Chapter XVIII: Part 18

[Footnote 275: Præneste, now Palestrina. This strong town was about 20 miles E. by S. of Rome near the source of the Trerus, now the Sacco, a branch of the Liris, the modern Garigliano.]

[Footnote 276: A Roman historian of the age of Augustus, who wrote Annals, of which there were twenty-two books.]

[Footnote 277: These were Cn. Pompeius Magnus, who afterwards was the great opponent of C. Julius Cæsar; his Life is written by Plutarch: M. Licinius Crassus, called Dives or the Rich, whose Life is written by Plutarch; Quintus Metellus Pius, the son of Metellus Numidicus; and P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, whom Sulla made consul B.C. 79, when he declined the office himself.]

[Footnote 278: Carbo lost courage and ran away. He got safe to the African coast, whence, with many men of rank, he made his way to Sicily, and thence to the small island of Cossyra. Cn. Pompeius sent men to seize him, who caught Carbo and his company: Carbo's followers were immediately put to death pursuant to the orders of Pompeius. Carbo was brought to Pompeius, and placed at his feet in chains; and after Pompeius had insulted him who had thrice been consul by pronouncing an harangue over him, Carbo was put to death, and his head was sent to Sulla. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, i. 96.) The statement of Plutarch (_Pompeius_, c. 10) agrees with that of Appian. These and other acts of Pompeius should be remembered by those who are inclined to pity his fate. He was probably under a necessity to put Carbo to death pursuant to the orders of his muster Sulla, but the insult might have been spared.]

[Footnote 279: It is uncertain who he was. See Drumann, _Geschichte Roms_, ii. Claudii No. 26.]

[Footnote 280: See c. 33. Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 93) gives a different account of this affair before the Colline gate, but agrees with Plutarch in stating that Sulla's right wing was successful and the left was defeated. He says that Telesinus fell in the battle.]

[Footnote 281: Antemnæ was a few miles from Rome, near the junction of the Tiber and the Anio (Teverone).]

[Footnote 282: Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 93) briefly mentions this massacre. It took place in the Circus Flaminius, which was near the temple of Bellona.

Plutarch here starts a question which suggests itself to all men who have had any experience. It is a common remark that a man who has been raised from a low degree to a high station, or has become rich from being poor, is no longer the same man. Nobody expects those whom he has known in the same station as himself to behave themselves in the same way when they are exalted above it. Nobody expects a man who has got power to be the same man that he was in an humble station. Any man who has lived a reasonable time in the world and had extensive conversation with it knows this to be true. But is the man changed, or are his latent qualities only made apparent by his changed circumstances? The truth seems to be that latent qualities are developed by opportunity. All men have the latent capacities of pride, arrogance, tyranny, and cruelty. Cruelty perhaps requires the most opportunities for its development; and these opportunities are power, fear, and opposition to his will. It has been well observed, that all men are capable of crime, but different circumstances are necessary to develop this capacity in different men. All have their price; and some may be bought cheap. He who is above the temptation of money may yield to other temptations. The possession of power is the greatest temptation of all, as it offers the greatest opportunities for the development of any latent disposition; and every man has a point or two in which he is open to the insidious attacks of opportunity. In matters political, the main thing is to know, from the indications that a man gives when he has not power, what he will be when he has power: in the ordinary intercourse of life, the main thing is to judge of the character of those with whom we deal by compulsion or choice, to know how far we can trust what they say, how far their future conduct may be predicted from present indications. But to show what these indications are, belongs, as Plutarch says, to another inquiry than the present. The general rule of old was Distrust, which the crafty Sicilian, as Cicero (_Ad Attic._ i. 19) calls Epicharmus, was always whispering in his ear. Epicharmus has well expressed his maxim in a single line:

[Greek: Naphe kai memnas' apistein: arthra tauta ton phrenon.]
Νᾶφε καὶ μέμνας' ἀπιστεῖν: άρθρα ταῦτα τῶν φρενῶν.

Wakeful be thou and distrustful: sinews these are to the mind.

This is the rule for the timid, and for them a safe one. But he who is always suspicious must not expect to be trusted himself; and when the bold command, he must be content to obey.]

[Footnote 283: This is not a Roman name. The nearest name to it is Aufidius. But it is conjectured that one Fufidius is meant here (see the note of Sintenis), and also in the Life of Sertorius (c. 26, 27). This is probably the Fufidius (Florus, iii. 21, where the name is written incorrectly Furfidius in some editions) who said, that "Some should be left alive that there might be persons to domineer over."]

[Footnote 284: A Proscriptio was a notice set up in some public place. This Proscription of Sulla was the first instance of the kind, but it was repeated at a later time. The first list of the proscribed, according to Appian (_Civil Wars_, i, 55), contained forty senators and about sixteen hundred equites. Sulla prefaced his proscription by an address to the people, in which he promised to mend their condition. Paterculus (ii. 28) states that the proscription was to the following effect:--That the property of the proscribed should be sold, that their children should be deprived of all title to their property, and should be ineligible to public offices; and further, that the sons of Senators should bear the burdens incident to their order and lose all their rights. This will explain the word Infamy, which is used a little below. Infamia among the Romans was not a punishment, but it was a consequence of conviction for certain offences; and this consequence was a civil disability; the person who became Infamis lost his vote, and was ineligible to the great public offices. He also sustained some disabilities in his private rights. Sulla therefore put the children of the proscribed in the same condition as if they had been found guilty of certain offences.

