Pericles Among the Intellectuals

Author(s): PHILIP A. STADTER

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Illinois Classical Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (SPRING/FALL 1991), pp. 111-124
Published by: University of Illinois Press
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 9

Pericles Among the Intellectuals1

PHILIP A. STADTER

<I>iXooo<pov(iEv avEx> \iaXaKMc,. These words, put into Pericles' mouth by

Thucydides, suggest Pericles' interest in oocpia. Unfortunately the historian
gives no other indications of Pericles' involvement with the dynamic
intellectual currents of his day.2 Many modern scholars have attempted to
fill this lack. The sophists, according to G. B. Kerferd, "owed much to
individual patronage, and above all to the patronage of one man, Pericles.
This is something which has not been recognized as fully as it should in
accounts of the sophistic movement. Lack of evidence makes it difficult for
us to form any clear and reliable judgment about the personality of Pericles.
But his intellectualism is not to be doubted."3 Such an assertion invites
reexamination of our admittedly thin evidence, for in fact Pericles'
intellectualism was frequently doubted in his own time and subsequently.
What exactly was his relation with the intellectual and artistic movements
of his time, especially with the sophists? Who were the intellectuals
closest to him, and what was his relation to them?
In what follows I will examine Pericles' associations, recorded or

imagined, with a number of intellectuals—Protagoras, Parmenides and

Zeno, Pythoclides, Damon, Anaxagoras, Sophocles, Phidias, and Aspasia.
In so doing, I will pay especial attention to the temporal and literary context
in which our notices appear. I believe that it is seriously mistaken to make
Pericles the central figure of intellectual life at Athens. That view is
founded upon an incautious and unskeptical reading of Plutarch's Pericles

1
It is a pleasure to explore again in a volume dedicated to his memory a topic that I
discussed several years ago with Fritz Solmsen. Conversations with him always revealed
new aspects of old problems.
2 The
speeches Thucydides attributes to Pericles cannot be taken as a direct statement of
Pericles. They indicate Thucydides' respect for his intelligence, but give no indication of
his training or intellectual milieu. The sophistic figures occasionally employed (as at 2.
40. 1) belong to Thucydides' own style.
3 G. B.
Kerferd, The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge 1981) 18. Cf. also F. Schacher
meyr, Perikles (Stuttgart 1969) 142-49 on Pericles' Kulturprogram, D. Kagan, Pericles of
Athens and the Birth of Democracy (New York 1991) 171 and 185 on "the intellectualism
and rationalism" of Pericles.
112 Illinois Classical Studies, XVI

and other late sources, and does not sufficiently attend to the tradition of the
fifthand fourth centuries. Like Plutarch, I will give particular importance
to the statements of contemporaries, despite the obvious bias and even
hostility they often show. This reexamination will reveal a Pericles rather
different from some standard presentations. Stripped free of the anecdotal
rhetoric of later centuries, Pericles emerges as a powerful orator and dynamic
politician, but not a participant in the sophistic revolution. Let us start
with the evidence for Pericles' contact with the most famous of the
sophists.
"Close personal relations existed at least with Protagoras," Victor
Ehrenberg writes.4 The chief evidence comes from an anecdote in Plutarch's
Pericles. Pericles is said to have spent the whole day with Protagoras,
trying to establish who should be held responsible for the accidental death of
a participant in the games—the javelin which killed him, the thrower of the
javelin, or those managing the games {Per. 36. 4-5). The source and value
of the story are problematic. It is often considered as contemporary,
deriving from Stesimbrotus. Yet Plutarch does not attribute the passage on
Pericles' dispute with Protagoras to Stesimbrotus, as he does the
immediately following story of Pericles' seduction of Xanthippus' wife.5 In
fact, the story does not fit Stesimbrotus' purposes, as far as we can establish
them. Stesimbrotus, a Homeric rhapsode and explicator, tried to show, in
his book deriding the politicians Themistocles, Thucydides, and Pericles, the
weaknesses in the education and training of these leaders. It would not have
been to his advantage to show Pericles debating on an equal footing with

Protagoras, the wisest of the sophists. If anything, he would have wished

to show Pericles demolished by the brilliance of the expert.6
Plato in his dialogue Protagoras, written almost five centuries earlier
than the Pericles, has an illuminating passage which serves as a
counterbalance to Plutarch, and warns us not to overinterpret his anecdote.
Xanthippus and Paralus, the two sons of Pericles, are discovered by Socrates
at the house of Callias, following Protagoras about as he holds forth. But

4
V. Ehrenberg, Sophocles and Pericles (Oxford 1954) 96.
5
This is the apparent interpretation of Plutarch's discrete and shocked reference to this
story at Per. 13. 16 and 36. 6.
6Note how, in Plato Prot. 339a-e, Protagoras' statements on Simonides are meant to
leave Socrates reeling and unable to reply. In such a case, one would imagine that
Stesimbrotus presented a satirical picture of Xanthippus' report of Pericles' encounter with
Protagoras. The source of the account of Xanthippus' quarrel may well be comedy. On
Stesimbrotus' pamphlet, see F. Schachermeyr, "Stesimbrotos und seine Schrift iiber die
Staatsmanner," SAWW 247, 5 (1965), K. Meister, "Stesimbrotos* Schrift iiber die
athenischen Staatsmanner und ihre historische Bedeutung (FGrHisI 107 F 1-11)," Historia
27 (1978) 274-94, and H. Strasburger, "Aus den Anfangen der griechischen
Memoirenkunst," in Forma et Subtilitas: Festschrift fiir Wolfgang Schdne zum 75.
Geburtstag (Berlin 1986) 1-11.
 Philip A. Stadter 113

