Land of the Free and Home of the Athenian

I agree with Jon Bennet's post, Not as Clear as it Seems, where he argues that we are not really talking about to speakers here, but rather just one playing the part of two. He argued this point excellently, so I won't rehash it here, but I want to elaborate on how this can teach us about the culture of ancient Athens, and our own cultural heritage from it.

It is clear that this speech is a classic encomium, both in purpose and in style. I believe that it is as much an encomium of Athens, however, as it is of the men who have just died. He does do a good deal of praise to them, but spends the bulk of his time praising Athenian ideals. Of course, he assumes that the ideals are the reality, which may or may not be true, but the fact that he places those ideals before us tells us an enormous amount about what Athens really wants to be.

As I read, I was amazed at how similar Athenian ideals are to classic American ideals. Try some of these on to see if they fit your cultural view of the world. (Note: These are not necessarily how they are, but how we believe they should be.)

• "Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people."
•  "In this land of ours there have always been the same people living from generation to generation up till now, and they, by their courage and their virtues, have handed it on to us a free country. They certainly deserve our praise."
• "Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as well: even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics"

 These are only a few examples; I really feel like a large portion of the speech would not have been out of place at my ward 4th of July celebration. While we tend to be more cynical toward the modern world, these ideas are ones that we wish were true, and that we should be willing to work for, if we really believe in them. Athens has handed down a rich democratic tradition to us, and this speech, as "remembered" by Thucydides, is a great example of that.