The consequence of these measures of Sulla was a great change of property all through Italy. Cities which had favoured the opposite faction were punished by the loss of their fortifications and heavy requisitions, such as the French army in the Revolutionary wars levied in Italy. Sulla settled the soldiers of twenty-three legions in the Italian towns as so many garrisons, and he gave them lands and houses by taking them from their owners. These were the men who stuck to Sulla while he lived, and attempted to maintain his acts after his death, for their title could only be defended by supporting his measures. These are "the men of Sulla," as Cicero sometimes calls them, whose lands were purchased by murder, and who, as he says (_Contra Rullum_, ii. 26), were in such odium that their title could not have stood a single attack of a true and courageous tribune.]

[Footnote 285: Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 94) states that Sulla made all the people in Præneste come out into the plain unarmed, that he picked out those who had served him, who were very few, and these he spared. The rest he divided into three bodies, Romans, Samnites, and Prænestines: he told the Romans that they deserved to die, but he pardoned them; the rest were massacred, with the exception of the women and young children.]

[Footnote 286: L. Sergius Catilina, who formed a conspiracy in the consulship of M. Tullius Cicero B.C. 63. (Life of Cicero.)]

[Footnote 287: Cn. Marius Gratidianus, the son of M. Gratidius of Arpinum. He was adopted by one of the Marii; by the brother of Caius Marius, as some conjecture.]

[Footnote 288: A vessel of stone or metal placed at the entrance of a temple that those who entered might wash their hands in it, or perhaps merely dip in a finger.]

[Footnote 289: Plutarch's expression is "he proclaimed himself Dictator," but this expression is not to be taken literally, nor is it to be supposed that Plutarch meant it to be taken literally. Sulla was appointed in proper form, though he did in fact usurp the power, and under the title of dictator was more than king. (Appian, _Civil Wars_, i. 98.) The terms of Sulla's election were that he should hold the office as long as he pleased; the disgrace of this compulsory election was veiled under the declaration that Sulla was appointed to draw up legislative measures and to settle affairs. Paterculus (ii. 28) mentions the 120 years as having elapsed since the time of a previous dictatorship, which was the year after Hannibal left Italy B.C. 202. As Sulla was elected Dictator in B.C. 81, Plutarch's statement is correct. (On the functions of the Dictator see Life of Cæsar, c. 37.)]

[Footnote 290: Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was prætor B.C. 70 during the proceedings against Verres. He was the son of the M. Acilius Glabrio who got a law passed on mal-administration in offices (repetundæ), and the grandson of the Glabrio who defeated King Antiochus near Thermopylæ. (See c. 12.)]

[Footnote 291: This murder is told more circumstantially by Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 101), who has added something that Plutarch should not have omitted. After saying to the people that Lucretius had been put to death by his order, Sulla told them a tale: "The lice were very troublesome to a clown, as he was ploughing. Twice he stopped his ploughing and purged his jacket. But he was still bitten, and in order that he might not be hindered in his work, he burnt the jacket; and I advise those who have been twice humbled not to make fire necessary the third time."]

[Footnote 292: Plinius (_H.N._ 33, c. 5) speaks of this triumph: it lasted two days. In the first day Sulla exhibited in the procession 15,000 pounds weight of gold and 115,000 pounds of silver, the produce of his foreign victories: on the second, 13,000 pounds weight of gold and 6000 pounds of silver which the younger Marius had carried off to Præneste after the conflagration of the Capitol and from the robbery of the other Roman temples.]

[Footnote 293: The term Felix appears on the coins of Sulla. Epaphroditus signifies a favourite of Aphrodite or Venus. (Eckhel, _Doctrina Num. Vet._ v. 190.) Eckhel infers from the guttus and lituus on one of Sulla's coins that he was an Augur.]

[Footnote 294: Sulla abdicated the dictatorship B.C. 79 in the consulship of P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus and Appius Claudius Pulcher. Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 103, &c.) speaks of the abdication. He made no attempt to secure to his family the power that he had acquired. It may be that he had no desire to perpetuate the power in his family; and it is certain that this could not have been accomplished. Sulla had only one son, and he was now a child. But it is certainly a striking trait in this man's character that he descended to a private station from the possession of unlimited power, and after, as Appian observes, having caused the death of more than one hundred thousand men in his Italian wars, besides ninety senators, fifteen consuls, and two thousand six hundred equites, not to mention those who were banished and whose property was confiscated, and the many Italian cities whose fortifications he had destroyed and whose lands and privileges he had taken away. Sulla's character was a compound of arrogance, self-confidence, and contempt of all mankind, which have seldom been united. But his ruling character was love of sensual pleasures. He was weary of his life of turmoil, and he returned to his property in the neighbourhood of Cumæ on the pleasant shore of Campania, where he spent his time on the sea, in fishing, and in sensual enjoyments. But he had nothing to fear; there were in Italy one hundred and twenty thousand men who had served under him, to whom he had given money and land; there was a great number of persons at Rome who had shared in his cruelties and the profits of them, and whose safely consisted in maintaining the safety of their leader. Besides this, he had manumitted above ten thousand vigorous men, once the slaves of masters who had been murdered by his orders, and made them Roman citizens under the name of Cornelii. These men were always in readiness to execute his orders. With these precautions, this blood-stained man retired to enjoy the sensual gratifications that he had indulged in from his youth upwards, glorying in his happy fortune and despising all mankind. No attempt to assassinate him is recorded, nor any apprehension of his on that score. He lived and died Sulla the Fortunate.]

