MENEXENUS by Plato (see Appendix I) Translated by Benjamin Jowett APPENDIX I. It seems impossible to separate by any exact line the genuine writingsof Plato from the spurious. The only external evidence to them which isof much value is that of Aristotle; for the Alexandrian catalogues ofa century later include manifest forgeries. Even the value of theAristotelian authority is a good deal impaired by the uncertaintyconcerning the date and authorship of the writings which are ascribed tohim. And several of the citations of Aristotle omit the name of Plato, and some of them omit the name of the dialogue from which they aretaken. Prior, however, to the enquiry about the writings of a particularauthor, general considerations which equally affect all evidence to thegenuineness of ancient writings are the following: Shorter works aremore likely to have been forged, or to have received an erroneousdesignation, than longer ones; and some kinds of composition, such asepistles or panegyrical orations, are more liable to suspicion thanothers; those, again, which have a taste of sophistry in them, or thering of a later age, or the slighter character of a rhetorical exercise, or in which a motive or some affinity to spurious writings can bedetected, or which seem to have originated in a name or statement reallyoccurring in some classical author, are also of doubtful credit; whilethere is no instance of any ancient writing proved to be a forgery, which combines excellence with length. A really great and originalwriter would have no object in fathering his works on Plato; and to theforger or imitator, the 'literary hack' of Alexandria and Athens, theGods did not grant originality or genius. Further, in attempting tobalance the evidence for and against a Platonic dialogue, we must notforget that the form of the Platonic writing was common to several ofhis contemporaries. Aeschines, Euclid, Phaedo, Antisthenes, and in thenext generation Aristotle, are all said to have composed dialogues; andmistakes of names are very likely to have occurred. Greek literature inthe third century before Christ was almost as voluminous as our own, andwithout the safeguards of regular publication, or printing, or binding, or even of distinct titles. An unknown writing was naturally attributedto a known writer whose works bore the same character; and the name onceappended easily obtained authority. A tendency may also be observed toblend the works and opinions of the master with those of his scholars. To a later Platonist, the difference between Plato and his imitators wasnot so perceptible as to ourselves. The Memorabilia of Xenophon and theDialogues of Plato are but a part of a considerable Socratic literaturewhich has passed away. And we must consider how we should regard thequestion of the genuineness of a particular writing, if this lostliterature had been preserved to us. These considerations lead us to adopt the following criteria ofgenuineness: (1) That is most certainly Plato's which Aristotleattributes to him by name, which (2) is of considerable length, of (3)great excellence, and also (4) in harmony with the general spirit ofthe Platonic writings. But the testimony of Aristotle cannot alwaysbe distinguished from that of a later age (see above); and has variousdegrees of importance. Those writings which he cites without mentioningPlato, under their own names, e. G. The Hippias, the Funeral Oration, thePhaedo, etc. , have an inferior degree of evidence in their favour. Theymay have been supposed by him to be the writings of another, although inthe case of really great works, e. G. The Phaedo, this is not credible;those again which are quoted but not named, are still more defectivein their external credentials. There may be also a possibility thatAristotle was mistaken, or may have confused the master and his scholarsin the case of a short writing; but this is inconceivable about a moreimportant work, e. G. The Laws, especially when we remember that he wasliving at Athens, and a frequenter of the groves of the Academy, duringthe last twenty years of Plato's life. Nor must we forget that in allhis numerous citations from the Platonic writings he never attributesany passage found in the extant dialogues to any one but Plato. Andlastly, we may remark that one or two great writings, such as theParmenides and the Politicus, which are wholly devoid of Aristotelian(1) credentials may be fairly attributed to Plato, on the ground of (2)length, (3) excellence, and (4) accordance with the general spiritof his writings. Indeed the greater part of the evidence for thegenuineness of ancient Greek authors may be summed up under two headsonly: (1) excellence; and (2) uniformity of tradition--a kind ofevidence, which though in many cases sufficient, is of inferior value. Proceeding upon these principles we appear to arrive at the conclusionthat nineteen-twentieths of all the writings which have ever beenascribed to Plato, are undoubtedly genuine. There is another portion ofthem, including the Epistles, the Epinomis, the dialogues rejected bythe ancients themselves, namely, the Axiochus, De justo, De virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, which on grounds, both of internal andexternal evidence, we are able with equal certainty to reject. But therestill remains a small portion of which we are unable to affirm eitherthat they are genuine or spurious. They may have been written in youth, or possibly like the works of some painters, may be partly or whollythe compositions of pupils; or they may have been the writings of somecontemporary transferred by accident to the more celebrated name ofPlato, or of some Platonist in the next generation who aspired toimitate his master. Not that on grounds either of language or philosophywe should lightly reject them. Some difference of style, or inferiorityof execution, or inconsistency of thought, can hardly be considereddecisive of their spurious character. For who always does justice tohimself, or who writes with equal care at all times? Certainly notPlato, who exhibits the greatest differences in dramatic power, in theformation of sentences, and in the use of words, if his earlier writingsare compared with his later ones, say the Protagoras or Phaedrus withthe Laws. Or who can be expected to think in the same manner duringa period of authorship extending over above fifty years, in an ageof great intellectual activity, as well as of political and literarytransition? Certainly not Plato, whose earlier writings are separatedfrom his later ones by as wide an interval of philosophical speculationas that which separates his later writings from Aristotle. The dialogues which have been translated in the first Appendix, andwhich appear to have the next claim to genuineness among the Platonicwritings, are the Lesser Hippias, the Menexenus or Funeral Oration, theFirst Alcibiades. Of these, the Lesser Hippias and the Funeral Orationare cited by Aristotle; the first in the Metaphysics, the latter in theRhetoric. Neither