Pericles Funeral Oration is a speech that was given by Pericles whom was the Athenian 's Strategos (military commander) and written down by the famous historian, Thucydides that was an Athenian that attended the speech. The speech is Pericles effort to rally the Athenian people and lift their spirits and moral at a funeral after losing soldiers or member of war in the first battle of the Peloponnesian war, so that they would continue the good fight and not give up. Pericles attempts this by telling the Athenian people that their way of life, their form of democracy, what their ancestors fought for, their great military and policies, their constitution are all at stake and they must standup in order to preserve the beautiful culture
He says "..... 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 home". Pericles is telling the funeral audience that just because we sit here at a funeral we are winning easily against Sparta. They need help even on land they are more familiar with and we still defeat them. So not only does Athens have the better form of government that was passed down from generation to generation but we also obviously have better war tactics than Sparta in which that is supposed to be their specialty. He says this to distraught funeral crowd who deep in their mind are questioning if they could win this war and Pericles is giving them a sense of hope and a sense that they could win this war with
The Athenian ancestors have built a great form of government, education, military policy, navy, and they died in courage to win all of this for you. Now you must decide if you will do the same for your future citizens and pray that you have a different outcome then them by
Pericles’ Funeral Oration is a speech given by the Athenian leader Pericles, at a funeral, after the first battle of the Peloponnesian war. Pericles used this public funeral to make a statement and praise the Athenian people. “Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves”. Pericles believes Athens is original. They do not have to conform, they make the rules and other countries follow. “Its
Although Socrates and Pericles are in different situations while giving their speeches, they both talk about things that let you, as the reader, see their views on certain points. One of the key points they agree upon is death.
To continue, another important funeral oration is by Lysias, speech writer in Ancient Greece. The speech intends to re-count the Athenians who died in the Corinthian war. Most of these speeches were usually delivered in Athens. The Corinthian War occurred from 395 BC to 387 BC, setting Sparta against an alliance of the allied states of, Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos, who were originally supported by Persia. The cause of the war was a local fight in northwest Greece in which Thebes and Sparta to interfered. However, the real cause that led to the war was the opposition concerning Sparta triggered by that city's colonialism in central along with northern Greece. Lysias starts out by saying that he believes that people who are present at
The war between the Athenians and the Spartans as written by Thucydides was a great one that no other that had ever occurred could be compared to, so says Thucydides. Thucydides views the preparations on both sides to have been perfect and that the Hellenic race was joining the war as well. He considers it the greatest faction yet recognized in history, of the barbaric world rather than to the Hellenes alone. From the second chapter of his book, it is clear that the war between these two groups was not to the advantage of the Athenians. They lost in the war and most of their people were killed. An ancestral funeral ceremony is performed to bury those who had died in the war.
It is widely known that the Athenians highly valued their warrior class, and they saw the warriors as a ring of the higher circle of the society. The Athenians were very proud of Athena and its traditions, as well. Athenian’s thought that Athena was the best, none could be better. The funeral oration was aimed to respect the fallen as well as to keep up the national pride and its passion to protect their nation. The speech was a eulogy which focused on the eminence of Athens and its predecessors. Usually a son was chosen to give the eulogy. The law required the speech to have several essential components. The speech had to concerning the lives of the deceased. At his eulogy’s end, Pericles spoke in regard to the soldiers. The speech talked about the life that the departed lived and the achievements which they gained. Pericles wanted the citizens to recall the soldiers but to forget about the tragedy that had occurred. He wanted the departed’s lives to be remembered, but not their demise. The speech helped the Athenians appreciate what their ancestors had died for and how they shou...
Pericles’s funeral oration was given to honor the soldiers lost in war by commemorating the military accomplishments of the Athens government and to distinguish the roles of men and women in Athens society. Pericles’s speech was given in 430 B.C.E at the end of the first year of war. He then died a year late in 429 B.C.E. Pericles’ Funeral Oration is included in Thucydides’ writing titled History of the Peloponnesian War.
Rodney, Sydney. "Pericles." Ancient Greece. University Inc., 11 May 2003. Web. 7 Dec. 2013. .
