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:
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 displays 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.[2]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 removed 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 modern 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:
