Plutarch's Lives
Author: Aubrey Stewart
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: DNS; Year 9; Year 8; Year 7; TODO; Citizenship; Year 12; Year 11; Year 10

PREFACE.

No apologies are needed for a new edition of so favourite an author as Plutarch. From the period of the revival of classical literature in Europe down to our own times, his writings have done more than those of any other single author to familiarise us with the greatest men and the greatest events of the ancient world.

The great Duke of Marlborough, it is said, confessed that his only knowledge of English history was derived from Shakespeare’s historical plays, and it would not be too much to say that a very large proportion of educated men, in our own as well as in Marlborough’s times, have owed much of their knowledge of classical antiquity to the study of Plutarch’s Lives. Other writers may be read with profit, with admiration, and with interest; but few, like Plutarch, can gossip pleasantly while instructing solidly; can breathe life into the dry skeleton of history, and show that the life of a Greek or Roman worthy, when rightly dealt with, can prove as entertaining as a modern novel. No one is so well able as Plutarch to dispel the doubt which all schoolboys feel as to whether the names about which they read ever belonged to men who were really alive; his characters are so intensely human and lifelike in their faults and failings as well as in their virtues, that we begin to think of them as of people whom we have ourselves personally known.

His biographies are numerous and short. By this, he avoids one of the greatest faults of modern biographers, that namely of identifying himself with some one particular personage, and endeavouring to prove that all his actions were equally laudable. Light and shade are as necessary to a character as to a picture, but a man who devotes his energies for years to the study of any single person’s life, is insensibly led into palliating or explaining away his faults and exaggerating his excellencies until at last he represents him as an impossible monster of virtue. Another advantage which we obtain by his method is that we are not given a complete chronicle of each person’s life, but only of the remarkable events in it, and such incidents as will enable us to judge of his character. This also avoids what is the dreariest part of all modern biographies, those chapters I mean which describe the slow decay of their hero’s powers, his last illness, and finally his death. This subject, which so many writers of our own time seem to linger lovingly upon, is dismissed by Plutarch in a few lines, unless any circumstance of note attended the death of the person described.

Without denying that Plutarch is often inaccurate and often diffuse; that his anecdotes are sometimes absurd, and his metaphysical speculations not unfrequently ridiculous, he is nevertheless generally admitted to be one of the most readable authors of antiquity, while all agree that his morality is of the purest and loftiest type.

The first edition of the Greek text of Plutarch’s Lives appeared at Florence in the year 1517, and two years afterwards it was republished by Aldus. Before this, however, about the year 1470, a magnificent Latin version by various hands appeared at Rome. From this, from the Greek text, and also from certain MSS. to which he had access, Amyot in the year 1559 composed his excellent translation, of which it has been well said: “Quoique en vieux Gaulois, elle a un air de fraicheur qui la fait rejeunir de jour en jour.”

Amyot’s spirited French version was no less spiritedly translated by Sir Thomas North. His translation was much read and admired in its day; a modern reviewer even goes so far as to say that it is “still beyond comparison the best version of Parallel Lives which the English tongue affords.” Be this as it may, the world will ever be deeply indebted to North’s translation, for it is to Shakespeare’s perusal of that work that we owe ‘Coriolanus,’ ‘Antony and Cleopatra,’ and ‘Julius Caesar.’

North’s translation was followed by that known as Dryden’s. This work, performed by many different hands, is of unequal merit. Some Lives are rendered into a racy and idiomatic, although somewhat archaic English, while others fall far short of the standard of Sir Thomas North’s work. Dryden’s version has during the last few years been re-edited by A.H. Clough, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford.

The translation by which Plutarch is best known at the present day is that of the Langhornes. Their style is certainly dull and commonplace, and is in many instances deserving of the harsh epithets which have been lavished upon it. We must remember, however, before unsparingly condemning their translation, that the taste of the age for which they wrote differed materially from that of our own, and that people who could read the ‘Letters of Theodosius and Constantia’ with interest, would certainly prefer Plutarch in the translation of the Langhornes to the simpler phrases of North’s or Dryden’s version. All events, comic or tragic, important or commonplace, are described with the same inflated monotony which was mistaken by them for the dignity of History. Yet their work is in many cases far more correct as a translation, and the author’s meaning is sometimes much more clearly expressed, than in Dryden’s earlier version. Langhorne’s Plutarch was re-edited by Archdeacon Wrangham in the year 1819.

In 1844, thirteen Lives were translated by that eminent scholar the late Mr. George Long; and it is by way of complement to these Lives that the present version was undertaken with his consent and his approval.

Those translated by Mr. Long were selected by him as illustrating a period of Roman history in which he was especially interested, and will therefore be found to be more fully annotated than the others. It has seemed to me unnecessary to give information in the notes which can at the present day be obtained in a more convenient form in Dr. Smith’s Classical Dictionary and Dictionary of Antiquities, many of the articles in which are written by Mr. Long himself. The student of classical literature will naturally prefer the exhaustive essays to be found in these works to any notes appended to Plutarch’s text, while to those who read merely “for the story,” the notes prove both troublesome and useless.

In deciding on the spelling of the Greek proper names, I have felt great hesitation. To make a Greek speak of Juno or Minerva seems as absurd as to make a Roman swear by Herakles or Ares. Yet both Greek and Roman divinities are constantly mentioned. The only course that seemed to avoid absolute absurdity appeared to me to be that which I have adopted, namely to speak of the Greek divinities by their Greek, and the Latin ones by their Latin names. In substituting a k for the more usual c, I have followed the example of Grote, who in his History spells all Greek names exactly as they are written, with the exception of those with which we are so familiar in their Latin form as to render this practically impossible; as for instance in the case of Cyprus or Corinth, or of a name like Thucydides, where a return to the Greek k would be both pedantic and unmeaning.

The text, which I have followed throughout, is that of C. Sintenis, Leipsic, 1873.

AUBREY STEWART.

PREFACE TO
THE CIVIL WARS OF ROME.1

Among the extant Lives of Plutarch there are thirteen Lives of Romans which belong to the most eventful period of Roman history. They are the lives of the brothers Tiberius and Caius Sempronius Gracchus, of Caius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Quintus Sertorius, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Cneius Pompeius Magnus, Marcus Porcius Cato the Younger, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, Caius Julius Caesar, Marcus Junius Brutus, and Marcus Antonius. From the year of the death of Tiberius Gracchus, B.C. 133, to the death of Marcus Antonius, B.C. 30, a period of about one hundred years, the Roman State was convulsed by revolutions which grew out of the contest between the People and the Nobility, or rather, out of the contests between the leaders of these two bodies. This period is the subject of Appian’s History of the Civil Wars of the Romans, in Five Books. Appian begins with the Tribunate and legislation of Tiberius Gracchus, from which he proceeds to the Dictatorship of Sulla, and then to the quarrels between Pompeius and Caesar, and Caesar’s Dictatorship and assassination. He then proceeds to the history of the Triumvirate formed after Caesar’s death by his great nephew Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Marcus Antonius, and Lepidus, the quarrels of the Triumviri, the downfall of Lepidus, who was reduced to the condition of a private person, and the death of Sextus Pompeius, the last support of the party in whose cause his father, Cneius Pompeius, lost his life. The remainder of this History, which is lost, carried the narration down to the quarrels of Octavianus and Marcus Antonius, which ended in the defeat of Antonius in the battle of Actium, B.C. 31, and his death in Egypt, B.C. 30. The victory over Antonius placed all the power in the hands of Octavianus, who, in the year B.C. 27, received from the Roman Senate the title of Augustus, or the Sacred, by which name he is commonly known as the first of the long series of Roman Emperors. “He made himself,” says Appian (Civil Wars, i. 5), “like Caius Julius Caesar, and still more than Caesar, governor of his country and of all the nations under it, without needing either election or the popular votes, or any show of such things. After his government had subsisted for a long time, and been maintained with vigour, fortunate in all his measures, and feared, he left behind him descendants and successors who kept the power that he transmitted to them. In this way, after various civil commotions, the Roman State was restored to tranquillity, and the government became a Monarchy. And how this came about I have explained, and brought together all the events, which are well worth the study of those who wish to become acquainted with ambition of men unbounded, love of power excessive, endurance unwearied, and forms of suffering infinite.” Thus, the historian’s object was to trace the establishment of the Imperial power in Rome back to its origin, to show that the contests of the rival heads of parties involved the State in endless calamities, which resulted in a dissolution of all the bonds that held society together, and rendered the assumption of supreme power by one man a healing and a necessary event.

As already observed, it happens that thirteen of Plutarch’s extant Lives are the lives of the most distinguished of the Romans who lived during this eventful period; and though Plutarch’s Lives severally are not histories of the times to which they respectively refer, nor collectively form a History of any given time, yet they are valuable as portraits of illustrious men, and help us to form a better judgment of those who make so conspicuous a figure in History.

Plutarch was a native of the town of Chaeroneia, in Boeotia; the times of his birth and death are not exactly known, but we learn from his own works that he was a young student at Delphi, in the thirteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Nero, A.D. 66. He visited both Italy and Rome, and probably resided at Rome for some time. He wrote his Life of Demosthenes, at least after his return to Chaeroneia: he says (Life of Demosthenes, c. 2), that he had not time to exercise himself in the Latin Language during his residence at Rome, being much occupied with public business, and giving lessons in philosophy. Accordingly it was late before he began to read the Latin writers; and we may infer from his own words that he never acquired a very exact knowledge of the language. He observes that it happened in his case, that in his study of the Latin writers he did not so much learn and understand the facts from the words, as acquire the meaning of the words from the facts, of which he had already some knowledge. We may perhaps conclude from this, that Plutarch wrote all his Roman lives in Chaeroneia, after he had returned there from Rome. The statement that Plutarch was the preceptor of the Emperor Trajan, and was raised to the consular rank by him, is not supported by sufficient evidence. Plutarch addressed to Trajan his Book of Apophthegms, or Sayings of Kings and Commanders; but this is all that is satisfactorily ascertained as to the connection between the Emperor and Philosopher. Trajan died A.D. 117.

“The plan of Plutarch’s Biographies is briefly explained by himself in the introduction to the Life of Alexander the Great, where he makes an apology for the brevity with which he is compelled to treat of the numerous events in the Lives of Alexander and Caesar. ‘For,’ he says, ‘I do not write Histories, but Lives; nor do the most conspicuous acts of necessity exhibit a man’s virtue or his vice, but oftentimes some slight circumstance, a word, or a jest, shows a man’s character better than battles with the slaughter of tens of thousands, and the greatest arrays of armies and sieges of cities. Now, as painters produce a likeness by a representation of the countenance and the expression of the eyes, without troubling themselves about the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to look rather into the signs of a man’s character, and thus give a portrait of his life, leaving others to describe great events and battles.’ The object then of Plutarch in his Biographies was a moral end, and the exhibition of the principal events in a man’s life was subordinate to this his main design; and though he may not always have adhered to the principle which he laid down, it cannot be denied that his view of what biography should be, is much more exact than that of most persons who have attempted this style of composition. The life of a statesman or of a general, when written with a view of giving a complete history of all the public events in which he was engaged, is not biography, but history. This extract from Plutarch will also in some measure be an apology for the want of historical order observable in many of his Lives. Though altogether deficient in that critical sagacity which discerns truth from falsehood, and distinguishes the intricacies of confused and conflicting statements, Plutarch has preserved in his Lives a vast number of facts which would otherwise have been unknown to us. He was a great reader, and must have had access to large libraries. It is said that he quotes two hundred and fifty writers, a great part of whose works are now entirely lost.” (Penny Cyclopaedia, art. “Plutarch,” by the writer of this Preface.)

The lively portraitures of men drawn in Plutarch’s Lives have made them favourite reading in all ages. Whether Plutarch has succeeded in drawing the portraits true, we cannot always determine, because the materials for such a judgment are sometimes wanting. But when we can compare his Lives with other extant authorities, we must admit, that though he is by no means free from error as to his facts, he has generally selected those events in a man’s life which most clearly show his temper, and that on the whole, if we judge of a man by Plutarch’s measure, we shall form a just estimate of him. He generally wrote without any predilections or any prejudices. He tells us of a man’s good and bad acts, of his good and bad qualities; he makes no attempt to conceal the one or the other; he both praises and blames as the occasion may arise; and the reader leaves off with a mixed opinion about Plutarch’s Greeks and Romans, though the favourable or the unfavourable side always predominates. The benevolent disposition of Plutarch, and his noble and elevated character, have stamped themselves on all that he has written. A man cannot read these Lives without being the better for it: his detestation of all that is mean and disingenuous will be increased; his admiration of whatever is truthful and generous will be strengthened and exalted.

The translation of these Lives is difficult. Plutarch’s text is occasionally corrupted; and where it is not corrupted, his meaning is sometimes obscure. Many of the sentences are long and ill-constructed; the metaphors often extravagant; and the just connection of the parts is sometimes difficult to discover. Many single words which are or ought to be pertinent in Plutarch, and which go towards a description of character in general or of some particular act, can hardly be rendered by any English equivalent; and a translator often searches in vain for something which shall convey to the reader the exact notion of the original. Yet Plutarch’s narrative is lively and animated; his anecdotes are appropriately introduced and well told; and if his taste is sometimes not the purest, which in his age we could not expect it to be, he makes amends for this by the fulness and vigour of his expression. He is fond of poetical words, and they are often used with striking effect. His moral reflections, which are numerous, have the merit of not being unmeaning and tiresome, because he is always in earnest and has got something to say, and does not deal in commonplaces. When the reflection is not very profound, it is at least true; and some of his remarks show a deep insight into men’s character.

I have attempted to give Plutarch’s meaning in plain language; to give all his meaning, and neither more nor less. If I have failed in any case, it is because I could do no better. But, though I have not always succeeded in expressing exactly what I conceive to be the meaning of the original, I have not intentionally added to it or detracted from it. It may be that there are passages in which I have mistaken the original; and those who have made the experiment of rendering from one language into another, know that this will sometimes happen even in an easy passage. A difficult passage attracts more than usual of a translator’s attention, and if he fails there, it is either because the difficulty cannot be overcome, or because he cannot overcome it. Mere inadvertence or sleepiness may sometimes cause a translator to blunder, when he would not have blundered if any friend had been by to keep him awake.

The best thing that a man can do to avoid these and other errors is to compare his translation, when he has finished it, with some other. The translation which I have compared with mine is the German translation of Kaltwasser, Magdeburg, 1799, which is generally correct. Kaltwasser in his Preface speaks of the way in which he used the German translations of two of his predecessors, J. Christopher Kind, Leipzig, 1745-1754, and H. v. Schirach, 1776-1780, and some others. He says, “These two translations, with the French translations above mentioned, I have duly used, for it is the duty of a translator to compare himself with his predecessors; but I lay my labour before the eyes of the public, without fearing that I shall be accused of copying or of close imitation. First of all, I carefully studied the text of my author and translated him as well as I could: then, and not before, I compared the labour of my predecessors, and where I found a more suitable expression or a happier turn, I made use of it without hesitation. In this way, every fault, every deviation of the old translators must be apparent; the most striking of them I have remarked on in the notes, but I have more frequently amended such things silently, as a comparison will show the reader.” The translator has not compared his version with any English version. The translation of North, which has great merit in point of expression, is a version of Amyot’s French version, from which, however, it differs in some passages, where it is decidedly wrong and Amyot’s version is right. Indeed, it is surprising to find how correct this old French translation generally is. The translation of ‘Plutarch’s Lives from the Greek by several hands,’ was published at London in 1683-86. It was dedicated by Dryden to James Butler, the first Duke of Ormond, in a fulsome panegyric. It is said that forty-one translators laboured at the work. Dryden did not translate any of the Lives; but he wrote the Life of Plutarch which is prefixed to this translation. The advertisement prefixed to the translation passes under the name and character of the bookseller (Jacob Tonson), but, as Malone observes, it may from internal evidence be safely attributed to Dryden. The bookseller says, “You have here the first volume of Plutarch’s Lives turned from the Greek into English; and give me leave to say, the first attempt of doing it from the originals.” This is aimed at North’s version, of which Dryden remarks in his Life of Plutarch: “As that translation was only from the French, so it suffered this double disadvantage; first, that it was but a copy of a copy, and that too but lamely taken from the Greek original; secondly, that the English language was then unpolished, and far from the perfection which it has since attained; so that the first version is not only ungrammatical and ungraceful, but in many places almost unintelligible.” There is another English version, by the Langhornes, which has often been reprinted; there is an edition of it with notes by Wrangham. I have compared my translation carefully with the German of Kaltwasser, and sometimes with the French of Amyot, and I have thus avoided some errors into which I should have fallen. There are errors both in the versions of Amyot and Kaltwasser which I have avoided; but I may have fallen into others.

The translation of Kaltwasser contains some useful notes. Those which I have added to this translation are intended to explain so much as needs explanation to a person who is not much acquainted with Roman history and Roman usages; but they will also be useful to others. The notes of Kaltwasser have often reminded me of the passages where some note would be useful, and have occasionally furnished materials also. But as I have always referred to the original authorities, I do not consider it necessary to make more than this general acknowledgment. The notes added to this translation are all my own, and contain my own opinions and observations.

This translation has been made from the edition of C. Sintenis, Leipzig, 1839, and I have compared the text of Sintenis with that of G.H. Schaefer, Leipzig, 1826, which has been severely criticized: this edition contains, however, some useful notes. I have very seldom made any remarks on the Greek text, as such kind of remark would not have suited the plan and design of this version, which is not intended for verbal critics.

I shall explain by two brief extracts what is my main design in this version and in the notes, which must be my apology for not affecting a learned commentary, and my excuse to those who shall not find here the kind of remarks that are suitable to a critical edition of an ancient author. I have had another object than to discuss the niceties of words and the forms of phrases, a labour which is well in its place, if it be done well, but is not what needs to be done to such an author as Plutarch to render him useful. A man who was a great reader of Plutarch, a just and solid thinker above the measure of his age, and not surpassed in his way by any writer in our own, Montaigne, observes in his ‘Essay of the Education of Children’—“Let him enquire into the manners, revenues, and alliances of princes, things in themselves very pleasant to learn, and very useful to know. In this conversing with men, I mean, and principally those who only live in the records of history, he shall by reading those books, converse with those great and heroic souls of former and better ages. ’Tis an idle and vain study, I confess, to those who make it so, by doing it after a negligent manner, but to those who do it with care and observation, ’tis a study of inestimable fruit and value; and the only one, as Plato reports, the Lacedaemonians reserved to themselves. What profit shall he not reap as to the business of men, by reading the Lives of Plutarch? But withal, let my governor remember to what end his instructions are principally directed, and that he do not so much imprint in his pupil’s memory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners of Hannibal and Scipio; not so much where Marcellus died, as why it was unworthy of his duty that he died there. That he do not teach him so much the narrative part, as the business of history. The reading of which, in my opinion, is a thing that of all others we apply ourselves unto with the most differing and uncertain measures.”2 North, in his address to the Reader, says: “The profit of stories, and the praise of the Author, are sufficiently declared by Amiot, in his Epistle to the Reader: so that I shall not need to make many words thereof. And indeed if you will supply the defects of this translation, with your own diligence and good understanding: you shall not need to trust him, you may prove yourselves, that there is no prophane study better than Plutarch. All other learning is private, fitter for Universities than Cities, fuller of contemplation than experience, more commendable in students themselves, than profitable unto others. Whereas stories are fit for every place, reach to all persons, serve for all times, teach the living, revive the dead, so far excelling all other books, as it is better to see learning in Noblemen’s lives, than to read it in Philosophers’ writings.”

GEORGE LONG.

LIFE OF
PLUTARCH.

Plutarch was born probably between A.D. 45 and A.D. 50, at the little town of Chaeronea in Boeotia. His family appears to have been long established in this place, the scene of the final destruction of the liberties of Greece, when Philip defeated the Athenians and Boeotian forces there in 338 B.C. It was here also that Sulla defeated Mithridates, and in the great civil wars of Rome we again hear, this time from Plutarch himself, of the sufferings of the citizens of Chaeronea. Nikarchus, Plutarch’s great-grandfather, was, with all the other citizens, without any exception, ordered by a lieutenant of Marcus Antonius to transport a quantity of corn from Chaeronea to the coast opposite the island of Antikyra. They were compelled to carry the corn on their shoulders, like slaves, and were threatened with the lash if they were remiss. After they had performed one journey, and were preparing their burdens for a second, the welcome news arrived that Marcus Antonius had lost the battle of Actium, whereupon both the officers and soldiers of his party stationed in Chaeronea at once fled for their own safety, and the provisions thus collected were divided among the inhabitants of the city.

When Plutarch was born, however, no such warlike scenes as these were to be expected. Nothing more than the traditions of war remained on the shores of the Mediterranean. Occasionally some faint echo of strife would make itself heard from the wild tribes on the Danube, or in the far Syrian deserts, but over nearly all the world known to the ancients was established the Pax Romana. Battles were indeed fought, and troops were marched upon Rome, but this was merely to decide who was to be the nominal head of the vast system of the Empire, and what had once been independent cities, countries, and nations submitted unhesitatingly to whoever represented that irresistible power. It might be imagined that a political system which destroyed all national individuality, and rendered patriotism in its highest sense scarcely possible, would have reacted unfavourably on the literary character of the age. Yet nothing of the kind can be urged against the times which produced Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom and Arrian; while at Rome, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Martial, and Juvenal were reviving the memories of the Augustan age.

From several passages in Plutarch’s writings we gather that he studied under a master named Ammonius, at Athens. For instance, at the end of his Life of Themistokles, he mentions a descendant of that great man who was his fellow-student at the house of Ammonius the philosopher. Again, he tells us that once Ammonius, observing at his afternoon lecture that some of his class had indulged too freely in the pleasures of the table, ordered his own son to be flogged, “because,” he said, “the young gentleman cannot eat his dinner without pickles,” casting his eye at the same time upon the other offenders so as to make them sensible that the reproof applied to them also.

By way of completing his education he proceeded to visit Egypt. The “wisdom of the Egyptians” always seems to have had a fascination for the Greeks, and at this period Alexandria, with its famous library and its memories of the Ptolemies, of Kallimachus and of Theokritus, was an important centre of Greek intellectual activity. Plutarch’s treatise on Isis and Osiris is generally supposed to be a juvenile work suggested by his Egyptian travels. In all the Graeco-Egyptian lore he certainly became well skilled, although we have no evidence as to how long he remained in Egypt. He makes mention indeed of a feast given in his honour by some of his relatives on the occasion of his return home from Alexandria, but we can gather nothing from the passage as to his age at that time.

One anecdote of his early life is as follows:—“I remember,” he says, “that when I was still a young man, I was sent with another person on a deputation to the Proconsul; my colleague, as it happened, was unable to proceed, and I saw the Proconsul and performed the commission alone. When I returned I was about to lay down my office and to give a public account of how I had discharged it, when my father rose in the public assembly and enjoined me not to say I went, but we went, nor to say that I said, but we said, throughout my story, giving my colleague his share.”

