Funeral Oration (16-20)

For who could rightly grudge his praise to those of our citizens who fell in this campaign, who gave their lives for the freedom of the Greeks, convinced that the surest proof of their desire to guarantee the liberty of Greece was to die in battle for her?

One circumstance did much to reinforce their purpose as champions of Greece: the fact that the earlier battle was fought in Boeotia.[*] They saw that the city of Thebes had been tragically annihilated from the face of the earth, that its citadel was garrisoned by the Macedonians, and that the persons of its inhabitants were in slavery, while others parcelled out the land among themselves. And so these threats, revealed before their eyes, gave them an undaunted courage to meet danger gladly.

Yet the action fought near Pylae and Lamia has proved to be as glorious for them as the conflict in Boeotia, not solely through the circumstances of victory in the field, over Antipater and his allies, but on the grounds of situation also. The fact that this has been the battle’s site will mean that all the Greeks, repairing twice a year to the council of the Amphictyones, will witness their achievements; for by the very act of gathering in that spot they will recall the valor of these men.

Never before did men strive for a nobler cause, either against stronger adversaries or with fewer friends, convinced that valor gave strength and courage superiority as no mere numbers could. Liberty they gave us as an offering for all to share, but the honor of their deeds they have bestowed upon their country as a wreath for her alone.

Now we might well reflect what, in our opinion, the outcome would have been, had these men failed to do their duty in the struggle. Must we not suppose that the whole world would be under one master, and Greece compelled to tolerate his whim as law? In short that Macedonian arrogance, and not the power of justice, would lord it among every people⋯[*]