For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial.

This line is associated with Pericles’ Funeral Oration, delivered at Athens early in the Peloponnesian War (traditionally dated to the winter of 431/430 BCE) to honor those who had died in the first year of fighting. The speech is preserved not as a verbatim transcript but in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, which presents Pericles as articulating Athenian civic ideals—public service, courage, and the glory of the polis. In this setting, the remark about “famous men” functions as consolation and exhortation: the fallen need no private tomb alone, because their renown and the story of their deeds will be remembered far beyond Attica.

The sentence claims that true distinction outlives physical monuments. Pericles contrasts the limited, local nature of a grave marker with the expansive reach of reputation: exemplary deeds become a kind of universal memorial, carried wherever people speak of them. In the Funeral Oration’s larger argument, this elevates civic sacrifice into lasting honor and binds personal immortality to public virtue. The idea also implies a moral economy of fame—renown is earned through service and courage, not merely inherited status. As a piece of rhetoric, it reassures mourners while urging the living to emulate the dead, since the “memorial” of glory is available to those who act nobly.

“The whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men.”
“The whole earth is the tomb of famous men.”
“For the whole earth is the tomb of famous men.”