they have not been sent there by Pericles.7 As Socrates notes, Pericles has
neither trained them himself in political wisdom, nor entrusted them to
others, but rather "left them to graze for themselves, like free-ranging sheep"
(319e-20a). Now they are listening to Protagoras, but soon—the
implication is—they will move on. Moreover, Socrates observes, Pericles
has also refused to entrust his ward Cleinias to Protagoras: after a brief
period in the care of his uncle Ariphron, Pericles has once more put Cleinias
in the rather dubious care of his brother Alcibiades (320a-b).8
It is clearly Plato's view that Pericles had no special faith in
Protagoras' teaching, or that of other sophists, but expected that his sons
and wards would grow up naturally, with no special training, in the
companionship of their older relatives and fellow citizens. How different
Pericles is from Callias, who spent a fortune on the sophists! Far from
spending money on sophists, Pericles, as Plato reports elsewhere, put his
ward Alcibiades in the care of a paedagogue, a certain Zopyrus, a Thracian
slave in his household, who had grown too old for other duties (Ale. I
122a).9 Plato's scorn for Pericles' attitude toward education is palpable.
If we are to believe Plato, then, Pericles did not think that Protagoras
was a good or necessary educator for the young people in his charge. What
then of Plutarch's report that Pericles spent a whole day discussing with
Protagoras the case of the contestant in the pentathlon? The story, if true,
would be indicative of Pericles' interest in considering legal problems at
length, though not necessarily of his enthusiasm for sophistic disputations.
But there is little reason to consider it authentic: A similar case in
Antiphon, Tetralogies 2, concerns a boy killed by a javelin thrown in a
gymnasium. The problem, while undoubtedly the subject of discussion in
the fifth century, was also a standard rhetorical challenge concerning
responsibility, into which teachers could introduce real names to enhance
vividness. By Plutarch's day, it must have been a common topos, like the
story of the slave of Pericles, who fell from the roof of the Propylaea while
sleep-walking.10 The story probably belongs to the pedagogical tradition of
the rhetorical or philosophical schools, as do several others in the Pericles.11

7
Pace Schachermeyr (above, note 3) 148.
8 Cf. also Meno
94d: Pericles has trained them in (io\XTiKT|, dycovia, and xaXKa . . .
ooa texvri^ exexai, but not in virtue.
9 it is the same one—apparently became an example in Socratic circles:
Zopyrus—if
Phaedo wrote a dialogue named after him, and he was said to have been interested in
physiognomy (Diog. Laert. 2. 105; cf. also Cic. Tusc. 4. 37. 80; De fato 5. 10).
10
Cf. Plut. Per. 13; Pliny, NH 22. 44; Diog. Laert. 9. 82; Hieronymus fr. 19 Wehrli.
11 35. 2), ascribed to the
Cf., e.g., the story of Pericles and the eclipse (Per.
philosophical schools. For Antiphon as a predecessor of the later rhetoricians' treatment
of stasis theoiy, cf. D. A. Russell, Greek Declamation (Cambridge 1983) 17 and 40; for
Pericles as an example in declamations, 121. Even if the story goes back to Slesimbrotus,
its veracity would hardly be assured, since Slesimbrotus' anti-Periclean brief led him to

report or invent even the story of Pericles' lust for his daughter-in-law. Jacoby, FGrHisI
 114 Illinois Classical Studies, XVI

A second ground for connecting Protagoras and Pericles is that

Heraclides Ponticus reports that Protagoras went as lawgiver to Thurii.12
The notice itself is unreliable, since Diodorus speaks at great length of
Charondas as the lawgiver who revised the ancient laws of Zaleucus for use
at Thurii (12. 11-21). Moreover, we are by no means certain that Pericles
played a determining role in the foundation of Thurii and in the appointment
of the lawgiver. Of all the sources referringto the founding of the new city,
only Plutarch presents Thurii as a Periclean project. The context in
Plutarch's Pericles does not encourage belief: our notice appears in a list of
Athenian initiatives of all sorts (Per. 11. 4-6), which Plutarch has
assembled to glorify Pericles. The list includes projects which are clearly
non-Periclean, such as Tolmides' cleruchy to Naxos.13 Thurii thus offers no
support for a tie between Pericles and Protagoras. Quite simply, we do not
know Pericles' role in the foundation of the city, nor in the choice of
Protagoras as lawgiver, if indeed he was chosen, nor the motivations
Pericles might have had in urging the appointment if he did so.
In sum, Plato assures us that Pericles conspicuously avoided the one
service which he might reasonably have entrusted to Protagoras, the training
of his own legitimate children, Xanthippus and Paralus. Anecdotes
connecting the two men are highly dubious. The silence of the fifth and
fourth century sources points to the conclusion that Pericles' circle never
included Protagoras.
Nor is this surprising. Although an excellent orator, Pericles had little
in common with the sophists. Exactly because of his gifts as a speaker, he
did not need to go to them for rhetorical training. By the time the first
sophists became active in the 440s, Pericles had been a leading figure in
Athenian politics for two decades. In addition, he presented himself to the
Athenians as a champion of religious orthodoxy. We cannot pass over
casually the fact that he instituted an extraordinarily ambitious and
expensive program of sacred buildings, whose manifest purpose was to

