Pericles
Pericles
Pericles was an Athenian general and played a large role in the war. For starters, his influence on the Athenian council helped persuade the Athenians to go to war. He thought that if the Athenians wanted to go to war that they should as soon as possible. His reason for this was that the Peloponnesian League would need time to gather resorces and trained men in the fields of ground combat and naval combat. Athens had an army ready though. Since Pericles had such a high ranking his influence was what persuaded the Athenians to go to war when they did.
Pericles' Stratgy
The Athenian military contained heavy-armed, light armed, and calvary. Training started at 18 and went through 60, thus preventing the Athenians from ever having to improvise an army during the war. The heavily-armed troops consisted of about 19 000 citizens. Of these 16 000 were citizens and 3000 were alien residents forced into military duty. Also 3000 were to old or to young to fight in the war and were used as garrison for the walls of Athens. The light armed troops consisted of 10 000 men, of which 1600 were special archers.
From the very first day of the war to when he died, Pericles played for safety. By dissapointing the enemy of their confident expectations of a speedy victory he hoped to sicken them of a fruitless war, and make them eager to want peace instead. His strategy ran as follows: The Athenians were never tooffer or accept a chance of battle by land against the Peloponnisian league. No resistance was to be offerec if the enemy invaded Attica. The "linked fortress" of the Athens- Peiraeus was to be rgarded as an island. The county-side must be abandoned, when theenemy cam up to the walls. Only when the enemy left was the Athenian army to emerge from hiding.
This was the negative side of the campaign. The positive side to take the form of operations by sea. The fleet was from time to time to go coasting round the Peloponnesse, and drop off small landing parties to do what damage they could.
