The Bases of Periclean Power: The Stratēgos
“Pericles son of Xanthippus, the foremost man of the Athenians at that time, wielding greatest influence both in speech and in action, came forward and advised them.”1 Those are the words with which the historian Thucydides introduces the Athenian leader at the moment when, in 431 B.C., the city is about to engage in war against Sparta. At this point, the historian defines the two domains that constitute the basis of the superiority of a statesman: speech and action. And it was indeed as an orator in the Assembly, expert in handling logos, and as a stratēgos in warfare, well accustomed to military command, that Pericles dominated Athenian political life for twenty or so years.
Military leader and orator: those are the two indissociable aspects of Periclean power. They rest upon a common basis, the office of a stratēgos. It was as a stratēgos, reelected time after time, that Pericles led the Athenians in warfare, showered with all the laurels of military glory; and it was also as a stratēgos that he was in a position to participate in the deliberations of the Council, influence its decisions and, in its name, propose the decrees that were then submitted to the vote in the Athenian Assembly.
Let us begin by shedding some light upon the institutional and military mainsprings of Pericles’ authority. After describing the function of a stratēgos and considering the reasons why the role played by this office was so crucial in Athens, it will be necessary to analyze the way in which Pericles set up a veritable policy for glory, even to the point of singing the praises of his own successes. His valor as head of the army and navy was, however, contested by his political opponents. It has to be said that the stratēgos had elaborated a new military ethos that to some extent broke away from the heroic ideal peculiar to members of the Athenian elite. Throughout his life, Pericles refused to engage in warfare unless it was absolutely necessary, even at the risk of being accused of cowardice by his opponents. This rule of behavior was applied in the most spectacular fashion at the start of the Peloponnesian War, when Pericles persuaded the Athenians to take refuge inside the town without doing battle with the Peloponnesian hoplites. It was certainly an effective strategy, but it was swiftly challenged.
THE REELECTED STRATĒGOS: A POPULAR MAGISTRATE
The Function of Stratēgos
The office of stratēgos, created right at the end of the sixth century, in 501–500, rapidly became the essential magistracy of classical Athens. The way that it operated was closely linked with the isonomic regime set in place by the reforms of Cleisthenes. The stratēgoi made up a college of ten magistrates, one for each tribe, and each elected for one year (Constitution of the Athenians, 22.2–3). Their number and their designation therefore depended closely upon the new organization of the civic body into the ten tribes that had been created in 508/7.
Usually, the stratēgoi were recruited from among the well-to-do citizens; and the simple reason for this was that, to have a chance of being elected, one had to be capable of winning the confidence of the Athenians and this involved a certain degree of education, which was, by definition, costly. All the same, nowhere does any source suggest that any census-qualification affected the right to aim for a post as a stratēgos.2 In that there was no legal barrier that limited access to such a post, this new type of magistracy complied fully with the democratic practices that had been evolving progressively ever since 507 B.C.
The function of stratēgoi was to command the Athenian army, as indeed the etymology of the word suggests (stratos, the army, and agein, to lead). Once the Persian Wars were over, stratēgoi definitively supplanted the post of archon that had previously served this purpose: the polemarch was now marginalized and limited to ritual and legal functions.3 What is the explanation for the stratēgoi’s rapid rise to power? The fact that they had a double advantage over the other Athenian magistrates: not only were they elected by the Assembly (which strengthened their popular legitimacy), but, furthermore, they could be renewed in their post. Ever since 487, archons had, on the contrary, been selected by lot, and they could not remain in power for more than one year, after which they were admitted to the Council of the Areopagus as figures that were, to be sure, prestigious but who, ever since Ephialtes’ reforms in 462/461, had lacked any real powers.
Over and above their military vocation, the stratēgoi held a measure of ex officio political power. Although they could probably not convene the Assembly on their own initiative,4 on the other hand they did have the right to attend Council meetings, to speak in them, and, in so doing, to propose convening the Ekklēsia through action on the part of the prutaneis (the rotating Council leaders). This gave them influence over the political life of the city, especially given that their voices possessed particular weight in that they stemmed from the legitimacy of election—unlike those of members of the Boulē, who were selected each year simply by the drawing of lots.
