On Being Declared Guilty

Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

(399 B.C.)

Born about 470 B.C., died in 399; for a time followed his father’s art as a sculptor; served in three campaigns; President of the Pyrtanes in 406 and opposed the Thirty Tyrants; his philosophical precepts, as those of the wisest man of his time, known to us only in the writings of his disciple, Plato.



THAT I should not be grieved, O Athenians, at what has happened, namely, that you have condemned me, as well as many other circumstances concur in bringing to pass, and moreover this, that what has happened has not happened contrary to my expectations; but I much rather wonder at the number of votes on either side. For I did not expect that I should be condemned by so small a number, but by a large majority; but now, as it seems, if only three more votes had changed sides I should have been acquitted. As far as Miletus is concerned, as it appears to me, I have been already acquitted, and not only have I been acquitted, but it is clear to every one that had not Anytus and Lycon come forward to accuse me, he would have been fined a thousand drachmas, for not having obtained a fifth part of the votes.

The man then awards me the penalty of death. Well. But what shall I, on my part, O Athenians, award myself? Is it not clear that it will be such as I deserve? What then is that? Do I deserve to suffer or to pay a fine, for that I have purposely during my life not remained quiet, but, neglecting what most men seek after,—money-making, domestic concerns, military command, popular oratory, and moreover all the magistracies, conspiracies and cabals that are met with in the city,—thinking that I was in reality too upright a man to be safe if I took part in such things, I therefore did not apply myself to those pursuits, by attending to which I should have been of no service either to you or to myself; but in order to confer the greatest benefit on each of you privately, as I affirm, I thereupon applied myself to that object, endeavoring to persuade every one of you not to take any care of his own affairs, before he had taken care of himself, in what way he may become the best and wisest, nor of the affairs of the city before he took care of the city itself, and that he should attend to other things in the same manner.

What treatment then do I deserve, seeing I am such a man? Some reward, O Athenians, if at least I am to be estimated according to my real deserts; and moreover such a reward as would be suitable to me. What then is suitable to a poor man, a benefactor, and who has need of leisure in order to give you good advice? There is nothing so suitable, O Athenians, as that such a man should be maintained in the Prytaneum, and this much more than if one of you had been victorious at the Olympic games in a horse race, or in the two or four-horsed chariot race; for such a one makes you appear to be happy, but I, to be so: and he does not need support, but I do. If, therefore, I must award a sentence according to my just deserts, I award this, maintenance in the Prytaneum.

Perhaps, however, in speaking to you thus, I appear to you to speak in the same presumptuous manner as I did respecting commiseration and entreaties: but such is not the ease, O Athenians, it is rather this. I am persuaded that I never designedly injured any man, though I can not persuade you of this, for we have conversed with each other but for a short time. For if there was the same law with you as with other men, that in capital cases the trial should last not only one day but many, I think you would be persuaded; but it is not easy in a short time to do away with great calumnies.

Being persuaded then that I have injured no one, I am far from intending to injure myself, and of pronouncing against myself that I am deserving of punishment, and from awarding myself anything of the kind. Through fear of what? Lest I should suffer that which Miletus awards me, of which I say I know not whether it be good or evil? Instead of this, shall I choose what I well know to be evil, and award that? Shall I choose imprisonment? And why should I live in prison, a slave to the established magistracy, the Eleven? Shall I choose a fine, and to be imprisoned until I have paid it? But this is the same as that which I just now mentioned, for I have not money to pay it. Shall I then award myself exile? For perhaps you would consent to this award. I should indeed be very fond of life, O Athenians, if I were so devoid of reason as not to be able to reflect that you, who are my fellow citizens, have been unable to endure my manner of life and discourses, but they have become so burdensome and odious to you, that you now seek to be rid of them; others, however, will easily bear them; far from it, O Athenians. A fine life it would be for me at my age to go out wandering and driven from city to city, and so to live. For I well know that, wherever I may go, the youth will listen to me when I speak, as they do here. And if I repulse them they will themselves drive me out, persuading the elders; and if I do not repulse them, their fathers and kindred will banish me on their account.

Perhaps, however, some one will say, Can you not, Socrates, when you have gone from us, live a silent and quiet life? This is the most difficult thing of all to persuade some of you. For if I say that that would be to disobey the deity, and that therefore it is impossible for me to live quietly, you would not believe me, thinking I spoke ironically. If, on the other hand, I say that this is the greatest good to man, to discourse daily on virtue, and other things which you have heard me discussing, examining both myself and others, but that a life without investigation is not worth living for, still less would you believe me if I said this. Such, however, is the case, as I affirm, O Athenians, though it is not easy to persuade you. And at the same time I am not accustomed to think myself deserving of any ill.

If, indeed I were rich, I would amerce myself in such a sum as I should be able to pay; for then I should have suffered no harm, but now—for I can not, unless you are willing to amerce me in such a sum as I am able to pay. But perhaps I could pay you a mina of silver; in that sum then I amerce myself. But Plato here, O Athenians, and Crito, Critobulus, and Apollodorus bid me amerce myself in thirty minæ, and they offer to be sureties. I amerce myself then to you in that sum; and they will be sufficient sureties for the money.

Note: After a majority of voices had declared him guilty, Socrates resumed his address as reported by Plato in the “Apology.” Read more!

On Being Condemned to Death

Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

(399 B.C.)

Born about 470 B.C., died in 399; for a time followed his father’s art as a sculptor; served in three campaigns; President of the Pyrtanes in 406 and opposed the Thirty Tyrants; his philosophical precepts, as those of the wisest man of his time, known to us only in the writings of his disciple, Plato.



FOR the sake of no long space of time, O Athenians, you will incur the character and reproach at the hands of those who wish to defame the city, of having put that wise man, Socrates, to death. For those who wish to defame you will assert that I am wise, though I am not. If, then, you had waited for a short time, this would have happened of its own accord; for observe my age, that it is far advanced in life, and near death. But I say this not to you all, but to those only who have condemned me to die. And I say this too to the same persons. Perhaps you think, O Athenians, that I have been convicted through the want of arguments, by which I might have persuaded you, had I thought it right to do and say anything so that I might escape punishment. Far otherwise: I have been convicted through want indeed, yet not of arguments, but of audacity and impudence, and of the inclination to say such things to you as would have been most agreeable for you to hear, had I lamented and bewailed and done and said many other things unworthy of me, as I affirm, but such as you are accustomed to hear from others.

But neither did I then think that I ought, for the sake of avoiding danger, to do anything unworthy of a freeman, nor do I now repent of having so defended myself; but I should much rather choose to die having so defended myself than to live in that way. For neither in a trial nor in battle is it right that I or any one else should employ every possible means whereby he may avoid death; for in battle it is frequently evident that a man might escape death by laying down his arms and throwing himself on the mercy of his pursuers. And there are many other devices in every danger, by which to avoid death, if a man dares to do and say everything.

But this is not difficult, O Athenians, to escape death, but it is much more difficult to avoid depravity, for it runs swifter than death. And now I, being slow and aged, am overtaken by the slower of the two; but my accusers, being strong and active, have been overtaken by the swifter, wickedness. And now I depart, condemned by you to death; but they condemned by truth, as guilty of iniquity and injustice: and I abide my sentence and so do they. These things, perhaps, ought so to be, and I think that they are for the best.

In the next place, I desire to predict to you who have condemned me, what will be your fate: for I am now in that condition in which men most frequently prophesy, namely, when they are about to die. I say then to you, O Athenians, who have condemned me to death, that immediately after my death a punishment will overtake you, far more severe, by Jupiter, than that which you have inflicted on me. For you have done this thinking you should be freed from the necessity of giving an account of your life. The very contrary however, as I affirm, will happen to you. Your accusers will be more numerous, whom I have now restrained, though you did not perceive it; and they will be more severe, inasmuch as they are younger and you will be more indignant. For, if you think that by putting men to death you will restrain any one from upbraiding you because you do not live well, you are much mistaken; for this method of escape is neither possible nor honorable, but that other is most honorable and most easy, not to put a check upon others, but for a man to take heed to himself, how he may be most perfect. Having predicted thus much to those of you who have condemned me, I take my leave of you.

But with you who have voted for my acquittal, I would gladly hold converse on what has now taken place, while the magistrates are busy and I am not yet carried to the place where I must die. Stay with me then, so long, O Athenians, for nothing hinders our conversing with each other, whilst we are permitted to do so; for I wish to make known to you, as being my friends, the meaning of that which has just now befallen me. To me then, O my judges,—and in calling you judges I call you rightly,—a strange thing has happened. For the wonted prophetic voice of my guardian deity, on every former occasion, even in the most trifling affairs, opposed me, if I was about to do anything wrong; but now, that has befallen me which ye yourselves behold, and which any one would think and which is supposed to be the extremity of evil, yet neither when I departed from home in the morning did the warning of the god oppose me, nor when I came up here to the place of trial, nor in my address when I was about to say anything; yet on other occasions it has frequently restrained me in the midst of speaking. But now it has never throughout this proceeding opposed me, either in what I did or said. What then do I suppose to be the cause of this? I will tell you: what has befallen me appears to be a blessing; and it is impossible that we think rightly who suppose that death is an evil. A great proof of this to me is the fact that it is impossible but that the accustomed signal should have opposed me, unless I had been about to meet with some good.

