Level A THE THREE HOUSES IN THE STOAS OF THE ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE HOUSE OF PERICLES AND ASPASIA PERICLES and THE GOLDEN AGE OF ATHENS factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub366/entry-6168.html Pericles The Golden Age of Athens was during the rule of Pericles over Athens from 457 B.C. to 430 B.C. During this time the Parthenon was built, Aeschylus, Aristophanes and Sophocles were producing plays in the theater beside the Acropolis and democracy flourished. Pericles ruled over what has been described as the world's first democracy and mathematics, the arts, history, astronomy and philosophy flourished under Socrates, the Sophists, Herodotus and Thucydides. During the Golden Age of Greece Athens was home to about 75,000 people and and between 200,000 and 250,000 lived in the surrounding countryside called "Attica." The city had an area of about 0.7 square miles. Under Athens and the Delian League the Greeks ruled much of the Mediterranean and trade flourished. Using iron to make tools, superior ships, weapons and machines Athens grew rich by exporting silver and olives. The money earned from this trade was used to construct other great building and support the arts and sciences. But things were not always as rosy as they seemed on the surface. A lot of the money used to build the Parthenon was looted from the Delian League treasury, less than a quarter of the population had political rights, slaves were often used instead of machines because they were cheaper, and war with Sparta was imminent. The upper classes ruled the government and many of the democratic reforms, such as payment for jury duty, were attempts to placate the lower classes with welfare payments and keep them in place. In the plains of Attica there only about 250,000 people. The population of the city-state of Athens had would later be reduced by the Peloponnesian wars and the plague from around 80,000 to as a low as 21,000." Book: Athens, A Portrait of a City in Its Golden Age by Christian Meier (Metropolitan Books, Henry Holy & Company, 1998] Delian League and the Payment of Tribute Money to Athens Delian League tributes Concerned about further attacks by Persia, 200 Greek city-states formed an Athens-led alliance called the Delian League (sometimes also called the Delios League) in 478 B.C. In exchange for money or ships, Athens fleet of ships evicted the Persians, cleared out pirates and secured trade access to the Black Sea. As Athens’ power grew other city states resented their position as "subjects." Named after the site of it headquarters, the sacred island of Delos, the Delian League was essentially a organization set up for city states to pay tribute money to Athens in exchange for protection. The arrangement wasn't all that different from protection money paid by businesses to organized gangs. With this money Athens beefed up its navy, making it even stronger, and embarked on expensive building campaigns such as the construction of the Acropolis and the building of the Parthenon. Surviving fragments of financial accounts, which were inscribed on stone for the public to see estimate the construction budget of the Parthenon to be 340 to 800 silver talents---a considerable sum at a time when a single talent could be a month's wage for a 170 oarsmen on a Greek warship. The Delain League was preceded by the Peloponnesian League, a Sparta-dominated alliance in the Peloponnesus that existed from the 6th to the 4th centuries B.C.. It is known mainly for being one of the two rivals in the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), against the Delian League, which was dominated by Athens. [Source: Wikipedia +] The Peloponnesian League was organized with Sparta as the hegemon, and was controlled by the council of allies which was composed of two bodies: the assembly of Spartans and the Congress of Allies. Each allied state had one vote in the Congress, regardless of that state's size or geopolitical power. No tribute was paid except in times of war, when one third of the military of a state could be requested. Only Sparta could call a Congress of the League. All alliances were made with Sparta only, so if they so wished, member states had to form separate alliances with each other. And although each state had one vote, League resolutions were not binding on Sparta. Thus, the Peloponnesian League was not an "alliance" in the strictest sense of the word (nor was it wholly Peloponnesian for the entirety of its existence). The league provided protection and security to its members. It was a conservative alliance which supported Oligarchies and opposed tyrannies and democracies. + After the Persian Wars the League was expanded into the Hellenic League and included Athens and other states. The Hellenic League was led by Pausanias and, after he was recalled, by Cimon of Athens. Sparta withdrew from the Hellenic League, reforming the Peloponnesian League with its original allies. The Hellenic League then turned into the Athenian-led Delian League. This might have been caused by Sparta and its allies' unease over Athenian efforts to increase their power. The two Leagues eventually came into conflict with each other in the Peloponnesian War. + Ancient Greek Democracy The ancient Greeks are credited with founding democracy (a word derived from Greek words for people, demos , and kratos , rule) and literally means “rule by the people." In the early days most city-states, however, were ruled by local tyrants or oligarchies that formed citizen councils. The philosopher Democritus had nothing really to do with democracy. He is known for his theory on atoms. Pericles wrote: "Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands of the people, not a minority. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everybody is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty...This is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has not business here at all. jetons used in voting Plato once wrote democracy is a "delightful form of government, anarchic and motley." Some scholars have argued that democracy took root because citizens were more interested in success than domination. They were interested in impressing an audience or cutting a stylish figure than real power. There were few political institutions and the powers of persuasion held sway. Men had prove themselves in front of other men rather than hiding behind a birthrate or a title. See Separate Articles on Democracy in Ancient Greece and Government and Politics in Ancient Greece Democracy in Athens In Athens the assembly had grown powerful enough by around 500 B.C. that it was making laws and electing magistrates. By the Golden Age period the powers of the ruler were limited and day to day affairs were run by a council made of 10 generals. There were no political parties. Athens during it Golden Age was the home of the world's first democracy and the only polis with a government resembling a true democracy. Although the Athenian government had courts with juries and a political system where rich and poor free men were allowed to vote; women, foreigners, slaves and ex-slaves were not allowed to vote. Athenian democracy was wild and chaotic and easily hijacked by demagogues. The Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt described it as a “permanent terrorism exercised by the combination of sycophant, the or orators and the constant threat of public prosecution, especially for peculation and incompetence." Some historians say that the role of democracy has been exaggerated, and that Athens’ power resulted more from it military victories and money earned from trade than by a government supported by citizens. Pericles Pericles (490-429 B.C.) ruled over what has been described as the world's first democracy. Although he never claimed the highest title, archon , and described himself simply as one of the ten generals elected each year by the citizenry he was firmly in control during his 27 year rule over Athens and owed his position to his will, charisma and oratory skills. He was the model for the tyrant Creon who condemns Antigone to death and for Oedipus the King. Pericles instituted for public service, which expanded the realm of democracy, and looked after the welfare of the Athenian poor. But he also made Athens broke by diverted much of the money from the Delian League to finance the construction of Parthenon and other monumental structures. Pericles in a Marseille statue Pericles was a nobleman with “the bluest blood” and came from one of the wealthiest Athens families. Despite this he was popular with ordinary Athenians and had the rhetorical skills to talk them in doing almost anything. He reportedly had big ears. Images of him show his big ears under a helmet. Pericles was Athens most brilliant statesmen and orator and he seemed know it. He said, "The admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours." According to Encyclopædia Britannica: Pericles “was born about 490 B.C., the son of Xanthippus and Agariste. His father took a prominent part in Athenian politics, and in 479 held high command in the Greek squadron which annihilated the remnants of Xerxes' fleet at Mycale; through his mother, the niece of Cleisthenes, he was connected with the former tyrants of Sicyon and the family of the Alcmaeonidae.