[Footnote 295: M. Æmilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus were consuls B.C. 78, the year of Sulla's death. Lepidus attempted to overthrow Sulla's constitution after Sulla's death. He was driven from Rome by Q. Catulus and Cn. Pompeius Magnus, and died B.C. 77 in Sardinia. This Lepidus was the father of M. Lepidus the associate of Cæsar Octavianus and M. Antonius in the triumvirate. (See the Life of M. Antonius.)

Catulus was the son of Lutatius Catulus who was once the colleague of C. Marius in the consulship. He has received great praise from Cicero. Sallustius calls him a defender of the aristocratical party, and C. Licinius Macer, as quoted by Sallustius in his History, says that he was more cruel than Sulla. We cannot trust Cicero's unqualified praise of this aristocrat nor the censure of Sallustius. What would Cicero's character be, if we had it from some one who belonged to the party of Catiline? and what is it as we know it from his own writings? Insincere, changing with the times, timid, revengeful, and, when he was under the influence of fear, cruel.]

[Footnote 296: The Greek word ([Greek: theatron] θέατρον) from which came the Roman Theatrum and our word Theatre, means a place for an exhibition or spectacle. The Roman word for dramatic representations is properly Scena. I do not know when the men and women had separate seats assigned to them in the theatres. A law of the tribune L. Roscius Otho B.C. 68 fixed the places in the theatres for the different classes, and it may have assigned separate seats to the women.]

[Footnote 297: Valeria was the daughter of M. Valerius Messala. She could not be the sister of Hortensius, for in that case her name would be Hortensia. The sister of the orator Hortensius married a Valerius Messala.]

[Footnote 298: Plutarch has translated the Roman word Imperator by the Greek Autocrator ([Greek: Autokratôr] Αὐτοκράτωρ), "one who has absolute power;" the title Autocrator under the Empire is the Greek equivalent of the Roman Imperator, but hardly an equivalent at this time. (See the Life of Cæsar.)]

[Footnote 299: This was the Quintus Roscius whom Cicero has so often mentioned and in defence of whom he made a speech which is extant. The subject of the action against Roscius is not easy to state in a few words. (See the Argument of P. Manutius, and the Essay of Unterholzner in Savigny's _Zeitschrift_, &c. i. p. 248.) Roscius is called Comœdus in the title of Cicero's oration and by Plutarch, but he seems to have acted tragedy also, as we may collect from some passages in Cicero. The general name at Rome for an actor was histrio; but the histrio is also contrasted by Cicero (_Pro Q. Roscio_, c. 10) with the comœdus, as the inferior compared with the higher professor of the art. Yet Roscius is sometimes called a histrio. Roscius was a perfect master of his art, according to Cicero; and his name became proverbial among the Romans to express a perfect master of any art. (Cicero, _De Oratore_, i. 28.) Cicero was intimate with Roscius, and learned much from him that was useful to him as an orator. Roscius wrote a work in which he compared oratory and acting. His professional gains were immense; and he had a sharp eye after his own interest, as the speech of Cicero shows.]

[Footnote 300: The original is [Greek: lusiodos] λυσιοδός, which is explained by Aristoxenus, quoted by Athenæus (p. 620), as I have translated it.]

[Footnote 301: Appian does not mention this disease of Sulla, though other writers do. Appian merely speaks of his dying of fever. Zachariæ (Life of Sulla) considers the story of his dying of the lousy disease as a fabrication of Sulla's enemies, and probably of the Athenians whom he had handled so cruelly. This disease, called Morbus Pediculosus or Pthiriasis, is not unknown in modern times. Plutarch has collected instances from ancient times. Akastus belongs to the mythic period. Alkman lived in the seventh century B.C.: fragments of his poetry remain. This Pherekydes was what the Greeks called Theologus, a man who speculated on things appertaining to the nature of the gods. He is said to have been a teacher of Pythagoras, which shows that he belongs to an uncertain period. He was not a Philosopher; his speculations belonged to those cosmogonical dreams which precede true philosophy, and begin again when philosophy goes to sleep, as we see in the speculations of the present day. Kallisthenes is mentioned in Plutarch's Life of Alexander, c. 55. He was thrown into prison on a charge of conspiring against Alexander. This Mucius the lawyer ([Greek: nomikos] νομικός), or jurisconsultus, as a Roman would call him, is the P. Mucius Scævola who was consul in the year in which Tiberius Gracchus was murdered.

There were two Servile wars in Sicily. Plutarch alludes to the first which broke out B.C. 134, and is described in the Excerpts from the thirty-fourth book of Diodorus. Diodorus says that Eunus died of this disease in prison at Morgantina in Sicily.]

