Pericles (Civ6)

Pericles
Introduced in Civilization VI
Civilizations	Greek
Leader bonus - Surrounded by Glory
+5% Culture per city-state Greece has Suzerainty over.
Leader agenda - Delian League
Likes civilizations that are not competing for city-state allegiance. Dislikes civilizations that are directly competing for city-state allegiance.

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"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."

Pericles (c. 495 – 429 BC) was a prominent Greek statesman, orator, and general who led Athens from roughly 461 BC until his death. His many military, political, and cultural achievements have led to this period being considered the Golden Age of Athens, becoming known as the Age of Pericles. He leads the Greeks in Civilization VI.

Who better to be master of the civic side of life than the Greeks? As an Athenian, Pericles can use the power and flexibility of the civics system to set up for any kind of victory.

Intro

Your mastery of the spoken word is a gift of great value, silver-tongued Pericles, leader of the Greeks. Through it you can attract the devotion of a league of states, surrounding yourself with their glory. Establish cultural sites along the rocky shores of Greece to unite your people behind your strong governance. If all goes well the Sirens will sing of the Age of Pericles!

In-Game

Pericles' unique agenda is Delian League. He likes leaders that are not competing for the same city-state allegiance, and dislikes leaders that are directly competing for city-state allegiance.

His leader ability is Surrounded by Glory. It grants increased Culture for each city-state that Pericles is the Suzerain of.

Detailed Approach

Leading Greece, Pericles is able to lead the early game in Culture output by allying city-states, or putting an Acropolis on a hill right in the center of his city's districts and wonders. Coupled with a free Wildcard Policy slot, Greece is the government power player throughout the game. Researching the civics that boost their victory strategy, they will have a full slate of Policies in place to help them along the way. The government system is flexible to support any victory path, though a Culture Victory is an easy fit for Greece.

Lines

Pericles is voiced by Konstantinos Stelloudis. He speaks the Attic dialect of Ancient Greek.

Voiced

Codename	Quote (English translation)	Quote (Attic Greek)	Notes
Agenda-based Approval	You are wise to leave our neighboring city-state to us.	Σαφῶς σε λεπεῖν τὴν προσχώρην πόλιν πρὸς ἡμῶν. / Safós se lepeín tín proschórin pólin prós imón.
Agenda-based Disapproval	That city is ours. I would suggest you don't interfere.	Εκείνη πόλις ή ημετέρα εστίν. Παραινώ σοι μή πολυγραγμονείν. / Ekeíni pólis í imetéra estín. Parainó soi mí polygragmoneín.
Attacked	Soldiers are not like trees. When they are destroyed, they are not so easily replaced.	Οἱ στρατιῶται οὐχ ὁμοῖοι τοῖς δένδροις. ὅτε ὀλλυνται, οὐ ῥᾳδίως κατάγωνται. / Oi stratiótai ouch omoíoi toís déndrois. óte ollyntai, ou radíos katágontai.	This line is based on his quote from Parallel Lives by Plutarch: "Trees, when they are lopped and cut, grow up again in a short time but men, being once lost, cannot easily be recovered." The Greek version, however, doesn't match the original.
Declares War	This is for the greater good. You will understand...in time.	Τούτον ἐστί τοῦ μεγίστου καλοῦ ἕνεκα. Μαθήσει...εν χρόνω. / Toúton estí toú megístou kaloú éneka. Mathísei...en chróno.
Defeated	You may have defeated us, but what we leave behind is woven into the lives of others.	Ημάς νενίκηκας. Αλλά τά λοιπά τά υφαίνεται εν ταις ψυχαίς των άλλων. / Imás neníkikas. Allá tá loipá tá yfaínetai en tais psychaís ton állon.	This line is based on his quote "What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others," which is likely a modern paraphrasing of a longer passage from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, II.43.3.
Greeting	Hello, I am Pericles of Athens and I greet you on behalf of the Democracy. I trust you'll let me conduct my business with these neutral parties?	χαῖρε, ὁ Περικλῆς τῶν Ἀθηνῶν εἰμι, καὶ δειξιοῦμαι σε ὑπέρ τῆς δημοκρατίας. / Chaíre, o Periklís tón Athinón eimi, kaí deixioúmai se ypér tís dimokratías.	Pericles doesn't say "I trust you'll let me conduct my business with these neutral parties" in his dialogue - these words appear only in the subtitles.
Quote from Civilopedia	Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. (lit. "The chief penalty is to be governed by someone worse if a man will not himself hold office and rule.")	Δε ζημίας μεγίστη τό υπό πονηρότερου άρχεσθαι, εάν μη αυτός εθέλη άρχειν. / De zimías megísti tó ypó poniróterou árchesthai, eán mi aftós ethéli árchein.	The line in English is a quote widely attributed to him, but no sources exist on that. Most probably it's based on Pericles' Funeral Oration from History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides: "Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless." The line in Greek is an exact quote from Plato's Republic.