Moreover, we may hence conclude that there is great hope that death is a blessing. For to die is one of two things: for either the dead may be annihilated and have no sensation of anything whatever; or, as it is said, there is a certain change and passage of the soul from one place to another. And if it is a privation of all sensation, as it were, a sleep in which the sleeper has no dream, death would be a wonderful gain. For I think that if anyone, having selected a night in which he slept so soundly as not to have had a dream, and having compared this night with all the other nights and days of his life. should be required on consideration to say how many days and nights he had passed better and more pleasantly than this night throughout his life, I think that not only a private person, but even a great king himself would find them easy to number in comparison with other days and nights. If, therefore, death is a thing of this kind, I say it is a gain; for thus all futurity appears to be nothing more than one night.

But if, on the other hand, death is a removal from hence to another place, and what is said be true, that all the dead are there, what greater blessing can there be than this, my judges? For if, on arriving at Hades, released from these who pretend to be judges, one shall find those who are true judges, and who are said to judge there. Minos and Rhadamanthus, Æacus and Triptolemus, and such others of the demigods as were just during their own life, would this be a sad removal? At what price would you not estimate a conference with Orpheus and Musæus, Hesiod and Homer? I indeed should be willing to die often, if this be true. For to me the sojourn there would be admirable, when I should meet with Palamedes, and Ajax son of Telamon, and any other of the ancients who has died by an unjust sentence. The comparing my sufferings with theirs would, I think, be no unpleasing occupation.

But the greatest pleasure would be to spend my time in questioning and examining the people there as I have done those here, and discovering who among them is wise, and who fancies himself to be so but is not. At what price, my judges, would not any one estimate the opportunity of questioning him who led that mighty army against Troy, or Ulysses, or Sisyphus, or ten thousand others, whom one might mention, both men and women? With whom to converse and associate, and to question them, would be an inconceivable happiness. Surely for that the judges there do not condemn to death; for in other respects those who live there are more happy than those that are here, and are henceforth immortal, if at least what is said be true.

You, therefore, O my judges, ought to entertain good hopes with respect to death, and to meditate on this one truth, that to a good man nothing is evil, neither while living nor when dead, nor are his concerns neglected by the gods. And what has befallen me is not the effect of chance; but this is clear to me, that now to die, and be freed from my cares, is better for me. On this account the warning in no way turned me aside; and I bear no resentment toward those who condemned me, or against my accusers, although they did not condemn and accuse me with this intention, but thinking to injure me: in this they deserve to be blamed.

Thus much, however, I beg of them. Punish my sons, when they grow up, O judges, paining them as I have pained you, if they appear to you to care for riches or anything else before virtue, and if they think themselves to be something when they are nothing, reproach them as I have done you, for not attending to what they ought, and for conceiving themselves to be something when they are worth nothing. If ye do this, both I and my sons shall have met with just treatment at your hands.

But it is now time to depart,—for me to die, for you to live. But which of us is going to a better state is unknown to every one but God.

Note: When the judges had passed sentence condemning him to death, Socrates concluded his speech as here given. Read more!

In Favor of the Peloponnesian War

Pericles (c.495–429 B.C.)

(432 B.C.)

Born about 500 B.C., died in 429; entered public life about 469 as leader of the Democratic party; principal minister of the Athenian State after 444; commanded in the first Peloponnesian War.

I ALWAYS adhere to the same opinion, Athenians, that we should make no concessions to the Lacedæmonians; although I know that men are not persuaded to go to war, and act when engaged in it, with the same temper; but that, according to results, they also change their views. Still I see that the same advice, or nearly the same, must be given by me now as before; and I claim from those of you who are being persuaded to war, that you will support the common resolutions, should we ever meet with any reverse; or not, on the other hand, to lay any claim to intelligence, if successful. For it frequently happens that the results of measures proceed no less incomprehensibly than the counsels of man; and therefore we are accustomed to regard fortune as the author of all things that turn out contrary to our expectation.

Now the Lacedæmonians were both evidently plotting against us before, and now especially are doing so. For whereas it is expressed in the treaty, that we should give and accept judicial decisions of our differences, and each side [in the mean time] keep what we have; they have neither themselves hitherto asked for such a decision, nor do they accept it when we offer it; but wish our complaints to be settled by war rather than by words; and are now come dictating, and no longer expostulating. For they command us to raise the siege of Potidæa, and to leave Ægina independent, and to rescind the decree respecting the Megareans; while these last envoys that have come charge us also to leave the Greeks independent. But let none of you think we should be going to war for a trifle, if we did not rescind the decree respecting the Megareans, which they principally put forward, [saying,] that if it were rescinded, the war would not take place: nor leave in your minds any room for self-accusation hereafter, as though you had gone to war for a trivial thing. For this trifle involves the whole confirmation, as well as trial, of your purpose. If you yield to these demands, you will soon also be ordered to do something greater, as having in this instance obeyed through fear: but by resolutely refusing you would prove clearly to them that they must treat with you more on an equal footing.

Henceforth then make up your minds, either to submit before you are hurt, or, if we go to war, as I think is better, on important or trivial grounds alike to make no concession, nor to keep with fear what we have now acquired; for both the greatest and the least demand from equals, imperiously urged on their neighbors previous to a judicial decision, amounts to the same degree of subjugation.

Now with regard to the war, and the means possessed by both parties, that we shall not be the weaker side, be convinced by hearing the particulars. The Peloponnesians are men who cultivate their land themselves; and they have no money either in private or public funds. Then they are inexperienced in long and transmarine wars, as they only wage them with each other for a short time, owing to their poverty. And men of this description can neither man fleets nor often send out land armaments; being at the same time absent from their private business, and spending from their own resources; and, moreover, being also shut out from the sea: but it is superabundant revenues that support wars, rather than compulsory contributions. And men who till the land themselves are more ready to wage war with their persons than with their money: feeling confident, with regard to the former, that they will escape from dangers; but not being sure, with regard to the latter, that they will not spend it before they have done; especially should the war be prolonged beyond their expectations, as [in this case] it probably may. For in one battle the Peloponnesians and their allies might cope with all the Greeks together; but they could not carry on a war against resources of a different description to their own; since they have no one board of council, so as to execute any measure with vigor; and all having equal votes, and not being of the same races, each forwards his own interest; for which reasons nothing generally is brought to completion.

Most of all will they be impeded by scarcity of money, while, through their slowness in providing it, they continue to delay their operations; whereas the opportunities of war wait for no one. Neither, again, is their raising works against us worth fearing, or their fleet. With regard to the former, it were difficult even in time of peace to set up a rival city; much more in a hostile country, and when we should have raised works no less against them: and if they build [only] a fort, they might perhaps hurt some part of our land by incursions and desertions; it will not, however, be possible for them to prevent our sailing to their country and raising forts, and retaliating with our ships, in which we are so strong. For we have more advantage for land-service from our naval skill, than they have for naval matters from their skill by land.

But to become skilful at sea will not easily be acquired by them. For not even have you, though practicing from the very time of the Median War, brought it to perfection as yet; how then shall men who are agriculturists and not mariners, and, moreover, will not even be permitted to practice, from being always observed by us with many ships, achieve any thing worth speaking of? Against a few ships observing them they might run the risk, encouraging their ignorance by their numbers; but when kept in check by many, they will remain quiet; and through not practicing will be the less skilful, and therefore the more afraid. For naval service is a matter of art, like anything else; and does not admit of being practiced just when it may happen, as a bywork; but rather does not even allow of anything else being a bywork to it.

Even if they should take some of the funds at Olympia or Delphi, and endeavor, by higher pay, to rob us of our foreign sailors, that would be alarming, if we were not a match for them, by going on board ourselves and our resident aliens; but now this is the case; and, what is best of all, we have native steersmen, and crews at large, more numerous and better than all the rest of Greece. And with the danger before them, none of the foreigners would consent to fly his country, and at the same time with less hope of success to join them in the struggle, for the sake of a few days’ higher pay.

The circumstances of the Peloponnesians then seem, to me at least, to be of such or nearly such a character; while ours seem both to be free from the faults I have found in theirs, and to have other great advantages in more than an equal degree. Again, should they come by land against our country, we will sail against theirs; and the loss will be greater for even a part of the Peloponnese to be ravaged, than for the whole of Attica. For they will not be able to obtain any land in its stead without fighting for it; while we have abundance, both in islands and on the mainland. Moreover, consider it [in this point of view]: if we had been islanders, who would have been more impregnable? And we ought, as it is, with views as near as possible to those of islanders, to give up all thought of our land and houses, and keep watch over the sea and the city; and not, through being enraged on their account, to come to an engagement with the Peloponnesians, who are much more numerous; (for if we defeat them, we shall have to fight again with no fewer of them; and if we meet with a reverse, our allies are lost also; for they will not remain quiet if we are not able to lead our forces against them;) and we should make lamentation, not for the houses and land, but for the lives [that are lost]; for it is not these things that gain men, but men that gain these things. And if I thought that I should persuade you, I would bid you go out yourselves and ravage them, and show the Peloponnesians that you will not submit to them for these things, at any rate.