of them are expressly attributed to Plato, but in hiscitation of both of them he seems to be referring to passages in theextant dialogues. From the mention of 'Hippias' in the singular byAristotle, we may perhaps infer that he was unacquainted with a seconddialogue bearing the same name. Moreover, the mere existence of aGreater and Lesser Hippias, and of a First and Second Alcibiades, doesto a certain extent throw a doubt upon both of them. Though a veryclever and ingenious work, the Lesser Hippias does not appear to containanything beyond the power of an imitator, who was also a careful studentof the earlier Platonic writings, to invent. The motive or leadingthought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem. , and there isno similar instance of a 'motive' which is taken from Xenophon in anundoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other hand, the upholders of thegenuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socraticspirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject andtreatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they willdetect in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoningupon Homer, in the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice isignorance, traces of a Platonic authorship. In reference to the lastpoint we are doubtful, as in some of the other dialogues, whether theauthor is asserting or overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merelyfollowing the argument 'whither the wind blows. ' That no conclusionis arrived at is also in accordance with the character of the earlierdialogues. The resemblances or imitations of the Gorgias, Protagoras, and Euthydemus, which have been observed in the Hippias, cannot withcertainty be adduced on either side of the argument. On the whole, moremay be said in favour of the genuineness of the Hippias than against it. The Menexenus or Funeral Oration is cited by Aristotle, and isinteresting as supplying an example of the manner in which the oratorspraised 'the Athenians among the Athenians, ' falsifying persons anddates, and casting a veil over the gloomier events of Athenian history. It exhibits an acquaintance with the funeral oration of Thucydides, andwas, perhaps, intended to rival that great work. If genuine, theproper place of the Menexenus would be at the end of the Phaedrus. Thesatirical opening and the concluding words bear a great resemblance tothe earlier dialogues; the oration itself is professedly a mimetic work, like the speeches in the Phaedrus, and cannot therefore be tested bya comparison of the other writings of Plato. The funeral oration ofPericles is expressly mentioned in the Phaedrus, and this may havesuggested the subject, in the same manner that the Cleitophon appears tobe suggested by the slight mention of Cleitophon and his attachment toThrasymachus in the Republic; and the Theages by the mention of Theagesin the Apology and Republic; or as the Second Alcibiades seems to befounded upon the text of Xenophon, Mem. A similar taste for parodyappears not only in the Phaedrus, but in the Protagoras, in theSymposium, and to a certain extent in the Parmenides. To these two doubtful writings of Plato I have added the FirstAlcibiades, which, of all the disputed dialogues of Plato, has thegreatest merit, and is somewhat longer than any of them, though notverified by the testimony of Aristotle, and in many respects at variancewith the Symposium in the description of the relations of Socratesand Alcibiades. Like the Lesser Hippias and the Menexenus, it is to becompared to the earlier writings of Plato. The motive of the piece may, perhaps, be found in that passage of the Symposium in which Alcibiadesdescribes himself as self-convicted by the words of Socrates. For thedisparaging manner in which Schleiermacher has spoken of this dialoguethere seems to be no sufficient foundation. At the same time, the lessonimparted is simple, and the irony more transparent than in the undoubteddialogues of Plato. We know, too, that Alcibiades was a favouritethesis, and that at least five or six dialogues bearing this name passedcurrent in antiquity, and are attributed to contemporaries of Socratesand Plato. (1) In the entire absence of real external evidence (forthe catalogues of the Alexandrian librarians cannot be regarded astrustworthy); and (2) in the absence of the highest marks either ofpoetical or philosophical excellence; and (3) considering that we haveexpress testimony to the existence of contemporary writings bearingthe name of Alcibiades, we are compelled to suspend our judgment on thegenuineness of the extant dialogue. Neither at this point, nor at any other, do we propose to draw anabsolute line of demarcation between genuine and spurious writings ofPlato. They fade off imperceptibly from one class to another. There mayhave been degrees of genuineness in the dialogues themselves, as thereare certainly degrees of evidence by which they are supported. Thetraditions of the oral discourses both of Socrates and Plato may haveformed the basis of semi-Platonic writings; some of them may be of thesame mixed character which is apparent in Aristotle and Hippocrates, although the form of them is different. But the writings of Plato, unlike the writings of Aristotle, seem never to have been confused withthe writings of his disciples: this was probably due to their definiteform, and to their inimitable excellence. The three dialogues whichwe have offered in the Appendix to the criticism of the reader maybe partly spurious and partly genuine; they may be altogetherspurious;--that is an alternative which must be frankly admitted. Norcan we maintain of some other dialogues, such as the Parmenides, andthe Sophist, and Politicus, that no considerable objection can be urgedagainst them, though greatly overbalanced by the weight (chiefly)of internal evidence in their favour. Nor, on the other hand, canwe exclude a bare possibility that some dialogues which are usuallyrejected, such as the Greater Hippias and the Cleitophon, may begenuine. The nature and object of these semi-Platonic writings requiremore careful study and more comparison of them with one another, andwith forged writings in general, than they have yet received, before wecan finally decide on their character. We do not consider them all asgenuine until they can be proved to be spurious, as is often maintainedand still more often implied in this and similar discussions; butshould say of some of them, that their genuineness is neither proven nordisproven until further evidence about them can be adduced. And we areas confident that the Epistles are spurious, as that the Republic, theTimaeus, and the Laws are genuine. On the whole, not a twentieth part of the writings which pass underthe name of Plato, if we exclude the works rejected by the ancientsthemselves and two or three other plausible inventions, can be fairlydoubted by those who are willing to allow that a considerable changeand growth may have taken place in his