In the decade before 500 B.C., the Athenians established the world's first democratic constitution. This new kind of government was carried to its classical form by the reforms of Pericles a half-century later, and it was in the Athens shaped by Pericles that the greatest achievements of the Greeks took place. While the rest of the world continued to be characterized by monarchical, rigidly hierarchical, command societies, democracy in Athens was carried as far as it would go before modern times, perhaps further than at any other place and time.

Although limited to adult males of native parentage, Athenian citizenship granted full and active participation in every decision of the state without regard to wealth or class. The Athenians excluded women, children, resident aliens, and slaves from political life, but the principle of equality within the political community that they invented was the seed of the modern idea of universal egalitarianism that flowered during the French Enlightenment.

In our time democracy is taken for granted, but it is one of the rarest, most delicate, and fragile flowers in the jungle of human experience. It existed for only two centuries in Athens and less than that in a small number of Greek states. When it reappeared in the Western world more than two millennia later, it was broader but shallower. The French and American revolutions extended citizenship more generously than in Greece, ultimately excluding only children from political participation. But modern democracies are also more remote and indirect, less "political" in the ancient understanding of the term.

Only in ancient Athens and in the United States so far has democracy lasted for as much as two hundred years. Monarchy and different forms of despotism, on the other hand, have gone on for millennia. A dynasty or tyranny or clique may be deposed, but it is invariably replaced by another or by a chaotic anarchy that ends in the establishment of some kind of command society. Optimists may believe that democracy is the inevitable and final form of human society, but the historical record shows that up to now it has been the rare exception.

An understanding of that reality should give pause to any who may think that democracy is the natural polity of mankind and that its establishment and success are assured once despotic or "reactionary" rule has been removed. An examination of the few successful democracies in history suggests that they need to meet three conditions if they are to flourish. The first is to have a set of good institutions; the second is to have a body of citizens who possess a good understanding of the principles of democracy, or who at least have developed a character consistent with the democratic way of life; the third is to have a high quality of leadership, at least at critical moments. At times, the third qualification is the most important and can compensate for weaknesses in the other two.

Pericles was not the founder or inventor of democracy, but he came to its leadership only a half-century after its invention, when it was still fragile. He certainly played the chief role in transforming it from a limited democracy where the common people still deferred to their aristocratic betters to a fully confident popular government in which the mass of the people were fully sovereign in fact as well as theory. Aside from its value as a study in political greatness, therefore, Pericles' career offers instruction in how a new and fragile democracy can be brought to maturity.

Pericles' long tenure as a political leader, more than thirty years, permitted him to aim at goals that went far beyond the immediate concerns that fully occupy most politicians and statesmen. He was one of those rare individuals who do not merely accept the conditions of the world they find but try to shape it to an image in their own minds. He saw the opportunity to create the greatest political community the world had ever known, one that would fulfill man's strongest and deepest passions--for glory and immortality. The satisfaction of these passions normally implies extraordinary inequality; yet Pericles believed it could be achieved by the citizens of a democracy based on legal and political equality. At the same time, he intended to create a quality of life never before known, one that would allow men to pursue their private interests but also enable them to seek the highest goals by placing their interests at the service of a city that fostered and relied upon reason for its greatness.

To shape that vision and persuade others of its virtues, Pericles needed to overcome the attractive force of two earlier views of the best human life. The older was the aristocratic image that emerged from the epic poems of Homer and dominated Greek society for hundreds of years. The newer image, provided by Sparta, took shape no earlier than the seventh century but immediately captured the imagination of many and continued to fascinate Greek thinkers for centuries. He met both challenges by adapting the first to his own purposes and by rejecting the latter as inferior to the new society he had introduced in Athens.

Pericles' vision was the culmination of a long process whereby the polis had tried to impose its communal, civic values on a society that had always been organized by family, clan, and tribe. The older ethical tradition came chiefly from the Homeric epic, where the esteemed values were those of heroic individuals. Achilles came to fight at Troy not for any national, ethnic, or communal cause but for his own purposes: to obtain booty seized from captured cities and to display the heroic excellence that Homer called arete. Through such a display he hoped to win the kind of fame that would gain him immortality as the memory of his great deeds passed on through the generations, sung and embellished by bards like Homer. In the opening scene of the Iliad, Achilles' honor and reputation are diminished by Agamemnon's arrogance, so he retires from the battle and sulks in his tent while the Greeks suffer a series of costly defeats. He even asks the gods to aid the enemy so that he may gain vengeance against Agamemnon because, as Achilles himself says, "he did no honor to the best of the Achaeans."

