Funeral oration (ancient Greece)

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A funeral oration or epitaphios logos (Greek: ἐπιτάφιος λόγος) is a formal speech delivered on the ceremonial occasion of a funeral. Funerary customs comprise the practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from the funeral itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour. In ancient Greece and, in particular, in ancient Athens, the funeral oration was deemed an indispensable component of the funeral ritual.

The epitaphios logos is regarded as an almost exclusive Athenian creation, although some early elements of such speeches exist in the epos of Homer and in the lyric poems of Pindar. "Pericles' Funeral Oration", delivered for the war dead during the Peloponnesian War of 431-401 BC, is the earlier extant example of the genre.^[1]