History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides [best free ebook reader TXT] 📗

danger. In proof of this it may be

noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but

bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance

unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a

foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their

homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy,

because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our

citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that,

wherever they engage with some such fraction of our strength, a

success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the

nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our

entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and

courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter

danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of

hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as

fearlessly as those who are never free from them.

 

“Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of

admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge

without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and

place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in

declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides

politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary

citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still

fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding

him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as

useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot

originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a

stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable

preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we

present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each

carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons;

although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of

reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most

justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and

pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In

generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by

conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the

favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness

to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less

keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be

a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who,

fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from

calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.

 

“In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I

doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to

depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a

versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown

out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state

acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her

contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation,

and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the

antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to

question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the

present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our

power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far

from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose

verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they

gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land

to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or

for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the

Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to

lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their

survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.

 

“Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our

country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the

same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the

panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by

definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great

measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what

the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame,

unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate

with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be

found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it

set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it

gave the first intimation of their having any. For there is justice in

the claim that steadfastness in his country’s battles should be as a

cloak to cover a man’s other imperfections; since the good action

has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than

outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed

either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his

spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to

tempt him to shrink from danger. No, holding that vengeance upon their

enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and

reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully

determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to

let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of

final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act

boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather

than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger

face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their

fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.

 

“So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must

determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you

may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with

ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up

with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a

valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as

the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed

your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your

hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you

must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling

of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no

personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive

their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the

most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of

their lives made in common by them all they each of them

individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a

sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been

deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid

up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or

story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole

earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the

column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every

breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that

of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be

the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the

dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly

be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is

rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet

unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in

its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of

cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death

which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!

 

“Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to

the parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to

which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate

indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that

which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly

measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed.

Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are

in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the

homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is

felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for

the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed. Yet you who

are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of

having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget

those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a

reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be

expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the

decision the interests and apprehensions of a father. While those of

you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the

thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the

brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed.

For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour

it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age

and helplessness.

 

“Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous

struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him,

and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find

it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their

renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no

longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry

does not enter. On the other hand, if I must say anything on the

subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in

widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great

will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and

greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether

for good or for bad.

 

“My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my

ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now

satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have

received part of their honours already, and for the rest, their

children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the

state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in

this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen

and their survivors. And