PERICLES (Gr. PERIKLES), the most accomplished statesman of ancient Greece, was b. of distinguished parentage in the early part of the 5th e. mc. Iris father was that Xanthippus who won the victory over the Persians at Mycale, 479 B.C.. and his mother, Agariste. was the niece of the great Athenian reformer Cleisthenes. Pericles received an elaborate education; but of all his teachers. the one whom he most reverenced, and from whose instructions he derived most benefit. was the philosopher Anaxagoras (q.v.). Pericles was conspicuous all through his career for the singular dignity of his manners, the " Olympian" thunder of his eloquence, his sagacity, probity, and profound Athenian patriotism. When lie entered on public life, Aristides had only recently died, Thenus tocles was an exile, and Cimon was fighting the battles of his country abroad. Although the family to lie belonged was good, it did not rank among the first in point- of either wealth or influence, yet so transcendent were the abilities of Pericles, that he rap idly rose to the highest power in the state as the leader of the dominant democracy. The sincerity of his attachment to the " popular" party has been questioned, but with out the shadow of evidence. At any rate, the measures which either personally or through his adherents he brought forward and caused to be passed, were always in favor of extending the privileges of the poorer class of the citizens. Pericles seems to have grasped very clearly, and to have held as firmly, the modern "radical " idea, that as the state is supported by the taxation of the body of the eitizeng, it must governlvith a view to general and not to caste interests. In 401 me., Pericles, through lire agency of his follower, Ephialtes, struck a great blow at the influence of the oligarchy, by causing the decree to be passed which deprived the areopagus of its most important political powers. Shortly after, the democracy obtained another triumph in the ostracism of Cimon. During the next few years the political course pursued by Pericles is not very clearly discernible, but in general his attitude was hostile to the desire for con quest or territorial aggnmdizement, so prevalent among his ambitious fellow-citizens.
In 454 n.c., or shortly after, he magnanimously proposed the measure (which was car ried) for the recall of Cimon, and about the same time commenced negotiations with the other Hellenic states with the view of forming a grand Hellenic confederation, the design of which wad to put,an end to the mutually destructive wars of kindred peoples —to mak of Greece one mighty nation, fit to front the outlying world. The idea was not less sagacious than noble. 011id it been accomplished, the semi-barbarious Macedo nians would have menaced the civilized Greeks in vain, and even Rome at a later period might perhaps have Rabid the Adriatic, and not the Euphrates, the limits of her empire. But the Spartan aristocrats were utterly incapable of morally appreciating such exalted patriotism, or of understanding the political necessity for it, and by their secret intrigues brought the well-plannecl scheme to naught. Athens and Sparta were already, and indeed had for some time been, in that mood towards each other which rendered 1he future Peloponnesian war inevitable. They are always found on opposite sides. When the Spartans, in 448 B.C., restored to the Delphians the guardianship of the temple. and treasures of Delphi, of which they had been deprived by the Phocians, the Athenians immediately after marched an army thither, and reinstated the latter. Three years later, an insurrection broke out in the territories tributary to Athens, Megan', Eulicea, etc., and the Spartans again appeare'd in the field as the allies of the insurgents. The posi tion of Athens was critical. Pericles wisely declined to fight against all his enemies at once. A bribe of ten talents'sent the Spartans home, and the insurgents were then rap idly and thoroughly crushed.