No More Learning

Vulcan: "The 23rd of August, when sunrise is about a quarter past five; the date chosen for the first light- ing lamps before daylight, because Vulcan was the god of fire. This was with most persons merely a ceremony . . . but Pliny really began to study. " [Westcott, p. 178]
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? HOW MUCH MONEY FOR A BOOK?
At one point in his letter, Pliny writes that his uncle had left him 160 notebooks, with all text written in very small letters and on both sides of the page--unusual, given that most manuscripts were written on one side only. He also claims that had his uncle wished to sell those notebooks, he would have been able to command a sale price of 400,000 sesterces for them. But how would that figure compare with the sale prices for other works of literature at various times in the history of the ancient world?
The essayist Aulus Gellius writes that although the philosopher Plato was hardly a wealthy man, he once paid 10,000 denarii (the equivalent of 40,000 sesterces) for three books written by the Pythagorean philosopher Philolaus. He also reports that Aristotle bought "a very few books of the philosopher Speusippus" for the equiv- alent of 72,000 sesterces. [3. 17]
On the other hand, John C. Rolfe, in his translation of the essays of Aulus Gellius, states that "the first book of [the Roman poet] Martial's Epigrams, 700 lines, in an elegant form, cost only [20 sesterces], and cheaper edi- tions could be bought for from 6 to 10 sesterces. "
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? TOPICS TO CONSIDER
e The survival rate of the works of ancient authors often presents modern readers with some interesting questions. In the case of Pliny the Elder, for example, why do you suppose that out of his vast array of multivolume books, only one of them, Natural History, survives to the present day? Was this mere coincidence? Or could there be other reasons for the disap- pearance of his other written works?
e Pliny seems to have mastered the art of time management, which in part accounts for his ability to produce so many lengthy books. Do you know of any contemporary, or near-contemporary, prolific authors who observe similarly strict time management rules? (Hint: Research the writing sched- ules of Mark Twain or Charles Dickens for starters. )
e Letter writing is a generally accepted literary genre. Should it be? How would Pliny's letters compare with the letters written by other famous epis- tlers of the ancient world, such as Cicero or St. Paul?
Further Information
Bell, Albert. All Roads Lead to Murder: A Case from the Notebooks of Pliny the Younger. Boone, NC, 2002.
Sherwin-White, A. N. The Letters of Pliny: A Social and Historical Commentary. Oxford, 1966.
Websites
Ancient History Sourcebook: Pliny the Younger (61 or 62-113 CE): Selected Letters, c. 100 CE). http://www. fordham. edu/halsall/ancient/pliny-letters. html
The Letters of Pliny the Younger. http://www. vroma. org/~hwalker/Pliny/
Bibliography for Document
Radice, Betty (tr. ). Pliny. Letters and Panegyricus. Volume I. Cambridge and London, 1969. Westcott, J. H. (ed. ). Selected Letters of Pliny, with an Introduction and Notes. Norman, OK,
new edition 1965.
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POLITICS
Political campaigning, speechmaking, lawyering . . . these were the lifeblood of the public arena in both ancient Greece and Rome. Oratorical skills were highly prized essentials for anyone desiring a career in the sometimes topsy-turvy world of ancient politics. Lawyers and politicians abounded in both societies; we have numerous sources and documents attest- ing to that fact. The four documents selected for this chapter will hopefully be representative of the many that are still available to us.
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30. OUT WITH HIM! AN ATHENIAN METHOD OF RIDDING THE CITY OF TIRESOME POLITICIANS
INTRODUCTION
The ancient Athenians had a unique method of dealing with politicians who became too egotistical, or who seemed dangerously inclined toward dictatorship, or who were viewed as displaying some other seriously inappropriate attitude or behavior pattern: ostracism. Under the Athenian system, ostracism meant something far more severe than simply social isolation, which, of course, is what the word suggests today. An ostracized politician was required to leave the city--to be exiled--for a period of 10 years. A preliminary vote on whether to conduct an ostracism was held every year; if a majority of voters assented, the vote itself was held. As long as at least 6,000 votes were cast, the one politician who received the most was considered ostracized.