philosophy (see above). Thattwentieth debatable portion scarcely in any degree affects our judgmentof Plato, either as a thinker or a writer, and though suggesting someinteresting questions to the scholar and critic, is of little importanceto the general reader. MENEXENUS INTRODUCTION. The Menexenus has more the character of a rhetorical exercise than anyother of the Platonic works. The writer seems to have wished to emulateThucydides, and the far slighter work of Lysias. In his rivalry with thelatter, to whom in the Phaedrus Plato shows a strong antipathy, he isentirely successful, but he is not equal to Thucydides. The Menexenus, though not without real Hellenic interest, falls very far short ofthe rugged grandeur and political insight of the great historian. Thefiction of the speech having been invented by Aspasia is well sustained, and is in the manner of Plato, notwithstanding the anachronism whichputs into her mouth an allusion to the peace of Antalcidas, an eventoccurring forty years after the date of the supposed oration. ButPlato, like Shakespeare, is careless of such anachronisms, which are notsupposed to strike the mind of the reader. The effect produced by thesegrandiloquent orations on Socrates, who does not recover after havingheard one of them for three days and more, is truly Platonic. Such discourses, if we may form a judgment from the three which areextant (for the so-called Funeral Oration of Demosthenes is a bad andspurious imitation of Thucydides and Lysias), conformed to a regulartype. They began with Gods and ancestors, and the legendary history ofAthens, to which succeeded an almost equally fictitious account of latertimes. The Persian war usually formed the centre of the narrative; inthe age of Isocrates and Demosthenes the Athenians were still living onthe glories of Marathon and Salamis. The Menexenus veils in panegyricthe weak places of Athenian history. The war of Athens and Boeotia isa war of liberation; the Athenians gave back the Spartans taken atSphacteria out of kindness--indeed, the only fault of the city was toogreat kindness to their enemies, who were more honoured than the friendsof others (compare Thucyd. , which seems to contain the germ of theidea); we democrats are the aristocracy of virtue, and the like. Theseare the platitudes and falsehoods in which history is disguised. Thetaking of Athens is hardly mentioned. The author of the Menexenus, whether Plato or not, is evidentlyintending to ridicule the practice, and at the same time to show that hecan beat the rhetoricians in their own line, as in the Phaedrus he maybe supposed to offer an example of what Lysias might have said, and ofhow much better he might have written in his own style. The orators hadrecourse to their favourite loci communes, one of which, as we find inLysias, was the shortness of the time allowed them for preparation. ButSocrates points out that they had them always ready for delivery, andthat there was no difficulty in improvising any number of such orations. To praise the Athenians among the Athenians was easy, --to praise themamong the Lacedaemonians would have been a much more difficult task. Socrates himself has turned rhetorician, having learned of a woman, Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles; and any one whose teachers had beenfar inferior to his own--say, one who had learned from Antiphonthe Rhamnusian--would be quite equal to the task of praising men tothemselves. When we remember that Antiphon is described by Thucydides asthe best pleader of his day, the satire on him and on the whole tribe ofrhetoricians is transparent. The ironical assumption of Socrates, that he must be a good oratorbecause he had learnt of Aspasia, is not coarse, as Schleiermachersupposes, but is rather to be regarded as fanciful. Nor can we say thatthe offer of Socrates to dance naked out of love for Menexenus, is anymore un-Platonic than the threat of physical force which Phaedrus usestowards Socrates. Nor is there any real vulgarity in the fear whichSocrates expresses that he will get a beating from his mistress, Aspasia: this is the natural exaggeration of what might be expected froman imperious woman. Socrates is not to be taken seriously in all thathe says, and Plato, both in the Symposium and elsewhere, is not slow toadmit a sort of Aristophanic humour. How a great original genius likePlato might or might not have written, what was his conception ofhumour, or what limits he would have prescribed to himself, if any, in drawing the picture of the Silenus Socrates, are problems which nocritical instinct can determine. On the other hand, the dialogue has several Platonic traits, whetheroriginal or imitated may be uncertain. Socrates, when he departs fromhis character of a 'know nothing' and delivers a speech, generallypretends that what he is speaking is not his own composition. Thus inthe Cratylus he is run away with; in the Phaedrus he has heard somebodysay something--is inspired by the genius loci; in the Symposium hederives his wisdom from Diotima of Mantinea, and the like. But he doesnot impose on Menexenus by his dissimulation. Without violating thecharacter of Socrates, Plato, who knows so well how to give a hint, orsome one writing in his name, intimates clearly enough that the speechin the Menexenus like that in the Phaedrus is to be attributed toSocrates. The address of the dead to the living at the end of theoration may also be compared to the numerous addresses of the same kindwhich occur in Plato, in whom the dramatic element is always tending toprevail over the rhetorical. The remark has been often made, that in theFuneral Oration of Thucydides there is no allusion to the existence ofthe dead. But in the Menexenus a future state is clearly, although notstrongly, asserted. Whether the Menexenus is a genuine writing of Plato, or an imitationonly, remains uncertain. In either case, the thoughts are partlyborrowed from the Funeral Oration of Thucydides; and the fact thatthey are so, is not in favour of the genuineness of the work. Internalevidence seems to leave the question of authorship in doubt. There aremerits and there are defects which might lead to either conclusion. Theform of the greater part of the work makes the enquiry difficult; theintroduction and the finale certainly wear the look either of Plato orof an extremely skilful imitator. The excellence of the forgery may befairly adduced as an argument that it is not a forgery at all. In thisuncertainty the express testimony of Aristotle, who quotes, in theRhetoric, the well-known words, 'It is easy to praise the Atheniansamong the Athenians, ' from the Funeral Oration, may perhaps turn thebalance in its favour. It must be remembered also that the work wasfamous in antiquity, and is included in the Alexandrian catalogues ofPlatonic writings. PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates and Menexenus. SOCRATES: Whence come you, Menexenus? Are you from the Agora? MENEXENUS: Yes, Socrates; I have been at the Council. SOCRATES: And what might you be doing at the Council? And yet I needhardly ask, for I see that you, believing yourself to have arrived atthe end of education and of philosophy, and to have had enough of them, are mounting upwards to things higher still, and, though rather youngfor the post, are intending to govern us elder men, like the rest ofyour family, which has always provided some one who kindly took care ofus. MENEXENUS: Yes, Socrates, I shall be ready to hold office, if you allowand advise that I should, but not if you think otherwise. I went to thecouncil chamber because I heard that the Council was about to choosesome one who was to speak over the dead. For you know that there is tobe a public funeral? SOCRATES: Yes, I know. And whom did they choose? MENEXENUS: No one; they delayed the election until tomorrow, but Ibelieve that either Archinus or Dion will be chosen. SOCRATES: O Menexenus! Death in battle is certainly in many respects anoble thing. The dead man gets a fine and costly funeral, although hemay have been poor, and an elaborate speech is made over him by a wiseman who has long ago prepared what he has to say, although he who ispraised may not have been good for much. The speakers praise him forwhat he has done and for what he has not done--that is the beauty ofthem--and they steal away our souls with their embellished words; inevery conceivable form they praise the city; and they praise those whodied in war, and all our ancestors who went before us; and they praiseourselves also who are still alive, until I feel quite elevated by theirlaudations, and I stand listening to their words, Menexenus, and becomeenchanted by them, and all in a moment I imagine myself to have becomea greater and nobler and finer man than I was before. And if, as oftenhappens, there are any foreigners who accompany me to the speech, Ibecome suddenly conscious of having a sort of triumph over them, andthey seem to experience a corresponding feeling of admiration at me, andat the greatness of the city, which appears to them, when they areunder the influence of the speaker, more wonderful than ever. Thisconsciousness of dignity lasts me more than three days, and not untilthe fourth or fifth day do I come to my senses and know where I am; inthe meantime I have been living in the Islands of the Blest. Such isthe art of our rhetoricians, and in such manner does the sound of theirwords keep ringing in my ears. MENEXENUS: You are always making fun of the rhetoricians, Socrates; thistime, however, I am inclined to think that the speaker who is chosenwill not have much to say, for he has been called upon to speak at amoment's notice, and he will be compelled almost to improvise. SOCRATES: But why, my friend, should he not have plenty to say? Everyrhetorician has speeches ready made; nor is there any difficulty inimprovising that sort of stuff. Had the orator to praise Athenians amongPeloponnesians, or Peloponnesians among Athenians, he must be agood rhetorician who could succeed and gain credit. But there is nodifficulty in a man's winning applause when he is contending for fameamong the persons whom he is praising. MENEXENUS: Do you think not, Socrates? SOCRATES: Certainly 'not. ' MENEXENUS: Do you think that you could speak yourself if there should bea necessity, and if the Council were to choose you? SOCRATES: That I should be able to speak is no great wonder, Menexenus, considering that I have an excellent mistress in the art ofrhetoric, --she who has made so many good speakers, and one who was thebest among all the Hellenes--Pericles, the son of Xanthippus. MENEXENUS: And who is she? I suppose that you mean Aspasia. SOCRATES: Yes, I do; and besides her I had Connus, the son of Metrobius, as a master, and he was my master in music, as she was in rhetoric. No wonder that a man who has received such an education should be afinished speaker; even the pupil of very inferior masters, say, forexample, one who had learned music of Lamprus, and rhetoric of Antiphonthe Rhamnusian, might make a figure if he were to praise the Atheniansamong the Athenians. MENEXENUS: And what would you be able to say if you had to speak? SOCRATES: Of my own wit, most likely nothing; but yesterday I heardAspasia composing a funeral oration about these very dead. For she hadbeen told, as you were saying, that the Athenians were going to choosea speaker, and she repeated to me the sort of speech which he shoulddeliver, partly improvising and partly from previous thought, puttingtogether fragments of the funeral oration which Pericles spoke, butwhich, as I believe, she composed. MENEXENUS: And can you remember what Aspasia said? SOCRATES: I ought to be able, for she taught me, and she was ready tostrike me because I was always forgetting. MENEXENUS: Then why will you not rehearse what she said? SOCRATES: Because I am afraid that my mistress may be angry with me if Ipublish her speech. MENEXENUS: Nay, Socrates, let us have the speech, whether Aspasia's orany one else's, no matter. I hope that you will oblige me. SOCRATES: But I am afraid that you will laugh at me if I continue thegames of youth in old age. MENEXENUS: Far otherwise, Socrates; let us by all means have the speech. SOCRATES: Truly I have such a disposition to oblige you, that if you bidme dance naked I should not like to refuse, since we are alone. Listenthen: If I remember rightly, she began as follows, with the mention ofthe dead:--(Thucyd. ) There is a tribute of deeds and of words. The departed have already hadthe first, when going forth on their destined journey they were attendedon their way by the state and by their friends; the tribute of wordsremains to be given to them, as is meet and by law ordained. For noblewords are a memorial and a crown of noble actions, which are givento the doers of them by the hearers. A word is needed which will dulypraise the dead and gently admonish the living, exhorting the brethrenand descendants of the departed to imitate their virtue, and consolingtheir fathers and mothers and the survivors, if any, who may chance tobe alive of the previous generation. What sort of a word will this be, and how shall we rightly begin the praises of these brave men? In theirlife they rejoiced their own friends with their valour, and their deaththey gave in exchange for the salvation of the living. And I think thatwe should praise them in the order in which nature made them good, forthey were good because they were sprung from good fathers. Whereforelet us first of all praise the goodness of their birth; secondly, theirnurture and education; and then let us set forth how noble their actionswere, and how worthy of the education which they had received. And first as to their birth. Their ancestors were not strangers, nor arethese their descendants sojourners only, whose fathers have come fromanother country; but they are the children of the soil, dwelling andliving in their own land. And the country which brought them up is notlike other countries, a stepmother to her