It was in the fifth century that the stratēgoi played their most notable role. Of the fourteen political leaders known in the fifth century, as many as thirteen occupied this function, whereas in the fourth century that tendency was to be reversed: of the twenty-six politicians identified in that period, only six were elected as stratēgoi.5 In the fourth century, the stratēgos’s function evolved into a specialized magistracy of an increasingly technical nature, as the Constitution of the Athenians testifies.6 From that time onward, an increasing number of politicians no longer considered it useful to assume the function of a military leader, and this consequently lost its aura.7
In the fifth century, in contrast, stratēgoi were by no means mere technicians. According to the Constitution of Athenians, citizens had no hesitation in electing “generals with no experience of war but promoted on account of their family reputation” (26.1). It was a development that sometimes caused veritable military disasters. The tragic poet Sophocles, who was a stratēgos at the time of the expedition to Samos in 441/0 B.C.,8 was the very embodiment of a stratēgos preoccupied with love rather than with death, with eros more than with thanatos. His contemporary, Ion of Chios, records having encountered him in Chios, on his way to Lesbos, “in his capacity as stratēgos.” Having been invited to a private banquet (sumposion), Sophocles is said to have organized a scurrilous ruse in order to get to embrace the handsome young lad employed to serve the wine. Having succeeded in his aim, the poet was said to have exclaimed: “My dear hosts, I have been working on my strategic skills ever since Pericles claimed that, even if I know all about poetry, I know nothing of strategy. But is it not true that this stratagem of mine has been successful?”9 Blinded, as he was, by the delights of the sumposion, the poet was clearly failing to distinguish the private sphere from the public, and love affairs from the conduct of warfare. This was precisely something that Pericles took care not to do, for once he had entered political life, he refused to attend even the most modest private banquet.10 The episode also shows to what extent the magistracy of a stratēgos was unspecialized, even though the people did in fact take care to elect true specialists in military matters to the college of the ten stratēgoi—men such as the military experts Myronides and Phormion.
Among all the fifth-century stratēgoi, Pericles stands out as having had a quite exceptional career.
An Exceptional Stratēgos
Pericles was exceptional on two counts: first, the numerous times that he was reelected as stratēgos. He occupied the post at least fifteen times and consequently exerted a lasting influence on the destiny of the city. His first attested election took place in 448/7 and then, between 443/2 and 429/8 B.C., he was, according to Plutarch, reelected fourteen times in succession.11 Second, Pericles may have distinguished himself from his colleagues through the manner of his elections: according to some historians, he was sometimes elected by all the Athenians (ex hapantōn), not solely by the members of his own tribe (kata phulas). This was a great honor for, in the early fifth century, elections in principle took place separately within each of the tribes. In certain years, the Akamantis tribe, to which Pericles belonged, seems to have provided the college of stratēgoi with two representatives. For example, in 441/440 Pericles and Glaukon both appear in the list provided by the Atthidographer, Androtion, despite the fact that they were both members of the same tribe.12
Since the late nineteenth century, most historians have believed that stratēgoi were appointed according to two different methods: while the first nine were elected by their tribes, the tenth was elected ex hapantōn, by the entire body of Athenians. This stratēgos, chosen by the entire civic community would, for that very reason, have enjoyed greater prestige than his colleagues; and it is thought that Pericles was not alone in being elected in this distinctive fashion. It is believed that, after the War of Samos in 440/439, the stratēgos Phormion was likewise elected in this fashion and that this soldier of genius was reelected ex hapantōn in 430/429 at the very time when Pericles was relieved of his responsibilities and subjected to an extremely heavy fine.13
However, the hypothesis of a twofold system of election remains tenuous. It is based on an extract from the Constitution of the Athenians (61.1) that attests that in Aristotle’s day the stratēgoi were elected no longer by their tribes but by the people as a whole. But this passage does not record the point at which this change took place. It could very well have happened as early as the first half of the fifth century, which would explain the simultaneous presence of stratēgoi from the same tribe, without implying the coexistence of two different modes of election.14 As early as Pericles’ time, stratēgoi may have been elected by the community as a whole, and this would have bestowed upon them reinforced popular legitimacy, although it would at the same time have deprived them of the chance to stand out individually from the rest of the other stratēgoi.
