Afuneral oration orepitaphios logos (Ancient Greek:ἐπιτάφιος λόγος) is a formal speech delivered on the ceremonial occasion of afuneral. Funerary customs comprise the practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour. Inancient Greece and, in particular, inancient Athens, the funeral oration was deemed an indispensable component of the funeral ritual.

Theepitaphios logos is regarded as an almost exclusive Athenian creation, although some early elements of such speeches exist in theepos ofHomer and in thelyric poems ofPindar. "Pericles' Funeral Oration", delivered for the war dead during thePeloponnesian War of 431-401 BC, is the earlier extant example of the genre.^[1]

The oratorAnaximenes of Lampsacus claimed that the funeral oration was first established in the 6th-century BC in Athens bySolon,^[2] but this is widely doubted by historians.^[3][4] More plausible, but not beyond doubt,^[4] is the statement byDionysius of Halicarnassus that the Athenians instituted the funeral oration "in honour or those who fought atArtemisium,Salamis, andPlataea, and died for their country, or to the glory of their exploits atMarathon."^[5]

Thucydides describes in detail the funeral rituals and points out that "the dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the most beautiful suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried".^[6] This suburb wasKerameikos, where there was a monument for all the Athenians fell in battle, except such of them as fought at Marathon.^[7]

Historians now believe that thedemosion sema (a collective burial site for the war dead) and theepitaphios logos were first established around 470 BC, customs that continued during the Periclean period.^[8] The earliest preserved casualty list, giving the names of those who died fighting for their city in a given year, dates to 490–480 BC and it is associated with thebattle of Marathon,^[9] and white-groundlekythoi depicting funerary scenes started around 470 BC.^[10] "Pericles' Funeral Oration", as reported byThucydides, is the earliestepitaphios presented in full.^[11] The burial of the war dead in the first year of thePeloponnesian War is regarded as reflecting the fifth-century dominance of the public co-memorial.^[12]

ThoughPlato is consistently suspicious of the ability of oratory to teach, in theMenexenus he demonstrates a theoretical interest in the project of funeral oratory.^[13] He actually describes the scheme of the traditional Athenian funeral oration with the following succinct phrase:

And the speech required is one which will adequately eulogize the dead and give kindly exhortation to the living, appealing to their children and their brethren to copy the virtues of these heroes, and to their fathers and mothers and any still surviving ancestors offering consolation.^[14]

Thereby, the traditionalepitaphios must contain: aeulogy of the war dead and the city, anexhortation to the relatives to copy the virtues of the war dead and aconsolation for the living members of their families.^[15]

Therefore, theepitaphios consists of the following parts:

• Preamble, which treats the performance expectations of the audience.^[16] The orator usually asserts that it is almost impossible for him to find words worthy of the glorious achievements of the war dead.^[15] Such a preamble reveals the position of theepitaphios as an oral genre within a ritually and socially bounded society.^[16]
• Origin and ancestors.
• The war dead, their self-sacrifice and their devotion to the Athenian Polity.
• Epilogue, which constitutes a consolation and an encouragement for the families of the war dead.^[15] The epilogue employs a traditional dismissal of the mourners for further private lament, at which point the city's promise of education for the surviving orphans signals the resumption of life in thepolis.^[16]

The primary function of the funeral oration was to give public expression to the conception of the potential excellence ofpolis. It was an occasion on which Athens "invented" and "reinvented" itself in narrative form.^[17] The city displayed its achievements, as well as the civic and personal virtues to which the citizens could aspire.^[13] The secular prose of the funeral oration dedicates itself to celebrating the ideal of the democratic Athenian city.^[18] Through theepitaphios, a civic discourse, the city recognizes itself as it wishes to be.^[17]

It is for this reason that Plato has chosen the funeral oration as a main target of him. InMenexenus he engages the concerns of funeral oratory and appropriates for philosophy part of the intellectual mission that the Athenians associated with the most celebrated and democratic form ofepideictic, the funeral oratory.^[19]

The following speeches are preserved in ancient sources:

• Pericles' Funeral Oration of 439 BC, lost;^[20]
• Pericles'Funeral Oration of 431 BC, as presented byThucydides in hisHistory of the Peloponnesian War;
• Gorgias' Funeral Oration, perhaps late fifth century BC, lost;
• Lysias'Funeral oration, ca. 391 BC;^[20]
• Plato'sMenexenus, a parody written in the mid-fourth century, in whichSocrates recites a funeral oration that he claimsAspasia wrote for Pericles;
• Demosthenes'Funeral Oration of 338 BC;
• Hypereides'Funeral Oration of 322 BC.^[20]

Several specimens of this genre were not composed for delivery at the public burial, but for reading to small audiences at intellectual gatherings. Gorgias' funeral oration and Plato's parodic speech inMenexenus were definitely designed for this context, not for delivery before the Athenian people.^[8] It is debated whether this was also the case for Lysias' oration.^[20] The relationship between Thucydides' presentation of Pericles' oration of 431 BC and what was actually said is highly disputed; it is "usually understood as being more Thucydides' work than Pericles."^[20]

• Ancient Greek funeral and burial practices
• Eulogy – modern discussion of funeral orations

Primary sources

• Demosthenes,Against Leptines. See original text inPerseus Project
• Homer,Iliad, Book 22–23. See original text inPerseus Project
• Pausanias,Description of Greece. See original text inPerseus Project
• Plato,Menexenus.See original text inPerseus Project
• Thucydides,History of the Peloponnesian War, II. See original text inPerseus Project

Secondary sources

• Colaiaco, James A. (2001).Socrates Against Athens: Philosophy on Trial. Routledge (UK).ISBN 0-415-92654-8.
• "Funeral Oration".Encyclopaedia The Helios. 1952.
• Foley, Helene P. (2002).Female Acts in Greek Tragedy. Princeton University Press.ISBN 0-691-09492-6.
• Derderian, Katharine (2000). "The Epitaphios Logos and Mourning in the Athenian Polis".Leaving Words to Remember. Brill Academic Publishers.ISBN 90-04-11750-4.
• Loraux, Nicole (1994).The Children of Athena. Princeton University Press.ISBN 0-691-03762-0.
• Loraux, Nicole (1986).The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City. Harvard University Press.
• Monoson, Sara (2000).Plato's Democratic Entanglements. Princeton University Press.ISBN 0-691-04366-3.
• Samons, Loren J. (2005)."Bail Oinochoai". InJudith M. Barringer; Jeffrey M. Hurwit (eds.).Periklean Athens And Its Legacy. University of Texas Press.ISBN 0-292-70622-7.
• Shear, Julia L. (December 2013)."'Their Memories Will Never Grow Old': The Politics of Remembrance in the Athenian Funeral Orations".The Classical Quarterly.63 (2):511–536.doi:10.1017/S0009838813000062.ISSN 0009-8388.S2CID 154783833.
• Wienand, Johannes (2023).Der politische Tod: Gefallenenbestattung und 'Epitaphios Logos' im demokratischen Athen. Steiner.doi:10.25162/9783515133906.

• Ancient Greece
• Funeral orations
• Rhetoric
• Speeches by type

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• Articles containing Ancient Greek (to 1453)-language text