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Secondary sourcePainting

Portrait of Pericles

A later engraved oval portrait imagining Pericles as a bearded, helmeted general, made long after his death.

A later imagined portrait made to represent Pericles, showing how he was remembered long after his death.

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Engraved oval portrait print of a bearded man wearing a helmet with a crest, shown in profile facing right, with curly hair and beard. The label below reads PERIKLES. Inscriptions in the corners read 'Condi del' and 'v. Senus fculp.'
Portrait of Pericles. Rijksmuseum, Netherlands.

About this source

What it is

This is an engraved print showing an oval portrait of a bearded man wearing a crested helmet, shown in profile. A label beneath reads 'PERIKLES' and small inscriptions name those involved in making the print. It is held by the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands.

Why it matters

No portrait of Pericles survives from his own lifetime, so images like this were created centuries later, based on imagination and earlier artistic traditions rather than direct knowledge of his appearance. It shows how later generations imagined and memorialized the famous Athenian statesman and general.

Look closer

  • What details (helmet, beard, profile pose) make this look like a 'generic' ancient general rather than a specific person?
  • Why might an artist centuries later choose to portray Pericles this way?
  • What does this image leave out about who Pericles really was?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Pericles on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Manuscript page in Greek handwriting with a decorative heading at top, showing the text of a speech in dense lines of script on aged parchment with marginal notes at left and right edges.Speech

Secondary source

Pericles' Funeral Oration

Thucydides · 431/430 BCE

Photograph of the Parthenon temple on the Athenian Acropolis, seen from the front-left under a deep blue sky. White marble Doric columns and a partly damaged pediment stand on a stepped base, with scattered marble blocks and ruins in the foreground.Artifact

Primary source

Parthenon

447-432 BCE

Marble bust of a bearded man wearing a tall Corinthian-style helmet with a raised crest and cheek guards. Curly hair and beard are carved in detail. The bust rests on a tan stone pedestal against a grey wall.Sculpture

Secondary source

Pericles with the Corinthian Helmet

Kresilas · Roman copy, from a Greek original near Pericles' lifetime

Facsimile page of Greek manuscript handwriting in minuscule script, nine lines of dark ink on white, headed 'Facsimile No. 57', with a transcription and caption 'Thucydides.—Tenth Century' below.Book

Primary source

History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides · 5th century BCE

Book

Secondary source

Life of Pericles

Plutarch

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