107 F 11 prints the whole passage, but marks with large print 36. 6 as the section actually
ascribed by Plutarch to Stesimbrotus. An unauthentic work found in the Plutarchan corpus,
the Consolatio ad Apollonium, reports that Protagoras praised Pericles' self-control at the
funerals of his sons (Cons, ad Apol. 118e = FVS 80 B 9, cf. also Val. Max. 5. 10. ext. 1,
Aelian VH 9. 6). Even if the anecdote were genuine, it would tell nothing of Protagoras'
personal contact with Pericles.
12
Quoted by Diog. Laert. 9. 50.
13
The seer Lampon, a mantis whom Plutarch elsewhere considered a friend and agent of
Pericles (Praec. ger. rep. 812d), was the chair of the Athenian commission sent to
establish the city. But a cross-examination of Lampon by Pericles in a trial for asebeia is
recorded by Aristotle (Rhel. 3, 1419a), which indicates that Lampon at that time was not a
friend of Pericles. Plutarch's description of Lampon as Pericles' agent is most probably a
deduction from his presence on the Thurii commission. See for a full account of the
evidence for the foundation of Thurii D. Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War
(Ithaca, NY 1969) 154-69, 382-84.
 Philip A. Stadter 115

honor the gods of the city. We may find it easier to consider the Parthenon
or Propylaea as aesthetic monuments, but the Athenian people, led by
Pericles, saw them first of all as dedications to their patron goddess.
Moreover, Pericles was willing to make a casus belli of the religious
sanctions against the Megarians for working land sacred to the Eleusinian
goddesses. Protagoras' view of the gods was that "concerning the gods I
cannot know either that they exist or do not exist, nor what sort they are in
appearance: many things hinder knowing, the obscurity [of the subject] and
the brevity of human life."14 Pericles' public life utterly contradicted that
opinion. On the contrary, Pericles devoted a substantial part of his energy
and political capital to seeing that Athens honored the gods as they had
never been honored before, with buildings, festivals, and processions.
The tenuous evidence for Pericles' contact with Protagoras depends on
traditions elaborated after the fourthcentury. A similar late elaboration also
lies behind Plutarch's statement that Pericles heard Parmenides and Zeno
when they were at Athens (Per. 4. 5). A meeting of the two Eleatics with
Pericles would indeed have been chronologically possible, but no other
writer suggests any such contact. In this case the argument from silence is
especially important; Plato has Socrates refute the notion that Pericles has
any real knowledge by showing that he has taught no one. In the course of
the argument he notes particularly two men whom he knows to have
profited from contact with Zeno. Socrates pointedly omits listing Pericles
as a student, although he is the subject of the argument at this point (Ale. I
119a).15 Plutarch or his source has misremembered Plato, and made Pericles
one of Zeno's students.16 There is no other evidence for Pericles' contact
with these men.
In fact, neither fifth-centurywriters nor Plato, our chief source for the
sophists and their friends, ever suggests that Pericles had contact with any
philosopher except Anaxagoras, or with any sophist at all, unless Damon is
included in that category. The comic poets, so hostile to his other friends,
say nothing about sophists.17 This silence is echoed by the other Socratic
writers and by Aristotle. Our conclusion must be that Pericles had no
interest in the sophists, and gave them no support. The sole exception—
and he is in fact not an exception—is Damon, son of Damonides.

14 H. Diels and W.
Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker9 II (Berlin 1959) 265 (80 B
4>" <
1 Grate's reference to this passage as evidence for Zeno's teaching of Pericles is
mistaken (History of Greece VIH [London 1869] 145, c. LXVII).
16 There is no reason to assume another source: such casual errors are not
infrequent,
even in material Plutarch knows well; cf. e.g. the conflation of the campaigns of Epidaurus
and Potidaea at Per. 35.
17
Note that Aristophanes does not mention Pericles in the Clouds, except for a political
action unrelated to sophistry (Nub. 859).
116 Illinois Classical Studies, XVI

Damon, an undoubted associate of Pericles, is often considered a

sophist, but he is a unique representative of the species. First, he was an
Athenian, and one prominent enough in political life to be ostracized.
Second, there is no record that he received payment for teaching others. He
is firstmentioned in our literary sources by the comic poet Plato, quoted by
Plutarch in the Pericles. This poet, writing after Pericles' death, has a
character address Damon with these words: "You, as they say, were a Chiron
in bringing up Pericles."18 Clearly the poet suggests that Damon taught or
influenced Pericles in some way, as Chiron was said to have done for
Achilles and other heroes. Unfortunately the nature of the activity is not
specified. Several references from the fourth century supplement this
intriguing notice. Plato informs us that Damon was especially expert in
music (Rep. 3,400a; 4,424c), and had been influenced by Prodicus (Lach.
197d). According to Plato Damon had an effect on Pericles (Ale. I 118c,
where he is coupled with Pythoclides and Anaxagoras) and on Nicias (Lach.
197d). Isocrates, in the 350s, considers him a teacher of Pericles, along
with Anaxagoras, and most sensible (<ppovi(icoTaxo<;) of the Athenians
(Antid. 235). Finally, the Athenaion Politeia tells us that Damonides, the
father of Damon, was a political adviser to Pericles, especially in suggesting
public payment for jury duty (27. 4), and was ostracized by an annoyed
demos. An ostracon apparently dating from the 440s, "Damon
Damonidou," indicates that Aristotle or the papyrus text is mistaken, and
that not Damonides but his son Damon was ostracized, although the
ostracon which survives was not necessarily cast on the occasion of his
ostracism.19 Then, sometime in the late fourth century, as Wallace has

