Pericles

Family: Athenian · Role: commander · First appears: Book 1 · Chapter 4 · Part 4

After the Athenians took control of the temple at Delphi, Euboea revolted and Megara rose against them. Pericles, son of Xanthippus, led the Athenians back to Euboea, subdued the island and expelled the Histiaeans. After the Athenians made a thirty-year truce with the Lacedaemonians and their allies, they intervened on Samos; under Pericles’ command, the Athenian fleet defeated the Samians off Tragia. The Samians later broke the blockade, but after a nine-month siege they surrendered, and the Byzantines agreed to submit to Athens as before.

When conflict with the Peloponnesians approached, Pericles urged the Athenians to make no concessions. During the invasion of Attica, he would not lead the army out, and faced public indignation and blame. He later led the Athenian levy into the Megarid and was chosen to deliver the eulogium for the first Athenians who fell in the war. On a later invasion, he again refused to let the Athenians march out; his friend Archidamus might have spared Pericles’ estate, but Pericles was blamed for the war and the Athenians’ misfortunes. He then led a naval expedition against the Peloponnese, while his colleagues Hagnon and Cleopompus took the armament he had used on an expedition toward Thrace and Potidaea. The Athenians re-elected Pericles general and entrusted their affairs to him; he died two years and six months after the war began.