Power, Democracy and City-State Interests Is Pericles a Supporter of Democracy?

DOI

10.2991/assehr.k.201215.430How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Pericles, Athens, democratic politician

Abstract

The importance of democracy itself in classical times is remarkable. Pericles was the most important statesman of Athens in the fifth century BC. His reign is regarded as the golden age of Athenian democracy. During this time, he was a model democratic politician. His power derives entirely from the approval of the people in a democratic system. With the support of the people, the more people he can participate in democracy, the more stable his power will be. Thus, even if democracy is not necessarily linked to the stable development of the city state, the interests of democratic politicians are also linked to democracy. Starting from the value of democracy itself, this paper tries to prove that Pericles’s interests are highly correlated with the democratic system of Athens. Berriks, like other successful politicians in a democracy, do not undermine democracy itself. However, Athenian politicians after Pericles were often obsessed with party conflict, and Athens was less capable of decision-making under their leadership than under Pericles’s. Finally, Athens lost the hegemony of the Hellenic world due to the lack of good strategic talents.

Copyright

© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Junyi Xiang
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/17
TI  - Power, Democracy and City-State Interests Is Pericles a Supporter of Democracy?
BT  - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 238
EP  - 241
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201215.430
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201215.430
ID  - Xiang2020
ER  -