Editing Pericles (section)

=== Oratorical skill ===
[[Image:Illus0362.jpg|thumb|250px|A painting by Hector Leroux (1682–1740), which portrays Pericles and Aspasia, admiring the gigantic statue of Athena in Phidias' studio]]
Modern commentators of [[Thucydides]], with other modern historians and writers, take varying stances on the issue of how much of the speeches of Pericles, as given by this historian, do actually represent Pericles' own words and how much of them is free literary creation or paraphrase by Thucydides.{{efn-lg|According to Vlachos, Thucydides must have been about 30 years old when Pericles delivered his Funeral Oration and he was probably among the audience.<ref name="Vlachos">A. Vlachos, ''Remarks on Thucydides'', 170</ref>}} Since Pericles never wrote down or distributed his orations,{{efn-lg|Vlachos points out that he does not know who wrote the oration, but "these were the words which should have been spoken at the end of 431 BC".<ref name="Vlachos" /> According to Sir Richard C. Jebb, the Thucydidean speeches of Pericles give the general ideas of Pericles with essential fidelity; it is possible, further, that they may contain recorded sayings of his "but it is certain that they cannot be taken as giving the form of the statesman's oratory".<ref name="Jebb"/> John F. Dobson believes that "though the language is that of the historian, some of the thoughts may be those of the statesman".<ref name="Dobson">J.F. Dobson, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0075&query=head%3D%235/ The Greek Orators]</ref> C.M.J. Sicking argues that "we are hearing the voice of real Pericles", while Ioannis T. Kakridis claims that the Funeral Oration is an almost exclusive creation of Thucydides, since "the real audience does not consist of the Athenians of the beginning of the war, but of the generation of 400 BC, which suffers under the repercussions of the defeat".<ref name="Sicking133">C.M.J. Sicking, ''Distant Companions'', 133</ref><ref name="Kakridis6">I. Kakridis, ''Interpretative comments on the Funeral Oration'', 6</ref> Gomme disagrees with Kakridis, insisting on his belief to the reliability of Thucydides.<ref name="Go2" />}} no historians are able to answer this with certainty; Thucydides recreated three of them from memory and, thereby, it cannot be ascertained that he did not add his own notions and thoughts.{{efn-lg|That is what Plutarch predicates.<ref name="Pl8">Plutarch, Pericles, [[s:Lives/Pericles#6|VIII]]</ref> Nonetheless, according to the 10th century encyclopedia [[Suda]], Pericles constituted the first orator who systematically wrote down his orations.<ref name="SudaPer">Suda, article [http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin/search.pl?search_method=QUERY&login=guest&enlogin=guest&page_num=1&user_list=LIST&searchstr=Pericles&field=hw_eng&num_per_page=25&db=REAL Pericles] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171013160026/http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin/search.pl?search_method=QUERY&login=guest&enlogin=guest&page_num=1&user_list=LIST&searchstr=Pericles&field=hw_eng&num_per_page=25&db=REAL |date=13 October 2017 }}</ref> [[Cicero]] speaks about Pericles' writings, but his remarks are not regarded as credible.<ref name="Cic93">Cicero, ''De Oratote'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0120;query=section%3D%23358;layout=;loc=2.94 II, 93]</ref> Most probably, other writers used his name.<ref name="Inst1">Quintilian, ''Institutiones'', III, [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/quintilian/quintilian.institutio3.shtml 1]</ref>}}

Although Pericles was a main source of his inspiration, some historians have noted that the passionate and idealistic literary style of the speeches Thucydides attributes to Pericles is completely at odds with Thucydides' own cold and analytical writing style.{{efn-lg|Ioannis Kalitsounakis argues that "no reader can overlook the sumptuous rythme of the Funeral Oration as a whole and the singular correlation between the impetuous emotion and the marvellous style, attributes of speech that Thucydides ascribes to no other orator but Pericles".<ref name="Helios" /> According to Harvey Ynis, Thucydides created the Pericles' indistinct rhetorical legacy that has dominated ever since.<ref name="Yunis63">H. Yunis, ''Taming Democracy'', 63</ref>}} This might, however, be the result of the incorporation of the genre of rhetoric into the genre of historiography. That is to say, Thucydides could simply have used two different writing styles for two different purposes.

