Pericles And The Rebuund Of The Acropolis Research Paper

Pericles and the Rebuild of the Acropolis

Question 1: Place Pericles and the rebuilding of the Acropolis in context Explain the following:

Pericles was born in 495 BCE into one of the leading families of Athens, with his father Xanthippus who had a political career and was a hero of the Persian war and his mother belonging to a powerful family. Pericles grew up with influences of the arts and philosophers and his family’s wealth was able to fund his education in these interests. Pericles later promoted and sponsored these (arts and philosophy) in the ‘Age of Pericles.’ (which was the years that Pericles ruled) “Athens blossomed as a center of education, art, culture, and democracy. Artists an d sculptors, playwrights and poets, architects

According to the historian Thucydides a project initiated by Themistocles was to fortify and connect Piraeus to Athens, this took place between 465-446 BCE. These walls were built to “ensure communications between Athens and its port in the event of a siege.” Trade was a big part of classical Athenian life with goods being traded between the Greek city states. Examples of these goods that were traded included “cereals, wine, olives, figs, pulses, eels, cheese, honey, meat (especially from sheep and goats), tools (e.g.: knives), perfumes, and fine pottery, especially Attic and Corinthian wares.” Goods that were traded often had taxes on them as it protected the trade. Athens taxed those who did not deliver to Piraeus and those who failed to unload a percentage of their cargo. A court was set up to tempt other city states to trade with Athens. During ancient Athens people were split into different classes. Upper classes were superior compared to lower classes being inferior. Upper class citizens in ancient Athens were the most powerful and their wealth came from owning land and property, they were the ones that were in charge of government work. The citizens of the upper class owned slaves to do daily chores and work on their land. Under the upper class was the middle class which consisted of people that were not born in Athens but had spent most of their life living in the town. They

Because of this it economically benefits Athens and opens many more job opportunities on the acropolis and surrounding shops and restaurants. The newly modern Acropolis museum built in 2009 holds many remains of parts of buildings from the acropolis and is a popular attraction with an average of 4000 visitors daily. The museum is trying to preserve the parts in a protected environment as harmful fumes, pollution and acid rain were damaging parts of these buildings. Having these decorative features displayed also gives visitors a closer look at the amazing art and sculptural design that has been made. A part of the Parthenon Frieze was taken back to Britian by Lord Elgin which sparked interests of the British of greek architecture but it has now