Pericles of Athens (54 page)

96.
Dubuisson 1989, 33.

97.
Robespierre 1967, 444.

98.
See Mossé 1989, 92–93 and 124–125.

99.
Billaud-Varennes, “Rapport du 1 floréal an II (20 avril 1794),” in
Le Moniteur
, II, no. 212: 860.

100.
Saint-Just 1791, II, 5.

101.
That was how P. Buonarroti saw it (Buonarroti 1828, 5): “The former [the Girondins
and the ‘Indulgents’] sighed for the riches, superfluities and splendour of Athens;
the latter desired the frugality, simplicity and modesty of the glory days of Sparta.”

102.
Buchez and Roux 1836, 394.

103.
Mossé 1989, 136.

104.
Ibid., 139.

105.
Ibid., 147. Already in Year II, Camille Desmoulins was singing the praises of Thrasybulus,
calling him “the restorer of peace”: Desmoulins 1825, 72 [
Le Vieux Cordelier
, no. 4]; and Desmoulins 1825, 90–91 [
Le Vieux Cordelier
, no. 5].

106.
Bouineau 1986, 106.

107.
Buchez and Roux 1834
,
108.

108.
Ibid., 118.

109.
In the end, the Assembly passed a motion of compromise: “The right of peace and of
war belongs to the Nation. War will be decided only by a decree from the Legislative
Body following a formal and necessary proposal from the king, which must then be sanctioned
by His Majesty.”

110.
Hansen 1992, 18.

111.
Federalist Papers
, no. 6.

112.
This association between Pericles and warfare persisted in the decades that followed.
So, in 1803, when Hamilton wanted to proclaim that, for the French party of Louisiana,
war was ineluctable, he, logically enough, chose the pseudonym Pericles. See Adair
1955, 285–287.

113.
Grégoire 1977, 45. See Mossé 1989, 113.

114.
Moniteur
, Year II, no. 20, 860.

115.
Grégoire 1977, 182.

116.
Volney 1800, 171.

117.
Ibid., 174–175.

118.
Ibid., 178 (cited by Vidal-Naquet 1995, 99).

119.
Vidal-Naquet 2000, 229.

120.
Desmoulins 1825, 124 [
Le Vieux Cordelier
, no. 6 Nivôse an II, December 1793].

121.
Ibid., 148.

122.
Ibid., 157 [
Le
Vieux Cordelier
, no. 7, February–March 1794].

123.
Ibid., 153–154 [
Le Vieux Cordelier
, no. 7, February–March 1794].

124.
Baudot 1893, 210. As Rawson 1969, 297, points out, Baudot’s Latin is altogether revolutionary!

125.
Baudot 1893, 311.

C
HAPTER
12. P
ERICLES
R
EDISCOVERED
: T
HE
F
ABRICATION OF THE
P
ERICLEAN
M
YTH
(18
TH TO
21
ST
C
ENTURIES
)

 
1.
See, for example, the titles of Cloché 1949; Flacelière 1966; Mossé 1971, 43–66;
and Maffre 1994. English-language scholarship speaks of “The Age of Pericles”: Watkiss
Lloyd 1875; Robinson 1959; and Samons II ed. 2007. The Germans, for their part, evoke
the “Perikleische Zeitalter”: see, in particular, Schmidt 1877.

 
2.
Arnaud-Lindet 2001, 130–131.

 
3.
Bodin 1945, 287.

 
4.
See earlier,
chapter 11
.

 
5.
Frederick had wanted his text to appear anonymously. Having entrusted his text to
Voltaire, he changed his mind when Frederick Wilhelm I of Prussia died, on 31 May
1740. Then, once on the throne, Frederick decided to prevent the appearance of his
book, which nevertheless did appear after numerous corrections and rewritings. See
Aizpurua 1994.

 
6.
Frederick II of Prussia 1846–1856, book VIII, 304 (author’s italics).

 
7.
On the importance of the work of Rollin, see later in this section.

 
8.
Voltaire,
Age of Louis XIV
[1751], in Voltaire 1901 (vol. 12), 5.

9.
Voltaire 1901 (vol. 12), 1–2. See Mortgat-Longuet 2006.

10.
Voltaire 1784–1789 (vol. 66), lettre XLV, 108 (letter dated 28 October 1772).

11.
See Mat-Hasquin 1981, 148. Unlike Rousseau, Voltaire had nothing but disdain for
frugal Sparta and, in
A Philosophical Dictionary
(1764), in the article on “Luxury” (in Voltaire 1901 [vol. 6], 157), he exclaimed,
“What benefit did Sparta confer on Greece? Had she ever a Demosthenes, a Sophocles,
an Apelles or a Phidias? The luxury of Athens formed great men of every description.
Sparta had certainly some great captains, but even these in a smaller number than
other cities. But allowing that a small republic like Lacedaemon may maintain its
poverty, men uniformly die, whether they are in want of everything or enjoying the
various means of rendering life agreeable.”