children, but their own truemother; she bore them and nourished them and received them, and in herbosom they now repose. It is meet and right, therefore, that we shouldbegin by praising the land which is their mother, and that will be a wayof praising their noble birth. The country is worthy to be praised, not only by us, but by all mankind;first, and above all, as being dear to the Gods. This is proved by thestrife and contention of the Gods respecting her. And ought not thecountry which the Gods praise to be praised by all mankind? The secondpraise which may be fairly claimed by her, is that at the time when thewhole earth was sending forth and creating diverse animals, tame andwild, she our mother was free and pure from savage monsters, and out ofall animals selected and brought forth man, who is superior to the restin understanding, and alone has justice and religion. And a great proofthat she brought forth the common ancestors of us and of the departed, is that she provided the means of support for her offspring. For as awoman proves her motherhood by giving milk to her young ones (and shewho has no fountain of milk is not a mother), so did this our land provethat she was the mother of men, for in those days she alone and first ofall brought forth wheat and barley for human food, which is the best andnoblest sustenance for man, whom she regarded as her true offspring. Andthese are truer proofs of motherhood in a country than in a woman, forthe woman in her conception and generation is but the imitation of theearth, and not the earth of the woman. And of the fruit of the earth shegave a plenteous supply, not only to her own, but to others also; andafterwards she made the olive to spring up to be a boon to her children, and to help them in their toils. And when she had herself nursed themand brought them up to manhood, she gave them Gods to be their rulersand teachers, whose names are well known, and need not now be repeated. They are the Gods who first ordered our lives, and instructed us in thearts for the supply of our daily needs, and taught us the acquisitionand use of arms for the defence of the country. Thus born into the world and thus educated, the ancestors of thedeparted lived and made themselves a government, which I ought brieflyto commemorate. For government is the nurture of man, and the governmentof good men is good, and of bad men bad. And I must show that ourancestors were trained under a good government, and for this reason theywere good, and our contemporaries are also good, among whom our departedfriends are to be reckoned. Then as now, and indeed always, from thattime to this, speaking generally, our government was an aristocracy--aform of government which receives various names, according to thefancies of men, and is sometimes called democracy, but is really anaristocracy or government of the best which has the approval of themany. For kings we have always had, first hereditary and then elected, and authority is mostly in the hands of the people, who dispense officesand power to those who appear to be most deserving of them. Neither isa man rejected from weakness or poverty or obscurity of origin, norhonoured by reason of the opposite, as in other states, but there is oneprinciple--he who appears to be wise and good is a governor and ruler. The basis of this our government is equality of birth; for other statesare made up of all sorts and unequal conditions of men, and thereforetheir governments are unequal; there are tyrannies and there areoligarchies, in which the one party are slaves and the others masters. But we and our citizens are brethren, the children all of one mother, and we do not think it right to be one another's masters or servants;but the natural equality of birth compels us to seek for legal equality, and to recognize no superiority except in the reputation of virtue andwisdom. And so their and our fathers, and these, too, our brethren, being noblyborn and having been brought up in all freedom, did both in their publicand private capacity many noble deeds famous over the whole world. Theywere the deeds of men who thought that they ought to fight both againstHellenes for the sake of Hellenes on behalf of freedom, and againstbarbarians in the common interest of Hellas. Time would fail me to tellof their defence of their country against the invasion of Eumolpus andthe Amazons, or of their defence of the Argives against the Cadmeians, or of the Heracleids against the Argives; besides, the poets havealready declared in song to all mankind their glory, and therefore anycommemoration of their deeds in prose which we might attempt would holda second place. They already have their reward, and I say no more ofthem; but there are other worthy deeds of which no poet has worthilysung, and which are still wooing the poet's muse. Of these I am bound tomake honourable mention, and shall invoke others to sing of them alsoin lyric and other strains, in a manner becoming the actors. And firstI will tell how the Persians, lords of Asia, were enslaving Europe, andhow the children of this land, who were our fathers, held them back. Of these I will speak first, and praise their valour, as is meet andfitting. He who would rightly estimate them should place himself inthought at that time, when the whole of Asia was subject to the thirdking of Persia. The first king, Cyrus, by his valour freed the Persians, who were his countrymen, and subjected the Medes, who were their lords, and he ruled over the rest of Asia, as far as Egypt; and after him camehis son, who ruled all the accessible part of Egypt and Libya; thethird king was Darius, who extended the land boundaries of the empire toScythia, and with his fleet held the sea and the islands. None presumedto be his equal; the minds of all men were enthralled by him--so manyand mighty and warlike nations had the power of Persia subdued. NowDarius had a quarrel against us and the Eretrians, because, as he said, we had conspired against Sardis, and he sent 500, 000 men in transportsand vessels of war, and 300 ships, and Datis as commander, telling himto bring the Eretrians and Athenians to the king, if he wished to keephis head on his shoulders. He sailed against the Eretrians, who werereputed to be amongst the noblest and most warlike of the Hellenes ofthat day, and they were numerous, but he conquered them all in threedays; and when he had conquered them, in order that no one might escape, he searched the whole country after this manner: his soldiers, coming tothe borders of Eretria and spreading from sea to sea, joined hands andpassed through the whole country, in order that they might be able totell the king that no one had escaped them. And from Eretria they wentto Marathon with a like intention, expecting to bind the Athenians inthe same yoke of necessity in which they had bound the Eretrians. Havingeffected one-half of their purpose, they were in the act of attemptingthe other, and none of the Hellenes dared to assist either the Eretriansor the