argued, Heraclides Ponticus or another writer composed a philosophical

dialogue containing Damon as a character, in which the educative value of
18 Per. 4. 4 = fr. 191 K.: a\> yap / ax; cpaai Xeipiov e^eBpeya^ IlepiKXea. Although
Plutarch refers to "comic poets," he probably knew only this one citation. On this
fragment, cf. J. Schwarze, Die Beurteilung des Perikles durch die attische Komodie und ihre
historische und historiographische Bedeutung, Ze ternat a 51 (Munich 1971) 160-64.
Schwarze's attempt to fix a date, however, cannot be accepted.
"
The ostracon might have been cast when another person received the "winning" vote.
An alternate interpretation of Ath. Pol. 27. 4 corrects the Ath. Pol.'s Damonides to
Damon, and argues that Damon was older than Pericles, being born about 500, adviser to
Pericles in the 450s, and ostracized ca. 430: see K. Meister, "Damon, der politische Berater
des Perikles," Rivista slorica dell'antichitd 3 (1973) 29-45, P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary
on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981) ad loc., and R. W. Wallace, "Damone
di Oa ed i suoi successor!: un'analisi delle fonti," in Harmonia Mundi, ed. R. W. Wallace
and B. MacLachlan, Quaderni Urbinati, Suppl. 4 (forthcoming) 30-53, at p. 50. This does
not seem to take account of the testimony in Plato, Ale. I 118c, that Pericles associated
particularly with Damon as an old man, and that Damon figures in a play of Plato Comicus,
who first began producing plays in the 420s. As Wallace notes (p. 52), the earlier dating
would make Damon one of the earliest sophists, if he can be called such, well before
Protagoras. This seems highly improbable.
 Philip A. Stadter 117

music was discussed.20 Later notices are not useful in establishing Damon's
role as associate of Pericles. Even the rather detailed comments of Plutarch,
Pericles 4. 1-4 and 9. 2, are derived entirely from the notices in Plato,
Aristotle, and Plato the comic poet. The apparent additions, where Plutarch
speaks of Damon as a top-notch sophist (atcpcx; ocxpioTr|<;) who used the lyre
as a shield, are a reworking and elaboration of Plato's description, through
the mouth of Protagoras, of how sophists had protected themselves from
hostility, and provide no new information.21
What then is Damon's position with regard to Pericles? He was
considered extremely smart, and was an adviser to Pericles, as his father had
been before him. It is quite likely, given the fact that he was ostracized,
that he was politically active and belonged to a well-to-do family, with the
wealth if not the lineage of other leading figures in mid-fifth-century
politics. His Athenian birth and apparently continuous residence in Athens
set him off from other sophists, who came from minor cities, traveled
through the Greek world to earn money and build their reputation, and
considered a profitable stay at Athens a high point of their activity. Damon,
according to Plato and later writers, was especially interested in music, in
particular the different harmonies and their effects on the psychology or
behavior of listeners or performers.22 If we were to relate his musical
interests with any political initiatives of Pericles, we might expect them to
be the increase in the number of festivals (Plut. Per. 11. 4), the
reestablishment of the musical agon in the Panathenaia shortly before 446
(Per. 13. 11), and especially the construction of the Odeon (Per. 13. 9
10).23 Such an emphasis on music as a proper activity of government
would well fit Damon's interests, and not be different in kind from his
father's recommendations regarding jury duty: both initiatives won influence
for Pericles by distributing public money to the citizens. It would also
explain why Damon might be seen by Pericles' opponents as a dangerous
element, worthy of ostracism: his advice would be directly related to
Pericles' power in Athens, and to the use of the phoros from the Delian
league, which was also the basis for the objections against the Periclean
20
Wallace(previous note) 32-42.
21 Wallace (above, note 19) 50, cites also Olympiodorus, In Ale.
Plato, Prot. 339a-e.
ed. Westerink, 137. 20-38. 11, as furnishing information that Damon taught Pericles the
songs "which harmonized the city," but this is simply Olympiodorus' interpretation of the
passage in Ale. I 118c, filled out with the discussion of Damon in the Republic. I disagree
with Wallace's assertion (51) that as scientific researcher on human subjects and as
political adviser, "Damone fu un sofista tipico." His interests were similar to those of
some sophists, but the defining quality of the sophist is not scientific research but
teaching to those who will pay.
22 On Damon as music theorist see W. D.
Anderson, Ethos and Education in Greek Music
(Cambridge, MA 1966) 74-81, Wallace (above, note 19) 44-53.
23 Cf. F. und deren Nachleben:
Schachermeyr, "Damon," in Beitrage zur alten Geschichte
Festschrift fiir F. Altheim I (Berlin 1969) 192-204, at 199-200.
 118 Illinois Classical Studies, XVI

