Funeral Oration (36-40)

On every hand they were surrounded by such a multitude of foes that they reckoned it the least of their present troubles to anticipate their own death, but saw the greatest of disasters in the fate that they must expect to be dealt by the barbarians, if successful, to those whom they had transported from the city.

We may be sure that the perplexity of their case made them often grasp each other by the hand, and with reason bewail their plight; knowing their own ships to be few, and seeing those of the foe to be many; understanding that their city was now deserted, that their land was being ravaged and overrun by the barbarians, that the temples were being burnt, and that horrors of every kind were close upon them.

At the same moment they heard mingled battle hymns of Greek and barbarian, exhortations on either side, and shrieks of the perishing: the sea was full of corpses, there was clashing of many wrecks of friends’ and foemen’s vessels, and for a long time the sea-fight was evenly balanced; they seemed at one moment to have conquered and been saved, at another to have been defeated and destroyed.

Certainly the fear that was upon them must have made them believe that they saw many things which they saw not, and heard many that they did not hear. What supplications, what reminders of sacrifices, were not sent up to Heaven! What pity was felt for children, what yearning over wives, what compassion for fathers and mothers, in calculating the evils that would result from their ill success!

What deity would have denied them pity for such an awful danger? What man but would have shed tears? Who would not have marvelled at their daring? Beyond all compare did those men in their valor surpass all mankind, whether in their counsels or in the perils of that war; for they abandoned their city and embarked on their ships, and pitted their own few lives against the multitude of Asia.