[Footnote 302: This town, also called Puteoli, the modern Pozzuolo, was near Sulla's residence. It was originally a Greek town; and afterwards a Roman colonia. Plutarch simply says that Granius "owed a public debt." Valerius Maximus (ix. 3) states that Granius was a Princeps of Puteoli and was slow in getting in the money which had been promised by the Decuriones of Puteoli towards the rebuilding of the Capitol. Sulla had said that nothing remained to complete his good fortune, except to see the Capitol dedicated. No wonder that the delay of Granius irritated such a man.]

[Footnote 303: The Roman words Postumus, Postuma, seem to have been generally used to signify a child born after the father's death. But they also signified a child born after the father had made a will. The word simply means "last." We use the expression "Posthumous child;" but the meaning of the word is often misunderstood. (On the effect of the birth of a Postumus on a father's will, see Smith's _Dictionary of Antiquities_, art. "Heres, Roman.")

Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 101) speaks of Sulla's death. He saw his death coming and hastened to make his will: he died in his sixtieth year, the most fortunate man in his end and in everything else, both in name and estimation; if indeed, the historian wisely adds, a man should think it good fortune to have obtained all his wishes.

Sulla had the following children:--Cornelia, by Ilia; she married Q. Pompeius Rufus who was murdered B.C. 88, and she may have died before her father: Cornelius Sulla, a son by Metella, who died, as Plutarch has said, before his father: Faustus Cornelius Sulla and Fausta Cornelia, the twin children by Metella, who were both young when their father died. Faustus lost his life in Africa, when he was fighting on the Pompeian side. Fausta's first husband was C. Memmius, from whom she was divorced. She then married T. Annius Milo B.C. 55, who caught her in the act of adultery with the historian Sallustius, who was soundly hided by the husband and not let of till he had paid a sum of money. Sallustius did not forget this.]

[Footnote 304: It was considered a mark of intentional disrespect or of disapprobation, when a Roman made no mention of his nearest kin or friends in his will; and in certain cases, the person who was passed over could by legal process vindicate the imputation thus thrown on him. (See the article "Testamentum," in Smith's _Dictionary of Antiquities_, under the head "Querela Inofficiosi.") Sulla did not like Cn. Pompeius. The only reason for keeping on terms with him was that he saw his talents and so wished to ally him to his family. For the same reason Sulla wished to put C. Julius Cæsar to death (Cæsar. 1): he predicted that he would be the ruin of the aristocratical party. Sulla made his friend Lucius Lucullus the guardian of his children and intrusted him with the final correction of his Memoirs. (See the Life of Lucullus, c. 1).]

[Footnote 305: The description of the funeral in Appian (_Civil Wars_, i. 105, &c.) is a striking picture. Sulla was buried with more than regal pomp.

Plutarch's Life of Sulla has been spoken of as not one of his best performances. But so far as concerns Plutarch's object in writing these Lives, which was to exhibit character, it is as good as any of his Lives, and it has great merit. Whether his anecdotes are always authentic is a difficult matter to determine. Sulla had many enemies, and it is probable that his character in private life has been made worse than it was. The acts of his public life are well ascertained. Plutarch has nearly omitted all mention of him as a Reformer of the Roman Constitution and as a Legislator. Sulla's enactments were not like the imperial constitutions of a later day, the mere act of one who held the sovereign power: they were laws (leges) duly passed by the popular assembly. Yet they were Sulla's work, and the legislative body merely gave them the formal sanction. The object of Sulla's constitutional measures was to give an aristocratical character to the Roman constitution, to restore it to something of its pristine state, and to weaken the popular party by curtailing the power of the tribunes. The whole subject has often been treated, but at the greatest length by Zachariæ, _Lucius Cornelius Sulla, &c._, Heidelberg, 1834. Zachariæ has drawn the character of Sulla in an apologetical tone. I think the character of Sulla is drawn better by Plutarch, and that he has represented him as near to the life as a biographer can do. Whatever discrepancies there may he between Plutarch and other authorities, whatever Plutarch may have omitted which other authorities give, still he has shown us enough to justify his delineation of the most prominent man in the Republican Period of Rome, with the exception of the Dictator Cæsar. But to complete the view of his intellectual character, a survey of Sulla's legislation is necessary. Sulla was an educated man: he was not a mere soldier like Marius; he was not only a general; he was a man of letters, a lover of the arts, a keen discriminator of men and times, a legislator, and a statesman. He remodelled and reformed the whole criminal law of the Romans. His constitutional measures were not permanent, but it may truly be said that he prepared the way for the temporary usurpation of Cæsar and the permanent establishment of the Roman State under Augustus. I propose to treat of the Legislation of Sulla in an Appendix to a future volume.]

COMPARISON OF LYSANDER AND SULLA

Now that we have completed the second of these men's lives, let us proceed to compare them with one another. Both rose to greatness by their own exertions, though it was the peculiar glory of Lysander that all his commands were bestowed upon him by his countrymen of their own free will and by their deliberate choice, and that he never opposed their wishes or acted in opposition to the laws of his country. Now,--

"In revolutions, villains rise to fame,"

and at Rome, at the period of which we are treating, the people were utterly corrupt and degraded, and frequently changed their masters. We need not wonder at Sulla's becoming supreme in Rome when such men as Glaucia and Saturninus drove the Metelli into exile, when the sons of consuls were butchered in the senate-house, when silver and gold purchased soldiers and arms, and laws were enacted by men who silenced their opponents by fire and the sword. I cannot blame a man who rises to power at such a time as this, but I cannot regard it as any proof of his being the best man in the state, if the state itself be in such a condition of disorder. Now Lysander was sent out to undertake the most important commands at a time when Sparta was well and orderly governed, and proved himself the greatest of all the foremost men of his age, the best man of the best regulated state. For this reason Lysander, though he often laid down his office, was always re-elected by his countrymen, for the renown of his abilities naturally pointed him out as the fittest man to command: whereas Sulla, after being once elected to lead an army, remained the chief man in Rome for ten years, calling himself sometimes consul and sometimes dictator, but always remaining a mere military despot.

