Analysis Of Pericles ' Funeral Speech

In Ancient Greece people valued democracy, wealth, entertainment, knowledge, and many other things however what is also important is what the Ancient Greeks clearly did not value. Of the many things, people, are possibly one of the most undervalued commodity in Greece include women, and slaves. There are also many other things that the Greeks did not seem to value one of which was anti-corruption measures. The Greeks seem to put most of their time and effort into society in many different ways from Gymnastics to plays even their houses are purpose built for social events. These values or more importantly the lack of value regarding slaves, women, and most importantly good government quite possibly assisted in the downfall of their civilization.

Women in ancient Greece are an interesting subject and only so much is known about the exact day to day lives of them however from what records remain it would seem that they were kept at a relatively low level on the social hierarchy. Even in Pericles ' Funeral Speech which seems to be an almost utopian discretion of aspects of Greek life Pericles himself states that “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.” Pericles states that the greatest of women should be the ones whom are not noticed but still preform there tasks while not catching the attention of men. Adding to this even the great philosopher Aristotle bags on the women of Greece simply by stating that ”female [souls are] inoperative” With this simple statement Aristotle makes it seem that women are somehow broken and can never live up to the same standards as men. Even Xenophon, The Economist rambles on...

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...r guardians of the nation need to be among other things well educated and almost isolated from civilian life in order to better rule the nation. Plato also implies that women can be as wise as men if they receive the same education and can even become a guardian if they display the proper traits. This goes to show that some Greeks believed that with education and willpower anyone could rise up in the social hierarchy.

The people of Athens show interesting but not unusual values mostly directed towards their own personal gain. Mostly the Greeks valued wealth, Knowledge, and society and with these values they end up placing little value in there women and slaves which are on an almost even level when it comes to quality of life. The Greeks narrow-mindedness when it came to corruption and overconfidence in democracy quite possibly led to the downfall of their empire.