Chapter XLVIII (4)

The eleven chapters of Thucydidês which comprise this funeral speech are among the most memorable relics of antiquity; considering that under the language and arrangement of the historian,—always impressive, though sometimes harsh and peculiar, like the workmanship of a powerful mind, misled by a bad or an unattainable model,—we possess the substance and thoughts of the illustrious statesman. A portion of it, of course, is and must be common-place, belonging to all discourses composed for a similar occasion. Yet this is true only of a comparatively small portion: much of it is peculiar, and every way worthy of Periklês,—comprehensive, rational, and full, not less of sense and substance than of earnest patriotism. It thus forms a strong contrast with the jejune, though elegant, rhetoric of other harangues, mostly[258] not composed for actual delivery; and deserves, in comparison with the funeral discourses remaining to us from Plato, and the Pseudo-Demosthenês, and even Lysias, the honorable distinction which Thucydidês claims for his own history,—an ever-living possession, and not a mere show-piece for the moment.

[258] The critics, from Dionysius of Halikarnassus downward,
agree, for the most part, in pronouncing the feeble Λόγος
Ἐπιτάφιος, ascribed to Demosthenês, to be not really his. Of
those ascribed to Plato and Lysias also, the genuineness has been
suspected, though upon far less grounds. The Menexenus, if it be
really the work of Plato, however, does not add to his fame: but
the harangue of Lysias, a very fine composition, may well be his,
and may, perhaps, have been really delivered,—though probably not
delivered by him, as he was not a qualified citizen.

See the general instructions, in Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetoric. c. 6,
pp. 258-268, Reisk, on the contents and composition of a funeral
discourse,—Lysias is said to have composed several,—Plutarch,
Vit. x, Orator. p. 836.

Compare, respecting the funeral discourse of Periklês, K. F.
Weber, Über die Stand-Rede des Periklês (Darmstadt, 1827);
Westermann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom.
sects. 35, 63, 64; Kutzen, Perikles, als Staatsman, p. 158, sect.
12 (Grimma, 1834).

Dahlmann (Historische Forschungen, vol. i, p. 23) seems to
think that the original oration of Periklês contained a
large sprinkling of mythical allusions and stories out of
the antiquities of Athens, such as we now find in the other
funeral orations above alluded to; but that Thucydidês himself
deliberately left them out in his report. But there seems no
foundation for this suspicion. It is much more consonant to
the superior tone of dignity which reigns throughout all this
oration, to suppose that the mythical narratives, and even
the previous historical glories of Athens, never found any
special notice in the speech of Periklês,—nothing more than
a general recognition, with an intimation that he does not
dwell upon them at length because they were well known to his
audience,—μακρηγορεῖν ἐν εἰδόσιν οὐ βουλόμενος ἐάσω (ii, 36).

In the outset of his speech, Periklês distinguishes himself from those who had preceded him in the same function of public orator, by dissenting from the encomiums which it had been customary to bestow on the law enjoining these funeral harangues: he thinks that the publicity of the funeral itself, and the general demonstrations of respect and grief by the great body of citizens, tell more emphatically in token of gratitude to the brave dead, when the scene passes in silence, than when it is translated into the words of a speaker, who may easily offend, either by incompetency or by apparent feebleness, or perhaps even by unseasonable exaggeration. Nevertheless, the custom having been embodied in law, and elected as he has been by the citizens, he comes forward to discharge the duty imposed upon him in the best manner he can.[259]

[259] Thucyd. ii, 35.

One of the remarkable features in this discourse is, its business-like, impersonal character: it is Athens herself who undertakes to commend and decorate her departed sons, as well as to hearten up and admonish the living.

After a few words on the magnitude of the empire, and on the glorious efforts as well as endurance whereby their forefathers and they had acquired it,—Periklês proceeds to sketch the plan of life, the constitution, and the manners, under which such achievements were brought about.[260]

[260] Thucyd. ii, 36. Ἀπὸ δὲ οἵας τε ἐπιτηδεύσεως ἤλθομεν ἐπ᾽
αὐτὰ, καὶ μεθ᾽ οἵας πολιτείας, καὶ τρόπων ἐξ οἵων μεγάλα ἐγένετο,
ταῦτα δηλώσας πρῶτον εἶμι, etc.

