After the first year of the war between Athens and Sparta (431 B.C.), Pericles, the democratically elected leader, delivered his famous Funeral Oration in honour of the Athenians who had already died in the war. Here it is, in part, as recorded by Thucydides, the historian, who also had high praise for Athenian democracy:
Let me say that our system of government does not copy
the institutions of our neighbours. It
is more the case of our being a model to others, than of imitating anyone
else. Our constitution is called a
democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole
people. When it is a question of
settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law, when it is a
question of putting one person before another in positions of public
responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the
actual ability which the man possesses.
No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is
kept in political obscurity because of poverty.
And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day
life in our relations with each other.
We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbours if he enjoys
himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which,
though they do no real harm, still do hurt people’s feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private
lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.
…
Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to
extravagance; our love of things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly
used, rather than as something to boast about.
As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is
not taking practical measures to escape from it. Here each individual is interested not only
in his own affairs but the affairs of state as well: even those who are mostly
occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general
politics – this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no
interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say he has no
business here at all. We Athenians, in
our own persons, take our decisions on policy or submit them to proper
discussions: for we do not think that there is an incompatibility between words
and deeds; the worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have
been properly debated. …
We make friends by doing good to others, not by receiving
good from them. This makes our
friendship all the more reliable, since we want to keep alive the gratitude of
those who are in our debt by showing continued goodwill to them: whereas the
feelings of those who owes us something lack the same enthusiasm, since he
knows that, when he repays our kindness, it will be more like paying back a
debt than giving something spontaneously.
We are unique in this. When we do
kindnesses to others, we do not do them out of any calculations of profit or
loss: we do them without afterthought, relying on our free liberality. Taking everything together then, I declare
that our city is an education to Greece, and I declare that in my opinion each
single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life, is able to
show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person …[1]
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (431 BC)
[1]
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, tr. Rex Warner, intro. M.I.
Finley (London: Penguin, 1972), pp. 145, 147.
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