THE COMPARISON OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS.
I. The particulars which we thought worth extracting from the histories of Pelopidas and Marcellus are related above. Their dispositions and habits were so nearly identical (for both were brave, laborious, and high-spirited) that the only point in which they differ appears to be that Marcellus put the inhabitants of several captured cities to the sword, whereas Epameinondas and Pelopidas never slew any one after they had conquered him, nor enslaved any captured city; indeed, had they been alive, it is said that the Thebans never would have so treated the town of Orchomenus. As to their exploits, that of Marcellus against the Gauls was great and wonderful, when he drove before him with his little band of horsemen so great a multitude of horse and foot together, the like of which one cannot easily find to have been done by any other general, and the killing of the chief of the enemy. The same thing was attempted by Pelopidas, but the despot was too quick for him, and he perished without succeeding in his effort. Yet with these we may compare his deeds at Leuktra and Tegyra, the most important and glorious of all his feats of arms, while we have no exploit of Marcellus which corresponds to his management of the ambuscade by which he brought back the exiled popular party to Thebes, and destroyed the despots. Indeed, of all deeds performed by secrecy and stratagem, this takes the van. Hannibal, no doubt, was a terrible enemy to Rome, as were the Lacedæmonians to Thebes; yet it is an established fact that at Tegyra and at Leuktra they gave way before Pelopidas, whereas Marcellus, according to Polybius, never once defeated Hannibal, but that general appears to have remained undefeated until the time of Scipio. But we believe, following Livy, Cæsar, Cornelius Nepos, and, among Greek historians, king Juba, that Hannibal suffered some defeats at the hands of Marcellus; yet they never produced any signal result, and we may suspect that the African sometimes only pretended to have lost the day. But what Marcellus is so justly admired for, is that after such great armies had been routed, their generals killed, and the whole military system of Rome thrown into confusion, he inspired his troops with a confidence that enabled them to hold their own against the enemy. He roused his men from their former timid and disheartened condition, making them eager to distinguish themselves in battle, and, what is more, never to yield the victory without a determined struggle. And all this, as far as any single man could, was effected by Marcellus; for whereas his troops had been accustomed to be well satisfied if they escaped with their lives from Hannibal, he taught them to be ashamed of surviving defeat, to blush to give way ever so little, and to grieve if they were not victorious.
II. Since, then, Pelopidas never was defeated when he was in command, and Marcellus gained more victories than any Roman of his time; perhaps he who was so hard to conquer may, in consideration of his many successes, be held equal to him who never suffered a reverse. Moreover, the one took Syracuse, while the other failed before Lacedæmon. But I hold it a greater feat than taking Sicily, to have marched upon Sparta, and been the first man to cross the Eurotas, unless indeed it should be said that the credit of this exploit belongs more to Epameinondas than to Pelopidas, as also does the battle of Leuktra, whereas the glory of Marcellus's achievements is all his own. For he took Syracuse alone, and beat the Gauls without his colleague, and, with no one to assist him, but every one hanging back, he measured himself with Hannibal and changed the whole complexion of the war, by being the first to introduce a daring policy.
III. As for their deaths, I can praise neither one nor the other, but I am grieved at the unworthy manner of their end. It is strange, that Hannibal was never even wounded in a number of battles which it would weary one to recount; and I admire the conduct of Chrysantas in Xenophon's 'Cyropædia,' who, when standing with his weapon drawn, about to strike an enemy, heard the trumpet sound the recall, and leaving his man, quietly and orderly retreated. Yet Pelopidas may be excused by his excitement during a battle, and his courage, which urged him to avenge himself on the enemy, for the best thing is for the general to be victorious and to survive, and the next, for him to die "breathing forth his life in valour" as Euripides says. Thus his death becomes no accident, but a premeditated act. And besides Pelopidas's spirit, the assured victory which he saw within his grasp, could he but kill the despot, not unreasonably made him make his desperate attack; for it would have been hard for him to obtain another opportunity of distinguishing himself so gloriously. But Marcellus, without any necessity, without the excitement which sometimes in perilous circumstances overpowers men's reason, pushed heedlessly into danger, and died the death of a spy rather than a general, risking his five consulships, his three triumphs, his spoils and trophies won from kings against the worthless lives of Iberian and Numidian mercenaries. They themselves must have felt ashamed at their success, that the bravest, most powerful, and most celebrated of the Romans should have fallen among a reconnoitring party of Fregellans. Still, let not this be regarded as a reproach to these great men, but rather a complaint addressed on their own behalf to them, especially to that courage, to which they sacrificed all their other virtues, disregarding their lives, as though their loss would fall upon themselves only, and not upon their friends and native country. After his death, Pelopidas was buried by his allies, fighting for whom he died; but Marcellus was buried by the enemy at whose hands he fell. The first was an enviable end, but the other is greater, as the spectacle of an enemy honouring the valour by which he has suffered is greater than that of a friend showing gratitude to a friend. In the one case it is the man's glory alone that is respected, in the other, his usefulness and value are as much thought of as his courage.
LIFE OF ARISTEIDES.
Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, was of the tribe Antiochis, and the township of Alopekæ. There are various reports current about his property, some saying that he lived in poverty, and that on his death he left two daughters, who remained a long while unmarried because of their poverty; while this general opinion is contradicted by Demetrius of Phalerum in his book on Sokrates, where he mentions an estate at Phalerum which he knew had belonged to Aristeides, in which he was buried, and also adduces other grounds for supposing him to have been a wealthy man. First, he points out that Aristeides was Archon Eponymus, an office for which men were chosen by lot from the richest class, that of the Pentakosiomedimni, or citizens who possessed a yearly income of five hundred medimni[17] of dry or liquid produce. Secondly, he mentions the fact that he was ostracised: now, ostracism never was used against poor men, but against those who descended from great and wealthy houses, and whose pride made them feared and disliked by their fellow citizens. Thirdly, and lastly, he writes that Aristeides placed in the temple of Dionysus tripods dedicated to the god by a victorious chorus, which even in my own time are still to be seen, and which bear the inscription: "The tribe Antiochis won the prize; Aristeides was choragus; Archestratus taught the chorus." Now this, which seems to be the strongest argument of all, is really the weakest. Epameinondas, whom all men know to have been born and to have passed his life in the greatest possible poverty, and Plato the philosopher, both exhibited excellent choruses, the former bearing the expense of a chorus of men playing on the flute, while the latter exhibited a cyclic[18] chorus of boys. Plato's expenses were borne by Dionysius of Syracuse, and those of Epameinondas by Pelopidas and his friends. Good men do not always refuse to receive presents from their friends, but, though they would scorn to make money by them, they willingly receive them to further an honourable ambition. Panætius, moreover, proves that Demetrius is wrong in the matter of the tripods, because from the time of the Persian war to the end of the Peloponnesian war there are only two Aristeides recorded as victors, neither of whom can be identified with the son of Lysimachus, as the father of one of them was Xenophilus, and the other was a much more modern personage, as is proved by his name being written in the characters which came into use after the archonship of Eukleides, and from the name of the poet or teacher of the chorus, Archestratus, whose name we never meet with in the time of the Persian war, but who taught several choruses (that is, wrote several successful plays) during the Peloponnesian war. These remarks of Panætius must, however, be received with caution. As to ostracism, any man of unusual talent, nobility of birth, or remarkable eloquence, was liable to suffer from it, for Damon, the tutor of Perikles, was ostracised, because he was thought to be a man of superior intellect. Idomeneus tells us that Aristeides obtained the office of archon, not by lot, but by the universal voice of the people. Now, if he was archon after the battle of Platæa, as Demetrius himself admits, it is highly probable that his great reputation after such glorious successes may have obtained for him an office usually reserved for men of wealth. Indeed, Demetrius evidently tries to redeem both Aristeides and Sokrates from the reproach of poverty, as though he imagined it to be a great misfortune, for he tells us that Sokrates not only possessed a house, but also seventy minæ which were borrowed by Krito.
II. Aristeides became much attached to Kleisthenes, who established the democratic government after the expulsion of the sons of Peisistratus; but his reverence and admiration for Lykurgus the Lacedæmonian led him to prefer an aristocratic form of government, in which he always met with an opponent in Themistokles, the son of Neokles, the champion of democracy. Some say that even as children they always took opposite sides, both in play and in serious matters, and so betrayed their several dispositions: Themistokles being unscrupulous, daring, and careless by what means he obtained success, while the character of Aristeides was solid and just, incapable of deceit or artifice even in sport. Ariston of Keos tells us that their hatred of one another arose from a love affair. Stesilaus of Keos, the most beautiful youth of his time, was passionately adored by both of them with an affection which passed all bounds. Nor did they cease their rivalry when this boy's youthful bloom had passed away, but, as if this had merely been a preliminary trial, they each plunged into politics with great vigour and with utterly different views. Themistokles obtained a large following, and thus became an important power in the state, so that, when some one said to him that he would make a very good governor of Athens, provided he were just and impartial with all, he answered, "Never may I bear rule if my friends are to reap no more benefit from it than any one else."
Aristeides, on the other hand, pursued his way through political life unattended, because, in the first place, he neither wished to do wrong in order to please his friends, nor to vex them by refusing to gratify their wishes; and also because he observed that many men when they were supported by a strong party of friends were led into the commission of wrong and illegal acts. He, therefore, conceived that a good citizen ought to trust entirely to his own rectitude, both in word and in deed.
III. In spite of this, however, when Themistokles was using every kind of political manœuvre to thwart him, he was forced to retaliate by similar measures, partly in order to defend himself, and partly to check the power of his opponent, which depended on the favour shown him by the people. He thought it better that he should occasionally do the people some slight wrong than that Themistokles should obtain unlimited power. At last, when Themistokles even proposed some useful measure, he opposed it and threw it out. On this occasion he could not refrain from saying, as he left the public assembly, that the Athenians could not be saved unless they threw both himself and Themistokles into the barathrum.[19] Another time he brought forward a bill, which was vehemently debated upon, but was at length carried. But just before the votes of the people were given, he, perceiving from what had been said that it would prove a bad law, withdrew it. Frequently he made use of other persons to bring forward propositions, lest the public should suffer from the contest which would otherwise take place between Themistokles and himself. Indeed, his evenness of temper was the more remarkable when contrasted with the changefulness of other politicians, for he was never unduly excited by the honours which were bestowed upon him, and bore misfortune with a quiet cheerfulness, thinking it to be his duty to serve his country, not merely without being paid for it in money, but without even gaining honour for so doing. This was the reason, I suppose, that when Æschylus's verses on Amphiaraus wore being recited in the theatre;