Funeral Oration (8-10)

Am I then to touch upon their education, and, as other speakers often do, remind you how as children they were reared and trained in strict self-discipline? None of us, I think, is unaware that our aim in training children is to convert them into valiant men; and that men who have proved of exceptional courage in war were well brought up in childhood needs no stressing.

The simplest course, I think, will be to tell you of their courage under arms, revealing them as authors of many benefits conferred upon their country and the rest of Greece. First I shall take the general, as is his due.

For Leosthenes perceived that the whole of Greece was humiliated and ⋯cowed, corrupted by men who were accepting bribes from Philip and Alexander against their native countries. He realized that our city stood in need of a commander, and Greece herself of a city, able to assume the leadership, and he gave himself to his country and the city to the Greeks, in the cause of freedom.