The practice was reportedly introduced somewhere around 509 BCE, by the lawgiver Cleisthenes, and first employed early in the fifth century. The last known ostracism occurred in 417.
The intent of an ostracism may have been noble--to protect Athenian democracy from unscrupulous politicians or military leaders who might seek to undermine it--but some- times, decent and honest politicians fell victim to an ostracism vote conducted by an elector- ate with less than honorable motives. Such was the case of the fifth-century BCE politician Aristides. In his biography of Aristides, Plutarch provides not only the details surrounding the ostracism of Aristides, but also a most concise and understandable explanation of how the system worked.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
1. In the fifth century BCE, the Athenian democracy was in full flower, and great politi- cal debates occurred frequently. The heart of the democracy was the Assembly, which met about 40 times per year; all Athenian citizens were permitted to attend and participate in Assembly meetings. In the Assembly, the major issues of the day were discussed and voted upon, including ostracisms.
2. In ancient Greek (and Roman) times, punishment for criminal behavior was quite different than punishments meted out today. Nowadays, felonious lawbreakers are usually sentenced to prison terms. But although the Greeks and Romans both had places of confinement for criminal defendants, incarceration was generally used only
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to keep these accused persons in custody prior to their trials; prison sentences, as punishments, were virtually unknown. Much more often, a convicted defendant would be executed or fined, or, as in the case with the "winner" of an ostracism vote, exiled.
3. Plutarch, our source for this document, habitually included much anecdotal infor- mation in the biographies he wrote. This kind of information helps to give us a complete picture of the true nature of the individual. The story of Aristides writing his own name on the ostracism ballot--in effect, voting for his own exile! --is an example of how he came to be given the nickname The Just. Most people, in a sim- ilar situation, probably would have greeted such a request with an expletive, or worse. A truly just person, however, would comply with the request.
Document: The Ostracism of a Just Man
This sentence of ostracism was not in itself a punishment for wrongdoing. It was described for the sake of appearan- ces as a measure to curtail and humble a man's power and prestige in cases where these had grown oppressive; but in reality, it was a humane device for appeasing the people's jealousy, which could thus vent its desire to do harm, not by inflicting some irreparable injury, but by a sentence of ten years' banishment. Later on the penalty came to be inflicted on various ignoble creatures, the scum of the political world, and it was then abandoned, the last man to be ostracized being Hyperbolus [in ca. 417 BCE]. Hyperbolus's banishment is said to have been brought about in this way. Alcibiades and Nicias, the two most powerful men in the state, were the leaders of the two opposing parties. So when the people were on the point of carrying out an ostracism and were obviously going to vote against one or the other, the two men came to terms, combined their rival factions and so arranged matters that Hyperbolus was ostracized. The people were enraged at this and felt that the institution of ostracism had been abused and degraded, and so they not only ceased to resort to it but formally abolished the practice.
The procedure, to give a general account of it, was as follows: Each voter took an ostrakon, or piece of earthen- ware, wrote on it the name of the citizen he wished to be banished and carried it to a part of the market-place which was fenced off with a circular paling. Then the archons first counted the total number of votes cast, for if there were less than six thousand, the ostracism was void. After this they sorted the votes and the man who had the most recorded against his name was proclaimed to be exiled for ten years, with the right, however, to receive the income from his estate.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Alcibiades and Nicias: As Plutarch notes, these individuals were two of the major players on the Athenian political stage in the late fifth cen- tury. In 415--just two years after the ostracism of Hyperbolus--the two of them locked horns over the question of whether to send an Athenian military expedition to the island of Sicily. Alcibiades was in favor, Nicias opposed. They engaged in a very heated debate about this in the Assembly. Alcibiades prevailed, and the ex- pedition proceeded. The invasion of Sicily turned out to be a major disaster for the Athenians; most of the some 50,000 soldiers whom they sent to Sicily never returned.