From the first, the Greeks faced the great truth of man's mortality squarely. They lived without the comfort of the two major devices that other cultures have used to evade that terrible truth. They did not believe that man was entirely trivial, a mere bit of dust in the vast Cosmic order, such that his passing was a thing of no account. Instead, they thought man was of the same race as the gods, a creature capable of extraordinary achievements. Nor did they believe in personal immortality, in which death is a blessing, a release from a painful and wretched life and admission to paradise. Death is the end; beyond it is silence and darkness. Homeric virtues and values, therefore, were worldly and personal. Courage, strength, military prowess, persuasiveness, cunning, beauty, wealth: these were examples of arete, the excellent qualities of the good, the fortunate, the happy man. Some were acquired by effort; others were simply a gift of irrational fate. But the reward of these virtues was kleos, the fame and glory that alone held out the hope of victory over death.

Some time in the eighth century the polis emerged, and its needs at once came into conflict with the old heroic ethos. The polis was a political community and a sovereign entity competing in a world of similar communities. Wars were frequent, and in order to survive and flourish each polis required devotion and sacrifice from its citizens. One way that it gained the needed commitment was by creating, for the first time in history, a true political life which allowed its active citizens to exercise human capacity previously employed by very few.

Most poleis had aristocratic or oligarchic governments, but they were ruled by laws arrived at in discussions in the sovereign assemblies, and they were executed by councils and magistrates selected by the citizens from among themselves. Judgment was rendered according to their laws, once again, by courts made up of citizens. In early Athens, as in most of the Greek cities, political participation came to represent a crucial distinction between a free man and gentleman on the one hand, and a slave or churl on the other. Greeks deprived of the political life felt the loss keenly. When the Mytilenean poet Alcaeus was sent into exile the loss he complained of was not his house and fields but the scenes of political life: "I yearn, Agesilaidas, to hear the herald summon the assembly and the council" (Alcaeus, fragment 130). The chance to speak brilliantly and with results in the public meeting was a gift given only by the polis, a way of winning kleos by the arts of speech.

Beyond those advantages, its early champions tried to show that the polis was necessary for civilized life, and therefore deserved the highest sacrifice. Solon, an Athenian lawmaker of the early sixth century, went further, arguing that a well-governed polis was the best defense against injustice, faction, and turmoil: "It makes all things wise and perfect in the world of men."

But these benefits, important as they were, did not appeal to the most basic spiritual need of all, the need for kleos and immortality. When wealthy aristocrats won victories in athletic contests, they could pay poets like Pindar to preserve their memories in verse; they could sponsor public monuments by great architects and sculptors; the richest of them could even erect temples to the gods, dedicated in their own names. But most of the citizens, even in undemocratic states, had no such opportunities.

How could the ordinary man achieve kleos? Herodotus tells a story, metaphorically true even if historically dubious, in which Solon gave some answers. The Lydian ruler Croesus, the richest man in the world, expecting to hear his own name, asked the Athenian sage, Who was the happiest of mortals? Solon responded, "Tellus of Athens," a name neither Croesus nor anyone else outside of Athens had ever heard. Croesus asked why, and this was Solon's response:

"Tellus' polis was prosperous, and he was the father of noble sons, and he saw children born to all of them, and they all grew up. And after a life spent in what among our people passes for comfort, he died most gloriously. In a battle between the Athenians and their neighbors near Eleusis, he came to the aid of his fellow-citizens, turned the enemy to rout, and died most nobly. The Athenians gave him a public burial on the spot where he fell [only the men who died at Marathon received the same extraordinary honor] (1.30).

The tale tells us much about Greek values. In what does happiness lie? In moderate material comfort, good health, long life, virtuous offspring, and an opportunity for kleos--the last two representing man's hopes for immortality preserved in the memory of his family and his polis. But even in Herodotus' tale such glory is for the rare individual who had both the ability and the opportunity to perform a great deed. The average citizen could not look even to his polis for the satisfaction of his greatest spiritual needs. It was still open to each man to seek satisfaction in the pursuit of his own interests and those of his family, if necessary at the expense of the polis.

