On the annual Remembrance Day of ancient Athens, Pericles rose to remind the people of the City that grief alone was not the best way to honour the fallen.
In the winter of 431 BC, their annual Remembrance Day had a special resonance for Athenians: war had broken out with Sparta, a city felt to stand for crushing State control, even as Corinth stood for licentious ruin. Rising to deliver the keynote address, Pericles asked Athenians not just to grieve for the dead, but to cherish a City founded on liberty and self-control as a living monument to heroes.
The leader of 5th-century BC Athens lavished public money on the city and its adoring citizens, and wherever he led they followed.
The story of Pericles, the 5th-century BC Athenian leader, is one of personal magnetism and a matchless cultural legacy, and also a warning. Democracy should give us the freedom to demand more of ourselves. If we use it merely to demand more from politicians, we corrupt ourselves and them too.