24 May 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 (THUCYDIDES)
[…]‘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. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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 […]?
Pericles’ Epitaph
Thucydides, II.35-36
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