Most movingly, perhaps, in the final part of his speech, Pericles turns to the fathers and mothers who have given up sons and spouses to the war. He states that the parents who are still young should have more children, children who will be able to enjoy the democracy that their older siblings fought and died for, and he tells the women to be strong too, in the face of the sorrows that they and their city are enduring over the course of the war. Pericles thus admits, without falsely creating a beautiful image of wartime, that casualties are inevitable during a violent conflict, and it is only because Athenian democracy is so unique, so worth fighting for, that men are willing to give up the comforts of peacetime to sacrifice their lives.

Of course, it might be protested that the ideal Pericles speaks of in the funeral oration was...
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