Significance of Pericles' Death The death of Pericles was a significant event in the course of the Peloponnesian War; however, even without Pericles' leadership the Athenian Assembly had countless opportunities to prevent their loss and chose not to take them. The fickleness and inefficiency of democracy ('the mob') allowed the Athenians to be easily influenced and therefore electing populists such as Cleon, Lysicles and Hyperbolus into dominant leadership roles. Election, via democratic means, of such populists, meant that the Athenians would take a much more aggressive approach to the war and therefore abandon the policies that Pericles had previously established. So in turn, democracy the institution for which the Athenians fought tirelessly to protect, rather than the death of Pericles, ironically became the dominant factor influencing the final outcome of this Ancient Greek civil war. As can be expected from pioneer governmental institutions, Athenian democracy was not perfect. In fact it was far from it. It resulted in the establishment of poor policies by aggressive populists who sought "...private ambition and private profit...which were bad both for the Athenians themselves and their allies." (Thucydides). These self interested populist leaders with personal gain in mind established extensive internal political instability "...by quarrelling among themselves [and] began to bring confusion into the policy of the state." (Thucydides). Repeated opportunities to accept terms of peace after the battles of Pylos (425), Arginusae (406) and Aegospotami (405) were ignored by the inefficient Athenian demos eventually resulting in the devastation of the once dominant city-state. Internal political strife can also be attribu... ... middle of paper ... ...ericles had lived, he may have actually hindered Athenian attempts to find some way out of the stalemated war." (http://www.warhorsesim.com/epw_hist.html). Pericles' death was significant. The Athenians had lost one of their greatest leaders. But even if the policies of Pericles had not been abandoned by the feeble Athenian democracy, the cost of the war would have proved too great and thus Athenian defeat was inevitable. It was a series of consequential events, spurred on by democratic failure, not one key turning point, that resulted in the decisive defeat of the Athenians by the Peloponnesians, with the aid of Persia. Because of democratic fickleness, with or without Pericles the Athenians were doomed for defeat, and therefore the death of Pericles was not the key turning point, rather it was only a factor which determined the length of the Peloponnesian War.
Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, showed weaknesses within his leadership which may have contributed to the confederacy’s loss and the unions win . Davis failed in three vital ways. These ways were: his relations with other confederate authorities and with the people, as well as in his fundamental concept of his job as president and in his organization and specific handling of his role as commander in chief . Davis failed in maintaining communication with leaders and with his people, often unable to admit when he is wrong which led to lack organization in his role . In addition, Davis was a conservative leader, not a revolutionary one which meant that his strength was often in protocol and convention rather than in innovation . Studying each of these aspects that represented a weakness in Jefferson Davis’s leadership, Lincoln in comparison provided more admirable and outstanding qualities within his leadership which in many ways affected the outcome of the war
Thucydides set out to narrate the events of what he believed would be a great war—one requiring great power amassed on both sides and great states to carry out. Greatness, for Thucydides, was measured most fundamentally in capital and military strength, but his history delves into almost every aspect of the war, including, quite prominently, its leaders. In Athens especially, leadership was vital to the war effort because the city’s leaders were chosen by its people and thus, both shaped Athens and reflected its character during their lifetimes. The leaders themselves, however, are vastly different in their abilities and their effects on the city. Thucydides featured both Pericles and Alcibiades prominently in his history, and each had a distinct place in the evolution of Athenian empire and the war it sparked between Athens and Sparta. Pericles ascended to power at the empire’s height and was, according to Thucydides, the city’s most capable politician, a man who understood fully the nature of his city and its political institutions and used his understanding to further its interests in tandem with his own. After Pericles, however, Thucydides notes a drastic decline in the quality of Athenian leaders, culminating in Alcibiades, the last major general to be described in The Peloponnesian War. While he is explicit in this conclusion, he is much more reticent regarding its cause. What changed in Athens to produce the decline in the quality of its leadership?
When President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) took office, he did not garner much respect from the American citizens as a military leader. Lincoln exercised actions that took his West Point generals into more aggressive territory. Even though he didn’t have the military education or experience as his counterpart Confederate President Jefferson Davis (1808-1889), he continued his abilities as a fearless leader by becoming a student of...
If Civil Wars could be represented by a single person, the personification of the struggle in the United States between the North and the South would be a frightful individual to behold. Unfortunately, for Jefferson Davis, his life and temperament came close to embodying the gruesome inward fight of the American Civil War (or at least the Southern part). As men go, he was labeled an enigma. He was both a contradiction and a confirmation of himself, unpredictable yet foreseeable. His insecurities were major weaknesses. Without the special skills of a “people person”, he was thrust into a position of leadership over unorganized and untrained men. Despite these things, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, attempted to overcome all of it. In this way, he exemplified the Civil War and the further internal strains of the American South.
