Pericles, the Athenian leader who steered the city through its greatest cultural flowering, funding the Parthenon and championing radical democracy, died as a plague epidemic ravaged war-crowded Athens. His death, coming soon after he lost two sons to the same outbreak, removed the one figure capable of restraining Athens's wartime ambitions, and the city's fortunes in the Peloponnesian War declined markedly without him.
Pericles, the Athenian leader who steered the city through its greatest cultural flowering, funding the Parthenon and championing radical democracy, died as a plague epidemic ravaged war-crowded Athens. His death, coming soon after he lost two sons to the same outbreak, removed the one figure capable of restraining Athens's wartime ambitions, and the city's fortunes in the Peloponnesian War declined markedly without him.
Key people: Pericles