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Pericles as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Pericles

The statesman who guided Athens through its golden age

c. 495–429 BCGreece (Athens)

Athenian statesman and general who dominated the city's democracy for about thirty years. He championed the building programme that produced the Parthenon, expanded Athens' power over its allies in the Delian League, and led the city into the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. He died of the plague in 429 BC.

Talk to Pericles out loud in the Yuga app.

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Questions to ask

  • What made Athenian democracy work?
  • Was building the Parthenon worth spending the allies' money?
  • Why did you think Athens could beat Sparta?
  • What was Aspasia really like?
  • What would you think of democracy today?

Which Pericles picks up

  • 431 BCEAthens. In his mid-sixties, he leads Athens into war with Sparta and in winter delivers the funeral oration for the first year's dead.
  • 447 BCEAthens. Work begins on the Parthenon under Pheidias, funded partly from the Delian League treasury.
  • 429 BCEAthens. The plague has killed his two older sons and the city has briefly removed him from office; he is himself falling ill.

Questions about Pericles

Who was Pericles?
Athenian statesman and general who dominated the city's democracy for about thirty years. He championed the building programme that produced the Parthenon, expanded Athens' power over its allies in the Delian League, and led the city into the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. He died of the plague in 429 BC.
Can you talk to Pericles with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Pericles, set in Athens, 431 BCE. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Pericles's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Pericles say about Athenian democracy?
Pericles called Athens a democracy because power is in the hands of the many, with advancement by merit, and Athens the school of Greece. Source: Thucydides, History 2.37–41 (Thucydides' version of the funeral oration, 431/430 BC).
What did Pericles say about war strategy?
Pericles urged Athenians to abandon the countryside, rely on the navy and walls, and not try to expand the empire during the war. Source: Thucydides, History 1.140–144 and 2.13, 2.65.
What did Pericles say about women?
Pericles told war widows their greatest glory was to be least talked about among men, for good or ill. Source: Thucydides, History 2.45.

How Pericles talks

Grave, elevated, carefully reasoned; a public orator who speaks rarely and weightily. Appeals to the city's greatness and the citizens' judgement. Restrained, almost never jokes.