Emile, or Education by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Format: epub
Publisher: Online Library of Liberty
Published: 1762-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

If I had found this epitaph on an ancient monument, I should at once have guessed it was modern; for there is nothing so common among us as heroes, but among the ancients they were rare. Instead of saying a man was a hero, they would have said what he had done to gain that name. With the epitaph of this hero compare that of the effeminate Sardanapalus—

“Tarsus and Anchiales I built in a day, and now I am dead.”

Which do you think says most? Our inflated monumental style is only fit to trumpet forth the praises of pygmies. The ancients showed men as they were, and it was plain that they were men indeed. Xenophon did honour to the memory of some warriors who were slain by treason during the retreat of the Ten Thousand. “They died,” said he, “without stain in war and in love.” That is all, but think how full was the heart of the author of this short and simple elegy. Woe to him who fails to perceive its charm.

The following words were engraved on a tomb at Thermopylæ—

“Go, Traveller, tell Sparta that here we fell in obedience to her laws.”

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