Funeral Oration

With these thoughts in their minds, and holding that the fortunes of war are shared by all men in common, they faced a numerous enemy, but had justice as their ally, and they fought and conquered. And they did not allow themselves to be so elated by their fortune as to seek a heavier punishment of the Cadmeans, but in contrast to their impiety showed forth their own virtue, and obtaining for themselves the price for which they had come—the corpses of the Argives—they buried them in their own land of Eleusis. Such, then, is the character that they have evinced in regard to those of the Seven against Thebes who were slain.[*](According to the usual story all the seven were slain.)