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Pericles honors the war dead

set in 431/430 BCE, Athens. As Thucydides tells it.

Where and when

set in 431/430 BCEAthens

about 2,455 years ago

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Pericles, c. 495 – 429 BCE3000 BCE2900 BCE2800 BCE2700 BCE2600 BCE2500 BCE2400 BCE2300 BCE2200 BCE2100 BCE2000 BCE1900 BCE1800 BCE1700 BCE1600 BCE1500 BCE1400 BCE1300 BCE1200 BCE1100 BCE1000 BCE900 BCE800 BCE700 BCE600 BCE500 BCE400 BCE300 BCE200 BCE100 BCE1 CE100 CE200 CE300 CE400 CE500 CE600 CE700 CE800 CE900 CE1000 CE1100 CE1200 CE1300 CE1400 CE1500 CE1600 CE1700 CE1800 CE1900 CE2000 CEGreat Pyramid of Giza built, c. 2600 BCERome founded (traditional date), 753 BCELast western Roman emperor deposed, 476 CEGutenberg's printing press, c. 1440 CEColumbus reaches the Americas, 1492 CEFirst people on the Moon, 1969 CEToday, 2026sometime in these 1 years

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In plain words, ours

Heroes are buried everywhere. Even far from home, with no stone to mark them, people remember them in their hearts.

For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.43.3Translated by Richard Crawley (1874)Read the full passage (Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.43.3, opens scaife.perseus.org)

What was going on, our summary

As Thucydides tells it, Pericles is speaking at the public funeral for those who first fell in the war. He is praising men who gave their lives together and urging the living to take them as their model.

Checked claim by claim against: Athens holds a public funeral for its first war dead, the passage around the quote.

Why it matters

Scholars have drawn parallels between this funeral oration and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, though it is uncertain whether Lincoln was directly influenced by it.

Based on Wikipedia: Pericles's Funeral Oration

The American Civil War scholars Louis Warren and Garry Wills have addressed the parallels of "Pericles's Funeral Oration" to Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address.

It is uncertain to what degree, if any, Lincoln was directly influenced by Pericles's funeral oration.

Wikipedia, Pericles's Funeral Oration (opens en.wikipedia.org), as of 2026-09-25. Text CC BY-SA 4.0. Our line is checked against these sentences only.

Related moments

In time order, with this one in its place. Each says why it is here.

  1. 431 BCE1 year earlier Thebans attack Plataea and the war begins Same years
  2. 431 BCE0.8999999999999773 years earlier Spartan army invades Attica Same years
  3. 431/430 BCEDuring it Athens holds a public funeral for its first war dead The event behind itAlso about death
  4. 430 BCESame year Plague breaks out in Athens Same years
  5. set in 431/430 BCEThis momentPericles honors the war dead
  6. set in 431/430 BCEDuring it Pericles on Athenian democracy More from Pericles
  7. set in 431/430 BCEDuring it Pericles on freedom in daily life More from Pericles
  8. set in 431/430 BCEDuring it Pericles praises Athens Same passage
  9. set in 431/430 BCEDuring it Pericles on wealth and poverty Same passageMore from Pericles
  10. 430 BCE, written laterSame year Thucydides on the plague he caught Also in Athens
  11. 430 BCE, written laterSame year Thucydides on the plague in Athens Also in Athens
  12. 430 BCE, written laterSame year Thucydides on how the plague changed people Also in Athens
  13. 429 BCE1 year later Pericles dies Also about death

Just before and after

The text around the quote, word for word from the same translation.

Show the passageHide the passage

For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall fall for its commemoration.

The quote: For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart.

These take as your model, and judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!

Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.43.2–6Translated by Richard Crawley (1874)Read the full passage (opens scaife.perseus.org)

When, and whose words

Date
set in 431/430 BCE. The public funeral for the first year's dead, in the winter of 431/430 BCE; Thucydides wrote the speech later.
Whose words
As Thucydides tells it. Who was Pericles?
How this post was checked
  • The plain-words line was read against the quote alone by a second, independent pass, which found it adds no claim the quote does not make (2026-10-03).
  • Each claim in the summary was checked by an independent pass against only the material it cites.
  • The quote itself is checked by the build: word for word, once, at the cited section of the stored translation.

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