The Funeral Speech (28-29)

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?