historians resort in order to evoke
the Greek world and its “great men.” It is probably totally pointless to regard Pericles
as the leader of a political party—as if any such structures existed in Athens—or
to interpret the building site on the Acropolis as the fruit of Keynesian policies avant la lettre , with Pericles assuming the mantle of Roosevelt. 2
Should we, then, simply draw attention to the radical difference of the Greek world,
at the risk of boring readers confronted with an Antiquity shrouded in its singularity?
If Pericles resembles our contemporary politicians not at all, why continue to take
an interest in that figure? Yet is it possible totally to shed the preoccupations
of the present day, as we confrontthe past? Again, it is all a matter of balance. The present book favors an un-Cyclopean,
two-eyed view founded upon a constant “toing and froing” between the present and the
past. Provided it is kept under control, anachronism may have pedagogic or even heuristic
virtues. 3 The narrow path that I intend to follow involves drawing comparisons with the present,
without, however, succumbing to the dizzying prospects of analogy.
In this odyssey strewn with pitfalls, there is one last trap that is particularly
hard to avoid—namely, personalization, which is an inherent part of all biographical
projects. Like the traveler who, enraptured by the siren’s songs to the point of losing
all recollection of his family and homeland, a biographer often tends to neglect the
social and political environment in which his hero moves. By focusing on a single
individual, a historian risks leaving in the shadows the role played by the collectivity.
That would, to put it mildly, be paradoxical when one is tackling the first democracy
in history. It has to be said that the ancient sources do nothing to dispel such an
enchantment. By the end of the fifth century, already Thucydides was declaring that
“Athens, though in name a democracy, gradually became in fact a government ruled by
its foremost citizen” (2.65).
That famous declaration has for many years been taken quite literally, as if the history
of the Athenian democracy and the career of its leader could be superposed one upon
the other and completely fused. 4 But such personalization is eminently challengeable: Thucydides, himself a stratēgos , was far from being as “objective” as a certain line of historiography has long maintained.
In so far as historians today are more objective than their famous predecessor, it
is fair enough to declare “No, Thucydides is not a colleague,” 5 for the author of The Peloponnesian War was heir to a deep-seated tradition that tended to envisage history solely in relation
to the great men who, it was supposed, molded it.
So should we tip the scales in the opposite direction and dilute Pericles’ own actions
with those of the Athenian people? In order to render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s
and to the people that which is theirs, it would be tempting to write a history of
Athens animated by an anonymous collective: in short, to write a history not of Pericles,
but of 50,000 citizens. A number of studies on the stratēgos do have that tendency and, on the pretext of producing a life of Pericles, in fact
sketch in a portrait of fifth-century Athens. 6
All the same, that would be a simplifying, if not simplistic approach to the problem.
Rather than choose between the people and a single individual, it would better to
consider that very question as the subject to be studied. Even if Pericles did undeniably
weigh heavily upon the city’s collective decisions, on the other hand, reading between
the lines, the life of the great manilluminates the influence that the Athemian dēmos exerted upon its leaders. In order to wield the slightest degree of power, the great
man was obliged to take popular expectations into account and to align, adjust,
the Greek world and its “great men.” It is probably totally pointless to regard Pericles
as the leader of a political party—as if any such structures existed in Athens—or
to interpret the building site on the Acropolis as the fruit of Keynesian policies avant la lettre , with Pericles assuming the mantle of Roosevelt. 2
Should we, then, simply draw attention to the radical difference of the Greek world,
at the risk of boring readers confronted with an Antiquity shrouded in its singularity?
If Pericles resembles our contemporary politicians not at all, why continue to take
an interest in that figure? Yet is it possible totally to shed the preoccupations
of the present day, as we confrontthe past? Again, it is all a matter of balance. The present book favors an un-Cyclopean,
two-eyed view founded upon a constant “toing and froing” between the present and the
past. Provided it is kept under control, anachronism may have pedagogic or even heuristic
virtues. 3 The narrow path that I intend to follow involves drawing comparisons with the present,
without, however, succumbing to the dizzying prospects of analogy.
In this odyssey strewn with pitfalls, there is one last trap that is particularly
hard to avoid—namely, personalization, which is an inherent part of all biographical
projects. Like the traveler who, enraptured by the siren’s songs to the point of losing
all recollection of his family and homeland, a biographer often tends to neglect the
social and political environment in which his hero moves. By focusing on a single
individual, a historian risks leaving in the shadows the role played by the collectivity.
That would, to put it mildly, be paradoxical when one is tackling the first democracy
in history. It has to be said that the ancient sources do nothing to dispel such an
enchantment. By the end of the fifth century, already Thucydides was declaring that
“Athens, though in name a democracy, gradually became in fact a government ruled by
its foremost citizen” (2.65).
That famous declaration has for many years been taken quite literally, as if the history
of the Athenian democracy and the career of its leader could be superposed one upon
the other and completely fused. 4 But such personalization is eminently challengeable: Thucydides, himself a stratēgos , was far from being as “objective” as a certain line of historiography has long maintained.
In so far as historians today are more objective than their famous predecessor, it
is fair enough to declare “No, Thucydides is not a colleague,” 5 for the author of The Peloponnesian War was heir to a deep-seated tradition that tended to envisage history solely in relation
to the great men who, it was supposed, molded it.
So should we tip the scales in the opposite direction and dilute Pericles’ own actions
with those of the Athenian people? In order to render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s
and to the people that which is theirs, it would be tempting to write a history of
Athens animated by an anonymous collective: in short, to write a history not of Pericles,
but of 50,000 citizens. A number of studies on the stratēgos do have that tendency and, on the pretext of producing a life of Pericles, in fact
sketch in a portrait of fifth-century Athens. 6
All the same, that would be a simplifying, if not simplistic approach to the problem.
Rather than choose between the people and a single individual, it would better to
consider that very question as the subject to be studied. Even if Pericles did undeniably
weigh heavily upon the city’s collective decisions, on the other hand, reading between
the lines, the life of the great manilluminates the influence that the Athemian dēmos exerted upon its leaders. In order to wield the slightest degree of power, the great
man was obliged to take popular expectations into account and to align, adjust,
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