On the other hand, there are others, such as Platias and Koliopoulos that say Pericles’s strategy could have worked. Both state that "the Athenians lost the war only when they dramatically reversed the Periclean grand strategy that explicitly disdained further conquests". The Athens could have Although his countrymen engaged in several aggressive actions soon after his death, the Athenians remained true to the larger Periclean strategy of seeking to preserve, not expand, the empire, and did not depart from it until the Sicilian Expedition. 33%
In the 450s, under his leadership, the Athenian assembly passed a series of laws that went far toward establishing a democratic constitution. Pericles believed glory and immortality could be achieved by citizens of democracy based on legal and political equality. He intended to create a new quality of life.# “Pericles felt that he must show democracy would bring to all Athenian citizens the advantage reserved for the well-born few. The democracy would encourage merit in its traditional form and reward it with victory, glory, and immortality.”# This paper will examine Pericles and his effect on the Athenian democracy. Pericles was very important to the development of the Athenian democracy because he didn’t differentiate the poor and the wealthy.
Kalant, Harold. “Medicinal Use of Cannabis: History and Current States.” Pain Research and Management 6.2 (2001): 80-94. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
National Center for Health Statistics. (2000). Healthy people data 2010. Retrieved July 1, 2009, from http://www.healthypeople.gov/ data/data2010.htm
Once upon a time, I was a student ignorant of the issues plaguing our nation; issues such as abortion and a frightening scarcity of organ donors meant little to me, who was neither pregnant nor in need of replacement body parts. Today, I fortunately remain a simple witness to these scenarios rather than a participant, but I have certainly established a new perspective since reading Neal Shusterman’s Unwind several years ago.
...s of the war itself, there are a number of crucial points which set the course of the tide, and I have tried to illustrate those which I consider to be most important and influential. In any case, it seems that if Athens would have continued with the policy of Pericles, she might not have been so weakened by the destruction of her superior naval forces, which, it seems, can largely be accounted for by Alcibiades and his supporters.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Myths and Facts. n.d. Web. 16 November 2013.
Pericles’s funeral oration was given to honor the soldiers lost in war by commemorating the military accomplishments of the Athens government and to distinguish the roles of men and women in Athens society. Pericles’s speech was given in 430 B.C.E at the end of the first year of war. He then died a year late in 429 B.C.E. Pericles’ Funeral Oration is included in Thucydides’ writing titled History of the Peloponnesian War.
One of those traits is that although Athenian citizens and soldiers live a more leisurely life and are not trained as rigorously as the Spartans in land warfare, Athenians’ natural courage makes up for that (Thucydides pg. 42). Athens was definitely the dominant naval power in Greece at the time, but the Athenians’ devaluing of land warfare led to a stalemate in the first phase of the Peloponnesian War before the Peace of Nicias in which Sparta ravaged Athens’ countryside and forced its citizens to be holed up in the city walls and to live in close quarters, making them susceptible to the plague. Another trait of Athens that can be argued as not a positive factor is its institution of democracy. Athenian democracy was quite limited in the modern sense since its citizenry only included ethnic Athenian males over the age of 20, but it was remarkable in the ancient world for the amount of civic participation it allowed of those that it considered citizens. The Athenians prided themselves on including people of lower economic status into the citizenry, but this trait may be not as positive as Pericles proclaimed (Thucydides pg. 40). In an oligarchic system such as Sparta’s, if the city-state was to win a war, it
Many of the literary, artistic and architectural works of Greece’s Golden Age still exist today and are part of Pericles' legacy. The Acropolis, though in ruins, still stands and is a symbol of modern Athens. The form of democracy championed by Pericles was built upon by the Romans and serves as the basis of modern democracy. But what made him a great man in his time were his skills and instincts as a leader in military, political, and cultural
According to Dewey (1938) experiences can only be termed as educative if they lead to further intellectual and moral growth. In order for experience to be termed as educative, both the community and the individual have to benefit from the said experience. The experience has to contribute to growth in curiosity, sense of purpose, and initiative in the learner. He was of the view that traditional education was hierarchical and therefore undemocratic in nature. According to him, in order to produce well informed, thoughtful and democratic students, learners need to participate in all aspects of the school program and gain the experience. Eventually, a learner has to reflect on the experience ...