democracy the best source is the series of panegyrics on Athens. He used his speeches to articulate a compelling vision for Athens and its citizens, inspiring them to come together around common goals. Aside from its value as a study in political greatness, therefore, Pericles career offers instruction in how a new and fragile democracy can be brought to maturity. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. It seemed to them a worthy thing that such an honor should be given at their burial to the dead who have fallen on the field of battle. In the following speech, Pericles made these points about democracy: Baird, Forrest E., editor. Now it is for you to emulate them; knowing that happiness requires freedom and freedom requires courage, do not shrink from the dangers of war (2.43.2-4). Here Pericles has identified a critical element of his vision for Athens: its commitment to reason and intelligence. But the most original aspect of Pericles vision for Athens was its expectation of an enduring peace. An examination of the few successful democracies in history suggests that they need to meet three conditions if they are to flourish. They respected the warrior class and placed them among the top member of the society. In 431 BCE, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, held their traditional public funeral for all those who had been killed. The model of how democracy began is also a study in how it can founder and fall. Pericles Funeral Oration in Depth. From him Pericles may have inherited a leaning toward the people, along with landed property at Cholargus, just north of Athens, which put him high, though not quite at the highest level, on the Athenian pyramid of wealth. Thucydides was a worldly Athenian general, whose History of the Peloponnesian War is a cold-eyed account of the ruinous conflict between democratic Athens and militaristic Sparta. And they especially need leaders with the talents to persuade their impatient citizens that these political institutions are the necessary first foundation for a decent regime and a good life for all. In the following speech, Pericles made these points about democracy: Democracy allows men to advance because of merit rather than wealth or inherited class. By recognizing only individuals, not separate groups, its laws preserved the unity needed by all healthy societies and avoided the shattering rivalries that destroy them. Tens of thousands of people died, perhaps as many as one-third of Athenians. In the first year of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles gave speech . In the opening scene of the Iliad, Achilles honor and reputation are diminished by Agamemnons arrogance, so he retires from the battle and sulks in his tent while the Greeks suffer a series of costly defeats. 2 hours of sleep? . With brilliant brevity Lincoln answered some questions by pointing to the greatness of the cause at issue. But archaeology is confirming that Persia's engineering triumph was real. Prior to the plague's devastation, Athenians were already dying as a result of the war. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Funerals after such battles were public rituals and Pericles used the occasion to make a classic statement of the value of democracy. Work began in 447 B.C. The French and American revolutions extended citizenship more generously than in Greece, ultimately excluding only children from political participation. How do we reverse the trend? "[22], Pericles addresses the widows of the dead only here, telling them that "the greatest glory for a woman is not to be spoken of at all, either for good or ill."[23] This passage is often cited as characteristic of Athenian attitudes to women's role in public life,[24] but is also connected to the standard behaviour of women as mourners at private funerals.[25]. Pericles greatest achievement lay in his ability to explain how the interests of the city and its citizens depended on each other for fulfillment. The Spartans were famous for their brevity and distrust of subtle reasoning, but Pericles praises the democracys fondness for debate and discussion. 6th ed., vol. to turn the rocky hill known as the Acropolis into a breathtaking temple complex. The tale tells us much about Greek values. "Pericles's Funeral Oration" (Ancient Greek: ) is a famous speech from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now, Pericles, the great Athenian statesman, declared in his funeral oration, a celebrated speech in the winter of 431430 B.C.E. While Athens was fighting the Peloponnesian War, he gave a famous speech called the Funeral Oration. Governor Pericles' speech, captured by the Athenian historian General Thucydides and known as "The Funeral Oration," serves as a model for how a leader in an executive role may raise the spirit of his or her people during a time of crisis. Support for Democratic Institutions: Pericles was a strong advocate for democracy and supported the . When it reappeared in the Western world more than two millennia later, it was broader but shallower. Whatever it was, it was a horror. In 430429 B.C.E., Athens was devastated by a mysterious epidemic, which reared its head again a few years later. In a democracy, citizens behave lawfully while doing what they like without fear of prying eyes. 208p. No fear of god or law of man had a restraining influence.. The Athenian democracy, Pericles asserts, far from reducing all to a low common level, raises all its citizens to the level of noblemen by asking them to take part in political life and so to control their own destiny. 