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Ancient and modern

Boris is facing his Sparta moment

24 August 2019

9:00 AM

24 August 2019

9:00 AM

The PM’s hero is the Athenian statesman Pericles, and a Periclean crossroads is now approaching.

According to the biographer Plutarch, Pericles’ influence begins during Athens’s golden age, when its power was expanding at the expense of Sparta, its rival city-state. Though an aristocrat, Pericles turned himself into a populist, but took care not become too familiar a figure.

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