The Spartans faced this fundamental problem of the polis in its sharpest form. They were a very small minority of the total population over which they ruled. At an early date they had abandoned the normal means whereby men provide for themselves and their families, including all economic activity: farming, pasturing, trade, craft, and industry. For trade and the manufacture of whatever they needed, the Spartans relied on the perioikoi--people who lived in free communities, gave control of foreign policy to the Spartans, and served under Spartan command in the army. For their food, the Spartans relied on the helots - slaves of the Spartan state who out-numbered the Spartans by at least seven to one, bitterly hated their masters, and, in the words of the fourth-century writer Xenophon "would gladly eat them raw" (Hellenica 3.3.6). From time to time the helots would break out in revolt, threatening the very existence of Sparta.

To cope with this threat the Spartans turned their polis into a military academy and an armed camp, giving up the normal pleasures of life and devoting themselves entirely to the state. For them, nothing could interfere with the claims of the polis to their loyalty and devotion, so they rejected privacy, imposed a rigid economic equality on the members of the Spartiate class, attenuated the independence of the family and its control of its offspring, and made individual goals entirely subordinate to those of the state. They excluded money, the arts and sciences, philosophy, aesthetic pleasures, and the life of the mind in general, for all these things might foster individualism and detract from devotion to the polis. Their national poet, Tyrtaeus, specifically rejected the Homeric values and replaced them with a single definition of arete: the courage to stand bravely in the ranks of a hoplite phalanx fighting for Sparta.

The Spartan way of life inspired admiration in many other Greeks, though none went so far as to adopt the Spartan system. Sparta's system appealed especially to aristocrats, such as the young men who conversed with Socrates in the gymnasia. And when such philosophers as Plato modeled their utopian regimes on Sparta, they were building on a tradition that viewed its constitution as a standing rebuke to Athenian democracy.

In the real world, however, no one would adopt that demanding and perverse way of life except in the unique circumstances that brought it to Sparta. Least of all did it suit the open, democratic society that Athens had already become by the time Pericles was born. For Athenians, the individual and familial values sung by Homer remained vital and attractive; yet their polis needed a Spartan commitment and devotion to meet the challenge of the Persian invasions, of the acquisition of the empire, and of the jealousy of Sparta and her allies. But a free and democratic people, one not constantly fearful of deadly rebellions by furious helots, cannot simply be told permanently to subordinate their personal pursuits to the needs of society. To win the necessary devotion, the city--or rather its leaders, poets, and teachers--must show that its demands are compatible with the needs of the citizen, and even better, that the city is needed to achieve his own goals. Pericles' greatest achievement lay in his ability to explain how the interests of the city and its citizens depended on each other for fulfillment.

The citizen of a free society has the right to ask, Why should I risk my life for my city? The willingness to perform military service for his homeland is the most fundamental and demanding duty of the citizen. Yet an Athenian reared in the Homeric tradition could also ask, "How can I achieve kleos and thereby a chance at immortality? Most of Pericles' answers to these questions can be found in the Funeral Oration that he delivered in the winter of 431/30, less than two years before his death, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War. These solemn commemorations, apparently unique to the Athenian democracy, had a political dimension, for the speaker was someone "chosen by the polis as the man who seemed wisest in judgment and foremost in reputation" (Thucydides 2.34.6). His selection as public orator was thus a tribute to his stature, reputation, and political power.

The Funeral Oration was delivered during a war that was clearly going to continue for some time. Its chief purpose, even more important than praising the dead, was to explain why they had been right to risk their lives and why the living should be willing to do likewise. In this respect it was very much like Abraham Lincoln's funeral oration at Gettysburg in 1863. With brilliant brevity Lincoln answered some questions by pointing to the greatness of the cause at issue. America was "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Victory would mean "a new birth of freedom," and would ensure that "government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth." The fallen soldiers' purpose was to preserve a Constitution and a way of life that was unique and worthy of sacrifice. More fully, and therefore at greater length, Pericles did the same thing. In the process, he presented his vision for Athens and the kind of citizen its unique constitution and way of life would produce. It contained a clear, if often implicit, contrast with the Spartan way of life, which so many Greeks admired but which Pericles regarded as inferior to the Athens he portrayed.

"First," he said, 'I shall make clear through what practices we have come to our present position and with what political constitution and way of life our city has become great." The institutions are democratic, but Pericles' explanation of what that means is a refutation of the attacks made by the enemies of democracy. The hostile descriptions emphasize its excessive commitment to equality, complaining of the absurdity of distributing offices by lot and the evils of payment for public service, but even more of the flaws in the democratic principle itself.

