HISTORY
At the end of his oration, Pericles speaks directly to the women in the audience for just a couple of sentences: their greatest glory, he claims, is to not be mentioned by men. That's it! He's done with the women and ends his speech. Women were influential in ancient Greece inasmuch as they were beautiful (e.g., Helen), but weren't they also looked down upon (in the Iliad, wasn't it an insult to call someone a woman)? So perhaps Pericles was misrepresenting Greek culture. Or maybe not, and the Greeks had the same tradition as ancient Hebrews: that to be respectful, one avoids mentioning women.
PHILOSOPHY
In response to Alexander's post: It would appear that Pericles falls in line with the Socratics because he doesn't think that belief should depend on "the goodness or badness of one man's speech." In my opinion, Pericles just makes everyone think that's what he believes, and then goes off about the city of Athens. The speech was supposed to honor the dead, but instead, Pericles totally pulls a Sophist and uses his speech-making powers to persuade everyone that Athens is the best. He talks about how the Athenians search for truth like Socratics do, but the speech itself seems more like Sophist-ry to me.
RHETORIC
As Thomas said, this speech appears to be epideictic. There is definitely the element of "praise"; however, Pericles praises Athens mostly, not the dead. He says that "Praise of other people is tolerable only up to a certain point...where one still believes that one could do oneself some of the things one is hearing about." So he actually uses this occasion to throw in some deliberative rhetoric--to persuade the Athenians to build up their great city. He was definitely considering the future and making sure that the people would follow the examples of the dead with greater motivation to do what was best for Athens.
Interesting connection to the Hebrew practice of not speaking about women out of respect. I referenced that observation in my post actually. Your philosophy point was insightful also. A Sophist would try to convince everyone that he isn't trying to persuade anyone; we saw that in Gorgias' speech also.
ReplyDeleteI also found your comment about not speaking about women out of respect very insightful. When I read the text on my own, I found that part offensive, and in our present day society it would be. However, in the context of their society that would not have been the case. In my post I talked about some of the similarities in ideals between then and now. However, how each society shows respect to women would be different and not similar and I am glad you pointed that out.
ReplyDeleteglad to see I wasn't the only one who thought of this speech as a blend of epideictic and deliberative. As I talk about in my post, I think both were necessary for the situation they were in. Much like Lincoln at Getttysburg.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with what you said about him taking a more sophist stance on his philosophy and made reference to your post in my own. However, I would like to know more of what you mean by he "just makes everyone think that's what he believes". That caught my attention a lot. Do you think he is kind of just playing mind games with the people? Maybe it's some form of rhetoric that he is using to his advantage?
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