12.
Condillac,
Cours d’études pour l’instruction du prince de Parme
[1775], cited in Condillac 1798, 283 [
Histoire ancienne
, II, 5].

13.
See Guerci 1979, 219.

14.
Saint-Lambert 1765, 765.

15.
Rollin 1790.

16.
See Payen 2007b, 191; and Payen 2010.

17.
Rollin 1790, vol. III, book 7, chap. 1, section 7, 204.

18.
Ibid., section 10, 217.

19.
Ibid. A few chapters further on, Rollin also deplores the detachment shown by Pericles
at the deaths of those close to him: “Exceeding error! Childish illusion! Which either
makes heroism consist in wild and savage cruelty; or, leaving the same grief and confusion
in the mind, assumes a vain exterior of constancy and resolution, merely to be admired.
But does martial bravery extinguish nature?” (Rollin 1790, vol. III, book 7, chap.
3, section 2, 279).

20.
Rollin 1790, vol. III, book 7, chap. 1, section 11, 217–218.

21.
See earlier, introduction.

22.
Rollin 1790, vol. III, book 7, chap. 1, section 11, 218 (author’s italics).

23.
Ibid., chap. 1, section 11, 230, n. 1.

24.
Ibid., chap. 3, 283. See Thucydides, II, 65.

25.
Lévesque 1811, preface, xx.

26.
See Vidal-Naquet 1995, 108, citing Lévesque 1811 (vol. 3), 25.

27.
See Hartog 2005, 85; and Chapoutot 2008, 168–175. In Germany, French culture was
fundamentally perceived as Roman—to the point of French language and literature studies
being, still today, classed as
Romanistik
.

28.
See Bruhns 2005, 23.

29.
Decultot 2000, 123.

30.
For the purposes of his demonstration, Winckelmann revolutionized the history of
art by defining “artistic styles” according to a chronological sequence linked with
the history of civilizations. Winckelmann thereby initiated a classification still
used today, with different titles (“archaic style,” “early classicism of the fifth
century,” then “late classicism of the fourth century,” then “Hellenistic style”).

31.
Winckelmann 2005 (vol. 3), 191–193.

32.
Calvié 1999, 473.

33.
Herder 1800, 354. See Tolbert Roberts 1994, 210–211.

34.
Herder 1800, book XIII, chap. 3, “The arts of the Greeks,” 367–368 (author’s italics).

35.
Herder 1800, 368.

36.
Ibid., 368.

37.
See Calvié 1999: in 1788, Schiller wrote
The Gods of Greece
, and ten years later Hölderlin’s great poem,
Hyperion
, was published (1797–1799), setting the seal on the success of a form of Hellenizing
paganism.

38.
Hegel 1902 (citations p. 343 and p. 45).

39.
Roberts 1994, 219.

40.
Lyttleton 1760, 254–255.

41.
Ibid., 256.

42.
See Murray 2010, which questions the thesis of a unanimously negative view of Athens
in the eighteenth century.

43.
Gast 1753, 471.

44.
Ibid., 484.

45.
Ibid., 488.

46.
Young 1786. On the context in which the work was written, see Murray 2010, 144 and
149.

47.
Young 1786, 155.

48.
Ibid., 152–153.

49.
Gillies 1820 (vol. 2), chap. XIII, 108, n. 10.

50.
Ibid., 126.

51.
Mitford 1814, 100. On pages 127–130, Mitford gives a guarded appreciation of Pericles:
he recognizes his role as a corruptor and his detestable political behavior, but also
takes into account the great respect shown him by Thucydides, Xenophon, and Isocrates.

52.
Thirlwall 1835–1844. On the differences between Thirlwall, who remained close to
Germanic historiography (he translated Niebuhr as soon as his work appeared), and
Grote, see Momigliano 1966, 61–62.

