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The Battle Of Athens In Pericles's Funeral Oration

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Pericles’s Funeral Oration is a speech given by Pericles, the military commander or Startegos, in the speech he attempts to up lift the moral of the Athenians at a funeral after losing soldiers or member of war in the first battle of the Peloponnesian war . Pericles, wanted them to continue the fight and not give up. The primary subject of this piece of literature is Pericles’s defining the arête or sense of purpose that Athens possessed, and if they didn’t feel a sense of “arête” Pericles would then give try to give them that sense . There are several secondary themes in the piece of writing one about Athens past ancestors how they built what was there and passed it down from generation to generation. He talks about their great government, …show more content…

Athens felt they had really built something special and Sparta wanted to take their power . They had a great form of democracy that didn’t copy any of the nearby city-states, they had powerful knowledge, they threw open their city to outsider and treated them well even though it could've brought threat, but it also brings innovation which Athens knew to be vital. Pericles believed that the national advantage of Athens lied not only in the autonomy of the physical trading of goods in the marketplace but also in the exchange of ideas and freewill . They had built something spectacular and were now in war with an also great and powerful military of Sparta and its allies that were nothing like them, this threatened their way of life if they were to lose, this put a huge stress on Pericles. You can also imagine the stress that would be on the author Thucydides as he was also an Athenian, and his culture and way of life as he knew it was threatened. The morale of his people couldn’t have been in best condition after the death of their people and the thought of going to war, therefore he knew the importance of Pericles’ attitude in the speech would help set the tone of the Athenian people and that Athens winning or losing being the power house it was could make a huge impact on the world or at least that part of the

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