The most important event in the whole of Plutarch’s pious and peaceful life is undoubtedly his journey to Italy and to Rome; but here again we know little more than that he knew but little Latin when he went thither, and was too busy when there to acquire much knowledge of that tongue. His occupation at Rome, besides antiquarian researches which were afterwards worked up into his Roman Lives, was the delivery of lectures on philosophical and other subjects, a common practice among the learned Greeks of his day. Many of these lectures, it is conjectured, were afterwards recast by him into the numerous short treatises on various subjects now included under the general name of Moralia. Plutarch’s visit to Rome and business there is admirably explained in the following passage of North’s ‘Life of Plutarch’:—“For my part, I think Plutarch was drawn to Rome by meanes of some friends he had there, especially by Sossius Senecio, that had been a Consull, who was of great estimation at that time, and namely under the Empire of Trajan. And that which maketh me think so, is because of Plutarch’s own words, who saith in the beginning of his first book of his discourse at the table, that he gathered together all his reasons and discourses made here and there, as well in Rome with Senecio, as in Greece with Plutarch and others. Not being likely that he would have taken the pains to have made so long a voyage, and to have come to such a city where he understood not their vulgar tongue, if he had not been drawn thither by Senecio, and such other men; as also in acknowledgement of the good turnes and honour he had received by such men, he dedicated diverse of his bookes unto them, and among others, the Lives unto Senecio, and the nine volumes of his discourse at the table, with the treaty, How a man may know that he profiteth in vertue. Now for the time, considering what he saith in the end of his book against curiosity, I suppose that he taught in Rome in the time of Titus and of Domitian: for touching this point, he maketh mention of a nobleman called Rusticus, who being one day at his lecture, would not open a letter which was brought him from the Emperor, nor interrupt Plutarch, but attended to the end of his declamation, and until all the hearers were gone away; and addeth also, that Rusticus was afterwards put to death by the commandment of Domitian. Furthermore, about the beginning of the Life of Demosthenes, Plutarch saith, that whilst he remained in Italy and at Rome, he had no leizure to study the Latine tongue; as well for that he was busied at that time with matters he had in hand, as also to satisfie those that were his followers to learne philosophie of him.”1

A list of all Plutarch’s writings would be a very long one. Besides the Lives, which is the work on which his fame chiefly rests, he wrote a book of ‘Table Talk,’ which may have suggested to Athenaeus the plan of his ‘Symposium.’

The most remarkable of his minor works is that ‘On the Malignity of Herodotus.’ Grote takes this treatise as being intended seriously as an attack upon the historian, and speaks of the “honourable frankness which Plutarch calls his malignity.” But it is probably merely a rhetorical exercise, in which Plutarch has endeavoured to see what could be said against so favourite and well-known a writer.

He was probably known as an author before he went to Rome. Large capitals have always had a natural attraction for literary genius, as it is in them alone that it can hope to be appreciated. And if this be the case at the present day, how much more must it have been so before the invention of printing, at a time when it was more usual to listen to books read aloud than to read them oneself? Plutarch journeyed to Rome just as Herodotus went to Athens, or as he is said to have gone to the Olympian festival, in search of an intelligent audience of educated men. Whether his object was merely praise, or whether he was influenced by ideas of gain, we cannot say. No doubt his lectures were not delivered gratis, and that they were well attended seems evident from Plutarch’s own notices of them, and from the names which have been preserved of the eminent men who used to frequent them. Moreover, strange though it may appear to us, the demand for books seems to have been very brisk even though they were entirely written by hand.

The epigrams of Martial inform us of the existence of a class of slaves whose occupation was copying books, and innumerable allusions in Horace, Martial, &c., to the Sosii and others prove that the trade of a bookseller at Rome was both extensive and profitable. Towards the end of the Republic it became the fashion for Roman nobles to encourage literature by forming a library, and this taste was given immense encouragement by Augustus, who established a public library in the Temple of Apollo on the Mount Palatine, in imitation of that previously founded by Asinius Pollio. There were other libraries besides these, the most famous of which was the Ulpian library, founded by Trajan, who called it so from his own name, Ulpius. Now Trajan was a contemporary of our author, and this act of his clearly proves that there must have been during Plutarch’s lifetime a considerable reading public, and consequent demand for books at Rome.

Of Plutarch’s travels in Italy we know next to nothing. He mentions incidentally that he had seen the bust or statue of Marius at Ravenna, but never gives us another hint of how far he explored the country about which he wrote so much. No doubt his ignorance of the Latin language must not be taken as a literal statement, and probably means that he was not skilled in it as a spoken tongue, for we can scarcely imagine that he was without some acquaintance with it when he first went to Rome, and he certainly afterwards became well read in the literature of Rome. In some cases he has followed Livy’s narrative with a closeness which proves that he must have been acquainted with that author either in the original or in a translation, and the latter alternative is, of the two, the more improbable.

It seems to be now generally thought that his stay at Rome was a short one. Clough, in his excellent Preface, says on this subject, “The fault which runs through all the earlier biographies, from that of Rualdus downwards, is the assumption, wholly untenable, that Plutarch passed many years, as many perhaps as forty, at Rome. The entire character of his life is of course altered by such an impression.” He then goes on to say that in consequence of this mistaken idea, it is not worth while for him to quote Dryden’s ‘Life of Plutarch,’ which was originally prefixed to the translations re-edited by himself. Yet I trust I may be excused if I again quote North’s ‘Life of Plutarch,’ as the following passage seems to set vividly before us the quiet literary occupation of his later days.

“For Plutarch, though he tarried a long while in Italy, and in Rome, yet that tooke not away the remembrance of the sweet aire of Greece, and of the little towne where he was borne; but being touched from time to time with a sentence of an ancient poet, who saith that,

“‘In whatsoever countrey men are bred

(I know not by what sweetnesse of it led),

They nourish in their minds a glad desire,

Unto their native homes for to retire,’

“he resolved to go back into Greece againe, there to end the rest of his daies in rest and honour among his citizens, of whom he was honourably welcomed home. Some judge that he left Rome after the death of Trajan, being then of great yeares, to leade a more quiet life. So being then at rest, he earnestly took in hand that which he had long thought of before, to wit, the Lives, and tooke great pains with it until he had brought his worke to perfection, as we have done at this present; although that some Lives, as those of Scipio African, of Metellus Numidicus, and some other are not to be found. Now himselfe confesseth in some place, that when he began this worke, at the first it was but to profit others; but that afterwards it was to profit himselfe, looking upon those histories, as if he had looked in a glasse, and seeking to reform his life in some sort, and to forme it in the mould of the vertues of these great men; taking this fashion of searching their manners, and writing the Lives of these noble men, to be a familiar haunting and frequenting of them. Also he thought, [said he himselfe] that he lodged these men one after another in his house, entering into consideration of their qualities, and that which was great in either of them, choosing and principally taking that which was to be noted, and most worthy to be knowne in their sayings and deeds.”2

Of Plutarch in his domestic relations we gather much information from his own writings. The name of his father has not been preserved, but it was probably Nikarchus, from the common habit of Greek families to repeat a name in alternate generations. His brothers Timon and Lamprias are frequently mentioned in his essays and dialogues, where Timon is spoken of in the most affectionate terms. Rualdus has ingeniously recovered the name of his wife, Timoxena, from internal evidence afforded by his writings. A touching letter is still extant, addressed by Plutarch to his wife, bidding her not give way to excessive grief at the death of their only daughter, who was named Timoxena after her mother. The number of his sons we cannot exactly state. Autobulus and Plutarch are especially spoken of as his sons, since the treatise on the Timaeus of Plato is dedicated to them, and the marriage of his son Autobulus is the occasion of one of the dinner-parties recorded in the ‘Table Talk.’ Another person, one Soklarus, is spoken of in terms which seem to imply that he was Plutarch’s son, but this is nowhere definitely stated. His treatise also on Marriage Questions, addressed to Eurydike and Pollianus, seems to speak of her as having been recently an inmate of his house, but without enabling us to form an opinion whether she was his daughter or not. A modern writer well describes his maturer years by the words: “Plutarch was well born, well taught, well conditioned; a self-respecting amiable man, who knew how to better a good education by travels, by devotion to affairs private and public; a master of ancient culture, he read books with a just criticism: eminently social, he was a king in his own house, surrounded himself with select friends, and knew the high value of good conversation; and declares in a letter written to his wife that ‘he finds scarcely an erasure, as in a book well written, in the happiness of his life.’”

He was an active member of the little community of Chaeronea, being archon of that town. Whether this dignity was annual or for life we do not know, but it was probably the former, and very likely he served it more than once. He speaks of his devotion to the duties of his office as causing him to incur the ridicule of some of his fellow-citizens, when they saw him engaged in the humblest duties. “But,” he says, in Clough’s version, “the story told about Antisthenes comes to my assistance. When some one expressed surprise at his carrying home some pickled fish from market in his own hands, It is, he answered, for myself. Conversely, when I am reproached with standing by and watching while tiles are measured out, and stone and mortar brought up, This service, I say, is not for myself, it is for my country.”

Plutarch was for many years a priest of Apollo at Delphi. The scene of some of his ‘Table Talk’ is laid there, when he in his priestly capacity gives a dinner party in honour of the victor in the poetic contest at the Pythian games. Probably this office was a source of considerable income, and as the journey from Chaeronea to Delphi, across Mount Parnassus, is a very short one, it interfered but little with his literary and municipal business. In his essay on “Whether an old man should continue to take part in public life,” he says, “You know, Euphanes, that I have for many Pythiads (that is, periods of four years elapsing between the Pythian festivals), exercised the office of Priest of Apollo: yet I think you would not say to me,‘Plutarch, you have sacrificed enough; you have led processions and dances enough; it is time, now that you are old, to lay aside the garland from your head, and to retire as superannuated from the oracle.’”

Thus respected and loved by all, Plutarch’s old age passed peacefully away. “Notwithstanding,” as North says, “that he was very old, yet he made an end of the Lives…. Furthermore, Plutarch, having lived alwaies honourably even to old age, he died quietly among his children and friends in the city of Chaeronea, leaving his writings, an immortal savour of his name, unto posterity. Besides the honour his citizens did him, there was a statue set up for him by ordinance of the people of Rome, in memory of his virtues. Now furthermore, though time hath devoured some part of the writings of this great man, and minished some other: neverthelesse those which remaine, being a great number, have excellent use to this day among us.”

PLUTARCH’S LIVES.

LIFE OF
THESEUS.

I

As in books on geography, Sossius Senecio, the writers crowd the countries of which they know nothing into the furthest margins of their maps, and write upon them legends such as, “In this direction lie waterless deserts full of wild beasts;” or, “Unexplored morasses;” or, “Here it is as cold as Scythia;” or, “A frozen sea;” so I, in my writings on Parallel Lives, go through that period of time where history rests on the firm basis of facts, and may truly say, “All beyond this is portentous and fabulous, inhabited by poets and mythologers, and there is nothing true or certain.”

When I had written the lives of Lykurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king, it appeared to me natural to go back to Romulus also, as I was engaged on the history of times so close to his. So when I was reflecting, in the words of Aeschylus,

“Against this chieftain, who can best contend?

Whom shall I match in fight, what trusty friend?”

it occurred to me to compare the founder of the fair and famous city of Athens with him, and to contrast Theseus with the father of unconquered glorious Rome. Putting aside, then, the mythological element, let us examine his story, and wherever it obstinately defies probability, and cannot be explained by natural agency, let us beg the indulgence of our readers, who will kindly make allowance for tales of antiquity.

II

Theseus appears to have several points of resemblance to Romulus. Both were unacknowledged illegitimate children, and were reputed to descend from the Gods.

“Both warriors, well we all do know,”

and both were wise as well as powerful. The one founded Rome, while the other was the joint founder of Athens; and these are two of the most famous of cities. Both carried off women by violence, and neither of them escaped domestic misfortune and retribution, but towards the end of their lives both were at variance with their countrymen, if we may put any trust in the least extravagant writings upon the subject.

III

Theseus traced his descent on the father’s side from Erechtheus and the original Autochthones,1 while on the mother’s side he was descended from Pelops. For Pelops surpassed all the other princes of the Peloponnesus in the number of his children as well as in wealth; and of these he gave many of his daughters in marriage to the chief men of the country, and established many of his sons as rulers in various cities. One of these, Pittheus, the grandfather of Theseus, founded Troezen, which is indeed but a little state, though he had a greater reputation than any man of his time for eloquence and wisdom. The nature of this wisdom of his seems to have been much of the same kind as that which made the reputation of Hesiod, in the collection of maxims known as the ‘Works and Days.’ One of these maxims is indeed ascribed to Pittheus:

“Let promised pay be truly paid to friends.”

At any rate, this is what Aristotle the philosopher has recorded; and also Euripides, when he speaks of Hippolytus as “child of holy Pittheus,” shows the prevailing opinion about Pittheus. Now Aegeus desired to have children, and the Oracle at Delphi is said to have given him the well-known response, forbidding him to have intercourse with any woman before he reached Athens, but not appearing to explain this clearly. Consequently, on his way home, he went to Troezen, and asked the advice of Pittheus about the response of the God, which ran thus:

“Great chief, the wine-skin’s foot must closed remain,

Till thou to Athens art returned again.”

Pittheus clearly perceived what the oracle must mean, and persuaded or cheated Aegeus into an intrigue with Aethra. Afterwards, when he discovered that he had conversed with the daughter of Pittheus, as he imagined that she might prove with child, he left behind him his sword and sandals hidden under a great stone, which had a hollow inside it exactly fitting them. This he told to Aethra alone, and charged her if a son of his should be born, and on growing to man’s estate should be able to lift the stone and take from under it the deposit, that she should send him at once with these things to himself, in all secrecy, and as far as possible concealing his journey from observation. For he greatly feared the sons of Pallas, who plotted against him, and despised him on account of his childlessness, they themselves being fifty brothers, all the sons of Pallas.

IV

When Aethra’s child was born, some writers say that he was at once named Theseus, from the tokens placed under the stone; others say that he was afterwards so named at Athens, when Aegeus acknowledged him as his son. He was brought up by his grandfather Pittheus, and had a master and tutor, Konnidas, to whom even to the present day, the Athenians sacrifice a ram on the day before the feast of Theseus, a mark of respect which is much more justly due to him, than those which they pay to Silanion and Parrhasius, who have only made pictures and statues of Theseus.

V

As it was at that period still the custom for those who were coming to man’s estate to go to Delphi and offer to the god the first-fruits of their hair (which was then cut for the first time),2 Theseus went to Delphi, and they say that a place there is even to this day named after him. But he only cut the front part of his hair, as Homer tells us the Abantes did, and this fashion of cutting the hair was called Theseus’s fashion because of him. The Abantes first began to cut their hair in this manner, not having, as some say, been taught to do so by the Arabians, nor yet from any wish to imitate the Mysians, but because they were a warlike race, and met their foes in close combat, and studied above all to come to a hand-to-hand fight with their enemy, as Archilochus bears witness in his verses:

“They use no slings nor bows,

Euboea’s martial lords,

But hand to hand they close

And conquer with their swords.”

So they cut their hair short in front, that their enemies might not grasp it. And they say that Alexander of Macedon for the same reason ordered his generals to have the beards of the Macedonians shaved, because they were a convenient handle for the enemy to grasp.

VI

Now while he was yet a child, Aethra concealed the real parentage of Theseus, and a story was circulated by Pittheus that his father was Poseidon. For the people of Troezen have an especial reverence for Poseidon; he is their tutelar deity; to him they offer first-fruits of their harvest, and they stamp their money with the trident as their badge. But when he was grown into a youth, and proved both strong in body and of good sound sense, then Aethra led him to the stone, told him the truth about his father, and bade him take the tokens from beneath it and sail to Athens with them. He easily lifted the stone, but determined not to go to Athens by sea, though the voyage was a safe and easy one, and though his mother and his grandfather implored him to go that way. By land it was a difficult matter to reach Athens, as the whole way was infested with robbers and bandits. That time, it seems, produced men of great and unwearied strength and swiftness, who made no good use of these powers, but treated all men with overbearing insolence, taking advantage of their strength to overpower and slay all who fell into their hands, and disregarding justice and right and kindly feeling, which they said were only approved of by those who dared not do injury to others, or feared to be injured themselves, while men who could get the upper hand by force might disregard them. Of these ruffians, Herakles in his wanderings cut off a good many, but others had escaped him by concealing themselves, or had been contemptuously spared by him on account of their insignificance. But Herakles had the misfortune to kill Iphitus, and thereupon sailed to Lydia and was for a long time a slave in that country under Omphale, which condition he had imposed upon himself as a penance for the murder of his friend. During this period the country of Lydia enjoyed peace and repose; but in Greece the old plague of brigandage broke out afresh, as there was now no one to put it down. So that the journey overland to Athens from Peloponnesus was full of peril; and Pittheus, by relating to Theseus who each of these evildoers was, and how they treated strangers, tried to prevail upon him to go by sea. But it appears that Theseus had for a long time in his heart been excited by the renown of Herakles for courage: he thought more of him than of any one else, and loved above all to listen to those who talked of him, especially if they had seen and spoken to him. Now he could no longer conceal that he was in the same condition as Themistokles in later times, when he said that the trophy of Miltiades would not let him sleep. Just so did the admiration which Theseus conceived for Herakles make him dream by night of his great exploits, and by day determine to equal them by similar achievements of his own.

VII

As it happened, they were connected, being second cousins; for Aethra was the daughter of Pittheus, and Alkmena the daughter of Lysidike, and Lysidike and Pittheus were brother and sister, being the children of Pelops and Hippodameia. So Theseus thought that it would be a great and unbearable disgrace to him that his cousin should go everywhere and clear the sea and land of the brigands who infested them, and he should refuse to undertake the adventures that came in his way; throwing discredit upon his reputed father by a pusillanimous flight by sea, and upon his real father by bringing him only the sandals and an unfleshed sword, and not proving his noble birth by the evidence of some brave deed accomplished by him. In this spirit he set out on his journey, with the intention of doing wrong to no one, but of avenging himself on any one who offered wrong to him.

VIII

And first in Epidaurus he slew Periphetes, who used a club as his weapon, and on this account was called the club-bearer, because he laid hands upon him and forbade him to proceed farther on his way. The club took his fancy, and he adopted it as a weapon, and always used it, just as Herakles used his lion’s skin; for the skin was a proof of how huge a beast the wearer had overcome, while the club, invincible in the hands of Theseus, had yet been worsted when used against him. At the Isthmus he destroyed Sinis the Pine-bender by the very device by which he had slain so many people, and that too without having ever practised the art, proving that true valour is better than practice and training. Sinis had a daughter, a tall and beautiful girl, named Perigoune. When her father fell she ran and hid herself. Theseus sought her everywhere, but she fled into a place where wild asparagus grew thick, and with a simple child-like faith besought the plants to conceal her, as if they could understand her words, promising that if they did so she never would destroy or burn them. However, when Theseus called to her, pledging himself to take care of her and do her no hurt, she came out, and afterwards bore Theseus a son, named Melanippus. She afterwards was given by Theseus in marriage to Deïoneus, the son of Eurytus of Oechalia. Ioxus, a son of Melanippus, and Theseus’s grandchild, took part in Ornytus’s settlement in Caria; and for this reason the descendants of Ioxus have a family custom not to burn the asparagus plant, but to reverence and worship it.

IX

Now the wild sow of Krommyon, whom they called Phaia, was no ordinary beast, but a fierce creature and hard to conquer. This animal he turned out of his way to destroy, that it might not be thought that he performed his exploits of necessity. Besides, he said, a brave man need only punish wicked men when they came in his way, but that in the case of wild beasts he must himself seek them out and attack them. Some say that Phaia was a murderous and licentious woman who carried on brigandage at Krommyon, and was called a sow from her life and habits, and that Theseus put her to death.

X

Before coming to Megara he slew Skeiron by flinging him down a precipice into the sea, so the story runs, because he was a robber, but some say that from arrogance he used to hold out his feet to strangers and bid them wash them, and that then he kicked the washers into the sea. But Megarian writers, in opposition to common tradition, and, as Simonides says, “warring with all antiquity,” say that Skeiron was not an arrogant brigand, but repressed brigandage, loved those who were good and just, and was related to them. For, they point out, Aeakus is thought to have been the most righteous of all the Greeks, and Kychreus of Salamis was worshipped as a god, and the virtue of Peleus and Telamon is known to all. Yet Skeiron was the son-in-law of Kychreus, and father-in-law of Aeakus, and grandfather of Peleus and Telamon, who were both of them sons of Endeis, the daughter of Skeiron and his wife Chariklo. It is not then reasonable to suppose that these, the noblest men of their time, would make alliances with a malefactor, and give and receive from him what they prized most dearly. But they say that Theseus slew Skeiron, not when he first went to Athens, but that afterwards he took the town of Eleusis which belonged to the Megarians, by dealing treacherously with Diokles, who was the chief magistrate there, and that on that occasion he killed Skeiron. This is what tradition says on both sides.

XI

At Eleusis Theseus overcame Kerkyon of Arcadia in wrestling and killed him, and after journeying a little farther he killed Damastes, who was surnamed Prokroustes, by compelling him to fit his own body to his bed, just as he used to fit the bodies of strangers to it. This he did in imitation of Herakles; for he used to retort upon his aggressors the same treatment which they intended for him. Thus Herakles offered up Busiris as a sacrifice, and overcame Antaeus in wrestling, and Kyknus in single combat, and killed Termerus by breaking his skull. This is, they say, the origin of the proverb, “A Termerian mischief,” for Termerus, it seems, struck passers-by with his head, and so killed them. So also did Theseus sally forth and chastise evildoers, making them undergo the same cruelties which they practised on others, thus justly punishing them for their crimes in their own wicked fashion.

XII

As he proceeded on his way, and reached the river Kephisus, men of the Phytalid race were the first to meet and greet him. He demanded to be purified from the guilt of bloodshed, and they purified him, made propitiatory offerings, and also entertained him in their houses, being the first persons from whom he had received any kindness on his journey. It is said to have been on the eighth day of the month Kronion, which is now called Hekatombeion, that he came to his own city. On entering it he found public affairs disturbed by factions, and the house of Aegeus in great disorder; for Medea, who had been banished from Corinth, was living with Aegeus, and had engaged by her drugs to enable Aegeus to have children. She was the first to discover who Theseus was, while Aegeus, who was an old man, and feared every one because of the disturbed state of society, did not recognise him. Consequently she advised Aegeus to invite him to a feast, that she might poison him. Theseus accordingly came to Aegeus’s table. He did not wish to be the first to tell his name, but, to give his father an opportunity of recognising him, he drew his sword, as if he meant to cut some of the meat with it, and showed it to Aegeus. Aegeus at once recognised it, overset the cup of poison, looked closely at his son and embraced him. He then called a public meeting and made Theseus known as his son to the citizens, with whom he was already very popular because of his bravery. It is said that when the cup was overset the poison was spilt in the place where now there is the enclosure in the Delphinium, for there Aegeus dwelt; and the Hermes to the east of the temple there they call the one who is “at the door of Aegeus.”

XIII

But the sons of Pallas, who had previously to this expected that they would inherit the kingdom on the death of Aegeus without issue, now that Theseus was declared the heir, were much enraged, first that Aegeus should be king, a man who was merely an adopted child of Pandion, and had no blood relationship to Erechtheus, and next that Theseus, a stranger and a foreigner, should inherit the kingdom. They consequently declared war. Dividing themselves into two bodies, the one proceeded to march openly upon the city from Sphettus, under the command of Pallas their father, while the other lay in ambush at Gargettus, in order that they might fall upon their opponents on two sides at once. But there was a herald among them named Leos, of the township of Agnus, who betrayed the plans of the sons of Pallas to Theseus. He suddenly attacked those who were in ambush, and killed them all, hearing which the other body under Pallas dispersed. From this time forth they say that the township of Pallene has never intermarried with that of Agnus, and that it is not customary amongst them for heralds to begin a proclamation with the words “Acouete Leo,” (Oyez) for they hate the name of Leo3 because of the treachery of that man.

XIV

Now Theseus, who wished for employment and also to make himself popular with the people, went to attack the bull of Marathon, who had caused no little trouble to the inhabitants of Tetrapolis. He overcame the beast, and drove it alive through the city for all men to see, and then sacrificed it to Apollo of Delphi. Hekale, too, and the legend of her having entertained Theseus, does not seem altogether without foundation in fact; for the people of the neighbouring townships used to assemble and perform what was called the Hekalesian sacrifice to Zeus Hekalus, and they also used to honour Hekale, calling her by the affectionate diminutive Hekaline, because she also, when feasting Theseus, who was very young, embraced him in a motherly way, and used such like endearing diminutives. She also made a vow on Theseus’s behalf, when he was going forth to battle, that if he returned safe she would sacrifice to Zeus; but as she died before he returned, she had the above-mentioned honours instituted by command of Theseus, as a grateful return for her hospitality. This is the legend as told by Philochorus.