Exceptional though Pericles’ career as a stratēgos was, he was never invested with the preeminent position of running the business of the city on his own, as some historians have claimed. That hypothesis is based on an overhasty reading of a passage in Thucydides in which the historian mentions Pericles’ return to grace soon after being removed from office in 430 B.C.: at this point the Athenians elected him stratēgos yet again and entrusted him with “all affairs” (panta ta pragmata) (2.65.4). Some interpreters have regarded this as proof that Pericles was now designated stratēgos autokratōr and have assumed that he had regularly held this special position in the past. However, there is nothing to support that conjecture. In Athens, “full powers” such as those were attributed only for a special mission, on a particular occasion. What Thucydides probably means to say here is nothing more than that “the Athenians had full confidence in him in all matters.”15 One might even say that, in a period of warfare, panta ta pragmata would refer only to a city’s “military affairs”—in other words, to precisely the business for which a stratēgos was responsible.
The fact remains that Pericles’ longevity as a stratēgos truly was extraordinary, given the brutal events that affected the democratic city in this period. What can be the explanation for that permanence at the head of Athenian affairs? Although it is not the only factor involved here, this string of reelections may be explained in particular by Pericles’ numerous military successes. The fact is that victory was not only the aim of all stratēgoi, who were elected precisely to wage a war and to win it; it was also one of the motors of their continuing hold on power: victory enveloped a victorious leader in a charisma that, in return, guaranteed him popular support.
THE VICTORIOUS STRATĒGOS: THE PATHS OF GLORY
The Charisma of Victory
In the course of his long career at the head of the Athenian armies and navies, Pericles won many battles. Although not himself a specialist in warfare, as Phormion was, he took care to surround himself with competent individuals, relying in particular on the aid of “Menippus, his friend and second-in-command as stratēgos [hupostratēgountos].”16 Thanks to the latter’s skills, Pericles won many victories—no fewer than nine according to Plutarch: “Being now near his end, the best of the citizens and those of his friends who survived were sitting around him holding discourse of his excellence and power, how great they had been, and estimating all his achievements and the number of his trophies,—there were nine of these which he had set up as the city’s victorious general” (Pericles, 38.3). Among these successes there were three that particularly struck the minds of his contemporaries. One century later, the orator Lycurgus of Athens recalled that Pericles “had conquered Samos, Euboea and Aegina,”17 all of them victories won over recalcitrant allies in the Delian League.
However, military successes were not enough. News of them needed to spread. Pericles publicized his own successes with masterly skill. His talent as a propagandist shone out in the full glare of publicity after the victory over Samos in 440/439. On this occasion, Pericles was chosen by the Athenians to deliver, in the public cemetery, the dēmosion sēma, the funeral oration for the soldiers who had died for their country. Thanks to his oratorical skill, this was a chance not only to celebrate the citizens who had fallen in battle, but at the same time implicitly to convey the part that he himself had played in the final victory. A number of famous phrases from this speech have been preserved for us by Plutarch and Aristotle,18 and we know that his eulogy aroused so much admiration that “as he came down from the tribune, … the women clasped his hand and fastened wreaths and fillets on his head, as though he was some victorious athlete [hōsper athlēten nikēphoron]” (Pericles, 28.4). Thanks to the charm of his eloquence, Pericles was showered with a glory that likened him to the victors in athletic games. The comparison is certainly apt: the athletes who won crowns received extraordinary honours from their city—in particular, honorific statues that were raised to them in the public squares,19 and thanks to the prestige that this bestowed upon them, some became important political leaders, one being the famous Milo of Croton, at the end of the sixth century.
To celebrate his victory over the Samians, Pericles also made the most of another comparison that was equally flattering to him. Ion of Chios tells us that he compared this success of his to Agamemnon’s capture of Troy, even going so far as to proclaim himself superior to the Iliad’s king: “he had the most astonishingly great thoughts of himself for having subjected the Samians; whereas Agamemnon was all of ten years in taking a barbarian city, he had in nine months’ time reduced the foremost and most powerful people of Ionia” (Plutarch, Pericles, 28.5). In this brief summary, Pericles presented himself in the guise of an epic hero, thereby appropriating the aura associated with the Homeric poems.20
This strategy of heroization involved not only words but also images. Even though it may not have been consecrated until after his death, in 429, the bronze effigy of Pericles set up on the Acropolis glorified his function of stratēgos far more emphatically than his own true features would have. Placed among the sanctuary’s most prominent monuments,21 this standing statue corresponded to a well-known type of representation of a stratēgos: it featured both nudity and a raised Corinthian helmet placed on the statue’s head.22 The helmet evoked Pericles’ function as stratēgos—namely, military strategy—while the nudity likened him to the heroes, or even the gods, in accordance with the iconographic conventions of the day. The effigy thus celebrated the memory of Pericles as a great man who had defended his country.
