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Quote of the day " Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made
this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should
be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself,
I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in
deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds;
such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And
I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to
be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall
according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly
upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers
that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is
familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has
not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it
to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be
led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own
nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they
can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the
actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with
it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this
custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and
to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.
I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that
they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like
the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession
from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the
present time by their valour. And if our more remote ancestors deserve
praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance
the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to
leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly,
there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by
those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life;
while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that
can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for
peace. That part of our history which tells of the military
achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready
valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of
Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my
hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But
what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of
government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits
out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve
before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to
be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly
dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or
foreigners, may listen with advantage.
Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states;
we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its
administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it
is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal
justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing,
advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class
considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again
does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is
not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we
enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There,
far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do
not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what
he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot
fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But
all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as
citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to
obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the
protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute
book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot
be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh
itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year
round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily
source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude
of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that
to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury
as those of his own.
If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our
antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien
acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing,
although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our
liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native
spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from
their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at
Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to
encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be
noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but
bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance
unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a
foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their
homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy,
because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our
citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that,
wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a
success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the
nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our
entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and
courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter
danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of
hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as
fearlessly as those who are never free from them.
Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of
admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge
without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and
place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in
declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides
politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary
citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still
fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding
him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as
useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot
originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a
stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable
preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we
present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each
carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons;
although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of
reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most
justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and
pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In
generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by
conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the
favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness
to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less
keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be
a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who,
fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from
calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.
In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I
doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to
depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a
versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown
out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state
acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her
contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation,
and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the
antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to
question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the
present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our
power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far
from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose
verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they
gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land
to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or
for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the
Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to
lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their
survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.
Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our
country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the
same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the
panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by
definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great
measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what
the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame,
unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate
with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be
found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it
set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it
gave the first intimation of their having any. For there is justice in
the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a
cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action
has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than
outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed
either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his
spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to
tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their
enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and
reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully
determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to
let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of
final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act
boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather
than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger
face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their
fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.
So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must
determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you
may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with
ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up
with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a
valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as
the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed
your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your
hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you
must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling
of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no
personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive
their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the
most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of
their lives made in common by them all they each of them
individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a
sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been
deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid
up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or
story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole
earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the
column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every
breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that
of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be
the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the
dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly
be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is
rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet
unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in
its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of
cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death
which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!
Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to
the parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to
which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate
indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that
which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly
measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed.
Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are
in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the
homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is
felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for
the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed. Yet you who
are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of
having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget
those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a
reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be
expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the
decision the interests and apprehensions of a father. While those of
you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the
thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the
brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed.
For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour
it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age
and helplessness.
Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous
struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him,
and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find
it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their
renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no
longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry
does not enter. On the other hand, if I must say anything on the
subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in
widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great
will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and
greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether
for good or for bad.
My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my
ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now
satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have
received part of their honours already, and for the rest, their
children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the
state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in
this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen
and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest,
there are found the best citizens.
And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your
relatives, you may depart.
[Pericles Funeral Oration,
in History of the Peloponnesian War II, transl. Richard Crawley]"

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