Plato asserted that democracy unjustly "distributes a sort of equality to equal and unequal alike" (Republic 55C), and Aristotle later claimed that in democracies justice "is the enjoyment of arithmetical equality, and not the enjoyment of proportionate equality on the basis of merit" (Politics 1317b). Democracy's critics also pointed to a perverted individualism that was called liberty but was really license and lawlessness. They also complained of the lack of uniform good character in the citizens, who were unpredictably involved in various activities and masters of none, with negative consequences for their military ability and moral quality. Critics also saw it as a special failure of the Athenian constitution that it did not put a common stamp of virtue on all the citizens, as the Spartan constitution tried to do, and as many Greeks thought proper. Plato recognized that the freedom afforded by the Athenian democracy seemed pleasant to many people, but his own judgment was less friendly: Democracy is "an agreeable, anarchic form of society, with plenty of variety, which treats all men as equal, whether they are equal or not" (Republic 558C). The kind of man formed by such a constitution reflects its shortcomings:

"He lives from day to day indulging the appetite of the hour; and sometimes he is lapped in drink and strains of the flute; then he becomes a water-drinker and tries to get thin; then he takes a turn at gymnastics; sometimes idling and neglecting everything, then once more living the life of a philosopher; often he is busy with politics, and starts to his feet and says and does whatever comes into his head; and, if he is emulous of anyone who is a warrior, off he is in that direction, or men of business, once more in that. His life has neither law nor order; and this distracted existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom; and so he goes on" (Republic 56lC).

Plato and Aristotle wrote long after the death of Pericles, and it is by no means clear that these descriptions fit the real Athenian democracy at any time. But they surely reflected contemporary criticisms. To me, at least, they still seem to indicate some of the important ways in which democracy is likely to go astray.

Pericles made use of the occasion offered in the Funeral Oration to respond in detail and to show how the democratic city he had in mind met their complaints. The Athenians depicted in his Funeral Oration are idealized images, and events would soon show the darker, less admirable side of Athenian society. But the Funeral Oration was intended to inspire the Athenians with a vision of excellence that justified their current efforts.

Part of the speech met the challenge posed by the heroic tradition that emphasized competition, excellence, or merit and the undying glory that rewarded it. These aristocratic values never lost their powerful attraction to all Greeks, and Pericles claimed them for the Athenian democracy. He rejected the notion that democracy turned its back on excellence, reducing all to equality at a low level. Instead, it opened the competition for excellence and honor to all, removing the accidental barriers imposed in other constitutions and societies:

"Our city is called a democracy because it is governed by the many, not the few. In the realm of private disputes everyone is equal before the law, but when it is a matter of public honors each man is preferred not on the basis of his class but of his good reputation and his merit [arete]. No one, moreover, if he has it in him to do some good for the city, is barred because of poverty or humble origins" (Thucydides 2.37.1).

The aristocrat believed that the poor were not free, because their poverty deprived them of leisure and, therefore, of the opportunity to take part in public life. In the Athens of Pericles, however, the general prosperity and payment for public service gave the average man a degree of leisure unknown in other states. Pericles therefore asserts that "we conduct our public life as free men [eleuthero.i]" (2.37.2). "Neither rich man nor poor is prevented from taking part in politics by the pursuit of his economic interests, and the same people are concerned both with their own private business and with political matters; even those who turn their attention chiefly to their own affairs do not lack judgment about politics. We alone regard the man who takes no part in politics not as someone who minds his own business but as useless. And we decide public questions ourselves, or at least come to a sound understanding of them" (2.40.2).

The Athenian democracy, Pericles asserts, far from reducing all to a low common level, raises all its citizens to the level of noblemen by asking them to take part in political life and so to control their own destiny. Finally, Pericles revels in the variety available to the citizens of Athens--an object of scorn to Plato, but another quality, we must remember, normally associated with aristocracy. Greek noblemen lived by the ideal of the accomplished amateur: good at a variety of skills--music, athletics, warfare, among others--but professionally devoted to none. They would have been appalled by Plato's notion that each man should do the one thing for which he was best suited, and so would the Athenians described by Pericles.

