Ancient Greek Theater performance Agamemnon - Aeschylus tragedy

The Athenians were now looking for a leader who might fulfill their newfound sense of imperial glory. They found a man who seemed the perfect reflection of this new ideal. A man who would change the face of Athens forever. A man named Pericles. He's probably not a more important figure in the history of classical Greece than Pericles. He was the leader of Athens at the height of its power and of its artistic achievement. He was the figure associated appropriately with bringing Athenian democracy to its climax, to its height. But Pericles was no obvious democrat like Themistocles, for he had been born into one of Athens' most elite families. And perhaps because of his aristocratic origins, Pericles knew what the people of Athens now wanted. A city fit to rule an empire. It seems clear that Pericles had in mind to create a city whose greatness would be admired by the people who lived there, by everybody else in the Greek world, well into the future. Pericles announced a glorious new vision to the Athenian assembly. All kinds of enterprises should be created which will provide inspiration for every art, find employment for every hand. We must devote ourselves to acquiring things that will be the source of everlasting fame. But Pericles was not simply concerned with astonishing construction projects. Under his leadership, Athens would also become the intellectual center of the ancient world. Pericles was remarkable in that he associated with the leading minds of his day in just about every field of endeavor. In these years, Pericles played host to an astonishing generation of individuals. Figures such as Anaxagoras, the first man to realize that the moon was lit by reflected sunlight. He knew Herodotus, the world's first historian, who wrote one of the earliest records of Greek life. And poets and authors such as Aeschylus and Euripides, whose works are still standards of world literature. Pericles was well aware of his city stature. Our whole city is an education, for our citizens excel all men in versatility, resourcefulness, and brilliance. Even Pericles' partner, a woman named Aspasia, was unique and distinguished. Pericles had divorced his wife and set up home with a foreign woman. A woman whose occupation was hardly to be expected, for Aspasia was what was known as a Greek for a companion. Yes, she was in a technical sense, I guess, a prostitute, but she was more than that, a woman of charm, of style, of intellect. She really was very extraordinary. She had an extraordinary mind. This relationship caused scandal throughout Athens, not just because of Aspasia's profession, but because Pericles treated her as an equal, something deeply unusual in 5th century Athens. One of the things that created such a stir was that Pericles had her participate in conversations that he had with some of the most important individuals with whom he talked. There's jokes to suggest that Aspasia actually was the person who wrote Pericles' speeches. Pericles and his circle were to become one of the most famous and influential groups in But in 5th century Athens, the highest achievements of art and culture were not restricted to the elite. Pericles in Athens seems to me to belong in the smallish collection of cities where truly great moments in the human experience took place. Culture in the broadest sense reaches a peak. But after 20 years of building the cultural capital of the Western world, Pericles and his fellow Athenians would now find that their theater and their tragedies would hold a bitter sting. It is possible to think of Pericles, indeed I think of him, as a man with a tragic flaw, as the sort of man whose greatest qualities, the ones that make him most admirable and successful, turn out to be the seeds of his own destruction. Pericles began to plan a grand new venture, a venture even more ambitious than the Parthenon. He wanted to make Athens the undisputed leader of the Mediterranean. Little did Pericles know that he would now bring Athens not glory, but death, destruction, and the loss of her empire.