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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."
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