Athenians, except the Lacedaemonians, and they arrived a day toolate for the battle; but the rest were panic-stricken and kept quiet, too happy in having escaped for a time. He who has present to his mindthat conflict will know what manner of men they were who received theonset of the barbarians at Marathon, and chastened the pride of thewhole of Asia, and by the victory which they gained over the barbariansfirst taught other men that the power of the Persians was notinvincible, but that hosts of men and the multitude of riches alikeyield to valour. And I assert that those men are the fathers not only ofourselves, but of our liberties and of the liberties of all who are onthe continent, for that was the action to which the Hellenes looked backwhen they ventured to fight for their own safety in the battleswhich ensued: they became disciples of the men of Marathon. To them, therefore, I assign in my speech the first place, and the secondto those who fought and conquered in the sea fights at Salamis andArtemisium; for of them, too, one might have many things to say--of theassaults which they endured by sea and land, and how they repelled them. I will mention only that act of theirs which appears to me to be thenoblest, and which followed that of Marathon and came nearest to it;for the men of Marathon only showed the Hellenes that it was possible toward off the barbarians by land, the many by the few; but there wasno proof that they could be defeated by ships, and at sea the Persiansretained the reputation of being invincible in numbers and wealth andskill and strength. This is the glory of the men who fought at sea, that they dispelled the second terror which had hitherto possessed theHellenes, and so made the fear of numbers, whether of ships or men, tocease among them. And so the soldiers of Marathon and the sailorsof Salamis became the schoolmasters of Hellas; the one teaching andhabituating the Hellenes not to fear the barbarians at sea, and theothers not to fear them by land. Third in order, for the number andvalour of the combatants, and third in the salvation of Hellas, Iplace the battle of Plataea. And now the Lacedaemonians as well asthe Athenians took part in the struggle; they were all united in thisgreatest and most terrible conflict of all; wherefore their virtues willbe celebrated in times to come, as they are now celebrated by us. Butat a later period many Hellenic tribes were still on the side of thebarbarians, and there was a report that the great king was going to makea new attempt upon the Hellenes, and therefore justice requires that weshould also make mention of those who crowned the previous work of oursalvation, and drove and purged away all barbarians from the sea. Thesewere the men who fought by sea at the river Eurymedon, and who wenton the expedition to Cyprus, and who sailed to Egypt and divers otherplaces; and they should be gratefully remembered by us, because theycompelled the king in fear for himself to look to his own safety insteadof plotting the destruction of Hellas. And so the war against the barbarians was fought out to the end by thewhole city on their own behalf, and on behalf of their countrymen. Therewas peace, and our city was held in honour; and then, as prosperitymakes men jealous, there succeeded a jealousy of her, and jealousybegat envy, and so she became engaged against her will in a war withthe Hellenes. On the breaking out of war, our citizens met theLacedaemonians at Tanagra, and fought for the freedom of the Boeotians;the issue was doubtful, and was decided by the engagement whichfollowed. For when the Lacedaemonians had gone on their way, leaving theBoeotians, whom they were aiding, on the third day after the battle ofTanagra, our countrymen conquered at Oenophyta, and righteously restoredthose who had been unrighteously exiled. And they were the first afterthe Persian war who fought on behalf of liberty in aid of Hellenesagainst Hellenes; they were brave men, and freed those whom they aided, and were the first too who were honourably interred in this sepulchre bythe state. Afterwards there was a mighty war, in which all the Hellenesjoined, and devastated our country, which was very ungrateful of them;and our countrymen, after defeating them in a naval engagement andtaking their leaders, the Spartans, at Sphagia, when they might havedestroyed them, spared their lives, and gave them back, and made peace, considering that they should war with the fellow-countrymen only untilthey gained a victory over them, and not because of the private angerof the state destroy the common interest of Hellas; but that withbarbarians they should war to the death. Worthy of praise are they alsowho waged this war, and are here interred; for they proved, if any onedoubted the superior prowess of the Athenians in the former war withthe barbarians, that their doubts had no foundation--showing by theirvictory in the civil war with Hellas, in which they subdued the otherchief state of the Hellenes, that they could conquer single-handed thosewith whom they had been allied in the war against the barbarians. After the peace there followed a third war, which was of a terrible anddesperate nature, and in this many brave men who are here interred losttheir lives--many of them had won victories in Sicily, whither they hadgone over the seas to fight for the liberties of the Leontines, towhom they were bound by oaths; but, owing to the distance, the city wasunable to help them, and they lost heart and came to misfortune, theirvery enemies and opponents winning more renown for valour and temperancethan the friends of others. Many also fell in naval engagements at theHellespont, after having in one day taken all the ships of the enemy, and defeated them in other naval engagements. And what I call theterrible and desperate nature of the war, is that the other Hellenes, in their extreme animosity towards the city, should have entered intonegotiations with their bitterest enemy, the king of Persia, whom they, together with us, had expelled;--him, without us, they again broughtback, barbarian against Hellenes, and all the hosts, both of Hellenesand barbarians, were united against Athens. And then shone forth thepower and valour of our city. Her enemies had supposed that she wasexhausted by the war, and our ships were blockaded at Mitylene. But thecitizens themselves embarked, and came to the rescue with sixty otherships, and their valour was confessed of all men, for they conqueredtheir enemies and delivered their friends. And yet by some evil fortunethey were left to perish at sea, and therefore are not interred here. Ever to be remembered and honoured are they, for by their valour notonly that sea-fight was won for us, but the entire war was decidedby them, and through them the city gained the reputation of beinginvincible, even though attacked by all mankind. And that reputation wasa true one, for the defeat which came upon us was our own doing. We werenever conquered by others, and to this day we are still