XV

Shortly after this the ship from Crete arrived for the third time to collect the customary tribute. Most writers agree that the origin of this was, that on the death of Androgeus, in Attica, which was ascribed to treachery, his father Minos went to war, and wrought much evil to the country, which at the same time was afflicted by scourges from Heaven (for the land did not bear fruit, and there was a great pestilence and the rivers sank into the earth). So that as the oracle told the Athenians that, if they propitiated Minos and came to terms with him, the anger of Heaven would cease and they should have a respite from their sufferings, they sent an embassy to Minos and prevailed on him to make peace, on the condition that every nine years they should send him a tribute of seven youths and seven maidens. The most tragic of the legends states these poor children when they reached Crete were thrown into the Labyrinth, and there either were devoured by the Minotaur or else perished with hunger, being unable to find the way out. The Minotaur, as Euripides tells us, was

“A form commingled, and a monstrous birth,

Half man, half bull, in twofold shape combined.”

XVI

Philochorus says that the Cretans do not recognise this story, but say that the Labyrinth was merely a prison, like any other, from which escape was impossible, and that Minos instituted gymnastic games in honour of Androgeus, in which the prizes for the victors were these children, who till then were kept in the Labyrinth. Also they say that the victor in the first contest was a man of great power in the state, a general of the name of Taurus, who was of harsh and savage temper, and ill-treated the Athenian children. And Aristotle himself, in his treatise on the constitution of the Bottiaeans, evidently does not believe that the children were put to death by Minos, but that they lived in Crete as slaves, until extreme old age; and that one day the Cretans, in performance of an ancient vow, sent first-fruits of their population to Delphi. Among those who were thus sent were the descendants of the Athenians, and, as they could not maintain themselves there, they first passed over to Italy, and there settled near Iapygium, and from thence again removed to Thrace, and took the name of Bottiaeans. For this reason, the Bottiaean maidens when performing a certain sacrifice sing “Let us go to Athens.” Thus it seems to be a terrible thing to incur the hatred of a city powerful in speech and song; for on the Attic stage Minos is always vilified and traduced, and though he was called “Most Kingly” by Hesiod, and “Friend of Zeus” by Homer, it gained him no credit, but the playwrights overwhelmed him with abuse, styling him cruel and violent. And yet Minos is said to have been a king and a lawgiver, and Rhadamanthus to have been a judge under him, carrying out his decrees.

XVII

So when the time of the third payment of the tribute arrived, and those fathers who had sons not yet grown up had to submit to draw lots, the unhappy people began to revile Aegeus, complaining that he, although the author of this calamity, yet took no share in their affliction, but endured to see them left childless, robbed of their own legitimate offspring, while he made a foreigner and a bastard the heir to his kingdom. This vexed Theseus, and determining not to hold aloof, but to share the fortunes of the people, he came forward and offered himself without being drawn by lot. The people all admired his courage and patriotism, and Aegeus finding that his prayers and entreaties had no effect on his unalterable resolution, proceeded to choose the rest by lot. Hellanikus says that the city did not select the youths and maidens by lot, but that Minos himself came thither and chose them, and that he picked out Theseus first of all, upon the usual conditions, which were that the Athenians should furnish a ship, and that the youths should embark in it and sail with him, not carrying with them any weapon of war; and that when the Minotaur was slain, the tribute should cease. Formerly, no one had any hope of safety; so they used to send out the ship with a black sail, as if it were going to a certain doom; but now Theseus so encouraged his father, and boasted that he would overcome the Minotaur, that he gave a second sail, a white one, to the steersman, and charged him on his return, if Theseus were safe, to hoist the white one, if not, the black one as a sign of mourning. But Simonides says that it was not a white sail which was given by Aegeus, but “a scarlet sail embrued in holm oak’s juice,” and that this was agreed on by him as the signal of safety. The ship was steered by Phereklus the son of Amarsyas, according to Simonides.

But Philochorus says that Theseus had one Nausithous sent him from Skirus of Salamis, to steer the ship, and Phaeax to act as look-out, as the Athenians had not yet turned their attention to the sea.

One of the youths chosen by lot was Menestheos the son of Skirus’s daughter. The truth of this account is attested by the shrines of Nausithous and Phaeax, which Theseus built at Phalerum, and by the feast called the Kybernesia or pilot’s festival, which is held in their honour.

XVIII

When the lots were drawn Theseus brought the chosen youths from the Prytaneum, and proceeding to the temple of the Delphian Apollo, offered the suppliants’ bough to Apollo on their behalf. This was a bough of the sacred olive-tree bound with fillets of white wool. And after praying he went to sea on the sixth day of the month Munychion, on which day even now they send maidens as suppliants to the temple of the Delphian Apollo. And there is a legend that the Delphian oracle told him that Aphrodite would be his guide and fellow-traveller, and that when he was sacrificing a she-goat to her by the seaside, it became a he-goat; wherefore the goddess is called Epitragia.

XIX

When they reached Crete, according to most historians and poets, Ariadne fell in love with him, and from her he received the clue of string, and was taught how to thread the mazes of the Labyrinth. He slew the Minotaur, and, taking with him Ariadne and the youths, sailed away. Pherekydes also says that Theseus also knocked out the bottoms of the Cretan ships, to prevent pursuit. But Demon says that Taurus, Minos’s general, was slain in a sea-fight in the harbour, when Theseus sailed away. But according to Philochorus, when Minos instituted his games, Taurus was expected to win every prize, and was grudged this honour; for his great influence and his unpopular manners made him disliked, and scandal said, that he was too intimate with Pasiphae. On this account, when Theseus offered to contend with him, Minos agreed. And, as it was the custom in Crete for women as well as men to be spectators of the games, Ariadne was present, and was struck with the appearance of Theseus, and his strength, as he conquered all competitors. Minos was especially pleased, in the wrestling match, at Taurus’s defeat and shame, and, restoring the children to Theseus, remitted the tribute for the future. Kleidemus tells the story in his own fashion and at unnecessary length, beginning much farther back. There was, he says, a decree passed by all the Greeks, that no ship should sail from any post with more than five hands on board, but Jason alone, the master of the great ship Argo, should cruise about, and keep the sea free of pirates. Now when Daedalus fled to Athens, Minos, contrary to the decree, pursued him in long war galleys, and being driven to Sicily by a storm, died there. When his son Deukalion sent a warlike message to the Athenians, bidding them give up Daedalus to him, or else threatening that he would put to death the children whom Minos had taken as hostages, Theseus returned him a gentle answer, begging for the life of Daedalus, who was his own cousin and blood relation, being the son of Merope, the daughter of Erechtheus. But he busied himself with building a fleet, some of it in Attica, in the country of the Thymaitadae, far from any place of resort of strangers, and some in Troezen, under the management of Pittheus, as he did not wish his preparations to be known. But when the ships were ready to set sail, having with him as pilots, Daedalus himself and some Cretan exiles, as no one knew that he was coming, and the Cretans thought that it was a friendly fleet that was advancing, he seized the harbour, and marched at once to Knossus before his arrival was known. Then he fought a battle at the gates of the Labyrinth, and slew Deukalion and his body-guard. As Ariadne now succeeded to the throne, he made peace with her, took back the youths, and formed an alliance between the Cretans and the Athenians, in which each nation swore that it would not begin a war against the other.

XX

There are many more stories about these events, and about Ariadne, none of which agree in any particulars. Some say that she hanged herself when deserted by Theseus, and some, that she was taken to Naxos by his sailors, and there dwelt with Oenarus, the priest of Dionysus, having been deserted by Theseus, who was in love with another.

“For Aegle’s love disturbed his breast.”

This line, we are told by Hereas of Megara, was struck out of Hesiod’s poems by Peisistratus; and again he says that he inserted into Homer’s description of the Shades,

“Peirithous and Theseus, born of gods,”

to please the Athenians. Some writers say that Theseus had by Ariadne two sons, Staphylus and Oenopion, whom Ion of Chios follows when he speaks of his own native city as that

“Which erst Oenopion stablished, Theseus’ son.”

The pleasantest of these legends are in nearly every one’s mouth. But Paeon of Amathus gives an account peculiar to himself, that Theseus was driven by a storm to Cyprus, and that Ariadne, who was pregnant, suffered much from the motion of the ship, and became so ill, that she was set on shore, but Theseus had to return to take charge of the ship, and was blown off to sea. The women of the country took care of Ariadne, and comforted her in her bereavement, even bringing forged letters to her as if from Theseus, and rendering her assistance during her confinement; and when she died in childbirth, they buried her. Theseus, on his return, grieved much, and left money to the people of the country, bidding them sacrifice to Ariadne; he also set up two little statues, one of silver, and the other of brass. And at this sacrifice, which takes place on the second day of the month Gorpiaeus, one of the young men lies down on the ground, and imitates the cries of a woman in travail; and the people of Amathus call that the grove of Ariadne Aphrodite, in which they show her tomb.

But some writers of Naxos tell a different story, peculiar to themselves, that there were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, of whom one, they say, was married to Dionysus in Naxos, and was the mother of Staphylus and his brother, while the younger was carried off by Theseus, and came to Naxos after he deserted her; and a nurse called Korkyne came with her, whose tomb they point out. Then Naxians also says that this Ariadne died there, and is honoured, but not so much as the elder; for at the feast in honour of the elder, there are merriment and revelry, but at that of the younger gloomy rites are mingled with mirth.

XXI

Theseus, when he sailed away from Crete, touched at Delos; here he sacrificed to the god and offered up the statue of Aphrodite, which Ariadne had given him; and besides this, he and the youths with him danced a measure which they say is still practised by the people of Delos to this day, being an imitation of the turnings and windings of the Labyrinth expressed by complicated evolutions performed in regular order. This kind of dance is called by the Delians “the crane dance,” according to Dikaearchus. It was danced round the altar of the Horns, which is all formed of horns from the left side. They also say that he instituted games at Delos, and that then for the first time a palm was given by him to the victor.

XXII

As he approached Attica, both he and his steersman in their delight forgot to hoist the sail which was to be a signal of their safety to Aegeus; and he in his despair flung himself down the cliffs and perished. Theseus, as soon as he reached the harbour, performed at Phalerum the sacrifices which he had vowed to the gods if he returned safe, and sent off a herald to the city with the news of his safe return. This man met with many who were lamenting the death of the king, and, as was natural, with others who were delighted at the news of their safety, and who congratulated him and wished to crown him with garlands. These he received, but placed them on his herald’s staff, and when he came back to the seashore, finding that Theseus had not completed his libation, he waited outside the temple, not wishing to disturb the sacrifice. When the libation was finished he announced the death of Aegeus, and then they all hurried up to the city with loud lamentations: wherefore to this day, at the Oschophoria, they say that it is not the herald that is crowned, but his staff, and that at the libations the bystanders cry out, “Eleleu, Iou, Iou;” of which cries the first is used by men in haste, or raising the paean for battle, while the second is used by persons in surprise and trouble.

Theseus, after burying his father, paid his vow to Apollo, on the seventh day of the month Pyanepsion; for on this day it was that the rescued youths went up into the city. The boiling of pulse, which is customary on this anniversary, is said to be done because the rescued youths put what remained of their pulse together into one pot, boiled it all, and merrily feasted on it together. And on this day also, the Athenians carry about the Eiresione, a bough of the olive tree garlanded with wool, just as Theseus had before carried the suppliants’ bough, and covered with first-fruits of all sorts of produce, because the barrenness of the land ceased on that day; and they sing,

“Eiresione, bring us figs

And wheaten loaves, and oil,

And wine to quaff, that we may all

Host merrily from toil.”

However, some say that these ceremonies are performed in memory of the Herakleidae, who were thus entertained by the Athenians; but most writers tell the tale as I have told it.

XXIII

Now the thirty-oared ship, in which Theseus sailed with the youths, and came back safe, was kept by the Athenians up to the time of Demetrius Phalereus. They constantly removed the decayed part of her timbers, and renewed them with sound wood, so that the ship became an illustration to philosophers of the doctrine of growth and change, as some argued that it remained the same, and others, that it did not remain the same. The feast of the Oschophoria, or of carrying boughs, which to this day the Athenians celebrate, was instituted by Theseus. For he did not take with him all the maidens who were drawn by lot, but he chose two youths, his intimate friends, who were feminine and fair to look upon, but of manly spirit; these by warm baths and avoiding the heat of the sun and careful tending of their hair and skin he completely metamorphosed, teaching them to imitate the voice and carriage and walk of maidens. These two were then substituted in the place of two of the girls, and deceived every one; and when they returned, he and these two youths walked in procession, dressed as now those who carry boughs at the Oschophoria are dressed. They carry them in honour of Dionysus and Ariadne, because of the legend, or rather because they returned home when the harvest was being gathered in. And the women called supper-carriers join in carrying them and partake of the sacrifice, in imitation of the mothers of those who were drawn by lot; for they used continually to bring their children food. Also, old tales are told, because these women used to tell their children such ones, to encourage and amuse them.

These things are related by the historian Demus. Moreover, a sacred enclosure was dedicated to Theseus, and those families out of whom the tribute of the children had been gathered were bidden to contribute to sacrifices to him. These sacrifices were presided over by the Phytalidae, which post Theseus bestowed upon them as a recompense for their hospitality towards him.

XXIV

After the death of Aegeus, Theseus conceived a great and important design. He gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica and made them citizens of one city, whereas before they had lived dispersed, so as to be hard to assemble together for the common weal, and at times even fighting with one another.

He visited all the villages and tribes, and won their consent; the poor and lower classes gladly accepting his proposals, while he gained over the more powerful by promising that the new constitution should not include a king, but that it should be a pure commonwealth, with himself merely acting as general of its army and guardian of its laws, while in other respects it would allow perfect freedom and equality to every one. By these arguments he convinced some of them, and the rest knowing his power and courage chose rather to be persuaded than forced into compliance. He therefore destroyed the prytaneia, the senate house, and the magistracy of each individual township, built one common prytaneum and senate house for them all on the site of the present acropolis, called the city Athens, and instituted the Panathenaic festival common to all of them. He also instituted a festival for the resident aliens, on the sixteenth of the month, Hekatombeion, which is still kept up. And having, according to his promise, laid down his sovereign power, he arranged the new constitution under the auspices of the gods; for he made inquiry at Delphi as to how he should deal with the city, and received the following answer:

“Thou son of Aegeus and of Pittheus’ maid,

My father hath within thy city laid

The bounds of many cities; weigh not down

Thy soul with thought; the bladder cannot drown.”

The same thing they say was afterwards prophesied by the Sibyl concerning the city, in these words:

“The bladder may be dipped, but cannot drown.”

XXV

Wishing still further to increase the number of his citizens, he invited all strangers to come and share equal privileges, and they say that the words now used, “Come hither all ye peoples,” was the proclamation then used by Theseus, establishing as it were a commonwealth of all nations. But he did not permit his state to fall into the disorder which this influx of all kinds of people would probably have produced, but divided the people into three classes, of Eupatridae or nobles, Geomori or farmers, Demiurgi or artisans. To the Eupatridae he assigned the care of religious rites, the supply of magistrates for the city, and the interpretation of the laws and customs sacred or profane, yet he placed them on an equality with the other citizens, thinking that the nobles would always excel in dignity, the farmers in usefulness, and the artisans in numbers. Aristotle tells us that he was the first who inclined to democracy, and gave up the title of king; and Homer seems to confirm this view by speaking of the people of the Athenians alone of all the states mentioned in his catalogue of ships. Theseus also struck money with the figure of a bull, either alluding to the bull of Marathon, or Taurus, Minos’ general, or else to encourage farming among the citizens. Hence they say came the words, “worth ten,” or “worth a hundred oxen.” He permanently annexed Megara to Attica, and set up the famous pillar on the Isthmus, on which he wrote the distinction between the countries in two trimeter lines, of which the one looking east says,

“This is not Peloponnesus, but Ionia,”

and the one looking west says,

“This is Peloponnesus, not Ionia.”

And also he instituted games there, in emulation of Herakles; that, just as Herakles had ordained that the Greeks should celebrate the Olympic games in honour of Zeus, so by Theseus’s appointment they should celebrate the Isthmian games in honour of Poseidon.

The festival which was previously established there in honour of Melikerta used to be celebrated by night, and to be more like a religious mystery than a great spectacle and gathering. Some writers assert that the Isthmian games were established in honour of Skeiron, and that Theseus wished to make them an atonement for the murder of his kinsman; for Skeiron was the son of Kanethus and of Henioche the daughter of Pittheus. Others say that this festival was established in honour of Sinis, not of Skeiron. Be this as it may, Theseus established it, and stipulated with the Corinthians that visitors from Athens who came to the games should have a seat of honour in as large a space as could be covered by a sail of the public ship which carried them, when stretched out on the ground. This we are told by Hellanikus and Andron of Halikarnassus.

XXVI

Besides this, according to Philochorus and other writers, he sailed with Herakles to the Euxine, took part in the campaign against the Amazons, and received Antiope as the reward for his valour; but most historians, among whom are Pherekydes, Hellanikus, and Herodorus, say that Theseus made an expedition of his own later than that of Herakles, and that he took the Amazon captive, which is a more reasonable story. For no one of his companions is said to have captured an Amazon; while Bion relates that he caught this one by treachery and carried her off; for the Amazons, he says, were not averse to men, and did not avoid Theseus when he touched at their coast, but even offered him presents. He invited the bearer of these on board his ship; and when she had embarked he set sail. But one, Menekrates, who has written a history of the town of Nikaea in Bithynia, states that Theseus spent a long time in that country with Antiope, and that there were three young Athenians, brothers, who were his companions in arms, by name Euneon, Thoas, and Soloeis. Soloeis fell in love with Antiope, and, without telling his brothers, confided his passion to one of his comrades. This man laid the matter before Antiope, who firmly rejected his pretensions, but treated him quietly and discreetly, telling Theseus nothing about it. Soloeis, in despair at his rejection, leaped into a river and perished; and Theseus then at length learned the cause of the young man’s death. In his sorrow he remembered and applied to himself an oracle he had received from Delphi. It had been enjoined upon him by the Pythia that whenever he should be struck down with special sorrow in a foreign land, he should found a city in that place and leave some of his companions there as its chiefs. In consequence of this the city which he founded was called Pythopolis, in honour of the Pythian Apollo, and the neighbouring river was called Soloeis, after the youth who died in it. He left there the brothers of Soloeis as the chiefs and lawgivers of the new city, and together, with them one Hermus, an Athenian Eupatrid. In consequence of this, the people of Pythopolis call a certain place in their city the house of Hermes, by a mistaken accentuation transferring the honour due to their founder, to their god Hermes.

XXVII

This was the origin of the war with the Amazons; and it seems to have been carried on in no feeble or womanish spirit, for they never could have encamped in the city nor have fought a battle close to the Pnyx and the Museum unless they had conquered the rest of the country, so as to be able to approach the city safely. It is hard to believe, as Hellanikus relates, that they crossed the Cimmerian Bosphorus on the ice; but that they encamped almost in the city is borne witness to by the local names, and by the tombs of the fallen. For a long time both parties held aloof, unwilling to engage; but at last Theseus, after sacrificing to Phobos (Fear), attacked them. The battle took place in the month Boedromion, on the day on which the Athenians celebrate the feast Boedromia. Kleidemus gives us accurate details, stating that the left wing of the Amazons stood at the place now called the Amazoneum, while the right reached up to the Pnyx, at the place where the gilded figure of Victory now stands. The Athenians attacked them on this side, issuing from the Museum, and the tombs of the fallen are to be seen along the street which leads to the gate near the shrine of the hero Chalkodus, which is called the Peiraeic gate. On this side the women forced them back as far as the temple of the Eumenides, but on the other side those who assailed them from the temple of Pallas, Ardettus, and the Lyceum, drove their right wing in confusion back to their camp with great slaughter. In the fourth month of the war a peace was brought about by Hippolyte; for this writer names the wife of Theseus Hippolyte, not Antiope. Some relate that she was slain fighting by the side of Theseus by a javelin hurled by one Molpadia, and that the column which stands beside the temple of Olympian Earth is sacred to her memory. It is not to be wondered at that history should be at fault when dealing with such ancient events as these, for there is another story at variance with this, to the effect that Antiope caused the wounded Amazons to be secretly transported to Chalkis, where they were taken care of, and some of them were buried there, at what is now called the Amazoneum. However, it is a proof of the war having ended in a treaty of peace, that the place near the temple of Theseus where they swore to observe it, is still called Horeomosium, and that the sacrifice to the Amazons always has taken place before the festival of Theseus. The people of Megara also show a burying-place of the Amazons, as one goes from the market-place to what they call Rhus, where the lozenge-shaped building stands. It is said that some others died at Chaeronea, and were buried by the little stream which it seems was anciently called Thermodon, but now is called Haemon, about which we have treated in the life of Demosthenes. It would appear that the Amazons did not even get across Thessaly without trouble, for graves of them are shown to this day at Skotussa and Kynoskephalae.

XXVIII

The above is all that is worthy of mention about the Amazons; for, as to the story which the author of the ‘Theseid’ relates about this attack of the Amazons being brought about by Antiope to revenge herself upon Theseus for his marriage with Phaedra, and how she and her Amazons fought, and how Herakles slew them, all this is clearly fabulous. After the death of Antiope, Theseus married Phaedra, having a son by Antiope named Hippolytus, or Demophoon, according to Pindar. As for his misfortunes with this wife and son, as the account given by historians does not differ from that which appears in the plays of the tragic poets, we must believe them to have happened as all these writers say.

XXIX

However, there are certain other legends about Theseus’ marriage which have never appeared on the stage, which have neither a creditable beginning nor a prosperous termination: for it is said that he carried off one Anaxo, a Troezenian girl, and after slaying Sinis and Kerkyon he forced their daughters, and that he married Periboea the mother of Ajax and also Phereboea and Iope the daughter of Iphikles: and, as has been told already, it was on account of his love for Aegle the daughter of Panopeus that he deserted Ariadne, which was a shameful and discreditable action. And in addition to all this he is charged with carrying off Helen, which brought war upon Attica, and exile and destruction on himself; about which we shall speak presently. But, though many adventures were undertaken by the heroes of those times, Herodorus is of opinion that Theseus took no part in any of them, except with the Lapithae in their fight with the Centaurs; though other writers say that he went to Kolchis with Jason and took part with Meleager in the hunt of the Kalydonian boar.

From these legends arises the proverb, “Not without Theseus;” also he by himself without any comrades performed many glorious deeds, from which the saying came into vogue, “This is another Herakles.”

Theseus, together with Adrastus, effected the recovery of the bodies of those who fell under the walls of the Cadmea at Thebes, not after conquering the Thebans, as Euripides puts it in his play, but by a truce and convention, according to most writers. Philochorus even states that this was the first occasion on which a truce was made for the recovery of those slain in battle. But we have shown in our ‘Life of Herakles’ that he was the first to restore the corpses of the slain to the enemy. The tombs of the rank and file are to be seen at Eleutherae, but those of the chiefs at Eleusis, by favour of Theseus to Adrastus. Euripides’s play of the ‘Suppliants’ is contradicted by that of Aeschylus, the ‘Eleusinians,’ in which Theseus is introduced giving orders for this to be done.

