Epitaphs Logos Flashcards
Sequence of speech
Introduction
Body of content
Ending
Aftermath
Praise of the custom involved in giving the speech, though worried that jealousy or understatement may affect its interpretation
Praise of the dead and but bypasses praise of their ancestors, the military achievements of Athens their motherland as this is ‘a theme too familiar’. Instead he praises their democracy, their natural and prudent ways which is an exemplar to the rest of Greece. Anyone in Athens, regardless of wealth or position can achieve greatness -a meritocracy. These dead have forgone a comfortable life without qualm or benefits they could have had to fight for their city
Citizens maintain your standards, women keep your morals, replace the dead and fight on
Pericles reminds the audience how difficult it can be to speak over the dead and do them justice and then asks the audience to depart
When
What
Who
Why
Where
War also known as
431 BCE
A Panegyric
Pericles - an aristocrat who became a democrat, in favour of ambitious foreign policy, strategos general, considered insolent and coveted by some e.g. Ion of Chios, his policies probably precipitated the Peloponnesian war
Spartans wanted help to crush helots, Athens declined and used this distraction to expand circa 460 - stripping ‘Sparta’s protective of allies on which their one way of life depended’ -Lane Fox R . Athens benefits from dissension in Beotia and attempting to make Megara a democracy, Sparta fears its oligarchic allies would be turned into democracies
At Kerameikos the public cemetery
The Archidamian war after Spartan King and leader, Archidamius
Key concepts
Who helped Sparta win?
Pericles Strategy
Downsides
Final weakening
Resulted in
The Persians for abandonment of Greek cities in Asia
Stay within the walls of Athens and rely on the navy, use Athens vast imperial Rescources
Raze the countryside and force citizens into the city, this leads to the typhus plague which was a major cause of Athenian defeat as was the Sicilian expedition, burial rights eventually abandoned, dead lie in the streets, law and order break down, unwritten laws broken
Atrocities on both sides, Spartans massacre prisoners, Athenians massacre the population of Melos
Disastrous Sicilian expedition 415, defeat at Syracuse , the penalty for self-seeking and ruthless imperialism
Rise of the Oligarchic faction
Principle lines
‘The bodies of dying men lay one upon the other’ Thucydides
‘We are rather a pattern to other than imitators ourselves, it’s administration favours the many instead of the few’ Pericles
‘Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states’
‘If a man is able to serve the state he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition’
Principle dates
1st
2nd
Speech
Plague
Pericles
Syracuse
460 - 446
431 - 404 ( truce 421-415)
431
430 - 426
495 - 429
416 - 415
