PERICLES AND PLATO: A CONTRAST

Contrasting Views of Classical Athens: Pericles and Plato

Contrasting Views of Classical Athens: Pericles and Plato

Introduction

This paper contrasts the classical Athens- Pericles and Plato's views from multiple aspects in a concise way.

We must first recall Thucydides' explicit judgment of Pericles before tracing the conversation with this view sustained in the Menexenus. Though the progress of Thucydides' narrative of the war suggests that the historian's final judgment on Pericles is not entirely glowing, when he pauses at the end of Pericles' third speech (II.65) to comment on the leader in his own voice, he delivers strong praise (Cairns, 2001).

Discussion

Thucydides notes that Pericles did not live much longer and asks the reader to imagine the enormity of this loss for the Athenians. Hindsight reveals that Pericles had been the most thoughtful leader of the Athenians. The policies he advocated seem, in retrospect, to have been truly in the best interest of the city. At this moment, Thucydides even comes close to lamenting the Athenians' inability to stay on the course Pericles had recommended. Had he lived, he invites readers to speculate, Athens might have won the war. He also specifies the personal and intellectual qualities that made Pericles outstanding. He not only could see what was best, but he could also control the demos, that is, he could "lead them [the multitude] instead of being led by them" (II.65.8). As a result, under his leadership democracy was, in Thucydides' judgment, "in words" (logoi) a democracy but "in action" (ergoi) the "rule of the first man" (Cairns, 2001). Under the leadership of Pericles, the Athenians averted the difficulties usually associated with democratic politics. Thucydides praises Pericles as a model statesman, a leader who appears to have kept democratic politics from deteriorating into factional disputes and the pursuit of personal ambition. All the leaders who came after him, Thucydides states, sought only to gratify themselves and their hearers, and politics took a turn for the worse.

It is not hard to imagine this explicit evaluation of Pericles gaining some popularity in the post-Peloponnesian War years, despite the subtle efforts of the historian to raise questions about the truth of this preliminary assessment (Jennings, 2003). This view vindicates imperial aspirations (which were far from dead) and lays the blame for Athens' suffering in the latter years of the war on a set of "bad" advisors. This view also affirms that the war could have turned out differently, that there was nothing inevitable about Athens' defeat. Venerating Pericles had other attractions as well. His memory was not mired in continuing factional disputes, and he was a champion of democratic institutions. He could be a fitting symbol for a restored democracy struggling to reestablish some civic solidarity across social and economic divisions that had recently erupted in civil war.

As Aristotle reports (AthPol 28.1), though Pericles was a "leader of the people" (prostates tou demou), he was also held in good repute by the elite at Athens. Venerating Pericles in the post-War period could be a ...