A civic invention
To praise the fallen
was to define the living.
In the winter of the first year of the war, the Athenians held a public funeral for those who had fallen in battle. Perikles was chosen to speak—not simply because he was their leader, but because the occasion demanded a larger account of what the dead had served.
Thucydides gives us the speech as part of his history. Whether every line belongs to the moment, or to the historian’s careful reconstruction, its purpose is unmistakable: to make Athens itself the subject of mourning.
“Our constitution”
Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors the many instead of the few. This is why it is called a democracy.
When there is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law. When a citizen is distinguished by excellence, he is preferred to public service not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Poverty does not bar the way: the obscurity of a person’s condition cannot prevent his usefulness to the city.
We are prevented from doing wrong by respect for the authorities and for the laws. These give protection to all, especially to those who need it most.
“We cultivate refinement”
We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without softness. We use wealth more for use than for show; and place our real shame in the poverty of a life without purpose, not in the honest work that sustains it.
Our love of beauty does not make us idle. Our love of wisdom does not make us weak. We are able to meet danger with understanding, rather than with ignorance; and to count the cost before we act, rather than discover it only afterward.
“The whole earth is the sepulchre”
For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial. Not only the inscriptions on their stones, but the memory of their lives, remains wherever courage and public service are honored.
Such was the city for which these men gave their lives. You who remain must resolve to have as unfaltering a determination in the field, though you may pray that your issue may be happier.
This page presents a lightly modernized selection based on Richard Crawley’s public-domain translation of Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II. The Greek text survives through later manuscripts; no contemporary transcript of the speech exists.