Plutarch's biographies of Alci- biades and Nicias are both extant.
archons: The Greek word archon liter- ally means "ruler," or "commander. " Later, it came to refer to the chief magistrate, or administrative officer, of a Greek polis; one of their func- tions, as indicated by the document, was to preside over ostracism votes. In fifth-century Athens, there were nine archons. As democracy took hold in Athens, the power and
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Out with Him! An Athenian Method of Ridding the City of Tiresome Politicians
The story goes that on this occasion, while the votes were being written down, an illiterate and uncouth rus- tic handed his piece of earthenware to Aristides and asked him to write the name Aristides on it. The latter was astonished, and asked the man what harm Aristides had ever done him. 'None whatever,' was the reply, 'I do not even know the fellow, but I am sick of hearing him called The Just everywhere! ' When he heard this, Aristides said nothing, but wrote his name on the ostrakon and handed it back. At the last, as he was leaving the city, he lifted his hands to heaven and uttered a prayer, which, it appears, took the opposite form to the prayer of Achilles; in it he begged that no crisis might befall the Athenians which would force them to remember Aristides. [Tr. Ian Scott-Kilvert. Plutarch: The Rise and Fall of Athens; Nine Greek Lives. (Aristides 7. ) Penguin Classics, 1960. Page numbers: 116, 117. ]
AFTERMATH
Sometimes, under certain circumstances, ostracism votes could be reversed, and this fortunate outcome befell Aristides. His ostracism began around 483 or 482 BCE, but less than three years later, the mighty Persian army had advanced westward, with the goal of overrunning Greece. The Athenians realized that at this critical moment, they needed all their best citizens, so Aristides was recalled from exile and given an important leadership position in the Athenian army. In 479, he found himself leading the Athenian forces in the decisive Battle of Plataea, in which the Persians were turned back.
Little is known of Aristides's life after that famous battle. It is thought that he may have died around 468, apparently in the depths of poverty. Plutarch records that his estate did not even cover his funeral expenses. Still, Aristides was held in such high esteem that when his daughters married, each received a dowry of 3,000 drachmas from the public treasury, and his son, Lysimachus, was given 100 minas, 100 acres of vineyard farmland, and a four- drachma per day pension.
ASK YOURSELF
1. The "official" explanation (according to Plutarch) for the abolition of ostracism votes was that they were being imposed upon degenerate characters like Hyperbolus. But the story of the ostracism of Aristides--not to mention other ostracism victims like Themistocles--implies that
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? influence of the archons gradually
diminished.
Hyperbolus: Ironically, ostracism was
often viewed as a dignified penalty, reserved for prominent citizens who had strayed, perhaps inexpli- cably, from appropriate patterns of behavior. The ostracism of Hyperbolus, a low-born dema- gogue, was apparently viewed as having trivialized the process; Hyperbolus, it seems, was not altogether worthy of such a punish- ment! He was exiled to the island of Samos, where, a few years later, he met his end in the unrest caused by pro- and antidemocracy factions there. The fifth-century historian Thucydides writes that Hyperbolus was ostracized because he was a totally disreputable character, not because the Athenian citizens feared his political status or objectives. In his biography of Alcibiades, Plutarch claims that Hyperbolus was such a buffoon that the local satirists of the time used him unceasingly as ready material for their jokes, but that Hyperbolus did not mind at all because of his total disregard for any criticism, humorous or otherwise.
market-place: The Greek word agora is almost universally translated as "market-place," a somewhat mis- leading rendering. Nearly every ancient Greek city had an agora, and the agora was much more than a section of town devoted merely to shops and markets, as the word "market-place" implies. A better translation would be "downtown"; the agora of a Greek city was home to law courts and public squares, meeting halls and shops, streets with sometimes snarled traffic, conmen
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there may have been additional reasons for its discontinu-
ation. What might some of these reasons be?
2. Talk about a political comeback! To be the "winner" of an ostracism vote--as happened to Aristides around 482-- was probably not an event that any ancient Athenian politician would want to list on his resume. And yet three years later, Aristides experienced a huge upturn in his fortunes; not only was his ostracism revoked (long before the 10-year requirement had expired), but he was placed in a position of great authority, as the Athenian leader at the Battle of Plataea. Can you think of any modern paral- lels in American politics where a political leader's career seemed to be over, perhaps because of a scandal of some kind, only to see that individual rise to prominence once
again?
