History of the Peloponnesian War

'"Wherefore, I do not commiserate the parents of these men, as many of you as are present here, but will rather try to comfort them. For they know that their lives have been passed amid manifold vicissitudes; and it is to be accounted good fortune when men win, even as these now, a most glorious death—and you a like grief—and when life has been meted out to them to be happy in no less than to die in.

It will be difficult, I know, to persuade you of the truth of this, when you will constantly be reminded of your loss by seeing others in the enjoyment of blessings in which you too once took delight; and grief, I know, is felt, not for the want of the good things which a man has never known, but for what is taken away from him after he has once become accustomed to it.

But those of you who are still of an age to have offspring should bear up in the hope of other children; for not only to many of you individually will the children that are born hereafter be a cause of forgetfulness of those who are gone, but the state also will reap a double advantage—it will not be left desolate and it will be secure. For they cannot possibly offer fair and impartial counsel who, having no children to hazard,[*](No one could be a member of the Boule or Senate till he was thirty, when he was almost certain to be married; and, according to Dinarchus, no man was allowed to speak in the Assembly until he had legitimate male issue (Zimmern).) do not have an equal part in the risk.

But as for you who have passed your prime, count as gain the greater portion of your life during which you were fortunate and remember that the remainder will be short; and be comforted by the fair fame of these your sons. For the love of honour alone is untouched by age, and when one comes to the ineffectual period of life it is not 'gain' as some say,[*](e.g., Simonides. cf. Plut. Moral. 786b: Σιμονίδης ἔλεγε πρὸς τοὺς ἐγκαλοῦντας αὐτῷ φιλαργυρίαν, ὅτι τῶν ἄλλων ἀπεστερημένος διὰ τὸ γῆρας ἡδονῶν ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἔτι γηροβοσκεῖται, τῆς ἀπὸς τοῦ κερδαίνειν, Simonides replied to those who charged him with love of money, that, deprived by old age of other pleasuree, he is still comforted by one, that of gain.) that gives the greater satisfaction, but honour.