Both Pericles’ Funeral Oration and Xenophon’s Constitution of the Spartans would have been directed to people quite like the authors themselves: Athenian, wealthy, educated and male. Women, slaves, and immigrants, whom the Greeks called xenoi (meaning “stranger”), were largely excluded from civic discourse.
Pericles was an important Athenian statesman and military general during the Peloponnesian War, fought from 431-404 BCE between alliances led by the polis (meaning “city-state”) of Athens and the polis of Sparta. His famous oration was delivered at a public funeral to honor the Athenians who died during the first year of the war. Pericles directly addressed his audience during the speech, saying “You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field,” (Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War 2.43.1, trans. by Richard Crawley). This statement offers a clear indication that Pericles’ intended audience was Athenian men who could fight on the field of battle. His oration was propaganda intended to inspire the civic pride and patriotism of a city-state still at war.
It is important to note that we do not have an exact transcript of Pericles’ Funeral Oration. His speech was recorded in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, in which he informed readers that speeches were not recorded verbatim (ibid. 1.22.1). Thucydides’ pro-Athens stance should caution readers to accept his account with a grain of salt.
Xenophon was also an Athenian and a contemporary of the Peloponnesian War. However, he lived for a time in Sparta and even fought with the Spartan army against the Persians. Xenophon preferred the Spartan form of government, which was oligarchic (meaning, governed by a small, powerful group), as opposed to Athens’, which was democratic (meaning, governed by the people). This would have put Xenophon at odds with his fellow Athenian citizens, and gives us a clue to the intended purpose and audience of Constitution of the Spartans.
The audience was the Athenians and the purpose was to explain and praise the Spartan’s life-ways (including parenting, education, and dining practices) and their political structure. By pointing to Sparta’s positive attributes, Xenophon could justify his affinity for the traditional enemy of Athens. Due to Xenophon’s personal interest and his strong pro-Spartan bias, his history should be approached critically.
In terms of audience, both works were aimed primarily at wealthy males, as slaves and women were generally excluded from civic discourse. Since both texts as we have them were written, the audience would have been very well-educated men or those who could afford literate slaves who could read to them; literacy rates in this period represented a small percentage of the population.
Xenophon's Constitution of the Spartans, although nominally written to supply information about the Spartan state which had not previously been written down and too explain the excellence of its culture, also serves as a form of self-justification for Xenophon, who despite being an Athenian was pro-oligarchic and actually served with Spartan military units. Since the Athenians fought against Sparta in the Peloponnesian Wars, this behavior required substantial apologetics. Because of this element of self-justification and propagandistic support for Sparta, one cannot regard Xenophon as an entirely reliable narrator.
Pericles' Funeral Oration has been preserved in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. The audience would have been Athenian and thus the text was designed to stir up civic pride. The speech would have been intended as political propaganda rather than straightforward history and thus is somewhat biased. Moreover, the work as we now read it was not a verbatim transcript of the speech. Thucydides may have done substantial editing.
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