Twenty-five years ago, Eugene M. Lang chose Pericles as the name and symbol for this organization because he was inspired by Athenian democracy—not as a model to be imitated uncritically, but as a legacy to be reckoned with and improved upon. Pericles led Athens during the fifth century BCE, a period of remarkable democratic innovation: citizens participated directly in governance, public officials were compensated so that civic service was not reserved for the wealthy, and the city invested in the arts, architecture, and intellectual life as expressions of shared democratic values.
But Mr. Lang saw in this legacy both an inspiration and a warning. The citizens of Athens, he argued, accepted their democracy’s imperfections rather than confronting them and in doing so “paved the way for the ultimate collapse of their political culture.” That failure, he believed, carried a direct lesson for American democracy today.
Mr. Lang founded Project Pericles as an answer to what he saw as a national problem: the growing cynicism and disengagement from civic life among young people. In his view, higher education had both the nature and the stature to assume central responsibility for revitalizing the democratic legacy Pericles embodied, paired always, as he put it, with “senses of justice and compassion” that actively seek to improve conditions for all members of society. Colleges willing to make that commitment, he believed, could become a seminal force in preserving it. Twenty-five years in, that founding conviction feels more urgent than ever.
Twenty-five years ago, leaders from 10 colleges and universities gathered in New York and founded what would become the Periclean Consortium. The question that brought them together: whether higher education would take its responsibility to strengthen democracy seriously.
To mark our 25th anniversary, we invited Joanna Kenty–classics scholar, civic educator, and contributor to Danielle Allen’s The Renovator–to explore the legacy of Pericles in his full complexity and in direct conversation with the democratic challenges of our present moment. The result is a two-part essay series that brings rigorous classical scholarship to bear on questions that feel anything but ancient: What does it mean to inherit a democracy? Who gets to belong? What happens when democratic ideals and democratic practice diverge?
The first essay, “Pericles as Founding Father: Democracy from Athens to America,” is published below. A second essay is forthcoming. Together they offer a reading of Periclean Athens that is neither nostalgic nor dismissive, and that we hope can be instructive for anyone trying to understand, and sustain, democratic life in 2026.
Pericles’ Funeral Oration, delivered in 431 BCE and recorded by the historian Thucydides, is one of the founding texts of democratic thought: a speech about what democracy asks of its citizens and what it owes them in return. It has been read, taught, and debated for two and a half millennia, yet there has long been a conspicuous absence: no definitive audio recording exists of this foundational text.
We are honored that actor Stephen Lang–star of stage and screen, known to millions for his work in the Avatar films, and the son of Project Pericles founder Eugene M. Lang–has recorded the Funeral Oration for us.
The Periclean legacy offers us a democracy worth admiring and a democracy worth questioning.
That tension is precisely what makes it a living inheritance worth learning from. As Project Pericles enters its next quarter century, we carry this inheritance forward with clear eyes: honoring what Pericles built, naming what he and the Athenians got wrong and left undone, and committing ourselves, alongside our campus partners, faculty, and students, to building the more expansive, inclusive democracy we need.
