Background of the Funeral Oration:
Given in 431 BCE, 1 year into the Peloponnesian War.
Funeral orations were commonly given after battle to honor the dead.
Their bodies would be displayed in a large tent for 3 days, and then processed in 10 coffins to the kerameikos.
The last part of this hallowed ceremony was a speech given by a prominent Athenian, in this case Pericles.
This account of this oration comes from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 2.
34. The same winter the Athenians, according to their ancient custom, solemnized a public funeral of the first slain in this
war in this manner. Having set up a tent, they put into it the bones of the dead three days before the funeral; and everyone
bringeth whatsoever he thinks good to his own. When the day comes of carrying them to their burial, certain cypress
coffins are carried along in carts, for every tribe one, in which are the bones of the men of every tribe by themselves.
There is likewise borne an empty hearse covered over for such as appear not nor were found amongst the rest when they
were taken up. The funeral is accompanied by any that will, whether citizen or stranger; and the women of their kindred
are also by at the burial lamenting and mourning. Then they put them into a public monument which standeth in the fairest
suburbs of the city, in which place they have ever interred all that died in the wars except those that were slain in the field
of Marathon, who, because their virtue was thought extraordinary, were therefore buried there right. And when the earth is
thrown over them, someone thought to exceed the rest in wisdom and dignity, chosen by the city, maketh an oration
wherein he giveth them such praises as are fit; which done, the company depart. And this is the form of that burial; and for
the whole time of the war, whensoever there was occasion, they observed the same. For these first the man chosen to
make the oration was Pericles the son of Xantippus, who, when the time served, going out of the place of burial into a
high pulpit to be heard the farther off by the multitude about him, spake unto them in this manner:
The Proemium (Prologue)
35. “Though most that have spoken formerly in this place have commended the man that added this oration to the law as
honourable for those that die in the wars, yet to me it seemeth sufficient that they who have showed their valour by action
should also by an action have their honour, as now you see they have, in this their sepulture performed by the state, and
not to have the virtue of many hazarded on one to be believed as that one shall make a good or bad oration. For to speak
of men in a just measure, is a hard matter; and though one do so, yet he shall hardly get the truth firmly believed. The
favourable hearer and he that knows what was done will perhaps think what is spoken short of what he would have it and
what it was; and he that is ignorant will find somewhat on the other side which he will think too much extolled, especially
if he hear aught above the pitch of his own nature. For to hear another man praised finds patience so long only as each
man shall think he could himself have done somewhat of that he hears. And if one exceed in their praises, the hearer
presently through envy thinks it false. But since our ancestors have so thought good, I also, following the same ordinance,
must endeavour to be answerable to the desires and opinions of everyone of you as far forth as I can.
Praise for the Dead
36. “I will begin at our ancestors; being a thing both just and honest that to them first be given the honour of remembrance
in this kind. For they, having been always the inhabitants of this region, by their valour have delivered the same to
succession of posterity hitherto in the state of liberty. For which they deserve commendation, but our fathers deserve yet
more; for that besides what descended on them, not without great labour of their own they have purchased this our present
dominion and delivered the same over to us that now are. Which in a great part also we ourselves that are yet in the
strength of our age here present have enlarged and so furnished the city with everything, both for peace and war, as it is
now all-sufficient in itself. The actions of war whereby all this was attained and the deeds of arms both of ourselves and
our fathers in valiant opposition to the barbarians or Grecians in their wars against us, amongst you that are well
acquainted with the sum, to avoid prolixity I will pass over. But by what institutions we arrived at this, by what form of
government and by what means we have advanced the state to this greatness, when I shall have laid open this, I shall then
descend to these men’s praises. For I think they are things both fit for the purpose in hand and profitable to the whole
company, both of citizens and strangers, to hear related.
