Lysias Quotes

“In later times a Grecian war arose from envy of what had come to pass, and jealousy of what had been achieved: great was the conceit of all, and small the allegation that each found needful.

(Funeral Oration section 48)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“We have but one way, as it seems to me, of showing our gratitude to those who lie here: it is to hold their parents in the same high regard as they did, to be as affectionate to their children as though we were ourselves their fathers, and to give such support to their wives as they did while they lived. For whom could we be expected to honor in preference to those who lie here?

Whom amongst the living should we more justly hold in high regard than their relations, who were on an equality with us all in reaping the fruits of their valor, but now that they are dead bear alone the kinsmen’s part in their misfortune?

But in truth I do not know what need there is to lament so sadly: for we were quite aware that we were mortals. So why chafe now at the fate which we so long expected, or be so extremely distressed by the calamities of nature, when we know well that death is common to the basest and the noblest alike?

Death neither disdains the wicked nor admires the virtuous, but is even-handed with all. Were it possible for those who escaped the perils of war to be immortal for all time, there would be cause for the living to mourn the dead for evermore. But we see not only that our nature yields to sickness and old age, but that the spirit to whom has been allotted the charge of our fate is inexorable.

Therefore it is fitting to consider those most happy who have closed their lives in risking them for the greatest and noblest ends; not committing their career to chance, nor awaiting the death that comes of itself, but selecting the fairest one of all. For I say their memory can never grow old, while their honor is every man’s envy.

Of their nature it comes that they are mourned as mortal, of their valor that they are lauded as immortal. Thus you see them given a public funeral, and contests of strength and knowledge and wealth* held at their tomb; because we think that those who have fallen in war are worthy of receiving the same honors as the immortals.

* Since about 450 B.C. the State funerals had become elaborate festivals: they were celebrated each year in October, and included athletic and musical competitions.

(Funeral Oration section 75-80)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“Now in such a plight as theirs, life was miserable, death desirable. But these men, both in their life and after their death, are enviable; for they were first trained in the excellences of their ancestors, and then in manhood they preserved that ancient fame intact and displayed their own prowess.

For the benefits that they have conferred on their own native land are many and splendid; they restored the broken fortunes of others, and kept the war at a distance from their own country. They have closed their lives with a death that befits true men, for thus they repaid their native land for their nurture and bequeathed sorrow to those who reared them.

(Funeral Oration section 69-70)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“But it is right that we should also praise the strangers who lie here: they came to the support of the people, and fought for our salvation; they regarded valor as their native land, and with this noble end they closed their lives. In return the city has not only mourned them but given them a public funeral, and has granted them in perpetuity the same honors as it gives to its own people.

(Funeral Oration section 66)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“Nevertheless, having felt no fear of the multitude of their opponents, and having exposed their own persons to the peril, they set up a trophy over their enemies, and now find witnesses to their valor, close to this monument, in the tombs of the Lacedaemonians*. For we know that they restored in the sight of the world the diminished greatness of our city, revived in her the harmony that had been shattered by faction, and rebuilt walls in place of those that had been demolished.

* Slain in a fight between the Athenian democrats and the Spartans under Pausanias.

(Funeral Oration section 63)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“The leadership [of Hellenic World] was taken by others, and a people who had never before embarked upon the sea defeated the Greeks in a naval action; they sailed to Europe and enslaved cities of the Greeks, in which despots were established, some after our disaster, and others after the victory of the barbarians.

So it would have been fitting for Greece to come then and mourn over this tomb, and lament those who lie here, seeing that her own freedom was interred together with their valor. Unhappy Greece, to be bereft of such men, and happy King of Asia, to be at grips with other leaders! For Greece, deprived of these men, is sunk in slavery, while he, finding others in command, is moved to emulate the designs of his ancestors.

(Funeral Oration section 59-60)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“By means of countless toils, conspicuous struggles, and glorious perils they [Athenians] made Greece free, while proving the supremacy of their native land: they commanded the sea for seventy years* and saved their allies from faction, not suffering the many to be slaves of the few, but compelling all to live on an equality; instead of weakening their allies, they secured their strength along with their own, and displayed their own power to such effect that the Great King no more coveted the possessions of others, but yielded some of his own and was in fear for what remained.

* From 476 B.C., when Athens became the head of the Delian League, to 405 B.C., when she was defeated at Aegospotami.

(Funeral Oration section 55-56)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“But after this the Peloponnesians built a wall across the Isthmus; and being satisfied with their safety, and considering that they were now rid of the peril from the sea, they were disposed to stand by and see the other Greeks subdued by the barbarians.

