .C., the rival is gone. The mentor is 00:14:36.669 --> 00:14:38.789 gone. The people are loyal because the state 00:14:38.789 --> 00:14:41.509 is paying them. But now Pericles has a cash flow 00:14:41.509 --> 00:14:44.389 problem. These programs and the incredible buildings 00:14:44.389 --> 00:14:47.950 he wants to build are expensive. Athens doesn't 00:14:47.950 --> 00:14:50.070 have income tax. So where does the money come 00:14:50.070 --> 00:14:52.389 from? This is where the story shifts from democracy 00:14:52.389 --> 00:14:56.120 to empire. It comes from the Delian League. This 00:14:56.120 --> 00:14:58.919 is the dark engine of the Golden Age. To understand 00:14:58.919 --> 00:15:00.899 the Parthenon, you have to understand the Delian 00:15:00.899 --> 00:15:03.879 League. The Delian League started as a kind of 00:15:03.879 --> 00:15:06.700 NATO -style alliance against Persia, right? After 00:15:06.700 --> 00:15:09.379 the big wars. Correct. After the Persian Wars, 00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:12.200 the Greek cities formed a league. They kept the 00:15:12.200 --> 00:15:15.200 treasury on the sacred island of Delos. Everyone 00:15:15.200 --> 00:15:17.360 chipped in money or ships to keep the Persian 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:20.559 navy away. Athens was the leader, but it was 00:15:20.559 --> 00:15:23.299 supposed to be a partnership of equals. But by 00:15:23.299 --> 00:15:25.620 Pericles' time... The Persians weren't really 00:15:25.620 --> 00:15:28.019 a serious threat anymore. The threat had receded, 00:15:28.120 --> 00:15:32.080 but the payments hadn't. In 454 BC, Pericles 00:15:32.080 --> 00:15:34.159 orchestrated the transfer of the League's treasury 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:36.960 from Delos to Athens. And the excuse was? He 00:15:36.960 --> 00:15:39.240 claimed it was for security, because Delos was 00:15:39.240 --> 00:15:41.600 vulnerable to pirates or Persians, but the reality 00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:45.000 was control. Once the money was in Athens, Pericles 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:47.179 started treating it like Athens' personal bank 00:15:47.179 --> 00:15:49.519 account. And he also imposed the coinage decree, 00:15:49.679 --> 00:15:52.759 right? What was that about? Yes, around 447 BC. 00:15:53.399 --> 00:15:56.179 He forced all the allies to use Athenian silver 00:15:56.179 --> 00:16:00.120 coins, weights and measures. It's economic imperialism 00:16:00.120 --> 00:16:03.279 101. You standardize the economy to benefit the 00:16:03.279 --> 00:16:05.679 central power. So if you were a merchant in, 00:16:05.779 --> 00:16:08.879 say, Naxos, you had to use Athenian coin. Which 00:16:08.879 --> 00:16:11.080 meant Athens controlled the exchange rate and 00:16:11.080 --> 00:16:12.960 the flow of trade. It was another layer of control. 00:16:13.179 --> 00:16:15.379 But the big controversy was what he did with 00:16:15.379 --> 00:16:17.259 that cash. He didn't just use it for ships. He 00:16:17.259 --> 00:16:20.059 used it for marble. Massive amounts of it. Pericles 00:16:20.059 --> 00:16:23.000 proposed a decree allowing the use of 9 ,000 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:24.820 talents of silver from the alliance treasury 00:16:24.820 --> 00:16:27.960 to fund his building program. This is the money 00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:30.360 that built the Parthenon, the Propylaia, the 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:33.480 Odeon, the gold and ivory statue of Athena. Help 00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:36.480 us visualize 9 ,000 talents. What kind of money 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:38.279 are we talking about here? To give you some context, 00:16:38.600 --> 00:16:41.240 one talent was enough to pay the entire crew 00:16:41.240 --> 00:16:43.820 of a warship, that's 200 rowers, for a full month. 00:16:43.899 --> 00:16:46.799 A skilled worker earned maybe 1 ,300th of a talent 00:16:46.799 --> 00:16:50.820 in a year. 9 ,000 talenses. It's billions of 00:16:50.820 --> 00:16:52.759 dollars in modern purchasing power. It was an 00:16:52.759 --> 00:16:55.159 astronomical sum. And this wasn't Athenian money. 