‘For their memory is ageless, and their honour is envied of all men; we mourn for them as mortal in their nature, but we celebrate them as immortal for their valour. They are receiving a public funeral, and in their honour we institute displays of strength and wisdom and wealth, holding them who have died in battle worthy to be honoured with the same honour as the immortals. So I call them happy in their death, and envy them therefor, and think it should be said that life was worth the possessing only for those men who, endowed with mortal bodies, have left behind them through their valour a memorial that is immortal. Still, we must follow ancient custom, and, obeying the law of our fathers, make lamentation for those whom we are burying to-day.’[138] There is nothing striking or original in this peroration, which recalls the fragment of the funeral speech of Gorgias, especially in the forced and repeated contrasts between ‘mortal’ and ‘immortal.’ In manner and in substance it is infinitely inferior to the famous speech of Pericles, which, with all its extravagances of style, has a note of true feeling. The _Epitaphios_ of Lysias rings hollow; it is feeble in imagery, it contains very little reference to the dead, and holds out no hope of comfort to the living. The allusions to the Persian war are part of the rhetorical paraphernalia such as stirred the bile of Aristophanes, while the historical references to the supposed circumstances of the speech are so vague as not to be appropriate to any particular occasion. On internal evidence, therefore, we may well believe that it is not a real speech, but a declamatory exercise. There is the further question, whether it was composed by Lysias or not. The composer of a ‘_declamatio_’ may allow himself liberties which he would not take in a real speech; yet it is hard to believe that Lysias would have committed such faults of taste as to drag the wars of the Amazons into discussion or to indulge in the exaggerations of the opening sections: ‘All time would not be enough for all men to prepare a speech adequate to such deeds!’ and again, ‘Everywhere and among all men do those who mourn for their own sorrows proclaim the valour of these dead!’ This is not appropriate to the Corinthian war nor to any war in the lifetime of Lysias, and Lysias did not elsewhere say things so inappropriate.[139] The speech is probably an exercise composed by a writer who had before him the speech of Pericles and other such compositions. It is actually quoted by Aristotle, who, however, does not assign it to Lysias.[140] The general lack of restraint in tone is suspicious, and is, on the whole, the strongest argument against authenticity.