No one, moreover, if he has it in him to do some good for the city, is barred because of poverty or humble origins (Thucydides 2.37.1). ThoughtCo. Attempts to expand it would not only be unnecessary but endanger what already existed. According to Lincoln, democracy means " Government of the people, by the people and for the people," (Nicolay, 209). The bibliography on this topic is enormous. https://www.thoughtco.com/pericles-funeral-oration-thucydides-version-111998 (accessed May 1, 2023). (2021, July 29). Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. Instead, they thought man was of the same race as the gods, a creature capable of extraordinary achievements. The Athenians gave him a public burial on the spot where he fell [only the men who died at Marathon received the same extraordinary honor] (1.30). Athenian Democracy Primary Source Doc.docx - Document A: Pericles lifted Athens into a golden age through his support of the arts, architecture, philosophy, and democracy building. Democracy favors the many instead of the few and Pericles believes justice is achieved when citizens follow those laws in which they have the freedom to participate in public life. The thousands of citizens who participated in Athenss fledgling democracy attended the popular assembly at the Pnyx, a rise in the center of the city. Athens Should be Admired According to Funeral Oration Speech Photograph by James P. Blair, Nat Geo Image Collection. It contained a clear, if often implicit, contrast with the Spartan way of life, which so many Greeks admired but which Pericles regarded as inferior to the Athens he portrayed. and then by imposing Athenian weights and measures on all league members three years later. Remembering Pericles' Oration in Athens, Greece - RealClearWorld [3] The remains of the dead[4] were left in a tent for three days so that offerings could be made. When wealthy aristocrats won victories in athletic contests, they could pay poets like Pindar to preserve their memories in verse; they could sponsor public monuments by great architects and sculptors; the richest of them could even erect temples to the gods, dedicated in their own names. It was written by the Greek philosopher Thucydides (460-395 B.C.E. Then a funeral procession was held, with ten cypress coffins carrying the remains, one for each of the Athenian tribes, and another left symbolically empty for the missing or those whose remains were unable to be recovered. He gave this speech during a funeral for Athenian soldiers who died in the first year of the brutal Peloponnesian War against Sparta, Athens's chief rival. The Spartans believed in deeds, not words. Pericles delivered a rousing speech lauding democracy on the occasion of funerals, shortly after the start of the war. to turn the rocky hill known as the Acropolis into a breathtaking temple complex. By John G. Zumbrunnen. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. The arts and philosophy also flourished during Pericles reign, when Socrates and the playwrights Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes produced some of their finest works. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008. She has been featured by NPR and National Geographic for her ancient history expertise. A seasoned, hard-bitten warrior, he was, for once, at a loss: Words indeed fail one when one tries to give a general picture of this disease; and as for the suffering of individuals, they seemed almost beyond the capacity of human nature to endure. Thucydides himself got the plague but survived, as he coolly notes in passing. An Aerial View of New York City During a Pandemic. These aristocratic values never lost their powerful attraction to all Greeks, and Pericles claimed them for the Athenian democracy. This is because it commands our deep respect." Gazing at the men and women gathered for this solemn moment, Pericles reminds them of the difficult times they face. He gave a speech in Athens, a public speech, honoring the many warriors who were killed in battle after the first year of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles On Democracy - 590 Words | Studymode Pericles - World History Encyclopedia There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes"[15] These lines form the roots of the famous phrase "equal justice under law." The outbreak of war among the Greek states in 459 put a premium on military talent, and Pericles only recorded campaign in the next few years was a naval expedition in the Corinthian Gulf in 454, in which Athens defeated Achaea but failed to win more important objectives. Repeated failures had taught the Persians they could not challenge Athenian naval power, while adherence to the right strategya refusal to fight a large land battledeprived Sparta and its allies of any hope for victory. Athenian Democracy - World History Encyclopedia How could the ordinary man achieve kleos? The earliest is known as the Funeral Oration of Pericles. To cope with this threat the Spartans turned their polis into a military academy and an armed camp, giving up the normal pleasures of life and devoting themselves entirely to the state. But archaeology is confirming that Persia's engineering triumph was real. 2 hours of sleep? Where citizens boast a freedom that differs from their enemies' the Lacedaemonians. That Pericles skull was of unusual shape seems well attested, but one can hardly speculate about the possible psychological consequences. America was a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Victory would mean a new birth of freedom, and would ensure that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. The fallen soldiers purpose was to preserve a Constitution and a way of life that was unique and worthy of sacrifice. In our time democracy is taken for granted, but it is one of the rarest, most delicate, and fragile flowers in the jungle of human experience. Periclean Athens and Modern Democracy - AEI In Athenians society, one of the important custom is their funeral. The