Pericles

Pericles came from the Alcmaeonid family through his mother, one of Athens's old power clans. Between roughly 461 and 429 BC he dominated Athenian politics as its leading orator and general, steering the city through the tail end of the Greco-Persian Wars and into the Peloponnesian War with Sparta. He converted the Delian League - originally a defensive alliance - into an Athenian empire. At home he pushed Athenian democracy so hard that critics accused him of populism. He spent the city's wealth on an ambitious building program that gave Athens the Parthenon and most of the other structures still standing on the Acropolis, establishing the city as the cultural and educational centre of the Greek world. He led Athens through the first two years of the Peloponnesian War before the Plague of Athens took him and several family members in 429 BC, leaving the city weakened mid-conflict.