This famous speech was given by the Athenian leader Pericles after the first
battles of the Peloponnesian war. Funerals after such battles were public rituals and
Pericles used the occasion to make a classic statement of the value of democracy.
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."