The rewards conferred by these aristocratic virtues are precisely those sought by the epic heroes: greatness, power, honor, fame. For Pericles, Athens itself was a competitor for these prizes in the agon among poleis, past and present. But they are won by and for all the citizens of democratic Athens, and Pericles does not hesitate to assert the superiority of this collective achievement, going so far as to reject the need for an epic poet to guarantee its renown:

"We have provided great evidences of our power, and it is not without witnesses; we are the objects of wonder today and will be in the future. We have no need of a Homer to praise us or of anyone else whose words will delight us for the moment but whose account of the facts will be discredited by the truth. On the contrary, we have forced every sea and land to become an entrance for our daring, and we have everywhere established permanent monuments of the harm we have done our enemies and the good we have done for our friends" (2.4l.4).

The highest reward is the kind of immortality that was once reserved for epic heroes but which now has come to the Athenian soldiers who have died in the service of their city, and which Pericles urges the living to earn for themselves:

"They gave their lives for the common good and thereby won for themselves the praise that never grows old and the most distinguished of all graves, not those in which they lie, but where their glory remains in eternal memory, always there at the right time to inspire speech and action. For the whole world is the burial place for famous men; not only does the epitaph inscribed on monuments in their native country commemorate them, but in lands not their own the unwritten memory, more of their spirit even than of what they have done, lives on within each person. Now it is for you to emulate them; knowing that happiness requires freedom and freedom requires courage, do not shrink from the dangers of war" (2.43.2-4).

Pericles met the challenge of the heroic tradition by showing that democracy would bring to all the citizens of Athens the advantages heretofore reserved for the well-born few. The Athenian democracy would encourage merit in its traditional form and reward it with victory, glory, and immortality.

The more immediate challenge to the democratic vision came from Sparta. Its military power and tradition of leadership among the Greeks, the discipline and devotion to the public good displayed by its citizens, had already created an aura of virtue and excellence that a modern scholar has called "the Spartan mirage." Pericles needed to confront this challenge, and much of the Funeral Oration is therefore a direct comparison with Sparta. Athens is called a democracy because the many rule, not the few; everyone knew that in Sparta a small minority dominated the vast majority. Although all the men of the Spartiate class were called homoioi (peers), the kings had special privileges, and there was a class of noblemen distinct from the others. In Athens, all citizens were equal before the law. The Spartan imposed a property qualification for participation in public life; any Athenian citizen could sit on juries or the council and vote and speak in the assembly.

The Athenians prized thought, deliberation, and discussion. The Spartans were famous for their brevity and distrust of subtle reasoning, but Pericles praises the democracy's fondness for debate and discussion. Freedom of speech, extended to each and every citizen, was its hallmark and this freedom was the target of ridicule, not only by aristocrats who thought only those bred in political tradition or formally educated should speak, but also by the admirers of Sparta where decisions were made by acclamation without debate. The Spartans believed in deeds, not words. Pericles took a different view: "We believe," he said,that words are no barrier to deeds, but rather that harm comes from not taking instruction from discussion before the time has come for action. We are superior in this way, too, that we are the most daring in what we undertake at the same time as we are the most thoughtful before going about it, while with others it is ignorance that brings boldness and thought that makes them hesitate. And it is right to judge those most courageous who understand both the pleasures and the terrors involved most clearly and yet do not turn away from dangers as a result" (2.40.3).

Here Pericles has identified a critical element of his vision for Athens: its commitment to reason and intelligence. Thought is not a barrier to the achievement of heroic goals. In fact, it is a prerequisite for them, for the brave deeds performed by enraged heroes who give no thought to danger are, by his definition, not brave at all. Only facing dangers that the mind can comprehend deserves to be called bravery, and that is what is expected of the men in his polis.

Sparta's great reputation depended on its extraordinary military achievements, and these were attributed in turn to its religious piety, single-minded severe system of training, the tight discipline imposed on all aspects of life, and the ascetic Spartan mores. Xenophon gives a good example of the absence of any privacy in Sparta:

"In other cities whenever a man shows himself to be a coward his only punishment is that he is called a coward. . . .But in Sparta anyone would be ashamed to dine or to wrestle with a coward. . . .In the streets he must get out of the way. . .he must support his unmarried sisters at home and explain to them why they are still spinsters, he must live without a wife at his fireside. . .he may not wander about comfortably acting like someone with a clean reputation or else he is beaten by his betters. I don't wonder that where such a load of dishonor burdens the coward death seems preferable instead of a dishonored and shameful life" (Constitution of the Spartans 9.4-6).