I have also many other grounds for hoping that we shall conquer, if you will avoid gaining additional dominion at the time of your being engaged in the war, and bringing on yourselves dangers of your own choosing; for I am more afraid of our own mistakes than of the enemy’s plans. But those points shall be explained in another speech at the time of the events. At the present time let us send these men away with this answer: that with regard to the Megareans, we will also allow them to use our ports and market, if the Lacedæmonians also abstain from expelling foreigners, whether ourselves or our allies (for it forbids neither the one nor the other in the treaty): with regard to the states, that we will leave them independent, if we also held them as independent when we made the treaty; and when they too restore to the states a permission to be independent suitably to the interests, not of the Lacedæmonians themselves, but of the several states, as they wish: that we are willing to submit to judicial decision, according to the treaty: and that we will not commence hostilities, but will defend ourselves against those who do. For this is both a right answer and a becoming one for the state to give.

But you should know that go to war we must; and if we accept it willingly rather than not, we shall find the enemy less disposed to press us hard; and, moreover, that it is from the greatest hazards that the greatest honors also are gained, both by state and by individual. Our fathers, at any rate, by withstanding the Medes—though they did not begin with such resources [as we have], but had even abandoned what they had—and by counsel, more than by fortune, and by daring, more than by strength, beat off the barbarian, and advanced those resources to their present height. And we must not fall short of them; but must repel our enemies in every way, and endeavor to bequeath our power to our posterity no less [than we received it].

Note: Delivered before the Assembly at Athens during a discussion of the Lacedæmonian demands Reported by Thucydides. Translated by Henry Dale.
As to the authenticity of the speeches here taken from Thucydides (those of Pericles, Cleon, Nicias, and Alcibiades), the statement of Thucydides on the subject must be kept in mind: “I have found it difficult to retain a memory of the precise words that I had heard spoken, and so it was with those who brought me report. I have made the persons say what it seemed to me most opportune for them to say, in view of the situation; at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said.” R. C. Jebb, discussing this matter, says: “We may be sure that wherever Thucydides had any authentic clue to the actual tenor of the speech, he preferred to follow that clue rather than to draw on his own invention.” Jebb adds, that “to these speeches is due in no small measure, the imperishable intellectual interest of the history.” Read more!

On a Corrupt Oligarchy

Caius Memmius (d.100 B.C.)

(About 110 B.C.)

Born in — B.C., died in 100; Tribune of the Plebs in 111; vigorously opposed the oligarchical party during the war with Jugurtha, and by exposing corruption, opened the way to command of the army by Marius; while a candidate for Consul in 100, slain by a mob armed with bludgeons.



WERE not my zeal for the good of the state, my fellow citizens, superior to every other feeling, there are many considerations which would deter me from appearing in your cause; I allude to the power of the opposite party, your own tameness of spirit, the absence of all justice, and, above all, the fact that integrity is attended with more danger than honor. Indeed, it grieves me to relate, how, during the last fifteen years, you have been a sport to the arrogance of an oligarchy; how dishonorably, and how utterly unavenged, your defenders have perished; and how your spirit has become degenerate by sloth and indolence; for not even now, when your enemies are in your power, will you rouse yourselves to action, but continue still to stand in awe of those to whom you should be a terror.

Yet, notwithstanding this state of things, I feel prompted to make an attack on the power of that faction. That liberty of speech, therefore, which has been left me by my father, I shall assuredly exert against them; but whether I shall use it in vain, or for your advantage, must, my fellow citizens, depend upon yourselves. I do not, however, exhort you, as your ancestors have often done, to rise in arms against injustice. There is at present no need of violence, no need of secession; for your tyrants must work their fall by their own misconduct.

After the murder of Tiberius Gracchus, whom they accused of aspiring to be king, persecutions were instituted against the common people of Rome; and after the slaughter of Caius Gracchus and Marcus Fulvius, many of your order were put to death in prison. But let us leave these proceedings out of the question; let us admit that to restore their rights to the people, was to aspire to sovereignty; let us allow that what cannot be avenged without shedding the blood of citizens, was done with justice. You have seen with silent indignation, however, in past years, the treasury pillaged; you have seen kings, and free people, paying tribute to a small party of Patricians, in whose hands were both the highest honors and the greatest wealth; but to have carried on such proceedings with impunity, they now deem but a small matter; and, at last, your laws and your honor, with every civil and religious obligation, have been sacrificed for the benefit of your enemies. Nor do they, who have done these things, show either shame or contrition, but parade proudly before your faces, displaying their sacerdotal dignities, their consulships, and some of them their triumphs, as if they regarded them as marks of honor, and not as fruits of their dishonesty. Slaves, purchased with money, will not submit to unjust commands from their masters; yet you, my fellow citizens, who are born to empire, tamely endure oppression.

But who are these, that have thus taken the government into their hands? Men of the most abandoned character, of blood-stained hands, of insatiable avarice, of enormous guilt, and of matchless pride; men by whom integrity, reputation, public spirit, and indeed everything, whether honorable or dishonorable, is converted to a means of gain. Some of them make it their defense that they have killed tribunes of the people; others, that they have instituted unjust prosecutions; others, that they have shed your blood; and thus, the more atrocities each has committed, the greater is his security; while your oppressors, whom the same desires, the same aversions, and the same fears, combine in strict union (a union which among good men is friendship, but among the bad confederacy in guilt), have excited in you, through your want of spirit, that terror which they ought to feel for their own crimes.

But if your concern to preserve your liberty were as great as their ardor to increase their power of oppression, the state would not be distracted as it is at present; and the marks of favor which proceed from you, would be conferred, not on the most shameless, but on the most deserving. Your forefathers, in order to assert their rights and establish their authority, twice seceded in arms to Mount Aventine; and will not you exert yourselves, to the utmost of your power, in defense of that liberty which you received from them? Will you not display so much the more spirit in the cause, from the reflection that it is a greater disgrace to lose what has been gained, than not to have gained it at all?

But some will ask me, “What course of conduct, then, would you advise us to pursue?” I would advise you to inflict punishment on those who have sacrificed the interests of their country to the enemy; not, indeed, by arms or any violence (which would be more unbecoming, however, for you to inflict than for them to suffer), but by prosecutions, and by the evidence of Jugurtha himself, who, if he has really surrendered, will doubtless obey your summons; whereas, if he shows contempt for it, you will at once judge what sort of a peace or surrender it is, from which springs impunity to Jugurtha for his crimes, immense wealth to a few men in power, and loss and infamy to the republic.

But perhaps you are not yet weary of the tyranny of these men; perhaps these times please you less than those when kingdoms, provinces, laws, rights the administration of justice, war and peace, and indeed everything civil and religious, was in the hands of an oligarchy; while you—that is, the people of Rome—tho unconquered by foreign enemies, and rulers of all nations around, were content with being allowed to live: for which of you had spirit to throw off your slavery? For myself, indeed, tho I think it most disgraceful to receive an injury without resenting it, yet I could easily allow you to pardon these basest of traitors, because they are your fellow citizens, were it not certain that your indulgence would end in your destruction. For such is their presumption, that to escape punishment for their misdeeds will have but little effect upon them, unless they be deprived, at the same time, of the power of doing mischief; and endless anxiety will remain for you, if you shall have to reflect that you must either be slaves or preserve your liberty by force of arms.

Of mutual trust, or concord, what hope is there? They wish to be lords, you desire to be free; they seek to inflict injury, you to repel it; they treat your allies as enemies, your enemies as allies. With feelings so opposite, can peace or friendship subsist between you? I warn, therefore, and exhort you, not to allow such enormous dishonesty to go unpunished. It is not an embezzlement of the public money that has been committed; nor is it a forcible extortion of money from your allies—offenses which, tho great, are now, from their frequency, considered as nothing; but the authority of the senate, and your own power, have been sacrificed to the bitterest of enemies, and the public interest has been betrayed for money, both at home and abroad; and unless these misdeeds be investigated, and punishment be inflicted on the guilty, what remains for us but to live the slaves of those who committed them? For those who do what they will with impunity are undoubtedly kings.

I do not, however, wish to encourage you, O Romans, to be better satisfied at finding your fellow citizens guilty than innocent, but merely to warn you not to bring ruin on the good, by suffering the bad to escape. It is far better, in any government, to be unmindful of a service than of an injury; for a good man, if neglected, only becomes less active, but a bad man, more daring. Besides, if the crimes of the wicked are suppressed, the state will seldom need extraordinary support from the virtuous.


Note: Delivered to an assembly of the people in Rome. Reported by Sallust. Translated by John S. Watson.
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In His Own Defense

Socrates (469–399 B.C.)

(399 B.C.)

Born about 470 B.C., died in 399; for a time followed his father’s art as a sculptor; served in three campaigns; President of the Pyrtanes in 406 and opposed the Thirty Tyrants; his philosophical precepts, as those of the wisest man of his time, known to us only in the writings of his disciple, Plato.



I KNOW not, O Athenians, how far you have been influenced by my accusers; for my part, in listening to them I almost forgot myself, so plausible were their arguments; however, so to speak, they have said nothing true. But of the many falsehoods which they have uttered I wondered at one of them especially, that in which they said you ought to be on your guard lest you should be deceived by me, as being eloquent in speech. For that they are not ashamed of being forthwith convicted by me in fact, when I shall show that I am not by any means eloquent, this seemed to me the most shameless thing in them, unless indeed they call him eloquent who speaks the truth.

