pericles speech on democracy

The aristocrat believed that the poor were not free, because their poverty deprived them of leisure and, therefore, of the opportunity to take part in public life. Pericles was first to honour Athens' dead in his Funeral Oration after the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. Where citizens boast a freedom that differs from their enemies' the Lacedaemonians. Croesus asked why, and this was Solons response: Tellus polis was prosperous, and he was the father of noble sons, and he saw children born to all of them, and they all grew up. 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." He believed that mans capacities and desires could be fulfilled at the highest level only through participation in the life of a community governed by reasoned discussion and guided by intelligence. "Pericles' Funeral Oration from the Peloponnesian War (Book 2.34-46)." Internet The law also may have passed because of a general wish to restrict access to the benefits of office and public distributions, but there was never any disposition on the part of Athenians to restrict economic opportunities for foreignerswho served in the fleet, worked on public buildings, and had freedom of trade and investment, with the crucial, but normal, exception of land and houses. In the following speech, Pericles made these points about democracy: Baird, Forrest E., editor. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. It was still open to each man to seek satisfaction in the pursuit of his own interests and those of his family, if necessary at the expense of the polis. The bibliography on this topic is enormous. Pericles: the democrat Traditionally, Pericles was regarded by historians as a great democrat. In a democracy, there is equal justice for all in private disputes. Only facing dangers that the mind can comprehend deserves to be called bravery, and that is what is expected of the men in his polis. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. 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. Pericles stirring funeral oration is among the most famous passages of Thucydides. The style is deliberately elaborate, in accord with the stylistic preference associated with the sophists. 86 Copy quote. The symbolism, although ambiguous, is most likely to be unfavourable. Its military power and tradition of leadership among the Greeks, the discipline and devotion to the public good displayed by its citizens, had already created an aura of virtue and excellence that a modern scholar has called the Spartan mirage. Pericles needed to confront this challenge, and much of the Funeral Oration is therefore a direct comparison with Sparta. Homeric virtues and values, therefore, were worldly and personal. left his mark on the world in far more ways than the iconic Acropolis that still defines the skyline of Athens. They must see that democracy alone of all regimes respects the dignity and autonomy of every individual, and understand that its survival requires that each individual see his own well-being as inextricably connected to that of the whole community. Pericles incorporates obviously corrupt characters that contrast . 29, 2021, thoughtco.com/pericles-funeral-oration-thucydides-version-111998. Updates? [32], , ' . And we decide public questions ourselves, or at least come to a sound understanding of them (2.40.2). Among those who died from this plague were Pericles and two of his sons. Politically he is credited with some kind of rapprochement with Cimon, who is said to have been recalled and allowed to resume the war with Persia, much preferred to fighting other Greeks, but the date of Cimons recall is uncertain, and the rumours are hard to disentangle. Although limited to adult males of native parentage, Athenian citizenship granted full and active participation in every decision of the state without regard to wealth or class. 13. His achievements included the construction of the Acropolis, begun in 447. To win the necessary devotion, the cityor rather its leaders, poets, and teachersmust show that its demands are compatible with the needs of the citizen, and even better, that the city is needed to achieve his own goals. [14] This amounts to a focus on present-day Athens; Thucydides' Pericles thus decides to praise the war dead by glorifying the city for which they died. When tested, the Athenians behaved with the required devotion, wisdom, and moderation in large part because they had been inspired by the lofty democratic vision and example that Pericles had so effectively communicated to them. His political program allowed all Athenian citizens to take part in government, to help guide their own destinies and those of their polis, as befits free men, to pursue their own prosperity and happiness in a broad realm of privacy, free of interference and confiscation by the state yet held to a high standard of ethical behavior in the role of a citizen. References. "Pericles' Funeral Oration - Thucydides' Version." What is the overarching theme of the funeral oration of Pericles and what does it tell us about classical Greek culture and ideals? Thucydides, Pericles' Funeral Oration. Politicians in search of scapegoats would be wise to recall Pericles, who said, before the plague, What I fear is not the enemys strength, but our own mistakes.. Despite Thucydides' divided attitude towards democracy, the speech he put in Pericles' mouth supports the democratic form of government. The audience is then dismissed. Democracy is now the largest form of government to exist in today's society. This new faith will be especially hard to instill in societies that have learned to be cynical about the use of political idealism. Whatever it was, it was a horror. Inside South Africas skeleton trade. Judgment was rendered according to their laws, once again, by courts made up of citizens. In the process, he presented his vision for Athens and the kind of citizen its unique constitution and way of life would produce. Pericles ushered in what is considered radical democracy. This meant that ordinary Athenian citizens were paid by the state to participate in public affairs. 