building program. Damon, then, should be seen as an intellectual Athenian,

who had given thought to music and its effects, as well as to political
actions which would strengthen Pericles' position, not least to those
favoring the celebration of musical events in the city.24 There is no
evidence in our sources that he ever taught for money as a professional
sophist.
According to Plato, Ale. I 118c, Damon was preceded as teacher of
Pericles by Pythoclides of Ceos, whom the scholiast to the passage
identifies as a teacher of the semnos style of music and a Pythagorean. Our
only other information is Protagoras' assertion in Plato, Prot. 316e, that he
"hid his sophistry" under the cloak of music.25 Pericles, like every
Athenian gentleman, studied music as a youth; his teacher, it would seem,
was Pythoclides, someone better known than the ordinary music teacher, as
befitted Xanthippus' wealth and social status.
Pericles' contact with Damon raises the question of his personal
contacts with other Athenians who might be considered intellectual leaders.
Two acquaintances stand out, Sophocles and Phidias. Sophocles and
Pericles shared the generalship in 441/40, at the time of the Samian War
(Androtion, FGrHist 324 F 38; cf. Plut. Per. 8. 8). They undoubtedly
spoke to each other on this occasion, as on others when the limited social
and political world of Athens brought them together 26 However, we have
no way of knowing whether the two men found each other's company
congenial, or whether Sophocles ever chose to discuss his poetry or the
views expressed in his tragedies, rather than, say, the nature of the Persian

threat, the problems of imperial administration (Sophocles had been a

hellenotamias), or the competitors in the upcoming Olympic games. On
the contrary, their contemporary, Ion of Chios, suggests just the opposite.
Ion, who reports with delight a dinner conversation with his fellow tragic
poet Sophocles, found Pericles' company boorish and arrogant. One
suspects that Ion avoided Pericles when he could, and tolerated his presence
when he had to (FGrHist 392 F 6, F 15). Sophocles may have done the
same. Plutarch records an anecdote in which Pericles prudishly tells the
poet to keep his eyes to himself, and not on pretty boys (Per. 8. 2).27 The

24
Although in this discussion it has been presumed that Damonides and Damon were
both advisers to Pericles, the force of the present argument does not depend on that
assumption. It would be possible for Damon to have advised Pericles both on jury pay and
later on musical festivals and building the Odeon, before being ostracized.
25
Plutarch's citation of Aristotle for Pythoclides at Per. 4. 1 apparently represents a
confusion with the passage from the Protagoras, which is paraphrased immediately after.
26 Note that
Sophocles was active in governmental roles: hellenotamias in 443/2,
perhaps general in the 430s (Vita Soph. 9). For the questions concerning Sophocles' civic
career, see P. Karavites, "Tradition, Scepticism, and Sophocles' Political Career," Klio 58
(1976) 359-65, with earlier bibliography.
27
Again, this seems a standard story which was ascribed to Pericles and Sophocles for
vividness; cf. the other versions in Arist. 24. 7 and [Plut.J Vitae dec. or. 839a.
 Philip A. Stadter 119

story is of dubious value, but does suggest that Sophocles, who at a dinner
party chuckled over his successful "generalship" in winning a kiss from a
pretty wine-pourer (Ion 392 F 6), would hardly have sought out Pericles'
company and subjected himself to such puritanical observations. The
feeling was no doubt mutual. Plutarch reports that Pericles, unlike earlier
politicians, avoided dinner parties, and concentrated on state business.28
A third Athenian with whom Pericles is associated in our literary record
is Phidias, sculptor of the Athena Parthenos as well as of earlier statues, the
Lemnian Athena and the Athena Promachos. Phidias was undoubtedly
known to Pericles. However, when we compare the early notices with the
later tradition, it is apparent that these ties have been expanded far beyond
what was actually known. In particular, there is no evidence that Phidias
ever "managed and oversaw the whole building program," as stated by
Plutarch.29 Nor can we assert that Pericles' involvement with Phidias' trial
for embezzlement extended beyond the political realm to personal friendship
and a shared artistic vision.
Our firstreport of Pericles' ties to Phidias comes from certain unnamed
comic poets cited by Plutarch: Phidias, according to these anonymous
mockers, was furnishing a rendezvous on the Acropolis for Pericles to meet
freeborn women.30 The comic scene exploits the sacrilegious contrast:
Phidias working on the statue of the virgin goddess, under whose aegis
Pericles is seducing the wives of citizens. In simple terms, Pericles is
accused of using the building program for his own (in this case, lecherous)
ends. The only other fifth-century notice is in Aristophanes, who has
Hermes affirm that Pericles was frightened by the accusations against
Phidias, and therefore, to distract his enemies, began the Peloponnesian War
(Peace 605-11). This reference to Phidias' troubles is confirmed by the
decree of Glaucon cited by Plutarch {Per. 31.5) and in the fourthcentury by
Philochorus (FGrHist 328 F 121) and perhaps by Ephorus, since it appears
in Diodorus.31 Philochorus has Pericles involved not as a friend but as
epistates, a public commissioner responsible for the statue. Diodorus
mentions Pericles' position as commissioner also, and adds that the
prosecution was led by Pericles' enemies, who charged both Phidias and
Pericles.
The story of Pericles' friendship with Phidias develops much later,
partially as an expansion of Aristophanes' explanation for the war. Plato
and the orators are silent on the relationship of the two men. Subsequent