II. We have related an attempt of Lysander to subvert the constitution of Sparta; but he proceeded by a much more moderate and law-abiding means than Sulla, for he meant to gain his point by persuasion, not by armed force; and besides this he did not intend to destroy the constitution utterly, but merely to reform the succession to the throne. And it does not seem contrary to justice, that he who is best among his peers should govern a city, which ruled in Greece by virtue, not by nobility of blood.

A huntsman tries to obtain a good hound, and a horseman a good horse, but does not trouble himself with their offspring, for the offspring of his horse might turn out to be a mule. Just so in politics, the important point is, what sort of man a ruler is, not from what family he is descended. Even the Spartans in some cases dethroned their kings, because they were not king-like but worthless men. If then vice be disgraceful even in the nobly born, it follows that virtue does not depend upon birth, but is honoured for itself.

The crimes of Lysander were committed for, those of Sulla against, his friends. Indeed, what Lysander did wrong was done chiefly on behalf of his friends, as, in order to establish them securely in their various despotic governments, he caused many of their political opponents to be put to death. Sulla, on the other hand, reduced the army of Pompeius and the fleet which he himself had given to Dolabella to command, merely to gratify his private spite. When Lucretius Ofella sued for the consulship as the reward of many great exploits, he ordered him to be put to death before his face, and thus made all men fear and hate him by his barbarous treatment of his most intimate friends.

III. Their several esteem for pleasure and for riches prove still more clearly that Lysander was born to command men; Sulla to tyrannize over them. The former, although he rose to such an unparalleled height of power never was betrayed by it into any acts of insolent caprice, and there never was a man to whom the well-known proverb

"Lions at home, but foxes in the field,"

was less applicable, Sulla, on the other hand, did not allow his poverty when young or his years when old to hinder him in the pursuit of pleasure, but he enacted laws to regulate the marriages and morals of his countrymen, and indulged his own amorous propensities in spite of them, as we read in Sallust's history. In consequence of his vices, Rome was so drained of money that he was driven to the expedient of allowing the allied cities to purchase their independence by payment, and that, too, although he was daily proscribing the richest men and selling their property by public auction. Yet he wasted money without limit upon his courtiers. What bounds can we imagine he would set to his generosity when in his cups, seeing that once, when a great estate was being sold by public auction, he ordered the auctioneer to knock it down to a friend of his own for a mere nominal sum, and when some one else made a higher bid, and the auctioneer called out the additional sum offered, Sulla flew into a passion and exclaimed: "My friends, I am very hardly used if I may not dispose of my own plunder as I please." Now Lysander sent home to his countrymen even what he had himself received as presents together with the rest of the spoils. Yet I do not approve of him for so doing: for he did as much harm to Sparta by bestowing that money upon it as Sulla did harm to Rome by the money which he took from it: but I mention it as proving how little he cared for money. Each acted strangely towards his fellow-countrymen. Sulla regulated and improved the morals of Rome, although he himself was wasteful and licentious. Lysander filled his countrymen with the passions from which he himself was free. Thus the former was worse than the laws which he himself enacted, while the latter rendered his countrymen worse than himself, as he taught the Spartans to covet what he had learned to despise. So much for their political conduct.

IV. In warlike exploits, in brilliancy of generalship, in the number of victories he won, and the greatness of the dangers which he encountered, Sulla is immeasurably the greater. Lysander did indeed twice conquer in a sea-fight, and I will even allow him the credit of having taken Athens; no difficult matter, no doubt, but one which, brought him great glory because of its being so famous a city. In Bœotia and before Haliartus he was perhaps unlucky, yet his conduct in not waiting for the arrival of the great force under Pausanias, which was at Platæa, close by, seems like bad generalship. He would not stay till the main body arrived, but rashly assaulted the city, and fell by an unknown hand in an insignificant skirmish. He did not meet his death facing overwhelming odds, like Kleombrotus at Leuktra, nor yet in the act of rallying his broken forces, or of consummating his victory, as did Cyrus and Epameinondas. All these died as became generals and kings; but Lysander ingloriously flung away his life like any common light infantry soldier, and proved the wisdom of the ancient Spartans, who always avoided the attack of fortified places, where the bravest may fall by the hand of the most worthless man, or even by that of a woman or a child, as Achilles is said to have been slain by Paris at the gates of Troy. Turning now to Sulla, it is not easy to enumerate all the pitched battles he won, the thousands of enemies that he overthrew. He twice took Rome itself by storm, and at Athens he took Peiræus, not by famine like Lysander, but after a gigantic struggle, at the end of which he drove Archelaus into the sea.