XXX

His friendship for Peirithous is said to have arisen in the following manner: He had a great reputation for strength and courage; Peirithous, wishing to make trial of these, drove his cattle away from the plain of Marathon, and when he learned that Theseus was pursuing them, armed, he did not retire, but turned and faced him. Each man then admiring the beauty and courage of his opponent, refrained from battle, and first Peirithous holding out his hand bade Theseus himself assess the damages of his raid upon the cattle, saying that he himself would willingly submit to whatever penalty the other might inflict. Theseus thought no more of their quarrel, and invited him to become his friend and comrade; and they ratified their compact of friendship by an oath. Hereupon, Peirithous, who was about to marry Deidameia, begged Theseus to come and visit his country and meet the Lapithae. He also had invited the Centaurs to the banquet; and as they in their drunken insolence laid hands upon the women, the Lapithae attacked them. Some of them they slew, and the rest they overcame, and afterwards, with the assistance of Theseus, banished from their country. Herodorus, however, says that this is not how these events took place, but that the war was going on, and that Theseus went to help the Lapithae and while on his way thither first beheld Herakles, whom he made a point of visiting at Trachis, where he was resting after his labours and wanderings; and that they met with many compliments and much good feeling on both sides. But one would more incline to those writers who tell us that they often met, and that Herakles was initiated by Theseus’s desire, and was also purified before initiation at his instance, which ceremony was necessary because of some reckless action.

XXXI

Theseus was fifty years old, according to Hellanikus, when he carried off Helen, who was a mere child. For this reason some who wish to clear him of this, the heaviest of all the charges against him, say that it was not he who carried off Helen, but that Idas and Lynkeus carried her off and deposited her in his keeping. Afterwards the Twin Brethren came and demanded her back, but he would not give her up; or even it is said that Tyndareus himself handed her over to him, because he feared that Enarsphorus the son of Hippocoon would take her by force, she being only a child at the time. But the most probable story and that which most writers agree in is the following: The two friends, Theseus and Peirithous, came to Sparta, seized the maiden, who was dancing in the temple of Artemis Orthia, and carried her off. As the pursuers followed no farther than Tegea, they felt no alarm, but leisurely travelled through Peloponnesus, and made a compact that whichever of them should win Helen by lot was to have her to wife, but must help the other to a marriage. They cast lots on this understanding, and Theseus won. As the maiden was not yet ripe for marriage he took her with him to Aphidnae, and there placing his mother with her gave her into the charge of his friend Aphidnus, bidding him watch over her and keep her presence secret. He himself in order to repay his obligation to Peirithous went on a journey with him to Epirus to obtain the daughter of Aidoneus the king of the Molossians, who called his wife Persephone, his daughter Kore, and his dog Cerberus. All the suitors of his daughter were bidden by him to fight this dog, and the victor was to receive her hand. However, as he learned that Peirithous and his friend were come, not as wooers, but as ravishers, he cast them into prison. He put an end to Peirithous at once, by means of his dog, but only guarded Theseus strictly.

XXXII

Now at this period Mnestheus, the son of Peteus, who was the son of Orneus, who was the son of Erechtheus, first of all mankind they say took to the arts of a demagogue, and to currying favour with the people. This man formed a league of the nobles, who had long borne Theseus a grudge for having destroyed the local jurisdiction and privileges of each of the Eupatrids by collecting them all together into the capital, where they were no more than his subjects and slaves; and he also excited the common people by telling them that although they were enjoying a fancied freedom they really had been deprived of their ancestral privileges and sacred rites, and made to endure the rule of one foreign despot, instead of that of many good kings of their own blood.

While he was thus busily employed, the invasion of Attica by the sons of Tyndareus greatly assisted his revolutionary scheme; so that some say that it was he who invited them to come. At first they abstained from violence, and confined themselves to asking that their sister Helen should be given up to them; but when they were told by the citizens that she was not in their hands, and that they knew not where she was, they proceeded to warlike measures. Akademus, who had by some means discovered that she was concealed at Aphidnae, now told them where she was; for which cause he was honoured by the sons of Tyndareus during his life, and also the Lacedaemonians, though they often invaded the country and ravaged it unsparingly, yet never touched the place called the Akademeia, for Akademus’s sake. Dikaearchus says that Echemus and Marathus, two Arcadians, took part in that war with the sons of Tyndareus; and that from the first the place now called Akademeia was then named Echedemia, and that from the second the township of Marathon takes its names, because he in accordance with some oracle voluntarily offered himself as a sacrifice there in the sight of the whole army.

However, the sons of Tyndareus came to Aphidnae, and took the place after a battle, in which it is said that Alykus fell, the son of Skeiron, who then was fighting on the side of the Dioskuri. In memory of this man it is said that the place in the territory of Megara where his remains lie is called Alykus. But Hereas writes that Alykus was slain by Theseus at Aphidnae, and as evidence he quotes this verse about Alykus,

“Him whom Theseus slew in the spacious streets of Aphidnae,

Fighting for fair-haired Helen.”

But it is not likely that if Theseus had been there, his mother and the town of Aphidnae would have been taken.

XXXIII

After the fall of Aphidnae, the people of Athens became terrified, and were persuaded by Mnestheus to admit the sons of Tyndareus to the city, and to treat them as friends, because, he said, they were only at war with Theseus, who had been the first to use violence, and were the saviours and benefactors of the rest of mankind. These words of his were confirmed by their behaviour, for, victorious as they were, they yet demanded nothing except initiation into the mysteries, as they were, no less than Herakles, connected with the city. This was permitted them, and they were adopted by Aphidnus, as Herakles had been by Pylius. They received divine honours, being addressed as “Anakes,” either because of the cessation of the war, or from the care they took, when they had such a large army within the walls of Athens, that no one should be wronged; for those who take care of or guard anything are said to do it “anakos,” and perhaps for this reason kings are called “Anaktes.” Some say that they were called Anakas because of the appearance of their stars in the heavens above, for the Attics called “above” “anekas.”

XXXIV

It is said that Aethra, the mother of Theseus, was carried off as a captive to Lacedaemon, and thence to Troy with Helen, and Homer supports this view, when he says that there followed Helen,

“Aithra the daughter of Pittheus and large-eyed Klymene.”

Others reject this verse, and the legend about Mounychus, who is said to have been the bastard son of Laodike, by Demophoon, and to have been brought up in Troy by Aithra. But Istrus, in his thirteenth book of his ‘History of Attica,’ tells quite a different and peculiar story about Aithra, that he had heard that Paris was conquered by Achilles and Patroklus near the river Spercheius, in Thessaly, and that Hector took the city of Troezen by storm, and amongst the plunder carried off Aithra, who had been left there. But this seems impossible.

XXXV

Now Aidoneus the Molossian king chanced to be entertaining Herakles, and related to him the story of Theseus and Peirithous, what they had intended to do, and how they had been caught in the act and punished. Herakles was much grieved at hearing how one had perished ingloriously, and the other was like to perish. He thought that nothing would be gained by reproaching the king for his conduct to Peirithous, but he begged for the life of Theseus, and pointed out that the release of his friend was a favour which he deserved. Aidoneus agreed, and Theseus, when set free, returned to Athens, where he found that his party was not yet overpowered. Whatever consecrated grounds had been set apart for him by the city, he dedicated to Herakles, and called Heraklea instead of Thesea, except four, according to Philochorus. But, as he at once wished to preside and manage the state as before, he was met by factious opposition, for he found that those who had been his enemies before, had now learned not to fear him, while the common people had become corrupted, and now required to be specially flattered instead of doing their duty in silence.

He endeavoured to establish his government by force, but was overpowered by faction; and at last, despairing of success, he secretly sent his children to Euboea, to Elephenor, the son of Chalkodous; and he himself, after solemnly uttering curses on the Athenians at Gargettus, where now is the place called Araterion, or the place of curses, set sail for Skyros, where he was, he imagined, on friendly terms with the inhabitants, and possessed a paternal estate in the island. At that time Lykomedes was king of Skyros; so he proceeded to demand from him his lands, in order to live there, though some say that he asked him to assist him against the Athenians. Lykomedes, either in fear of the great reputation of Theseus, or else to gain the favour of Mnestheus, led him up to the highest mountain top in the country, on the pretext of showing him his estate from thence, and pushed him over a precipice. Some say that he stumbled and fell of himself, as he was walking after supper, according to his custom. As soon as he was dead, no one thought any more of him, but Mnestheus reigned over the Athenians, while Theseus’s children were brought up as private citizens by Elephenor, and followed him to Ilium. When Mnestheus died at Ilium, they returned home and resumed their rightful sovereignty. In subsequent times, among many other things which led the Athenians to honour Theseus as a hero or demi-god, most remarkable was his appearance at the battle of Marathon, where his spirit was seen by many, clad in armour, leading the charge against the barbarians.

XXXVI

After the Persian war, in the archonship of Phaedo, the Athenians were told by the Delphian Oracle to take home the bones of Theseus and keep them with the greatest care and honour. There was great difficulty in obtaining them and in discovering his tomb, on account of the wild and savage habits of the natives of the island. However, Kimon took the island, as is written in my history of his Life, and making it a point of honour to discover his tomb, he chanced to behold an eagle pecking with its beak and scratching with its talons at a small rising ground. Here he dug, imagining that the spot had been pointed out by a miracle. There was found the coffin of a man of great stature, and lying beside it a brazen lance-head and a sword. These relics were brought to Athens by Kimon, on board of his trireme, and the delighted Athenians received them with splendid processions and sacrifices, just as if the hero himself were come to the city. He is buried in the midst of the city, near where the Gymnasium now stands, and his tomb is a place of sanctuary for slaves, and all that are poor and oppressed, because Theseus, during his life, was the champion and avenger of the poor, and always kindly hearkened to their prayers. Their greatest sacrifice in his honour takes place on the eighth of the month of Pyanepsion, upon which day he and the youths came back from Crete. But besides this they hold a service in his honour on the eighth of all the other months, either because it was on the eighth day of Hekatombeion that he first arrived in Athens from Troezen, as is related by Diodorus the topographer, or else thinking that number to be especially his own, because he is said to have been the son of Poseidon, and Poseidon is honoured on the eighth day of every month. For the number eight is the first cube of an even number, and is double the first square, and therefore peculiarly represents the immovable abiding power of that god whom we address as “the steadfast,” and the “earth upholder.”

LIFE OF
ROMULUS.

I

Historians are not agreed upon the origin and meaning of the famous name of Rome, which is so celebrated through all the world. Some relate that the Pelasgi, after wandering over the greater part of the world, and conquering most nations, settled there, and gave the city its name from their own strength in battle.1 Others tell us that after the capture of Troy some fugitives obtained ships, were carried by the winds to the Tyrrhenian or Tuscan coast, and cast anchor in the Tiber. There the women, who had suffered much from the sea voyage, were advised by one who was accounted chief among them for wisdom and noble birth, Roma by name, to burn the ships. At first the men were angry at this, but afterwards, being compelled to settle round about the Palatine Hill, they fared better than they expected, as they found the country fertile and the neighbours hospitable; so they paid great honour to Roma, and called the city after her name. From this circumstance, they say, arose the present habit of women kissing their male relatives and connections; because those women, after they had burned the ships, thus embraced and caressed the men, trying to pacify their rage.

II

Some say that Roma, who gave the name to the city, was the daughter of Italus and Leucaria, or of Telephus the son of Hercules, and the wife of Aeneas, while others say that she was the daughter of Ascanius the son of Aeneas. Others relate that Romanus, the son of Odysseus and Circe, founded the city, or that it was Romus, the son of Hemathion, who was sent from Troy by Diomedes; or Romis the despot of the Latins, who drove out of his kingdom the Tyrrhenians, who, starting from Thessaly, had made their way to Lydia, and thence to Italy. And even those who follow the most reasonable of these legends, and admit that it was Romulus who founded the city after his own name, do not agree about his birth; for some say that he was the son of Aeneas and Dexithea the daughter of Phorbas, and with his brother Romus was brought to Italy when a child, and that as the river was in flood, all the other boats were swamped, but that in which the children were was carried to a soft bank and miraculously preserved, from which the name of Rome was given to the place. Others say that Roma, the daughter of that Trojan lady, married Latinus the son of Telemachus and bore a son, Romulus; while others say that his mother was Aemilia the daughter of Aeneas and Lavinia, by an intrigue with Mars; while others give a completely legendary account of his birth, as follows:

In the house of Tarchetius, the king of the Albani, a cruel and lawless man, a miracle took place. A male figure arose from the hearth, and remained there for many days. Now there was in Etruria an oracle of Tethys, which told Tarchetius that a virgin must be offered to the figure; for there should be born of her a son surpassing all mankind in strength, valour, and good fortune. Tarchetius hereupon explained the oracle to one of his daughters, and ordered her to give herself up to the figure; but she, not liking to do so, sent her servant-maid instead. Tarchetius, when he learned this, was greatly incensed, and cast them both into prison, meaning to put them to death. However, in a dream, Vesta appeared to him, forbidding him to slay them. In consequence of this he locked them up with a loom, telling them that when they had woven the piece of work upon it they should be married. So they wove all day, and during the night other maidens sent by Tarchetius undid their work again. Now when the servant-maid was delivered of twins, Tarchetius gave them to one Teratius, and bade him destroy them. He laid them down near the river; and there they were suckled by a she-wolf, while all sorts of birds brought them morsels of food, until one day a cowherd saw them. Filled with wonder he ventured to come up to the children and bear them off. Saved from death in this manner they grew up, and then attacked and slew Tarchetius. This is the legend given by one Promathion, the compiler of a history of Italy.

III

But the most credible story, and that has most vouchers for its truth, is that which was first published in Greece by Diokles of Peparethos, a writer whom Fabius Pictor has followed in most points. There are variations in this legend also; but, generally speaking, it runs as follows:

The dynasty established by Aeneas at Alba Longa, came down to two brothers, Numitor and Amulius. Amulius offered his brother the choice between the sovereign power and the royal treasure, including the gold brought from Troy. Numitor chose the sovereign power. But Amulius, possessing all the treasure, and thereby having more power than his brother, easily dethroned him, and, as he feared his brother’s daughter might have children who would avenge him, he made her a priestess of Vesta, sworn to celibacy for ever. This lady is named by some Ilia, by others Rhea or Silvia. After no long time she was found to be with child, against the law of the Vestals. Her life was saved by the entreaties of Antho, the king’s daughter, but she was closely imprisoned, that she might not be delivered without Amulius’s knowledge. She bore two children of remarkable beauty and size, and Amulius, all the more alarmed at this, bade an attendant take them and expose them. Some say that this man’s name was Faustulus, while others say that this was not his name, but that of their rescuer. However, he placed the infants in a cradle, and went down to the river with the intention of throwing them into it, but seeing it running strong and turbulently, he feared to approach it, laid down the cradle near the bank and went away. The river, which was in flood, rose, and gently floated off the cradle, and carried it down to a soft place which is now called Cermalus, but anciently, it seems, was called Germanus, because brothers are called germani.

IV

Near this place was a fig-tree, which they called Ruminalius, either from Romulus, as most persons imagine, or because cattle came to ruminate in its shade, or, more probably, because of the suckling of the children there, for the ancients called the nipple rouma. Moreover, they call the goddess who appears to have watched over the children Roumilia, and to her they sacrifice offerings without wine, and pour milk as a libation upon her altar.

It is said that while the infants were lying in this place, the she-wolf suckled them, and that a woodpecker came and helped to feed and watch over them. Now these animals are sacred to the god Mars; and the Latins have a peculiar reverence and worship for the woodpecker. These circumstances, therefore, did not a little to confirm the tale of the mother of the children, that their father was Mars, though some say that she was deceived by Amulius himself, who, after condemning her to a life of virginity, appeared before her dressed in armour, and ravished her. Others say that the twofold meaning of the name of their nurse gave rise to this legend, for the Latins use the word lupa for she-wolves, and also for unchaste women, as was the wife of Faustulus, who brought up the children, Acca Laurentia by name. To her also the Romans offer sacrifice, and in the month of April the priest of Mars brings libations to her, and the feast is called Laurentia.

V

The Romans also worship another Laurentia, for this reason: The priest of Hercules, weary with idleness, proposed to the god to cast the dice on the condition that, if he won, he should receive something good from the god, while if he lost, he undertook to provide the god with a bountiful feast and a fair woman to take his pleasure with. Upon these conditions he cast the dice, first for the god, and then for himself, and was beaten. Wishing to settle his wager properly, and making a point of keeping his word, he prepared a feast for the god, and hired Laurentia, then in the pride of her beauty, though not yet famous. He feasted her in the temple, where he had prepared a couch, and after supper he locked her in, that the god might possess her. And, indeed, the god is said to have appeared to the lady, and to have bidden her go early in the morning into the market-place, and to embrace the first man she met, and make him her friend. There met her a citizen far advanced in years, possessing a fair income, childless, and unmarried. His name was Tarrutius. He took Laurentia to himself, and loved her, and upon his death left her heiress to a large and valuable property, the greater part of which she left by will to the city. It is related of her, that after she had become famous, and was thought to enjoy the favour of Heaven, she vanished near the very same spot where the other Laurentia lay buried. This place is now called Velabrum, because during the frequent overflowings of the river, people used there to be ferried over to the market-place; now they call ferrying velatura. Some say that the road from the market-place to the circus, starting from this point, used to be covered with sails or awnings by those who treated the people to a spectacle; and in the Latin tongue a sail is called velum. This is why the second Laurentia is honoured by the Romans.

VI

Now Faustulus, the swineherd of Amulius, kept the children concealed from every one, though some say that Numitor knew of it, and shared the expense of their education. They were sent to Gabii to learn their letters, and everything else that well-born children should know; and they were called Romulus and Remus, because they were first seen sucking the wolf. Their noble birth showed itself while they were yet children, in their size and beauty; and when they grew up they were manly and high-spirited, of invincible courage and daring. Romulus, however, was thought the wiser and more politic of the two, and in his discussions with the neighbours about pasture and hunting, gave them opportunities of noting that his disposition was one which led him to command rather than to obey. On account of these qualities they were beloved by their equals and the poor, but they despised the king’s officers and bailiffs as being no braver than themselves, and cared neither for their anger nor their threats. They led the lives and followed the pursuits of nobly born men, not valuing sloth and idleness, but exercise and hunting, defending the land against brigands, capturing plunderers, and avenging those who had suffered wrong. And thus they became famous.

VII

Now a quarrel arose between the herdsmen of Numitor and those of Amulius, and cattle were driven off by the former. Amulius’s men, enraged at this, fought and routed the others, and recovered a great part of the booty. They cared nothing for Numitor’s anger, but collected together many needy persons and slaves, and filled them with a rebellious spirit. While Romulus was absent at a sacrifice (for he was much addicted to sacrifices and divination), the herdsmen of Numitor fell in with Remus, accompanied by a small band, and fought with him. After many wounds had been received on both sides, Numitor’s men conquered and took Remus alive. Remus was brought before Numitor, who did not punish him, as he feared his brother’s temper, but went to his brother and begged for justice, saying that he had suffered wrong at the hands of the king his brother’s servants. As all the people of Alba sympathised with Remus, and feared that he would be unjustly put to death, or worse, Amulius, alarmed at them, handed over Remus to his brother Numitor, to deal with as he pleased. Numitor took him, and as soon as he reached home, after admiring the bodily strength and stature of the youth, which surpassed all the rest, perceiving in his looks his courageous and fiery spirit, undismayed by his present circumstances, and having heard that his deeds corresponded to his appearance, and above all, as seems probable, some god being with him and watching over the first beginnings of great events, he was struck by the idea of asking him to tell the truth as to who he was, and how he was born, giving him confidence and encouragement by his kindly voice and looks. The young man boldly said, “I will conceal nothing from you, for you seem more like a king than Amulius. You hear and judge before you punish, but he gives men up to be punished without a trial. Formerly we (for we are twins) understood that we were the sons of Faustulus and Laurentia, the king’s servants; but now that we are brought before you as culprits, and are falsely accused and in danger of our lives, we have heard great things about ourselves. Whether they be true or not, we must now put to the test. Our birth is said to be a secret, and our nursing and bringing up is yet stranger, for we were cast out to the beasts and the birds, and were fed by them, suckled by a she-wolf, and fed with morsels of food by a woodpecker as we lay in our cradle beside the great river. Our cradle still exists, carefully preserved, bound with brazen bands, on which is an indistinct inscription, which hereafter will serve as a means by which we may be recognised by our parents, but to no purpose if we are dead.” Numitor, considering the young man’s story, and reckoning up the time from his apparent age, willingly embraced the hope which was dawning on his mind, and considered how he might obtain a secret interview with his daughter and tell her of all this; for she was still kept a close prisoner.

VIII

Faustulus, when he heard of Remus being captured and delivered up to Numitor, called upon Romulus to help him, and told him plainly all about his birth; although previously he had hinted so much, that any one who paid attention to his words might have known nearly all about it; and he himself with the cradle ran to Numitor full of hopes and fears, now that matters had come to a critical point. He was viewed with suspicion by the guards at the king’s gate, and while they were treating him contemptuously, and confusing him by questions, they espied the cradle under his cloak. Now it chanced that one of them had been one of those who had taken the children to cast them away, and had been present when they were abandoned. This man, seeing the cradle and recognising it by its make and the inscription on it, suspected the truth, and at once told the king and brought the man in to be examined. Faustulus, in those dire straits, did not altogether remain unshaken, and yet did not quite allow his secret to be wrung from him. He admitted that the boys were alive, but said that they were living far away from Alba, and that he himself was bringing the cradle to Ilia, who had often longed to see and touch it to confirm her belief in the life of her children. Now Amulius did what men generally do when excited by fear or rage. He sent in a great hurry one who was a good man and a friend of Numitor, bidding him ask Numitor whether he had heard anything about the survival of the children. This man on arrival, finding Numitor all but embracing Remus, confirmed his belief that he was his grandson, and bade him take his measures quickly, remaining by him himself to offer assistance. Even had they wished it, there was no time for delay; for Romulus was already near, and no small number of the citizens, through hatred and fear of Amulius, were going out to join him. He himself brought no small force, arrayed in companies of a hundred each. Each of these was led by a man who carried a bundle of sticks and straw upon a pole. The Latins called these manipla; and from this these companies are even at the present day called maniples in the Roman army. Now as Remus raised a revolt within, while Romulus assailed the palace without, the despot was captured and put to death without having been able to do anything, or take any measures for his own safety.

The greater part of the above story is told by Fabius Pictor and Diokles of Peparethos, who seem to have been the first historians of the foundation of Rome. The story is doubted by many on account of its theatrical and artificial form, yet we ought not to disbelieve it when we consider what wondrous works are wrought by chance, and when, too, we reflect on the Roman Empire, which, had it not had a divine origin, never could have arrived at its present extent.

IX

After the death of Amulius, and the reorganisation of the kingdom, the twins, who would not live in Alba as subjects, and did not wish to reign there during the life of their grandfather, gave up the sovereign power to him, and, having made a suitable provision for their mother, determined to dwell by themselves, and to found a city in the parts in which they themselves had been reared; at least, this is the most probable of the various reasons which are given. It may also have been necessary, as many slaves and fugitives had gathered round them, either that they should disperse these men and so lose their entire power, or else go and dwell alone amongst them. It is clear, from the rape of the Sabine women, that the citizens of Alba would not admit these outcasts into their own body, since that deed was caused, not by wanton insolence, but by necessity, as they could not obtain wives by fair means; for after carrying the women off they treated them with the greatest respect. Afterwards, when the city was once founded, they made it a sanctuary for people in distress to take refuge in, saying that it belonged to the god Asylus; and they received in it all sorts of persons, not giving up slaves to their masters, debtors to their creditors, or murderers to their judges, but saying that, in accordance with a Pythian oracle, the sanctuary was free to all; so that the city soon became full of men, for they say that at first it contained no less than a thousand hearths. Of this more hereafter. When they were proceeding to found the city, they at once quarrelled about its site. Romulus fixed upon what is now called Roma Quadrata, a square piece of ground, and wished the city to be built in that place; but Remus preferred a strong position on Mount Aventino, which, in memory of him, was called the Remonium, and now is called Rignarium.