In the Demosthenic or pseudo-Demosthenic Orat. Funebris, c. 8, p.
1397—χρηστῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων συνήθεια, τῆς ὅλης πολιτείας ὑπόθεσις,
etc.

“We live under a constitution such as noway to envy the laws of our neighbors,—ourselves an example to others, rather than mere imitators. It is called a democracy, since its permanent aim tends towards the many and not towards the few: in regard to private matters and disputes, the laws deal equally with every man: while looking to public affairs and to claims of individual influence, every man’s chance of advancement is determined, not by party-favor but by real worth, according as his reputation stands in his own particular department: nor does poverty, or obscure station, keep him back,[261] if he really has the means of benefiting the city. And our social march is free, not merely in regard to public affairs, but also in regard to intolerance of each other’s diversity of daily pursuits. For we are not angry with our neighbor for what he may do to please himself, nor do we ever put on those sour looks,[262] which, though they do no positive damage, are not the less sure to offend. Thus conducting our private social intercourse with reciprocal indulgence, we are restrained from wrong on public matters by fear and reverence of our magistrates for the time being, and of our laws,—especially such laws as are instituted for the protection of wrongful sufferers, and even such others as, though not written, are enforced by a common sense of shame. Besides this, we have provided for our minds numerous recreations from toil, partly by our customary solemnities of sacrifice and festival throughout the year, partly by the elegance of our private establishments,—the daily charm of which banishes the sense of discomfort. From the magnitude of our city, the products of the whole earth are brought to us, so that our enjoyment of foreign luxuries is as much our own and assured as those which we grow at home. In respect to training for war, we differ from our opponents (the Lacedæmonians) on several material points. First, we lay open our city as a common resort: we apply no xenêlasy to exclude even an enemy either from any lesson or any spectacle, the full view of which he may think advantageous to him; for we trust less to manœuvres and quackery than to our native bravery, for warlike efficiency. Next, in regard to education, while the Lacedæmonians, even from their earliest youth, subject themselves to an irksome exercise for the attainment of courage, we, with our easy habits of life, are not less prepared than they, to encounter all perils within the measure of our strength. The proof of this is, that the Peloponnesian confederates do not attack us one by one, but with their whole united force; while we, when we attack them at home, overpower for the most part all of them who try to defend their own territory. None of our enemies has ever met and contended with our entire force; partly in consequence of our large navy,—partly from our dispersion in different simultaneous land-expeditions. But when they chance to be engaged with any part of it, if victorious, they pretend to have vanquished us all,—if defeated, they pretend to have been vanquished by all.

[261] Thucyd. ii, 37. οὐδ᾽ αὖ κατὰ πενίαν, ἔχων δέ τι ἀγαθὸν
δρᾶσαι τὴν πόλιν, ἀξιώματος ἀφανείᾳ κεκώλυται: compare Plato,
Menexenus, c. 8.

[262] Thucyd. ii, 37. ἐλευθέρως δὲ τά τε πρὸς τὸ κοινὸν
πολιτεύομεν, καὶ ἐς τὴν πρὸς ἀλλήλους τῶν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν
ἐπιτηδευμάτων ὑποψίαν, οὐ δι᾽ ὀργῆς τὸν πέλας, εἰ καθ᾽ ἡδονήν τι
δρᾷ, ἔχοντες, οὐδὲ ἀζημίους μὲν, λυπηρὰς δὲ, τῇ ὄψει ἀχθηδόνας
προστιθέμενοι. Ἀνεπαχθῶς δὲ τὰ ἴδια προσομιλοῦντες τὰ δημόσια
διὰ δέος μάλιστα οὐ παρανομοῦμεν, τῶν τε ἀεὶ ἐν ἀρχῇ ὄντων
ἀκροάσει καὶ τῶν νόμων, καὶ μάλιστα αὐτῶν ὅσοι τε ἐπ᾽ ὠφελείᾳ
τῶν ἀδικουμένων κεῖνται, καὶ ὅσοι ἄγραφοι ὄντες αἰσχύνην
ὁμολογουμένην φέρουσι.

