The Funeral Speech (26-30)

Democracies, however, possess many other just and noble features, to which right-minded men should hold fast, and in particular it is impossible to deter freedom of speech, which depends upon speaking the truth, from exposing the truth. For neither is it possible for those who commit a shameful act to appease all the citizens,[*] so that even the lone individual, uttering the deserved reproach, makes the guilty wince: for even those who would never speak an accusing word themselves are pleased at hearing the same, provided another utters it. Through fear of such condemnation, all these men, as was to be expected, for shame at the thought of subsequent reproaches,[*] manfully faced the threat arising from our foes and chose a noble death in preference to life and disgrace.

The considerations that actuated these men one and all to choose to die nobly have now been enumerated,—birth, education, habituation to high standards of conduct, and the underlying principles of our form of government in general. The incentives that challenged them severally to be valiant men, depending upon the tribes to which they belonged, I shall next relate.[*] All the Erechtheidae were well aware that Erechtheus, from whom they have their name, for the salvation of this land gave his own daughters, whom they call Hyacinthides, to certain death, and so extinguished his race. Therefore they regarded it as shameful, after a being born of immortal gods had sacrificed everything for the liberation of his native land, that they themselves should have been found to have placed a higher value upon a mortal body than upon immortal glory.[*]

Neither were the Aegeidae ignorant that Theseus, the son of Aegeus, for the first time established equality in the State.[*] They thought it, therefore, a dreadful thing to be false to the principles of that ancestor, and they preferred to be dead rather than through love of life to survive among the Greeks with this equality lost. The Pandionidae had inherited the tradition of Procne and Philomela, the daughters of Pandion, who took vengeance on Tereus for his crime against themselves.[*] Therefore they decided that life was not worth living unless they, akin by race, should have proved themselves to possess equal spirit with those women, when confronted by the outrage they saw being committed against Greece.

The Leontidae had heard the stories related of the daughters of Leo, how they offered themselves to the citizens as a sacrifice for their country’s sake. When, therefore, such courage was displayed by those women, they looked upon it as a heinous thing if they, being men, should have proved to possess less of manhood. The Acamantidae did not fail to recall the epics in which Homer says that Acamas sailed for Troy for the sake of his mother Aethra.[*] Now, since he braved every danger for the sake of saving his own mother, how were these men not bound to face every danger for the sake of saving their parents one and all at home?

It did not escape the Oeneidae that Semele was the daughter of Cadmus, and of her was born one whom it would be sacrilegious to name at this tomb,[*] and by him Oeneus was begotten, who was called the founder of their race.[*] Since the danger in question was common to both States, on behalf of both they thought themselves bound to endure any Anguish to the end.[*] The Cecropidae were well aware that their founder was reputed to have been part dragon, part human, for no other reason than this, that in understanding he was like a man, in strength like a dragon. So they assumed that their duty was to perform feats worthy of both.