A vortex. For me, Pericles has been a vortex. Perhaps any student of fifth-century Athenian history, literature, philosophy, art, or architecture must eventually think – at least for a few minutes – about Pericles. A scholar interested in classical Athenian politics, foreign relations, historiography, and warfare simply cannot escape him.

I never wanted to write a biography, and I certainly did not want to write a biography of Pericles. Nevertheless, questions about why Athens went to war with Sparta in 431, what the Athenians thought about themselves (and other Greeks), how Thucydides constructed his history, and what the Athenian people sought in a leader forced me to accept my fate. The figure of Pericles ultimately sucks all these questions into his powerful, churning maw. The historian Thucydides deserves a great deal of blame for this, as do the comic poets and philosophers who loved to skewer the Athenian statesman and whose works played a major role in the construction of Plutarch's biography. Then there are the fantastic buildings constructed with (at least) Pericles’ encouragement, the modern fascination with democratic Athens under its greatest leader, and, especially, the empire over other Greeks that Pericles and his fellow Athenians built and exploited while expanding their own political freedoms and privileges. Perhaps, in the end, Pericles should be forgiven for demanding our attention.

The principal question this work seeks to answer is what circumstances and ideas led Pericles to take the actions he (and Athens) took in the fifth century BC. The guiding hypothesis is that Thucydides has attempted to present us with a picture of Pericles that is not misleading. Like Thucydides, I am interested in Pericles’ ideas and in his role as a leader. However, unlike Thucydides, I attempt to elucidate or reconstruct the factors that made Pericles into the man Thucydides and Plutarch found so fascinating.

It has become fashionable to avoid using admittedly anachronistic terms like “state,” “conservative,” and “progressive” in descriptions of classical Athenian politics and foreign policy. I hope I may be forgiven for employing them for the purpose of convenience.