On returning to Athens after the reconquest of Samos, Perikles was chosen to pronounce the funeral oration over the citizens slain in the war, to whom, according to custom, solemn and public obsequies were celebrated in the suburb called Kerameikus. This custom appears to have been introduced shortly after the Persian war,[1] and would doubtless contribute to stimulate the patriotism of the citizens, especially when the speaker elected to deliver it was of the personal dignity as well as the oratorical powers of Perikles. He was twice public funeral orator by the choice of the citizens: once after the Samian success, and a second time in the first year of the Peloponnesian war. His discourse on the first occasion has not reached us,[2] but the second has been fortunately preserved, in substance at least, by Thucydides, who also briefly describes the funeral ceremony, doubtless the same on all occasions. The bones of the deceased warriors were exposed in tents three days before the ceremony, in order that the relatives of each might have the opportunity of bringing offerings: they were then placed in coffins of cypress, and carried forth on carts to the public burial-place at the Kerameikus; one coffin for each of the ten tribes, and one empty couch, formally laid out, to represent those warriors whose bones had not been discovered or collected. The female relatives of each followed the carts, with loud wailings, and after them a numerous procession both of citizens and strangers. So soon as the bones had been consigned to the grave, some distinguished citizen,
- ↑ 1 See Westermann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom; Diodor. xi, 33; Dionys. Hal. A. R. v, 17. Perikles, in the funeral oration preserved by Thucydides (ii, 35-40), begins by saying — Οἱ μὲν πολλοὶ τῶν ἐνθάδε εἰρηκότων ἤδη ἐπαινοῦσι τὸν προσθέντα τῷ νόμῳ τὸν λόγον τόνδε, etc. The Scholiast, and other commentators K.F. Weber and Westermann among the number — make various guesses as to what celebrated man is here designated as the introducer of the custom of a funeral harangue. The Scholiast says, Solon: Weber fixes on Kimon: Westermann, on Aristeides: another commentator on Themistokles. But we may reasonably doubt whether any one very celebrated man is specially indicated by the words τὸν προσθέντα. To commend the introducer of the practice, is nothing more than a phrase for commending the practice itself.
- ↑ 2 Some fragments of it seem to have been preserved, in the time of Aristotle: see his treatise De Rhetorica, i, 7; iii, 10, 3.