00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:58.279 This was money from allies, from Naxos, from 00:16:58.279 --> 00:17:00.519 Lesbos, who thought they were paying for defense 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:03.759 against Persia. Instead, they were paying for 00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:07.299 Pericles to beautify his own city. It was blatant 00:17:07.299 --> 00:17:10.279 embezzlement on a state level. And his enemies 00:17:10.279 --> 00:17:13.140 called him out on it. A new conservative leader. 00:17:13.609 --> 00:17:16.490 Thucydides, not the historian, but a politician 00:17:16.490 --> 00:17:19.569 of the same name, stood up in the assembly and 00:17:19.569 --> 00:17:22.750 accused Pericles of profligacy. I love the specific 00:17:22.750 --> 00:17:25.190 insult he used. Something about a woman and jewels. 00:17:25.670 --> 00:17:28.490 Yes, Thucydides said, we are disgracing ourselves. 00:17:28.589 --> 00:17:30.890 We are acting like a vain woman decking herself 00:17:30.890 --> 00:17:34.349 out in stolen jewels. He argued that Athens was 00:17:34.349 --> 00:17:37.150 becoming a tyrant city. And Pericles' response 00:17:37.150 --> 00:17:39.390 to this is one of the greatest political maneuvers 00:17:39.390 --> 00:17:41.630 I have ever read. It's pure arrogance, but it 00:17:41.630 --> 00:17:44.230 worked. It is the ultimate gamble. Pericles stood 00:17:44.230 --> 00:17:45.910 up in the assembly and asked the people, do you 00:17:45.910 --> 00:17:47.650 think I'm spending too much money? And the crowd 00:17:47.650 --> 00:17:50.490 wore back, yes, it's too much. So he's cornered. 00:17:50.569 --> 00:17:53.150 The people agree with the critics. This should 00:17:53.150 --> 00:17:55.869 be the end for him. You would think. But then 00:17:55.869 --> 00:17:59.089 he plays his ace. He says, very well, I will 00:17:59.089 --> 00:18:01.690 pay for all the buildings myself. I will write 00:18:01.690 --> 00:18:04.410 the check from my own private estate. Was that 00:18:04.410 --> 00:18:06.710 a bluff? Could he have actually afforded that? 00:18:07.089 --> 00:18:09.650 Maybe some of it, but. Certainly not all. It 00:18:09.650 --> 00:18:12.390 was a huge bluff. But he added a condition. He 00:18:12.390 --> 00:18:15.890 said, but if I pay for them, I will not dedicate 00:18:15.890 --> 00:18:18.750 them to the people of Athens. I will carve only 00:18:18.750 --> 00:18:21.509 my name on the Parthenon. It will be Pericles' 00:18:21.650 --> 00:18:23.769 monument, not yours. And the psychology of the 00:18:23.769 --> 00:18:26.990 crowd just flipped instantly. Instantly. They 00:18:26.990 --> 00:18:29.349 shouted back, no, spend the public money. Spend 00:18:29.349 --> 00:18:31.819 as much as you want. They were so jealous of 00:18:31.819 --> 00:18:33.779 the glory they couldn't bear the idea of him 00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:36.440 taking the credit. He tricked them into approving 00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:38.240 the embezzlement by threatening to take the credit 00:18:38.240 --> 00:18:40.980 for himself. That is master manipulation. He 00:18:40.980 --> 00:18:43.299 knew the Athenian ego was bigger than their conscience. 00:18:43.480 --> 00:18:46.799 Exactly. Thucydides, the rival, was ostracized 00:18:46.799 --> 00:18:50.359 in 442 BC and Pericles was left alone to build 00:18:50.359 --> 00:18:53.420 his city. But it wasn't just building. Maintaining 00:18:53.420 --> 00:18:57.019 this empire required, well, brutality. We have 00:18:57.019 --> 00:18:59.779 to talk about the Samian War in 440 BC. This 00:18:59.779 --> 00:19:02.279 wasn't a defense against Persia. This was Athens 00:19:02.279 --> 00:19:05.539 crushing one of its own allies. This is the dark 00:19:05.539 --> 00:19:09.680 underbelly of the Golden Age. Samos and Miletus, 00:19:09.740 --> 00:19:11.980 two allies in the league, were fighting over 00:19:11.980 --> 00:19:16.029 control of a small town. Athens intervened. Samos 00:19:16.029 --> 00:19:18.930 revolted against the Athenian interference. And 00:19:18.930 --> 00:19:20.670 Pericles didn't treat them like partners. He 00:19:20.670 --> 00:19:23.430 treated them like subjects. He led the fleet, 00:19:23.589 --> 00:19:26.029 besieged the city for eight months and forced 00:19:26.029 --> 00:19:28.029 them to surrender. And penalties were harsh. 