>>>>Dr. Kyle Harper: No individual symbolized the Athenian democracy like its greatest leader,
Pericles, one of the great democratic statesmen in all of history. We know something about
Pericles principally through the historian Thucydides, who's one of the greatest historians
of all time and certainly the greatest of the classical historians. And in particular
we see Pericles as a political leader in a time of war and crisis, known as the Peloponnesian
War, which would see Athens the democracy pitted against Sparta, a very different kind
of constitution and kind of society. At the end of the first year of that war the Athenians,
as was part of their political ritual, gathered those who had died in the service of their
state and held a public funeral. And in the history of Thucydides, there's preserved the
speech that Pericles gave at the funeral. It is known as the funeral oration of Pericles
and it is the single greatest statement of the values of Athenian democracy. And indeed
we can consider it the primary source for the values of Athenian democracy. Now in the
broad sweep of human history, the Athenian democracy is an utterly unique creation. It
is different from modern democracy, and at the same time it is different even from the
ancient societies of Rome and the other societies of the ancient world. And truly to understand
the uniqueness and the values of the Athenian democracy, we can look closely at the funeral
oration of Pericles. He says that he's come to honor those who have fallen for their state,
Athens, but instead of praising their valor which he says is obvious, he decides to praise
what they have given their lives for: their city, Athens. And his entire description of
Athens is a way of contrasting it with Sparta because Athens in its constitution, that is
in its way of life, differed fundamentally from Sparta. And he says at the very beginning
of the speech: "We are the Athenians and our constitution is democratic. That means that
the people rule and they enjoy equality before the law." The most fundamental tenant of democracy--
equality before the law. And he praises the Athenian way of life and as you read this
pay close attention to the language and to the description he provides of Athenian society.
He says: "We are tolerant and open," he says, "even in our laws but more so in our day-to-day
lives. We don't give each other black looks. We don't give each other dirty looks for the
way we live our lives, but rather we let individuals live as they please." And he says, "That is
our way of life." He says, "We are open to the world, we don't do things in secret and
we don't keep out others but rather others come to us." And he says, "Because of this
we enjoy all the good things of the world and he says because of this, we are the teachers
of Greece. We are the school of Helos. We are an example to the other city-states throughout
Greece." He says, "Because of this, we have created a culture that will be the envy for
the rest of history." And indeed he says, "Throughout the ages men will wonder at the
monuments we created." And it's true, the Parthenon which still towers over the city
of Athens, and which is one of the most wondrous creations of Athenian democracy, built in
the age of Pericles, is still a monument that is marveled at. And it's a creation of the
Athenians and an expression of their democratic spirit. He says that, "When you compare us
to other societies," and he implicitly means Sparta, "we have a different way of life,
a different way of education. The Spartan way of life boys are taken from the very earliest
youths and spend their whole lives training for military affairs." He says, "We're every
bit as courageous and every bit as capable in military affairs, but we enjoy private
life. We govern ourselves and we enjoy the, living the lives that we want to live." And
he says: "I'm asking you not to serve Athens for any other reason that you might but that
you love her." And it's one of the most profound ideas of his speech, that democratic patriotism
is a kind of voluntary love, that the Athenian citizens had a deeper attachment to their
city, Athens, precisely because it was a free and voluntary love. It's a profound expression
of what Athenian democracy meant and we see in it two concepts of freedom. Freedom as
rule-- that is, the rights of the citizen to govern themselves in a democracy, and a
liberal kind of freedom-- freedom to live your life as you would want to live it. And
the Athenian democracy was an extraordinary synthesis of these two ideals of freedom.