It is important also to consider who were the generals to whom they were opposed. It must have been mere child's-play to Lysander to defeat Antiochus, the pilot of Alkibiades, and to outwit Philokles, the Athenian mob-orator,

"A knave, whose tongue was sharper than his sword,"

for they were both of them men whom Mithridates would not have thought a match for one of his grooms, or Marius for one of his lictors. Not to mention the rest of the potentates, consuls, prætors and tribunes with whom Sulla had to contend, what Roman was more to be dreaded than Marius? What king more powerful than Mithridates? Who was there in Italy more warlike than Lamponius and Pontius Telesinus? Yet Sulla drove Marius into exile, crushed the power of Mithridates, and put Lamponius and Pontius to death.

V. What, however, to my mind incontestably proves Sulla to have been the greater man of the two, is that, whereas Lysander was always loyally assisted by his countrymen in all his enterprises, Sulla, during his campaign in Bœotia, was a mere exile. His enemies were all-powerful at Rome. They had driven his wife to seek safety in flight, had pulled down his house, and murdered his friends. Yet he fought in his country's cause against overwhelming numbers, and gained the victory. Afterwards, when Mithridates offered to join him and furnish him with the means of overcoming his private enemies, he showed no sign of weakness, and would not even speak to him or give him his hand until he heard him solemnly renounce all claim to Asia Minor, engage to deliver up his fleet, and to restore Bithynia and Cappadocia to their native sovereigns. Never did Sulla act in a more noble and high-minded manner. He preferred his country's good to his own private advantage, and, like a well-bred hound, never relaxed his hold till his enemy gave in, and then began to turn his attention to redressing his own private wrongs.

Perhaps their treatment of Athens gives us some insight into their respective characters. Although that city sided with Mithridates and fought to maintain his empire, yet when Sulla had taken it he made it free and independent. Lysander, on the other hand, felt no pity for Athens when she fell from her glorious position as the leading state in Greece, but put an end to her free constitution and established the cruel and lawless government of the Thirty.

We may now conclude our review of their respective lives by observing that while Sulla performed greater achievements, Lysander committed fewer crimes: and that while we assign the palm for moderation and self-denial to the latter, that for courage and generalship be bestowed upon the former.

LIFE OF KIMON.

Peripoltas, the soothsayer, after he had brought back King Opheltas and the people under him to Bœotia, left a family which remained in high repute for many generations, and chiefly settled in Chæronea, which was the first city which they conquered when they drove out the barbarians. As the men of this race were all brave and warlike, they were almost reduced to extinction in the wars with the Persians, and in later times with the Gauls during their invasion of Greece, so that there remained but one male of the family, a youth of the name of Damon, who was surnamed Peripoltas, and who far surpassed all the youth of his time in beauty and spirit, although he was uneducated and harsh-tempered. The commander of a detachment of Roman soldiers who were quartered during the winter in Chæronea conceived a criminal passion for Damon, who was then a mere lad, and as he could not effect his purpose by fair means it was evident that he would not hesitate to use force, as our city was then much decayed, and was despised, being so small and poor. Damon, alarmed and irritated at the man's behaviour, formed a conspiracy with a few young men of his own age, not many, for secrecy's sake, but consisting of sixteen in all. These men smeared their faces with soot, excited themselves by strong drink, and assaulted the Roman officer just at daybreak, while he was offering sacrifice in the market-place. They killed him and several of his attendants, and then made their escape out of the city. During the confusion which followed, the senate of the city of Chæronea assembled and condemned the conspirators to death--a decree which was intended to excuse the city to the Romans for what had happened. But that evening, when the chief magistrates, as is their custom, were dining together, Damon and his party broke into the senate-house, murdered them all, and again escaped out of the city. It chanced that at this time Lucius Lucullus was passing near Chæronea with an armed force. He halted his troops, and, after investigating the circumstances, declared that the city was not to blame, but had been the injured party. As for Damon, who was living by brigandage and plunder of the country, and who threatened to attack the city itself, the citizens sent an embassy to him, and passed a decree guaranteeing his safety if he would return. When he returned they appointed him president of the gymnasium, and afterwards, while he was being anointed in the public baths, they murdered him there.

Our ancestors tell us that as ghosts used to appear in that place, and groans were heard there, the doors of the bath-room were built up; and even at the present day those who live near the spot imagine that shadowy forms are to be seen, and confused cries heard. Those of his family who survive (for there are some descendants of Damon) live chiefly in Phokis, near the city of Steiris. They call themselves Asbolomeni, which in the Æolian dialect means "sooty-faced," in memory of Damon having smeared his face with soot when he committed his crimes.