However, such forms of self-glorification attracted virulent criticism from his political opponents, who were bent on minimizing the extent of his military successes and condemning the shameless publicity that he bestowed upon them.
A Disputed Military Reputation
At a strictly military level, Pericles was in no way an exceptional stratēgos. In fact, he came off badly in comparison with certain of his predecessors and colleagues, so much so that Plutarch even presents him as living off the military successes of others: “The victories of Cimon and the trophies of Myronides and Leocrates, and the many successes of Tolmides, made it the privilege of Pericles, during his administration, to enrich the city with holidays and public festivals, rather than to enlarge and protect her dominion by war.”23 So was Pericles really a mediocre stratēgos who exploited the victories achieved by his colleagues? Although that would probably be an exaggerated conclusion to draw, his merits certainly were less dazzling than those of other stratēgoi who were more familiar with military manoeuvres.24
His opponents belittled him not only for his modest warrior talents but also for the way that he publicized his own rare victories. After the war against Samos and the funerary speech that he delivered, he fell victim to the biting irony of Elpinike, Cimon’s sister. According to a report probably made by Ion of Chios,25 she criticized him for having “lost us many brave citizens, not in a war with Phoenicians or Medes, like my brother Cimon, but in the subversion of an allied and kindred [suggenē] city.”26 Pericles appears to have learned his lesson from those bitter criticisms. In the funerary speech that he delivered in 431, after the first campaigning season of the Peloponnesian War, he certainly refrained from launching into pompous praises for his own actions. According to Thucydides, he explicitly refused to appeal to Homer—as he had at the time of the war against Samos, in order to exalt the Athenian dead: “We shall need no Homer to sing our praise nor any other poet whose verses may perhaps delight for the moment but whose presentation of the facts will be discredited by the truth.”27 Perhaps this was also his way of confirming that Athens no longer needed to invoke the glorious precedents of the past in order to celebrate the battles of the present: in a kind of prefiguration of the quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns, the city now presented itself as a model for others to follow, not simply an imitator.
Those were not the only criticisms leveled at Pericles where military matters were concerned. His opponents also blamed him for having sometimes prevented his political rivals from fighting in the best of conditions, even to the point of endangering the whole city. For example, he was said to have forbidden Cimon to take part in the battle of Tanagra, in 457, in order to prevent this troublesome rival from returning to favor. Cimon, the hero of Eurymedon, who had been living in exile for five years, had on this occasion hoped to reintegrate himself into the Athenian forces and thereby prove his devotion to his country, which was then at war with the Spartans. Having obstructed him, Pericles was obliged to show exceptional heroism himself, so as to wipe out the memory of the services offered by his rival: “For which reason, it is thought, Pericles fought most sturdily in that battle and was the most conspicuous of all in exposing himself to danger.”28
In similar fashion, Pericles is said to have done his utmost to prevent Cimon’s son, Lakedaimonius, from covering himself with glory in battle. According to Stesimbrotus of Thasos, in 433 B.C. Pericles sent Lakedaimonius to assist Corcyra, which was then in difficulty, facing Corinthian interference, but Pericles provided him with only 10 triremes, thereby rendering his task impossible.29
So was Pericles simply a sordid manipulator, striving to belittle the merits of his rivals in order to magnify his own and to be the only one to tread the paths of glory? We should beware of drawing overhasty conclusions that are based solely on a reading of Plutarch. In the first place, Lakedaimonius was not the only stratēgos sent on this mission to Corcyra: Cimon’s son was accompanied by two of his colleagues, as is attested both by Thucydides and by an inscription recording the expenses devoted to this venture.30 Furthermore, it was the people of Athens who decided on the despatch of these stratēgoi, not Pericles himself. The fact nevertheless remains that, in a context of perpetual rivalry between political and military leaders such as this, it was in each leader’s interest to see that his rivals basked in as little glory as possible on the battlefields.
