Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War,
trans Richard Crawley
Pericles' Funeral Speech (from book 2)
In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to
those who had first fallen in this war. It was a custom of their ancestors, and
the manner of it is as follows. Three days before the ceremony, the bones
of the dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected; and their friends
bring to their relatives such offerings as they please. In the funeral
procession cypress coffins are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the
bones of the deceased being placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these
is carried one empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose
bodies could not be recovered. Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins
in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the
burial. The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the Beautiful suburb
of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried; with the
exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their singular and extraordinary valour were interred on the spot where they fell. After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire. Such is the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war, whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed. Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as follows:
"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."