For if they mean this, then I would allow that I am an orator, but not after their fashion; for they, as I affirm, have said nothing true; but, from me you shall hear the whole truth. Not indeed, Athenians, arguments highly wrought, as theirs were, with choice phrases and expressions, nor adorned, but you shall hear a speech uttered without premeditation, in such words as first present themselves. For I am confident that what I say will be just, and let none of you expect otherwise; for surely it would not become my time of life to come before you like a youth with a got-up speech.

Above all things, therefore, I beg and implore this of you, O Athenians, if you hear me defending myself in the same language as that in which I am accustomed to speak both in the forum at the counters, where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere, not to be surprised or disturbed on this account. For the case is this: I now for the first time come before a court of justice, though more than seventy years old; I am, therefore, utterly a stranger to the language here. As, then, if I were really a stranger, you would have pardoned me if I spoke in the language and the manner in which I had been educated, so now I ask this of you as an act of justice, as it appears to me, to disregard the manner of my speech, for perhaps it may be somewhat worse, and perhaps better, and to consider this only, and to give your attention to this, whether I speak what is just or not; for this is the virtue of a judge, but of an orator to speak the truth.

Perhaps, however, some one may say, “Are you not ashamed, Socrates, to have pursued a study from which you are now in danger of dying?” To such a person I should answer with good reason: You do not say well, friend, if you think that a man, who is even of the least value, ought to take into the account the risk of life or death, and ought not to consider that alone when he performs any action, whether he is acting justly or unjustly and the part of a good man or bad man.

I then should be acting strangely, O Athenians, if, when the generals whom you chose to command me assigned me my post at Potidæa, at Amphipolis, and at Delium, I then remained where they posted me, like any other person, and encountered the danger of death, but when the deity, as I thought and believed, assigned it as my duty to pass my life in the study of philosophy, and in examining myself and others, I should on that occasion, through fear of death or anything else whatsoever, desert my post. Strange indeed would it be, and then in truth any one might justly bring me to trial, and accuse me of not believing in the gods, from disobeying the oracle, fearing death, and thinking myself to be wise when I am not.

For to fear death, O Athenians, is nothing else than to appear to be wise without being so; for it is to appear to know what one does not know. For no one knows but that death is the greatest of all goods; but men feareth as if they well knew that it is the greatest of evils. And how is not this the most reprehensible ignorance, to think that one knows what one does not know?

But I, O Athenians, in this perhaps differ from most men; and if I should say that I am in anything wiser than another, it would be in this, that not having a competent knowledge of the things in Hades, I also think that I have not such knowledge. But to act unjustly, and to disobey my superior, whether God or man, I know is evil and base. I shall never, therefore, fear or shun things which, for aught I know, may be good, before evils which I know to be evils. So that even if you should now dismiss me, not yielding to the instances of Anytus, who said that either I should not appear here at all, or that, if I did appear, it was impossible not to put me to death, telling you that if I escaped, your sons, studying what Socrates teaches, would all be utterly corrupted; if you should address me thus, “Socrates, we shall not now yield to Anytus, but dismiss you, on this condition, however, that you no longer persevere in your researches nor study philosophy, and if hereafter you are detected in so doing, you shall die,”—if, as I said, you should dismiss me on these terms, I should say to you:

“O Athenians, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you; and as long as I breathe and am able I shall not cease studying philosophy and exhorting you and warning any one of you I may happen to meet, saying, as I have been accustomed to do: ‘O best of men, seeing you are an Athenian, of a city the most powerful and most renowned for wisdom and strength, are you not ashamed of being careful for riches, how you may acquire them in greatest abundance, and for glory and honor, but care not nor take any thought for wisdom and truth, and for your soul, how it may be made most perfect?’”

And if any one of you should question my assertion and affirm that he does care for these things, I shall not at once let him go, nor depart, but I shall question him, sift and prove him. And if he should appear to me not to possess virtue, but to pretend that he does, I shall reproach him for that he sets the least value on things of the greatest worth, but the highest on things that are worthless.

Murmur not, O Athenians, but continue to attend to my request, not to murmur at what I say, but to listen, for, as I think, you will derive benefit from listening. For I am going to say other things to you, at which perhaps you will raise a clamor; but on no account do so. Be well assured, then, if you put me to death, being such a man as I say I am, you will not injure me more than yourselves. For neither will Miletus nor Anytus harm me; nor have they the power; for I do not think that it is possible for a better man to be injured by a worse. He may perhaps have me condemned to death, or banished or deprived of civil rights, and he or others may perhaps consider these as mighty evils; I, however, do not consider them so, but that it is much more so to do what he is now doing—to endeavor to put a man to death unjustly.

Now, therefore, O Athenians, I am far from making a defense on my own behalf, as any one might think, but I do so on your behalf, lest by condemning me you should offend at all with respect to the gift of the deity to you. For, if you should put me to death, you will not easily find such another, though it may be ridiculous to say so, altogether attached by the deity to this city as to a powerful and generous horse, somewhat sluggish from his size, and requiring to be roused by a gad-fly; so the deity appears to have united me, being such a person as I am, to the city, that I may rouse you, and persuade and reprove every one of you, nor ever cease besetting you throughout the whole day. Such another man, O Athenians, will not easily be found; therefore, if you will take my advice, you will spare me.

But you, perhaps, being irritated, like drowsy persons who are roused from sleep, will strike me, and, yielding to Anytus, will unthinkingly condemn me to death; and then you will pass the rest of your life in sleep, unless the deity, caring for you, should send some one else to you. But that I am a person who has been given by the deity to this city, you may discern from hence; for it is not like the ordinary conduct of men that I should have neglected all my own affairs and suffered my private interest to be neglected for so many years, and that I should constantly attend to your concerns, addressing myself to each of you separately, like a father or elder brother, persuading you to the pursuit of virtue. And if I had derived any profit from this course, and had received pay for my exhortations, there would have been some reason for my conduct; but now you see yourselves that my accusers, who have so shamelessly calumniated me in everything else, have not had the impudence to charge me with this, and to bring witnesses to prove that I ever either exacted or demanded any reward. And I think I produce a sufficient proof that I speak the truth, namely, my poverty.

Perhaps, however, it may appear absurd, that I, going about, thus advise you in private and make myself busy, but never venture to present myself in public before your assemblies and give advice to the city. The cause of this is that which you have often and in many places heard me mention: because I am moved by certain divine and spiritual influence, which also Miletus, through mockery, has set out in the indictment. This began with me from childhood, being a kind of voice which, when present, always diverts me from what I am about to do, but never urges me on. This it is which opposed my meddling in public politics; and it appears to me to have opposed me very properly. For be well assured, O Athenians, if I had long since attempted to intermeddle with politics, I should have perished long ago, and should not have at all benefited you or myself. And be not angry with me for speaking the truth. For it is not possible that any man should be safe, who sincerely opposes either you or any other multitude, and who prevents many unjust and illegal actions from being committed in a city; but it is necessary that he who in earnest contends for justice, if he will be safe for but a short time, should live privately, and take no part public affairs.

Do you think, then, that I should have survived so many years if I had engaged in public affairs, and, acting as becomes a good man, had aided the cause of justice, and, as I ought, had deemed this of the highest importance? Far from it, O Athenians: nor would any other man have done so. But I, through the whole of my life, if I have done anything in public, shall be found to be a man, and the very same in private, who has never made a concession to any one contrary to justice, neither to any other, nor to any one of these whom my calumniators say are my disciples. I, however, was never the preceptor of any one; but if any one desired to hear me speaking and to see me busied about my own mission, whether he were young or old, I never refused him. Nor do I discourse when I receive money, and not when I do not receive any, but I allow both rich and poor alike to question me, and, if any one wishes it, to answer me and hear what I have to say. And for these, whether any one proves to be a good man or not, I cannot justly be responsible, because I never either promised them any instruction nor taught them at all. But if any one says that he has ever learned or heard anything from me in private, which all others have not, be well assured that he does not speak the truth.

But why do some delight to spend so long a time with me? Ye have heard, O Athenians. I have told you the whole truth that they delight to hear those closely questioned who think that they are wise but are not: for this is by no means disagreeable. But this duty, as I say, has been enjoined me by the deity, by oracles, by dreams, and by every mode by which any other divine decree has ever enjoined anything to man to do. These things, O Athenians, are both true, and easily confuted if not true. For if I am now corrupting some of the youths, and have already corrupted others, it were fitting, surely, that if any of them, having become advanced in life, had discovered that I gave them bad advice when they were young, they should now rise up against me, accuse me, and have me punished; or if they were themselves unwilling to do this, some of their kindred, their fathers, or brothers, or other relatives, if their kinsmen have ever sustained any damage from me, should now call it to mind.

Many of them, however, are here present, whom I see. I could mention many to you, some one of whom certainly Miletus ought to have adduced in his speech as a witness. If, however, he then forgot to do so, let him now adduce them, I give him leave to do so, and let him say it, if he has anything of the kind to allege. But quite contrary to this, you will find, O Athenians, all ready to assist me, who have corrupted and injured their relatives, as Miletus and Anytus say. For those who have been themselves corrupted might perhaps have some reason for assisting me; but those who have not been corrupted, men now advanced in life, their relatives, what other reason can they have for assisting me, except that right and just one, that they know that Miletus speaks falsely and that I speak the truth.

