The Funeral Speech

Neither were the Aegeidae ignorant that Theseus, the son of Aegeus, for the first time established equality in the State.[*](According to Plut. Thes. 25, it was equality between newcomers and natives that Theseus established; the word ἰσονομία usually means equality before the law and is almost a synonym for democracy.) They thought it, therefore, a dreadful thing to be false to the principles of that ancestor, and they preferred to be dead rather than through love of life to survive among the Greeks with this equality lost. The Pandionidae had inherited the tradition of Procne and Philomela, the daughters of Pandion, who took vengeance on Tereus for his crime against themselves.[*](Procne is said to have murdered her own son Itys and to have served his flesh to her husband Tereus in revenge for his treachery to herself and his cruelty to Philomela. It is curious that the speaker seems less shocked by this crime than by the innocent tale of Alope, Dem. 60.31, below.) Therefore they decided that life was not worth living unless they, akin by race, should have proved themselves to possess equal spirit with those women, when confronted by the outrage they saw being committed against Greece.

The Leontidae had heard the stories related of the daughters of Leo, how they offered themselves to the citizens as a sacrifice for their country’s sake. When, therefore, such courage was displayed by those women, they looked upon it as a heinous thing if they, being men, should have proved to possess less of manhood. The Acamantidae did not fail to recall the epics in which Homer says that Acamas sailed for Troy for the sake of his mother Aethra.[*](Aethra is mentioned in Hom. Il. 3.144, but the rest of the story is not Homeric. This Acamas is unknown to Homer, though he mentions two other individuals of the same name. It was later myths that told of the rescue of Aethra after the fall of Troy by her two grandsons, not sons, Acamas and Demophon.) Now, since he braved every danger for the sake of saving his own mother, how were these men not bound to face every danger for the sake of saving their parents one and all at home?

It did not escape the Oeneidae that Semele was the daughter of Cadmus, and of her was born one whom it would be sacrilegious to name at this tomb,[*](Dionysus, or Bacchus, god of wine, who, as an Olympian, could not associate with death.) and by him Oeneus was begotten, who was called the founder of their race.[*](Two demes in Attica were named Oenoe, which was sufficient to justify the invention of a hero Oeneus, but he is not to be confused with the Homeric hero of this name who was associated with Calydon in Aetolia and with Argos. The word means wineman, from οἶνος. At Athens the anniversary of this hero fell in the month Gamelion, like the Lenaea of Dionysus. It was natural, therefore, to call him the son of the god, but the relationship plays no part in recorded myths.) Since the danger in question was common to both States, on behalf of both they thought themselves bound to endure any Anguish to the end.[*](The suggestion is that the Oeneidae would have felt equally bound to fight on behalf of Thebes, of which the founder was Cadmus, and on behalf of Athens, one of whose heroes was Oeneus, great-grandson of Cadmus. This is the weakest link in this series.) The Cecropidae were well aware that their founder was reputed to have been part dragon, part human, for no other reason than this, that in understanding he was like a man, in strength like a dragon. So they assumed that their duty was to perform feats worthy of both.