4. The Age of Pericles
Pericles (495 – 429 BC) was Athens’ dominant political figure in the mid-fifth century BC. The Athenian golden age, during which the city reached the peak of its power and its empire reached its greatest extent, is also known as the “Age of Pericles”. His father, Xanthippus, was a popular general who had been ostracized and exiled in 484 BC, only to be recalled four years later during the crisis of the Persian invasion. Xanthippus led the Athenians at the Battle of Mycale, a victory that ended the second Persian invasion of Greece. Pericles, raised amidst wealth and privilege, was a patron of culture and the arts since his youth – Aeschylus’ oldest surviving play, The Persians, was paid for by Pericles in 472 BC. He was also a friend and patron of Phidias, Ancient Greece’s greatest sculptor. During the Periclean Age, Athens flowered into a center of culture, art, education, and democracy.