2023 Cond Nast. That the soldiers put aside their desires and wishes for the greater cause. The stakes of our own vulnerability are no different. The willingness to perform military service for his homeland is the most fundamental and demanding duty of the citizen. Pericles, the author of the speech, was a general of Athens in the fifth century BCE. To shape that vision and persuade others of its virtues, Pericles needed to overcome the attractive force of two earlier views of the best human life. Finally they were buried at a public grave (at Kerameikos). The first is to have a set of good institutions; the second is to have a body of citizens who possess a good understanding of the principles of democracy, or who at least have developed a character consistent with the democratic way of life; the third is to have a high quality of leadership, at least at critical moments. (2021, July 29). The freedom we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. Thucydides' funeral speech about democracy delivered by Pericles. In these ways our city deserves to be admired (2.39). 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. Solon responded, Tellus of Athens, a name neither Croesus nor anyone else outside of Athens had ever heard. In 430429 B.C.E., a mysterious epidemic ravaged Athens, plunging the city into chaos. Pericles (l. 495-429 BCE) was a prominent Greek statesman, orator, and general during the Golden Age of Athens. To save chestnut trees, we may have to play God, Why you should add native plants to your garden, What you can do right now to advocate for the planet, Why poison ivy is an unlikely climate change winner. 2 Pages. Pericles' funeral oration is considered to be a valuable speech on the importance of democracy and a sneak peek into the way the people of Athens lived. Pericles begins by mentioning the struggles of the Athenian ancestors whom "after many a struggle transmitted to us their sons this great empire." . He perceives Athens as a city with virtue, modesty, and modernization. Most of those who have spoken here before me have commended the lawgiver who added this oration to our other funeral customs. His Alcmaeonid mother, Agariste, provided him with relationships of sharply diminishing political value and her family curse, a religious defilement that was occasionally used against him by his enemies. Political Aspects of the Classical Age of Greece, Most Important Figures in Ancient History, The Thirty Tyrants After the Peloponnesian War, M.A., Linguistics, University of Minnesota. Approaching 50, he began a relationship withAspasiaofMiletus. We can outline the ideology behind democracy from his speech. More fully, and therefore at greater length, Pericles did the same thing. 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. By John G. Zumbrunnen. Pericles Funeral Oration in Depth. He also said that the ability to govern and participate in government was more important than one's class. Pericles Pericles expands on his earlier point about Athenian democracy to establish that it is not just a system of government; it is the whole way of life for Athenians. "Pericles's Funeral Oration" (Ancient Greek: ) is a famous speech from Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. Although Thucydides records the speech in the first person as if it were a word for word record of what Pericles said, there can be little doubt that he edited the speech at the very least. "[14] Instead, Pericles proposes to focus on "the road by which we reached our position, the form of government under which our greatness grew, and the national habits out of which it sprang". Does eating close to bedtime make you gain weight? That is why Pericles could make this extraordinary demand on them when the great war came: You must every day look upon the power of your city and become her lovers [erastai] and when you have understood her greatness consider that the men who achieved it were brave and honorable and knew what was necessary when the time came for action. A democracy is a form of government that gives all the ability to participate, and according to Pericles everyone has a responsibility to take part. Socrates and Pericles, two of these philosophers, had polarizing opinions about the city-state and its citizens. Prior to the plague's devastation, Athenians were already dying as a result of the war. Silence and Democracy: Athenian Politics in Thucydides' History. But modern democracies are also more remote and indirect, less political in the ancient understanding of the term. The hostile descriptions emphasize its excessive commitment to equality, complaining of the absurdity of distributing offices by lot and the evils of payment for public service, but even more of the flaws in the democratic principle itself. She has been featured by NPR and National Geographic for her ancient history expertise. Pericles was born into the first generation