00:19:28.269 --> 00:19:30.470 He tore down their walls, seized their fleet 00:19:30.470 --> 00:19:33.430 and forced them to pay massive war reparations. 00:19:33.730 --> 00:19:36.509 There are even accounts, though some historians 00:19:36.509 --> 00:19:39.289 dispute them, that he branded the prisoners on 00:19:39.289 --> 00:19:41.170 their foreheads with the mark of an owl, the 00:19:41.170 --> 00:19:43.930 symbol of Athens. Wow. Marking them like cattle. 00:19:44.049 --> 00:19:46.230 Marking them as state property. That's gruesome. 00:19:46.329 --> 00:19:48.950 And there was a rumor about why he attacked Samos 00:19:48.950 --> 00:19:51.910 so specifically. Because Samos was fighting Miletus. 00:19:52.289 --> 00:19:54.970 And who was from Miletus? Aspasia. Let's pivot 00:19:54.970 --> 00:19:57.009 to Aspasia. Because you cannot tell the story 00:19:57.009 --> 00:19:59.069 of Pericles without her. She wasn't just a mistress 00:19:59.069 --> 00:20:01.890 or some footnote. No, mistress completely diminishes 00:20:01.890 --> 00:20:05.309 her. Aspasia was a hetera. In Athens, women were 00:20:05.309 --> 00:20:07.609 generally secluded, uneducated, and kept out 00:20:07.609 --> 00:20:10.289 of public life. A respectable wife stayed in 00:20:10.289 --> 00:20:12.519 the women's quarters. But a hetero was different. 00:20:12.700 --> 00:20:14.980 Very different. They were high -class courtesans, 00:20:15.180 --> 00:20:18.220 yes, but they were also educated, independent, 00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:20.740 and allowed to converse with men. She was an 00:20:20.740 --> 00:20:23.240 intellectual partner. Socrates, the Socrates, 00:20:23.500 --> 00:20:26.119 used to visit her house to learn rhetoric from 00:20:26.119 --> 00:20:29.559 her. Plato even hints in his dialogue Menexenus 00:20:29.559 --> 00:20:32.220 that she actually wrote Pericles' famous speeches 00:20:32.220 --> 00:20:35.380 for him. She ran a salon where the greatest minds 00:20:35.380 --> 00:20:37.980 of Athens gathered. Pericles actually divorced 00:20:37.980 --> 00:20:40.720 his wife to be with her, right? Yes, around 440. 00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:44.019 445 BC, the sources say he offered his wife to 00:20:44.019 --> 00:20:46.819 another husband with the consent of her male 00:20:46.819 --> 00:20:48.839 relatives, which was the custom, and then he 00:20:48.839 --> 00:20:51.220 moved Aspasia into his home. But she must have 00:20:51.220 --> 00:20:53.319 been a lightning rod for scandal. She was the 00:20:53.319 --> 00:20:55.720 perfect target. She was foreigner from Aelitas, 00:20:55.799 --> 00:20:57.779 she was a woman, and she had the ear of the leader. 00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:01.039 The comic poets called her the new Amphal, referring 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:03.680 to the mythological queen who enslaved Hercules, 00:21:03.759 --> 00:21:06.900 or sometimes just the whore. And remember that 00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:10.039 citizenship law Pericles passed. The one that 00:21:10.039 --> 00:21:12.140 said you couldn't be a citizen unless both parents 00:21:12.140 --> 00:21:14.619 were Athenian. That law meant he could never 00:21:14.619 --> 00:21:17.220 legally marry Aspatia. She could never be an 00:21:17.220 --> 00:21:20.119 Athenian citizen. The irony is so thick. He created 00:21:20.119 --> 00:21:22.359 the legal barrier that kept his own partner on 00:21:22.359 --> 00:21:25.579 the outside. And his enemies used her to get 00:21:25.579 --> 00:21:28.259 to him. They actually put her on trial. What 00:21:28.259 --> 00:21:31.380 was the charge? Impiety and procuring. They accused 00:21:31.380 --> 00:21:33.920 her of disrespecting the gods and of running 00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:36.859 a brothel, supplying freeborn