28
Per. 7. 5; cf. W. R. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth Century Athens (Princeton
1971) 121-28.
29 Per. 13.6.
30 Per. 13. 15. As in the case of
Damon, Plutarch uses the plural, but may well be
generalizing from a single notice that came to his attention.
31 word for
Presuming that Diod. 12. 39. 1-2 accurately reflects Ephorus. Diodorus'
Pericles' position is eni^eXrixTi^.
120 Illinois Classical Studies, XVI

tradition on the trial of Phidias employs no new evidence, and is no more

reliable than the stories that Phidias had carved his and Pericles' portraits on
Athena's shield, or had died in an Athenian prison.32 Plutarch's notion that
Phidias was overseer of the building program is contrary to all we know of
Athenian building practice.33 Phidias, like Ictinus, Metagenes, and
Callicrates, was simply a prominent artist in the execution of the building
program. He became especially tied to Pericles because of the fame of his
statue and of the trial for embezzlement which threatened Pericles' political
position.34 When a faction attacked a leading artist in the building program,
they also threatened Pericles, the chief proponent of the program. Pericles
acted to preserve his position, and would have done the same whether
Phidias was a friend or an enemy. Politically, it would have been
absolutely necessary to take steps to defend himself in this dangerous
climate.
Two foreign intellectuals remain to be considered, who in their diverse
ways were said by writers of the fifthand fourthcenturies to have influenced
Pericles. The less well documented relationship was that with Anaxagoras
of Clazomenae, the physical philosopher and exponent of mind as an
underlying principle in the universe. Our information on Pericles' relation
to Anaxagoras begins with Plato and Isocrates.35 No fifth-century author

thought it worth noting. Isocrates in his Antidosis (235) mentions

Anaxagoras along with Damon as a teacher of Pericles. His information
may well derive from Plato, who in the Phaedrus (269e-70a), and again in
Alcibiades I (118c), says that Pericles learned from Anaxagoras. The
Phaedrus passage is worth quoting for the ironic tone in which it comments
both on Pericles' success as an orator and on Anaxagoras' philosophy.
Socrates speaks to Phaedrus (269e-70a):
Pericles was probably the most complete orator in regard to rhetoric.—
What then? [Phaedrus asks]—All the major arts (xexvai) require

321 do not wish to discuss here the host of problems connected with Phidias' trial, or
that of Anaxagoras, but merely review the early evidence for Pericles' involvement. For
recent work on the two trials, see P. A. Stadter, A Commentary on Plutarch's Pericles
(Chapel Hill, NC and London 1989) 284-305, on Per. 31. 2-32. 6.
33
Cf. Stadter (previous note) 166-67, on Per. 13. 6, and W. Ameling, "Plutarch,
Perikles 12-14," Historia 34 (1985) 47-63, at p. 57.
34
Diodoras says that Pericles, as epistates of the Parthenos statue, also was accused of
sharing in Phidias' crime. This may be true.
35
For accounts of Anaxagoras' life and thought, see G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M.
Schofield, The Presocralic Philosphers2 (Cambridge 1983) 352-84; M. Schofield, An
Essay on Anaxagoras (Cambridge 1980); J. Mansfeld, "The Chronology of Anaxagoras'
Athenian Period," Mnemosyne, ser. 4, 32 (1979) 36-69, 33 (1980) 17-95; D. Sider, The
Fragments of Anaxagoras (Meisenheim 1981); and L. Woodbury, "Anaxagoras and
Athens," Phoenix 35 (1981) 295-315. For the later traditions on Anaxagoras, see D. E.
Gershenson and D. A. Greenberg, Anaxagoras and the Birth of Physics (New York 1964);
for his use by Plutarch, J. Hershbell, "Plutarch and Anaxagoras," ICS 7 (1982) 141-58.
 Philip A. Stadter 121

prattling and abstract talk (ciSoXeoxiok; Kai jiETetopoXoyiai;) about

nature. From this seem to come highmindedness and effectiveness.
Pericles had this quality, in addition to his talent. I think it was because
he had fallen in with (jcpoojteowv) Anaxagoras, who was like that. So
Pericles was filled with talk about the heavens and arrived at the nature
of sense and nonsense, of which Anaxagoras spoke a great deal. From
this Pericles drew what was profitable for him for the art of speaking.

Plato here does not speak of serious studies of astronomy or physics,

but rather of a certain high-sounding and powerful style, full of inflated
words, which Pericles picked up after meeting Anaxagoras.36 Contact with
someone like Anaxagoras who concerned himself with abstract matters gave
Pericles a loftiness which was most effective in persuading the demos.
Plato alludes to a feature of Pericles' style which reminded him of
Anaxagoras' thinking. He explains this style by contact of some sort, but
suggests neither that Pericles was an intimate of Anaxagoras nor that he
seriously considered the philosophical or physical questions examined by
Anaxagoras. But it is this passage from the Phaedrus which Plutarch
exploits to paint his vivid picture of Anaxagoras' influence on Pericles,
reflected not only in the statesman's political restraint, but even in his gait
and posture.37 Neither Plutarch nor the other authors who enhance and
expand Plato's notice in the later tradition add to our knowledge of Pericles'
relationship with the philosopher.38
A second strand involving Anaxagoras is represented by the stories of
Pericles' defense of the philosopher at his trial, or his rescue from prison
before or after trial. These may begin as early as Ephorus (cf. Diodorus 12.
39. 2), but become prevalent in the Hellenistic period: Diogenes Laertius 2.
12—14 gives four differentversions of Anaxagoras' trial, as reported by four
authors. The trial tradition is not helpful in establishing Pericles' relation

