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Parthenon Texts
Periclean Building Campaign
Thucydides, The Peloponesian War 1.10.2: For I suppose if Sparta were
to become desolate, and the temples and the foundations of the public buildings
were left, that as time went on there would be a strong disposition with posterity
to refuse to accept her fame as a true exponent of her power. And yet they occupy
two-fifths of Peloponnese and lead the whole, not to speak of their numerous
allies without. Still, as the city is neither built in a compact form nor adorned
with magnificent temples and public edifices, but composed of villages after
the old fashion of Hellas, there would be an impression of inadequacy. Whereas,
if Athens were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose that any inference from
the appearance presented to the eye would make her power to have been twice
as great as it is.
Plutarch, Life of Pericles
12 & 13 [1] But that which brought most delightful adornment to Athens,
and the greatest amazement to the rest of mankind; that which alone now testifies
for Hellas that her ancient power and splendor, of which so much is told, was
no idle fiction, I mean his construction of sacred edifices, this,
more than all the public measures of Pericles, his enemies maligned and slandered.
They cried out in the assemblies: The people has lost its fair fame and
is in ill repute because it has removed the public moneys of the Hellenes from
Delos into its own keeping, [2] and that seemliest of all excuses which it had
to urge against its accusers, to wit, that out of fear of the Barbarians it
took the public funds from that sacred isle and was now guarding them in a stronghold,
of this Pericles has robbed it. And surely Hellas is insulted with a dire insult
and manifestly subjected to tyranny when she sees that, with her own enforced
contributions for the war, we are gilding and bedizening our city, which, for
all the world like a wanton woman, adds to her wardrobe precious stones and
costly statues and temples worth their millions.
[3] For his part, Pericles would instruct the people that it owed no account
of their moneys to the allies provided it carried on the war for them and kept
off the Barbarians; not a horse do they furnish, said he, not
a ship, not a hoplite, but money simply; and this belongs, not to those who
give it, but to those who take it, if only they furnish that for which they
take it in pay. [4] And it is but meet that the city, when once she is sufficiently
equipped with all that is necessary for prosecuting the war, should apply her
abundance to such works as, by their completion, will bring her everlasting
glory, and while in process of completion will bring that abundance into actual
service, in that all sorts of activity and diversified demands arise, which
rouse every art and stir every hand, and bring, as it were, the whole city under
pay, so that she not only adorns, but supports herself as well from her own
resources.
[5] And it was true that his military expeditions supplied those who were in
the full vigor of manhood with abundant resources from the common funds, and
in his desire that the unwarlike throng of common laborers should neither have
no share at all in the public receipts, nor yet get fees for laziness and idleness,
he boldly suggested to the people projects for great constructions, and designs
for works which would call many arts into play and involve long periods of time,
in order that the stay-at-homes, no whit less than the sailors and sentinels
and soldiers, might have a pretext for getting a beneficial share of the public
wealth.
[6] The materials to be used were stone, bronze, ivory, gold, ebony, and cypress-wood;
the arts which should elaborate and work up these materials were those of carpenter,
moulder, bronze-smith, stone-cutter, dyer, worker in gold and ivory, painter,
embroiderer, embosser, to say nothing of the forwarders and furnishers of the
material, such as factors, sailors and pilots by sea, [7] and, by land, wagon-makers,
trainers of yoked beasts, and drivers. There were also rope-makers, weavers,
leather-workers, road-builders, and miners. And since each particular art, like
a general with the army under his separate command, kept its own throng of unskilled
and untrained laborers in compact array, to be as instrument unto player and
as body unto soul in subordinate service, it came to pass that for every age,
almost, and every capacity the city's great abundance was distributed and scattered
abroad by such demands.
[1] So then the works arose, no less towering in their grandeur than inimitable
in the grace of their outlines, since the workmen eagerly strove to surpass
themselves in the beauty of their handicraft. And yet the most wonderful thing
about them was the speed with which they rose. Each one of them, men thought,
would require many successive generations to complete it, but all of them were
fully completed in the heyday of a single administration.
[2] And yet they say that once on a time when Agatharchus the painter was boasting
loudly of the speed and ease with which he made his figures, Zeuxis heard him,
and said, Mine take, and last, a long time. And it is true that
deftness and speed in working do not impart to the work an abiding weight of
influence nor an exactness of beauty; whereas the time which is put out to loan
in laboriously creating, pays a large and generous interest in the preservation
of the creation.
[3] For this reason are the works of Pericles all the more to be wondered at;
they were created in a short time for all time. Each one of them, in its beauty,
was even then and at once antique; but in the freshness of its vigor it is,
even to the present day, recent and newly wrought. Such is the bloom of perpetual
newness, as it were, upon these works of his, which makes them ever to look
untouched by time, as though the unfaltering breath of an ageless spirit had
been infused into them.
4] His general manager and general overseer was Pheidias, although the several
works had great architects and artists besides. Of the Parthenon, for instance,
with its cella of a hundred feet in length, Callicrates and Ictinus were the
architects; it was Coroebus who began to build the sanctuary of the mysteries
at Eleusis, and he planted the columns on the floor and yoked their capitals
together with architraves; but on his death Metagenes, of the deme Xypete, carried
up the frieze and the upper tier of columns;[5] while Xenocles, of the deme
Cholargus, set on high the lantern over the shrine. 41 For the long wall, concerning
which Socrates says* he himself heard Pericles introduce a measure, Callicrates
was the contractor. Cratinus pokes fun at this work for its slow progress, and
in these words:
Since ever so long now
In word has Pericles pushed the thing; in fact he does not budge it.*
7] The Propylaea of the acropolis were brought to completion in the space of
five years, Mnesicles being their architect. A wonderful thing happened in the
course of their building, which indicated that the goddess was not holding herself
aloof, but was a helper both in the inception and in the completion of the work.
[8] One of its artificers, the most active and zealous of them all, lost his
footing and fell from a great height, and lay in a sorry plight, despaired of
by the physicians. Pericles was much cast down at this, but the goddess appeared
to him in a dream and prescribed a course of treatment for him to use, so that
he speedily and easily healed the man. It was in commemoration of this that
he set up the bronze statue of Athena Hygieia on the acropolis near the altar
of that goddess, which was there before, as they say.
[9] But it was Pheidias who produced the great golden image of the goddess,
and he is duly inscribed on the tablet as the workman who made it. Everything,
almost, was under his charge, and all the artists and artisans, as I have said,
were under his superintendence, owing to his friendship with Pericles. This
brought envy upon the one, and contumely on the other, to the effect that Pheidias
made assignations for Pericles with free-born women who would come ostensibly
to see the works of art.
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, 31: [2] But the worst charge
of all, and yet the one which has the most vouchers, runs something like this.
Pheidias the sculptor was contractor for the great statue, as I have said, and
being admitted to the friendship of Pericles, and acquiring the greatest influence
with him, made some enemies through the jealousy which he excited; others also
made use of him to test the people and see what sort of a judge it would be
in a case where Pericles was involved. These latter persuaded one Menon, an
assistant of Pheidias, to take a suppliant's seat in the market-place and demand
immunity from punishment in case he should bring information and accusation
against Pheidias. [3] The people accepted the man's proposal, and formal prosecution
of Pheidias was made in the assembly. Embezzlement, indeed, was not proven,
for the gold of the statue, from the very start, had been so wrought upon and
cast about it by Pheidias, at the wise suggestion of Pericles, that it could
all be taken off and weighed,* and this is what Pericles actually ordered the
accusers of Pheidias to do at this time. [4] But the reputation of his works
nevertheless brought a burden of jealous hatred upon Pheidias, and especially
the fact that when he wrought the battle of the Amazons on the shield of the
goddess, he carved out a figure that suggested himself as a bald old man lifting
on high a stone with both hands, and also inserted a very fine likeness of Pericles
fighting with an Amazon. And the attitude of the hand, which holds out a spear
in front of the face of Pericles, is cunningly contrived as it were with a desire
to conceal the resemblance, which is, however, plain to be seen from either
side. [5] Pheidias, accordingly, was led away to prison, and died there of sickness;
but some say of poison which the enemies of Pericles provided, that they might
bring calumny upon him. And to Menon the informer, on motion of Glycon, the
people gave immunity from taxation, and enjoined upon the generals to make provision
for the man's safety.
Statue of Athena Parthenos
Modern Reconstruction of the Athena Parthenos
Varvakeion Athena (2nd century copy of the Athena Parthenos)
Pausanias, I, 24.5-7:As you enter the temple that they name the Parthenon, all the sculptures you see on what is called the pediment refer to the birth of Athena, those on the rear pediment represent the contest for the land between Athena and Poseidon. The statue itself is made of ivory and gold. On the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness of the Sphinx the tale of the Sphinx I will give when I come to my description of Boeotia and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief. [6] These griffins, Aristeas of Proconnesus says in his poem, fight for the gold with the Arimaspi beyond the Issedones. The gold which the griffins guard, he says, comes out of the earth; the Arimaspi are men all born with one eye; griffins are beasts like lions, but with the beak and wings of an eagle. I will say no more about the griffins. [7] The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of Victory about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a serpent. This serpent would be Erichthonius*. On the pedestal is the birth of Pandora in relief. Hesiod and others have sung how this Pandora** was the first woman; before Pandora was born there was as yet no womankind.
*Erichthonius: said to be the son of Hephaestus and the Earth (i.e. aboriginal). He was the father of the legendary king of Athens, Erechtheus.
**Pandora: on Zeus's command Hephaestus fashions Pandora, the first woman, out of clay. Athena breathed life into her, and the other gods endowered her with every charm (whence her name, "all gifts"). She brought with her a box from which when opened there issued all the evils and distempers that have since afflicted the human race.
Reconstruction of the Zeus by Phidias for the Temple of Zeus at Olympia
Pliny, Natural History, 36, 18: That Pheidias is extremely famous among all peoples who appreciate the reputation of his Zeus at Olympia, nobody doubts, but in order that those who have not seen his works may know that he is justly praised, I will offer some small points of evidence to prove who great his inventiveness was. To do this, I shall neither use as proof the beauty of the Zeus at Olympia, nor the size of the Athena which he made at Athens (since she is 26 cubits hight and is make of ivory and gold), but rather I shall use the battle of the Amazons which is carved in a circular pattern on the convex side of her shield; likewise on the concave side of it he represented the struggle of the gods and giants, and on her sandals that of the Lapiths and Centaurs, so fully did every part offer the opportunity for the application of his art. On the base is carved the scene which they call the birth of Pandora, with twenty gods present at the birth. The Victory is especially marvellous but experts admire the serpent and also the bronze sphinx which is placed below the point of her spear.
Funeral Orations
The funeral oration represents a particular genre of public speech made popular by Pericles. Honoring the dead of a recent conflict, the orator was called upon to put the deaths in the context of Athenian history, and to give significance to the sacrifice of the fallen warriors. Although written well after the completion of the Parthenon, the themes included can be traced back to fifth century ideas.
Pericles, Funeral Oration as recorded in Thucydides, Book 2:
[8] Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus,
was chosen to pronounce their eulogium. When the proper time arrived, he advanced
from the sepulchre to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of
the crowd as possible, and spoke as follows:
35: [1] Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made
this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered
at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought
that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds, would be sufficiently rewarded
by honors also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared
at the people's cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave
men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand
or fall according as he spoke well or ill.
[2] For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult
to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the
friend who is familiar with every fact of the story, may think that some point
has not been set forth with that fulness which he wishes and knows it to deserve;
on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect
exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to
hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of
their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed,
envy comes in and with it incredulity.
[3] However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval,
it becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes
and opinions as best I may.
36: [1] I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they
should have the honor of the first mention on an occasion like the present.
They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to
generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valor.
[2] And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers,
who added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no
pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation.
[3] Lastly, there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented
by those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigor of life; while
the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable
her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for peace.
[4] That part of our history which tells of the military achievements which
gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valor with which either we
or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme
too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it
by. But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of
government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of which
it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to
my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which on
the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage,
whether citizens or foreigners, may listen with advantage.
37: [1] Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are
rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors
the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look
to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences;
if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity,
class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does
poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered
by the obscurity of his condition.
[2] The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary
life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we
do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes,
or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive,
although they inflict no positive penalty.
[3] But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens.
Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates
and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether
they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although
unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.
38: [1] Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from
business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance
of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to
banish the spleen;
[2] while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our
harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of over countries are as familiar
a luxury as those of his own.
39: [1] If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from antagonists.
We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners
from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy
may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy
than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals
from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens
we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate
danger.
