226 KANSAS UNIVERSI'IN' QUARTERLY. 



coilforraed ", says Professor Jowett, "to a regular type. Thev 

 began with gods and ancestors and tlie legendary history of Athens, 

 to which succeeded an almost fictitious account of later times. 

 The Persian war formed the center of the narrative. In the age of 

 Isocrates and Demosthenes the Athenians were still living on the 

 glories of Marathon and Salamis." They closed with the threnos, 

 the lamentation of the orator over the slain, and the paramythia, 

 the consolation of the bereft. 



Notwithstanding the restricted limits which hampered the orators 

 in this style of composition, there is not a little difference to be 

 observed in content in a comparison of the different epitaphioi. 

 Thus, the epitaphios of Lysias is distinguished from similar com- 

 positions by the fullness and enthusiasm with which he dwells on 

 the old Attica of legend. The language of Demosthenes suggests 

 the perfunctory discharge of a tiresome duty (cf. Epit., p. 1390). 

 Pericles (Thuc. 2, 36) and Socrates (Menex., 239 B) dismiss these 

 prehistoric achievements with the briefest possible notice, though 

 they are gravely cited by the Athenians at Plataea (cf. Hdt., 9, 27), 

 and Aristotle assures us ( Rhet. , 2, 22, 6) that without such allusions 

 no epitaphios would be complete. Hyperides, who in other 

 respects shows himself independent, omits altogether to mention 

 them. Isocrates (Panegyr., 10) declares himself content to rest his 

 claims rather on the treatment than on the novelty of his subject. 

 It would be interesting to note other differences and especially the 

 more than ordinary personal character of the epitaphios of Hyperi- 

 des, and how from this Vv^as developed another style of composition 

 of which the funeral sermon of to-day is its legitimate offspring, but 

 here space, unity and inclination again prevent. 



^iiiiiiiiai'.v of Perioles* Funeral Oration. 



(Thuc. 2, 35-46). 



I. EPAINOS CHAPS. 35- 42. 



(a) Prooimion. Ch. 35. 

 Ch. jj. Heretofore, orators on like occasions have commended 

 the institvitional origin of the funeral panegyric. To myself how- 

 ever a public burial would have seemed preferable to entrusting 

 the virtues of many men to the eloquence of one. There is danger 

 to the orator of overstating the case so far as that auditor is con- 

 cerned who is ignorant of the facts, while to the well-informed 

 hearer justice does not seem to be done to the valor of the dead. 

 Disbelief and envy are excited in those whose own valor is sur- 

 passed by that of the eulogised. I shall, however, conform to law 

 and custom and endeavor to meet your approbation. 



