Menexenus featured earlier in the Lysis dialogue and ended up a student oF Socrates. In this dialogue he encounters Socrates they discuss who will become the chosen funerary orator. Socrates thinks that the funerary orations are not very impressive, that it is trivial to get your speech received well if you are praising your very audience. To praise one people in front of another would be a feat though. He says that the speeches are not improvised as Menexenus thought and are in fact prepared. Socrates has been learning oratory from Aspasia, the famed wife of Pericles. He retells a speech that she had him memorize.

The dialogue is odd since it is mostly only an admittedly fine speech. You could interpret it as a jab against the oratory sophists and the superior ability of the philsophers, but that still leaves with with meagre content. But since Aristotle cites it multiple times it is solidly attributed to Plato.

Speech: The speech commences with it's purpose, to praise the dead the and urge the living to live as bravely and virtously. To honor the dead the speech will first go through their origin, then their upbringing and finally their deeds.

The lands of Athens are bountiful with grain and blessed with olive oil, the dispute between Athena and Neptune of ownership is brought up. The supremacy of man over all other animals is stated. No matter their origins or status, the government of Athens selects the best of merit to lead. Unlike in other states, all citizens are equal and none may enslave the other. Once it was a monarchy, now it is a democracy.

Athens stood up for the freedom of Greeks and was willing to fight both barbarians and other Greeks to free them from enslavement.

Together with Eretria Athens fought against Persia. At the battle of Marathon Athens alone beat them, with the Spartans arriving the day after the battle. At Plataea the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians jointly secured victory.

Then the Peloponnesian War broke out where the Delian League led by Sparta fought the Peloponnesian League led by Athens.

At the naval battle of Arginusae the Athenians won, but shamefuly failed to retrieve the dead and wounded from the sea.

After the war Athens had a civil war where the Thirty Tyrants oligarchy imposed by Sparata were ousted.

What differs Athens from the other Greek state is its xenophobia and lack of foreigners.

Any gifts of riches, beauty and strength are wasted if not you are virtous. The parents of the dead should bear their grief and be proud of the glorious lives of their sons.

nothing too much, adage of temperance and self-reliance

Observations:

Socrates learned music from Laprus and oratory from Antiphon.