able to use the new weapon of the popular vote against the old power of family politics. Plus: each Wednesday, exclusively for subscribers, the best books of the week. Spartas great reputation depended on its extraordinary military achievements, and these were attributed in turn to its religious piety, single-minded severe system of training, the tight discipline imposed on all aspects of life, and the ascetic Spartan mores. Gill, N.S. Thought is not a barrier to the achievement of heroic goals. While the theme of the History was the Greco-Persian Wars, Herodotuss purpose was far broader and enduring: in order that the deeds of men not be erased by time, and that the great and miraculous works not go unrecorded., Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic SocietyCopyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. But they surely reflected contemporary criticisms. He traveled the far reaches of the Persian Empire, recording his own personal inquiries (which he called autopsies), as well as the multitude of myths and local legends he heard along the way. Aside from its value as a study in political greatness, therefore, Pericles career offers instruction in how a new and fragile democracy can be brought to maturity. Please select which sections you would like to print: Professor of Ancient History, University of Oxford, 198594. ), who said he was quoting Pericles himself. Instead, we put our trust not in secret weapons, but in our own courage when we are called upon to act. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The most famous of these, Pericles' Funeral Speech, as recorded by Thucydides, is also the most instructive; its peculiarities of diction and its general tone, which is in conflict with Thucydides' own outlook, suggest that it is a fairly faithful reproduction of what Pericles . That development transformed the character of Athenian democracy and society; lower-class Athenians (called thetes) could now participate as fully as citizens with property. (Athens was only a democracy for adult, male citizens of Athenian descent, not for women or slaves, or for foreigners living under imperial rule.) The arrival of the Sophist philosophers in Athens occurred during his middle life, and he seems to have taken full advantage of the society of Zeno and particularly Anaxagoras, from whom he is said to have learned impassivity in the face of trouble and insult and skepticism about alleged divine phenomena. With the linkage of Athens' greatness complete, Pericles moves to addressing his audience. This newfound behavior may offer a clue to how these reptiles will respond to a warming planet. Twenty-five hundred years later we remember him and his fellow-Athenians precisely because of their devotion to this great civic endeavor. We say he has no business being here at all. But even in Herodotus tale such glory is for the rare individual who had both the ability and the opportunity to perform a great deed. This is no doubt in keeping with his principle of having the speakers in his history t& 6Eovta Eindtv, that is, speak those things that were suit-able for the occasion.1 For we know that the unwritten rules of the In the speech, Pericles, the first great statesman of the ancient world, says that he wished to focus on "the road by which we reached our position, the form of government under which our greatness grew, and the national habits out of which it sprang" in addition to praising the dead. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier outcome. [21] He praises the soldiers for not faltering in their execution during the war. He was so important to Athens that his name defines the Periclean age ("The Age of Pericles"), a period when Athens rebuilt what had been destroyed during the recent war with Persia (the Greco-Persian or Persian Wars). As Thucydides recounts Pericles claiming in a famous speech, "Our natural bravery springs from our way of life, not from the compulsion of laws.We are lovers of the beautiful, yet simple in our tastes, and we cultivate the arts without loss of manliness." Because as they are described by Pericles, Athenian citizens were distinct from the citizens of other nations they were open minded, tolerant, and ready to understand and follow orders. In a democracy, citizens behave lawfully while doing what they like without fear of prying eyes. The historian Thucydides admired him profoundly and refused to criticize him. The words of Pericles clearly show the praise for Athenian democracy and its superiority to others as a model. . It was a vision that exalted the individual within the political community not by what it gave him but by what it expected of him. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. The Acropolis looms over tourists in Athens. We thought we knew turtles. Pericles was among its victims. And they especially need leaders with the talents to persuade their impatient citizens that these political institutions are the necessary first foundation for a decent regime and a good life for all. 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. He advanced the foundations. It was an established Athenian practice by the late 5th centuryBCE to hold a public funeral in honour of all those who had died in war. 