THE OLD GREEK VOLUNTEER 483 



valor, there the citizens are the bravest men. But now let every one indulge 

 his grief in becoming manner and then depart/ 



Plato, the philosopher, wishing to show by a pattern-speech how the 

 eulogists might, on occasion, express themselves in a more exalted and 

 patriotic manner, makes his old master, Socrates the Wise, repeat, as 

 the mouthpiece of that wonderfully clever woman, Aspasia, the splendid 

 address of which the following is the conclusion : 



To the state we would say: Let her take care of our parents and sons, 

 educating the one in principles of order and worthily cherishing the old age 

 of the other. But we know that she will, of her own accord, take care of them 

 and does not need exhortations from us. These, O children and parents of the 

 dead, are the words which they bid us proclaim to you and which I do proclaim 

 to you with the utmost good will. 



And on their behalf, I beseech you, the children, to imitate your fathers and 

 you, parents, to be of good cheer about yourselves; for we will nourish your age 

 and take care of you both publicly and privately in any place in which one of 

 us may meet one of you who are the parents of the dead. And the care which 

 the nation shows, you yourselves know; for she has made provision by law 

 concerning the parents and children of those who die in war, and the highest 

 authority is especially entrusted with the duty of watching over them, above 

 all other citizens, in order to see that there is no wrong done to them. 



She herself takes part in the nurture of the children, desiring as far as it 

 is possible, that their orphanhood may not be felt by them; she is a parent to 

 them while they are children and when they arrive at the age of manhood she 

 sends them to their several duties, clothing them in complete armor; she dis- 

 plays to them and recalls to their minds the pursuits of their fathers and puts 

 into their hands the instruments of their father's virtues; for the sake of the 

 omen, she would have them begin and go to rule in the houses of their fathers 

 arrayed in their strength and arms. 



And she never ceases honoring the dead every year, celebrating in public 

 the rites which are proper to each and all; and, in addition to this, holding 

 gymnastic and equestrian festivals and musical festivals of every sort. She is 

 to the dead in place of a son and heir, and to their sons in place of a father, 

 and to their parents and elder kindred in the place of a protector, ever and 

 always caring for them. Considering this you ought to bear your calamity the 

 more gently; for thus you will be most endeared to the dead and to the living, 

 and your sorrows will heal and be healed. And now do you and all, having 

 lamented the dead together in the usual manner, go your ways.' 



The closing words of the beautiful oration, delivered by Hypereides 

 over Leosthenes and his comrades who fell in the Lamian "War 

 (322 B.C.), pay due tribute to that orator's matchless merit. Far re- 

 moved from the artificial grief, so common to the panegyric, there is a 

 genuine, dignified sorrow, in the fragment preserved, which bears the 

 mark of sincere though reticent sympathy, and the most expert of mod- 

 em critics have found a tenderness and trust in this pagan martyr's 

 patriotic exhortation to the kinsfolk of the dead that verges splendidly 

 near the most touching Christian consolation : 



*Thucydides, Bk. 2, Sec. 43. 



» Plato, " Menexenus," 249 C. Jowett trans. 



