Periclean strategy
Kagan states that Pericles adopted "an elevated mode of speech, free from the vulgar and knavish tricks of mob-orators" and, according to Diodorus Siculus, he "excelled all his fellow citizens in skill of oratory". According to Plutarch, he avoided using gimmicks in his speeches, unlike the passionate Demosthenes, and always spoke in a calm and tranquil manner. The biographer points out, however, that the poet Ion reported that Pericles' speaking style was "a presumptuous and somewhat arrogant manner of address, and that into his haughtiness there entered a good deal of disdain and contempt for others".
Gorgias, in Plato's homonymous dialogue, uses Pericles as an example of powerful oratory. In Menexenus, however, Socrates (through Plato) casts aspersions on Pericles' rhetorical fame, claiming ironically that, since Pericles was educated by Aspasia, a trainer of many orators, he would be superior in rhetoric to someone educated by Antiphon. He also attributes authorship of the Funeral Oration to Aspasia and attacks his contemporaries' veneration of Pericles.
Sir Richard C. Jebb concludes that "unique as an Athenian statesman, Pericles must have been in two respects unique also as an Athenian orator; first, because he occupied such a position of personal ascendancy as no man before or after him attained; secondly, because his thoughts and his moral force won him such renown for eloquence as no one else ever got from Athenians".
Ancient Greek writers call Pericles "Olympian" and extol his talents; referring to him "thundering and lightning and exciting Greece" and carrying the weapons of Zeus when orating. According to Quintilian, Pericles would always prepare assiduously for his orations and, before going on the rostrum, he would always pray to the gods, so as not to utter any improper word.

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.
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, autochthony—within a context of strained diplomatic relations.
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 goddess Athena, but in Attic comedies he was also assimilated to 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.

Legacy: Pericles' most visible legacy can be found in the literary and artistic works of the Golden Age, much of which survive to this day. The Acropolis, though in ruins, still stands and is a symbol of modern Athens. Paparrigopoulos wrote that these masterpieces are "sufficient to render the name of Greece immortal in our world".
In politics, Victor L. Ehrenberg argues that a basic element of Pericles' legacy is Athenian imperialism, which denies true democracy and freedom to the people of all but the ruling state. The promotion of such an arrogant imperialism is said to have ruined Athens. Pericles and his "expansionary" policies have been at the center of arguments promoting democracy in oppressed countries.
Other analysts maintain an Athenian humanism illustrated in the Golden Age. The freedom of expression is regarded as the lasting legacy deriving from this period. Pericles is lauded as "the ideal type of the perfect statesman in ancient Greece" and his Funeral Oration is nowadays synonymous with the struggle for participatory democracy and civic pride.
In 1932, botanist Albert Charles Smith published Periclesia, a monotypic genus of flowering plants from Ecuador belonging to the family Ericaceae and named after Pericles.
The exterior of the ETH Zurich University Archives has a wall painting with the face of Pericles, together with Homer and Aristotle.

In popular culture: In the 1968 Star Trek episode "Plato's Stepchildren", Captain Kirk is presented with the shield of Pericles by the leader of the Platonian race.
In the 2001 TV Movie Black River Pericles is the pseudonym used by the mysterious voice on the phone.
In the 2016 video game Civilization VI Pericles is one of the two playable leaders for the Greek civilization, the other being Gorgo.
In the 2018 video game Assassin's Creed Odyssey Pericles's life as a politician and his death are both presented, although his death being from injuries sustained during a violent attack is not historically accurate.

See also: Art in ancient Greece
Culture of Greece
Sculpture of ancient Greece
Timeline of ancient Greece
Pericles, Prince of Tyre

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== Further reading ==