Praise for Athens
37. “We have a form of government not fetched by imitation from the laws of our neighbouring states (nay, we are rather
a pattern to others, than they to us) which, because in the administration it hath respect not to a few but to the multitude, is
called a democracy. Wherein, though there be an equality amongst all men in point of law for their private controversies,
yet in conferring of dignities one man is preferred before another to public charge, and that according to the reputation not
of his house but of his virtue, and is not put back through poverty for the obscurity of his person as long as he can do good
service to the commonwealth. And we live not only free in the administration of the state but also one with another void
of jealousy touching each other’s daily course of life, not offended at any man for following his own humour, nor casting
on any man censorious looks, which though they be no punishment, yet they grieve. So that conversing one with another
for the private without offence, we stand chiefly in fear to transgress against the public and are obedient always to those
that govern and to the laws, and principally to such laws as are written for protection against injury, and such unwritten as
bring undeniable shame to the transgressors.
38. “We have also found out many ways to give our minds recreation from labour by public institution of games and
sacrifices for all the days of the year with a decent pomp and furniture of the same by private men, by the daily delight
whereof we expel sadness. We have this farther by the greatness of our city that all things from all parts of the earth are
imported hither, whereby we no less familiarly enjoy the commodities of all other nations than our own.
39. “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.”
40. “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.”
Appeals to the Living
41. “In sum it may be said both that the city is in general a school of the Grecians, and that the men here have everyone in
particular his person disposed to most diversity of actions, and yet all with grace and decency. And that this is not now
rather a bravery of words upon the occasion than real truth, this power of the city, which by these institutions we have
obtained, maketh evident. For it is the only power now found greater in proof than fame, and the only power, that neither
grieveth the invader when he miscarries with the quality of those he was hurt by, nor giveth cause to the subjected states
to murmur as being in subjection to men unworthy. For both with present and future ages we shall be in admiration for a
power not without testimony but made evident by great arguments, and which needeth not either a Homer to praise it or
any other such whose poems may indeed for the present bring delight, but the truth will afterwards confute the opinion
conceived of the actions. For we have opened unto us by our courage all seas and lands and set up eternal monuments on
all sides both of the evil we have done to our enemies and the good we have done to our friends.
"Such is the city for which these men, thinking to lose it, valiantly fighting have died. And it is fit that every man of you
that be left behind should be like minded to undergo any travail for the same.
42. “And I have therefore spoken so much concerning the city in general as well to show you that the stakes between us
and them, whose city is not such, are not equal as also to make known by effects the worth of these men I am to speak of,
the greatest part of their praises being therein already delivered.For what I have spoken of the city hath by these, and such
as these, been achieved. Neither would praises and actions appear so levelly concurrent in many other of the Grecians as
they do in these, the present revolution of these men’s lives seeming unto me an argument of their virtues, noted in the
first act were worse than the rest do nevertheless deserve that for their valour shown in the wars for defence of their
country they should be preferred before the rest. For having by their good actions abolished the memory of their evil, they
have profited the state thereby more than they have hurt it by their private behaviour. Yet there was none of these that
preferring the further fruition of his wealth was thereby grown cowardly, or that for hope to overcome his poverty at
length and to attain to riches did for that cause withdraw himself from the danger. For their principal desire was not
wealth but revenge on their enemies, which esteeming the most honourable cause of danger, they made account through it
both to accomplish their revenge and to purchase wealth withal; putting the uncertainty of success to the account of their
hope, but for that which was before their eyes relying upon themselves in the action, and therein choosing rather to fight
and die than to shrink and be saved, they fled from shame, but with their bodies they stood out the battle; and so in a
moment whilst fortune inclineth neither way, left their lives not in fear but in opinion of victory.