12. Thucydides, who wrote his Periclean speech for his History of the Peloponnesian War, readily admitted that his speeches were only loosely based on memory and shouldn't be taken as a verbatim report. For Athenians, the individual and familial values sung by Homer remained vital and attractive; yet their polis needed a Spartan commitment and devotion to meet the challenge of the Persian invasions, of the acquisition of the empire, and of the jealousy of Sparta and her allies. Courage, strength, military prowess, persuasiveness, cunning, beauty, wealth: these were examples of arete, the excellent qualities of the good, the fortunate, the happy man. Democracys critics also pointed to a perverted individualism that was called liberty but was really license and lawlessness. Pericles was first to honour Athens' dead in his Funeral Oration after the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. And when such philosophers as Plato modeled their utopian regimes on Sparta, they were building on a tradition that viewed its constitution as a standing rebuke to Athenian democracy. .he must support his unmarried sisters at home and explain to them why they are still spinsters, he must live without a wife at his fireside. Cimon died after 451, during his last campaign against Persia. The first is to have a set of good institutions; the second is to have a body of citizens who possess a good understanding of the principles of democracy, or who at least have developed a character consistent with the democratic way of life; the third is to have a high quality of leadership, at least at critical moments. Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. Pericles Funeral Oration in Depth. To speak of this legislation as a move toward creating a master race is thus partly misleading, but the demagogic nature of the law seems clear. All rights reserved. Finally, Pericles revels in the variety available to the citizens of Athensan object of scorn to Plato, but another quality, we must remember, normally associated with aristocracy. Its chief purpose, even more important than praising the dead, was to explain why they had been right to risk their lives and why the living should be willing to do likewise. In his speech, he talked about Athenian democracy. In our time democracy is taken for granted, but it is one of the rarest, most delicate, and fragile flowers in the jungle of human experience. Here are popular Pericles quotes about that time. In the second year of the Peloponnesian War a plague struck Athens, which was crowded with evacuees from the countryside, killing perhaps a quarter of the citys inhabitants. The freedom we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. ", This page was last edited on 21 March 2023, at 06:49. Open Document. And after a life spent in what among our people passes for comfort, he died most gloriously. The plague was just a plague. https://www.thoughtco.com/pericles-funeral-oration-thucydides-version-111998 (accessed May 1, 2023). Optimists may believe that democracy is the inevitable and final form of human society, but the historical record shows that up to now it has been the rare exception. Democracy of today can be traced back to the Funeral Oration speech of Pericles'. "Plato's Opposition to the Veneration of Pericles". Pericles. The Athenians prized thought, deliberation, and discussion. He rejected the notion that democracy turned its back on excellence, reducing all to equality at a low level. He was the son of the politician Xanthippus and Agariste. .In the streets he must get out of the way. The style is deliberately elaborate, in accord with the stylistic preference associated with the sophists. Pericles notes, "We alone do good to our neighbors not upon a calculation of interest, but in the confidence of freedom and in a frank and fearless spirit." We can outline the ideology behind democracy from his speech. As Plato knew, political regimes are as fragile as any other human structure, and all fall in time. This is because it commands our deep respect." Gazing at the men and women gathered for this solemn moment, Pericles reminds them of the difficult times they face. The Athenians depicted in his Funeral Oration are idealized images, and events would soon show the darker, less admirable side of Athenian society. Both of them heavily promote a sense of nationalism in the surviving listeners, both commend the brave sacrifices of soldiers living and dead, and both invoke a deep sense of sorrow while simultaneously setting up feelings of national pride and faith in the societies . Therefore, he proceeds to point out that the greatest honour and act of valour in Athens is to live and die for freedom of the state Pericles believed was different and more special than any other neighbouring city. Pericles Pericles expands on his earlier point about Athenian democracy to establish that it is not just a system of government; it is the whole way of life for Athenians. Like Pericles' Funeral Oration, Cleon's analysis of democracy becomes most interesting when it gives its author's view of the basis of the 11 Thuc. That the soldiers put aside their desires and wishes for the greater cause. Xenophon gives a good example of the absence of any privacy in Sparta: In other cities whenever a man shows himself to be a coward his only punishment is that he is called a coward. You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/pericles-funeral-oration-thucydides-version-111998. "[18] Finally, Pericles links his praise of the city to the dead Athenians for whom he is speaking, "for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made hernone of these men 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. "Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now." - Pericles. In the real world, however, no one would adopt that demanding and perverse way of life except in the unique circumstances that brought it to Sparta. Why did Pericles think Athens could live in peace after so many years of continuous fighting? Plato and Aristotle wrote long after the death of Pericles, and it is by no means clear that these descriptions fit the real Athenian democracy at any time. The arrival of the Sophist