“Now, if we are willing to brave danger, just as much under an indulgent system as under constant toil, and by spontaneous courage as much as under force of law,—we are gainers in the end, by not vexing ourselves beforehand with sufferings to come, yet still appearing in the hour of trial not less daring than those who toil without ceasing.

“In other matters, too, as well as in these, our city deserves admiration. For we combine elegance of taste with simplicity of life, and we pursue knowledge without being enervated:[263] we employ wealth, not for talking and ostentation, but as a real help in the proper season: nor is it disgraceful to any one who is poor to confess his poverty, though he _may_ rather incur reproach for not actually keeping himself out of poverty. The magistrates who discharge public trusts fulfil their domestic duties also,—the private citizen, while engaged in professional business, has competent knowledge on public affairs: for we stand alone in regarding the man who keeps aloof from these latter, not as harmless, but as useless. Moreover, we always hear and pronounce on public matters, when discussed by our leaders,—or perhaps strike out for ourselves correct reasonings about them: far from accounting discussion an impediment to action, we complain only if we are not told what is to be done before it becomes our duty to do it. For, in truth, we combine in the most remarkable manner these two qualities,—extreme boldness in execution, with full debate beforehand on that which we are going about: whereas, with others, ignorance alone imparts boldness,—debate introduces hesitation. Assuredly, those men are properly to be regarded as the stoutest of heart, who, knowing most precisely both the terrors of war and the sweets of peace, are still not the less willing to encounter peril.

[263] Thucyd. ii, 40. φιλοκαλοῦμεν γὰρ μετ᾽ εὐτελείας, καὶ
φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας· πλούτῳ τε ἔργου μᾶλλον καιρῷ ἢ λόγου
κόμπῳ χρώμεθα, καὶ τὸ πένεσθαι οὐχ ὁμολογεῖν τινὶ αἰσχρὸν, ἀλλὰ
μὴ διαφεύγειν ἔργῳ αἴσχιον.

The first strophe of the Chorus in Euripid. Medea, 824-841, may
be compared with the tenor of this discourse of Periklês: the
praises of Attica are there dwelt upon, as a country too good to
receive the guilty Medea.

“In fine, I affirm that our city, considered as a whole, is the schoolmistress of Greece;[264] while, viewed individually, we enable the same man to furnish himself out and suffice to himself in the greatest variety of ways, and with the most complete grace and refinement. This is no empty boast of the moment, but genuine reality: and the power of the city, acquired through the dispositions just indicated, exists to prove it. Athens alone, of all cities, stands forth in actual trial greater than her reputation: her enemy, when he attacks her, will not have his pride wounded by suffering defeat from feeble hands,—her subjects will not think themselves degraded as if their obedience were paid to an unworthy superior.[265] Having thus put forward our power, not uncertified, but backed by the most evident proofs, we shall be admired not less by posterity than by our contemporaries. Nor do we stand in need either of Homer or of any other panegyrist, whose words may for the moment please, while the truth when known would confute their intended meaning: we have compelled all land and sea to become accessible to our courage, and have planted everywhere imperishable monuments of our kindness as well as of our hostility.

[264] Thucyd. ii, 41. ξυνελών τε λέγω, τήν τε πᾶσαν πόλιν τῆς
Ἑλλάδος παίδευσιν εἶναι, καὶ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον δοκεῖν ἄν μοι τὸν αὐτὸν
ἄνδρα παρ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ πλεῖστ᾽ ἂν εἴδη καὶ μετὰ χαρίτων μάλιστ᾽ ἂν
εὐτραπέλως τὸ σῶμα αὔταρκες παρέχεσθαι.

The abstract word παίδευσιν, in place of the concrete παιδευτρία,
seems to soften the arrogance of the affirmation.

[265] Thucyd. ii, 41. μόνη γὰρ τῶν νῦν ἀκοῆς κρείσσων ἐς πεῖραν
ἔρχεται, καὶ μόνη οὔτε τῷ πολεμίῳ ἐπελθόντι ἀγανάκτησιν ἔχει
ὑφ᾽ οἵων κακοπαθεῖ, οὔτε τῷ ὑπηκόῳ κατάμεμψιν ὡς οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἀξίων
ἄρχεται.