43. “Such were these men, worthy of their country. And for you that remain, you may pray for a safer fortune, but you
ought not to be less venturously minded against the enemy, not weighing the profit by an oration only, which any man
amplifying may recount to you that know as well as he the many commodities that arise by fighting valiantly against your
enemies, but contemplating the power of the city in the actions of the same from day to day performed and thereby
becoming enamoured of it. And when this power of the city shall seem great to you, consider then that the same was
purchased by valiant men, and by men that knew their duty, and by men that were sensible of dishonour when they were
in fight, and by such men as, though they failed of their attempt, yet would not be wanting to the city with their virtue but
made unto it a most honourable contribution. For having everyone given his body to the commonwealth, they receive in
place thereof an undecaying commendation and a most remarkable sepulchre not wherein they are buried so much as
wherein their glory is laid up upon all occasions both of speech and action to be remembered forever. For to famous men
all the earth is a sepulchre; and their virtues shall be testified not only by the inscription in stone at home but by an
unwritten record of the mind, which more than of any monument will remain with everyone forever. In imitation therefore
of these men and placing happiness in liberty and liberty in valour, be forward to encounter the dangers of war. For the
miserable and desperate men are not they that have the most reason to be prodigal of their lives, but rather such men as, if
they live, may expect a change of fortune and whose losses are greatest if they miscarry in aught. For to a man of any
spirit death, which is without sense, arriving whilst he is in vigour and common hope, is nothing so bitter as after a tender
life to be brought into misery.
44. “Wherefore I will not so much bewail as comfort you, the parents, that are present, of these men. For you know that
whilst they lived, they were obnoxious to manifold calamities. Whereas whilst you are in grief, they only are happy that
die honourably as these have done, and to whom it hath been granted not only to live in prosperity but to die in it. Though
it be a hard matter to dissuade you from sorrow for the loss of that which the happiness of others, wherein you also when
time was rejoiced yourselves, shall so often bring into your remembrance (for sorrow is not for the want of a good never
tasted but for the privation of a good we have been used to); yet such of you as are of the age to have children may bear
the loss of these in the hope of more. For the later children will both draw on with some the oblivion of those that are slain
and also doubly conduce to the good of the city by population and strength. For it is not likely that they should equally
give good counsel to the state that have not children to be equally exposed to danger in it. As for you that are past having
of children, you are to put the former and greater part of your life to the account of your gain; and supposing the
remainder of it will be but short, you shall have the glory of these for a consolation of the same. For the love of honour
never groweth old, nor doth that unprofitable part of our life take delight (as some have said) in gathering of wealth so
much as it doth in being honoured.
Epilogue
45. “As for you that are the children or brethren of these men, I see you shall have a difficult task of emulation. For every
man useth to praise the dead, so that with odds of virtue you will hardly get an equal reputation but still be thought a little
short. For men envy their competitors in glory while they live, but to stand out of their way is a thing honoured with an
affection free from opposition. And since I must say somewhat also of feminine virtue for you that are now widows, I
shall express it in this short admonition. It will be much for your honour not to recede from your sex and to give as little
occasion of rumour amongst the men, whether of good or evil, as you can.
46. "Thus also have I, according to the prescript of the law, delivered in word what was expedient; and those that are here
interred have in fact been already honoured; and further, their children shall be maintained till they be at man’s estate at
the charge of the city, which hath therein propounded both to these and them that live a profitable garland in their matches
of valour. For where the rewards of virtue are greatest, there live the worthiest men. So now having lamented everyone his
own, you may be gone. Such was the funeral made this winter, which ending, ended the first year of this war.
Questions to consider:
1. What does Pericles say about mankind in the Proemium?
2. Praise for the Dead - How do Athenians feel about their ancestors?
3. Praise for Athens - How does Athenian society work, according to Pericles? How does a man rise in society?
Do you believe this to be true? Was this the case in Athens in 431 BCE?
4. 39. What does Pericles say about Athens in reference to strength and freedom?
5. 40. What does Pericles say about the Athenian approach to problems and important questions?
6. 41-44. The speech takes a sharp turn. What is Pericles attempting to do to the listeners of the speech? What
type of imagery does he use to evoke emotion? Is this propaganda? Why?
7. Is the WHOLE speech propaganda? Support your claim.