Well then, Athenians; these are pretty much the things I have to say in my defense, and others perhaps of the same kind. Perhaps, however, some among you will be indignant on recollecting his own case, if he, when engaged in a cause far less than this, implored and besought the judges with many tears, bringing forward his children in order that he might excite their utmost compassion, and many others of his relatives and friends, whereas I do none of these things, although I may appear to be incurring the extremity of danger. Perhaps, therefore, some one, taking notice of this, may become more determined against me, and, being enraged at this very conduct of mine, may give his vote under the influence of anger. If then any one of you is thus affected—I do not, however, suppose that there is—but if there should be, I think I may reasonably say to him: “I too, O best of men, have relatives; for to make use of that saying of Homer, I am not sprung from an oak, nor from a rock, but from men, so that I too, O Athenians, have relatives, and three sons, one now grown up, and two boys; I shall not, however, bring any one of them forward and implore you to acquit me.” Why then shall I not do this?

Not from contumacy, O Athenians, nor disrespect toward you. Whether or not I am undaunted at the prospect of death, is another question, but out of regard to my own character, and yours, and that of the whole city, it does not appear to me to be honorable that I should do anything of this kind at my age, and with the reputation I have, whether true or false. For it is commonly agreed that Socrates in some respects excels the generality of men. If, then, those among you who appear to excel either in wisdom, or fortitude, or any other virtue whatsoever, should act in such a manner as I have often seen some when they have been brought to trial, it would be shameful, who, appearing indeed to be something, have conducted themselves in a surprising manner, as thinking they should suffer something dreadful by dying, and as if they would be immortal if you did put them to death. Such men appear to me to bring disgrace on the city, so that any stranger might suppose that such of the Athenians as excel in virtue, and whom they themselves choose in preference to themselves for magistracies and other honors, are in no respect superior to women.

For these things, O Athenians, neither ought we to do who have attained to any height of reputation, nor, should we do them, ought you to suffer us; but you should make this manifest, that you will much rather condemn him who introduces these piteous dramas, and makes the city ridiculous, than him who quietly awaits your decision.

But reputation apart, O Athenians, it does not appear to me to be right to entreat a judge, or to escape by entreaty, but one ought to inform and persuade him. For a judge does not sit for the purpose of administering justice out of favor, but that he may judge rightly, and he is sworn not to show favor to whom he pleases, but that he will decide according to the laws. It is therefore right that neither should we accustom you, nor should you accustom yourselves to violate your oaths; for in so doing neither of us would act righteously.

Think not then, O Athenians, that I ought to adopt such a course toward you as I neither consider honorable, nor just, nor holy, as well, by Jupiter, on any other occasion, and now especially when I am accused of impiety by this Miletus. For clearly, if I should persuade you. and by my entreaties should put a constraint on you who are bound by an oath, I should teach you to think that there are no gods, and in reality, while making my defense, should accuse myself of not believing in the gods. This, however, is far from being the case: for I believe, O Athenians, as none of my accusers do, and I leave it to you and to the deity to judge concerning me in such way as will be best both for me and for you.

Delivered in Athens in 399 B.C., as reported by Plato in the “Apology.” Translated by Henry Cary. Abridged. Read more!

Against Eratosthenes

Lysias (c.459–c.380 B.C.)

(403 B.C.)

Born about 440 B.C., died in 380; fled from the Thirty Tyrants in 404 after they had put his brother to death; returned to Athens after the restoration of the Democracy, and won great reputation as an orator, but only 34 of his 160 known speeches have survived.



IT is an easy matter, O Athenians, to begin this accusation. But to end it without doing injustice to the cause will be attended with no small difficulty. For the crimes of Eratosthenes are not only too atrocious to describe, but too many to enumerate. No exaggeration can exceed, and within the time assigned for this discourse it is impossible fully to represent them. This trial, too, is attended with another singularity. In other causes it is usual to ask the accusers: “What is your resentment against the defendants?” But here you must ask the defendant: “What was your resentment against your country? What malice did you bear your fellow citizens? Why did you rage with unbridled fury against the state itself?”

The time has now indeed come, Athenians, when, insensible to pity and tenderness, you must be armed with just severity against Eratosthenes and his associates. What avails it to have conquered them in the field, if you be overcome by them in your councils? Do not show them more favor for what they boast they will perform, than resentment for what they have already committed. Nor, after having been at so much pains to become masters of their persons, allow them to escape without suffering that punishment which you once sought to inflict; but prove yourselves worthy of that good fortune which has given you power over your enemies.

The contest is very unequal between Eratosthenes and you. Formerly he was both judge and accuser; but we, even while we accuse, must at the same time make our defense. Those who were innocent he put to death without trial. To those who are guilty we allow the benefit of law, even though no adequate punishment can ever be inflicted. For should we sacrifice them and their children, would this compensate for the murder of your fathers, your sons, and your brothers? Should we deprive them of their property, would this indemnify the individuals whom they have beggared, or the state which they have plundered? Though they can not suffer a punishment adequate to their demerit, they ought not, surely, on this account, to escape. Yet how matchless is the effrontery of Eratosthenes, who, being now judged by the very persons whom he formerly injured, still ventures to make his defense before the witnesses of his crimes? What can show more evidently the contempt in which he holds you, or the confidence which he reposes in others?

Let me now conclude with laying before you the miseries to which you were reduced, that you may see the necessity of taking punishment on the authors of them. And first, you who remained in the city, consider the severity of their government. You were reduced to such a situation as to be forced to carry on a war, in which, if you were conquered, you partook indeed of the same liberty with the conquerors; but if you proved victorious, you remained under the slavery of your magistrates. As to you of the Piræus, you will remember that though you never lost your arms in the battles which you fought, yet you suffered by these men what your foreign enemies could never accomplish, and at home, in times of peace, were disarmed by your fellow citizens. By them you were banished from the country left you by your fathers. Their rage, knowing no abatement, pursued you abroad, and drove you from one territory to another. Recall the cruel indignities which you suffered; how you were dragged from the tribunal and the altars: how no place, however sacred, could shelter you against their violence. Others, torn from their wives, their children, their parents, after putting an end to their miserable lives, were deprived of funeral rites; for these tyrants imagined their government so firmly established that even the vengeance of the gods was unable to shake it.

But it is impossible for one, or in the course of one trial, to enumerate the means which were employed to undermine the power of this state, the arsenals which were demolished, the temples sold or profaned, the citizens banished or murdered, and those whose dead bodies were impiously left uninterred. Those citizens now watch your decree, uncertain whether you will prove accomplices of their death or avengers of their murder. I shall desist from any further accusations. You have heard, you have seen, you have experienced. Decide then!

Delivered in Athens in 403 B.C., and “the most splendid of his extant speeches,” says R. C. Jebb. Eratosthenes, as one of the Tyrants, was responsible for the death of the brother of Lysias. Abridged. Read more!

In Defense of Himself

Pericles (c.495–429 B.C.)

(430 B.C.)

Born about 500 B.C., died in 429; entered public life about 469 as leader of the Democratic party; principal minister of the Athenian State after 444; commanded in the first Peloponnesian War.



I HAD both expected the proofs of your anger against me, which have been exhibited (for I am aware of the causes of it), and have now convened an assembly for this purpose, that I may remind you [of what you have forgotten], and reprove you if in any respect you are wrong, either in being irritated against me or in succumbing to your misfortunes. For I consider that a state which in its public capacity is successful confers more benefit on individuals than one which is prosperous as regards its particular citizens, while collectively it comes to ruin. For though a man is individually prosperous, yet if his country is ruined, he none the less shares in its destruction; whereas, if he is unfortunate in a country that is fortunate, he has a much better hope of escaping his dangers.

Since then a state is able to bear the misfortunes of individuals, while each individual is unable to bear hers, how can it fail to be the duty of all to support her, and not to act as you are now doing, who, being panic-stricken by your domestic afflictions, give up all thought of the public safety, and are blaming both me who advised you to go to war, and yourselves who joined in voting for it. And yet I, with whom you are angry, am a man who deem myself second to none in at once knowing what measures are required, and explaining them to others; a lover too of my country, and superior to the influence of money. For he who knows a thing that is right, but does not explain it with clearness, is no better than if he had never had a conception of it; and he, again, who has both these requisites, but is ill-affected towards his country, would not so well speak for her interest. And even if this qualification be added to the others, while he is influenced by regard for money, all of them together would be sacrificed for this one consideration. So that if you were persuaded by me to go to war, because you thought that I possessed these qualities even in a moderate degree more than other men, I can not now fairly be charged with injuring you, at any rate.

For those indeed to go to war, who, while successful in other things, have had a choice in the matter allowed them, it is great folly. But if [in our case] it were necessary, either immediately to submit to our neighbors, if we made concessions, or to preserve our independence by running a great risk, then he who shrank from the risk is more reprehensible than he who faced it. For my part then, I am the same that I ever was, and do not depart from my opinion; but you are changing, since it happens that you were persuaded [to go to war] while unscathed, but repent of it now you are suffering: and that my advice appears wrong through the weakness of your resolution; because pain is now in possession of each man’s feeling, while the certainty of the benefit is as yet hidden from all: and a great reverse having befallen you, and that suddenly, your mind is too prostrated to persevere in your determinations.

