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Pericles in 430 / 431 BCE recited his famous Funeral Oration at the annual public funeral for Athenian war casualties. This speech which is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful works of oratory/literature in history was recorded by Thucydides. By his recording of the Funeral Oration, we must question his motives – what would cause Thucydides to preserve this speech through writing? One answer could be that Thucydides noticed Athens was at a cusp (a point of inflection) in Athenian history / society. By 430 BCE the 30 Years Peace with Sparta had been broken and it was the start of the Second Peloponnesian War. Athens now needed its citizens to be strong and fight for their way of life. By recording the Funeral Oration Thucydides …show more content…
However, the speech itself is of a persuasive nature; whereby Socles of Corinth is presenting his defense for the Athenian democracy. One must also question the reason for Herodotus to record this speech, which was subsequently published in 440 BCE and conveniently positioned five years after the end of the first Peloponnesian war. Taking this into consideration it would be safe to reason that Herodotus’ agenda for the recording of this speech was to show the Athenian society yet another victory for their democracy. By Herodotus being an Athenian we can also reason that he wrote down this speech for an Athenian audience. Five years after the first Peloponnesian war the democracy was still in a fragile state. This speech now written down and preserved would be able to remind any Athenian (who could read) that their democracy is worth fighting …show more content…
Spoken at the public funeral of the fallen Athenian soldiers, Pericles gave his words of remembrance in a largely indirect manner by referencing Athens. Through the assistance of Thucydides, we have a written record of the words that Pericles may have spoken over 2,400 years ago. Similar to the work from Herodotus, Pericles’ Funeral Oration is a commemoration speech by Pericles and historical documentation / journalism by Thucydides. Pericles’ indirect commemoration of the fallen is best demonstrated at 2.42: “I have dwelt upon the greatness of Athens … [it is] a higher prize … and to establish by manifest proof the merit of these men whom I am now commemorating”. Here Thucydides writes that Athens was the “higher prize” meaning that the democracy and their freedom was worth fighting for. Pericles spoke that “these men nobly fought and died; they could not bear the thought that [Athens] might be taken from them” (Thucydides, 2.41). Pericles after saying this then urges the living citizens of Athens to “toil” on the behalf of their democracy which their fallen valiantly paid for with their lives. Pericles then wraps back around to explain why speaking about Athens commemorates the fallen best – “Their loftiest praise has been already spoken. For in magnifying the city I have magnified them, and men like them whose virtues made her glorious” (Thucydides, 2.42). Therefore, by speaking of
During the funeral he goes on to praise the ancestors of Athens for the inheritance from generation to generation. He describes how great Athen's charachter is and how luxurious it has become. In this way, he is able to honor the dead soldiers and most importantly what it was they fought for. He urges every citizen to become more like these soldiers, and to love their city. Just like these soldiers did, he argues that every citizen should be willing to sacrafice themselves for the sake of Athens and everyones freedom.
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
Pericles did not wish to simply reiterate what Athens had achieved, but rather he wanted to address how and why Athens achieved. He believed that Athenian politics, culture, and character were more relevant to the deceased soldiers than their ancestor’s military successes. Accordingly, he praised these elements of Athenian society and in the process justified the soldiers’ sacrifice. He spoke “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 the questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my eulogy 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.” (2.36.4).
The stunning Greek defeat of the Persians, the specter of which lurks behind the events of the Peloponnesian Wars, was for Herodotus proof of the superiority of Hellenic form of government and way of life, and Herodotus ends his history at this pinnacle of Greek history. Thucydides then accepts the task of chronicling Greece’s unraveling from a position as the dominant power of the Mediterranean, and a center of cultural, technological, and political development to the final result of the Peloponnesian Wars—a fractured, demoralized, and dependent Greece that lies wide open to foreign conquest. This result is, for Thucydides, apparent from the beginning of the conflict. Greece can only dominate when the balance of power between Athens and Sparta is maintained, and the destruction of either is tantamount to the destruction of the whole. An accurate understanding of the national characters of Athens and Sparta makes it clear which of the two will ultimately be the victor of a long, arduous military struggle, but the same understanding of national character makes it equally apparent that the one which can dominate militarily cannot lead Greece. The speeches made at the First Lacedaemonian Congress emphasize not only the character of the two nations in conflict, but more broadly, the inevitability of Hellenic demise as a result of this conflict.
Pericles, the leader of the Athenians had presented this oration about those people, who had first fallen in battle. It is part of their law and show the respect of honor to those who had lost friends and families. The purpose of Pericles’s speech was for the ancestors the supervisors, who died for their country and lands. This famous oration was from the early days of Peloponnesian war. The speech was for every Athenian and any others who wished to attend. Athens was one of the oldest first city states and still known as one of the most famous cities in the world. According to funeral oration speech, Athenian should be admired for three reasons.
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...
The Peloponnesian War was fought from 431-409 BC. It was a civil war between the Greek city-states and was lead by Sparta and it’s allies against the dominating Athenian government. The Athenian leader, Pericles, was a learned scholar and an ingenious military general. His speeches were known for their ability to motivate and give courage to a crowd whether it was to his soldiers in the final moments right before a battle or to a gathering in the streets of Athens. After the first few battles of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles was asked to give the funeral oration for those that were slain in defense of Athens. He did not offer his condolences to the families of those that died, but he offered them comfort. He did this because the men that died in those battles did not do so in vain, for dying in defense of one’s city-state had nothing to do with vanity in the eyes of the ...
...y from the war, as their main reason for not declaring peace. Pericles would also deny the fact that leaders of Athens are unfit for leadership, since he believes that “no subject can complain of being governed by people unfit for their responsibilities” (Pericles Funeral Oration, Perry pg. 64). Aristophanes plays The Acharnians and Lysistrata both expose leaders as corrupt and unable to do what is necessary for peace, such as the lack of negotiations by The Assembly and Lamachus in The Acharnians and the failures of men and political leaders to stop the war in Lysistrata. Overall Pericles Funeral Oration was meant to install morale, heighten spirits, and lift the Athenian people in a time of crisis. Aristophanes goal was to send a message of peace by exposing flaws in Athenian society, which I believe Pericles would not have taken kindly too during a time of war.
The true essence of human nature is seen during times of great hardships as can be seen comparing Pericles' Funeral Oration and the plague in Thucydides', The History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides accounts for many different aspects of justice, power, and human nature through his text. The order, the style of his writing, choice of words, and relations of what he believes actually happened, allows the reader to make different inferences about the message he's trying to convey. The juxtaposition of the two stories portrays many different characteristics to investigate and analyze.
Pericles, one of the more influential political figures in Athens at that time, makes a speech that acts as a eulogy to mourn and honor fallen soldiers who were killed in the first year of the Peloponnesian War. Instead of comforting the families of the dead, he uses his speech to increase support for Athens and their ongoing war with Sparta which he convinced them to fight in the first place.
Marriage in Classical Athens was inevitable. It was a part of life. Everyone had to get married, just as everyone had to someday face death. Although most people would not see a connection between marriage and death, the Greeks did. Both define an irreversible physical change—the loss of virginity and the loss of life. This idea of loss, rebirth, and renewal are present in both wedding and funeral. This is evident in the way wedding and funeral ceremonies complement each other in character and content. Both ceremonies are interwoven with ritual meaning and overlapping rites.
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 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
Robinson, Charles Alexander. Athens in the age of Pericles. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959.