For Pericles, Athenian values are realized through culture and “daily devotion.” He claims that Athenian citizens obey both “the laws themselves” and “agreed-on social values (which need no specific legislation),” not requiring legislation to uphold their values. Accordingly, Pericles views exceptionalism as intrinsic to Athenians. Boasting about the city, Pericles questions “how else did she become great but by this genius in her citizens?” A recommitment to civic values, therefore, is simple to Pericles: Athenians are exceptional at the moment of his speech, and must simply continue their past conduct in order to achieve future
The Peloponnesian War and the Decline of Leadership in Athens Thucydides set out to narrate the events of what he believed would be a great war—one requiring great power amassed on both sides and great states to carry out. Greatness, for Thucydides, was measured most fundamentally in capital and military strength, but his history delves into almost every aspect of the war, including, quite prominently, its leaders. In Athens especially, leadership was vital to the war effort because the city’s leaders were chosen by its people and thus, both shaped Athens and reflected its character during their lifetimes. The leaders themselves, however, are vastly different in their abilities and their effects on the city. Thucydides featured both Pericles and Alcibiades prominently in his history, and each had a distinct place in the evolution of Athenian empire and the war it sparked between Athens and Sparta.
The Athenians chose their leaders to be valiant and motivating, and how we came to that conclusion was how the speech towards fallen soldier in war was given. “There has never been a time when they did not inhabit this land, which their valor they have handed down from generation and generation, and we have received from them a free state. But if they were worthy of praise, still more ere our fathers, who added to their inheritance, and after many a struggle transmitted to us their sons this great empire. And we ourselves assembled here today, who are still most of us in the vigor of life, have carried the work of improvement further, and have richly endowed our city with all things, so that she is sufficient for herself both in peace and war.”
(64) 'You must not be led away by the advice of such citizens as these, nor be angry with me; for the resolution in favour of war was your own as much as mine. What if the enemy has come and done what he was certain to do when you refused to yield? What too if the plague followed? That was an unexpected blow, but we might have foreseen all the rest. I am well aware that your hatred of me is aggravated by it. But how unjustly, unless to me you also ascribe the credit of any extraordinary success which may befall you!36 The visitations of heaven should be borne with resignation, the sufferings inflicted by an enemy with manliness. This has always been the spirit of Athens, and should not die out in you. Know that our city has the greatest name in all the world because she has never yielded to misfortunes, but has sacrificed more lives and endured severer hardships in war than any other; wherefore also she has the greatest power of any state up to this day; and the memory of her glory will always survive. Even if we should be compelled at last to abate somewhat of our greatness (for all things have their times of
The death of Pericles was a significant event in the course of the Peloponnesian War; however, even without Pericles' leadership the Athenian Assembly had countless opportunities to prevent their loss and chose not to take them. The fickleness and inefficiency of democracy ('the mob') allowed the Athenians to be easily influenced and therefore electing populists such as Cleon, Lysicles and Hyperbolus into dominant leadership roles. Election, via democratic means, of such populists, meant that the Athenians would take a much more aggressive approach to the war and therefore abandon the policies that Pericles had previously established. So in turn, democracy the institution for which the Athenians fought tirelessly to protect, rather than the death of Pericles, ironically became the dominant factor influencing the final outcome of this Ancient Greek civil war.
Thucydides’ version of Pericles’ “Funeral Oration” can be read as more of an ironic rendering of Pericles’ original speech since The History of the Peloponnesian War is not just considered to be a historical account but also a “highly imaginative piece of work” in which Thucydides made characters involved in the war say what he believed they actually meant instead of what they might have originally said (Thucydides Introduction pg. x). In the “Funeral Oration”, Pericles praises certain
Clarke, Fiona, and Mark Bergin. Greece in the time of Pericles. Hemel Hempstead: Simon & Schuster, 1909.
The Greeks system of democracy was an entirely new concept when it was created, and one that has had lasting affects as it continues to influence present day politics around the globe. Modern day democracies may very well not exist if it wasn’t for the success the Athenians had with democracy. Today we look back at these ancient civilizations and we try to better our current society by learning from their mistakes and building on their success.