Not How I Would Start.. But Great Finish

What a wonderful kiros for Pericles to present such a epideictic presentation. Just imagine that you are an individual wanting reform, which Pericles was, and such a disastrous thing has happened to your civilization. What better time than this to build up the nation in a way you want. The decorum Pericles decides to use is not what I would consider subtle. It was a very brave statement to say that he doesn't agree with the way in which their fathers have done things. The ethos of allowing one man speak in behalf of so many dead, when the actions of the dead speak so loud, didn't seem like an appropriate thing for Pericles.By speaking so boldly at first I'm sure there were numerous in the audience that were offended, especially the elderly who were the ones that have followed this pattern for so many years.

I would imagine this is similar to the looks Pericles initially got

After his introduction, Paricles acknowledges his audience and quickly appeals to their emotion, or pathos. The way he does that from my understanding seems to be by taking a judicial oratory approach, although it seems he is trying to accredit an encomium, which once again makes me feel that the judicial as well as the epideictic oratories are often times linked.

After a while he starts focusing more on logos. The idea commonly repeated is that Athens is different than the rest of the world. From my understanding and from reading Spencer Muir's post from 2014, I completely agree that much of this speech has to do with comparison. I believe it is his way of using invention, by comparing Athens to 'others' and showing how when they do things they are the most sincere and capable. His style is simply flattery. As he continues to appeal to their pathos, by allowing them to feel pride for their city, he really brings them in and gets them invested.

From what I have read online it seems that Thucydides enjoyed the logos most as he was trying to narrate to the best of his ability. His audience was not necessarily the people but rather future generations. Possibly that they would look back and learn from their mistakes, because Thucydides did see the rise and fall of Athens and wanted others to know about it as well.