Note 258 — Chapter XLVIII · FROM THE BLOCKADE OF POTIDÆA DOWN TO THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. (continued 2)

The critics, from Dionysius of Halikarnassus downward, agree, for the most part, in pronouncing the feeble Λόγος Ἐπιτάφιος, ascribed to Demosthenês, to be not really his. Of those ascribed to Plato and Lysias also, the genuineness has been suspected, though upon far less grounds. The Menexenus, if it be really the work of Plato, however, does not add to his fame: but the harangue of Lysias, a very fine composition, may well be his, and may, perhaps, have been really delivered,—though probably not delivered by him, as he was not a qualified citizen.

See the general instructions, in Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetoric. c. 6, pp. 258-268, Reisk, on the contents and composition of a funeral discourse,—Lysias is said to have composed several,—Plutarch, Vit. x, Orator. p. 836.

Compare, respecting the funeral discourse of Periklês, K. F. Weber, Über die Stand-Rede des Periklês (Darmstadt, 1827); Westermann, Geschichte der Beredsamkeit in Griechenland und Rom. sects. 35, 63, 64; Kutzen, Perikles, als Staatsman, p. 158, sect. 12 (Grimma, 1834).

Dahlmann (Historische Forschungen, vol. i, p. 23) seems to think that the original oration of Periklês contained a large sprinkling of mythical allusions and stories out of the antiquities of Athens, such as we now find in the other funeral orations above alluded to; but that Thucydidês himself deliberately left them out in his report. But there seems no foundation for this suspicion. It is much more consonant to the superior tone of dignity which reigns throughout all this oration, to suppose that the mythical narratives, and even the previous historical glories of Athens, never found any special notice in the speech of Periklês,—nothing more than a general recognition, with an intimation that he does not dwell upon them at length because they were well known to his audience,—μακρηγορεῖν ἐν εἰδόσιν οὐ βουλόμενος ἐάσω (ii, 36).