Pericles has spent most of his time so far praising Athens, to show that it was and is worth dying for. He is now talking at last about the men who have died, and how they should be taken as a model and inspiration for those who have survived.
Pericles notes that there are practical advantages from fighting "what is to be gained by beating the enemy back" , but he wants to stress more idealistic motives: citizens should fall in love with their city, so that they willingly sacrifice themselves it and thus receive eternal glory.
Happiness depends on freedom, and freedom must be defended, so it's necessary to risk death for the happiness of all. The dead are idealised - these are men who knew their duty and had the courage to do it, who made the ultimate sacrifice to their city and fellow-citizens, and who would risk anything but dishonour.
They now live on eternally in people's memories. There's no mention of any afterlife, just eternal glory. It's not nearly as bad as dishonour.
Indeed, as Pericles argues in sections , if you're prosperous and successful you should be less afraid of death than someone who is poor and wretched; the unfortunate man hasn't got much honour or much hope of improving his situation, whereas the fortunate man runs the constant risk as long as he's alive that his fortunes will change and he'll suffer the abject humilation of losing everything.
Much better to die when you're being courageous and patriotic. Certainly citizens were expected to fight for their city, but actually falling in love with the city is Pericles' own idea.
Lots of Greek writers stress the uncertainty of fortune Herodotus 1. As for the idea that a noble death means eternal glory, this contrasts with the depiction of the afterlife in Homer's Odyssey Book XI , where Achilles declares he'd rather be a living wage-labourer than a dead hero.
Part of a series. Close X. Upcoming Lectures. Nature's Numbers: Natural Capital Accounting. Holocaust History Under Siege. The Maths of Beauty and Symmetry. Free Thinking and the Rule of Law. Food-and-Drink Borne Diseases. Women in Science Fiction. Attacks on Knowledge from Ashurbanipal to Trump. Cite this Article Format. Gill, N. Pericles' Funeral Oration - Thucydides' Version. Biography of Pericles, Leader of Athens. Political Aspects of the Classical Age of Greece. Modern Science and the Plague of Athens.
The Peloponnesian War: Causes of the Conflict. Representative Democracy: Definition, Pros, and Cons. Definition and Examples of Epideictic Rhetoric.
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