But with regard to your trouble in the war, lest you should fear that it may prove great, and we may still be none the more successful, let those arguments suffice you, with which on many other occasions I have proved the error of your suspicions respecting it. At the same time, I will also lay before you the following advantage, which yourselves do not appear ever yet to have thought of as belonging to you, respecting the greatness of your empire, and which I never urged in my former speeches; nor would I even now, as it has rather too boastful an air, if I did not see you unreasonably cast down. You think then that you only bear rule over your own subject allies; but I declare to you that of the two parts of the world open for man’s use, the land and the sea, of the whole of the one you are most absolute masters, both as far as you avail yourselves of it now, and if you should wish to do so still further; and there is no power, neither the king nor any nation besides at the present day, that can prevent your sailing [where you please] with your present naval resources.

This power then evidently is far from being merely on a level with the benefits of your houses and lands, which you think so much to be deprived of: nor is it right for you to grieve about them, but rather to hold them cheap, considering them, in comparison with this as a mere garden-plot and embellishment of a rich man’s estate. You should know, too, that liberty, provided we devote ourselves to that, and preserve it, will easily recover these losses; whereas those who have once submitted to others find even their greatest gains diminish. Nor should you show yourselves inferior in both respects to your fathers, who with labor, and not by inheritance from others, acquired these possessions, and moreover kept them and bequeathed them to us; for it is more disgraceful to be deprived of a thing when we have got it, than to fall in getting it. On the contrary, you should meet your enemies, not only with spirit, but also with a spirit of contempt. For confidence is produced even by lucky ignorance, ay, even in a coward; but contempt is the feeling of the man who trusts that he is superior to his adversaries in counsel also, which is our case. And ability, with a high spirit, renders more sure the daring which arises from equal fortune; and does not so much trust to mere hope, whose strength mainly displays itself in difficulties; but rather to a judgment grounded upon present realities, whose anticipations may be more relied upon.

It is but fair, too, that you should sustain the dignity of the state derived from its sovereignty, on which you all pride yourselves; and that either you should not shrink from its labors, or else should lay no claim to its honors either. Nor should you suppose that you are struggling to escape one evil only, slavery instead of freedom; but to avoid loss of dominion also, and danger from the animosities which you have incurred in your exercise of that dominion. And from this it is no longer possible for you to retire; if through fear at the present time any one is for so playing the honest man in quiet. For you now hold it as a tyranny, which it seems wrong to have assumed, but dangerous to give up. And men with these views would very quickly ruin the state, whether they persuaded others [to adopt the same], or even lived anywhere independently by themselves; for quietness is not a safe principle, unless ranged with activity; nor is it for the interest of a sovereign state, but of a subject one, that it may live in safe slavery.

Do you then neither be seduced by such citizens, nor be angry with me, whom yourselves also joined in voting for war, though the enemy has invaded our country, and done what it was natural that he should do, if you would not submit; and though, besides what we looked for, this disease also has come upon us—the only thing, indeed, of all that has happened beyond our expectations. And it is through this, I well know, that in some degree I am still more the object of your displeasure; yet not with justice unless you will also give me the credit when you meet with any success beyond your calculation. The evils then which are sent by heaven, you must bear perforce; those which are inflicted by your enemies, with courage: for such was formerly the custom of this country, and let it not now meet with a check in your case.

But consider that it has the greatest name in all the world from not yielding to misfortunes, and from expending in war more lives and labors than any other state; and that it has now the greatest power that ever existed up to the present time; the memory of which, even should we now at length give way (for everything is naturally liable to decrease), will be left to posterity for ever, namely, that we had dominion over more Greeks than any other Greek state ever had; and held out in the greatest wars against them, both collectively and singly; and inhabited a city better provided with all things than any other, and greater. And yet your quiet man would find fault with these things; but the man who has himself a wish to achieve something, will emulate them; while whoever does not possess them will envy them.

But to be hated and offensive for the time present has been the lot of all who have ever presumed to rule over others; that man, however, takes wise counsel, who incurs envy for the greatest things. For odium does not last long; but present splendor and future glory are handed down to perpetual memory. Do you then, providing both for your future honor, and for your immediate escape from disgrace, secure both objects by your present spirit: and neither send any heralds to the Lacedæmonians, nor show that you are weighed down by your present troubles; for such as in feeling are least annoyed at their misfortunes, while in action they most courageously resist them, these, both of states and of individuals, are the best.

Delivered before an assembly in Athens called for the purpose, after violent criticism had been made of his influence in bringing on the Peloponnesian War. Reported by Thucydides. Translated by Henry Dale. Slightly abridged. Read more!

On Those Who Died in the War

Pericles (c.495–429 B.C.)

(430 B.C.)

Born about 500 B.C., died in 429; entered public life about 469 as leader of the Democratic party; principal minister of the Athenian State after 444; commanded in the first Peloponnesian War.



THE GREATER part of those who ere now have spoken in this place, have been accustomed to praise the man who introduced this oration into the law; considering it a right thing that it should be delivered over those who are buried after falling in battle. To me, however, it would have appeared sufficient, that when men had shown themselves brave by deeds, their honors also should be displayed by deeds—as you now see in the case of this burial, prepared at the public expense—and not that the virtues of many should be periled in one individual for credit to be given him according as he expresses himself well or ill. For it is difficult to speak with propriety on a subject on which even the impression of one’s truthfulness is with difficulty established.

Now with regard to our military achievements, by which each possession was gained, whether in any case it were ourselves, or our fathers, that repelled with spirit hostilities brought against us by barbarian or Greek; as I do not wish to enlarge on the subject before you who are well acquainted with it, I will pass them over. But by what a mode of life we attained to our power, and by what form of government and owing to what habits it became so great, I will explain these points first, and then proceed to the eulogy of these men; as I consider that on the present occasion they will not be inappropriately mentioned, and that it is profitable for the whole assembly, both citizens and strangers, to listen to them.

For we enjoy a form of government which does not copy the laws of our neighbors; but we are ourselves rather a pattern to others than imitators of them. In name, from its not being administered for the benefit of the few, but of the many, it is called a democracy; but with regard to its laws, all enjoy equality, as concerns their private differences; while with regard to public rank, according as each man has reputation for anything, he is preferred for public honors, not so much from consideration of party, as of merit; nor, again, on the ground of poverty, while he is able to do the state any good service, is he prevented by the obscurity of his position. We are liberal then in our public administration; and with regard to mutual jealousy of our daily pursuits, we are not angry with our neighbor, if he does anything to please himself; nor wear on our countenance offensive looks, which though harmless, are yet unpleasant. While, however, in private matters we live together agreeably, in public matters, under the influence of fear, we most carefully abstain from transgression, through our obedience to those who are from time to time in office, and to the laws; especially such of them as are enacted for the benefit of the injured, and such as, though unwritten, bring acknowledged disgrace [on those who break them].

Moreover, we have provided for our spirits the most numerous recreations from labors, by celebrating games and sacrifices through the whole year, and by maintaining elegant private establishments, of which the daily gratification drives away sadness. Owing to the greatness too of our city, everything from every land is imported into it; and it is our lot to reap with no more peculiar enjoyment the good things which are produced here, than those of the rest of the world likewise.

In the studies of war also we differ from our enemies in the following respects: We throw our city open to all, and never, by the expulsion of strangers, exclude anyone from either learning or observing things, by seeing which unconcealed any of our enemies might gain an advantage; for we trust not so much to preparations and stratagems, as to our own valor for daring deeds. Again, as to our modes of education, they aim at the acquisition of a manly character, by laborious training from their very youth; while we, though living at our ease, no less boldly advance to meet equal dangers. As a proof of this, the Lacedæmonians never march against our country singly, but with all [their confederates] together: while we, generally speaking, have no difficulty in conquering in battle upon hostile ground those who are standing up in defense of their own. And no enemy ever yet encountered our whole united force, through our attending at the same time to our navy, and sending our troops by land on so many different services: but wherever they have engaged with any part of it, if they conquer only some of us, they boast that we were all routed by them; and if they are conquered, they say it was by all that they were beaten. And yet if with careless ease rather than with laborious practice, and with a courage which is the result not so much of laws as of natural disposition, we are willing to face danger, we have the advantage of not suffering beforehand from coming troubles, and of proving ourselves, when we are involved in them, no less bold than those who are always toiling; so that our country is worthy of admiration in these respects, and in others besides.

For we study taste with economy, and philosophy without effeminacy; and employ wealth rather for opportunity of action than for boastfulness of talking; while poverty is nothing disgraceful for a man to confess, but not to escape it by exertion is more disgraceful. Again, the same men can attend at the same time to domestic as well as to public affairs; and others, who are engaged with business, can still form a sufficient judgment on political questions. For we are the only people that consider the man who takes no part in these things, not as unofficious, but as useless; and we ourselves judge rightly of measures, at any rate, if we do not originate them; while we do not regard words as any hindrance to deeds, but rather [consider it a hindrance] not to have been previously instructed by word, before undertaking in deed what we have to do. For we have this characteristic also in a remarkable degree, that we are at the same time most daring and most calculating in what we take in hand, whereas to other men it is ignorance that brings daring, while calculation brings fear.

