In 430 B.C., shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles delivered a funeral oration to the people of Athens. His dilemma was the classic one faced by free peoples throughout history: how to articulate the blessings of freedom which are usually taken for granted, how to communicate to citizens the necessity of making sacrifices—including the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life—in the name of freedom, and how a society accustomed to the pleasures of private life can prevail against a more militaristic regime inured to hardship whose fighters are cheerfully willing to endure death.

Sound familiar? This is what Pericles said. “Our system of government does not copy the institutions of its neighbors. It is more the case of our being a model to others, than of our imitating anyone.” Athens, in other words, has a unique civilization that holds itself up as a universal model for civilized peoples everywhere.
What are the ingredients of that civilization? “When it is a question of settling disputes, everyone is equal before the law. When it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership in a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.” Equality and meritocracy are, in Pericles’ view, two of the defining characteristics of ancient Athens.

Moreover, “just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way. We are free and tolerant in our private lives, but in public affairs we keep to the law. That is because it commands our deep respect.” Athens is a freedom-loving society, but it is liberty within the bounds of the law. Free people choose to obey the law, because they see it as legitimate and for their benefit, rather than arbitrary.

Athens is also a commercial civilization that trades freely with its neighbors. “The greatness of our city brings it about that all the good things from all over the world flow in to us, so that it seems just as natural to enjoy foreign goods as our own local products.” There is an easy traffic of peoples across state boundaries. “Our city is open to the world, and we have no periodical deportations in order to prevent people observing or finding out secrets which might be of military advantage to the enemy.”

This liberality of mind and policy, Pericles concedes, makes Athens vulnerable to enemies who seem leaner, hungrier, and hardier. “The Spartans, from their earliest boyhood, are submitted to the most laborious training in courage.” Even so, Pericles emphasizes that the Athenians “pass our lives without all these restrictions, and yet are just as ready to face the same dangers as they are.”

The reason is that “others are brave out of ignorance, but the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of what is terrible, and then goes out undeterred to meet what is to come.” Pericles calls upon the Athenians to recognize that theirs is the city that makes the quest for wisdom and the good life possible, for themselves and for their children, and he calls upon citizens to develop an eros for their city, a deep and abiding love that will justify and make possible the sacrifices that must be made to preserve Athenian liberty and the Athenian way of life.

“What I would ask is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she really is, and should fall in love with her.” The greatness of Athens as she really is. Even as he presents a somewhat idealized view of Athens, Pericles is saying that ultimately we fight for our country not in the name of some abstract theory, not even in the name of founding myths and constitutions, but in the name of the kind of society that we live in, and the kind of life that it makes possible for us.

Of course America, unlike ancient Athens, does not have an imperial appetite. Moreover, President Bush has stated that America is committed to leave Iraq better than it found it, transferring power from the despot to the Iraqi people. But while there are vast differences in the modern political landscape, America today is in a position similar to the ancient Athenians, facing in the militants of the Islamic world, from Osama Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein, a new kind of Sparta.

What is needed, therefore, is an understanding of the nature of the enemy, and of the moral basis of Western civilization. We need to recognize what makes the American experiment historically unique, and what makes American life as it is lived today the best life that our world has to offer. Only then can we know what is at stake in the coming war against Iraq, and in the ongoing war against terrorism.

Click for a Printer Friendly Version