Do you know who Pericles is? I sure don’t but, when I found some information about who he is and what he does I understood that he was quite important. It all started with his parents Xanthippus and Agariste.
His father was a famous leader of the Persian war and his mother was the niece of the famous statesman, Cleisthenes. They decided to have a child and name him Pericles and he was born in 495 BC in Athens, Greece.His name stood for “surrounded by glory,” but that meaning will make sense later in the paper but for now I’ll give you some background information.
In Pericles early life when he was just a toddler, Persia tried to take over Greece but was defeated.
Later on he got an outstanding education in music, math, politics, ethics,
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When the Athens were continuing to grow in power and wealth this concerned the Spartans. They thought that the Athens were growing too powerful and they wanted to stop it so then the Peloponnesian War began in 431 BC between the Athens and Spartans.Not long after the war Pericles gave a famous speech and that was called “Funeral Oration,” and that was to honor all the soldiers who fought in the war and didn’t make it to their families. This speech is written down and is one of the many ways people know how the Athens thought and what they did.
Pericles made some many ideas and new laws but when he was fighting Sparta he had a strategy to fight them in water and not land. Although, Sparta had a stronger arm, Athens had a stronger Navy. Some people thought that using the water would actually work but a plague got to them and many of the people were the victims and they died. One of those victims were Pericles and he died in 429 BC in Autumn. While he was slowly approaching death his friends and family were surrounding his bed while he was dying.
Later on Athens strived popularity and wanted to be the next Pericles but that never happened because after Pericles death his so doing doomed the empire and left it to