II. Now the city of Orchomenus, which is next to that of Chæronea, was at variance with it, and hired a Roman informer, who indicted the city for the murder of those persons killed by Damon, just as if it were a man. The trial was appointed to take place before the prætor of Macedonia, for at that time the Romans did not appoint prætors of Greece. When in court the representatives of Chæronea appealed to Lucullus to testify to their innocence, and he, when applied to by the prætor, wrote a letter telling the entire truth of the story, which obtained an acquittal for the people of Chæronea. Thus narrowly did the city escape utter destruction. The citizens showed their gratitude to Lucullus by erecting a marble statue to him in the market-place, beside that of Dionysus; and although I live at a much later period, yet I think it my duty to show my gratitude to him also, as I too have benefited by his intercession. I intend therefore to describe his achievements in my Parallel Lives, and thus raise a much more glorious monument to his memory by describing his real disposition and character, than any statue can be, which merely records his face and form. It will be sufficient for me if I show that his memory is held in grateful remembrance, for he himself would be the first to refuse to be rewarded for the true testimony which he bore to us by a fictitious narrative of his exploits. We think it right that portrait painters when engaged in painting a handsome face should neither omit nor exaggerate its defects; for the former method would destroy the likeness and the latter the beauty of the picture. In like manner, as it is hard, or rather impossible, to find a man whose life is entirely free from blame, it becomes our duty to relate their noble actions with minute exactitude, regarding them as illustrative of true character, whilst, whenever either a man's personal feelings or political exigencies may have led him to commit mistakes and crimes, we must regard his conduct more as a temporary lapse from virtue than as disclosing any innate wickedness of disposition, and we must not dwell with needless emphasis on his failings, if only to save our common human nature from the reproach of being unable to produce a man of unalloyed goodness and virtue.

III. It appears to me that the life of Lucullus furnishes a good parallel to that of Kimon. Both were soldiers, and distinguished themselves against the barbarians; both were moderate politicians and afforded their countrymen a brief period of repose from the violence of party strife, and both of them won famous victories. No Greek before Kimon, and no Roman before Lucullus, waged war at such a distance from home, if we except the legends of Herakles and Dionysus, and the vague accounts which we have received by tradition of the travels and exploits of Perseus in Ethiopia, Media, and Armenia, and of the expedition of Jason to recover the Golden Fleece.

Another point in which they agree is the incomplete nature of the success which they obtained, for they both inflicted severe losses on their enemies, but neither completely crushed them. Moreover we find in each of them the same generous hospitality, and the same luxurious splendour of living. Their other points of resemblance the reader may easily discover for himself by a comparison of their respective lives.

IV. Kimon was the son of Miltiades by his wife Hegesipyle, a lady of Thracian descent, being the daughter of King Olorus, as we learn from the poems addressed to Kimon himself by Archelaus and Melanthius. Thucydides the historian also was connected with Kimon's family, as the name of Olorus had descended to his father,[306] who also inherited gold mines in Thrace from his ancestors there. Thucydides is said to have died at Skapte Hyle, a small town in Thrace, near the gold mines. His remains were conveyed to Athens and deposited in the cemetery belonging to the family of Kimon, where his tomb is now to be seen, next to that of Elpinike, Kimon's sister. However, Thucydides belonged to the township of Halimus, and the family of Miltiades to that of Lakia.

Miltiades was condemned by the Athenians to pay a fine of fifty talents, and being unable to do so, died in prison, leaving Kimon and his sister Elpinike, who were then quite young children. Kimon passed the earlier part of his life in obscurity, and was not regarded favourably by the Athenians, who thought that he was disorderly and given to wine, and altogether resembled his grandfather Kimon, who was called Koalemus because of his stupidity.

Stesimbrotus of Thasos, who was a contemporary of Kimon, tells us that he never was taught music or any of the other usual accomplishments of a Greek gentleman, and that he had none of the smartness and readiness of speech so common at Athens, but that he was of a noble, truthful nature, and more like a Dorian of the Peloponnesus than an Athenian,

"Rough, unpretending, but a friend in need,"

as Euripides says of Herakles, which line we may well apply to Kimon according to the account of him given by Stesimbrotus. While he was still young he was accused of incest with his sister. Indeed Elpinike is not recorded as having been a respectable woman in other respects, as she carried on an intrigue with Polygnotus the painter; and therefore it is said that when he painted the colonnade which was then called the Peisianakteum, which is now called the Painted Porch, he introduced the portrait of Elpinike as Laodike, one of the Trojan ladies. Polygnotus was a man of noble birth, and he did not execute his paintings for money, but gratis, from his wish to do honour to his city. This we learn from the historians and from the poet Melanthius, who wrote--

"With deeds of heroes old,
He made our city gay,
In market-place and porch,
Himself the cost did pay."

Some historians tell us that Elpinike was openly married to Kimon and lived as his wife, because she was too poor to obtain a husband worthy of her noble birth, but that at length Kallias, one of the richest men in Athens, fell in love with her, and offered to pay off the fine which had been imposed upon her father, by which means he won her consent, and Kimon gave her away to Kallias as his wife. Kimon indeed seems to have been of an amorous temperament, for Asterie, a lady of Salamis, and one Mnestra are mentioned by the poet Melanthius, in some playful verses he wrote upon Kimon, as being beloved by him; and we know that he was passionately fond of Isodike, the daughter of Euryptolemus the son of Megakles, who was his lawful wife, and that he was terribly afflicted by her death, to judge by the elegiac poem which was written to console him, of which Panætius the philosopher very reasonably conjectures Archelaus to have been the author.