36
Cf. C. J. Rowe, Plato. Phaedrus (Warminster 1986) 204-05. We perhaps have an
example of this style in a conceit from one of his speeches, reported by Plutarch (Per. 8. 9
= Stesimbrotus 107 F 9). "Those who have died for their country," Pericles said, "are like
the gods. We cannot see them, but we consider that they do not suffer death on the basis of
the honors they receive and the benefits they bestow."
37 8. 1.
Per. 4.6-6.3,
38 61 (Erot.) 45. 3, Plut. Them. 2. 5, Dio Chrysostom, Or. 1. 32. 6,
E.g. [Dem.]
Libanius, Or. 1. 1, Themist. 26, 329c, Olympiodorus, In Ale. I, p. 135. The reference in
the Pericles to Anaxagoras' disinterest in money (16. 7) derives from Plato, Hipp. Mai.
283a. scene of Pericles with the starving Anaxagoras
The (16. 8-9) seems to be an
anecdote developed in the philosophical schools, again on the basis of the contact of the
two recorded by Plato. Compare the similar story of Pericles offering to maintain the
shoemaker-philosopher Simon, only to be rejected by the freedom-loving sage (Diog.
Laert 2. 123). The anecdote describing the diverse interpretations of the ram prodigy (Per.
6) is almost certainly a late invention; among other things, the account of the dissection
is impossible. Theophrastus' story of the amulet, found in Per. 38. 2, does not seem to
indicate any special philosophical influence, merely the intelligence Pericles was noted
for.
122 Illinois Classical Studies, XVI

to Anaxagoras. First, as Dover has noted, the very variety of tales indicates
that there was no accurate information about the trial.39 It is quite possible
that the whole trial is an invention of philosophical biography. The second
Platonic epistle (311a) noted that the relation of Pericles and Anaxagoras
could be assimilated to the standard topos of the statesman and his
philosophical adviser, connecting such men as Periander and Thales,
Croesus and Solon, and Hiero or Pausanias and Simonides.40 The numerous
versions of the trial story concentrate on how Anaxagoras was protected by
his powerful student, not on the learning of the student or the political
context. The story would be useful to any philosopher dependent on a
powerful patron.41 Only Plutarch supplements this edifying story with new
evidence, Diopeithes' decree against atheism (Per. 32.2), but the connection
of the fifth-centurydecree with an attack on Pericles probably is Plutarch's
own inference.42 Second, even if we accept the existence of the trial and
Pericles' role in it, the precise political and juridical situation remains
unclear. Pericles might, for instance, have protected Anaxagoras as part of
his general policy of encouraging metics in Athens,43 or for political
reasons, rather than as a friend. Pericles' defence of Anaxagoras would
confirm his acquaintance with the philosopher, but does not reveal his
intellectual views or debt to him.
In brief: On the basis of Plato and Isocrates we can argue that in the
fourth century Pericles was thought to have had some intellectual contact
with Anaxagoras, probably in the area of high-sounding cosmological
theories. There is no indication of the period at which this contact took
place. Plato's brief and ironic ascription of Pericles' eloquence to
Anaxagoras' influence grew into a tradition exemplifying the relation
between sage and statesman, the major feature of which became Pericles'
role in protecting Anaxagoras from an accusation of atheism.
The other non-Athenian associate of Pericles was the Milesian
courtesan, Aspasia. Attic comedy often mocked Pericles' liaison with
Aspasia as lustful, uxorious, or a cause of war, but one comic writer of the
fifth century, Callias, in his Pedetai (The Men in Fetters) apparently

39
K. J. Dover, "The Freedom of the Intellectual in Greek Society," Talanta 7 (1975) 24
54, at 27-32.
40
Cf. also Plut. Max. cum prin. 777a. Plutarch's reference in the same work to Socrates'
meeting with Pericles at the house of Simon the shoemaker (776b) also reflects the topos.
41
Cf. Diog. Laert. 2. 12-14, Plut. Nic. 23. 4, Lucian, Tim. 10. 11, Olymp. In Meteor.
17, Anth. Pal. 7. 95. Note also the anecdote encouraging the support of the philosopher at
Per. 16. 8-9. If the story of a trial developed later, then the notice in Diodorus would not
be from Ephorus, but later tradition.
42
Even Plutarch implies in the same passage (Per. 32. 5) that Anaxagoras never came to
trial.
43
Cf. his encouragement of Cephalus to emigrate to Athens, [Plut.] Vitae dec. or. 835c.
He may have been Anaxagoras' prostates (as he apparently was of Aspasia) and thus
required to speak on his behalf.
 Philip A. Stadter 123