In short, I say that both the whole city is a school for Greece, and that, in my opinion, the same individual would among us provide himself qualified for the most varied kinds of action, and with the most graceful versatility. And that this is not mere vaunting language for the occasion, so much as actual truth, the very power of the state, which we have won by such habits, affords a proof. For it is the only country at the present time that, when brought to the test, proves superior to its fame; and the only one that neither gives to the enemy who has attacked us any cause for indignation at being worsted by such opponents, nor to him who is subject to us room for finding fault, as not being ruled by men who are worthy of empire. But we shall be admired both by present and future generations as having exhibited our power with great proofs, and by no means without evidence; and as having no further need, either of Homer to praise us or anyone else who might charm for the moment by his verses, while the truth of the facts would mar the idea formed of them; but as having compelled every sea and land to become accessible to our daring, and everywhere established everlasting records, whether of evil or of good. It was for such a country then that these men, nobly resolving not to have it taken from them, fell fighting; and every one of their survivors may well be willing to suffer in its behalf.

For this reason, indeed, it is that I have enlarged on the characteristics of the state; both to prove that the struggle is not for the same object in our case as in that of men who have none of these advantages in an equal degree; and at the same time clearly to establish by proofs [the truth of] the eulogy of those men over whom I am now speaking. And now the chief points of it have been mentioned; for with regard to the things for which I have commended the city, it was the virtues of these men, such as these, that adorned her with them; and few of the Greeks are there whose fame, like these men’s, would appear but the just counterpoise of their deeds.

Again, the closing scene of these men appears to me to supply an illustration of human worth, whether as affording us the first information respecting it, or its final confirmation. For even in the case of men who have been in other respects of an inferior character, it is but fair for them to hold forth as a screen their military courage in their country’s behalf; for, having wiped out their evil by their good, they did more service collectively, than harm by their individual offenses.

But of these men there was none that either was made a coward by his wealth, from preferring the continued enjoyment of it; or shrank from danger through a hope suggested by poverty, namely, that he might yet escape it, and grow rich; but conceiving that vengeance on their foes was more to be desired these objects, and at the same time regarding this as the most glorious of hazards, they wished by risking it to be avenged on their enemies, and so to aim at procuring those advantages; committing to hope the uncertainty of success, but resolving to trust to action, with regard to what was visible to themselves; and in that action, being minded rather to resist and die, than by surrendering to escape, they fled from the shame of [a discreditable] report, while they endured the brunt of the battle with their bodies; and after the shortest crisis, when at the very height of their fortune, were taken away from their glory rather than their fear.

Such did these men prove themselves, as became the character of their country. For you that remain, you must pray that you may have a more successful resolution, but must determine not to have one less bold against your enemies; not in word alone considering the benefit [of such a spirit], (on which one might descant to you at great length—though you know it yourselves quite as well—telling you how many advantages are contained in repelling your foes) but rather day by day beholding the power of the city as it appears in fact, and growing enamored of it, and reflecting, when you think it great that it was by being bold, and knowing their duty, and being alive to shame in action, that men acquired these things; and because, if they ever failed in their attempt at anything, they did not on that account think it right to deprive their country also of their valor, but conferred upon her a most glorious joint-offering.

For while collectively they gave her their lives, individually they received that renown which never grows old, and the most distinguished tomb they could have; not so much that in which they are laid, as that in which their glory is left behind them, to be everlastingly recorded on every occasion for doing so, either by word or deed, that may from time to time present itself. For of illustrious men the whole earth is the sepulcher; and not only does the inscription upon columns in their own land point it out, but in that also which is not their own there dwells with every one an unwritten memorial of the heart, rather than of a material monument.

Vying then with these men in your turn, and deeming happiness to consist in freedom, and freedom in valor, do not think lightly of the hazards of war. For it is not the unfortunate, [and those] who have no hope of any good, that would with most reason be unsparing of their lives; but those who, while they live, still incur the risk of a change to the opposite condition, and to whom the difference would be the greatest, should they meet with any reverse. For more grievous, to a man of high spirit at least, is the misery which accompanies cowardice, than the unfelt death which comes upon him at once, in the time of his strength and of his hope for the common welfare.

Wherefore to the parents of the dead—as many of them as are here among you—I will not offer condolence, so much as consolation. For they know that they have been brought up subject to manifold misfortunes; but that happy is their lot who have gained the most glorious—death, as these have,—sorrow, as you have; and to whom life has been so exactly measured, that they were both happy in it, and died in [that happiness]. Difficult, indeed, I know it is to persuade you of this, with regard to those of whom you will often be reminded by the good fortune of others, in which you yourselves also once rejoiced; and sorrow is felt, not for the blessings of which one is bereft without full experience of them, but of that which one loses after becoming accustomed to it.

But you must bear up in the hope of other children, those of you whose age yet allows you to have them. For to yourselves individually those who are subsequently born will be a reason for your forgetting those who are no more; and to the state it will be beneficial in two ways, by its not being depopulated, and by the enjoyment of security; for it is not possible that those should offer any fair and just advice, who do not incur equal risk with their neighbors by having children at stake. Those of you, however, who are past that age, must consider that the longer period of your life during which you have been prosperous is so much gain, and that what remains will be a short one; and you must cheer yourselves with the fair fame of these [your lost ones]. For the love of honor is the only feeling that never grows old; and in the helplessness of age it is not the acquisition of gain, as some assert, that gives greatest pleasure, but the enjoyment of honor.

For those of you, on the other hand, who are sons or brothers of the dead, great, I see, will be the struggle of competition. For every one is accustomed to praise the man who is no more; and scarcely, though even for an excess of worth, would you be esteemed, I do not say equal to them, but only slightly inferior. For the living are exposed to envy in their rivalry; but those who are in no one’s way are honored with a good will free from all opposition. If, again, I must say anything on the subject of woman’s excellence also, with reference to those of you who will now be in widowhood, I will express it all in a brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of the natural character that belongs to you; and great is hers, who is least talked of among the men, either for good or evil.

I have now expressed in word, as the law required, what I had to say befitting the occasion; and, in deed, those who are here interred, have already received part of their honors, while, for the remaining part, the state will bring up their sons at the public expense, from this time to their manhood; thus offering both to these and to their posterity a beneficial reward for such contests; for where the greatest prizes for virtue are given, there also the most virtuous men are found amongst the citizens. And now, having finished your lamentations for your several relatives, depart.

Note: Delivered “in the fairest suburb” of Athens ever the bodies of those who had fallen in the first Peloponnesian War. Reported by Thucydides. Translated by Henry Dale. Slightly abridged. Read more!

On the Union of Greece to Resist Persia

Isocrates (436–338 B.C.)

(380 B.C.)

Born in 436 B.C., and died in 338; lived from the age of Pericles to that of Alexander; his teachings as to style influenced Plato, Demosthenes, and Cicero; usually classed as one of the ten Attic orators, but more properly a publicist.



IT is confessed indeed that our state is the most ancient and the greatest, and the most celebrated among all men; and the foundation being thus glorious, on account of what follows these it is still more befitting that we should be honored. For we inhabit this city, not having expelled others, nor having found it deserted, nor collected promiscuously from many nations, but we are of such honorable and genuine birth that we continue for all time possessing this land from which we were born, being sprung from the soil. And being able to call our city by the same names as our nearest relations, for we alone of all the Greeks have a right to call the same—nurse and fatherland and mother. And yet it is right that those who with good reason entertain high thoughts, and who justly dispute the supremacy and who often make mention of their hereditary rights, should prove the origin of their race to be of this nature.

The advantages, then, which we possessed from the beginning, and which were bestowed upon us by fortune, are so great in magnitude; but of how great advantages we have been the cause to the rest we should thus best investigate. if we should go through in detail the time from the commencement, and the exploits of the State in succession; for we shall find that she not only [delivered us] from the dangers in respect of war, but also is the cause of that established order besides in which we dwell and with which we live as free citizens, and by means of which we are able to live.

Of the wars, indeed, the Persian was the most famous; the old achievements, however, are not less strong proofs for those who dispute about hereditary institutions. For when Greece was still in a lowly condition, the Thracians indeed came to our land with Eumolpus the son of Poseidon, and the Scythians with the Amazons the daughters of Mars, not at the same time, but at the time when each of them were rulers of Europe, hating, indeed, the whole race of the Greeks, but making charges against us separately, thinking that by this line of conduct they would incur danger against one state indeed, but would at the same time conquer all.

They did not however, succeed, but having engaged with our ancestors separately, they were destroyed equally as if they had made war on all together. And the magnitude of the evils which befell them is manifest, for the speeches concerning them would never have lived on for so long a time had not also their achievements far excelled those of other men. It is recorded, then, concerning the Amazons, that not one of those who came went back again, while those who were left at home were driven out of their government on account of their calamity here; and concerning the Thracians, [it is said] that although during the former times they dwelt beside us, on our borders, yet on account of that expedition they left so great an intervening space, that in the district between us, many nations and all kinds of races and great cities have been established.

Glorious indeed, then, are these things, and befitting those who dispute for the supremacy, but akin to what has been said, and such as it is natural that those sprung from such men would perform, were the exploits of those who waged war against Darius and Xerxes.