Athenian women 00:21:36.859 --> 00:21:39.420 to satisfy Pericles' perversions. It was obviously 00:21:39.420 --> 00:21:42.160 a political hit job. A show trial designed to 00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:44.480 humiliate him. And this is the one moment where 00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:48.579 that stoic, calm mask cracked. In court. Yes. 00:21:49.670 --> 00:21:52.250 Essencius Socraticus tells us that Pericles didn't 00:21:52.250 --> 00:21:55.390 use his famous logic. He stood before the jury 00:21:55.390 --> 00:21:58.289 and wept. He begged the jurors to acquit her, 00:21:58.329 --> 00:22:00.529 not based on the facts, but as a personal favor 00:22:00.529 --> 00:22:03.369 to them. The first citizen crying in court. It 00:22:03.369 --> 00:22:05.750 really shows how precarious his position actually 00:22:05.750 --> 00:22:08.930 was, despite all the power. It was a toxic atmosphere 00:22:08.930 --> 00:22:10.809 just before the war. They also went after his 00:22:10.809 --> 00:22:12.769 friend Phidias, the sculptor of the Parthenon. 00:22:12.829 --> 00:22:14.890 They accused him of stealing gold from the statue 00:22:14.890 --> 00:22:17.759 of Athena. How did they try to prove that? Well, 00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:20.779 Pericles was smart. He had told Phidias, make 00:22:20.779 --> 00:22:23.839 the gold plates on the statue removable. So when 00:22:23.839 --> 00:22:25.640 the accusation came, they just took the gold 00:22:25.640 --> 00:22:27.819 off, weighed it, and proved it was all there. 00:22:28.000 --> 00:22:30.259 So the charge was bogus. So they changed the 00:22:30.259 --> 00:22:33.140 charge. When the theft charge failed, they accused 00:22:33.140 --> 00:22:36.440 Phidias of blasphemy. They said that on the shield 00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:38.759 of Athena, amidst the carving of the Battle of 00:22:38.759 --> 00:22:41.460 the Amazons, Phidias had carved a figure that 00:22:41.460 --> 00:22:45.000 looked like himself. a bald old man, and another, 00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:47.740 a very fine likeness of Pericles fighting in 00:22:47.740 --> 00:22:50.259 Amazon. Inserting yourself and your boss into 00:22:50.259 --> 00:22:53.059 a religious icon, that's a bold move. It cost 00:22:53.059 --> 00:22:57.039 him his life. Phidias died in prison, and Anaxagoras, 00:22:57.099 --> 00:22:59.660 his old teacher, He was attacked for his religious 00:22:59.660 --> 00:23:02.200 beliefs, specifically for saying the sun was 00:23:02.200 --> 00:23:04.640 just a hot rock and not a god, and had to flee 00:23:04.640 --> 00:23:07.519 Athens. So Pericles is seeing his inner circle 00:23:07.519 --> 00:23:10.039 just dismantled one by one. They're picking off 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.920 his friends to weaken him. So Pericles is standing 00:23:12.920 --> 00:23:16.039 somewhat alone. His friends are dead or exiled. 00:23:16.160 --> 00:23:19.339 His partner is being slandered. And on the horizon, 00:23:19.420 --> 00:23:22.619 the biggest storm of all is gathering. The Peloponnesian 00:23:22.619 --> 00:23:24.779 War. The war that would define and ultimately 00:23:24.779 --> 00:23:27.740 destroy the Athenian Empire. Now, Thucydides, 00:23:28.019 --> 00:23:31.599 the historian, famously says the real cause was 00:23:31.599 --> 00:23:35.019 Sparta's fear of Athenian growth. You know, the 00:23:35.019 --> 00:23:39.019 Thucydides trap. But there were specific triggers, 00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:41.200 right? There were, and Pericles was right in 00:23:41.200 --> 00:23:43.390 the middle of them. The most famous one is the 00:23:43.390 --> 00:23:46.130 Megarian Decree. This sounds remarkably modern, 00:23:46.250 --> 00:23:49.210 like something out of the WTO or the UN. It really 00:23:49.210 --> 00:23:51.450 does. It was a trade embargo. Pericles passed 00:23:51.450 --> 00:23:54.269 a law banning Megarian merchants from the market 00:23:54.269 --> 00:23:56.690 of Athens and all the ports in its empire. Why? 00:23:57.210 --> 00:23:59.289 What was the reason given? The official justification 00:23:59.289 --> 00:24:01.809 was that Megarians had cultivated sacred land 00:24:01.809 --> 00:24:04.589 and harbored runaway slaves. But the real effect 00:24:04.589 --> 00:24:07.809 was economic strangulation. Modern scholars call 00:24:07.809 --> 00:24:09.950 this the first economic sanction in history. 