Ebook: Periclean Athens

Book abstract: In the second and third quarters of the fifth century BC, when Athens became both politically and culturally dominant in the Greek world, Pericles became the leading figure in the city's public life. This concise and accessible introduction guides students through the key aspects of this most-studied period of ancient Greek history, focusing on the major developments, political and cultural, that took place under Pericles
Although a member of the group of families which had been most prominent for the past century or more, Pericles was a supporter of the democracy which was brought to completion in the 460s and 450s. At the same time Athens developed an empire of a kind which no Greek city had had before. The resulting political changes inspired religious developments and a new form of secularism, while the sophists revolutionised philosophy. This was also the period when Athenian tragedy became the principal Greek poetic form, when a series of temples and other buildings, on Athens' acropolis and elsewhere, attracted architects, builders and sculptors to Athens, and when Athenian red-figure pottery reached new heights of skill in the scenes painted on it.