53.
Grote 1869–1870 (vol. 5), 440.

54.
Ibid., 437–439 and 441–442.

55.
Ibid., 442.

56.
Ibid., 443.

57.
See Momigliano 1966, 60.

58.
Cox 1874, 184.

59.
Mérimée 1868, 185. See Pontier 2010, 635–648.

60.
Mérimée 1868, 186.

61.
Jouanna 2005, 311–321.

62.
See Grunchec 1983, 27. The most that can be done is to add a
Pericles
—in the form of a mere bust—painted by Antoine-Jean Gros on a ceiling in the Louvre
Museum in 1827, and a statue of Pericles handing out crowns to artists, sculpted by
Jean-Baptiste Debay and installed in the Tuileries in 1833. In 1852, Philipp von Foltz,
a German painter, depicted Pericles addressing the people from the
bema
, with the Acropolis in the background.

63.
Duruy 1867, 155.

64.
Ibid., 333.

65.
Ibid., 156.

66.
Nisard 1851. See Avlami 2001, 77.

67.
See Hansen 1992, 21.

68.
See Chauvelon 1902, 97–99.

69.
Mazzarino 1990, 359–370; and Montepaone, Imbruglia, Catarzi, and Silvestre 1994.

70.
Murari Pires 2006, 811.

71.
Niebuhr 1852a (vol. 2), 54 and 391, and (vol. 1), 54; and Niebuhr 1852b (vol. 2),
352.

72.
Niebuhr 1852a (vol. 1), 211. See also von Ranke 1975, 256–257.

73.
Von Ranke 1867–1890 (vol. 53/54), 26–31 and 58–59.

74.
Curtius 1857–1867; French trans.: Curtius 1880–1883; English trans.: Curtius 1868–1873.

75.
Curtius 1883, 80, which states: “even more rewarding is the task of whoever, led
by Thucydides, follows, with pious admiration, the traces that this great spirit [Pericles]
has left on the history of his people.” The English translation does not include this
important passage.

76.
Curtius 1871
,
459 and 442 (book III, chap. 3).

77.
Ibid., 468–469.

78.
Ibid., 461–462.

79.
Ibid., 459.

80.
Schmidt 1877, 3. See Will 1995, 8.

81.
See Bruhns 2005, 26.

82.
On the context of Droysen’s work, see the fine preface by Payen 2005, 31–36.

83.
Droysen 1980, 12.

84.
In the preface to the first German edition of vol. 3 of the
Histoire de l’Hellénisme
(which does not appear in the French translation), Droysen wrote as follows: “Who
can fail to admire the Athens of Themistocles and Pericles? But why forget that the
city founded a tyranny, extended it to cover half the Greek world and administered
it quite harshly, knowing full well that this was tyranny” (author’s translation),
Droysen 1980, xxi.

85.
Böckh 1886, 710 (the passage is not reproduced in the English edition). He reproached
the Athenians in particular for having paid citizens for their public responsibilities
and services (Böckh 1842, 226–227).

86.
Böckh 1842, 195.

87.
Ibid., 228–232.

88.
Beloch 1967, iv. See also Beloch 1913, 13: “However, for Grote, the Greeks are basically
simply the English of the mid-nineteenth century in disguise; the democrats are the
liberals, the oligarchs the conservatives, and since the author is a liberal, the
Greek democrats are always in the right, the oligarchs always in the wrong; Grote’s
history thus becomes a magnification of the Athenian democracy. That is a reaction
that is altogether legitimate and useful to the hitherto prevailing under-estimation
of democracy; only it is just as unhistorical as the opposite view.” (“Dabei sind
die Griechen für Grote im Grunde nichts weiter, als verkleidete Engländer aus der
Mitte des XIX. Jahrhunderts; die Demokraten sind die Liberalen, die Oligarchen die
Konservativen, und da der Verfasser zu den Liberalen gehörte, haben die griechischen
Demokraten immer Recht, und die Oligarchen immer Unrecht; Grotes Geschichte wird so
zu einer Verherrlichung der athenischen Demokratie. Das war als Reaktion gegen die
bis dahin herrschende Unterschätzung dieser
Demokratie ganz berechtigt und nützlich; nur ist es ebenso unhistorisch, wie die entgegengesetzte
Auffassung.”).

89.
Beloch 1914, 154–155.

90.
Ibid., 319–310 (author’s translation): “Aber der Spruch sollte auch nicht den Verwaltungs-beamten
treffen, sondern den Politiker, der aus persönlichen Motiven den hellenischen Bruderkrieg
entzündet und sich damit des größten Verbrechens schuldig gemacht hatte, das die ganze
griechische Geschichte kennt.” See also Beloch 1967, 19 f. and the commentaries by
Christ 1999, 92.

91.
Burckhardt 2002, 78.

92.
Ibid., 77.