“Such is the city on behalf of which these warriors have nobly died in battle, vindicating her just title to unimpaired rights,[266]—and on behalf of which all of us here left behind must willingly toil. It is for this reason that I have spoken at length concerning the city, at once to draw from it the lesson that the conflict is not for equal motives between us and enemies who possess nothing of the like excellence,—and to demonstrate by proofs the truth of my encomium pronounced upon her.”

[266] Thucyd. ii. 42. περὶ τοιαύτης οὖν πόλεως οἵδε τε γενναίως
δικαιοῦντες μὴ ἀφαιρεθῆναι αὐτὴν μαχόμενοι ἐτελεύτησαν, καὶ τῶν
λειπομένων πάντα τινὰ εἰκὸς ἐθέλειν ὑπὲρ αὐτῆς κάμνειν.

I am not sure that I have rightly translated δικαιοῦντες μὴ
ἀφαιρεθῆναι αὐτὴν,—but neither Poppo, nor Göller, nor Dr. Arnold,
say anything about these words, which yet are not at all clear.

Periklês pursues at considerable additional length the same tenor of mixed exhortation to the living and eulogy of the dead; with many special and emphatic observations addressed to the relatives of the latter, who were assembled around and doubtless very near him. But the extract which I have already made is so long, that no farther addition would be admissible: yet it was impossible to pass over lightly the picture of the Athenian commonwealth in its glory, as delivered by the ablest citizen of the age. The effect of the democratical constitution, with its diffused and equal citizenship, in calling forth not merely strong attachment, but painful self-sacrifice, on the part of all Athenians,—is nowhere more forcibly insisted upon than in the words above cited of Periklês, as well as in others afterwards: “Contemplating as you do daily before you the actual power of the state, and becoming passionately attached to it, when you conceive its full greatness, reflect that it was all acquired by men of daring, acquainted with their duty, and full of an honorable sense of shame in their actions,”[267]—such is the association which he presents between the greatness of the state as an object of common passion, and the courage, intelligence, and mutual esteem, of individual citizens, as its creating and preserving causes: poor as well as rich being alike interested in the partnership.

[267] Thucyd. ii. 43. τὴν τῆς πόλεως δύναμιν καθ᾽ ἡμέραν ἔργῳ
θεωμένους καὶ ἐραστὰς γιγνομένους αὐτῆς, καὶ ὅταν ὑμῖν μεγάλη
δόξῃ εἶναι, ἐνθυμουμένους ὅτι τολμῶντες καὶ γιγνώσκοντες τὰ
δέοντα, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις αἰσχυνόμενοι ἄνδρες αὐτὰ ἐκτήσαντο,
etc.

Αἰσχυνόμενοι: compare Demosthen. Orat. Funebris, c. 7, p. 1396.
Αἱ μὲν γὰρ διὰ τῶν ὀλίγων δυναστεῖαι δέος μὲν ἐνεργάζονται τοῖς
πολίταις, αἰσχύνην δ᾽ οὐ παριστᾶσιν.

But the claims of patriotism, though put forward as essentially and deservedly paramount, are by no means understood to reign exclusively, or to absorb the whole of the democratical activity. Subject to these, and to those laws and sanctions which protect both the public and individuals against wrong, it is the pride of Athens to exhibit a rich and varied fund of human impulse,—an unrestrained play of fancy and diversity of private pursuit, coupled with a reciprocity of cheerful indulgence between one individual and another, and an absence even of those “black looks” which so much embitter life, even if they never pass into enmity of fact. This portion of the speech of Periklês deserves peculiar attention, because it serves to correct an assertion, often far too indiscriminately made, respecting antiquity as contrasted with modern societies,—an assertion that the ancient societies sacrificed the individual to the state, and that only in modern times has individual agency been left free to the proper extent. This is preëminently true of Sparta: it is also true, in a great degree, of the ideal societies depicted by Plato and Aristotle: but it is pointedly untrue of the Athenian democracy, nor can we with any confidence predicate it of the major part of the Grecian cities.

