And if they will direct their minds to the care and nurture of our wives
and children, they will soonest forget their misfortunes, and live in a
better and nobler way, and be dearer to us.
'This is all that we have to say to our families: and to the state we
would say--Take care of our parents and of our sons: let her worthily
cherish the old age of our parents, and bring up our sons in the right way.
But we know that she will of her own accord take care of them, and does not
need any exhortation of ours.'
This, O ye children and parents of the dead, is the message which they bid
us deliver to you, and which I do deliver with the utmost seriousness. And
in their name I beseech you, the children, to imitate your fathers, and
you, parents, to be of good cheer about yourselves; for we will nourish
your age, and take care of you both publicly and privately in any place in
which one of us may meet one of you who are the parents of the dead. And
the care of you which the city shows, you know yourselves; for she has made
provision by law concerning the parents and children of those who die in
war; the highest authority is specially entrusted with the duty of watching
over them above all other citizens, and they will see that your fathers and
mothers have no wrong done to them.
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