Bust of Pericles bearing the inscription “Pericles, son of Xanthippus, Athenian”. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original from ca. 430 BC

Text : Pericles' Funeral Oration

 

Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. [...] We Athenians, in our own persons, take our decisions on policy or submit them to proper discussions s.

Source: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Translated by Rex Warner. Penguin Books ltd.

 

Questions

 

1. Write a short biography of Pericles.

2. How does Pericles define democracy in the document above ?

3. Which type of democracy is described in the last sentence (direct democracy or representative democracy) ?

4. Research the Internet about Athens during the time of Pericles and decide if it really was a true democracy. You could organize your findings in a table like this :