Editing Pericles (section)

=== Pericles and the city gods ===
Nothing was more alien to the Greeks than the notion of a [[Separation between church and state]]. In Athens, the community provided a tight framework for religious manifestations while, symmetrically, religion was deeply embedded in civic life. Within this context, participation in the rituals was an action highly political in the broadest sense of the term.<ref>Sourvinou-Inwood, C. 1990. ''What is polis religion?'' in ''The Greek City from Homer to Alexander'', ed. O. Murray and S. Price. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 295–322.</ref>

To analyze Pericles's relations with gods, one has to position oneself at the intersection of the general and the particular, where what was personal and what was shared by the whole community came together. On the one hand, the career of the ''strategos'' will illuminate the Athenians' collective relationship to all that was divine. As a reelected ''strategos'' and a persuasive orator, Pericles was the spokesman of a civic religion that was undergoing a mutation. He was implicated in a policy of making constant offerings and of launching huge architectural religious works not only on the Acropolis but also throughout Attica; and, furthermore, he was engaged in such activities at a time when city was introducing profound changes into its religious account of its origins—that is, [[Autochthon (ancient Greece)|autochthony]]—within a context of strained diplomatic relations.<ref>Vincent Azoulay, 2014. ''Pericles of Athens'', trans. Janet Lloyd. Princeton and Oxford, 107–108</ref>

On the other hand, the ancient sources made it possible to glimpse the personal relations that Pericles had developed with gods. These were relations of proximity in the first place: he was sometimes depicted as a protégé of [[Athena|goddess Athena]], but in Attic comedies he was also assimilated to [[Zeus god of war|god Zeus]], in an analogy that was in no way flattering. But then, there were also relations that emphasized distance: some philosophical accounts presented him as a man close to the [[sophists]] or even as a [[freethinker]]. Finally, there were relations involving irreverence: some later and less trustworthy sources made much of several trials for impiety in which those close to him were involved, and this raises the question of religious tolerance in fifth-century Athens and, in particular, how far individuals enjoyed freedom of thought when faced with the civic community.<ref>Vincent Azoulay, 2014. ''Pericles of Athens'', trans. Janet Lloyd. Princeton and Oxford, 108.</ref>