TOPICS TO CONSIDER
e The Athenian ostracism procedure has rightly been called an "unpopularity contest. " Is there anything comparable to it in the modern American political system? Do you think Athenian-style ostracism would work today? Why or why not?
e AlcibiadesandNiciasweretwoofthemorecolor- ful characters in fifth-century Athenian history; Alcibiades, especially, seemed to be an unpredict- able man of many moods. Briefly research the lives of these two individuals; Plutarch's biographies would be a good place to start.
Why do you sup- pose they were such intractable political enemies? Can you find any instances (other than the one cited in the document) where they cooperated with one another?
e Plutarch uses some pretty uncomplimentary terms--illiterate, uncouth, and rustic (as men- tioned in the notes above, "rustic" was a word equating to "hick")--to describe the farmer who asked Aristides to write his own name on the ostrakon. The farmer's level of ignorance is reinforced by the fact that he did not even know Aristides by sight. Do you suppose that Plutarch here is at least subtly hinting that democracy has its flaws, and that maybe the worst of these is that even the most uninformed or unintelligent citizens are allowed to vote in elections? Or would that be reading too much into the text?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? and muggers. . . in other words, much the same kinds of phenomena that one would find in the down- town area of a modern city.
opposing parties: Care must be taken not to understand "opposing parties" in the modern sense, like Democrats and Republicans. The Greek word used by Plutarch, and here translated as "party," is stasis, which refers more accurately to factions or voting blocs within the political system. The word seems to have a slightly pejora- tive meaning, with overtones of sedition or gang activities.
ostrakon: As Plutarch states, an ostrakon was a "piece of earthenware," or a broken piece of poverty, a potsherd. These ostraka served as ballots in ostracism votes; voters scratched or carved (not really "wrote") on the potsherd the name of the person whom they wished to see ostra- cized. Archaeologists have discov- ered hundreds of these sherds.
the prayer of Achilles: In Book 1 of Homer's Iliad, the mighty Achilles bitterly complained to his mother, the goddess Thetis, about how greatly he had been disrespected and humiliated by Agamemnon, king of the Greeks. He ended his entreaty to her with a plea that she ask Zeus to aid the Trojans (against the Greeks! ) in the Trojan War. By contrast, the just Aristides prayed just the opposite kind of prayer, that the Athenians might be safe during his period of exile.
rustic: The Greek word agroikos, trans- lated as "rustic," can have a negative connotation, as it probably does here, akin to our words "hick" or "hillbilly. "
sentence of ostracism: Notable victims of ostracism votes (in addition to
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Out with Him! An Athenian Method of Ridding the City of Tiresome Politicians
Further Information
Hansen, Mogens Herman. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes. Oxford, 1987.
Thomsen, Rudi. The Origins of Ostracism: A Synthesis. Copenhagen, 1972.
Vanderpool, Eugene. Ostracism at Athens. Cincinnati, 1970. Website
Ostracism. http://www. livius. org/on-oz/ostracism/ostracism. html
Bibliography for Document
Scott-Kilvert, Ian. Plutarch: The Rise and Fall of Athens; Nine Greek Lives. New York, 1960.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Aristides) included: Xanthippus, the father of Pericles; Themistocles, the Athenian general whose leadership in the Battle of Salamis (480 BCE) helped turn the tide against the invading Persians; Cimon, another Athenian general who achieved many military successes in the 470s and 460s.
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31. WOMEN IN POLITICS? IN ANCIENT ATHENS?
INTRODUCTION
For the second document in this chapter, we turn once again to the biographer/essayist Plutarch. Although we will find no women as the subjects of any of the 50 biographies that Plutarch wrote, there was at least one who certainly could have occupied that niche: Aspasia, a woman from Miletus, which was a powerful city located in what is now southwestern Turkey. Aspasia immigrated to Athens, where she became a force to be reckoned with in both the political and social life of the city. She regularly rubbed elbows with some of the most noteworthy politicians and philosophers of the time, including Pericles and Socrates. The second document is excerpted from Plutarch's biography of Pericles, in which the biog- rapher provides us with a considerable amount of information about Aspasia.