Ioannis Kakridis and Arnold Gomme were two scholars who debated the originality of Pericles' oratory and last speech. Kakridis believes that Thucydides altered Pericles words. Some of his strongest arguments included in the Introduction of the speech, (Thuc.11.35).<ref name="jstor.org">{{cite journal|last1=Sicking|first1=C. M. J.|title=The General Purport of Pericles' Funeral Oration and Funeral Speech|journal=Hermes|year=1995|volume=123|issue=4|pages=404–425|jstor=4477104}}</ref> Kakridis proposes that it is impossible to imagine Pericles deviating away from the expected funeral orator addressing the mourning audience of 430 after the Peloponnesian war.<ref name="jstor.org"/> The two groups addressed were the ones who were prepared to believe him when he praised the dead, and the ones who did not.<ref name="jstor.org"/> Gomme rejects Kakridis's position, defending the fact that "Nobody of men has ever been so conscious of envy and its workings as the Greeks, and that the Greeks and Thucydides in particular had a passion for covering all ground in their generalizations, not always relevantly."<ref name="jstor.org"/>

[[File:Bust Pericles Chiaramonti.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Marble bust of [[Pericles with the Corinthian helmet]], Roman copy of a Greek original, [[Museo Chiaramonti]], [[Vatican Museums]]]]
Kagan states that Pericles adopted "an elevated mode of speech, free from the vulgar and knavish tricks of mob-orators" and, according to [[Diodorus Siculus]], he "excelled all his fellow citizens in skill of oratory".<ref name="War">{{Cite book | first=Donald | last=Kagan | title = The Peloponnesian War | publisher = Viking | year= 2003 | isbn = 978-0-641-65469-5 }}</ref><ref>Diodorus, XII, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0084;query=chapter%3D%23207;layout=;loc=12.40.1 39]</ref> According to [[Plutarch]], he avoided using gimmicks in his speeches, unlike the passionate [[Demosthenes]], and always spoke in a calm and tranquil manner.<ref name="Plutarch5">Plutarch, ''Pericles'', [[s:Lives/Pericles#5|V]]</ref> The biographer points out, however, that the poet [[Ion of Chios|Ion]] reported that Pericles' speaking style was "a presumptuous and somewhat arrogant manner of address, and that into his haughtiness there entered a good deal of disdain and contempt for others".<ref name="Plutarch5" />

[[Gorgias]], in Plato's homonymous dialogue, uses Pericles as an example of powerful oratory.<ref name="Gorgias455d">Plato, ''Gorgias'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0178;query=section%3D%23490;layout=;loc=Gorg.%20455e 455d]</ref> In [[Menexenus (dialogue)|Menexenus]], however, [[Socrates]] (through [[Plato]]) casts aspersions on Pericles' rhetorical fame, claiming ironically that, since Pericles was educated by Aspasia, a trainer of many orators, he would be superior in rhetoric to someone educated by [[Antiphon (person)|Antiphon]].<ref name="Menexenus">Plato, ''Menexenus'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180;layout=;query=section%3D%23255;loc=Menex.%20235e 236a]</ref> He also attributes authorship of the Funeral Oration to Aspasia and attacks his contemporaries' veneration of Pericles.<ref name="Monoson">[[S. Sara Monoson]], ''Plato's Democratic Entanglements'', 182–186</ref>

[[Richard Claverhouse Jebb|Sir Richard C. Jebb]] concludes that "unique as an Athenian statesman, Pericles must have been in two respects unique also as an Athenian orator; first, because he occupied such a position of personal ascendancy as no man before or after him attained; secondly, because his thoughts and his moral force won him such renown for eloquence as no one else ever got from Athenians".<ref name="Jebb">Sir Richard C. Jebb, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0077%3Ahead%3D%2336/ The Attic Orators]</ref>

Ancient Greek writers call Pericles "Olympian" and extol his talents; referring to him "thundering and lightning and exciting Greece" and carrying the weapons of Zeus when orating.<ref name="ArDi">Aristophanes, ''Acharnians'', [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0240;query=card%3D%2326;layout=;loc=541/ 528–531] and Diodorus, XII, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0083;query=chapter%3D%23208;layout=;loc=12.41.1/ 40]</ref> According to [[Quintilian]], Pericles would always prepare assiduously for his orations and, before going on the rostrum, he would always pray to the gods, so as not to utter any improper word.<ref name="Qui">Quintilian, ''Institutiones'', [http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/quintilian/quintilian.institutio12.shtml XII, 9]</ref>