Funeral Oration (5-7)

Compare her with the sun which visits the whole world and duly separates the seasons, disposing all things for the best, with provision, where men are virtuous and prudent, for their birth and nurture, the crops and all the other needs of life; for so our city never fails to punish the wicked, help the just, mete out to all men fairness in place of wrong, and at her individual peril and expense assure the Greeks a common safety.

To deal with the achievements of the city as a whole is, as I said before, a task which I shall not attempt, and I will here confine myself to Leosthenes and his companions. At what point, then, shall I take up the story? What shall I mention first? Shall I trace the ancestry of each?

To do so would, I think, be foolish. Granted, if one is praising men of a different stamp, such as have gathered from diverse places into the city which they inhabit, each contributing his lineage to the common stock, then one must trace their separate ancestry. But from one who speaks of Athenians, born of their own country and sharing a lineage of unrivalled purity, a eulogy of the descent of each must surely be superfluous.