unconquered bythem; but we were our own conquerors, and received defeat at our ownhands. Afterwards there was quiet and peace abroad, but there sprang upwar at home; and, if men are destined to have civil war, no one couldhave desired that his city should take the disorder in a milder form. How joyful and natural was the reconciliation of those who came from thePiraeus and those who came from the city; with what moderation did theyorder the war against the tyrants in Eleusis, and in a manner how unlikewhat the other Hellenes expected! And the reason of this gentleness wasthe veritable tie of blood, which created among them a friendship as ofkinsmen, faithful not in word only, but in deed. And we ought alsoto remember those who then fell by one another's hands, and on suchoccasions as these to reconcile them with sacrifices and prayers, praying to those who have power over them, that they may be reconciledeven as we are reconciled. For they did not attack one another out ofmalice or enmity, but they were unfortunate. And that such was the factwe ourselves are witnesses, who are of the same race with them, andhave mutually received and granted forgiveness of what we have done andsuffered. After this there was perfect peace, and the city had rest;and her feeling was that she forgave the barbarians, who had severelysuffered at her hands and severely retaliated, but that she wasindignant at the ingratitude of the Hellenes, when she remembered howthey had received good from her and returned evil, having made commoncause with the barbarians, depriving her of the ships which had oncebeen their salvation, and dismantling our walls, which had preservedtheir own from falling. She thought that she would no longer defend theHellenes, when enslaved either by one another or by the barbarians, anddid accordingly. This was our feeling, while the Lacedaemonians werethinking that we who were the champions of liberty had fallen, and thattheir business was to subject the remaining Hellenes. And why should Isay more? for the events of which I am speaking happened not long agoand we can all of us remember how the chief peoples of Hellas, Argivesand Boeotians and Corinthians, came to feel the need of us, and, what isthe greatest miracle of all, the Persian king himself was driven to suchextremity as to come round to the opinion, that from this city, of whichhe was the destroyer, and from no other, his salvation would proceed. And if a person desired to bring a deserved accusation against our city, he would find only one charge which he could justly urge--that she wastoo compassionate and too favourable to the weaker side. And in thisinstance she was not able to hold out or keep her resolution of refusingaid to her injurers when they were being enslaved, but she was softened, and did in fact send out aid, and delivered the Hellenes from slavery, and they were free until they afterwards enslaved themselves. Whereas, to the great king she refused to give the assistance of the state, forshe could not forget the trophies of Marathon and Salamis and Plataea;but she allowed exiles and volunteers to assist him, and they were hissalvation. And she herself, when she was compelled, entered into thewar, and built walls and ships, and fought with the Lacedaemonians onbehalf of the Parians. Now the king fearing this city and wanting tostand aloof, when he saw the Lacedaemonians growing weary of the warat sea, asked of us, as the price of his alliance with us and the otherallies, to give up the Hellenes in Asia, whom the Lacedaemonians hadpreviously handed over to him, he thinking that we should refuse, andthat then he might have a pretence for withdrawing from us. Aboutthe other allies he was mistaken, for the Corinthians and Argives andBoeotians, and the other states, were quite willing to let them go, andswore and covenanted, that, if he would pay them money, they would makeover to him the Hellenes of the continent, and we alone refused to givethem up and swear. Such was the natural nobility of this city, so soundand healthy was the spirit of freedom among us, and the instinctivedislike of the barbarian, because we are pure Hellenes, havingno admixture of barbarism in us. For we are not like many others, descendants of Pelops or Cadmus or Egyptus or Danaus, who are by naturebarbarians, and yet pass for Hellenes, and dwell in the midst of us;but we are pure Hellenes, uncontaminated by any foreign element, andtherefore the hatred of the foreigner has passed unadulterated into thelife-blood of the city. And so, notwithstanding our noble sentiments, wewere again isolated, because we were unwilling to be guilty of the baseand unholy act of giving up Hellenes to barbarians. And we were in thesame case as when we were subdued before; but, by the favour of Heaven, we managed better, for we ended the war without the loss of our ships orwalls or colonies; the enemy was only too glad to be quit of us. Yet inthis war we lost many brave men, such as were those who fell owing tothe ruggedness of the ground at the battle of Corinth, or by treason atLechaeum. Brave men, too, were those who delivered the Persian king, and drove the Lacedaemonians from the sea. I remind you of them, and youmust celebrate them together with me, and do honour to their memories. Such were the actions of the men who are here interred, and of otherswho have died on behalf of their country; many and glorious thingsI have spoken of them, and there are yet many more and more gloriousthings remaining to be told--many days and nights would not suffice totell of them. Let them not be forgotten, and let every man remind theirdescendants that they also are soldiers who must not desert the ranksof their ancestors, or from cowardice fall behind. Even as I exhort youthis day, and in all future time, whenever I meet with any of you, shallcontinue to remind and exhort you, O ye sons of heroes, that you striveto be the bravest of men. And I think that I ought now to repeat whatyour fathers desired to have said to you who are their survivors, whenthey went out to battle, in case anything happened to them. I will tellyou what I heard them say, and what, if they had only speech, they wouldfain be saying, judging from what they then said. And you must imaginethat you hear them saying what I now repeat to you:-- 'Sons, the event proves that your fathers were brave men; for we mighthave lived dishonourably, but have preferred to die honourably ratherthan bring you and your children into disgrace, and rather thandishonour our own fathers and forefathers; considering that life isnot life to one who is a dishonour to his race, and that to such a oneneither men nor Gods are friendly, either while he is on the earth orafter death in the world below. Remember our words, then, and whateveris your aim let virtue be the condition of the attainment of youraim, and know that without this all possessions and pursuits aredishonourable and evil. For neither does wealth bring honour to theowner, if he be a coward; of such