philosophers in Athens occurred during his middle life, and he seems to have taken full advantage of the society of Zeno and particularly Anaxagoras, from whom he is said to have learned impassivity in the face of trouble and insult and skepticism about alleged divine phenomena. In the speech he honoured the fallen and held up Athenian democracy as an example to the rest of Greece. The statesman praised Athens for its freedom and democratic deliberations, while defending its increasingly oppressive empire. She has been featured by NPR and National Geographic for her ancient history expertise. Homeric virtues and values, therefore, were worldly and personal. He was seen as encouraging and enabling the participation of ordinary citizens in the democratic process, not only as electors but as active participants. They lived without the comfort of the two major devices that other cultures have used to evade that terrible truth. Most of what we know about the plague comes from the brilliant Athenian historian Thucydides, widely viewed by classicists as the single best source on Athens in the age of Pericles. Unlike some Athenian dramatists, he saw neither metaphorical significance nor divine retribution in the epidemic. He gave a speech in Athens, a public speech, honoring the many warriors who were killed in battle after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. The image and example of the prosperous, free nations of the world, conveyed to their people by modern technology, has meanwhile raised material expectations to unrealistic levels. Only rumour associates him directly with the political convulsion of the next two years, which drove Cimon into exile, swung Athens away from its alignment with Sparta, and decisively strengthened the democratic elements in the Athenian constitution; but he probably did support the democratic leader Ephialtes in this period, and his introduction of pay for juries, unfortunately undatable, is a logical consequence of Ephialtes reforms. Ad Choices. Part of the answer lay in a quality of life unknown elsewhere, a range of activities that brought the pleasures of prosperity to the appetite, joy and wonder to the spirit, stimulation to the intellect, and pride to the soul. Despite Thucydides' divided attitude towards democracy, the speech he put in Pericles' mouth supports the democratic form of government. Most poleis had aristocratic or oligarchic governments, but they were ruled by laws arrived at in discussions in the sovereign assemblies, and they were executed by councils and magistrates selected by the citizens from among themselves. A dynasty or tyranny or clique may be deposed, but it is invariably replaced by another or by a chaotic anarchy that ends in the establishment of some kind of command society. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. Please select which sections you would like to print: Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford, 198594. It was the custom at the time to honor the dead each year who had died defending their city-state, the city-state of Athens. A woman's greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill. Achilles came to fight at Troy not for any national, ethnic, or communal cause but for his own purposes: to obtain booty seized from captured cities and to display the heroic excellence that Homer called arete. In it, Pericles (or Thucydides) extols the values of democracy. In early Athens, as in most of the Greek cities, political participation came to represent a crucial distinction between a free man and gentleman on the one hand, and a slave or churl on the other. How to see the Lyrid meteor shower at its peak, 6 unforgettable Italy hotels, from Lake Como to Rome, A taste of Rioja, from crispy croquettas to piquillo peppers, Trek through this stunning European wilderness, Land of the lemurs: the race to save Madagascar's sacred forests, See how life evolved at Australias new national park. He had made the strategic judgment that the empire as it stood was large enough to meet all the citys needs. Pericles, the author of the speech, was a general of Athens in the fifth century BCE. Given Pericles' family's wealth and influence in Athens, he received a very good . He traveled the far reaches of the Persian Empire, recording his own personal inquiries (which he called autopsies), as well as the multitude of myths and local legends he heard along the way. The Funeral Oration is significant because it differs from the usual form of Athenian funeral speeches. Cleon's rhetoric resembles that of Herodotus' Sosicles, the Corinthian delegate to the Peloponnesian assembly after the Peisistratids' fall, who uses images of . There are several different English translations of the speech available. In 431 B.C., Pericles urged the popular assembly to declare war against Sparta. These sources are not all ascertainable, but they certainly preserve an invaluable amount of fact and contemporary gossip, which is sometimes nearly as useful. Nobody knows what the plague was, although classically minded epidemiologists still debate its cause. In the decade before 500 B.C., the Athenians established the worlds first democratic constitution. Thucydides fervently supported Periclesbut was less enthusiastic about the institution of democracy. Many Athenians blamed the calamity on their Spartan enemies, spreading dark rumors of poisoned reservoirs. He goes on to talk about Athenian lifestyle and recreation, as to further position Athens as the height of civilization. . Socrates and Pericles, two of these philosophers, had polarizing opinions about the city-state and its citizens. Monoson, Sara (2002). It was translated into English in 1628 by Thomas Hobbes, and has since been cited by heads of state from Woodrow Wilson to Xi Jinping. When a plague broke out, an estimated 20,000 people diedincluding Pericles and his two legitimate sons. Pericles was widely seen as the leader of Athens. Many are now confronting long-suppressed ethnic divisions that threaten to destroy the needed unity and harmony. But soon after Pericles gave that prideful speech, the original democracy got sick. But the peace of Athens was not to last. . They excluded money, the arts and sciences, philosophy, aesthetic pleasures, and the life of the mind in general, for all these things might foster individualism and detract from devotion to the polis. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it. Therefore, they were willing to run risks in its defense, make sacrifices on its behalf, and restrain their passions and desires to preserve it. Pericles therefore asserts that we conduct our public life as free men [eleuthero.i] (2.37.2). His position rested on his continual reelection to the generalship and on hisprestige, based, according to Thucydides, on his intelligence and incorruptibility. Significantly he begins recounting the speech by saying: " ", i.e. The ancient Greek statesman Pericles (ca 495-429 B.C.) [32], , ' . Most of Pericles answers to these questions can be found in the Funeral Oration that he delivered in the winter of 431/30, less than two years before his death, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War. Introduction to the Funeral Oration. Thought is not a barrier to the achievement of heroic goals. Pericles (/ p r k l i z /; Greek: ; c. 495 - 429 BC) was a Greek politician and general during the Golden Age of Athens.He was prominent and influential in Athenian politics, particularly between the Greco-Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War, and was acclaimed by Thucydides, a contemporary historian, as "the first citizen of Athens". Democracy favors the many instead of the few and Pericles believes justice is achieved when citizens follow those laws in which they have the freedom to participate in public life. Pericles allowed all people to participate in government which also made Athens more of a direct democracy. He was one of those rare individuals who do not merely accept the conditions of the world they find but try to shape it to an image in their own minds. The Spartans believed in deeds, not words. The thousands of citizens who participated in Athenss fledgling democracy attended the popular assembly at the Pnyx, a rise in the center of the city. By rewarding merit, it avoided the unnatural leveling that is the hallmark of tyranny and encouraged the individual achievement and excellence that makes life sweet and raises the quality of life for everyone. His father,Xanthippus, began his political career by a dynastic marriage to Agariste of the controversial Alcmaeonid family. That development transformed the character of Athenian democracy and society; lower-class Athenians (called thetes) could now participate as fully as citizens with property. As Thucydides recounts Pericles claiming in a famous speech, "Our natural bravery springs from our way of life, not from the compulsion of laws.We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the arts without loss of manliness." These facts were obvious to all and might be expected to deter aggression. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Pericles was born into an aristocratic family in Athens in 495 BC. We alone regard the man who takes no part in politics not as someone who minds his own business but as useless. Thinking, Levels. [2] The speech was supposed to have been delivered by Pericles, an eminent Athenian politician, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War (431404BCE) as a part of the annual public funeral for the war dead. Plato, in his Menexenus, ascribes authorship to Pericles's companion, Aspasia.[9]. But most of the citizens, even in undemocratic states, had no such opportunities. All rights reserved. For they gave their lives for the common good. Nor did they believe in personal immortality, in which death is a blessing, a release from a painful and wretched life and admission to paradise. 3.38.4. [14] This amounts to a focus on present-day Athens; Thucydides' Pericles thus decides to praise the war dead by glorifying the city for which they died. Political Aspects of the Classical Age of Greece, Most Important Figures in Ancient History, The Thirty Tyrants After the Peloponnesian War, M.A., Linguistics, University of Minnesota. (Athens was only a democracy for adult, male citizens of Athenian descent, not for women or slaves, or for foreigners living under imperial rule.) We thought we knew turtles. The bones were kept for the funeral at the end of the year. Monarchy and different forms of despotism, on the other hand, have gone on for millennia. His father, Xanthippus, a typical member of this generation, almost certainly of an old family, began his political career by a dynastic marriage into the controversial family of the Alcmaeonids. Pericles was a famous Greek general. Updates? Many of the qualities and characteristics envisioned by Pericles are related to military excellence, as is natural in a speech delivered in wartime to encourage the struggle for victory. The city of Athens, however, was physically still much as it had been left by the Persian sack of 480, and its gods were inadequately housed. Pericles was a famous Greek general. Pericles' Funeral Oration can be compared to several more modern speeches, most notably Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The outbreak of war among the Greek states in 459 put a premium on military talent, and Pericles only recorded campaign in the next few years was a naval expedition in the Corinthian Gulf in 454, in which Athens defeated Achaea but failed to win more important objectives. Had he quoted the speech verbatim, he would have written "" ("this", or "these words") instead of "" ("like this" or "words like these").
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