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. His father,Xanthippus, began his political career by a dynastic marriage to Agariste of the controversial Alcmaeonid family. When the Mytilenean poet Alcaeus was sent into exile the loss he complained of was not his house and fields but the scenes of political life: I yearn, Agesilaidas, to hear the herald summon the assembly and the council (Alcaeus, fragment 130). In what does happiness lie? For they gave their lives for the common good. Democracys critics also pointed to a perverted individualism that was called liberty but was really license and lawlessness. Neither rich man nor poor is prevented from taking part in politics by the pursuit of his economic interests, and the same people are concerned both with their own private business and with political matters; even those who turn their attention chiefly to their own affairs do not lack judgment about politics. Who buys lion bones? It limited the scope and power of the state, leaving enough space for individual freedom, privacy, and the human dignity of which they are a crucial part. They did not believe that man was entirely trivial, a mere bit of dust in the vast Cosmic order, such that his passing was a thing of no account. Its chief purpose, even more important than praising the dead, was to explain why they had been right to risk their lives and why the living should be willing to do likewise. These were evidence of his freedom and importance, and so a source of pride. The Spartan imposed a property qualification for participation in public life; any Athenian citizen could sit on juries or the council and vote and speak in the assembly. [20] He praised Athens for its attributes that stood out amongst their neighbours such as its democracy when he elaborates that trust is justly placed on the citizens rather than relying only on the system and the policy of the city. 6th ed., vol. [10] David Cartwright describes it as "a eulogy of Athens itself". From time to time the helots would break out in revolt, threatening the very existence of Sparta. But we have these speeches because Thucydides reported them, and his subject was war. [21] He explained that fighting for one's country was a great honour, and that it was like wearing a cloak that concealed any negative implications because his imperfections would be outweighed by his merits as a citizen. Knowledge of the life of Pericles derives largely from two sources. They respected the warrior class and placed them among the top member of the society. he sponsored the play Persians by the great tragic playwright Aeschylus. Pericles first made a name for himself in the city-state during his 20s as a wealthy aristocratic arts patron. Details about the nature and name of this disease are unknown, but a recent best guess is Typhoid Fever. 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 met both challenges by adapting the first to his own purposes and by rejecting the latter as inferior to the new society he had introduced in Athens. Nobody knows what the plague was, although classically minded epidemiologists still debate its cause. In the realm of private disputes everyone is equal before the law, but when it is a matter of public honors each man is preferred not on the basis of his class but of his good reputation and his merit [arete]. Work began in 447 B.C. A correct assessment is vital for understanding Pericles, but explanations vary considerably; some argue that Pericles was merely forging a low-level political weapon for use against Cimon, who had a foreign mother. "Pericles' Funeral Oration - Thucydides' Version." Under his leadership Atheniandemocracyand the Athenian empire flourished, makingAthensthe political and cultural focus of Greece between the Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian wars. It is from the greatest dangers that the greatest glories are to be won, he stated in front of the assembly. Concentrating on each translator's rendering of one of the most frequently cited passages in Thucydides' History (the so-called "funeral oration" given by Pericles in Book 2), Lianeri's central aim is to show how each of these interpretations was shaped by changes in attitudes towards the concept of . He gave this speech during a funeral for Athenian soldiers that died in the first year of the brutal Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) against Sparta . .he may not wander about comfortably acting like someone with a clean reputation or else he is beaten by his betters. An understanding of that reality should give pause to any who may think that democracy is the natural polity of mankind and that its establishment and success are assured once despotic or reactionary rule has been removed. But archaeology is confirming that Persia's engineering triumph was real. It rejected the leveling principle pursued by both ancient Sparta and modern socialism, which requires the suppression of those rights. 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. Instead, survivors looked for already burning funeral pyres, adding friends and relatives to the blaze. Leading up to this oration, the people of Athens, including those from the countryside whose land was being pillaged by their enemies, were kept in crowded conditions within the walls of Athens. Even more simply, it is a democracy because while Athenians "are free and tolerant in our private lives, in public affairs we keep to the law. In the few of his speeches we have, Pericles spoke chiefly of the empire and military glory, and these were certainly important values to him and the Athenians. From artistry to politics, ancient Greece left a considerable impression on world history. 