Greece and Rome Summary and Analysis

The book begins with "Funeral Oration," a speech by Pericles, a "brilliant" Athenian statesman," who gives the speech as a funeral oration for the first Athenian casualties of the Peloponnesian War. Pericles points out that there are young men among the dead but he reminds the parents of those men that there is no guarantee of life and that death could have come at any time as a result of any accident. He also speaks of the rightness of the war and the fact that future generations will understand the sacrifices of the dead simply through the study of history. In "On His Condemnation to Death," Socrates responds to a death sentence for being a heretic and having corrupted the youth with his teachings. Socrates questions the possibility of life after death, saying that if there is...