KEEP IN MIND AS YOU READ
1. It was a fact of ancient Athenian life that women generally did not play a prominent role in public life. Women never held any of the political offices in the government, and they were not even allowed to participate in the proceedings of the Assembly, which was the focal point of Athenian democracy. And since, therefore, women do not appear prominently in the writings of historians and biographers, it is not surprising that the lives of Athenian women are not as well attested as the lives of their male counterparts. But if any ancient author would be likely to tell us anything about the topic, that author would be Plutarch, a man whose wide-ranging mind was not constrained by the social expectations of the time.
2. Even though the western world's first functioning democracy arose in fifth-century Athens, it was not without its shortcomings. There was a lingering sense of entitle- ment on the part of rich and influential politicians from prominent families, which made it difficult for men from humble or impoverished backgrounds to ascend too high in Athenian politics. One exception to this general rule might have been Aspasia's husband Lysicles, whom Plutarch identifies as "a man of low birth and character"; Lysicles eventually gained an important post in the Athenian army, but only with a considerable boost from his influential wife.
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? Document: Aspasia: Teacher of Rhetoric, and Much More
[T]his is perhaps a suitable place to consider the extraordi- nary art or power which this woman exercised, which enabled her to captivate the leading statesmen of the day, and even provided the philosophers with a theme for pro- longed and elevated discussions. It is generally agreed that she was Milesian [i. e. , from Miletus] by birth and that her father was Axiochus, and she is said to have set out to rival the career of Thargelia, an Ionian woman of earlier times, in marking down for her conquests only men of great power. Thargelia came to be a great beauty and possessed at the same time exceptional charm and intelligence. She had many lovers among the Greeks, all of whom she won over to the Persian interest, and in this way, since they were all men of high position and influence, the seeds of sympa- thy for the Persians were sown throughout the Greek cities [in Ionia]. In the same fashion, Pericles, too, according to some writers, was attracted to Aspasia mainly because of her rare political wisdom. Socrates visited her from time to time with his disciples and some of his close friends brought their wives to listen to her conversation, even though she carried on a trade that was anything but honor- able or even respectable, since it consisted of keeping a house of young courtesans. Aeschines says that Lysicles the sheep-dealer, a man of low birth and character, came to be the leading figure in Athens because of his marriage to Aspasia after Pericles' death. And in Plato's dialogue, the Menexenus--even though the first section is written partly as a parody of the rhetoricians--there is certainly this element of truth, namely, that the woman had the reputation of being associated with a whole succession of Athenians, who came to her to learn rhetoric. However, Pericles' attach- ment to Aspasia seems to have been a more passionate affair. His own wife was closely related to him; she had been mar- ried first of all to Hipponicus, to whom she bore Callias, who was nicknamed "the rich," and her children by Pericles were Xanthippus and Paralus. Afterwards, when they found each other incompatible, Pericles legally handed her over to another man with her own consent and himself lived with Aspasia, whom he loved dearly. The story goes that every day, when he went out to the [agora] and returned, he greeted her with a kiss. [Tr. Ian Scott-Kilvert. Plutarch: The Rise and Fall of Athens, Nine Greek Lives (Pericles 24). Penguin Classics, 1960. Page numbers: 190, 191. ]
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? according to some writers: Unlike many ancient nonfiction authors, Plutarch is very generous with information about his sources, especially when we consider that he was writing in a time when con- ventions like bibliographies, foot- notes, and works cited lists were unknown, and never created or uti- lized. Often, Plutarch will mention his source(s) by name, as he does with Aeschines, a few lines below. Other times, he might refer to sources with a more generic phrase such as the one highlighted here: "according to some writers. "
Aeschines: Aeschines (393-322 BCE) was a Greek orator and rival of Demosthenes. Three of his speeches are extant, but unfortunately, the Socratic dialogue he wrote featuring Aspasia does not survive. His speech Against Ctesiphon (330 BCE) was directed against Demosthenes, whose friend Ctesiphon had pro- posed that Demosthenes be awarded a golden crown for his many years of service to Athens. The offended Aeschines took the matter to court, and made his speech; Demosthenes's response (On the Crown) so effectively de- molished Aeschines's arguments that, having badly lost his case, he eventually retired to the island of Rhodes. The story goes that he once gave an encore performance of his Against Ctesiphon for the Rhodians, whereupon they marveled that he did not prevail against his famed opponent. "You would not be sur- prised," replied Aeschines, "if you had heard Demosthenes. "
