In the second and third quarters of the fifth century BC, when Athens became both politically and culturally dominant in the Greek world, Pericles became the leading figure in the city's public life. This was also the period when Athenian tragedy became the principal Greek poetic form, when a series of temples and other buildings, on Athens' acropolis and elsewhere, attracted architects, builders and sculptors to Athens, and when Athenian red-figure pottery reached new heights of skill in the scenes painted on it. This concise and accessible introduction guides students through the key aspects of this most-studied period of ancient Greek history, focusing on the major developments, political and cultural, that took place under Pericles.