Then the Athenians, in anger, advised them, if they meant to be of this mind, to encompass the whole Peloponnese with a wall: for if they themselves, betrayed by the Greeks, should be united with the barbarians, these on their part would have no need of a thousand ships, nor would the wall at the Isthmus help its builders, since the empire of the sea would belong without hazard to the King.

Taking the lesson to heart, and deeming their action unjust and ill advised, while the words of the Athenians were just and their recommendation was the wisest, they went to their support at Plataea. Most of the allies had deserted their posts at nightfall, owing to the multitude of the enemy; but the Lacedaemonians and Tegeates routed the barbarians, while the Athenians and Plataeans fought and vanquished all the Greeks who had despaired of freedom and submitted to slavery.

(Funeral Oration section 44-46)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“Certainly the fear that was upon them must have made them believe that they saw many things which they saw not, and heard many that they did not hear. What supplications, what reminders of sacrifices, were not sent up to Heaven! What pity was felt for children, what yearning over wives, what compassion for fathers and mothers, in calculating the evils that would result from their ill success!

What deity would have denied them pity for such an awful danger? What man but would have shed tears? Who would not have marvelled at their daring? Beyond all compare did those men in their valor surpass all mankind, whether in their counsels or in the perils of that war; for they abandoned their city and embarked on their ships, and pitted their own few lives against the multitude of Asia.

They declared to all men, by their victory in the sea-fight, that there is better hope for the venture shared with a few in the cause of freedom than for that in which numerous subjects of a king contend for their own servitude.

(Funeral Oration section 39-41)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“They [Athenians] deposited their children and wives and mothers safe in Salamis, and assembled to their aid the ships of their allies. A few days later both the land army and the fleet of the barbarians appeared; at such a sight, who would not have been afraid of the greatness and terror of the danger that had come upon our city in her struggle for the freedom of Greece?

What were the feelings of those who beheld their friends on board those ships, when their own salvation was as doubtful as the approaching contest; or again, of those who were about to do battle at sea for their dearest, for the prizes there in Salamis?

On every hand they were surrounded by such a multitude of foes that they reckoned it the least of their present troubles to anticipate their own death, but saw the greatest of disasters in the fate that they must expect to be dealt by the barbarians, if successful, to those whom they had transported from the city.

We may be sure that the perplexity of their case made them often grasp each other by the hand, and with reason bewail their plight; knowing their own ships to be few, and seeing those of the foe to be many; understanding that their city was now deserted, that their land was being ravaged and overrun by the barbarians, that the temples were being burnt, and that horrors of every kind were close upon them.

(Funeral Oration section 34-37)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“[D]eath, in their [Athenian soldiers’] opinion, was a thing for them to share with all men, but prowess with a few; and while they possessed their lives, because of mortality, as alien things, they would leave behind something of their own in the memory attached to their perils. And they deemed that a victory which they could not win alone would be as impossible with the aid of their allies. If vanquished, they would perish a little before the others; if victorious, they would liberate the others with themselves.

(Funeral Oration section 24)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“Besides, from the former actions of our city they [Persians] had conceived a particular opinion of her: they thought that if they attacked another city first, they would be at war with it and Athens as well, for she would be zealous in coming to succor her injured neighbors; but if they made their way here first, no Greeks elsewhere would dare attempt the deliverance of others, and for their sake incur the open hostility of the foreigners.

These, then, were the motives of the foe. But our ancestors, without stopping to calculate the hazards of the war, but holding that a glorious death leaves behind it a deathless account of deeds well done, had no fear of the multitude of their adversaries, but rather had confidence in their own valor. And feeling ashamed that the barbarians were in their country, they did not wait till their allies should be informed and come to their support; rather than have to thank others for their salvation, they chose that the rest of the Greeks should have to thank them.

(Funeral Oration section 22-23)”
― Lysias, Lysias

“Now in many ways it was natural to our ancestors, moved by a single resolve, to fight the battles of justice: for the very beginning of their life was just. They had not been collected, like most nations, from every quarter, and had not settled in a foreign land after driving out its people: they were born of the soil, and possessed in one and the same country their mother and their fatherland.

They were the first and the only people in that time to drive out the ruling classes of their state and to establish a democracy, believing the liberty of all to be the strongest bond of agreement; by sharing with each other the hopes born of their perils they had freedom of soul in, their civic life, and used law for honoring the good and punishing the evil. For they deemed that it was the way of wild beasts to be held subject to one another by force, but the duty of men to delimit justice by law, to convince by reason, and to serve these two in act by submitting to the sovereignty of law and the instruction of reason.

(Funeral Oration section 17-19)”
― Lysias, Lysias