Unvoiced

Delegation: We have sent you a delegation bearing gifts. Don't be alarmed, there's no large wooden horse involved.

Accepts Delegation From Player: The people happily received your delegation and gifts. Thank you.

Player Accepts Delegation: Excellent!

Accepts Player's Declaration of Friendship: On behalf of the Democracy, I accept your friendship.

Rejects Player's Declaration of Friendship: No, we will not be friends until you can prove it by deed, or convince us otherwise.

Requests Declaration of Friendship: Let's put our differences aside for a moment, shall we? Friendship is more important than petty politics.

Player Accepts Declaration of Friendship: Thank you!

Denounced by Player: All leaders incur hatred and unpopularity; if one has a great aim to pursue, this burden of envy must be accepted.

Denounces Player: Tyrants such as you are abominations. Your people will know the truth of my words.

Invitation to Capital: Athens is a glorious metropolis. What is your capital like? Come, let's exchange information.

Invitation to City: Would you care to visit our nearby metropolis? We could debate politics before enjoying the theatre.

Civilopedia entry

Arguably the most influential Greek orator and general of his day, Pericles was termed the “first citizen of Athens” by no less than the contemporary historian Thucydides (who did, however, view politics as based upon self-interest and fear, so some allowances should be made for his opinion). Thoroughly self-serving, Pericles made the Delian League – which was to continue the fight against Persia – into an Athenian proto-empire. Too, he sought to make Athens the artistic and cultural center of Greece, and was fairly successful at that. And for his support of fledgling Athenian democracy, he has been termed a “populist” (at which he himself would surely laugh).

Born around 495 BC in Cholargos, a suburb of Athens, Pericles was the product of the union between the general and politician Xanthippus and Agariste, a daughter of the powerful Alcmaeonidae family. Herodotus and Plutarch both report that Agariste dreamed a few nights before Pericles’ birth “that she had borne a lion.” Whether the vision related to his future prowess, or the fact that he was born with an unusually large skull – thus the reason contemporary comic authors referred to him as “Squill-head,” so named for the Greek squill, or sea onion (so it was cruel, it was still funny) – Pericles was an introverted youth, who enjoyed practicing rhetoric with the philosopher-scholars his family could afford as tutors.

Given his family connections, it was perhaps inevitable that Pericles would enter the Athenian political arena. At some point in his early 30s he served as leading prosecutor of Cimon, a leader of the conservative faction who had been accused of neglecting Athens’ interests in favor of his own. Although Cimon was acquitted, two years later Pericles managed to have his rival ostracized (expelled from the city for a decade) on charges of Cimon’s aiding Sparta. With that, Pericles became one of the leading lights in Athens’ democratic movement, promoting a populist social policy.

Pericles spent the next decade consolidating his position, and currying favor with the lower classes. One of his first sponsored decrees used state funds to pay for admission to the theater for the poor; another offered generous wages for any who would serve as jurymen in the Athenian high court. In league with other “democrats” (promoting the demos, or commoners), Pericles moved to curtail the role of the Areopagus, the aristocratic council that governed the city, and elevate the Ecclesia, the Athenian assembly. It was crucial, in his view, for Athens to favor the public, which he viewed as an untapped resource and the vital element in future Athenian dominance of Greece. In this, bit by bit, he gave the lower classes access to the political system and public offices from which they had heretofore been barred. So it can be argued that the roots of Western democracy lay in the dreams of empire.