Always indeed, then, both our ancestors and the Lacedæmonians acted in a spirit of rivalry to each other. Not but what in those times they contended for the most glorious objects, not thinking each other to be enemies, but rivals, not paying court to the foreigner with a view to the slavery of the Greeks, but being of one mind about the common safety, and engaging in a contest as to this, viz., which of the two be the authors of it. And they displayed their valor first, indeed, in the case of those sent by Darius. For when these had landed in Attica, the one did not wait for their allies, but making what was a common war a personal one, they went out to meet those who had treated contemptuously the whole of Hellas with their private force, a few against many myriads, as if about to brave the danger in the case of the lives of others, while the others no sooner heard of the war being in Attica than, neglecting everything else they came to assist us, making as great haste as if it was their own country which was being ravaged.

And after these things, when the subsequent expedition took place, which Xerxes led in person, after abandoning his palace and undertaking to become a general, and having collected all the men from Asia; and who, being anxious not to speak in extravagant terms, has spoken about him in language which fell short of the reality?—a man, who reached such a height of arrogance, that considering it to be a trifling achievement to subdue Greece, and wishing to leave behind such a monument as surpasses human nature, ceased not until he had devised and at the same time carried out by compulsion that which all talk of, so that with his armament he sailed through the mainland and marched over the sea, having bridged over the Hellespont and dug a canal through Athos. Against him, indeed, having such high thoughts, and having succeeded in accomplishing such great deeds and having become the lord of so many, they went forth, having divided amongst themselves the danger, the Lacedæmonians indeed to Thermopylæ against the land force, having selected a thousand of themselves, and taking along with them a few of their allies with the intention of preventing them in the narrow pass from advancing farther, while our fathers [went out] to Artemisium, having manned sixty triremes to meet the whole naval force of the enemy. And they had the courage to do these things, not so much through contempt of the enemy as from a spirit of rivalry with each other, the Lacedæmonians indeed envying our state, for the battle at Marathon, and seeking to put themselves on an equality with us, and fearing lest our state should twice in succession become the author of deliverance to the Greeks, and our fathers wishing chiefly indeed to retain their present glory and to make it manifest to all that both in the former case it was through valor and not through fortune that they had conquered; in the next place also to induce the Greeks to maintain a sea-fight by showing to them that valor gets the better of numbers in naval dangers and enterprises equally as in those by land.

And to the king (of Asia), indeed, nothing is more important than to consider by what means we shall never cease warring against one another, while we are so far from bringing any of his interests into collision or causing them to be distracted by factions, that we even endeavor to assist in putting an end to the troubles which have befallen him through fortune; since we also allow him to make use of one of the two armaments in Cyprus, and to blockade the other, though both of them belong to Hellas. For both those who have revolted are friendly disposed towards us and give themselves up to the Lacedæmonians, and the most useful part of those who are serving with Tiribazus and of the land army have been collected from these districts, and the greater part of the navy has sailed along with them from Ionia, who would much more gladly have ravaged Asia in concert than have fought against one another on account of trifles. Of these things we take no thought, but we are disputing about the islands of the Cyclades, and thus heedlessly have we surrendered to the foreign foe cities so many in number and so great in magnitude. Therefore, he is in possession of some, and is on the point of [taking possession of] others, and is plotting against others, having despised all of us, and with good reason. For he has effected what no one of his ancestors ever did; for it has been agreed on, both by us and by the Lacedæmonians, that Asia belongs to the king, and he has taken possession of the Grecian cities with such authority as to raze some of them to the ground, and in others to fortify citadels. And all these things have happened through our folly and not on account of his power.

Our citizens are at this time reconciled with all the others with whom they have been at war, and forget the hostility which has arisen, but to the inhabitants of the continent they do not feel grateful, even when they receive benefits [from them], so undying is the anger they feel toward them. And our fathers condemned many to death for favoring the Medes; and even at the present day, in their public assemblies, they make imprecations, before they transact any other business, on whomsoever of the citizens makes proposals for peace to the Persians. And the Eumolpidæ and the Heralds, in the celebration of the mysteries, on account of their hatred for them, proclaim publicly also to all other foreigners, as they do to homicides, that they are excluded from the sacred rites. And such hostile feelings do we entertain by nature toward them, that even in our legends, we occupy ourselves with most pleasure with those relating to the Trojan and Persian wars, by which it is possible to hear of their calamities. And one might finds hymns composed in consequence of the war against the foreigners, but dirges produced for us in consequence of that against the Greeks, and might find the former sung at the festivals, while we call to mind the latter in our calamities. And I think that even the poetry of Homer received greater honors, because he nobly extolled those who made war against the foreign foe: and that for this reason our ancestors wished to make his art honored, both in the contests in poetry and in the education of the younger generation, in order that, hearing frequently his poems, we may learn by heart the enmity which existed toward them, and, emulating the deeds of valor of those who made war upon them, may set our hearts upon the same exploits as they achieved.

Wherefore there appear to me to be very many things which encourage us to make war against them, and especially the present favorable opportunity, than which nothing is more clear. And we must not let it slip. For, in fact, it is disgraceful not to use it when present, but to remember it when it is past. For what additional advantage could we even wish to have, if intending to go to war with the king, beyond what we already possess? Has not Egypt revolted from him, as well as Cyprus; and have not Phœnicia and Syria been devastated owing to the war; and has not Tyre, on account of which he was greatly elated, been seized by his enemies? And the majority of the cities in Cilicia those on our side possess, and the rest it is not difficult to acquire. But Lycia no one of the Persians ever conquered. And Hecatomnos, the overseer of Caria, in reality indeed has revolted for a long time already, and will confess it whenever we may wish. And from Cnidus to Sinope the Greeks inhabit the coasts of Asia, whom it is not necessary to persuade to go to war, but [only] not to prevent them.

And yet, as we already possess so many bases of operation, and as so great a war encircles Asia, what need is there too accurately to scrutinize what are likely to be the results? For where they are inferior to small portions, it is not uncertain how they would be disposed, if they should be compelled to war with all of us. Now the case stands thus. If, indeed, the king occupy in greater force the cities on the sea-coast, establishing in them greater garrisons than at present, perhaps also those of the islands which are near the mainland, as Rhodes and Samos and Chios, might lean to his fortunes; but if we be the first to seize them, it is probable that those inhabiting Lydia and Phrygia, and the rest of the country which lies above them, would be in the power of those who make these their base of operations. Wherefore it is necessary to hasten and to make no loss of time, that we may not suffer what our fathers did.

And it is fitting to make the expedition in the present age, in order that those who participate in the calamities may also have the enjoyment of the advantages, and may not continue to live unfortunate during all their lifetime. For the time past is sufficient—in which what horror is there which has not happened?—for, though there are many evils already existing in the nature of man, we ourselves have invented in addition more than the necessary evils, having created wars and factions among ourselves, so that some are perishing lawlessly in their own cities, and some are wandering in a foreign land with their children and wives, and many being compelled, through want of the daily necessaries of life, to serve as mercenaries, are dying fighting against their friends on behalf of their enemies. And at this no one has ever been indignant, but they think it becoming to shed tears at the calamities composed by poets, but, though gazing upon many dreadful genuine sufferings happening on account of the war, they are so far from pitying them, that they even take more pleasure in the misfortunes of one another than in their own personal advantages. And perhaps, also, many might laugh at my simplicity, if I were to lament the misfortunes of individuals at such critical times, in which Italy has been devastated, and Sicily reduced to slavery, and so many cities have been surrendered to the foreigners, and the remaining portions of the Greeks are in the greatest dangers.

Now it is necessary to put out of the way these plottings, and to attempt those deeds from which we shall both inhabit our cities in greater security, and be more faithfully disposed to one another, and what is to be mid about these matters is simple and easy. For it is neither possible to enjoy a secure peace, unless we make war in concert against the foreign enemy, nor for the Greeks to be of one mind until we consider both our advantages to come from one another, and our dangers to be against the same people.

But when these things have been done, and the embarrassment with regard to our means of living has been taken away, which both dissolves friendships and perverts relationships into enmity, and involves all men in wars and factions, it is not possible that we shall not be of one mind, and entertain toward one another genuine feelings of good will. For which reasons we must esteem it of the greatest importance how we shall, as soon as possible, banish the war from hence to the continent, as this is the only advantage we should reap from the dangers in fighting against one another, namely, if it should seem good to us to employ against the foreign foe the experience which we have derived from them.

And truly we shall not even annoy the cities by enrolling soldiers from them, a thing which is now most troublesome to them in the war against one another; for I think that those who will wish to stay at home will be much fewer in number than those who will desire to follow with us. For who, whether young or old, is so indifferent that he will not wish to have a share in this expedition, commanded indeed by the Athenians and Lacedæmonians, but collected in defense of the liberty of the allies, and sent out by the whole of Hellas, and marching to take vengeance upon the foreign foe? And how great must we consider the fame, and the memory, and the glory which those will either have in their lives, or leave behind them in their deaths, who have been the bravest in such exploits? For where those who made war against Alexander, and captured one city, were deemed worthy of such praises, what panegyrics must we expect that they will obtain who have conquered the whole of Asia? For who, either of those able to write poetry, or of those who understand how to speak, will not labor and study, wishing to leave behind him a memorial for all ages, at the same time of his own and of their valor?

Supposed to have been first published at Olympia 380 B.C., and here abridged. It has been pointed out that, while the conquest of Asia by Alexander was not due to a union of Athens and Sparta, that achievement, in some other ways, was a justification of the plans advocated by Isocrates. Translated by Rev. James Rice. The writing and revising of this work are said to have been extended by Isocrates over a period of ten years. Read more!