There was yet another, even more radical criticism that Pericles had to face. Throughout his career, the stratēgos favored a way of waging war that broke radically with the traditional customs and codes. Whenever possible, he tried to avoid fighting, thereby sometimes attracting accusations of cowardice or even treachery from opponents who found themselves short of arguments.
A REFLECTIVE STRATĒGOS: A DELIBERATE REJECTION OF HEROISM
Pericles Cunctator?
In military matters, Pericles was inevitably bound not to benefit from more than a limited degree of charisma, by reason of the proverbial circumspection that caused Plutarch to compare him to Fabius Maximus, the Cunctator (delayer), the Roman consul who obstinately refused to confront the Carthaginians following the defeat at Trasimene in 217 B.C., in order to give the Romans time to reorganize their forces.
Nothing was more alien to Pericles than the kind of rashness displayed by military leaders who were in quest of glory, even at the risk of imperiling the city: “nor did he envy and imitate those who took great risks, enjoyed brilliant good fortune and so were admired as great generals.”31 In this respect, he deliberately turned his back on the heroic ideal that favored combat in all circumstances, even if it meant paying the ultimate price, in accordance with the ambivalent model set by Achilles.32
Pericles stood in opposition to one other stratēgos in particular. This was Tolmides, the son of Tolmaeus (whose very name sets out its own agenda, since tolmē means “rashness” in Greek). Tolmides was keen to invade Boeotia in 447, and at this point he was well placed to win over the people “on account of his previous good fortune and of the exceeding great honour bestowed upon him for his wars [dia to timasthai … ek tōn polemikōn]” (Pericles, 18.2). It was a frantic quest for glory that eventually ended in disaster, for the battle of Coronea was a serious defeat for Athens, in the course of which Cleinias, the father of the handsome Alcibiades, was killed.33
Pericles adopted the same prudent behavior in 440, at the time of the war against Samos. He preferred to embark on a lengthy siege rather than throw himself into an ill-prepared attack. As Plutarch explains, he wished to conquer the town “at the price of money and time, rather than of the wounds and deadly perils of his fellow-citizens” (Pericles, 27.1–2). However, such circumspection greatly aggravated the Athenians “in their impatience of delay and eagerness to fight” (ibid.). Eventually, the stratēgos was obliged to devise a stratagem to distract their impatience.
The fact is that, in a Greece marked by the culture of the agōn, Pericles’ prudence was often interpreted by his opponents as pusillanimous or even as cowardly. Although effective in the long run, his rejection of direct confrontation—and of the laurels that could thereby be swiftly won—was bound to arouse strong resistance in the city. In a way, the death of Pericles perfectly symbolized the position that he had adopted: for the stratēgos did not perish on the field of battle, laden with honors, but was struck down by the “plague” and died in his bed, obstinately remaining confined within the city and refusing to enter into direct combat with the Spartan enemy.
All the same, it would be mistaken to make Pericles out to be a gentle lamb, let alone a bleating pacifist who rejected any form of conflict. What the stratēgos rejected was not warfare in itself, but rather a particular way of waging it—that is to say, ill-prepared and without taking into consideration the balance of power between the forces involved. After all, Pericles shamelessly put down the revolts of his allies,34 and himself played a crucial role in unleashing the Peloponnesian War, as Thucydides confirms: “Being the most powerful man of his time and the leader of the State [agōn tēn polit eian], he was opposed to the Lacedaemonians in all things, and would not let the Athenians make concessions, but kept urging them on to the war.”35 Besides, we know of the accusations that the comic poets brought against him, judging him to be responsible for starting the war in order to distract attention away from misdemeanors of his own.36 Although he recommended a firm attitude when facing the Spartans, he was not willing to set off to war regardless of the conditions that obtained. If it is victory that one seeks, one has to prepare for war!37 That was the line of behavior adopted by the stratēgos who, at the start of the Peloponnesian War developed a strategy that was certainly effective but was, at the same time, much contested in the Athenian ranks.