00:24:10.450 --> 00:24:12.730 Pericles was trying to destroy a Spartan ally 00:24:12.730 --> 00:24:15.410 without using an army. And Sparta, being allied 00:24:15.410 --> 00:24:17.549 with Megara, took this personally. They did. 00:24:17.730 --> 00:24:20.130 Sparta sent a deputation demanding the retraction 00:24:20.130 --> 00:24:22.609 of the decree. They also demanded the expulsion 00:24:22.609 --> 00:24:25.349 of the Alcmianidae, which was a direct shot at 00:24:25.349 --> 00:24:27.740 Pericles' family curse. So they were basically 00:24:27.740 --> 00:24:30.500 saying, fire Pericles and lift the sanctions 00:24:30.500 --> 00:24:33.640 or it's war. That was the ultimatum. And Pericles 00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:36.539 refused to yield. He believed that making concessions 00:24:36.539 --> 00:24:38.880 would just lead to more demands. He told the 00:24:38.880 --> 00:24:41.819 Athenians, if you give in on this, they will 00:24:41.819 --> 00:24:44.140 think you are weak. You must hold the line. So 00:24:44.140 --> 00:24:48.480 war begins in 431 B .C. And Pericles reveals 00:24:48.480 --> 00:24:52.319 his grand strategy. And I have to say, if I were 00:24:52.319 --> 00:24:54.650 an Athenian farmer. I would have hated this plan. 00:24:54.769 --> 00:24:56.869 It was an incredibly counterintuitive strategy. 00:24:57.250 --> 00:24:59.589 Pericles knew Athens' strengths and weaknesses. 00:25:00.170 --> 00:25:02.430 Sparta had the best infantry in the world, the 00:25:02.430 --> 00:25:05.089 hoplites. If Athens fought them in a land battle, 00:25:05.210 --> 00:25:07.289 they would be crushed. But Athens had the navy. 00:25:07.450 --> 00:25:10.650 The best navy and crucially strong walls. So 00:25:10.650 --> 00:25:13.450 his plan was, run away. His plan was, evacuate. 00:25:13.970 --> 00:25:16.910 He convinced the entire rural population of Attica, 00:25:16.990 --> 00:25:19.170 thousands and thousands of people, to abandon 00:25:19.170 --> 00:25:21.509 their farms, their homes, their ancestral lands, 00:25:21.630 --> 00:25:23.680 and move inside the land. long walls of Athens. 00:25:23.940 --> 00:25:26.460 Imagine the psychological cost of that. You are 00:25:26.460 --> 00:25:28.519 an Athenian farmer. You are standing on the walls 00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:31.220 looking down and watching the Spartan king Archidamus 00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:33.839 burn your ancestral farm. You see your olive 00:25:33.839 --> 00:25:35.940 trees, which take 20 years to grow, going up 00:25:35.940 --> 00:25:38.619 in smoke. And Pericles is standing next to you 00:25:38.619 --> 00:25:41.380 saying, don't worry, this is all part of the 00:25:41.380 --> 00:25:44.059 plan. It must have been excruciating. Thucydides 00:25:44.059 --> 00:25:46.700 describes the anger. The people were furious. 00:25:46.799 --> 00:25:48.900 They wanted to go out and fight. They felt like 00:25:48.900 --> 00:25:51.839 cowards hiding behind a wall. And there is a 00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:54.779 weird personal twist here, too. King Archidamus 00:25:54.779 --> 00:25:57.099 of Sparta was actually a personal friend of Pericles. 00:25:57.240 --> 00:25:59.680 Yes, the guest friendship tradition, which was 00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:02.980 a very serious bond. And Pericles was worried 00:26:02.980 --> 00:26:05.420 about this. He thought, what if Archidamus burns 00:26:05.420 --> 00:26:07.759 everyone else's farm but spares mine because 00:26:07.759 --> 00:26:09.640 we're friends? That would look terrible politically. 00:26:09.940 --> 00:26:11.960 It would look like collusion, like he's a traitor. 