Latest / The History of Greece: Philosophy, Empire, and Endless Reinvention — Fexingo History / Pericles' Funeral Oration: Democracy's Founding Speech
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about Athens in this series—its empire, its democracy, its wars. But there's one speech that captures how Athenians saw themselves better than almost anything else: Pericles' Funeral Oration. Luna: The one Thucydides recorded? Lucas: Exactly. Thucydides gives us the version we have, though he admits he's reconstructing what Pericles likely said. It was delivered at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, in the winter of 431/430 BCE. The city held a public funeral for the war dead, and Pericles, as the leading statesman, was chosen to give the speech. Luna: So it's both a memorial and a political statement. Lucas: Right. And that tension is what makes it so fascinating. On one level, it's a traditional epitaphios logos—a genre of funeral oration praising the fallen. But Pericles uses it to define what Athens stands for, especially in contrast to Sparta. He says things like 'We throw open our city to the world' and 'We cultivate refinement without extravagance.' It's a portrait of an open, democratic society. Luna: But Athens wasn't exactly open to everyone—women, slaves, allies. Lucas: That's the crucial point. Pericles' oration is an idealised vision. He talks about equality before the law—what the Greeks called isonomia—but that equality only applied to adult male citizens. Women are mentioned almost as an afterthought: he tells them their greatest glory is to be least spoken of among men. And of course, Athens was a slave society, and its empire extracted tribute from allied cities. So the speech is as much propaganda as philosophy. Luna: It's still incredibly powerful, though. I remember reading the line about Athens being 'the school of Hellas'. Lucas: That's one of the most famous phrases. Pericles says that Athens is an education to Greece—that other cities will eventually imitate what Athens does. And there's a real pride in that, a confidence that democracy and freedom are not just moral goods but practical strengths. He argues that Athenians don't need rigid Spartan discipline because their courage comes from choice, not compulsion. Luna: Thucydides puts these words in Pericles' mouth, but was Pericles really that eloquent? Lucas: We don't know exactly. Thucydides says he composed speeches that fit the occasion and the speaker's character. So the oration is likely a blend of Pericles' actual words and Thucydides' own interpretation. But Pericles was known as a brilliant orator—he was nicknamed 'the Olympian' for his rhetorical power. And he was surrounded by intellectuals like the philosopher Anaxagoras and his partner Aspasia, who was said to have helped him craft speeches. Luna: Aspasia—we did an episode on her. She was a metic, a foreigner, and yet she influenced Athenian politics. Lucas: Exactly. Plutarch later wrote that Aspasia taught Pericles rhetoric. Some ancient sources even claimed she wrote the Funeral Oration herself—probably an exaggeration, but it shows how central she was to his intellectual circle. So the speech we're discussing may have a hidden co-author. Lucas: Now, the structure of the oration is masterful. Pericles begins by acknowledging the difficulty of praising men whose deeds are already known. Then he launches into a praise of Athens—its democratic constitution, its toleration, its love of beauty and wisdom. Only then does he turn to the fallen, arguing that their sacrifice proves the city's values are worth dying for. He ends with consolation for the parents and widows. Luna: It's almost like a sermon for civil religion. Lucas: That's a great way to put it. And that civil religion has had an enormous afterlife. The oration was largely forgotten in the Middle Ages but was rediscovered in the Renaissance. Thomas Hobbes translated Thucydides into English. In the 19th century, it became a touchstone for democratic thinkers. Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address echoes Pericles—'government of the people, by the people, for the people' has a Periclean ring. Winston Churchill also invoked it during World War II. Luna: So it's not just an ancient text—it's still shaping how we think about democracy. Lucas: Precisely. And that's why it's worth taking seriously, even critically. If today's episode gave you something useful, you know, the way this show stays ad-free is through listener support. It's just buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That helps us keep digging into these stories without any commercial breaks. Luna: Yeah, it really does make a difference. Lucas: So, back to Pericles. One of the most debated parts of the oration is his claim that Athens is a democracy—dēmokratia, rule by the many. But critics then and now have pointed out that Athens was also an empire that crushed dissent. The Melian Dialogue, which Thucydides sets later in the war, shows Athenians arguing that 'the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.' How do you square that with Pericles' noble words? Luna: Maybe Pericles believed his own rhetoric, or maybe it was just for the occasion. Lucas: Probably both. Pericles himself wasn't a radical democrat—he was from the aristocratic Alcmaeonid family. But he championed the demos because it gave him power. Still, the oration is not just cynical manipulation. It articulates an ideal that many Athenians genuinely believed in, and that later generations have strived toward. The historian Donald Kagan argued that Pericles' vision of a free, confident city was what made Athens great. Luna: And yet the war went badly after Pericles died of the plague just a year later. Lucas: That's the tragic irony. Pericles died in 429 BCE, and without his steady hand, Athens lurched toward more aggressive leaders like Cleon and Alcibiades. The Funeral Oration stands as a snapshot of what Athens aspired to be at its peak. But within a few decades, the city would be defeated by Sparta, its walls torn down. The ideal outlived the reality. Luna: Do you think the speech would have convinced ordinary Athenians, hearing it in the Kerameikos cemetery? Lucas: Thucydides presents it as a huge success—he says the crowd was moved. But we have to remember that the Kerameikos was where the fallen were buried, and many in the audience had lost sons or brothers. Pericles' message was essentially: your loved ones died for something greater than themselves. That's a powerful consolation. It also deflected blame from the leadership—he was telling them the war was worth it. Lucas: There's another layer: the oration is also a response to the Spartan way of life. Sparta didn't hold public funerals for its war dead—they buried them on the battlefield. So Pericles is making a statement about Athenian openness versus Spartan secrecy. He says, 'We are a free and open city. Our enemies are welcome to come and see us.' That was a direct jab at Sparta's xenophobia. Luna: It's almost like a campaign speech for democracy. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why it's still quoted today. When modern leaders invoke Pericles, they're tapping into that idea that democracy isn't just a system—it's a way of life worth defending. But we should also remember that Pericles himself was a product of his time. His vision excluded women, slaves, and foreigners. The challenge for us is to take the spirit of the oration—the belief in civic equality and human dignity—and apply it more broadly. Luna: Maybe that's the real legacy: not the specific words, but the idea that a society can define itself by its ideals. Lucas: Yes. And that's why the Funeral Oration continues to resonate. It forces us to ask: what do we owe our city, our community, each other? Those are timeless questions, whether you're in ancient Athens or the modern world.