Pericles' Funeral Oration: The Manliest Speech in History, Pericles' Funeral Speech, Pericles Funeral Oration

Introduction:

In the year 490BC a force of 9,000 Athenian citizens defeated an invading force of over 20,000 Persian soldiers on the shores of Marathon. The Persians described the Athenian charge at Marathon as "suicidal madness" as the Athenians advance on a run to minimize their exposure to Persian arrows. At the end of the day 6,400 Persians lay dead, and the Athenians built a monument to their 192 lost in battle. It's scary to think that had the Athenians failed to defend their young democracy (founded in 507BC) the world would be a very different place today. The ideals of human freedom and self-government would have been squashed in their infancy, replaced by the divine kingship and slavery of Persian rule.

How did such a small force of Athenian farmers achieve such a lopsided victory against a force two to three times greater than their own? The answer, I suspect, lies in the Athenian ideals of freedom and democracy. The Greeks who fought for their city-state had voted to defend their families and way of life, while the Persians were essentially slaves to their king Darius.

The Athenians, as a democracy, valued human life and wore vastly superior armor, and wielded superior weapons as well. All the ingredients of the Athenian victory at Marathon were the results of the human freedoms the Greeks invented. The superior motivation of the Athenian farmers stemmed from the fact that they fought for their families and land alongside their own fathers and brothers. The superior tactics and weaponry the Athenians employed came from a tradition of scientific inquiry and free speech absent from Persian culture. In the end, the Athenians fought and won their own freedom, and ours, because they were already free.

We've all seen many politicians attempt to wax poetic about America's greatness and the power of free speech and consentual government, but I can't help but feel that modern Americans are a bit disconnected from how special our place in human history really is. Freedom is not the natural order of things, and even as freedom brings the best out of human nature, it certainly isn't human nature to recognize the freedom of others. Rarely do I see modern politicians address the reality and the cost of human freedom, so I want to take this opportunity to expose people to what I think is possibly the greatest speech ever given on the subject.

In the year 430, the great Athenian leader Pericles gave his legendary funeral oration to commemorate those who had died in the first year of the Peloponesian war (the great war between Athens and Sparta). I think most modern Americans are too self-conscious concerning or own strength and influence, and too encumbered by self-inflicted guilt to be as proud as Pericles is here. In his funeral oration, Pericles cuts right to heart about what makes democracy and his own city state revolutionary, and he does not shy away from citing the Athenian way of life as the source of their unique power.

To me, Pericles' funeral oration is the greatest (not to mention most manly) speech ever given. Everything we have now, and everything that Western culture has become, came out of a few short centuries of Greek struggles, innovation, and thought. Perhaps we should have as much reverence for the Athenian dead as those who were in attendance for the speech in 430 BC.

The following is an adaptation, and response to Pericles' famous funeral oration as translated by R. Crawley (1876). I need to give special recognition to "The World of Athens, An Introduction to Classical Athenian Culture" (Cambridge University Press), as I found its alterations of R. Crawley's work very helpful in visualizing my own. This text is an excerpt from the work of the historian Thucydides, Book 2.

Pericles’ Funeral Oration
…I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honor of the first mention on an occasion such as this. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession of generations, and handed it down free to the present time by their valor. 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 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 vigor 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 possessions, or of the valor with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic (Greek) or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my audience for me to expound upon, 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 (a public speech of praise) 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 neighboring states; we are more a pattern to others, rather than imitators ourselves. Our administration favors 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 no matter their private differences. If one has no social standing, advancement in public life falls to their reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with arête. Nor 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 neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those hard 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 in regard to the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on public display, or belong to that code, which although unwritten, 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 rid us of irritations. While the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor, 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 differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observation, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our openness, we trust less in system and policy than in the native spirit of our citizens. In education, where our rivals from their very cradles seek manliness through painful dicipline, as Athenians 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 (those in or around Laconia / Sparta) do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their alies; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbor, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united force has never been encountered by any enemy, because we at any time may dispatch our navy or our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that, wherever the enemy engages with some such fraction of our strength, a success against it is magnified into a victory over the our nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet, given as we are to ease, not toil, and to natural, not enforced, courage, 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.

These are not 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 matters of politics and private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still able judges of public matters. Unlike any other nation, we regard he who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless. We Athenians are able to judge at all events, and instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable precursor to any wise action at all. Although decision is usually the fruit of ignorance, while reflection leads to hesitation, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both carried out by the same citizens. The trait of courage will surely be attributed most justly to those who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger…

In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Greece. I doubt if the world can produce a man who, with 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 our state acquired by these habits is proof. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation. And Athens alone gives no occasion to her enemies to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been defeated, 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. Far from needing a Homer for our funeral oration, 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 (A formal eulogistic composition intended as a public compliment) 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 Greeks, will be found to be only equal 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 defense 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 dangers, 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 dishonor, 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 result. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defense 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 feast 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 honor 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 valor, 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, each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and a burial shrine, 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 valor, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; they have nothing to hope for. It is rather those who continue life that may suffer 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 as 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 we honor will be forever remembered through the blessings we all enjoy and of which we have all 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 both 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 honor that never grows old; and honor 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 honored with a good will into which rivalry does not enter….

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 honors 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 valor, 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.