00:26:12.299 --> 00:26:15.319 Exactly. So Pericles preempted it. He stood up 00:26:15.319 --> 00:26:17.519 in the assembly and announced, if the enemy spares 00:26:17.519 --> 00:26:19.779 my estate, I hereby donate it to the city of 00:26:19.779 --> 00:26:22.839 Athens to be... used as public land. He neutralized 00:26:22.839 --> 00:26:25.119 the rumor before it could even start. So smart. 00:26:25.339 --> 00:26:27.799 But the tension inside the city was rising. It 00:26:27.799 --> 00:26:30.740 was crowded. It was hot. And then in the winter 00:26:30.740 --> 00:26:34.920 of 431 -430 BC, Pericles delivers one of the 00:26:34.920 --> 00:26:38.160 most famous speeches in human history, the Funeral 00:26:38.160 --> 00:26:40.799 Oration. This is the speech that defines the 00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:43.319 Golden Age. He delivered it to honor the first 00:26:43.319 --> 00:26:45.819 war dead. But if you read it, he didn't really 00:26:45.819 --> 00:26:48.700 focus on the dead soldiers. He eulogized the 00:26:48.700 --> 00:26:51.119 city of Athens itself. He talks about democracy, 00:26:51.400 --> 00:26:53.799 about how Athenians live freely and enjoy life, 00:26:53.920 --> 00:26:56.279 how they're open to the world. Exactly. He painted 00:26:56.279 --> 00:26:58.619 a picture of Athens as an ideal society, the 00:26:58.619 --> 00:27:01.240 school of Hellas, he called it. He said, we do 00:27:01.240 --> 00:27:03.779 not copy our neighbors, but are an example to 00:27:03.779 --> 00:27:07.099 them. It was designed to boost morale, to remind 00:27:07.099 --> 00:27:09.200 them why they were suffering inside these walls. 00:27:09.500 --> 00:27:12.059 He was selling the war. It's a beautiful speech, 00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:15.000 but reading it now, knowing what happens next. 00:27:15.519 --> 00:27:18.019 It feels so tragic because just a few months 00:27:18.019 --> 00:27:20.319 later, the strategy falls apart in the most horrific 00:27:20.319 --> 00:27:23.039 way possible. The plague? You crowd the entire 00:27:23.039 --> 00:27:25.400 population of Attica into a single city in the 00:27:25.400 --> 00:27:27.599 middle of a hot summer, hygiene breaks down, 00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:31.960 and then a disease arrives. 430 BC, the plague 00:27:31.960 --> 00:27:34.839 of Athens. We still aren't 100 percent sure what 00:27:34.839 --> 00:27:36.980 it was. Typhus or typhoid fever are the leading 00:27:36.980 --> 00:27:39.480 suspects, maybe even something like Ebola. But 00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:41.819 it was devastating. Thucydides caught it himself 00:27:41.819 --> 00:27:44.019 and survived. So his account is clinical and 00:27:44.019 --> 00:27:46.940 just terrifying. He describes the burning fever. 00:27:47.420 --> 00:27:50.960 The red eyes, bleeding throats, violent coughing. 00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.319 And the social breakdown. People were dying so 00:27:53.319 --> 00:27:55.619 fast they couldn't be buried. There were piling 00:27:55.619 --> 00:27:58.180 bodies in the temples. Law and order completely 00:27:58.180 --> 00:28:01.000 collapsed. Thucydides notes that people stopped 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:03.039 fearing the gods because they saw that the pious 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:05.960 died just as fast as the wicked. So it became 00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:09.619 eat, drink, and be merry. For tomorrow we die. 00:28:09.799 --> 00:28:12.660 A literal motto. And naturally, the people blamed 00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:14.599 the guy who told them to move into the city in 00:28:14.599 --> 00:28:17.099 the first place. They turned on Pericles. Viciously. 00:28:17.299 --> 00:28:19.619 They blamed him for the war and the crowding. 00:28:19.700 --> 00:28:22.000 They fined him a massive amount, somewhere between 00:28:22.000 --> 00:28:25.960 15 and 50 talents, and stripped him of his generalship. 