In contrast, Pericles points to the limited jurisdiction of the Athenian regime, which leaves a considerable space for individualism and privacy, free from public scrutiny:

"Not only do we conduct our public life as free men but we are also free of suspicion of one another as we go about our every-day lives. We are not angry with our neighbor if he does what pleases him, and we don't glare at him which, even if it is harmless, is a painful sight" (2.37.2).

Yet this tolerant, easygoing way of life does not entail a disrespect for law or an invitation to licentious behavior. The Spartans were famous for their piety and reverence for law, and their blind obedience to it was thought to be the source of their great military prowess. In the face of this reputation, and in the teeth of its critics, who charged democracy especially with indiscipline and lawlessness, Pericles makes the claim for a higher obedience to law than was characteristic of the Spartans. They followed a written code that was exclusively in the interest of the ruling class. The Athenians, on the other hand, respected a broader and fairer concept of the law, with no less reverence:

"While we are tolerant in our private lives, in public affairs we do not break the law chiefly because of our respect for it. We obey those who hold office and the laws themselves, especially those enacted for the protection of the oppressed and those which, although unwritten, it is acknowledged shame to violate" (2.37.3).

Nor does Pericles concede that the strict discipline of Spartan training and the secrecy of its closed society produce better soldiers than the Athenian democracy:

"There is a difference between us and our opponents in how we prepare for our military responsibilities in the following ways: we open our city for everyone and do not exclude anyone for fear that he might learn or see something that would be useful to an enemy if it were not concealed. Instead, we put our trust not in secret weapons, but in our own courage when we are called upon to act. Our educations are different, too. The Spartans, from their earliest childhood, seek to acquire courage by painfully harsh training, but we, living our unrestricted life, are no less ready to meet the same dangers they do. . . . If, therefore, we are prepared to meet danger after leading a relaxed life instead of one filled with burdensome training, with our courage emerging naturally from our way of life instead of imposed by law, the advantage is ours. We do not wear ourselves out in advance of future troubles, and when they come we show ourselves no less bold than those who are always in training. In these ways our city deserves to be admired" (2.39).

Many of the qualities and characteristics envisioned by Pericles are related to military excellence, as is natural in a speech delivered in wartime to encourage the struggle for victory. But the most original aspect of Pericles' vision for Athens was its expectation of an enduring peace. He had made the strategic judgment that the empire as it stood was large enough to meet all the city's needs. Attempts to expand it would not only be unnecessary but endanger what already existed. And in his last recorded speech in 430, although its intention was to persuade the Athenians to keep fighting, he said: "For those who are prospering and who have a choice, going to war is folly" (2.61.1).

That conception ran counter to Greek experience, which had always been full of turbulence and warfare. Why did Pericles think Athens could live in peace after so many years of continuous fighting? The answer was to be found in the power of Athens, although less in its extent than its character. With a fleet that commanded the seas, the guaranteed revenues needed to support its navy and provide supplies against any siege, and a city and port defended by impregnable walls, Athens had achieved unprecedented security. Repeated failures had taught the Persians they could not challenge Athenian naval power, while adherence to the right strategy--a refusal to fight a large land battle--deprived Sparta and its allies of any hope for victory. These facts were obvious to all and might be expected to deter aggression. For the first time in history a Greek state could conduct its life and plan for the future in the expectation of a lasting peace.

Welcome as this prospect was, it nonetheless presented a problem. Since the time of Homer the Greek thirst for glory had centered on brave deeds in war: What would replace these in a world at peace? Part of the answer lay in a quality of life unknown elsewhere, a range of activities that brought the pleasures of prosperity to the appetite, joy and wonder to the spirit, stimulation to the intellect, and pride to the soul. An even greater substitution for the glories of war could be found in the exercise by each Athenian of his political duties. These were evidence of his freedom and importance, and so a source of pride. The poorest Athenian serving on a jury, voting in the assembly, or allotted to an office was thereby called upon to use his intelligence and experience on behalf of his polis. By sharing in the common responsibility he was able to develop powers and aspects of himself that allowed him to become more fully human than he could have on his own.

In war and in peace, the Athenian people showed themselves eager to accept the responsibilities that allowed them to share in their city's glory. That is why Pericles could make this extraordinary demand on them when the great war came:

"You must every day look upon the power of your city and become her lovers [erastai] and when you have understood her greatness consider that the men who achieved it were brave and honorable and knew what was necessary when the time came for action. If they ever failed in some attempt, they were determined that, at least, their city should not be deprived of their courage [arete] and gave her the most beautiful of all offerings. For they gave their lives for the common good. . . ." (2 43. l-2).