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. . He further says that democracy guarantees privacy and equal justice for all. His approach was an unusual way to give a funeral oration, and as such it has been immortalized and is still deeply valued. Athens is a major Greek city-state in European history. To help make his point he stated that the soldiers whom he was speaking of gave their lives to a cause to protect the city of Athens, and its freedom. It depends. Here, front-line workers grapple with their anxieties about how the coronavirus has affected their city. Monarchy and different forms of despotism, on the other hand, have gone on for millennia. . (2 43. l-2). 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 . Pericles also elevated Athenss role within the Delian League, a naval alliance of Greek city-states unified to fight the Persians. A new discovery raises a mystery. 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. That Pericles skull was of unusual shape seems well attested, but one can hardly speculate about the possible psychological consequences. Introduction to the Funeral Oration. They need leaders who understand that individual freedom, self-government, and equality before the law are of the highest value in themselves. The surge in mail-in voting this year has protected people from the coronavirus, but it has also highlighted problems in the nations patchwork, underfunded election system. .But in Sparta anyone would be ashamed to dine or to wrestle with a coward. . Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2023 National Geographic Partners, LLC. In 461 B.C., he joined the reformer Ephialtes in organizing a vote in the popular assembly that stripped all remaining powers from the Areopagus, the old noble council. By sharing in the common responsibility he was able to develop powers and aspects of himself that allowed him to become more fully human than he could have on his own. An even greater substitution for the glories of war could be found in the exercise by each Athenian of his political duties. Ancient Philosophy. Rats invaded paradise. Athens was one of the most important and powerful cities in the ancient world. The speech begins by praising the custom of the public funeral for the dead, but criticises the inclusion of the speech, arguing that the "reputations of many brave men" should "not be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual". Pericles was not the founder or inventor of democracy, but he came to its leadership only a half-century after its invention, when it was still fragile. Had he quoted the speech verbatim, he would have written "" ("this", or "these words") instead of "" ("like this" or "words like these"). 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. If they ever failed in some attempt, they were determined that, at least, their city should not be deprived of their courage [arete] and gave her the most beautiful of all offerings. They excluded money, the arts and sciences, philosophy, aesthetic pleasures, and the life of the mind in general, for all these things might foster individualism and detract from devotion to the polis. . If the newly free nations see democracy chiefly as a quick route to material well-being and equal distribution of wealth, they will be badly disappointed, and democracy will fail. The Athenians prized thought, deliberation, and discussion. Athens lost its first citizen, but his legacy endures in the Athens skyline and in democratic institutions around the world. By rewarding merit, it avoided the unnatural leveling that is the hallmark of tyranny and encouraged the individual achievement and excellence that makes life sweet and raises the quality of life for everyone. Pericles' Ideology of Democratic Society. The bustling main thoroughfare was the Panathenaic Way. At any rate, Pericles eventually succumbed to and died from this plague. Instead, they thought man was of the same race as the gods, a creature capable of extraordinary achievements. ThoughtCo. That Pericles immediately succeeded the assassinated Ephialtes as head of the democratic party in 461 is an ancient oversimplification; there were other men of considerable weight in Athens in the next 15 years. 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. This famous speech was given by the Athenian leader Pericles after the first battles of the Peloponnesian war. In fact, Pericles sees Athens as having the ultimate possible government; the one best conducive to freedom, liberty, courage, honor, and justice - the values most honored by the Athenians. Although all the men of the Spartiate class were called homoioi (peers), the kings had special privileges, and there was a class of noblemen distinct from the others. ", This page was last edited on 21 March 2023, at 06:49. In 431, shortly after the Peloponnesian War had broken out . 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. Democracy allows men to advance because of merit rather than wealth or inherited class. The image and example of the prosperous, free nations of the world, conveyed to their people by modern technology, has meanwhile raised material expectations to unrealistic levels. In 430-429 B.C.E., Athens was devastated by a mysterious epidemic, which reared its head again a few years. The Athenians excluded women, children, resident aliens, and slaves from political life, but the principle of equality within the political community that they invented was the seed of the modern idea of universal egalitarianism that flowered during the French Enlightenment.

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