00:28:26.019 --> 00:28:27.960 They fired him. In the middle of the crisis, 00:28:28.039 --> 00:28:30.700 he engineered. They fired him. But the tragedy 00:28:30.700 --> 00:28:33.240 for Pericles wasn't just political. It was deeply 00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:36.380 personal. The plague entered his own house. He 00:28:36.380 --> 00:28:39.140 lost his sister. And then he lost both of his 00:28:39.140 --> 00:28:42.440 legitimate sons, Perilous and Xanthippus. And 00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:44.539 this is where the irony of his life comes full 00:28:44.539 --> 00:28:47.200 circle. Remember that citizenship law from 451 00:28:47.200 --> 00:28:49.799 BC? The one that said you needed two Athenian 00:28:49.799 --> 00:28:53.460 parents to be a citizen? Yes. His legitimate 00:28:53.460 --> 00:28:56.880 sons were now dead. His line was ending. He had 00:28:56.880 --> 00:28:59.700 one surviving son, Pericles the Younger, but 00:28:59.700 --> 00:29:02.240 that was his son with Estasia. The foreigner. 00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:05.279 The foreigner. By Pericles' own law, that boy 00:29:05.279 --> 00:29:08.390 was not a citizen. The law he wrote to protect 00:29:08.390 --> 00:29:11.130 the purity of Athens was now preventing him from 00:29:11.130 --> 00:29:13.490 having an heir. That is a Greek tragedy writing 00:29:13.490 --> 00:29:15.490 itself. You couldn't make that up. It is. But 00:29:15.490 --> 00:29:18.049 Plutarch reports that at the funeral of his last 00:29:18.049 --> 00:29:20.849 legitimate son, Pericles tried to place a wreath 00:29:20.849 --> 00:29:23.910 on the body and just. He collapsed, sobbing. 00:29:24.170 --> 00:29:27.440 The man known for his iron self -control. broken. 00:29:27.619 --> 00:29:29.980 And the people saw this. The Athenian people, 00:29:30.200 --> 00:29:32.900 seeing their broken leader, finally showed mercy. 00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:35.859 They passed a special exemption to retroactively 00:29:35.859 --> 00:29:38.680 make his illegitimate son a citizen. They reinstated 00:29:38.680 --> 00:29:40.619 Pericles as general too, didn't they? They did 00:29:40.619 --> 00:29:43.599 in 429 BC. They forgave him. I think they realized 00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:46.279 the other leaders, people like Cleon, were just 00:29:46.279 --> 00:29:48.380 angry populists with no real vision. They needed 00:29:48.380 --> 00:29:51.000 Pericles back. That was too late. It was. Pericles 00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:52.859 himself caught the plague. And the death scene 00:29:52.859 --> 00:29:55.299 is, it's just so perfectly Pericles. It sums 00:29:55.299 --> 00:29:57.579 him up completely. It does. Plutarch sets the 00:29:57.579 --> 00:29:59.740 scene. He is dying. His friends are gathered 00:29:59.740 --> 00:30:02.319 around the bed. And they're listing his great 00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:05.000 achievements, his nine war trophies, his military 00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:07.900 victories. They think he's unconscious. But he's 00:30:07.900 --> 00:30:10.180 listening. He is. He interrupts them. And he 00:30:10.180 --> 00:30:12.539 says, you are praising me for things that were 00:30:12.539 --> 00:30:15.259 partly due to fortune, but you forgot the most 00:30:15.259 --> 00:30:18.900 important thing. What was it? He said, no living 00:30:18.900 --> 00:30:21.059 Athenian ever put on mourning because of me. 00:30:21.180 --> 00:30:24.119 No living Athenian ever put on mourning because 00:30:24.119 --> 00:30:28.140 of me. That is a heavy statement. What exactly 00:30:28.140 --> 00:30:30.359 did he mean by that? He meant that in all his 00:30:30.359 --> 00:30:32.880 years of absolute power, he never purged his 00:30:32.880 --> 00:30:35.539 internal enemies. He never caused a civil war. 00:30:35.700 --> 00:30:39.059 He never executed his political rivals. He ostracized 00:30:39.059 --> 00:30:42.000 Saman, sure, but he didn't kill him. He managed 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:44.200 a democracy without becoming a tyrant who shed 00:30:44.200 --> 00:30:46.700 the blood of his own people. Which is true, internally. 