[2]
That the State seriously concerns itself with those who die in
battle it is possible to infer both from these rites in general and, in
particular, from this law in accordance with which it chooses the speaker at our
public funerals. For knowing that among good men the acquisition of wealth and
the enjoyment of the pleasures that go with living are scorned,1 and that their whole desire is for virtue
and words of praise, the citizens were of the opinion that we ought to honor
them with such eulogies as would most certainly secure them in death the glory
they had won while living.
1 A commonplace of funeral speeches: Thuc. 2.42.4.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by Norman W. DeWitt, Ph.D., and Norman J. DeWitt, Ph.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1949.
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