They agreed to decide their dispute by watching the flight of birds, and having taken their seats apart, it is said that six vultures appeared to Remus, and afterwards twice as many to Romulus. Some say that Remus really saw his vultures, but that Romulus only pretended to have seen them, and when Remus came to him, then the twelve appeared to Romulus; for which reason the Romans at the present day draw their auguries especially from vultures. Herodorus of Pontus says that Hercules delighted in the sight of a vulture, when about to do any great action. It is the most harmless of all creatures, for it injures neither crops, fruit, nor cattle, and lives entirely upon dead corpses. It does not kill or injure anything that has life, and even abstains from dead birds from its relationship to them. Now eagles, and owls, and falcons, peck and kill other birds, in spite of Aeschylus’s line,

“Bird-eating bird polluted e’er must be.”

Moreover, the other birds are, so to speak, ever before our eyes, and continually remind us of their presence; but the vulture is seldom seen, and it is difficult to meet with its young, which has suggested to some persons the strange idea that vultures come from some other world to pay us their rare visits, which are like those occurrences which, according to the soothsayers, do not happen naturally or spontaneously, but by the interposition of Heaven.

X

When Remus discovered the deceit he was very angry, and, while Romulus was digging a trench round where the city wall was to be built, he jeered at the works, and hindered them. At last, as he jumped over it, he was struck dead either by Romulus himself, or by Celer, one of his companions. In this fight, Faustulus was slain, and also Pleistinus, who is said to have been Faustulus’s brother and to have helped him in rearing Romulus and his brother. Celer retired into Tyrrhenia, and from him the Romans call quick sharp men Celeres; Quintus Metellus, who, when his father died, in a very few days exhibited a show of gladiators, was surnamed Celer by the Romans in their wonder at the short time he had spent in his preparations.

XI

Romulus, after burying Remus and his foster-parents in the Remurium, consecrated his city, having fetched men from Etruria, who taught him how to perform it according to sacred rites and ceremonies, as though they were celebrating holy mysteries. A trench was dug in a circle round what is now the Comitium, and into it were flung first-fruits of all those things which are honourable and necessary for men. Finally each man brought a little of the earth of the country from which he came, and flung it into one heap and mixed it all together. They call this pit by the same name as the heavens, Mundus. Next, they drew the outline of the city in the form of a circle, with this place as its centre. And then the founder, having fitted a plough with a brazen ploughshare, and yoked to it a bull and a cow, himself ploughs a deep furrow round the boundaries. It is the duty of his attendants to throw the clods inwards, which the plough turns up, and to let none of them fall outwards. By this line they define the extent of the fortifications, and it is called by contraction, Pomoerium, which means behind the walls or beyond the walls (post moenia). Wherever they intend to place a gate they take off the ploughshare, and carry the plough over, leaving a space. After this ceremony they consider the entire wall sacred, except the gates; but if they were sacred also, they could not without scruple bring in and out necessaries and unclean things through them.

XII

It is agreed that the foundation of the city took place on the eleventh day before the Kalends of May (the 21st of April). And on this day the Romans keep a festival which they call the birthday of the city. At this feast, originally, we are told, they sacrificed nothing that has life, but thought it right to keep the anniversary of the birth of the city pure and unpolluted by blood. However, before the foundation of the city, they used to keep a pastoral feast called Palilia. The Roman months at the present day do not in any way correspond to those of Greece; yet they (the Greeks) distinctly affirm that the day upon which Romulus founded the city was the 30th of the month. The Greeks likewise tell us that on that day an eclipse of the sun took place, which they think was that observed by Antimachus of Teos, the epic poet, which occurred in the third year of the sixth Olympiad. In the time of Varro the philosopher, who of all the Romans was most deeply versed in Roman history, there was one Taroutius, a companion of his, a philosopher and mathematician, who had especially devoted himself to the art of casting nativities, and was thought to have attained great skill therein. To this man Varro proposed the task of finding the day and hour of Romulus’s birth, basing his calculations on the influence which the stars were said to have had upon his life, just as geometricians solve their problems by the analytic method; for it belongs, he argued, to the same science to predict the life of a man from the time of his birth, and to find the date of a man’s birth if the incidents of his life are given. Taroutius performed his task, and after considering the things done and suffered by Romulus, the length of his life, the manner of his death, and all such like matters, he confidently and boldly asserted that Romulus was conceived by his mother in the first year of the second Olympiad, at the third hour of the twenty-third day of the month which is called in the Egyptian calendar Choiac, at which time there was a total eclipse of the sun. He stated that he was born on the twenty-first day of the month Thouth, about sunrise. Rome was founded by him on the ninth day of the month Pharmouthi, between the second and third hour; for it is supposed that the fortunes of cities, as well as those of men, have their certain periods which can be discovered by the position of the stars at their nativities. The quaint subtlety of these speculations may perhaps amuse the reader more than their legendary character will weary him.

XIII

When the city was founded, Romulus first divided all the able-bodied males into regiments, each consisting of three thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry. These were named legions, because they consisted of men of military age selected from the population. The rest of the people were now organised. They were called Populus, and a hundred of the noblest were chosen from among them and formed into a council. These he called Patricians, and their assembly the Senate. This word Senate clearly means assembly of old men; and the members of it were named Patricians, according to some, because they were the fathers of legitimate offspring; according to others, because they were able to give an account of who their own fathers were, which few of the first colonists were able to do. Others say that it was from their Patrocinium, as they then called, and do at the present day call, their patronage of their clients. There is a legend that this word arose from one Patron, a companion of Evander, who was kind and helpful to his inferiors. But it is most reasonable to suppose that Romulus called them by this name because he intended the most powerful men to show kindness to their inferiors, and to show the poorer classes that they ought not to fear the great nor grudge them their honours, but be on friendly terms with them, thinking of them and addressing them as fathers (Patres). For, up to the present day, foreigners address the senators as Lords, but the Romans call them Conscript Fathers, using the most honourable and least offensive of their titles. Originally they were merely called the Fathers, but afterwards, as more were enrolled, they were called Conscript Fathers. By this more dignified title Romulus distinguished the Senate from the People; and he introduced another distinction between the powerful and the common people by naming the former patrons, which means defenders, and the latter clients, which means dependants. By this means he implanted in them a mutual good feeling which was the source of great benefits, for the patrons acted as advocates for their clients in law suits, and in all cases became their advisers and friends, while the clients not only respected their patrons but even assisted them, when they were poor, to portion their daughters or pay their creditors. No law or magistrate could compel a patron to bear witness against his client, nor a client against his patron. Moreover, in later times, although all their other rights remained unimpaired, it was thought disgraceful for a patron to receive money from a client. So much for these matters.

XIV

In the fourth month after the city was founded, we are told by Fabius, the reckless deed of carrying off the women took place. Some say that Romulus himself naturally loved war, and, being persuaded by some prophecies that Rome was fated to grow by wars and so reach the greatest prosperity, attacked the Sabines without provocation; for he did not carry off many maidens, but only thirty, as though it was war that he desired more than wives for his followers. This is not probable: Romulus saw that his city was newly-filled with colonists, few of whom had wives, while most of them were a mixed multitude of poor or unknown origin, who were despised by the neighouring states, and expected by them shortly to fall to pieces. He intended his violence to lead to an alliance with the Sabines, as soon as the damsels became reconciled to their lot, and set about it as follows: First he circulated a rumour that the altar of some god had been discovered, hidden in the earth. This god was called Census, either because he was the god of counsel (for the Romans to this day call their assembly Concilium, and their chief magistrates consuls, as it were those who take counsel on behalf of the people), or else it was the equestrian Neptune. The altar stands in the greater hippodrome, and is kept concealed except during the horse-races, when it is uncovered. Some say that, as the whole plot was dark and mysterious, it was natural that the god’s altar should be underground. When it was brought out, he proclaimed a splendid sacrifice in its honour, and games and shows open to all men. Many people assembled to see them, and Romulus sat among his nobles, dressed in a purple robe. The signal for the assault was that he should rise, unfold his cloak, and then again wrap it around him. Many men armed with swords stood round him, and at the signal they drew their swords, rushed forward with a shout, and snatched up the daughters of the Sabines, but allowed the others to escape unharmed. Some say that only thirty were carried off, from whom the thirty tribes were named, but Valerius of Antium says five hundred and twenty-seven, and Juba six hundred and eighty-three, all maidens. This is the best apology for Romulus; for they only carried off one married woman, Hersilia, which proved that it was not through insolence or wickedness that they carried them off, but with the intention of forcibly effecting a union between the two races. Some say that Hersilia married Hostilius, one of the noblest Romans, others that she married Romulus himself, and that he had children by her; one daughter, called Prima from her being the first-born, and one son, whom his father originally named Aollius, because of the assembling of the citizens, but whom they afterwards named Avillius. This is the story as told by Zenodotus of Troezen, but many contradict it.

XV

Among the ravishers they say there were some men of low condition who had seized a remarkably tall and beautiful maiden. When any of the nobles met them and endeavoured to take her away from them, they cried out that they were taking her to Talasius, a young man of good family and reputation. Hearing this, all agreed and applauded, and some even turned and accompanied them, crying out the name of Talasius through their friendship for him. From this circumstance the Romans up to the present day call upon Talasius in their marriage-songs, as the Greeks do upon Hymen; for Talasius is said to have been fortunate in his wife. Sextius Sulla of Carthage, a man neither deficient in learning or taste, told me that this word was given by Romulus as the signal for the rape, and so that all those who carried off maidens cried “Talasio.” But most authors, among whom is Juba, think that it is used to encourage brides to industry and spinning wool (talasia), as at that time Greek words had not been overpowered by Latin ones. But if this be true, and the Romans at that time really used this word “talasia” for wool-spinning, as we do, we might make another more plausible conjecture about it. When the treaty of peace was arranged between the Romans and the Sabines, a special provision was made about the women, that they were to do no work for the men except wool-spinning. And thus the custom remained for the friends of those who were married afterwards to call upon Talasius in jest, meaning to testify that the bride was to do no other work than spinning. To the present day the custom remains in force that the bride must not step over the threshold into her house, but be lifted over it and carried in, because the Sabine maidens were carried in forcibly, and did not walk in.

Some add that the parting of the bride’s hair with the point of a spear is done in memory of the first Roman marriage having been effected by war and battle; on which subject we have enlarged further in our treatise on Causes.

The rape of the Sabines took place upon the eighteenth day of the month Sextilis, which is now called August, on which day the feast of the Consualia is kept.

XVI

The Sabines were a numerous and warlike tribe, dwelling in unwalled villages, as though it was their birthright as a Lacedaemonian colony to be brave and fearless. Yet when they found themselves bound by such hostages to keep the peace, and in fear for their daughters, they sent an embassy to propose equitable and moderate terms, that Romulus should give back their daughters to them, and disavow the violence which had been used, and that afterwards the two nations should live together in amity and concord. But when Romulus refused to deliver up the maidens, but invited the Sabines to accept his alliance, while the other tribes were hesitating and considering what was to be done, Acron, the king of the Ceninetes, a man of spirit and renown in the wars, who had viewed Romulus first proceeding in founding a city with suspicion, now, after what he had done in carrying off the women, declared that he was becoming dangerous, and would not be endurable unless he were chastised. He at once began the war, and marched with a great force; and Romulus marched to meet him. When they came in sight of each other they each challenged the other to fight, the soldiers on both sides looking on. Romulus made a vow that if he should overcome and kill his enemy he would himself carry his spoils to the temple of Jupiter and offer them to him. He overcame his adversary, and slew him, routed his army and captured his city. He did not harm the inhabitants, except that he ordered them to demolish their houses and follow him to Rome, to become citizens on equal terms with the rest. This is the policy by which Rome grew so great, namely that of absorbing conquered nations into herself on terms of equality.

Romulus, in order to make the fulfilment of his vow as pleasing to Jupiter, and as fine a spectacle for the citizens as he could, cut down a tall oak-tree at his camp, and fashioned it into a trophy,2 upon which he hung or fastened all the arms of Acron, each in its proper place. Then he girded on his own clothes, placed a crown of laurel upon his long hair, and, placing the trophy upright on his right shoulder, marched along in his armour, singing a paean of victory, with all the army following him. At Rome the citizens received him with admiration and delight; and this procession was the origin of all the subsequent triumphs and the model which they imitated. The trophy itself was called an offering to Jupiter Feretrius; for the Romans call to strike, ferire, and Romulus prayed that he might strike down his enemy. The spoils were called spolia opima, according to Varro, because opim means excellence. A more plausible interpretation would be from the deed itself, for work is called in Latin opus. This dedication of spolia opima is reserved as a privilege for a general who has slain the opposing general with his own hand. It has only been enjoyed by three Roman generals, first by Romulus, who slew Acron, king of the Ceninetes, second by Cornelius Cossus, who slew the Tyrrhenian Tolumnius, and, above all, by Claudius Marcellus, who killed Britomart, the king of the Gauls. Now Cossus and Marcellus drove into the city in chariots and four, carrying the trophies in their own hands; but Dionysius is in error when he says that Romulus used a chariot and four, for the historians tell us that Tarquinius, the son of Demaratus, was the first of the kings who introduced this pomp into his triumphs. Others say that Poplicola was the first to triumph in a chariot. However, the statues of Romulus bearing the trophy, which are to be seen in Rome, are all on foot.

XVII

After the capture of the Ceninete tribe, while the rest of the Sabines were still engaged in preparation for war, the inhabitants of Fidenae and Crustumerium and Antemna attacked the Romans. A battle took place in which they were all alike worsted, after which they permitted Romulus to take their cities, divide their lands, and incorporate them as citizens. Romulus divided all the lands among the citizens, except that which was held by the fathers of any of the maidens who had been carried off, which he allowed them to retain.

The remainder of the Sabines, angry at these successes, chose Tatius as their general and marched against Rome. The city was hard to attack, as the Capitol stood as an advanced fort to defend it. Here was placed a garrison, and Tarpeius was its commander, not the maiden Tarpeia, as some write, who make out Romulus a fool; but it was this Tarpeia, the daughter of the captain of the garrison, who betrayed the capital to the Sabines, for the sake of the golden bracelets which she saw them wearing. She asked as the price of her treachery that they should give her what they wore on their left arms. After making an agreement with Tatius, she opened a gate at night and let in the Sabines. Now it appears that Antigonus was not singular when he said that he loved men when they were betraying, but hated them after they had betrayed; as also Caesar said, in the case of Rhymitalkes the Thracian, that he loved the treachery but hated the traitor; but this seems a common reflection about bad men by those who have need of them, just as we need the poison of certain venomous beasts; for they appreciate their value while they are making use of them, and loathe their wickedness when they have done with them. And that was how Tarpeia was treated by Tatius. He ordered the Sabines to remember their agreement, and not to grudge her what was on their left arms. He himself first of all took off his gold armlet, and with it flung his great oblong shield. As all the rest did the like, she perished, being pelted with the gold bracelets and crushed by the number and weight of the shields. Tarpeius also was convicted of treachery by Romulus, according to Juba’s version of the history of Sulpicius Galba. The other legends about Tarpeia are improbable; amongst them that which is told by Antigonus, that she was the daughter of Tatius the Sabine leader, abducted by Romulus, and treated by her father as is related above. Simylus the poet talks utter nonsense when he says that it was not the Sabines but the Gauls to whom Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol, because she was in love with their king. His verses run as follows:

“And near Tarpeia, by the Capitol

That dwelt, betrayer of the walls of Rome.

She loved the chieftain of the Gauls too well,

To guard from treachery her father’s home.”

And a little afterwards he speaks of her death.

“Her did the Boians and the Celtic tribes

Bury, but not beside the stream of Po;

From off their warlike arms their shields they flung,

And what the damsel longed for laid her low.”

XVIII

However, as Tarpeia was buried there, the hill was called the Tarpeian hill until King Tarquinius, when he dedicated the place to Jupiter, removed her remains and abolished the name of Tarpeia. But even to this day they call the rock in the Capitol the Tarpeian Rock, down which malefactors used to be flung. When the Sabines held the citadel, Romulus in fury challenged them to come down and fight. Tatius accepted his challenge with confidence, as he saw that if overpowered his men would have a strong place of refuge to retreat to. All the intermediate space, in which they were about to engage, was surrounded by hills, and so seemed to make a desperate battle necessary, as there were but narrow outlets for flight or pursuit. It chanced, also, that the river had been in flood a few days before, and had left a deep muddy pool of water upon the level ground where the Forum now stands; so that men’s footing was not certain, but difficult and treacherous. Here a piece of good fortune befell the Sabines as they heedlessly pressed forward. Curtius, one of their chiefs, a man with a reputation for dashing courage, rode on horseback far before the rest. His horse plunged into this morass, and he, after trying to extricate him, at last finding it impossible, left him there and saved himself. This place, in memory of him, is still called the Gulf of Curtius. Warned of their danger, the Sabines fought a stout and indecisive battle, in which many fell, amongst them Hostilius. He is said to have been the husband of Hersilia and the grandfather of Hostilius, who became king after the reign of Numa. Many combats took place in that narrow space, as we may suppose; and especial mention is made of one, which proved the last, in which Romulus was struck on the head by a stone and like to fall, and unable to fight longer. The Romans now gave way to the Sabines, and fled to the Palatine hill, abandoning the level ground. Romulus, now recovered from the blow, endeavoured to stay the fugitives, and with loud shouts called upon them to stand firm and fight. But as the stream of fugitives poured on, and no one had the courage to face round, he lifted his hands to heaven and prayed to Jupiter to stay the army and not to allow the tottering state of Rome to fall, but to help it. After his prayer many were held back from flight by reverence for the king, and the fugitives suddenly resumed their confidence. They made their first stand where now is the temple of Jupiter Stator, which one may translate “He who makes to stand firm;” and then forming their ranks once more they drove back the Sabines as far as what is now called the Palace, and the Temple of Vesta.

XIX

While they were preparing to fight as though the battle was only now just begun, they were restrained by a strange spectacle, beyond the power of words to express. The daughters of the Sabines who had been carried off were seen rushing from all quarters, with loud shrieks and wailings, through the ranks and among the dead bodies, as though possessed by some god. Some of them carried infant children in their arms, and others wore their hair loose and dishevelled. All of them kept addressing the Romans and the Sabines alternately by the most endearing names. The hearts of both armies were melted, and they fell back so as to leave a space for the women between them. A murmur of sorrow ran through all the ranks, and a strong feeling of pity was excited by the sight of the women, and by their words, which began with arguments and upbraidings, but ended in entreaties and tears. “What wrong have we done to you,” said they, “that we should have suffered and should even now suffer such cruel treatment at your hands? We were violently and wrongfully torn away from our friends, and after we had been carried off we were neglected by our brothers, fathers, and relatives for so long a time, that now, bound by the closest of ties to our enemies, we tremble for our ravishers and wrongers when they fight, and weep when they fall. Ye would not come and tear us from our ravishers while we were yet maidens, but now ye would separate wives from their husbands, and mothers from their children, a worse piece of service to us than your former neglect. Even if it was not about us that you began to fight, you ought to cease now that you have become fathers-in-law, and grandfathers, and relatives one of another. But if the war is about us, then carry us off with your sons-in-law and our children, and give us our fathers and relatives, but do not take our husbands and children from us. We beseech you not to allow us to be carried off captive a second time.” Hersilia spoke at length in this fashion, and as the other women added their entreaties to hers, a truce was agreed upon, and the chiefs met in conference. Hereupon the women made their husbands and children known to their fathers and brothers, fetched food and drink for such as needed it, and took the wounded into their own houses to be attended to there. Thus they let their friends see that they were mistresses of their own houses, and that their husbands attended to their wishes and treated them with every respect.

In the conference it was accordingly determined that such women as chose to do so should continue to live with their husbands, free, as we have already related, from all work and duties except that of spinning wool (talasia); that the Romans and the Sabines should dwell together in the city, and that the city should be called Rome, after Romulus, but the Romans be called Quirites after the native city of Tatius; and that they should both reign and command the army together. The place where this compact was made is even to this day called the Comitium, for the Romans call meeting coire.

XX

Now that the city was doubled in numbers, a hundred more senators were elected from among the Sabines, and the legions were composed of six thousand infantry and six hundred cavalry. They also established three tribes, of which they named one Rhamnenses, from Romulus, another Titienses from Tatius, and the third Lucerenses, after the name of a grove to which many had fled for refuge, requiring asylum, and had been admitted as citizens. They call a grove lucus. The very name of tribe and tribune show that there were three tribes. Each tribe was divided into ten centuries, which some say were named after the women who were carried off; but this seems to be untrue, as many of them are named after places. However, many privileges were conferred upon the women, amongst which were that men should make way for them when they walked out, to say nothing disgraceful in their presence, or appear naked before them, on pain of being tried before the criminal court; and also that their children should wear the bulla, which is so called from its shape, which is like a bubble, and was worn round the neck, and also the broad purple border of their robe (praetexta).

The kings did not conduct their deliberations together, but each first took counsel with his own hundred senators, and then they all met together. Tatius dwelt where now is the temple of Juno Moneta, and Romulus by the steps of the Fair Shore, as it is called, which are at the descent from the Palatine hill into the great Circus. Here they say the sacred cornel-tree grew, the legend being that Romulus, to try his strength, threw a spear, with cornel-wood shaft, from Mount Aventine, and when the spear-head sunk into the ground, though many tried, no one was able to pull it out. The soil, which was fertile, suited the wood, and it budded, and became the stem of a good-sized cornel-tree. After the death of Romulus this was preserved and reverenced as one of the holiest objects in the city. A wall was built round it, and whenever any one thought that it looked inclined to droop and wither he at once raised a shout to tell the bystanders, and they, just as if they were assisting to put out a fire, called for water, and came from all quarters carrying pots of water to the place. It is said that when Gaius Caesar repaired the steps, and the workmen were digging near it, they unintentionally damaged the roots, and the tree died.

XXI

The Sabines adopted the Roman system of months, and all that is remarkable about them will be found in the ‘Life of Numa.’ But Romulus adopted the large oblong Sabine shield, and gave up the round Argolic shields which he and the Romans had formerly carried. The two nations shared each other’s festivals, not abolishing any which either had been wont to celebrate, but introducing several new ones, among which are the Matronalia, instituted in honour of the women at the end of the war, and that of the Carmentalia. It is thought by some that Carmenta is the ruling destiny which presides over a man’s birth, wherefore she is worshipped by mothers. Others say that she was the wife of Evander the Arcadian, a prophetess who used to chant oracles in verse, and hence surnamed Carmenta (for the Romans call verses carmina); whereas it is generally admitted that her right name was Nicostrate. Some explain the name of Carmenta more plausibly as meaning that during her prophetic frenzy she was bereft of intellect; for the Romans call to lack, carcre; and mind, mentem.

We have spoken before of the feast of the Palilia. That of the Lupercalia would seem, from the time of its celebration, to be a ceremony of purification; for it is held during the ominous days of February, a month whose name one might translate by Purification; and that particular day was originally called Febraté. The name of this feast in Greek signifies that of wolves, and it is thought, on this account, to be very ancient, and derived from the Arcadians who came to Italy with Evander. Still this is an open question, for the name may have arisen from the she-wolf, as we see that the Luperci start to run their course from the place where Romulus is said to have been exposed. The circumstances of the ritual are such as to make it hard to conjecture their meaning. They slaughter goats, and then two youths of good family are brought to them. Then some with a bloody knife mark the foreheads of the youths, and others at once wipe the blood away with wool dipped in milk. The youths are expected to laugh when it is wiped away. After this they cut the skins of the goats into strips and run about naked, except a girdle round the middle, striking with the thongs all whom they meet. Women in the prime of life do not avoid being struck, as they believe that it assists them in childbirth and promotes fertility. It is also a peculiarity of this festival that the Luperci sacrifice a dog. One Bontes, who wrote an elegiac poem on the origin of the Roman myths, says that when Romulus and his party had killed Amulius, they ran back in their joy to the place where the she-wolf suckled them when little, and that the feast is typical of this, and that the young nobles run,

“As, smiting all they met, that day

From Alba Romulus and Remus ran.”