In all this politicking, he proved himself a masterful orator, bringing both the skills of the sophist and the logic of the philosopher (and he’d been taught by the best of both) to his speeches. His detractors claimed, however, that his consort Aspasia actually wrote many of his famous speeches – a grave insult to any statesman that they owed their success to a woman, especially in Athens where women were second-class citizens (at best). Outrage over the murder of Ephialtes, an early leader of the democratic movement, gave Pericles the opportunity to consolidate his authority. Without Cimon or others around to oppose him, the now unchallenged leader of the “democrats” became the unchallenged (if one knew what was good for one’s fortunes) leader of Athens.

Following the defeat of the second invasion by Persia and the withdrawal of Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, in 479 BC Pericles cobbled together the Delian League, a military alliance of the Aegean city-states to protect Greek interests … or, at least, those that mattered to Pericles. Following a failed attack on the Persians in 454, Athens pushed hard to transfer all of the League’s treasury – amassed from the collection of phoros (“taxes”) by members for the rebuilding of temples destroyed by the Persians – from Delos to Athens. Three years later, another decree by Pericles imposed Athenian weights and measures throughout the League.

Pericles set about using the treasury for the glory of Athens, tapping it to fund various building projects, most notably a bunch of structures on the city’s Acropolis: the temple of Athena Nike, the Erechtheum, and the massive Parthenon, begun about 447 BC. He argued that the allies were paying Athens for their defense (it did have the largest fleet) and since that was the case he didn’t have to account for how the money was spent. He also used funds (both his own and the League’s) to support the famed playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Aristophanes (who weren’t getting rich off all those free performances). Sculptors such as Phidias and Myron beautified the city with works in marble and stone. The philosophers Protagoras, Zeno, and Anaxagoras were personal friends of Pericles, although the great Socrates held himself aloft from the fawning. It could be argued that Pericles funded the Golden Age of Greece … using other people’s 9000 talents of gold.

By this point, Pericles had been elected strategos (general) in 458 of the combined forces of Athens and its allies. And soon enough he set off the first Peloponnesian War, at least he did according to Thucydides and to Plutarch, although they were hardly objective observers. Pericles, by all accounts, was convinced that a war for the control of Greece between Sparta and Athens was inevitable. And so he dispatched Athenian forces in 433 to support Corcyra in its squabble with Corinth, a Spartan ally. Perhaps Pericles was looking for a fight, and when Athens rejected Spartan’s demands to cease-and-desist the Peloponnesian League and Delian League had at it. Sparta ravaged the Attica countryside; Pericles evacuated all the people into Athens and prepared to wear down the Peloponnesians. But, in 429 BC, plague struck the crowded city. Among those it claimed … Pericles, who couldn’t debate with an enterobacterium.

Trivia

• Pericles' diplomacy screen shows a view of the Acropolis of Athens.
• Pericles' leader ability is a direct translation of his name, while his leader agenda references a coalition of Greek city-states that met in Delos (and later Athens).
• Pericles is always seen wearing his Corinthian helmet and carrying a satchel and a scroll.
• This marks the second time Pericles has led the Greeks in the Civilization franchise; the other time being in Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword.

Gallery

Promotional image of Pericles

Pericles on the loading screen

A marble bust of Pericles (which appears to have inspired his in-game model)

Videos

CIVILIZATION VI - First Look- Greece (Pericles)

First Look: Greece (Pericles)

Related achievements

12 Olympians Have 12 Policy Slots as Greece The 12 Olympians were the major gods of Greek mythology who lived on Mount Olympus.

Oratorical Skills Win a regular game as Pericles Pericles was a renowned public speaker (or orator), and is thought to have significantly refined the art of oration.

See also

• Pericles in other games