Athenians in The Age of Pericles
The Athenian elite lived modestly and without great luxuries, compared to the elites of other ancient states. There were very few great fortunes and land ownership was not concentrated: 71-73% of the population owned 60-65% of the land. The economy was based on maritime commerce and manufacturing, according to Amemiya's estimates, 56% of Athens' GDP was derived from manufacturing. Agriculture was also important, but it did not produce enough to feed the populace, so most food had to be imported (it is estimated that the carrying capacity of Attica's soil was between 84,000 and 150,000, while the population was 300,000 to 350,000 in 431 BC).
The state oversaw all the major religious festivals. The most important one was the Panathenaia in honor of the goddess Athena, a ritual procession carried out once a year in May and once every four years in July, in which the town presented a new veil (peplos) to the old wooden statue of Athena Poliada. Phidias immortalized this procession in the frieze of the Parthenon, which is currently at the British Museum. In the July Panathenaia (Great Panathenaia), large competitions were organized which included gymnastics and horseback riding, the winners of which received amphoras full of sacred olive oil as a prize. The other important festival was the dramatic Dionysia in honour of Dionysus where tragedies and comedies were performed.
Read more about this topic: Fifth-century Athens
Famous quotes containing the words athenians, age and/or pericles:
“The Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.”
—Bible: New Testament Acts, 17:21.
“A man’s interest in the world is only the overflow from his interest in himself. When you are a child your vessel is not yet full; so you care for nothing but your own affairs. When you grow up, your vessel overflows; and you are a politician, a philosopher, or an explorer and adventurer. In old age the vessel dries up: there is no overflow: you are a child again.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)