I shall hereafter return to this point when I reach the times of the great speculative philosophers: in the mean time I cannot pass over this speech of Periklês without briefly noticing the inference which it suggests, to negative the supposed exorbitant interference of the state with individual liberty, as a general fact among the ancient Greek republics. There is no doubt that he has present to his mind a comparison with the extreme narrowness and rigor of Sparta, and that therefore his assertions of the extent of positive liberty at Athens must be understood as partially qualified by such contrast. But even making allowance for this, the stress which he lays upon the liberty of thought and action at Athens, not merely from excessive restraint of law, but also from practical intolerance between man and man, and tyranny of the majority over individual dissenters in taste and pursuit,—deserves serious notice, and brings out one of those points in the national character upon which the intellectual development of the time mainly depended. The national temper was indulgent in a high degree to all the varieties of positive impulses: the peculiar promptings in every individual bosom were allowed to manifest themselves and bear fruit, without being suppressed by external opinion, or trained into forced conformity with some assumed standard: antipathies against any of them formed no part of the habitual morality of the citizen. While much of the generating causes of human hatred was thus rendered inoperative, and while society was rendered more comfortable, more instructive, and more stimulating,—all its germs of productive fruitful genius, so rare everywhere, found in such an atmosphere the maximum of encouragement. Within the limits of the law, assuredly as faithfully observed at Athens as anywhere in Greece, individual impulse, taste, and even eccentricity, were accepted with indulgence, instead of being a mark as elsewhere for the intolerance of neighbors or of the public. This remarkable feature in Athenian life will help us in a future chapter to explain the striking career of Sokratês, and it farther presents to us, under another face, a great part of that which the censors of Athens denounced under the name of “democratical license.” The liberty and diversity of individual life in that city were offensive to Xenophon,[268] Plato, and Aristotle,—attached either to the monotonous drill of Sparta, or to some other ideal standard, which, though much better than the Spartan in itself, they were disposed to impress upon society with a heavy-handed uniformity. That liberty of individual action, not merely from the over-restraints of law, but from the tyranny of jealous opinion, such as Periklês depicts in Athens, belongs more naturally to a democracy, where there is no select one or few to receive worship and set the fashion, than to any other form of government. But it is very rare even in democracies: nor can we dissemble the fact that none of the governments of modern times, democratical, aristocratical, or monarchical, presents any thing like the picture of generous tolerance towards social dissent, and spontaneity of individual taste, which we read in the speech of the Athenian statesman. In all of them, the intolerance of the national opinion cuts down individual character to one out of a few set types, to which every person, or every family, is constrained to adjust itself, and beyond which all exceptions meet either with hatred or with derision. To impose upon men such restraints either of law or of opinion as are requisite for the security and comfort of society, but to encourage rather than repress the free play of individual impulse subject to those limits,—is an ideal, which, if it was ever approached at Athens, has certainly never been attained, and has indeed comparatively been little studied or cared for in any modern society.

[268] Compare the sentiment of Xenophon, the precise reverse of
that which is here laid down by Periklês, extolling the rigid
discipline of Sparta, and denouncing the laxity of Athenian life
(Xenophon, Memorab. iii, 5, 15; iii, 12, 5). It is curious that
the sentiment appears in this dialogue as put in the mouth of the
younger Periklês (illegitimate son of the great Periklês) in a
dialogue with Sokratês.