The bloody sword is placed upon their foreheads in token of the danger and slaughter of that day, and the wiping with the milk is in remembrance of their nurse. Caius Acilius tells us that, before the foundation of Rome, the cattle of Romulus and Remus were missing, and they, after invoking Faunus, ran out to search for them, naked, that they might not be inconvenienced by sweat; and that this is the reason that the Luperci ran about naked. As for the dog, one would say that if the sacrifice is purificatory, it is sacrificed on behalf of those who use it. The Greeks, in their purificatory rites, sacrifice dogs, and often make use of what is called Periskylakismos. But if this feast be in honour of the she-wolf, in gratitude for her suckling and preserving of Romulus, then it is very natural to sacrifice a dog, for it is an enemy of wolves; unless, indeed, the beast is put to death to punish it for hindering the Luperci when they ran their course.

XXII

It is said also that Romulus instituted the service of the sacred fire of Vestae, and the holy virgins who keep it up, called Vestals. Others attribute this to Numa, though they say that Romulus was a very religious prince, and learned in divination, for which purpose he used to carry the crooked staff called lituus, with which to divide the heavens into spaces for the observation of the flight of birds. This, which is preserved in the Palatium, was lost when the city was taken by the Gauls; but afterwards, when the barbarians had been repulsed, it was found unharmed in a deep bed of ashes, where everything else had been burned or spoiled. He also enacted some laws, the most arbitrary of which is that a wife cannot obtain a divorce from her husband, but that a husband may put away his wife for poisoning her children, counterfeiting keys, or adultery. If any one put away his wife on other grounds than these, he enacted that half his property should go to his wife, and half to the temple of Ceres. A man who divorced his wife was to make an offering to the Chthonian gods.3 A peculiarity of his legislation is that, while he laid down no course of procedure in case of parricide, he speaks of all murder by the name of parricide, as though the one were an abominable, but the other an impossible crime. And for many years it appeared that he had rightly judged, for no one attempted anything of the kind at Rome for nearly six hundred years; but it is said that the first parricide was that of Lucius Hostilius, which he committed after the war with Hannibal. Enough has now been said upon these subjects.

XXIII

In the fifth year of the reign of Tatius, some of his relatives fell in with ambassadors from Laurentum, on their way to Rome, and endeavoured to rob them. As the ambassadors would not submit to this, but defended themselves, they slew them. Romulus at once gave it as his opinion that the authors of this great and audacious crime ought to be punished, but Tatius hushed the matter up, and enabled them to escape. This is said to have been the only occasion upon which they were openly at variance, for in all other matters they acted with the greatest possible unanimity. The relatives, however, of the murdered men, as they were hindered by Tatius from receiving any satisfaction, fell upon him when he and Romulus were offering sacrifice at Lavinium, and slew him, but respected Romulus, and praised him as a just man. He brought home the body of Tatius, and buried it honourably. It lies near what is called the Armilustrium, on Mount Aventine.

But Romulus neglected altogether to exact any satisfaction for the murder. Some writers say that the city of Lavinium, in its terror, delivered up the murderers of Tatius, but that Romulus allowed them to depart, saying that blood had been atoned for by blood. This speech of his gave rise to some suspicion that he was not displeased at being rid of his colleague. However, it caused no disturbance in the state, and did not move the Sabines to revolt, but partly out of regard for Romulus, and fear of his power, and belief in his divine mission, they continued to live under his rule with cheerfulness and respect. Many foreign tribes also respected Romulus, and the more ancient Latin races sent him ambassadors, and made treaties of friendship and alliance.

He took Fidenae, a city close to Rome, according to some authorities, by sending his cavalry thither on a sudden, and ordering them to cut the pivots of the city gates, and then unexpectedly appearing in person. Others say that the people of Fidenae first invaded the Roman territory, drove off plunder from it, and insulted the neighbourhood of the city itself, and that Romulus laid an ambush for them, slew many, and took their city. He did not destroy it, but made it a Roman colony, and sent two thousand five hundred Romans thither as colonists on the Ides of April.

XXIV

After this a pestilence fell upon Rome, which slew men suddenly without previous sickness, and afflicted the crops and cattle with barrenness. A shower of blood also fell in the city, so that religious terror was added to the people’s sufferings. As a similar visitation befell the citizens of Laurentum, it became evident that the wrath of the gods was visiting these cities because of the unavenged murders of Tatius and of the ambassadors. The guilty parties were delivered up on both sides, and duly punished, after which the plague was sensibly mitigated. Romulus also purified the city with lustrations, which, they say, are even now practised at the Ferentine gate. But before the plague ceased, the people of Camerium attacked the Romans, supposing that they would be unable to defend themselves on account of their misfortune, and overran their country. Nevertheless, Romulus instantly marched against them, slew six hundred of them in battle, and took their city. Half the survivors he transplanted to Rome, and settled twice as many Romans as the remainder at Camerium, on the Kalends of Sextilis. So many citizens had he to spare after he had only inhabited Rome for about sixteen years. Among the other spoils, he carried off a brazen four-horse chariot from Camerium; this he dedicated in the temple of Vulcan, having placed in it a figure of himself being crowned by Victory.

XXV

As the city was now so flourishing, the weaker of the neighbouring states made submission, and were glad to receive assurance that they would be unharmed; but the more powerful, fearing and envying Romulus, considered that they ought not to remain quiet, but ought to check the growth of Rome. First the Etruscans of Veii, a people possessed of wide lands and a large city, began the war by demanding the surrender to them of Fidenae, which they claimed as belonging to them. This demand was not only unjust, but absurd, seeing that they had not assisted the people of Fidenae when they were fighting and in danger, but permitted them to be destroyed, and then demanded their houses and lands, when they were in the possession of others. Receiving a haughty answer from Romulus, they divided themselves into two bodies, with one of which they attacked Fidenae, and with the other went to meet Romulus. At Fidenae they conquered the Romans, and slew two thousand; but they were defeated by Romulus, with a loss of eight thousand men. A second battle now took place at Fidenae, in which all agree that Romulus took the most important part, showing the greatest skill and courage, and a strength and swiftness more than mortal. But some accounts are altogether fabulous, such as that fourteen hundred were slain, more than half of whom Romulus slew with his own hand. The Messenians appear to use equally inflated language about Aristomenes, when they tell us that he thrice offered sacrifice for having slain a hundred Lacedaemonians. After the victory, Romulus did not pursue the beaten army, but marched straight to the city of Veii. The citizens, after so great a disaster, made no resistance, but at their own request were granted a treaty and alliance for a hundred years, giving up a large portion of their territory, called the Septem Pagi, or seven districts, and their saltworks by the river, and handing over fifty of their leading men as hostages.

For his success at Veii, Romulus enjoyed another triumph, on the Ides of October, when he led in his train many captives, amongst whom was the Veientine general, an old man, who was thought to have mismanaged matters foolishly and like a boy. On this account to this day, when a sacrifice is made for victory, they lead an old man through the Forum and up to the Capitol, dressed in a boy’s robe with wide purple border, and with a child’s bulla hung round his neck; and the herald calls out “Sardinians for sale.” For the Tyrrhenians or Tuscans are said to be of Sardinian origin, and Veii is a Tyrrhenian city.

XXVI

This was Romulus’s last war. After it, he, like nearly all those who have risen to power and fame by a great and unexpected series of successes, became filled with self-confidence and arrogance, and, in place of his former popular manners, assumed the offensive style of a despot. He wore a purple tunic, and a toga with a purple border, and did business reclining instead of sitting on a throne; and was always attended by the band of youths called Celeres, from their quickness in service. Others walked before him with staves to keep off the crowd, and were girt with thongs, with which to bind any one whom he might order into custody. The Latins used formerly to call to bind ligare, and now call it alligare; wherefore the staff-bearers are called lictors, and their staves are called bacula,4 from the rods which they then carried. It is probable that these officers now called lictors by the insertion of the c, were originally called litors, that is, in Greek, leitourgoi (public officials). For to this day the Greeks call a town-hall leitus, and the people laos.

XXVII

When Romulus’ grandfather Numitor died in Alba, although he was evidently his heir, yet through a desire for popularity he left his claim unsettled, and contented himself with appointing a chief magistrate for the people of Alba every year; thus teaching the Roman nobles to desire a freer constitution, which should not be so much encroached upon by the king. For at Rome now even the so-called Fathers took no part in public affairs, but had merely their name and dignity, and were called into the Senate House more for form’s sake than to express their opinions. When there, they listened in silence to Romulus’s orders, and the only advantage which they possessed over the commons was that they knew the king’s mind sooner than they. Worst of all was, that he of his own authority divided the land which was obtained in war amongst the soldiers, and restored the hostages to the Veientines, against the will of the Senate and without consulting it, by which he seemed purposely to insult it. On this account the Senate was suspected, when shortly after this he miraculously disappeared. His disappearance took place on the Nones of the month now called July, but then Quintilis, leaving nothing certain or agreed on about his end except the date. Even now things happen in the same fashion as then; and we need not wonder at the uncertainty about the death of Romulus, when that of Scipio Africanus, in his own house after supper, proved so inexplicable, some saying that it arose from an evil habit of body, some that he had poisoned himself, some that his enemies had suffocated him during the night. And yet the corpse of Scipio lay openly exposed for all to see, and gave all who saw it some ground for their conjectures; whereas Romulus suddenly disappeared, and no morsel of his body or shred of his garments were ever seen again. Some supposed that the Senators fell upon him in the Temple of Vulcan, and, after killing him cut his body in pieces and each of them carried off one in the folds of his robe. Others think that his disappearance took place neither in the Temple of Vulcan, nor yet in the presence of the Senators alone, but say that Romulus was holding an assembly without the city, near a place called the Goat’s Marsh, when suddenly strange and wonderful things took place in the heavens, and marvellous changes; for the sun’s light was extinguished, and night fell, not calm and quiet, but with terrible thunderings, gusts of wind, and driving spray from all quarters. Hereupon the people took to flight in confusion, but the nobles collected together by themselves. When the storm was over, and the light returned, the people returned to the place again, and searched in vain for Romulus, but were told by the nobles not to trouble themselves to look for him, but to pray to Romulus and reverence him, for he had been caught up into heaven, and now would be a propitious god for them instead of a good king.

The people believed this story, and went their way rejoicing, and praying to him with good hope; but there were some who discussed the whole question in a harsh and unfriendly spirit, and blamed the nobles for encouraging the people to such acts of folly when they themselves were the murderers of the king.

XXVIII

Now Julius Proculus, one of the noblest patricians, and of good reputation, being one of the original colonists from Alba, and a friend and companion of Romulus, came into the Forum, and there upon his oath, and touching the most sacred things, stated before all men that as he was walking along the road Romulus appeared, meeting him, more beautiful and taller than he had ever appeared before, with bright and glittering arms. Astonished at the vision he had spoken thus: “O king, for what reason or with what object have you left us exposed to an unjust and hateful suspicion, and left the whole city desolate and plunged in the deepest grief?” He answered, “It pleased the gods, Proculus, that I should spend thus much time among mankind, and after founding a city of the greatest power and glory should return to heaven whence I came. Fare thee well; and tell the Romans that by courage and self-control they will attain to the highest pitch of human power. I will ever be for you the kindly deity Quirinus.”

This tale was believed by the Romans from the manner of Proculus in relating it and from his oath: indeed a religious feeling almost amounting to ecstasy seems to have taken hold of all present; for no one contradicted him, but all dismissed their suspicions entirely from their minds and prayed to Quirinus, worshipping him as a god.

This account resembles the Greek legends of Aristeas of Proconnesus, and that of Kleomedes of Astypalaea. The story goes that Aristeas died in a fuller’s shop, and that when his friends came to fetch his body it had disappeared; then some persons who had just returned from travel said that they had met Aristeas walking along the road to Kroton. Kleomedes, we are told, was a man of unusual size and strength, but stupid and half-crazy, who did many deeds of violence, and at last in a boy’s school struck and broke in two the column that supported the roof, and brought it down. As the boys were killed, Kleomedes, pursued by the people, got into a wooden chest, and shut down the lid, holding in inside so that many men together were not able to force it open. They broke open the chest, and found no man in it, dead or alive. Astonished at this, they sent an embassy to the oracle at Delphi, to whom the Pythia answered,

“Last of the heroes is Kleomedes of Astypalaea.”

And it also related that the corpse of Alkmena when it was being carried out for burial, disappeared, and a stone was found lying on the bier in its place. And many such stories are told, in which, contrary to reason, the earthly parts of our bodies are described as being deified together with the spiritual parts. It is wicked and base to deny that virtue is a spiritual quality, but again it is foolish to mix earthly with heavenly things.

We must admit, speaking with due caution, that, as Pindar has it, the bodies of all men follow overpowering Death, but there remains a living spirit, the image of eternity, for it alone comes from heaven. Thence it comes, and thither it returns again, not accompanied by the body, but only when it is most thoroughly separated and cleansed from it, and become pure and incorporeal. This is the pure spirit which Herakleitus calls the best, which darts through the body like lightning through a cloud, whereas that which is clogged by the body is like a dull, cloudy exhalation, hard to loose and free from the bonds of the body. There is no reason, therefore, for supposing that the bodies of good men rise up into heaven, which is contrary to nature; but we must believe that men’s virtues and their spirits most certainly, naturally and rightly proceed from mankind to the heroes, and from them to the genii, and from thence, if they be raised above and purified from all mortal and earthly taint, even as is done in the holy mysteries, then, not by any empty vote of the senate, but in very truth and likelihood they are received among the gods, and meet with the most blessed and glorious end.

XXIX

Some say that the name Quirinus, which Romulus received, means Mars; others that it was because his people were called Quirites. Others, again, say that the spear-head or spear was called by the ancients Quiris, and that the statue of Juno leaning on a spear is called Juno Quirites, and that the dart which is placed in the Regia is addressed as Mars, and that it is customary to present with a spear those who have distinguished themselves in war, and therefore that it was as a warrior, or god of war, that Romulus was called Quirinus. A temple dedicated to him is built on the Quirinal Hill which bears his name, and the day of his translation is called the People’s Flight, and the Nonae Caprotinae, because they go out of the city to the Goat’s Marsh on that day to sacrifice, for in Latin a goat is called Capra. And as they go to the sacrifice they call out many of the names of the country, as Marcus, Lucius, Caius, with loud shouts, in imitation of their panic on that occasion, and their calling to each other in fear and confusion. But some say that this is not an imitation of terror, but of eagerness, and that this is the reason of it: after the Gauls had captured Rome and been driven out by Camillus, and the city through weakness did not easily recover itself, an army of Latins, under one Livius Postumius, marched upon it. He halted his army not far from Rome, and sent a herald to say that the Latins were willing to renew their old domestic ties, which had fallen into disuse, and to unite the races by new intermarriage. If, therefore, the Romans would send out to them all their maidens and unmarried women, they would live with them on terms of peace and friendship, as the Romans had long before done with the Sabines. The Romans, when they heard this, were afraid of going to war, yet thought that the surrender of their women was no better than captivity. While they were in perplexity, a female slave named Philotis, or according to some Tutola, advised them to do neither, but by a stratagem to avoid both war and surrender of the women. This stratagem was that they should dress Philotis and the best looking of the other female slaves like free women, and send them to the enemy; then at night Philotis said she would raise a torch, and the Romans should come under arms and fall upon the sleeping enemy. This was done, and terms were made with the Latins. Philotis raised the torch upon a certain fig-tree with leaves which spread all round and behind, in such a manner that the light could not be seen by the enemy, but was clearly seen by the Romans. When they saw it, they immediately rushed out, calling frequently for each other at the various gates in their eagerness. As they fell unexpectedly upon the enemy, they routed them, and keep the day as a feast. Therefore the Nones are called Caprotinae because of the fig-tree, which the Romans call caprificus, and the women are feasted out of doors, under the shade of fig-tree boughs. And the female slaves assemble and play, and afterwards beat and throw stones at each other, as they did then, when they helped the Romans to fight. These accounts are admitted by but few historians, and indeed the calling out one another’s names in the daytime, and walking down to the Goats’ Marsh seems more applicable to the former story, unless, indeed, both of these events happened on the same day.

Romulus is said to have been fifty-four years old, and to be in the thirty-eighth year of his reign when he disappeared from the world.

COMPARISON OF
THESEUS AND ROMULUS.

I

The above are all the noteworthy particulars which we have been able to collect about Theseus and Romulus. It seems, in the first place, that Theseus of his own free will, and without any compulsion, when he might have reigned peacefully in Troezen, where he was heir to the kingdom, no mean one, longed to accomplish heroic deeds: whereas Romulus was an exile, and in the position of a slave; the fear of death was hanging over him if unsuccessful, and so, as Plato says, he was made brave by sheer terror, and through fear of suffering death and torture was forced into doing great exploits. Moreover, Romulus’s greatest achievement was the slaying of one man, the despot of Alba, whereas Skeiron, Sinis, Prokrustes, and Korynetes were merely the accompaniments and prelude to the greater actions of Theseus, and by slaying them he freed Greece from terrible scourges, before those whom he saved even knew who he was. He also might have sailed peacefully over the sea to Athens, and had no trouble with those brigands, whereas Romulus could not be free from trouble while Amulius lived. And it is a great argument in favour of Theseus that he attacked those wicked men for the sake of others, having himself suffered no wrong at their hands; whereas the twins were unconcerned at Amulius’s tyranny so long as it did not affect themselves. And although it may have been a great exploit to receive a wound in fighting the Sabines, and to slay Acron, and to kill many enemies in battle, yet we may compare with these, on Theseus’s behalf, his battle with the Centaurs and his campaign against the Amazons. As for the courage which Theseus showed in the matter of the Cretan tribute, when he voluntarily sailed to Crete with the youths and maidens, whether the penalty was to be given to the Minotaur to eat, or be sacrificed at the tomb of Androgeus, or even to be cast into dishonoured slavery under an insolent enemy, which is the least miserable fate mentioned by any writer, what a strength of mind, what public spirit and love of fame it shows! In this instance it seems to me that philosophers have truly defined love as a “service designed by the gods for the care and preservation of the young.” For the love of Ariadne seems to have been specially intended by Heaven to save Theseus; nor need we blame her for her passion, but rather wonder that all men and women did not share it. If she alone felt it, then I say she deserved the love of a god, because of her zeal for all that is best and noblest.

II

Both were born statesmen, yet neither behaved himself as a king should do, but, from similar motives, the one erred on the side of democracy, the other on that of despotism. The first duty of a king is to preserve his crown; and this can be effected as well by refraining from improperly extending his rights as by too great eagerness to keep them. For he who either gives up or overstrains his prerogative ceases to be a king or constitutional ruler, but becomes either a despot or demagogue; and in the one case is feared, in the other despised by his subjects. Still the one is the result of kindliness of disposition, and the other that of selfishness and ferocity.

III

If we are not to attribute their misfortunes to chance, but to peculiarities of disposition, then we cannot acquit Romulus of blame in his treatment of his brother, nor Theseus in that of his son; but the greatest excuse must be made for the one who acted under the greatest provocation. One would not have thought that Romulus would have flown into such a passion during a grave deliberation on matters of state; while Theseus was misled, in his treatment of his son, by love and jealousy and a woman’s slander, influences which few men are able to withstand. And what is more, Romulus’s fury resulted in actual deeds of unfortunate result; whereas the anger of Theseus spent itself in words and an old man’s curses, and the youth seems to have owed the rest of his suffering to chance; so here, at any rate, one would give one’s vote for Theseus.

IV

Romulus, however, has the credit of having started with the most slender resources, and yet of having succeeded. The twins were called slaves and the sons of a swineherd before they achieved their liberty; yet they freed nearly all the Latin race, and at one and the same time gained those titles which are the most glorious among men, of slayers of their enemies, preservers of their own house, kings of their own nation, and founders of a new city, not by transferring the population of old ones, as Theseus did, when he brought together many towns into one, and destroyed many cities that bore the names of kings and heroes of old. Romulus did this afterwards, when he compelled his conquered enemies to cast down and obliterate their own dwellings, and become fellow-citizens with their conquerors; yet at first he did not change the site of his city nor increase it, but starting with nothing to help him, he obtained for himself territory, patrimony, sovereignty, family, marriage, and relatives, and he killed no one, but conferred great benefits on those who, instead of homeless vagrants, wished to become a people and inhabitants of a city. He slew no brigands or robbers, but he conquered kingdoms, took cities, and triumphed over kings and princes.

V

As for the misfortune of Remus, it seems doubtful whether Romulus slew him with his own hand, as most writers attribute the act to others. He certainly rescued his mother from death, and gloriously replaced his grandfather, whom he found in an ignoble and servile position, on the throne of Aeneas. He did him many kindnesses, and never harmed him even against his will. But I can scarcely imagine that Theseus’s forgetfulness and carelessness in hoisting the black sail can, by any excuses or before the mildest judges, come much short of parricide: indeed, an Athenian, seeing how hard it is even for his admirers to exculpate him, has made up a story that Aegeus, when the ship was approaching, hurriedly ran up to the acropolis to view it, and fell down, as though he were unattended, or would hurry along the road to the shore without servants.

VI

The crimes of Theseus in carrying off women are without any decent excuse; first, because he did it so often, for he carried off Ariadne and Antiope and Anaxo of Troezen, and above all when he was an old man he carried off Helen, when she was not yet grown up, and a mere child, though he was past the age for even legitimate marriage. Besides, there was no reason for it, for these Troezenian, Laconian, and Amazonian maidens, besides their not being betrothed to him, were no worthier mothers for his children than the Athenian daughters of Erechtheus and Kekrops would have been, so we must suspect that these acts were done out of mere riotous wantonness.

Now Romulus, though he carried off nearly eight hundred women, yet kept only one, Hersilia, for himself, and distributed the others among the unmarried citizens; and afterwards, by the respect, love, and justice with which he treated them, proved that his wrongful violence was the most admirable and politic contrivance for effecting the union of the two nations. By means of it he welded them into one, and made it the starting-point of harmony at home and strength abroad. The dignity, love, and permanence with which he invested the institution of marriage is proved by the fact that during two hundred and thirty years no man separated from his wife or woman from her husband; but, just as in Greece, very exact persons can mention the first instance of parricide or matricide, so all the Romans know that Spurius Carvilius was the first who put away his wife, upon a charge of barrenness. Events also testify to the superior wisdom of Romulus, for, in consequence of that intermarriage, the two kings and the two races shared the empire, whereas, from the marriage of Theseus, the Athenians obtained no alliance or intercourse with any nation, but only hatreds and wars and deaths of citizens and at last the destruction of Aphidnae, and they themselves escaped from the fate which Paris brought upon Troy, only by the mercy of their enemies and their own entreaties and supplications. The mother of Theseus, not nearly but quite, suffered the fate of Hekuba, who was abandoned and given up by her son, unless the story of her captivity is false, as I hope it is, together with much of the rest.

Also the religious part of their histories makes a great distinction between them. For Romulus’s success was due to the great favour of Heaven, whereas the oracle given to Aegeus, to refrain from all women in foreign parts, seems to argue that the birth of Theseus took place contrary to the will of the gods.

LIFE OF
LYKURGUS.

I

With regard to Lykurgus the lawgiver there is nothing whatever that is undisputed; as his birth, his travels, his death, and, besides all this, his legislation, have all been related in various ways; and also the dates of his birth do not in any way accord. Some say that he was contemporary with Iphitus, and with him settled the conditions of the Olympic truce; and among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who adduces as a proof of it the quoit which is at Olympia, on which the name of Lykurgus is still preserved. Others, among them Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, by computing the reigns of the kings of Sparta,1 prove that he must have lived many years before the first Olympiad. Timaeus conjectures that there were two men of the name of Lykurgus in Sparta at different times, and that the deeds of both are attributed to one of them, on account of his celebrity. The elder, he thinks, must have lived not far off the time of Homer; indeed some say that he came into the presence of Homer. Xenophon gives an idea of his antiquity when he speaks of him as living in the time of the Herakleidae. By descent of course the last kings of Sparta are Herakleidae, but he appears to mean by Herakleidae the earliest of all, who were next to Herakles himself.