The Peloponnesian War: The Originality of Pericles’ Military Strategy
When hostilities against Sparta broke out in 431, Pericles managed to convince his fellow-citizens generally to take refuge behind their walls, rather than clash head-on with the Peloponnesian troops, who outnumbered them and were better trained. It is true that the city benefited from its exceptional defensive position. Even before Pericles entered upon the political scene, the Athenians had begun to fortify their city and to link the urban core (astu) to their port, Piraeus, in such a way as to render the whole impregnable. The construction of the Long Walls had been launched by Cimon,38 although the work on the northern wall was not completed until after his ostracism (462/457). As for the southern wall, which doubled the earlier rampart, this was built at Pericles’ suggestion, between 452 and 431 B.C. (it is not possible to be more specific).39 Themistocles, Cimon, and Pericles all played their parts in these developments, and by the time they were completed, the town of Athens had become a kind of fortified island supplied with food from territory that included the cities of the Delian League as well as the Attic countryside.
Periclean strategy constituted a coherent whole. It was founded upon the abandonment of the rural territory, the avoidance of fighting on land and the prowess of the navy, and it involved a number of closely related elements: direct confrontation on land with the enemy’s army, which was undeniably more powerful than the Athenian one, was to be avoided; the Athenian navy was to be used, rather than the hoplites; outside the city territory, military operations were to be conducted using the fleet; the allegiance of the allies was to be maintained but without seeking to extend the Athenian Empire; the city was to rely on the products that were accessible thanks to Athenian sea power; and, finally, properties situated in the khōra were to be abandoned so as to concentrate on defending the maritime supply routes and the town of Athens (astu).40
It was this last decision that aroused the most resistance among the Athenians. For a largely rural population, the idea of abandoning the territory to the ravages of the enemy was hard to accept; moreover, this tactic was the more painful since the Athenians maintained a special relationship with their own land. They regarded themselves as autochthonous, the descendants of Erichthonius, who was the son of the Attic land and Hephaestus.41 For them, to abandon the khōra was to leave their life-giving mother defenseless.
This opposition, magnified by the outbreak of the plague in Athens in 430,42 threatened the authority of the stratēgos, as is attested both by Thucydides’ account and by fragments from the contemporary comic poets. In his play, the Moirai (The Fates), performed at the Lenaean Festival, in 430 B.C., the comic poet Hermippus deplored Pericles’ policy as follows:
Thou king of the Satyrs, why, pray, wilt thou not
Take the spear for thy weapon, and stop the dire talk
With the which, until now, thou conductest the war,
While the soul of a Teles is in thee?
If the tiniest knife is but laid on the stone
To give it an edge, thou gnashest thy teeth,
As if bitten by fiery Cleon.43
This passage delights in dwelling upon the implied cowardice of Pericles, who, in this context, is transformed into a latter-day Dionysus who prefers to lead a theatrical chorus rather than his men into battle. The comparison may well testify to Pericles’ interest in drama, but is designed above all to discredit the stratēgos, depicting him as a man concerned above all to promote his own pleasure rather than defend his city.
Despite this underlying anger, Pericles’ prudent strategy was followed by the Athenians even after the death of its promoter, for the fact was that it chimed with the interests of the majority of the citizens. Had that not been the case, Pericles, despite all his oratorical skills, would not have been able to carry the Assembly with him for more than a few months. In truth, his policy did suit the realities facing the Athenian democracy and also its imaginary representations. In the first place, in a city where one-fifth of the citizens possessed no land at all and almost two-thirds of them owned only fields of less than one hectare (around 2.5 acres), the abandonment of the khōra was the lesser evil.44 Only the large and medium-sized landowners, whom Aristophanes defended, were seriously affected by the Spartans’ devastation of the fields and their crops.45 As Pericles himself proclaimed in his speech to the Athenians in 430, “You should make light of them [the houses and the land], regarding them … as a mere flower-garden or ornament of a wealthy estate.”46 Furthermore, far from avoiding all conflict, Pericles simply chose one particular form of warfare—naval confrontation—rather than another—namely, hoplite combat. By favoring the oarsmen rather than the hoplites, the stratēgos followed in the footsteps of Themistocles, who valued the poorest of the citizens (the thetes), to the disadvantage of the hoplite class and the cavalrymen.47
It was because his policies responded to a profoundly democratic requirement that Pericles, despite forceful criticism, was in the end able to resist the resentments of the Athenian people and convince it of the correctness of his views—and to do so not solely thanks to his talents as an orator capable of bewitching his fellow citizens.48 The fact nevertheless remains that his expertise in public speaking certainly was a valuable asset to him in his pursuit of political authority.