Periclean Athens

In the second and third quarters of the fifth century BC, when Athens became both politically and culturally dominant in the Greek world, Pericles was the leading figure in the city's public life. At this time Athens developed an empire of a kind which no Greek city had had before, and its politics were reshaped by the new institution of democracy.

These changes inspired religious developments, while the sophists revolutionised philosophy, analysed human affairs in human terms, and Athenian ...