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Women in Politics? In Ancient Athens?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Callias: Callias owned an imposing home in Athens, which he often made available to philosophers and sophists for their discussions and social gatherings. The philosophical discussion reported in Plato's Protagoras (see chapter 2, on edu- cation) took place at the home of Callias, as did an elaborate banquet described in the historian Xeno- phon's dialogue, entitled, logically enough, Banquet. (Plato recounts an amusing vignette about the arrival of Socrates and a couple of his friends at Callias's front door. The group was in the midst of a serious discussion on some question that had arisen as they were walking to Callias's house, so before knock- ing, they continued their discus- sion. But from inside the house, the butler overheard the talking-- according to Plato, "very likely the great number of sophists . . . made him annoyed with callers at the house"--and so when Socrates did finally knock, the butler opened the door, immediately told the new arrivals to get lost, and slammed the door in their faces. They knocked again. This time, the but- ler did not even open the door but repeated his earlier instruction to them, through the closed door. Finally, after many entreaties, including Socrates's claim that they were not sophists, the butler reluc- tantly admitted them. )
Ionian woman: Ionia was a sort of generic place-name, applied to the western coast of Asia Minor, modern Turkey. Generic place- names are still used today; for example, the northeastern United States is often collectively called "New England. " Since Aspasia's hometown of Miletus was located
? ? ? ? AFTERMATH
Pericles's political opponents found it very difficult to oppose him directly, so they often adopted the strategy of trying to weaken his popularity and influence by attacking his friends and associates. For example, they contrived to put on trial the famous sculptor Pheidias, a close friend of Pericles, on a charge of impiety, because he had allegedly carved his own likeness into a shield held by a statue of the goddess Athena. Pheidias was convicted and died soon thereafter. Likewise, Aspasia was tried, for impiety and also for "pro- curing free-born Athenian women for Pericles and receiving them into her house. " Pericles was able to come to her rescue and win her an acquittal by addressing the jury personally, and with great emotion.
Six months after Pericles's death, Aspasia married the sheep dealer Lysicles, who, despite his low birth, was chosen as a general of the Athenian army in 428. Some suggest that he owed his new- found prominence to the machinations of Aspasia. Shortly after his military appointment, he and four other generals, along with a contingent of soldiers, were sent out to the hinterlands of Caria, in southwestern Ionia, to do some fund-raising from among the cities allied to Athens. (This was during the initial stages of the Peloponnesian War, when Athens was trying to enhance its military capabilities and required money from outside sources to do so. ) The Carians did not appreciate these efforts, and in the end, they attacked and killed Lysicles, along with a large number of his soldiers.
Aspasia continued to live on in Athens after her husband's death. It is thought that she died sometime during the last decade of the fifth century.
ASK YOURSELF
1. Plutarch says that the Ionian woman Thargelia was instru- mental in sowing "the seeds of sympathy for the Persians . . . throughout the Greek cities. " And yet it is known that there was widespread resentment and resistance to Persian rule on the part of the cities in Ionia. So why do you suppose Thargelia, from Ionia, was apparently trying to advance the Persian cause in her home region?
2. "Power couples. " We hear the phrase quite often these days. Do you think that Pericles and Aspasia could have been considered a "power couple"? What do you suppose Pericles's rival politicians thought when they heard the news that Pericles and Aspasia were "together" (although they apparently never married, because Aspasia was foreign-born)?
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? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? in Ionia, Thargelia obviously came
from the same region.
Pericles' death: Pericles was a victim of
the plague that ravaged Athens in
the 420s. Pericles died in 429. Xanthippus and Paralus: Plutarch records that both Xanthippus and Paralus died from the plague and that both predeceased Pericles. Even though Pericles had thus lost both sons, as well as his sister and many other relatives and friends, he always kept his composure at their funerals. Always, that is, until the death of Paralus, his last remaining legitimate son, during whose funeral, Plutarch says, Pericles "broke into a passion
of tears and sobs. "
? ? ? ?