However, in spite of these discrepancies, we will endeavour, by following the least inconsistent accounts and the best known authorities, to write the history of his life. Simonides the poet tells us that the father of Lykurgus was not Eunomus, but Prytanis. But most writers do not deduce his genealogy thus, but say that Soüs was the son of Prokles, and grandson of Aristodemus, and that Soüs begat Euripus; Euripus, Prytanis, and Prytanis, Eunomus. Eunomus had two sons, Polydektes by his first wife, and Lykurgus by his second wife Dionassa, which makes him, according to Dieutychides, sixth in descent from Prokles, and eleventh from Herakles.

II

The most remarkable of his ancestors was Soüs, in whose reign the Spartans enslaved the Helots, and annexed a large portion of Arcadia. It is said that Soüs once was besieged by the Kleitorians, in a fort where there was no water, and was compelled to conclude a treaty to restore the territory in dispute, if he and his men were permitted to drink at the nearest spring. After this had been agreed upon, he called his men together, and offered his kingdom to any one who could refrain from drinking. But as no one could do this, but all drank, last of all he himself came down to the spring, and in the presence of the enemy merely sprinkled his face with the water, and marched off, refusing to restore the disputed territory, on the ground that all did not drink. But though he gained great fame by this, yet it was not he but his son Eurypon who gave the name of Eurypontidae to the family, because Eurypon was the first to relax the despotic traditions of his family and render his government more popular with the people. But as a consequence of this the people were encouraged to demand more freedom, and great confusion and lawlessness prevailed in Sparta for a long time, because some of the kings opposed the people and so became odious, while others were found to yield to them, either to preserve their popularity, or from sheer weakness of character. It was during this period of disorder that the father of Lykurgus lost his life. He was endeavouring to part two men who were quarrelling, and was killed by a blow from a cook’s chopper, leaving the kingdom to his elder son Polydektes.

III

He also died after a short time, and, as all thought, Lykurgus ought to have been the next king. And he did indeed reign until his brother’s wife was found to be pregnant; but as soon as he heard this, he surrendered the crown to the child, if it should be a boy, and merely administered the kingdom as guardian for the child. The Lacedaemonian name for the guardian of a royal orphan is prodikus. Now the queen made a secret proposal to him, that she should destroy her infant and that they should live together as king and queen. Though disgusted at her wickedness, he did not reject the proposal, but pretended to approve of it. He said that she must not risk her life and injure her health by procuring abortion, but that he would undertake to do away with the child. Thus he deluded her until her confinement, at which time he sent officials and guards into her chamber with orders to hand the child over to the women if it was a girl, and to bring it to him, whatever he might be doing, if it was a boy. He happened to be dining with the archons when a male child was born, and the servants brought it to him. He is said to have taken the child and said to those present, “A king is born to you, O Spartans,” and to have laid him down in the royal seat and named him Charilaus, because all men were full of joy admiring his spirit and justice. He was king for eight months in all; and was much looked up to by the citizens, who rendered a willing obedience to him, rather because of his eminent virtues than because he was regent with royal powers. There was, nevertheless, a faction which grudged him his elevation, and tried to oppose him, as he was a young man.

They consisted chiefly of the relatives and friends of the queen-mother, who considered that she had been insultingly treated, and her brother Leonidas once went so far in his abusive language as to hint to Lykurgus that he knew that he meant to be king, throwing the suspicion upon Lykurgus, if anything should happen to the child, that he would be supposed to have managed it. This sort of language was used by the queen-mother also, and he, grieved and alarmed, decided to avoid all suspicion by leaving the country and travelling until his nephew should be grown up and have an heir born to succeed him.

IV

With this intention he set sail, and first came to Crete, where he studied the constitution and mixed with the leading statesmen. Some part of their laws he approved and made himself master of, with the intention of adopting them on his return home, while with others he was dissatisfied. One of the men who had a reputation there for learning and state-craft he made his friend, and induced him to go to Sparta. This was Thales, who was thought to be merely a lyric poet, and who used this art to conceal his graver acquirements, being in reality deeply versed in legislation. His poems were exhortations to unity and concord in verse, breathing a spirit of calm and order, which insensibly civilised their hearers and by urging them to the pursuit of honourable objects led them to lay aside the feelings of party strife so prevalent in Sparta; so that he may be said in some degree to have educated the people and prepared them to receive the reforms of Lykurgus.

From Crete Lykurgus sailed to Asia Minor, wishing, it is said, to contrast the thrifty and austere mode of life of the Cretans with the extravagance and luxury of the Ionians, as a physician compares healthy and diseased bodies, and to note the points of difference in the two states. There, it seems, he first met with the poems of Homer, which were preserved by the descendants of Kreophylus, and observing that they were no less useful for politics and education than for relaxation and pleasure, he eagerly copied and compiled them, with the intention of bringing them home with him. There was already some dim idea of the existence of these poems among the Greeks, but few possessed any portions of them, as they were scattered in fragments, but Lykurgus first made them known. The Egyptians suppose that Lykurgus visited them also, and that he especially admired their institution of a separate caste of warriors. This he transferred to Sparta, and, by excluding working men and the lower classes from the government, made the city a city indeed, pure from all admixture. Some Greek writers corroborate the Egyptians in this, but as to Lykurgus having visited Libya and Iberia, or his journey to India and meeting with the Gymnosophists, or naked philosophers, there, no one that we know of tells this except the Spartan Aristokrates, the son of Hipparchus.

V

During Lykurgus’s absence the Lacedaemonians regretted him and sent many embassies to ask him to return, telling him that their kings had indeed the royal name and state, but nothing else to distinguish them from the common people, and that he alone had the spirit of a ruler and the power to influence men’s minds. Even the kings desired his presence, as they hoped that he would assist in establishing their authority and would render the masses less insolent. Returning to a people in this condition, he at once began alterations and reforms on a sweeping scale, considering that it was useless and unprofitable to do such work by halves, but that, as in the case of a diseased body, the original cause of the disorder must be burned out or purged away, and the patient begin an entirely new life. After reflecting on this, he made a journey to Delphi. Here he sacrificed to the god, and, on consulting the oracle, received that celebrated answer in which the Pythia speaks of him as beloved by the gods, and a god rather than a man, and when he asked for a good system of laws, answered that the god gives him what will prove by far the best of all constitutions. Elated by this he collected the leading men and begged them to help him, first by talking privately to his own friends, and thus little by little obtaining a hold over more men and banding them together for the work. When the time was ripe for the attempt, he bade thirty of the nobles go into the market-place early in the morning completely armed, in order to overawe the opposition. The names of twenty of the most distinguished of these men have been preserved by Hermippus, but the man who took the greatest part in all Lykurgus’s works, and who helped him in establishing his laws, was Arthmiades. At first King Charilaus was terrified at the confusion, imagining that a revolt had broken out against himself, and fled for refuge to the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House; but, afterward reassured and having received solemn pledges for his safety, returned and took part in their proceedings. He was of a gentle nature, as is proved by the words of his colleague, King Archelaus, who, when some were praising the youth, said, “How can Charilaus be a good man, if he is not harsh even to wicked men?”

Of Lykurgus’s many reforms, the first and most important was the establishment of the Council of Elders, which Plato says by its admixture cooled the high fever of royalty, and, having an equal vote with the kings on vital points, gave caution and sobriety to their deliberations. For the state, which had hitherto been wildly oscillating between despotism on the one hand and democracy on the other, now, by the establishment of the Council of the Elders, found a firm footing between these extremes, and was able to preserve a most equable balance, as the eight-and-twenty elders would lend the kings their support in the suppression of democracy, but would use the people to suppress any tendency to despotism. Twenty-eight is the number of Elders mentioned by Aristotle, because of the thirty leading men who took the part of Lykurgus two deserted their post through fear. But Sphairus says that those who shared his opinions were twenty-eight originally. A reason may be found in twenty-eight being a mystic number, formed by seven multiplied by four, and being the first perfect number after six, for like that, it is equal to all its parts.2 But I think that he probably made this number of elders, in order that with the two kings the council might consist of thirty members in all.

VI

Lykurgus was so much interested in this council as to obtain from Delphi an oracle about it, called the rhetra, which runs as follows: “After you have built a temple to Zeus of Greece and Athene of Greece, and have divided the people into tribes and obes, you shall found a council of thirty, including the chiefs, and shall from season to season apellazein the people between Babyka and Knakion, and there propound measures and divide upon them, and the people shall have the casting vote and final decision.” In these words tribes and obes are divisions into which the people were to be divided; the chiefs mean the kings; apellazein means to call an assembly, in allusion to Apollo, to whom the whole scheme of the constitution is referred. Babyka and Knakion they now call Oinous; but Aristotle says that Knakion is a river and Babyka a bridge. Between these they held their assemblies, without any roof or building of any kind; for Lykurgus did not consider that deliberations were assisted by architecture, but rather hindered, as men’s heads were thereby filled with vain unprofitable fancies, when they assemble for debate in places where they can see statues and paintings, or the proscenium of a theatre, or the richly ornamented roof of a council chamber. When the people were assembled, he permitted no one to express an opinion; but the people was empowered to decide upon motions brought forward by the kings and elders. But in later times, as the people made additions and omissions, and so altered the sense of the motions before them, the kings, Polydorus and Theopompus, added these words to the rhetra, “and if the people shall decide crookedly, the chiefs and elders shall set it right.” That is, they made the people no longer supreme, but practically excluded them from any voice in public affairs, on the ground that they judged wrongly. However these kings persuaded the city that this also was ordained by the god. This is mentioned by Tyrtaeus in the following verses:

“They heard the god, and brought from Delphi home,

Apollo’s oracle, which thus did say:

That over all within fair Sparta’s realm

The royal chiefs in council should bear sway,

The elders next to them, the people last;

If they the holy rhetra would obey.”

VII

Though Lykurgus had thus mixed the several powers of the state, yet his successors, seeing that the powers of the oligarchy were unimpaired, and that it was, as Plato calls it, full of life and vigour, placed as a curb to it the power of the Ephors. The first Ephors, of whom Elatus was one, were elected about a hundred and thirty years after Lykurgus, in the reign of Theopompus. This king is said to have been blamed by his wife because he would transmit to his children a less valuable crown than he had received, to which he answered: “Nay, more valuable, because more lasting.” In truth, by losing the odium of absolute power, the King of Sparta escaped all danger of being dethroned, as those of Argos and Messene were by their subjects, because they would abate nothing of their despotic power. The wisdom of Lykurgus became clearly manifest to those who witnessed the revolutions and miseries of the Argives and Messenians, who were neighbouring states and of the same race as the Spartans, who, originally starting on equal terms with them, and indeed seeming in the allotment of their territories to have some advantage, yet did not long live happily, but the insolent pride of the kings and the unruly temper of the people together resulted in a revolution, which clearly proved that the checked and balanced constitution established among the Spartans was a divine blessing for them. But of this more hereafter.

VIII

The second and the boldest of Lykurgus’s reforms was the redistribution of the land. Great inequalities existed, many poor and needy people had become a burden to the state, while wealth had got into a very few hands. Lykurgus abolished all the mass of pride, envy, crime, and luxury which flowed from those old and more terrible evils of riches and poverty, by inducing all land-owners to offer their estates for redistribution, and prevailing upon them to live on equal terms one with another, and with equal incomes, striving only to surpass each other in courage and virtue, there being henceforth no social inequalities among them except such as praise or blame can create.

Putting his proposals immediately into practice, he divided the outlying lands of the state among the Perioeki, in thirty thousand lots, and that immediately adjoining the metropolis among the native Spartans, in nine thousand lots, for to that number they then amounted. Some say that Lykurgus made six thousand lots, and that Polydorus added three thousand afterwards; others that he added half the nine thousand, and that only half was allotted by Lykurgus.

Each man’s lot was of such a size as to supply a man with seventy medimni of barley, and his wife with twelve, and oil and wine in proportion; for thus much he thought ought to suffice them, as the food was enough to maintain them in health, and they wanted nothing more. It is said that, some years afterwards, as he was returning from a journey through the country at harvest-time, when he saw the sheaves of corn lying in equal parallel rows, he smiled, and said to his companions that all Laconia seemed as if it had just been divided among so many brothers.

IX

He desired to distribute furniture also, in order completely to do away with inequality; but, seeing that actually to take away these things would be a most unpopular measure, he managed by a different method to put an end to all ostentation in these matters. First of all he abolished the use of gold and silver money, and made iron money alone legal; and this he made of great size and weight, and small value, so that the equivalent for ten minae required a great room for its stowage, and a yoke of oxen to draw it. As soon as this was established, many sorts of crime became unknown in Lacedaemon. For who would steal or take as a bribe or deny that he possessed or take by force a mass of iron which he could not conceal, which no one envied him for possessing, which he could not even break up and so make use of; for the iron when hot was, it is said, quenched in vinegar, so as to make it useless, by rendering it brittle and hard to work?

After this, he ordered a general expulsion of the workers in useless trades. Indeed, without this, most of them must have left the country when the ordinary currency came to an end, as they would not be able to sell their wares: for the iron money was not current among other Greeks, and had no value, being regarded as ridiculous; so that it could not be used for the purchase of foreign trumpery, and no cargo was shipped for a Laconian port, and there came into the country no sophists, no vagabond soothsayers, no panders, no goldsmiths or workers in silver plate, because there was no money to pay them with. Luxury, thus cut off from all encouragement, gradually became extinct; and the rich were on the same footing with other people, as they could find no means of display, but were forced to keep their money idle at home. For this reason such things as are useful and necessary, like couches and tables and chairs, were made there better than anywhere else, and the Laconian cup, we are told by Kritias, was especially valued for its use in the field. Its colour prevented the drinker being disgusted by the look of the dirty water which it is sometimes necessary to drink, and it was contrived that the dirt was deposited inside the cup and stuck to the bottom, so as to make the drink cleaner than it would otherwise have been. These things were due to the lawgiver; for the workmen, who were not allowed to make useless things, devoted their best workmanship to useful ones.

X

Wishing still further to put down luxury and take away the desire for riches, he introduced the third and the most admirable of his reforms, that of the common dining-table. At this the people were to meet and dine together upon a fixed allowance of food, and not to live in their own homes, lolling on expensive couches at rich tables, fattened like beasts in private by the hands of servants and cooks, and undermining their health by indulgence to excess in every bodily desire, long sleep, warm baths, and much repose, so that they required a sort of daily nursing like sick people. This was a great advantage, but it was a greater to render wealth valueless, and, as Theophrastus says, to neutralise it by their common dining-table and the simplicity of their habits. Wealth could not be used, nor enjoyed, nor indeed displayed at all in costly apparatus, when the poor man dined at the same table with the rich; so that the well-known saying, that “wealth is blind and lies like a senseless log,” was seen to be true in Sparta alone of all cities under heaven. Men were not even allowed to dine previously at home, and then come to the public table, but the others, watching him who did not eat or drink with them, would reproach him as a sensual person, too effeminate to eat the rough common fare.

For these reasons it is said that the rich were bitterly opposed to Lykurgus on this question, and that they caused a tumult and attacked him with shouts of rage. Pelted with stones from many hands, he was forced to run out of the market-place, and take sanctuary in a temple. He outstripped all his pursuers except one, a hot-tempered and spirited youth named Alkander, who came up with him, and striking him with a club as he turned round, knocked out his eye. Lykurgus paid no heed to the pain, but stood facing the citizens and showed them his face streaming with blood, and his eye destroyed. All who saw him were filled with shame and remorse. They gave up Alkander to his mercy, and conducted him in procession to his own house, to show their sympathy. Lykurgus thanked them and dismissed them, but took Alkander home with him. He did him no harm and used no reproachful words, but sent away all his servants and bade him serve him. Alkander, being of a generous nature, did as he was ordered, and, dwelling as he did with Lykurgus, watching his kind unruffled temper, his severe simplicity of life, and his unwearied labours, he became enthusiastic in his admiration of him, and used to tell his friends and acquaintances that Lykurgus, far from being harsh or overbearing, was the kindest and gentlest of men. Thus was Alkander tamed and subdued, so that he who had been a wicked and insolent youth was made into a modest and prudent man.

As a memorial of his misfortune, Lykurgus built the temple of Athene, whom he called Optilitis, for the Dorians in that country call the eyes optiloi. Some writers, however, among whom is Dioskorides, who wrote an ‘Account of the Spartan Constitution,’ say that Lykurgus was struck upon the eye, but not blinded, and that he built this temple as a thank-offering to the goddess for his recovery.

At any rate, it was in consequence of his mishap that the Spartans discontinued the habit of carrying staffs when they met in council.

XI

The Cretans call this institution of taking meals in common andreia, which means men’s repast; but the Lacedaemonians call it phiditia, which can either be explained as another form of philia, friendship, putting a d for an l, from the friendly feelings which prevailed at them, or else because it accustomed them to frugality, which is called pheido. Possibly the first letter was an addition, and the word may have originally been editia, from edodé, food.

They formed themselves into messes of fifteen, more or less. Each member contributed per month a medimnus of barley, eight measures of wine, five minas’ weight of cheese, and half as much of figs; and in addition to this a very small sum of money to buy fish and other luxuries for a relish to the bread. This was all, except when a man had offered a sacrifice, or been hunting, and sent a portion to the public table. For persons were allowed to dine at home whenever they were late for dinner in consequence of a sacrifice or a hunting expedition, but the rest of the company had to be present. This custom of eating in common lasted for very many years. When King Agis returned from his victorious campaign against the Athenians, and wished to dine at home with his wife, he sent for his share of the public dinner, and the polemarchs refused to let him have it. As next day, through anger, he did not offer the customary sacrifice, they fined him. Boys were taken to the public tables, as though they were schools of good manners; and there they listened to discourses on politics, and saw models of gentlemanly behaviour, and learned how to jest with one another, joking without vulgarity, and being made the subjects of jokes without losing their temper. Indeed, it was considered peculiarly Laconian to be able to take a joke; however, if the victim could not, he was entitled to ask that it should go no farther. As they came in, the eldest present said to each man, pointing to the door, “Through this no tale passes.”

It is said that they voted for a new member of a mess in this manner. Each man took a piece of bread crumb and threw it in silence into a vessel, which a servant carried on his head. Those who voted for the new member threw in their bread as it was, those who voted against, crushed it flat in their hands. If even one of these crushed pieces be found, they rejected the candidate, as they wished all members of the society to be friendly. The candidate was said to be rejected by the kaddichus, which is their name for the bowl into which the bread is thrown.

The “black broth” was the most esteemed of their luxuries, insomuch that the elder men did not care for any meat, but always handed it over to the young, and regaled themselves on this broth. It is related that, in consequence of the celebrity of this broth, one of the kings of Pontus obtained a Laconian cook, but when he tasted it he did not like it. His cook thereupon said, “O king, those who eat this broth must first bathe in the Eurotas.” After drinking wine in moderation the guests separate, without any torches; for it is not permitted to walk with a light on this or any other occasion, in order that they may accustom themselves to walk fearlessly and safely in the dark. This then is the way in which the common dining-tables are managed.

XII

Lykurgus did not establish any written laws; indeed, this is distinctly forbidden by one of the so-called Rhetras.

He thought that the principles of most importance for the prosperity and honour of the state would remain most securely fixed if implanted in the citizens by habit and training, as they would then be followed from choice rather than necessity; for his method of education made each of them into a lawgiver like himself. The trifling conventions of everyday life were best left undefined by hard-and-fast laws, so that they might from time to time receive corrections or additions from men educated in the spirit of the Lacedaemonian system. On this education the whole scheme of Lykurgus’s laws depended. One rhetra, as we have seen, forbade the use of written laws. Another was directed against expenditure, and ordered that the roof of every house should consist of beams worked with the axe, and that the doors should be worked with the saw alone, and with no other tools. Lykurgus was the first to perceive the truth which Epameinondas is said in later times to have uttered about his own table, when he said that “such a dinner has no room for treachery.” He saw that such a house as that has no place for luxury and expense, and that there is no man so silly and tasteless as to bring couches with silver feet, purple hangings, or golden goblets into a simple peasant’s house, but that he would be forced to make his furniture match the house, and his clothes match his furniture, and so on. In consequence of this it is said that the elder Leotychides when dining in Corinth, after looking at a costly panelled ceiling, asked his host whether the trees grew square in that country. A third rhetra of Lykurgus is mentioned, which forbids the Spartans to make war frequently with the same people, lest by constant practice they too should become warlike. And this especial accusation was subsequently brought against King Agesilaus in later times, that, by his frequent and long-continued invasions of Boeotia, he made the Thebans a match for the Lacedaemonians; for which cause Antalkidas, when he saw him wounded, said, “The Thebans pay you well for having taught them to fight, which they were neither willing nor able to do before.”

Maxims of this sort they call rhetras, which are supposed to have a divine origin and sanction.

XIII

Considering education to be the most important and the noblest work of a lawgiver, he began at the very beginning, and regulated marriages and the birth of children. It is not true that, as Aristotle says, he endeavoured to regulate the lives of the women, and failed, being foiled by the liberty and habits of command which they had acquired by the long absences of their husbands on military expeditions, during which they were necessarily left in sole charge at home, wherefore their husbands looked up to them more than was fitting, calling them Mistresses; but he made what regulations were necessary for them also. He strengthened the bodies of the girls by exercise in running, wrestling, and hurling quoits or javelins, in order that their children might spring from a healthy source and so grow up strong, and that they themselves might have strength, so as easily to endure the pains of childbirth. He did away with all affectation of seclusion and retirement among the women, and ordained that the girls, no less than the boys, should go naked in processions, and dance and sing at festivals in the presence of the young men. The jokes which they made upon each man were sometimes of great value as reproofs for ill-conduct; while, on the other hand, by reciting verses written in praise of the deserving, they kindled a wonderful emulation and thirst for distinction in the young men: for he who had been praised by the maidens for his valour went away congratulated by his friends; while, on the other hand, the raillery which they used in sport and jest had as keen an edge as a serious reproof; because the kings and elders were present at these festivals as well as all the other citizens. This nakedness of the maidens had in it nothing disgraceful, as it was done modestly, not licentiously, producing simplicity, and teaching the women to value good health, and to love honour and courage no less than the men. This it was that made them speak and think as we are told Gorgo, the wife of Leonidas, did. Some foreign lady, it seems, said to her, “You Laconian women are the only ones that rule men.” She answered, “Yes; for we alone bring forth men.”

XIV

These were also incentives to marriage, I mean these processions, and strippings, and exercises of the maidens in the sight of the young men, who, as Plato says, are more swayed by amorous than by mathematical considerations; moreover, he imposed certain penalties on the unmarried men. They were excluded from the festival of the Gymnopaedia, in honour of Athene; and the magistrates ordered them during winter to walk naked round the market-place, and while doing so to sing a song written against themselves, which said that they were rightly served for their disobedience to the laws; and also they were deprived of the respect and observance paid by the young to the elders.

Thus it happened that no one blamed the young man for not rising before Derkyllidas, famous general as he was. This youth kept his seat, saying, “You have not begotten a son to rise before me.”

Their marriage custom was for the husband to carry off his bride by force. They did not carry off little immature girls, but grown up women, who were ripe for marriage. After the bride had been carried off the bridesmaid received her, cut her hair close to her head, dressed her in a man’s cloak and shoes, and placed her upon a couch in a dark chamber alone. The bridegroom, without any feasting and revelry, but as sober as usual, after dining at his mess, comes into the room, looses her virgin zone, and, after passing a short time with her, retires to pass the night where he was wont, with the other young men. And thus he continued, passing his days with his companions, and visiting his wife by stealth, feeling ashamed and afraid that any one in the house should hear him, she on her part plotting and contriving occasions for meeting unobserved. This went on for a long time, so that some even had children born to them before they ever saw their wives by daylight. These connections not only exercised their powers of self-restraint, but also brought them together with their bodies in full vigour and their passions unblunted by unchecked intercourse with each other, so that their passion and love for each other’s society remained unextinguished.