poorest Athenian serving on a jury, voting in the assembly, or allotted to an office was thereby called upon to use his intelligence and experience on behalf of his polis. To me, at least, they still seem to indicate some of the important ways in which democracy is likely to go astray. It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glories are to be won, he stated in front of the assembly. How do we reverse the trend? We obey those who hold office and the laws themselves, especially those enacted for the protection of the oppressed and those which, although unwritten, it is acknowledged shame to violate (2.37.3). Whereas, Lysias supports the restoration of democracy because he believes that fighting for equality and rising up in rebellion is worthwhile. Wars were frequent, and in order to survive and flourish each polis required devotion and sacrifice from its citizens. All rights reserved. Pericles' speech reminded Athenians of the power of democracy and gave them courage to keep fighting. His account suffers from the fact that, 40 years younger, he had no firsthand knowledge of Pericles early career; it suffers also from his approach, which concentrates exclusively on Pericles intellectual capacity and his war leadership, omitting biographical details, which Thucydides thought irrelevant to his theme. Cleon's rhetoric resembles that of Herodotus' Sosicles, the Corinthian delegate to the Peloponnesian assembly after the Peisistratids' fall, who uses images of In 431 B.C., Pericles urged the popular assembly to declare war against Sparta. In early Athens, as in most of the Greek cities, political participation came to represent a crucial distinction between a free man and gentleman on the one hand, and a slave or churl on the other. Thucydides fervently supported Periclesbut was less enthusiastic about the institution of democracy. In the Athens of Pericles, however, the general prosperity and payment for public service gave the average man a degree of leisure unknown in other states. . . The style is deliberately elaborate, in accord with the stylistic preference associated with the sophists. Previously, only the wealthy could afford the time to participate in politics. The characteristics of Athenian democracy as presented by Pericles in his funeral oration are that it is an ideal democracy, that it is animated by a shared sense of civic virtue, and that in it . Athenians were already packed into the city as a wartime measure, and frightened people fleeing the countryside crowded it even further, creating conditions we now know are ripe for contagion. He was seen as encouraging and enabling the participation of ordinary citizens in the democratic process, not only as electors but as active participants. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). 13. Why Was Athens Defeated? At an early date they had abandoned the normal means whereby men provide for themselves and their families, including all economic activity: farming, pasturing, trade, craft, and industry. When it reappeared in the Western world more than two millennia later, it was broader but shallower. In 430429 B.C.E., a mysterious epidemic ravaged Athens, plunging the city into chaos. Among those who died from this plague were Pericles and two of his sons. And when such philosophers as Plato modeled their utopian regimes on Sparta, they were building on a tradition that viewed its constitution as a standing rebuke to Athenian democracy. Why did Pericles think Athens could live in peace after so many years of continuous fighting? We have no need of a Homer to praise us or of anyone else whose words will delight us for the moment but whose account of the facts will be discredited by the truth. In the process, he presented his vision for Athens and the kind of citizen its unique constitution and way of life would produce. At the same time, he intended to create a quality of life never before known, one that would allow men to pursue their private interests but also enable them to seek the highest goals by placing their interests at the service of a city that fostered and relied upon reason for its greatness. Visionary Leadership: Pericles had a clear vision for Athens and articulated it to the citizens, emphasizing the importance of democracy, civic engagement, and the pursuit of knowledge and arts . The answer was to be found in the power of Athens, although less in its extent than its character. In moderate material comfort, good health, long life, virtuous offspring, and an opportunity for kleosthe last two representing mans hopes for immortality preserved in the memory of his family and his polis. The citizen of a free society has the right to ask, Why should I risk my life for my city? He was too scrupulous to blame the epidemic on the Spartansan ancient reproach to those today who try to pin blame on foreign rivals. The polis was a political community and a sovereign entity competing in a world of similar communities. For their food, the Spartans relied on the helots slaves of the Spartan state who out-numbered the Spartans by at least seven to one, bitterly hated their masters, and, in the words of the fourth-century writer Xenophon would gladly eat them raw (Hellenica 3.3.6). If, therefore, we are prepared to meet danger after leading a relaxed life instead of one filled with burdensome training, with our courage emerging naturally from our way of life instead of imposed by law, the advantage is ours. Pericles approved payment for jury duty and for soldiers, sailors, and administrators. A dynasty or tyranny or clique may be deposed, but it is invariably replaced by another or by a chaotic anarchy that ends in the establishment of some kind of command society. Achilles came to fight at Troy not for any national, ethnic, or communal cause but for his own purposes: to obtain booty seized from captured cities and to display the heroic excellence that Homer called arete.
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pericles speech on democracy