a one the wealth belongs to another, and not to himself. Nor does beauty and strength of body, when dwellingin a base and cowardly man, appear comely, but the reverse of comely, making the possessor more conspicuous, and manifesting forth hiscowardice. And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your firstand last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, notonly us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you invirtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a sourceof happiness to us. And we shall most likely be defeated, and you willmost likely be victors in the contest, if you learn so to order yourlives as not to abuse or waste the reputation of your ancestors, knowingthat to a man who has any self-respect, nothing is more dishonourablethan to be honoured, not for his own sake, but on account of thereputation of his ancestors. The honour of parents is a fair and nobletreasure to their posterity, but to have the use of a treasure of wealthand honour, and to leave none to your successors, because youhave neither money nor reputation of your own, is alike base anddishonourable. And if you follow our precepts you will be received byus as friends, when the hour of destiny brings you hither; but if youneglect our words and are disgraced in your lives, no one will welcomeor receive you. This is the message which is to be delivered to ourchildren. 'Some of us have fathers and mothers still living, and we would urgethem, if, as is likely, we shall die, to bear the calamity as lightlyas possible, and not to condole with one another; for they have sorrowsenough, and will not need any one to stir them up. While we gently healtheir wounds, let us remind them that the Gods have heard the chief partof their prayers; for they prayed, not that their children might livefor ever, but that they might be brave and renowned. And this, whichis the greatest good, they have attained. A mortal man cannot expect tohave everything in his own life turning out according to his will; andthey, if they bear their misfortunes bravely, will be truly deemed bravefathers of the brave. But if they give way to their sorrows, either theywill be suspected of not being our parents, or we of not being such asour panegyrists declare. Let not either of the two alternatives happen, but rather let them be our chief and true panegyrists, who show in theirlives that they are true men, and had men for their sons. Of old thesaying, "Nothing too much, " appeared to be, and really was, well said. For he whose happiness rests with himself, if possible, wholly, and ifnot, as far as is possible, --who is not hanging in suspense on othermen, or changing with the vicissitude of their fortune, --has his lifeordered for the best. He is the temperate and valiant and wise; and whenhis riches come and go, when his children are given and taken away, he will remember the proverb--"Neither rejoicing overmuch nor grievingovermuch, " for he relies upon himself. And such we would have ourparents to be--that is our word and wish, and as such we now offerourselves, neither lamenting overmuch, nor fearing overmuch, if we areto die at this time. And we entreat our fathers and mothers to retainthese feelings throughout their future life, and to be assured that theywill not please us by sorrowing and lamenting over us. But, if the deadhave any knowledge of the living, they will displease us most by makingthemselves miserable and by taking their misfortunes too much toheart, and they will please us best if they bear their loss lightly andtemperately. For our life will have the noblest end which is vouchsafedto man, and should be glorified rather than lamented. And if they willdirect their minds to the care and nurture of our wives and children, they will soonest forget their misfortunes, and live in a better andnobler way, and be dearer to us. 'This is all that we have to say to our families: and to the state wewould say--Take care of our parents and of our sons: let her worthilycherish the old age of our parents, and bring up our sons in the rightway. But we know that she will of her own accord take care of them, anddoes not need any exhortation of ours. ' This, O ye children and parents of the dead, is the message whichthey bid us deliver to you, and which I do deliver with the utmostseriousness. And in their name I beseech you, the children, to imitateyour fathers, and you, parents, to be of good cheer about yourselves;for we will nourish your age, and take care of you both publicly andprivately in any place in which one of us may meet one of you who arethe parents of the dead. And the care of you which the city shows, you know yourselves; for she has made provision by law concerning theparents and children of those who die in war; the highest authority isspecially entrusted with the duty of watching over them above all othercitizens, and they will see that your fathers and mothers have no wrongdone to them. The city herself shares in the education of the children, desiring as far as it is possible that their orphanhood may not be feltby them; while they are children she is a parent to them, and when theyhave arrived at man's estate she sends them to their several duties, infull armour clad; and bringing freshly to their minds the ways of theirfathers, she places in their hands the instruments of their fathers'virtues; for the sake of the omen, she would have them from the firstbegin to rule over their own houses arrayed in the strength and armsof their fathers. And as for the dead, she never ceases honouring them, celebrating in common for all rites which become the property of each;and in addition to this, holding gymnastic and equestrian contests, andmusical festivals of every sort. She is to the dead in the place of ason and heir, and to their sons in the place of a father, and to theirparents and elder kindred in the place of a guardian--ever and alwayscaring for them. Considering this, you ought to bear your calamity themore gently; for thus you will be most endeared to the dead and to theliving, and your sorrows will heal and be healed. And now do you andall, having lamented the dead in common according to the law, go yourways. You have heard, Menexenus, the oration of Aspasia the Milesian. MENEXENUS: Truly, Socrates, I marvel that Aspasia, who is only a woman, should be able to compose such a speech; she must be a rare one. SOCRATES: Well, if you are incredulous, you may come with me and hearher. MENEXENUS: I have often met Aspasia, Socrates, and know what she islike. SOCRATES: Well, and do you not admire her, and are you not grateful forher speech? MENEXENUS: Yes, Socrates, I am very grateful to her or to him who toldyou, and still more to you who have told me. SOCRATES: Very good. But you must take care not to tell of me, and thenat some future time I will repeat to you many other excellent politicalspeeches of hers. MENEXENUS: Fear not, only let me hear them, and I will keep the secret. SOCRATES: Then I will keep my promise.