presented their relationship as intellectual. Callias stated that Aspasia was

the teacher of Pericles, as Socrates had been of Euripides.44 This tack was
continued by Plato and other Socratic writers, who attributed Pericles' skill
at oratory to the coaching of this disreputable female intellectual. In the
Menexenus, Socrates is able to deliver a funeral oration because he has just
had the advantage of the tutoring which previously Aspasia had given to
Pericles (Men. 235e). Both Aeschines and Antisthenes wrote dialogues
featuring Aspasia's relation to Pericles. The former seems to have seen her
as a good influence, a teacher of political arete, whom Pericles defended
when she was put on trial, while the latter apparently took the line of the
comic poets, that their relation was lustful, and that Pericles was merely
yielding to pleasure. Xenophon has Aspasia teaching Socrates the art of
matchmaking (Mem. 2. 6. 36, Oec. 3. 14), but does not bring in Pericles.45
Aspasia's liaison with Pericles is of those we have examined by far the
most fully reported in the fifthand fourth centuries. She was associated
with Pericles from contemporary writers on; she was admitted to be the
mother of Pericles' son and namesake. Comic writers presumed that she
influenced Pericles' foreign policy, and in the fifthand fourth centuries she
is presented as a powerful intellectual force as well. It is only her sex and
her profession which have kept her from being recognized as a major
intellectual and cultural influence on Pericles. Or rather, we immediately
recognize as comic exaggeration or Platonic irony the notion that a woman
might have influenced Pericles, but do not see the same elements at work in
the case of Anaxagoras or Damon. Do we have any right to argue that her
ideas on persuasion, on art, on foreign policy, or internal politics were any
less important to Pericles' than those of Anaxagoras and Damon? Can we
rely more on Plato's words in the Phaedrus than those in the Menexenusl
Aspasia did not write a book, like Anaxagoras: but Antisthenes said that
Pericles kissed her every day, coming and going.46 If she was as intelligent
as the Socratics suggest, she may have had a major influence on Pericles'
thinking with regard to rhetoric, aesthetics, and politics. As Xenophon
noted, she would have known a lot about human psychology, which might
have been of more practical use to Pericles than all Anaxagoras' talk.

44 Cf. Schwarze
(above, note 18) 91-93.
45
For the fragments of Aeschines, see H. Dittmar, Aeschines von Sphellos,
Philologische Untersuchungen 12 (Berlin 1912), and on the Aspasia, B. Ehlers, Eine

vorplatonische Deutung des sokratischen Eros'. Der Dialog Aspasia des Sokratikers
Aischines, Zetemata 41 (Munich 1966). For Antisthenes see F. Caizzi, Antisthenis
Fragmenta (Milan 1966) and G. Giannantoni, Socraticorum Reliquiae II (Rome and
Florence 1983). The role of Aspasia in Plato's Menexenus is at least partially playful, as
Plutarch saw (Per. 24. 7), but no full explanation has been offered: see W. K. C. Guthrie, A
History of Greek Philosophy IV (Cambridge 1975) 312—23 and the observations of N.
Loraux, The Invention of Athens (Cambridge, MA and London 1986) 323.
46
Hut. Per. 24. 8, Athen. 13, 589e.
124 Illinois Classical Studies, XVI

In conclusion, let me review briefly the ancient evidence for Pericles'

non-political interests. His contemporaries do not speak of his
enlightenment. On the contrary, the poet and belletrist Ion of Chios found
him an arrogant boor. The comic poets of the thirties presented him as a
lecher, desecrating the Acropolis by his assignations with the wives of
prominent Athenians. They mocked his political power and his liaison with
Aspasia under a number of mythological guises: Zeus with Hera, Heracles
with Omphale or Deianeira, and Paris with Helen. Aspasia's pernicious
influence, according to the comedians, led to two wars, against Samos and
Sparta. Stesimbrotus reports Pericles' seduction of his daughter-in-law, the
wife of Xanthippus. The writers of the last quarter of the fifthcentury are
slightly more favorable. They continue to play on his relationship to
Aspasia, but they mention also Phidias and Damon. His extraordinary
oratorical power is noted by both comic poets and Thucydides, but only the
latter praises as well his judicious control of passion, his honesty, and his
foresight Thucydides, however, is silent on the training which might have
prepared him for this role. Rather, the implication of the encomium of
Themistocles at 1. 138 seems to be that Pericles, like Themistocles, relied
on natural genius.
In the fourth century, Plato associates him with Aspasia, Anaxagoras,
Pythoclides, and Damon, but notes that as a speaker he antedated the technai
which prescribed rules for rhetoric (JPhdr.269a). Isocrates repeats the names
of Damon and Anaxagoras; Aeschines and Antisthenes think rather of
Aspasia. Ephorus appears to have mentioned Phidias and Anaxagoras.
Down through the fourth century, therefore, Pericles is considered a
compelling orator and a powerful political leader, but not a man particularly
intellectual or given to philosophy. He is not associated with the "new
intellectuals" of his day, Euripides and the sophists, nor with Socrates. The
intellectual influences on him are three: Damon, the political adviser and
theorist of the psychological effects of music; Anaxagoras, the physical
philosopher who gave loftiness to his oratory; and Aspasia, who taught him
the art of persuasion. Later stories seem to grow from this base, especially
from the notices in the comic poets and in Plato. Pericles was not at the
center of intellectual life at Athens in the 440s and 430s, and certainly not
the patron of the sophists.

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill