Excerpted from Book 2 of Thucydides' Peloponnesian War  on-line at:

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2.34 In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to those
who had first fallen in this war. [2]  It was a custom of their ancestors, and
the manner of it is as follows. Three days before the ceremony, the bones of
the dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected; and their friends
bring to their relatives such offerings as they please. [3]  In the funeral
procession cypress coffins are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones
of the deceased being placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these is
carried one empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose
bodies could not be recovered. [4]  Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins in
the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the burial.
[5]  The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the Beautiful suburb of the
city, in which those who fall in war are always buried; with the exception
of those slain at Marathon, who for their singular and extraordinary valour
were interred on the spot where they fell. [6]  After the bodies have been laid
in the earth, a man chosen by the state, of approved wisdom and eminent
reputation, pronounces over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all
retire. [7]  Such is the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the
war, whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed.
[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 "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 honours 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 fullness 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  "I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they
should have the honour 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 valour. [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 vigour 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 valour 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 "Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are
rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration
favours 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 no 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 neighbour 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 "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 harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of
other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.
 

39 "If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our
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 neighbour, 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 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. [4]  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.
 

40 "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.
[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,
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. [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 "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 every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.
 

42 "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 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. [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 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.
 

43 "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. [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 call 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 valour, 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 "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 honour that never grows
old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the
heart of age and helplessness.
 

45 "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. [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  "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 where the rewards for merit are
greatest, there are found the best citizens.
"And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your
relatives, you may depart."