The Age of Pericles | The Age of Moderation (Lecture 19)

Lecture 19: In the famous funeral oration recorded by Thucydides, Pericles praises the Athenians for the moderation they showed in their daily lives. What did the Athenians mean by moderation, and why was this virtue so highly regarded? The importance of moderation goes back to the Delphic maxim “Nothing in excess,” but the concept had a broad application to the political life and culture of Pericles’s Athens. Conservatives spoke of temperance as a traditional aristocratic and oligarchic virtue, while decrying the laxity of the democracy. Speakers in the democratic assembly always appealed to the “moderates,” the men of the middle way. Each side tried to make moderation a characteristic of its political stance. At the same time, the Athenians liked to think that they were moderate in their pursuit of pleasure and able to balance hard work with a reasonable cultivation of culture. In this respect, they saw themselves as different from the Persians, who were regarded as soft and pleasure-addled, and the Spartans, who emphasized physical strength at the cost of any intellectual or artistic pursuits. Moderation was an ideal for the Athenians, who saw themselves as the very model for how a society should function. This ideal also found expression in the sculpture of the classical age.

Suggested Reading:
Boardman, J. Greek Sculpture: The Classical Period. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.
Stewart, A. Art, Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Lecture 20: https://rumble.com/v5f0y65-the-age-of-pericles-freedom-equality-and-the-rights-of-man-lecture-20.html