Connected with this reciprocal indulgence of individual diversity, was not only the hospitable reception of all strangers at Athens, which Periklês contrasts with the xenêlasy or jealous expulsion practised at Sparta,—but also the many-sided activity, bodily and mental, visible in the former, so opposite to that narrow range of thought, exclusive discipline of the body and never-ending preparation for war, which formed the system of the latter. His assertion that Athens was equal to Sparta, even in her own solitary excellence,—efficiency on the field of battle,—is doubtless untenable; but not the less impressive is his sketch of that multitude of concurrent impulses which at this same time agitated and impelled the Athenian mind,—the strength of one not implying the weakness of the remainder: the relish for all pleasures of art and elegance, and the appetite for intellectual expansion, coinciding in the same bosom with energetic promptitude as well as endurance: abundance of recreative spectacles, yet noway abating the cheerfulness of obedience even to the hardest calls of patriotic duty: that combination of reason and courage which encountered danger the more willingly from having discussed and calculated it beforehand: lastly, an anxious interest as well as a competence of judgment in public discussion and public action, common to every citizen rich and poor, and combined with every man’s own private industry. So comprehensive an ideal of many-sided social development, bringing out the capacities for action and endurance, as well as those for enjoyment, would be sufficiently remarkable, even if we supposed it only existing in the imagination of a philosopher: but it becomes still more so when we recollect that the main features of it at least were drawn from the fellow-citizens of the speaker. It must be taken, however, as belonging peculiarly to the Athens of Periklês and his contemporaries; nor would it have suited either the period of the Persian war, fifty years before, or that of Demosthenês, seventy years afterwards. At the former period, the art, the letters, and the philosophy, were as yet backward, while even the active energy and democratical stimulus, though very powerful, had not been worked up to the pitch which they afterwards reached: at the latter period, although the intellectual manifestations of Athens subsist in full or even increased vigor, we shall find the personal enterprise and energetic spirit of her citizens materially abated. As the circumstances, which I have already recounted, go far to explain the previous upward movement, so those which fill the coming chapters, containing the disasters of the Peloponnesian war, will be found to explain still more completely the declining tendency shortly about to commence. Athens was brought to the brink of entire ruin, from which it is surprising that she recovered at all,—but noway surprising that she recovered at the expense of a considerable loss of personal energy in the character of her citizens.

And thus the season at which Periklês delivered his discourse lends to it an additional and peculiar pathos. It was delivered at a time when Athens was as yet erect and at her maximum for though her real power was, doubtless, much diminished, compared with the period before the thirty years’ truce, yet the great edifices and works of art, achieved since then, tended to compensate that loss, in so far as the sense of greatness was concerned; and no one, either citizen or enemy, considered Athens as having at all declined. It was delivered at the commencement of the great struggle with the Peloponnesian confederacy, the coming hardships of which Periklês never disguised either to himself or to his fellow-citizens, though he fully counted upon eventual success. Attica had been already invaded; it was no longer “the unwasted territory,” as Euripidês had designated it in his tragedy Medea,[269] represented three or four months before the march of Archidamus,—and a picture of Athens in her social glory was well calculated both to rouse the pride and nerve the courage of those individuals citizens, who had been compelled once, and would be compelled again and again, to abandon their country-residence and fields for a thin tent or confined hole in the city.[270] Such calamities might, indeed, be foreseen: but there was one still greater calamity, which, though actually then impending, could not be foreseen: the terrific pestilence which will be recounted in the coming chapter. The bright colors, and tone of cheerful confidence, which pervade the discourse of Periklês, appear the more striking from being in immediate antecedence to the awful description of this distemper: a contrast to which Thucydidês was, doubtless, not insensible, and which is another circumstance enhancing the interest of the composition.

[269] Euripidês, Medea, 824. ἱερᾶς χώρας ἀπορθήτου τ᾽, etc.

[270] The remarks of Dionysius Halikarnassus, tending to show
that the number of dead buried on this occasion was so small,
and the actions in which they had been slain so insignificant,
as to be unworthy of so elaborate an harangue as this of
Periklês,—and finding fault with Thucydidês on that ground,—are
by no means well-founded or justifiable. He treats Thucydidês
like a dramatic writer putting a speech into the mouth of one of
his characters, and he considers that the occasion chosen for
this speech was unworthy. But though this assumption would be
correct with regard to many ancient historians, and to Dionysius
himself in his Roman history,—it is not correct with reference
to Thucydidês. The speech of Periklês was a real speech, heard,
reproduced, and doubtless dressed up, by Thucydidês: if therefore
more is said than the number of the dead or the magnitude of the
occasion warranted, this is the fault of Periklês, and not of
Thucydidês. Dionysius says that there were many other occasions
throughout the war much more worthy of an elaborate funeral
harangue,—especially the disastrous loss of the Sicilian army.
But Thucydidês could not have heard any of them, after his exile
in the eighth year of the war: and we may well presume that none
of them would bear any comparison with this of Periklês. Nor does
Dionysius at all appreciate the full circumstances of this first
year of the war,—which, when completely felt, will be found to
render the splendid and copious harangue of the great statesman
eminently seasonable. See Dionys. H. de Thucyd. Judic. pp.
849-851.