During the war, even in its darkest moments, Pericles could count on a strong response when he reminded the people that they were right to love their city and even to risk their lives for it, because it was uniquely great, and because only by preserving and enhancing it could the ordinary man share in its glory and so achieve a degree of fame and immortality.

In the few of his speeches we have, Pericles spoke chiefly of the empire and military glory, and these were certainly important values to him and the Athenians. But we have these speeches because Thucydides reported them, and his subject was war. If we had access to Pericles' inner thoughts and to the many other speeches he delivered in his long career, we would possibly discover that he took no less pride in Athenians' peaceful achievements of mind and spirit. His political program allowed all Athenian citizens to take part in government, to help guide their own destinies and those of their polis, as befits free men, to pursue their own prosperity and happiness in a broad realm of privacy, free of interference and confiscation by the state yet held to a high standard of ethical behavior in the role of a citizen. He believed that man's capacities and desires could be fulfilled at the highest level only through participation in the life of a community governed by reasoned discussion and guided by intelligence. Twenty-five hundred years later we remember him and his fellow-Athenians precisely because of their devotion to this great civic endeavor.

The story of the Athenians in the time of Pericles suggests that the creation and survival of democracy requires leadership of a high order. When tested, the Athenians behaved with the required devotion, wisdom, and moderation in large part because they had been inspired by the lofty democratic vision and example that Pericles had so effectively communicated to them. It was a vision that exalted the individual within the political community not by what it gave him but by what it expected of him. It limited the scope and power of the state, leaving enough space for individual freedom, privacy, and the human dignity of which they are a crucial part. It rejected the leveling principle pursued by both ancient Sparta and modern socialism, which requires the suppression of those rights. By recognizing only individuals, not separate groups, its laws preserved the unity needed by all healthy societies and avoided the shattering rivalries that destroy them. By rewarding merit, it avoided the unnatural leveling that is the hallmark of tyranny and encouraged the individual achievement and excellence that makes life sweet and raises the quality of life for everyone. Above all, Pericles helped the Athenians to understand that their private needs, both moral and material, required the kind of community Athens had become. Therefore, they were willing to run risks in its defense, make sacrifices on its behalf, and restrain their passions and desires to preserve it.

The new and emerging democracies of our time are very fragile, and they all face serious challenges. Few can rely upon strong democratic traditions, and all suffer economic conditions that range from bad to disastrous. Many are now confronting long-suppressed ethnic divisions that threaten to destroy the needed unity and harmony. The image and example of the prosperous, free nations of the world, conveyed to their people by modern technology, has meanwhile raised material expectations to unrealistic levels. If the newly free nations see democracy chiefly as a quick route to material well-being and equal distribution of wealth, they will be badly disappointed, and democracy will fail. To succeed, they need a vision of the future that is powerful enough to sustain them through bad times as well as good and to inspire the many difficult sacrifices that will be required of them. They must see that democracy alone of all regimes respects the dignity and autonomy of every individual, and understand that its survival requires that each individual see his own well-being as inextricably connected to that of the whole community.

This new faith will be especially hard to instill in societies that have learned to be cynical about the use of political idealism. The new democracies will, therefore, need leaders in the Periclean mold, leaders who know that the aim and character of true democracy should be to elevate their citizens to the highest attainable level, and that cutting down the greatest to assuage the envy of the least is the way of tyranny. They need leaders who understand that individual freedom, self-government, and equality before the law are of the highest value in themselves. And they especially need leaders with the talents to persuade their impatient citizens that these political institutions are the necessary first foundation for a decent regime and a good life for all. Older, better established democracies have the same needs if they are not to become the aimless, selfish, unstable, and doomed perversions of the Periclean vision described by Plato and Aristotle.

Such a vision and such leadership are not readily available in our era. The world has been astounded to see thin shoots of democracy trying to break through the hard surface of oppression. Those who wish to help them grow and flourish, as well as those who worry for the future of the older democracies, troubled again, strangely enough, by a growing allegiance to family, tribe, and clan at the expense of the commonwealth, could do worse than to turn for inspiration and instruction to the story of Pericles of Athens and his city, where once, against all odds, a noble democracy triumphed.

Donald Kagan is Bass Professor of History and Classics and Western Civilization at Yale University.