[2] 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 neighbor, and fighting upon a foreign
soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes.
[3] Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have
at once to attend to our marine and to despatch 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.
[4] And yet if with habits not of labor 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.
40: 1] 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.
[2] 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.
[3] 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.
[4] In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring
not by receiving favors. Yet, of course, the doer of the favor 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.
[5] And it is only the Athenians who, fearless of consequences, confer their
benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.
41: 1] 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.
[2] 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.
[3] 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.
[4] 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.
[5] 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 well every one of their
survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.
42: [1] 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.
[2] 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 at 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 the 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.
[3] 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.
[4] 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 dishonor, 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.
43:[1] So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine
to have as unaltering 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 honor 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 valor, but they laid
it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer.
[2] 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 fall for its commemoration.
[3] 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.
[4] These take as your model, and judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom
and freedom of valor, never decline the dangers of war.
[5] 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.
[6] 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!
44:[1] 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.
[2] 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.
[3] 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.
[4] 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 honor that never grows old; and honor it is, not gain, as
some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.
45:[1] 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 honored with a goodwill
into which rivalry does not enter.
[2] 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.
46:[1] My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability,
and in words, 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 honors
already, and I 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 valor, for the reward both of those who have fallen
and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are
found the best citizens.
[2] And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives,
you may depart.
Demosthenes ((384-322.B.C.) has been recognized as one of the greatest of the
Attic orators), Funeral Oration, 60, 4-8: [4] The nobility of birth of
these men has been acknowledged from time immemorial by all mankind. For it
is possible for them and for each one of their remote ancestors man by man to
trace back their being, not only to a physical father, but also to this land
of theirs as a whole, a common possession, of which they are acknowledged to
be the indigenous children. For alone of all mankind they settled the very land
from which they were born and handed it down to their descendants, so that justly
one may assume that those who came as migrants into their cities and are denominated
citizens of the same are comparable to adopted children; but these men are citizens
of their native land by right of legitimate birth.
[5] In my view also the fact that the fruits of the earth by which men live
were first manifest among us, even apart from their being a superlative boon
to all men, constitutes an acknowledged proof that this land is the mother of
our ancestors. For all things that bring forth young produce at the same time
nutriment out of the organism itself for those that are born. This very thing
has been done by this land.
[6] Such is the pride of birth that belongs to the ancestors of these men throughout
the ages. As for Courage and the other elements of virtue, I shrink from rehearsing
the whole story, being on my guard for fear an untimely length shall attach
to my speech , but such facts as it is worth while even for those who are familiar
with them to recall to mind and most profitable for the inexperienced to hear,
events of great power to inspire and calling for no tedious length of speech,
these I shall endeavor to rehearse in summary fashion.
[7] For the ancestors of this present generation, both their fathers and those
who bore the names of these men in time past, by which they are recognized by
those of our race, never at any time wronged any man, whether Greek or barbarian,
but it was their pride, in addition to all their other good qualities, to be
true gentlemen and supremely just, and in defending themselves they accomplished
a long list of noble deeds.
[8] They so prevailed over the invading host of the Amazons as to expel them
beyond the Phasis, and the host of Eumolpus and of many another foeman they
drove not only out of their own land but also from the lands of all the other
Greeks invaders whom all those dwelling on our front to the westward
neither withstood nor possessed the power to halt.
Lysias, Funeral Oration, 2, 17 : [17] Now in many ways it was natural
to our ancestors, moved by a single resolve, to fight the battles of justice:
for the very beginning of their life was just. They had not been collected,
like most nations, from every quarter, and had not settled in a foreign land
after driving out its people: they were born of the soil, and possessed in one
and the same country their mother and their fatherland. [18] They were the first
and the only people in that time to drive out the ruling classes of their state
and to establish a democracy, believing the liberty of all to be the strongest
bond of agreement; by sharing with each other the hopes born of their perils
they had freedom of soul in, their civic life, [19] and used law for honoring
the good and punishing the evil. For they deemed that it was the way of wild
beasts to be held subject to one another by force, but the duty of men to delimit
justice by law, to convince by reason, and to serve these two in act by submitting
to the sovereignty of law and the instruction of reason.
[20] For indeed, being of noble stock and having minds as noble, the ancestors
of those who lie here achieved many noble and admirable things; but ever memorable
and mighty are the trophies that their descendants have everywhere left behind
them owing to their valor. For they alone risked their all in defending the
whole of Greece against many myriads of the barbarians.
[21] For the King of Asia, not content with the wealth that he had already,
but hoping to enslave Europe as well, dispatched an army of five hundred thousand.
These, supposing that, if they obtained the willing friendship of this city
or overwhelmed its resistance, they would easily dominate the rest of the Greeks,
landed at Marathon, thinking that we should be most destitute of allies if they
made their venture at a moment when Greece was in dissension as to the best
means of repelling the invaders.
22] Besides, from the former actions of our city they had conceived a particular
opinion of her: they thought that if they attacked another city first, they
would be at war with it and Athens as well, for she would be zealous in coming
to succor her injured neighbors; but if they made their way here first, no Greeks
elsewhere would dare attempt the deliverance of others, and for their sake incur
the open hostility of the foreigners.
[23] These, then, were the motives of the foe. But our ancestors, without stopping
to calculate the hazards of the war, but holding that a glorious death leaves
behind it a deathless account of deeds well done, had no fear of the multitude
of their adversaries, but rather had confidence in their own valor. And feeling
ashamed that the barbarians were in their country, they did not wait till their
allies should be informed and come to their support; rather than have to thank
others for their salvation, they chose that the rest of the Greeks should have
to thank them.
[24] With this one resolve in the minds of all, they marched to the encounter,
though few against many: for death, in their opinion, was a thing for them to
share with all men, but prowess with a few; and while they possessed their lives,
because of mortality, as alien things, they would leave behind something of
their own in the memory attached to their perils. And they deemed that a victory
which they could not win alone would be as impossible with the aid of their
allies. If vanquished, they would perish a little before the others; if victorious,
they would liberate the others with themselves.
[25] They proved their worth as men, neither sparing their limbs nor cherishing
their lives when valor called, and had more reverence for their city's laws
than fear of their perils in face of the enemy; and so in their own land they
set up on behalf of Greece a trophy of victory over the barbarians, who had
invaded others' territory for money, [26] past the frontiers of their land;
and so swiftly did they surmount their ordeal that by the same messengers information
reached the other Greeks both of the barbarians' arrival here and of our ancestors'
triumph. For indeed none of the other Greeks knew fear for the peril to come;
they only heard the news and rejoiced over their own liberation. No wonder,
then, that these deeds performed long ago should be as though they were new,
and that even to this day the valor of that band should be envied by all mankind.
[27] Thereafter Xerxes, King of Asia, who had held Greece in contempt, but had
been deceived in his hopes, who was dishonored by the event, galled by the disaster,
and angered against its authors, and who was unused to ill-hap and unacquainted
with true men, in ten years' time prepared for war and came with twelve hundred
ships; and the land army that he brought was so immense in numbers that to enumerate
even the nations that followed in his train would be a lengthy task.
Sophocles, Antigone:
Chorus
[332] Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man. [335] This power
spans the sea, even when it surges white before the gales of the south-wind,
and makes a path under swells that threaten to engulf him. Earth, too, the eldest
of the gods, the immortal, the unwearied, [340] he wears away to his own ends,
turning the soil with the offspring of horses as the plows weave to and fro
year after year. [343] The light-hearted tribe of birds [345] and the clans
of wild beasts and the sea-brood of the deep he snares in the meshes of his
twisted nets, and he leads them captive, very-skilled man. He masters by his
arts [350] the beast who dwells in the wilds and roams the hills. He tames the
shaggy-maned horse, putting the yoke upon its neck, and tames the tireless mountain
bull. [354] Speech and thought fast as the [355] wind and the moods that give
order to a city he has taught himself, and how to flee the arrows of the inhospitable
frost under clear skies and the arrows of the storming rain. [360] He has resource
for everything. Lacking resource in nothing he strides towards what must come.
From Death alone he shall procure no escape, but from baffling diseases he has
devised flights. [365] Possessing resourceful skill, a subtlety beyond expectation
he moves now to evil, now to good. When he honors the laws of the land and the
justice of the gods to which he is bound by oath, [370] his city prospers. But
banned from his city is he who, thanks to his rashness, couples with disgrace.
Never may he share my home, [375] never think my thoughts, who does these things!