Glory and Sacrifice in the name of Greece Essay Example

Glory and Sacrifice in the name of Greece Essay Glory and Sacrifice in the name of Greece The Funeral Oration of Pericles is an excerpt from Thrcydides, The Peloponnesian War. Pericles was a great Greek speaker and renown leader of Athenian democracy during the middle part of the fifth century B.C.E.From this speech, we find out how much he believed in Athenian democracy because he makes no ill references to it.Instead he keeps stating that Athenian democracy is a model for others to follow and that the Peloponnesian War of 430 B.C.E. is a sacrifice in order to keep their way of life and Athenian democracy. As a central figure in Athenian democracy during the Peloponnesian War, it was part of Pericles? job to keep moral high enough so that no one would question why the war was fought and what for.It was his job to tell them why this war was being fought and what for.This funeral oration was an attempt by Pericles to console the wives and parents who had lost loved ones in the Peloponnesian War and to justify their loss with fee lings nationalism. Pericles delivered his speech by starting with an outline of what he was going to present, praising the Greek democratic system and then finish off with why it is worth all the lives that were lost.He keeps referring to how their way of life is affected and subsequently benefited by the way their political system is run.So in my opinion, he manipulated the people?s unstable condition to glorify Greece and its political system and also to gain support for the Peloponnesian War and the Greek political system of democracy. During a war, people will always question the government and their ways when lives are lost.People that question this loss the most are the ones who have lost loved ones in war.In order to keep moral high, Pericles used nationalism to sway doubters of the war towards being a supporter.He tells the people who have lost loved ones in war to see their death as being a noble