The Democratic Ideal Versus the State of the Union‪.‬

Near the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, the people of Athens conducted a funeral to honor those fellow citizens who had fallen in battle. The bones of the heroic dead were placed in a public sepulcher and Pericles, the annually elected military chief, delivered the closing eulogy. We don't know the actual words he uttered on that day in 431 BCE but we have the account of the Greek historian Thucydides. This funeral oration is considered among the most eloquent in literature and it represents one of the earliest expressions of the democratic ideal. Those who died, Pericles argues, hadn't been fighting for king and country or hearth and home; they had toiled in the service of a profoundly humane way of life. That's how the ancient Athenians saw it. Democracy wasn't merely a practical procedure for passing laws and placing government officials in office. The concept extended well beyond to embrace a deeper notion: the general empowerment of the governed by the governed, and the consequences and ramifications that logically follow from that. Relevant parts of Pericles' funeral oration clarify this and, more importantly, provide a benchmark against which modern societies can be measured.