V. All the rest that we know of Kimon is to his honour. He was as brave as Miltiades, as clever as Themistokles, and more straightforward than either. Nor was he inferior to either of them in military skill, while he far surpassed them in political sagacity, even when he was quite a young man, and without any experience of war. For instance, when Themistokles, at the time of the Persian invasion, urged the Athenians to abandon their city and territory, and resist the enemy at Salamis, on board of their fleet, while the greater part of the citizens were struck with astonishment at so daring a proposal, Kimon was seen with a cheerful countenance walking through the Kerameikus with his friends, carrying in his hand his horse's bridle, which he was going to offer up to the goddess Athena in the Acropolis, in token that at that crisis the city did not need horsemen so much as sailors. He hung up the bridle as a votive offering in the temple, and, taking down one of the shields which hung there, walked with it down towards the sea, thereby causing many of his countrymen to take courage and recover their spirits. He was not an ill-looking man, as Ion the poet says, but tall, and with a thick curly head of hair. As he proved himself a brave man in action he quickly became popular and renowned in Athens, and many flocked round him, urging him to emulate the glories won by his father at Marathon. The people gladly welcomed him on his first entrance into political life, for they were weary of Themistokles, and were well pleased to bestow the highest honours in the state upon one whose simple and unaffected goodness of heart had made him a universal favourite. He was greatly indebted for his success to the support given him by Aristeides, who early perceived his good qualities, and endeavoured to set him up as an opponent to the rash projects and crooked policy of Themistokles.

VI. When, after the repulse of the Persian invasion, Kimon was sent as general of the Athenian forces to operate against the enemy in Asia, acting under the orders of Pausanias, as the Athenians had not then acquired their supremacy at sea, the troops whom he commanded were distinguished by the splendour of their dress and arms, and the exactness of their discipline. Pausanias at this time was carrying on a treasonable correspondence with the king of Persia, and treated the allied Greek troops with harshness and wanton insolence, the offspring of unlimited power. Kimon, on the other hand, punished offenders leniently, treated all alike with kindness and condescension, and became in all but name the chief of the Greek forces in Asia, a position which he gained, not by force of arms, but by amiability of character. Most of the allies transferred their allegiance to Kimon and Aristeides, through disgust at the cruelty and arrogance of Pausanias. There is a tradition that Pausanias when at Byzantium became enamoured of Kleonike, the daughter of one of the leading citizens there. He demanded that she should be brought to his chamber, and her wretched parents dared not disobey the tyrant's order. From feelings of modesty Kleonike entreated the attendants at the door of his bedchamber to extinguish all the lights, and she then silently in the darkness approached the bed where Pausanias lay asleep. But she stumbled and overset the lamp.[307] He, awakened by the noise, snatched up his dagger, and imagining that some enemy was coming to assassinate him, stabbed the girl with it, wounding her mortally. It is said that after this her spirit would never let Pausanias rest, but nightly appeared to him, angrily reciting the verse--

"Go, meet thy doom; pride leadeth men to sin."

The conduct of Pausanias in this matter so enraged the allied Greeks that, under Kimon's command, they besieged him in Byzantium, which they took by assault. He, however, escaped, and, it is said, fled for refuge to the oracle of the dead at Heraklea, where he called up the soul of Kleonike and besought her to pardon him. She appeared, and told him that if he went to Sparta he would soon be relieved of all his troubles, an enigmatical sentence alluding, it is supposed, to his approaching death there.

VII. Kimon, who was now commander-in-chief, sailed to Thrace, as he heard that the Persians, led by certain nobles nearly related to Xerxes himself, had captured the city of Eion on the river Strymon, and were making war upon the neighbouring Greek cities. His first act on landing was to defeat the Persians, and shut them up in the city. He next drove away the Thracian tribes beyond the Strymon, who supplied the garrison with provisions, and by carefully watching the country round he reduced the city to such straits that Boutes, the Persian general, perceiving that escape was impossible, set it on fire, and himself with his friends and property perished in the flames. When Kimon took the city he found nothing in it of any value, as everything had been destroyed in the fire together with the Persian garrison; but as the country was beautiful and fertile, he made it an Athenian colony. Three stone statues of Hermes at Athens were now set up by a decree of the people, on the first of which is written:--

"Brave men were they, who, by the Strymon fair,
First taught the haughty Persians to despair;"

and on the second--

"Their mighty chiefs to thank and praise,
The Athenians do these columns raise;
That generations yet to come,
May fight as well for hearth and home;"

and on the third--

"Mnestheus from Athens led our hosts of yore,
With Agamemnon, to the Trojan shore;
Than whom no chief knew better to array,
The mail-clad Greeks, when mustering for the fray:
Thus Homer sung; and Athens now, as then,
Doth bear away the palm for ruling men."

VIII. These verses, although Kimon's name is nowhere mentioned in them, appeared to the men of that time excessively adulatory. Neither Themistokles nor Miltiades had ever been so honoured. When Miltiades demanded the honour of an olive crown, Sophanes of Dekeleia rose up in the public assembly and said,--"Miltiades, when you have fought and conquered the barbarians alone, you may ask to be honoured alone, but not before"--a harsh speech, but one which perfectly expressed the feeling of the people.

Why, then, were the Athenians so charmed with Kimon's exploit? The reason probably was because their other commanders had merely defended them from attack, while under him they had been able themselves to attack the enemy, and had moreover won territory near Eion, and founded the colony of Amphipolis. Kimon also led a colony to Skyros, which island was taken by Kimon on the following pretext.