00:30:47.160 --> 00:30:49.720 But externally... Thousands and thousands of 00:30:49.720 --> 00:30:52.200 people died in his wars. And that is the contradiction 00:30:52.200 --> 00:30:54.519 at the heart of the man. He was proud that he 00:30:54.519 --> 00:30:56.619 didn't kill Athenians, even while his policies 00:30:56.619 --> 00:30:58.779 sent them to die in battle against Spartans and 00:30:58.779 --> 00:31:02.920 their allies. So he dies in 429 BC. Athens fights 00:31:02.920 --> 00:31:05.500 on for another 25 years, but they eventually 00:31:05.500 --> 00:31:08.700 lose. The Golden Age ends. So how do we assess 00:31:08.700 --> 00:31:11.640 him? Thucydides gave a pretty clear verdict. 00:31:11.920 --> 00:31:15.140 Thucydides said Athens was in name a democracy, 00:31:15.339 --> 00:31:18.480 but in fact governed by its first citizen. He 00:31:18.480 --> 00:31:21.000 believed Pericles led the people rather than 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:23.640 being led by them. And he contrasted Pericles 00:31:23.640 --> 00:31:26.680 with the guys who came after. Yes, successors 00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:29.839 like Cleon, who in Thucydides' view just pandered 00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:32.039 to the mob's worst instincts and ruined the city. 00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:35.400 For Thucydides, Pericles was the last great statesman. 00:31:35.619 --> 00:31:39.369 But is that fair? Was Pericles' strategy actually 00:31:39.369 --> 00:31:42.369 good? Was it sustainable? That is the big debate. 00:31:42.769 --> 00:31:45.769 Critics, both modern and ancient, argue his strategy 00:31:45.769 --> 00:31:47.730 was doomed from the start. It was too defensive. 00:31:47.869 --> 00:31:50.250 It was too expensive. The historian Donald Kagan 00:31:50.250 --> 00:31:52.470 estimates it cost 2 ,000 talents a year just 00:31:52.470 --> 00:31:54.529 to keep the strategy going. And it relied on 00:31:54.529 --> 00:31:56.650 him. It relied too much on his personal authority. 00:31:56.930 --> 00:31:59.029 When he died, the plan fell apart because no 00:31:59.029 --> 00:32:01.130 one else could execute it. No one else had the 00:32:01.130 --> 00:32:02.970 credibility to tell the farmers to watch their 00:32:02.970 --> 00:32:05.450 homes burn. It's the classic great man problem. 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:08.839 He built a system that only he could run. Precisely. 00:32:09.140 --> 00:32:11.940 And by building an empire on tribute, he made 00:32:11.940 --> 00:32:15.759 Athens hated. The war was, in a way, a reaction 00:32:15.759 --> 00:32:18.859 to the very empire he built. He built the Parthenon, 00:32:18.859 --> 00:32:20.980 but he built it on a foundation of resentment. 00:32:21.420 --> 00:32:23.440 So here's the final thought then. The Golden 00:32:23.440 --> 00:32:27.390 Age is inextricably linked to this one man. He 00:32:27.390 --> 00:32:29.150 built the Parthenon with questionable funds, 00:32:29.349 --> 00:32:32.130 started a war he didn't live to finish, and died 00:32:32.130 --> 00:32:34.210 amid a plague he may have inadvertently made 00:32:34.210 --> 00:32:37.109 worse. Yet, he set the standard for the statesman 00:32:37.109 --> 00:32:40.130 incorruptible, mostly eloquent and visionary. 00:32:40.630 --> 00:32:43.589 He defined the era. Without him, we probably 00:32:43.589 --> 00:32:45.190 wouldn't be talking about Athens in the same 00:32:45.190 --> 00:32:47.450 way today. So here's a provocative question for 00:32:47.450 --> 00:32:50.269 you listening. If Pericles had survived the plague, 00:32:50.490 --> 00:32:53.490 if he had lived another 10 years, would Athens 00:32:53.490 --> 00:32:55.940 have won the war? Or was the empire he built 00:32:55.940 --> 00:32:58.539 already a bubble waiting to burst, destined to 00:32:58.539 --> 00:33:00.480 collapse under its own weight no matter who is 00:33:00.480 --> 00:33:03.140 in charge? It is the ultimate what -if of ancient 00:33:03.140 --> 00:33:06.099 history. We will never know. But we do know that 00:33:06.099 --> 00:33:08.759 for a few decades, under the squill head, Athens 00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:10.839 shone brighter than almost anywhere else in history. 00:33:11.400 --> 00:33:13.059 Thanks for diving in with us. Until the next 00:33:13.059 --> 00:33:13.220 one.