(494–429 BC) stands at the front, if not necessarily at the top, of the history of rhetoric. Thucydides, who bequeaths us our knowledge of Pericles, rated him the finest speaker of his time, one of the few men in whose hands democracy, an otherwise dangerous creed, was safe. The Funeral Oration is the source of Pericles’ reputation as, in a phrase from Thucydides, ‘the first man among the Athenians’.
A general, an orator and a patron of the arts, Pericles was the guiding spirit of Athens from c.460 to 429 BC, the period in which the city was rebuilt after the destruction of war with Persia. The Parthenon was built on the Acropolis and Athens was established as the artistic and cultural centre of the Hellenic world. Pericles was a reformer. His introduction of payment for public service permitted many more members of the Athenian demos to take part in public affairs. But the judgement of Thucydides describes the paradox of Pericles as a democrat. Pericles is not the kind of democrat who would be so defined according to a modern sensibility. His very pre-eminence has a monarchical aspect in tension with the spirit of democratic politics. So does his support for Athenian imperialism and his proposal that citizenship should be limited only to those who could show that both parents had been citizens. We also need to be careful not to make a fetish of the word democracy. Citizenship in ancient Greece was denied to women and slaves, and not all free men had a vote in the assembly. When Pericles invokes the idea of the people he does not mean to include them all, or even half of them.
It is to Thucydides that we owe the text of the Funeral Oration. It is all but certain that this extract from the History of the Peloponnesian War differs from the words Pericles actually spoke. Quite how much the two diverge we cannot know, despite healthy scholarly disputes about the issue. It is likely that Thucydides was a witness to the speech, but he casts doubt on his own fidelity to the original when he writes: ‘I have found it difficult to remember the precise words used in the speeches which I listened to myself … so my method has been, while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, to make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation.’ What we have is Thucydides remembering, no doubt improvising, perhaps improving, Pericles.
We can be more certain that the oration was given at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War (c.431 BC) to honour the fallen, as part of the annual public funeral for the state’s war dead. Rather like Donald Trump today, Thucydides makes much of the size of the audience, perhaps to stress the vital importance of the occasion. It is also recorded that Pericles delivered the speech on a rostrum built high, so that his declamation could carry. It was to be his final testament as an orator: not long after the Funeral Oration a plague swept the city and took Pericles with it. His words, though, have lived on, and as we have seen, their echoes ring in the speeches of American presidents in a new republic more than two millennia later.
Most of those who have spoken here before me have commended the lawgiver who added this oration to our other funeral customs. It seemed to them a worthy thing that such an honour should be given at their burial to the dead who have fallen on the field of battle. But I should have preferred that, when men’s deeds have been brave, they should be honoured in deed only, and with such an honour as this public funeral, which you are now witnessing. Then the reputation of many would not have been imperilled on the eloquence or want of eloquence of one, and their virtues believed or not as he spoke well or ill. For it is difficult to say neither too little nor too much; and even moderation is apt not to give the impression of truthfulness. The friend of the dead who knows the facts is likely to think that the words of the speaker fall short of his knowledge and of his wishes; another who is not so well informed, when he hears of anything that surpasses his own powers, will be envious and will suspect exaggeration. Mankind are tolerant of the praises of others so long as each hearer thinks that he can do as well or nearly as well himself, but, when the speaker rises above him, jealousy is aroused and he begins to be incredulous. However, since our ancestors have set the seal of their approval upon the practice, I must obey, and to the utmost of my power shall endeavour to satisfy the wishes and beliefs of all who hear me.
Pericles begins with a lament about the need for rhetoric. It would be preferable, he says, convincing nobody, if the dead could be honoured without the requirement for high-sounding testimony. It would, of course, be better if the dead could speak for themselves. In their absence Pericles, will do his best to rise to the occasion which is imperilled, he says, by the reliance on a single orator.
The funeral oration had become a familiar ritual in Greece by the late fifth century. The remains of the dead were left out for three days in a tent where offerings could be made. A funeral procession followed, with ten cypress coffins carrying the remains, one for each of the nine Athenian tribes and one for the remains of the unidentified. Any citizen was free to join the procession. A public sepulchre in the city’s most beautiful suburb was reserved for those who fell in war. At the graveside, an orator, described by Thucydides as ‘of approved wisdom and eminent reputation’, delivered the eulogy.
The ritual created a civic unity which it was the task of the orator to express. A speech is always a ritual that enacts a moment, even before a word is spoken. In an era in which reports from the battlefield were distant and unreliable, the funeral oration created a single experience of the war for the assembled citizens. It became the sanctioned memory of the war. Pericles is writing history up on the rostrum even before Thucydides adds his second draft.
He does so with a form that has grown familiar. This is a variation on the theme of ‘Words cannot express …’ But words have to express. That’s all the orator is there for. Thus, Pericles is to be taken seriously but not literally. Like Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, he is feigning an inability to find words that have the weight to capture the moment. It’s a conceit, of course. If Pericles really thought he couldn’t meet the moment he wouldn’t – he shouldn’t – have taken the gig. But he did; he couldn’t resist.
I will speak first of our ancestors, for it is right and seemly that now, when we are lamenting the dead, a tribute should be paid to their memory. There has never been a time when they did not inhabit this land, which by their valour they will have handed down from generation to generation, and we have received from them a free state. But if they were worthy of praise, still more were our fathers, who added to their inheritance, and after many a struggle transmitted to us their sons this great empire. And we ourselves assembled here today, who are still most of us in the vigour of life, have carried the work of improvement further, and have richly endowed our city with all things, so that she is sufficient for herself both in peace and war. Of the military exploits by which our various possessions were acquired, or of the energy with which we or our fathers drove back the tide of war, Hellenic or barbarian, I will not speak; for the tale would be long and is familiar to you. But before I praise the dead, I should like to point out by what principles of action we rose to power, and under what institutions and through what manner of life our empire became great. For I conceive that such thoughts are not unsuited to the occasion, and that this numerous assembly of citizens and strangers may profitably listen to them.
Having merely gestured towards the habitual routine of a funeral oration, Pericles then affronts convention. He does pay perfunctory tribute to the ancestral heritage of contemporary Athenians and to the acquisition of empire, but then he changes course. Military valour, the usual subject of such an occasion, he dismisses as a theme too familiar to dwell upon. There is more than a little political calculation in this manoeuvre. The war is not going well. The early results are disappointing, and Pericles is using the speech to see off his enemies.
The privilege of speaking uninterrupted at the commemoration of the war dead is an opportunity too good for a politician of his stature to miss. Pericles had promised that the war would bring glory, and glory so far had been conspicuously absent. This explains why he dares instead to shift the focus to the form of government that the city enjoys.
This is a signal moment. Rhetoric and democracy fuse in this argument. The fact that Pericles needs an