Having thus honoured and dignified the married state, he destroyed the vain womanish passion of jealousy, for, while carefully avoiding any disorder or licentiousness, he nevertheless permitted men to associate worthy persons with them in the task of begetting children, and taught them to ridicule those who insisted on the exclusive possession of their wives, and who were ready to fight and kill people to maintain their right. It was permitted to an elderly husband, with a young wife, to associate with himself any well-born youth whom he might fancy, and to adopt the offspring as his own.

And again, it was allowable for a respectable man, if he felt any admiration for a virtuous mother of children, married to some one else, to induce her husband to permit him to have access to her, that he might as it were sow seed in a fertile field, and obtain a fine son from a healthy stock. Lykurgus did not view children as belonging to their parents, but above all to the state; and therefore he wished his citizens to be born of the best possible parents; besides the inconsistency and folly which he noticed in the customs of the rest of mankind, who are willing to pay money, or use their influence with the owners of well-bred stock, to obtain a good breed of horses or dogs, while they lock up their women in seclusion and permit them to have children by none but themselves, even though they be mad, decrepit, or diseased; just as if the good or bad qualities of children did not depend entirely upon their parents, and did not affect their parents more than any one else.

But although men lent their wives in order to produce healthy and useful citizens, yet this was so far from the licence which was said to prevail in later times with respect to women, that adultery was regarded amongst them as an impossible crime. A story is told of one Geradas, a very old Spartan, who, when asked by a stranger what was done to adulterers among them, answered, “Stranger, there are no adulterers with us.” “And if there were one?” asked the stranger. “Then,” said Geradas, “he would have to pay as compensation a bull big enough to stand on Mount Täygetus and drink from the river Eurotas.” The stranger, astonished, asked “Where can you find so big a bull?” “Where can you find an adulterer in Sparta?” answered Geradas. This is what is said about their marriage ceremonies.

XV

A father had not the right of bringing up his offspring, but had to carry it to a certain place called Lesché, where the elders of the tribe sat in judgment upon the child. If they thought it well-built and strong, they ordered the father to bring it up, and assigned one of the nine thousand plots of land to it; but if it was mean-looking or misshapen, they sent it away to the place called the Exposure, a glen upon the side of Mount Täygetus; for they considered that if a child did not start in possession of health and strength, it was better both for itself and for the state that he should not live at all. Wherefore the women used to wash their newborn infants with wine, not with water, to make trial of their constitution. It was thought that epileptic or diseased children shrank from the wine and fell into convulsions, while healthy ones were hardened and strengthened by it. A certain supervision was exercised over the nurses, making them bring up the children without swaddling clothes, so as to make their movements free and unconfined, and also to make them easily satisfied, not nice as to food, not afraid in the dark, not frightened at being alone, not peevish and fretful. For this reason, many foreigners used to obtain Lacedaemonian nurses for their children, and it is said that Amykla, the nurse of Alkibiades, was a Lacedaemonian. But Plato tells us that Perikles put him under the care of one Zopyrus, who was no better than the other slaves; whereas Lykurgus would not intrust the Spartan boys to any bought or hired servants, nor was each man allowed to bring up and educate his son as he chose, but as soon as they were seven years of age he himself received them from their parents, and enrolled them in companies. Here they lived and messed in common, and were associated for play and for work. However, a superintendent of the boys was appointed, one of the best born and bravest men of the state, and they themselves in their troops chose as leader him who was wisest, and fiercest in fight. They looked to him for orders, obeyed his commands, and endured his punishments, so that even in childhood they learned to obey. The elder men watched them at their play, and by instituting fights and trials of strength, carefully learned which was the bravest and most enduring. They learned their letters, because they are necessary, but all the rest of their education was meant to teach them to obey with cheerfulness, to endure labours, and to win battles. As they grew older their training became more severe; they were closely shorn, and taught to walk unshod and to play naked. They wore no tunic after their twelfth year, but received one garment for all the year round. They were necessarily dirty, as they had no warm baths and ointments, except on certain days, as a luxury. They slept all together in troops and companies, on beds of rushes which they themselves had picked on the banks of the Eurotas with their hands, for they were not allowed to use a knife. In winter they mixed the herb called lycophon with the rushes, as it is thought to possess some warmth.

XVI

At this age the elder men took even greater interest in them, frequenting the gymnasia where they were, and listening to their repartees with each other, and that not in a languid careless manner, but just as if each thought himself the father, instructor, and captain of them all.

Thus no time was left unemployed, and no place was left without some one to give good advice and punish wrong-doing; although a regular superintendent of the boys was appointed from the leading men of the city, and they had their own chiefs, who were the wisest and bravest of the Eirenes. This is a name given to those who have begun their second year after ceasing to be children, and the eldest of the children are called Melleirenes. This Eiren, who is twenty years old, commands his company in their battles, and in the house uses them as his servants to prepare dinner. He orders the bigger boys to carry logs of wood, and the little ones to gather pot herbs. They also bring him what they steal, which they do, some from the gardens, and some from the men’s dining-tables, where they rush in very cleverly and cautiously; for if one be taken, he is severely scourged for stealing carelessly and clumsily. They also steal what victuals they can, learning to take them from those who are asleep or off their guard. Whoever is caught is punished by stripes and starvation. Their meals are purposely made scanty, in order that they may exercise their ingenuity and daring in obtaining additions to them. This is the main object of their short commons, but an incidental advantage is the growth of their bodies, for they shoot up in height when not weighed down and made wide and broad by excess of nutriment. This also is thought to produce beauty of figure; for lean and slender frames develop vigour in the limbs, whereas those which are bloated and over-fed cannot attain this, from their weight. This we see in the case of women who take purgatives during pregnancy, whose children are thin, but well-shaped and slender, because from their slight build they receive more distinctly the impress of their mother’s form. However, it may be that the cause of this phenomenon is yet to be discovered.

XVII

The boys steal with such earnestness that there is a story of one who had taken a fox’s cub and hidden it under his cloak, and, though his entrails were being torn out by the claws and teeth of the beast, persevered in concealing it until he died. This may be believed from what the young men in Lacedaemon do now, for at the present day I have seen many of them perish under the scourge at the altar of Diana Orthias.

After dinner the Eiren would recline, and bid one of the boys sing, and ask another some questions which demand a thoughtful answer, such as “Who is the best among men?” or “How is such a thing done?” By this teaching they began even in infancy to be able to judge what is right, and to be interested in politics; for not to be able to answer the questions, “Who is a good citizen?” or “Who is a man of bad repute?” was thought to be the sign of a stupid and unaspiring mind. The boy’s answer was required to be well reasoned, and put into a small compass; he who answered wrongly was punished by having his thumb bitten by the Eiren. Often when elders and magistrates were present the Eiren would punish the boys; if only he showed that it was done deservedly and with method, he never was checked while punishing, but when the boys were gone, he was called to account if he had done so either too cruelly or too remissly.

The lovers of the boys also shared their honour or disgrace; it is said that once when a boy in a fight let fall an unmanly word, his lover was fined by the magistrates. Thus was love understood among them; for even fair and honourable matrons loved young maidens, but none expected their feelings to be returned. Rather did those who loved the same person make it a reason for friendship with each other, and vie with one another in trying to improve in every way the object of their love.

XVIII

The boys were taught to use a sarcastic yet graceful style of speaking, and to compress much thought into few words; for Lykurgus made the iron money have little value for its great size, but on the other hand he made their speech short and compact, but full of meaning, teaching the young, by long periods of silent listening, to speak sententiously and to the point. For those who allow themselves much licence in speech seldom say anything memorable. When some Athenian jeered at the small Laconian swords, and said that jugglers on the stage could easily swallow them, King Agis answered, “And yet with these little daggers we can generally reach our enemies.” I think that the Laconian speech, though it seems so short, yet shows a great grasp of the subject and has great power over the listeners. Lykurgus himself seems to have been short and sententious, to judge from what has been preserved of his sayings; as, for instance, that remark to one who proposed to establish a democracy in the state, “First establish a democracy in your own household.” And when he was asked why he ordained the sacrifices to be so small and cheap, he answered, “It is in order that we may never be forced to omit them.” So too in gymnastic exercises, he discouraged all those which are not performed with the hand closed.

The same class of answers are said to have been made by him to his fellow-countrymen in his letters. When they asked how they should keep off their enemies, he answered, “By remaining poor, and not each trying to be a greater man than the other.” Again, about walls, he said, “that cannot be called an open town which has courage, instead of brick walls to defend it.” As to the authenticity of these letters, it is hard to give an opinion.

XIX

—The following anecdotes show their dislike of long speeches. When some one was discoursing about matters useful in themselves at an unfitting time, King Leonidas said, “Stranger, you speak of what is wanted when it is not wanted.” Charilaus the cousin of Lykurgus, when asked why they had so few laws answered, that men of few words required few laws. And Archidamidas, when some blamed Hekataeus the Sophist for having said nothing during dinner, answered, “He who knows how to speak knows when to speak also.” The following are some of those sarcastic sayings which I before said are not ungrateful. Demaratus, when some worthless fellow pestered him with unreasonable queries, and several times inquired, “Who is the best man in Sparta?” answered, “He who is least like you.” When some were praising the magnificence and justice with which the Eleans conducted the Olympian games, Agis said, “What is there so very remarkable in the people of Elis acting justly on one day in every five years?”

A stranger was vaunting his admiration of them, and was saying that in his own city he was called a lover of Sparta. Theopompus observed, “It would be more to your credit to be called a lover of your own city.” Pleistoanax the son of Pausanias, when an Athenian orator reproached the Lacedaemonians for ignorance, observed, “What you say is quite true, for we are the only Greeks who have not learned some mischief from you.”

When a stranger asked Archidamidas how many Spartans there were, he answered, “Enough to keep off bad men.”

One may also discover their peculiarities in their jokes; for they are taught never to talk at random, nor to utter a syllable that does not contain some thought. As, when one of them was invited to hear a man imitate the nightingale, he answered, “I have heard the original;” and the man who read this epigram—

“These men, to quench a tyrant’s pride,

Before Selinus fought and died.”

“These men,” said he, “deserved to die; for, instead of quenching it, they should have let it burn itself out.” When a young man was promised a present of cocks that would fight till they died, he said, “I had rather have some that will fight and kill their foes.” This was the style of their talk; so that some have well said that philosophy is more truly Laconian than gymnastic exercises.

XX

—Their education in poetry and music was no less carefully watched over than their cleverness and purity of speech, but their songs were such as rouse men’s blood and stir them to deeds of prowess, written in plain unaffected language, upon noble and edifying subjects. For the most part they consisted of panegyrics upon those who had been happy enough to die for their country, reproaches of cowards for living a miserable life, and encouragement to bravery suitable to those of all ages. A good instance of this is that on festivals when there are three choruses, that of the old men first sang—

“We once were lusty youths and tall.”

Then that of the young men sang—

“We still are stout; come, try a fall,”

and the third, that of the children, rejoined—

“But we’ll be stronger than you all.”

Indeed, if one pays any attention to such Laconian poetry as is still extant, and to the march music which was played on the flutes when they were going to meet their enemies, it becomes clear that Terpander and Pindar were right in connecting poetry with bravery. The former speaks thus of the Lacedaemonians:

“Where the youths are bold with the spear,

And the voice of the muse is clear,

And justice to all is dear.”

And Pindar says of them—

“Where the old are wise in council,

And the young are brave in fight;

Where song and dance are honoured

On many a festal night.”

For they represent them as being most warlike and at the same time most poetical.

“The sword with song full well combines,”

as the Laconian poet says. Even in their battles the king first sacrificed to the Muses, to remind them, it would appear, of their education and their former contests, that they may be bold in danger, and do deeds worthy of record in the fight.

XXI

—In time of war, too, they relaxed their strict rules and allowed their young men to dress their hair and ornament their shields and costumes, taking a pride in them such as one does in high-mettled horses. For this reason, although they all let their hair grow long after the age of puberty, yet it was especially in time of danger that they took pains to have it smooth and evenly parted, remembering a saying of Lykurgus about the hair, that it made a well-looking man look handsomer, and an ugly man look more ferocious.

During a campaign they made the young men perform less severe gymnastic exercises, and allowed them to live a freer life in other respects, so that, for them alone of all mankind, war was felt as a relief from preparation for war. When their array was formed and the enemy were in sight, the king used to sacrifice a kid, and bid them all put on garlands, and the pipers to play the hymn to Kastor; then he himself began to sing the paean for the charge, so that it was a magnificent and terrible spectacle to see the men marching in time to the flutes, making no gap in their lines, with no thought of fear, but quietly and steadily moving to the sound of the music against the enemy. Such men were not likely to be either panic-stricken or over-confident, but had a cool and cheerful confidence, believing that the gods were with them.

With the king used to march into battle a Spartan who had won a crown in the public games of Greece. It is said that one of them was offered a mighty bribe at Olympia, but refused to take it, and with great trouble threw his adversary in the wrestling-match. Some one then asked him, “Laconian, what have you gained by your victory?” The man, smiling with delight, answered, “I shall fight in front of the king in the wars.” After they had routed their enemy and gained the victory, they were wont to pursue so far as to render their success secure, and then to draw off, as they did not think it manly or befitting a Greek to cut down and butcher those who could fight no longer.

This was not merely magnanimous, but very useful to them, for their enemies, knowing that they slew those who resisted, but spared those who gave way, often judged it better for themselves to flee than to stand their ground.

XXII

The sophist Hippias states that Lykurgus himself was a great warrior and took part in many campaigns; and Philostephanus even attributed to Lykurgus the division of the cavalry into the troops called oulamos. This, according to him, consisted of a troop of fifty horsemen drawn up in a square. Demetrius Phalereus, on the other hand, says that he had no experience in war, and arranged the whole constitution in time of peace. Moreover the institution of the Olympic truce seems to be the idea of a man of gentle and peaceful temperament, some however say, according to Hermippus, that Lykurgus had at first no communication with Iphitus, but happened to be present in the crowd; that he then heard a voice as it were of a man behind him blaming him and wondering why he did not encourage his fellow-citizens to take part in the festival. As, when he turned round, there was no one who could have said so, he concluded that it was a divine warning, and, at once joining Iphitus and assisting him in regulating the festival, he rendered it both more splendid and more lasting.

XXIII

The training of the Spartan youth continued till their manhood. No one was permitted to live according to his own pleasure, but they lived in the city as if in a camp, with a fixed diet and fixed public duties, thinking themselves to belong, not to themselves, but to their country. Those who had nothing else to do, either looked after the young, and taught them what was useful, or themselves learned such things from the old. For ample leisure was one of the blessings with which Lykurgus provided his countrymen, seeing that they were utterly forbidden to practise any mechanical art, while money-making and business were unnecessary, because wealth was disregarded and despised. The Helots tilled the ground, and produced the regular crops for them. Indeed, a Spartan who was at Athens while the courts were sitting, and who learned that some man had been fined for idleness, and was leaving the court in sorrow accompanied by his grieving friends, asked to be shown the man who had been punished for gentlemanly behaviour. So slavish did they deem it to labour at trade and business. In Sparta, as was natural, lawsuits became extinct, together with money, as the people had neither excess nor deficiency, but all were equally well off, and enjoyed abundant leisure by reason of their simple habits. All their time was spent in dances, feasting, hunting or gymnastic exercises and conversation, when they were not engaged in war.

XXIV

Those who were less than thirty years old never came into the market-place at all, but made their necessary purchases through their friends and relations. And it was thought discreditable to the older men to be seen there much, and not to spend the greater part of the day in the gymnasium and the lesches or places for conversation. In these they used to collect together and pass their leisure time, making no allusions to business or the affairs of commerce, but their chief study being to praise what was honourable, and contemn what was base in a light satiric vein of talk which was instructive and edifying to the hearers. Nor was Lykurgus himself a man of unmixed austerity: indeed, he is said by Sosibius to have set up the little statue of the god of laughter, and introduced merriment at proper times to enliven their wine-parties and other gatherings. In a word, he trained his countrymen neither to wish nor to understand how to live as private men, but, like bees, to be parts of the commonwealth, and gather round their chief, forgetting themselves in their enthusiastic patriotism, and utterly devoted to their country. This temper of theirs we can discern in many of their sayings. Paidaretus, when not elected into the three hundred, went away rejoicing that the city possessed three hundred better men than himself. Polykratidas, when he went with some others on a mission to the generals of the great king, was asked by them, if he and his party came as private persons or as ambassadors? He answered, “As ambassadors, if we succeed; as private men, if we fail.”

And when some citizens of Amphipolis came to Lacedaemon, and went to see the mother of Brasidas, Argileonis, she asked them whether Brasidas died bravely and worthily of Sparta. When they praised him to excess, and said that he had not left his like behind, she said, “Say not so, strangers; Brasidas was a noble and a gallant man, but Sparta has many better than he.”

XXV

Lykurgus himself composed his senate, as we have seen, of the persons who took part in his plot; and in future be ordained that vacancies should be filled up by those men, upwards of sixty years of age, who were adjudged to be the most worthy.

This seemed the greatest prize in the world, and also the most difficult to obtain; for it was not merely that a man should be adjudged swiftest of the swift, or strongest of the strong, but he had to be chosen as the best and wisest of all good and wise men, and, as a prize, was to obtain power to regulate the morals of the state, as he was intrusted with powers of life and death, and disfranchisement, and with all the highest penalties.

The elections took place as follows: The citizens were all assembled, and certain men were placed in a building close by, where they could neither see nor be seen, but merely hear the shouts of the general assembly. They decided these, as indeed they did other contests, by shouts of approval, not of all at once, but lots were cast, and each candidate in the order denoted by his lot came forward and silently walked through the assembly. The men locked up in the building had writing materials, and noted down who was cheered most loudly, not knowing who each man was, beyond that he was first, second, third, and so on, of the candidates. They then told the number of the man for whom there had been most voices, and he crowned himself with a garland and offered sacrifice to the gods, followed by many of the young men, who congratulated him, and by many women, who sang songs praising his virtues and his felicity. As he went from one temple to another, each of his relatives used to offer him food, saying, “The state honours you with this banquet.” But he would pass by them all, and go to his usual mess-table. Here nothing uncommon took place, except that he was given a second ration, which he took away with him; and after dinner, the women of his own family being at the doors of the mess-room, he would call for the one whom he wished to honour, and give her his portion, saying that he had received it as a prize, and gave it to her as such. This caused her to be greatly envied by the other women.

XXVI

—Moreover, he made excellent regulations about funerals. In the first place, he abolished all silly superstition, and raised no objections to burial in the city, and to placing tombs near the temples, in order to accustom the young to such sights from their infancy, so that they might not feel any horror of death, or have any notion about being defiled by touching a dead body, or walking among tombs. Next, he permitted nothing to be buried with the dead, but they placed the body in the grave, wrapped in a purple cloth and covered with olive-leaves. It was not permitted to inscribe the name of the deceased upon his tomb, except in the case of men who had fallen in war, or of women who had been priestesses. A short time was fixed for mourning, eleven days; on the twelfth they were to sacrifice to Demeter (Ceres) and cease from their grief. For, in Sparta, nothing was left without regulation, but, with all the necessary acts of life, Lykurgus mingled some ceremony which might enkindle virtue or discourage vice; indeed he filled his city with examples of this kind, by which the citizens were insensibly moulded and impelled towards honourable pursuits. For this reason he would not allow citizens to leave the country at pleasure, and to wander in foreign lands, where they would contract outlandish habits, and learn to imitate the untrained lives and ill-regulated institutions to be found abroad. Also, he banished from Lacedaemon all strangers who were there for no useful purpose; not, as Thucydides says, because he feared they might imitate his constitution, and learn something serviceable for the improvement of their own countries, but rather for fear that they might teach the people some mischief. Strangers introduce strange ideas; and these lead to discussions of an unsuitable character, and political views which would jar with the established constitution, like a discord in music. Wherefore he thought that it was more important to keep out evil habits than even to keep the plague from coming into the city.

XXVII

In all these acts of Lykurgus, we cannot find any traces of the injustice and unfairness which some complain of in his laws, which they say are excellent to produce courage, but less so for justice. And the institution called Krypteia, if indeed it is one of the laws of Lykurgus, as Aristotle tells us, would agree with the idea which Plato conceived about him and his system. The Krypteia was this: the leaders of the young men used at intervals to send the most discreet of them into different parts of the country, equipped with daggers and necessary food; in the daytime these men used to conceal themselves in unfrequented spots, and take their rest, but at night they would come down into the roads and murder any Helots they found. And often they would range about the fields, and make away with the strongest and bravest Helots they could find. Also, as Thucydides mentions in his History of the Peloponnesian War, those Helots who were especially honoured by the Spartans for their valour were crowned as free men, and taken to the temples with rejoicings; but in a short time they all disappeared, to the number of more than two thousand, and in such a way that no man, either then or afterwards, could tell how they perished. Aristotle says that the Ephors, when they first take office, declare war against the Helots, in order that it may be lawful to destroy them. And much other harsh treatment used to be inflicted upon them; and they were compelled to drink much unmixed wine, and then were brought into the public dining-halls, to show the young what drunkenness is.

They were also forced to sing low songs, and to dance low dances, and not to meddle with those of a higher character. It is said that when the Thebans made their celebrated campaign in Lacedaemon, they ordered the Helots whom they captured to sing them the songs of Terpander, and Alkman, and Spendon the Laconian; but they begged to be excused, for, they said, “the masters do not like it.” So it seems to have been well said that in Lacedaemon, the free man was more free, and the slave more a slave than anywhere else. This harsh treatment, I imagine, began in later times, especially after the great earthquake, when they relate that the Helots joined the Messenians, ravaged the country, and almost conquered it. I cannot impute this wicked act of the Krypteia to Lykurgus, when I consider the gentleness and justice of his general behaviour, which also we know was inspired by Heaven.

XXVIII

When the leading men of the city were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of his institutions, and the newly constituted state was able to walk by itself without leading-strings, and bear its own weight alone, then, as Plato says of God, that he was pleased with the world that he had created, when it first began to live and move, so was it with Lykurgus. He admired the spectacle of his laws in operation, and, as far as was possible by human prudence, he desired to leave it eternal and unchangeable. He assembled all the citizens, and told them that the city was now fairly well provided with materials for happiness and virtue, but that he would not bestow upon them the most valuable gift of all, until he had taken counsel with Heaven. It was therefore their duty to abide by the already established laws, and to change and alter nothing till he returned from Delphi; on his return, he would do whatever the god commanded. They all assented, and bade him depart, and he, after making first the kings and elders, and then the rest of the citizens, swear that they would keep their existing constitution till Lykurgus came back, set out for Delphi. Upon reaching the temple he sacrificed to the god, and inquired whether his laws were good, and sufficient for the prosperity and happiness of his country. Receiving answer from the oracle that his laws were indeed good, and that the city would become famous if it kept the constitution of Lykurgus, he wrote down this prophecy and sent it to Sparta. But he himself, after offering a second sacrifice to the god, and having embraced his friends and his son, determined not to release his countrymen from their oath, but to put an end to his own life, being at an age when, though life was still pleasant, it seemed time to go to his rest, after having excellently arranged all his people’s affairs. He departed by starvation, as he thought that a true statesman ought to make even his death of service to the state, and not like that of a private person, the useless end of an idle life. His death came in the fulness of time, after he had done an excellent work, and it was left as the guardian of all the good that he had done, because the citizens had sworn that they would abide by his constitution until he returned to them. Nor was he deceived in his expectations; for the state was by far the most celebrated in Greece, for good government at home and renown abroad, during a period of five hundred years, under his constitution, which was kept unaltered by fourteen kings, counting from himself down to Agis the son of Archidamus. For the institution of Ephors was not a relaxation, but a strengthening of the original scheme, and while it seemed popular it really confirmed the power of the oligarchy.

XXIX

But in the reign of Agis money found its way into Sparta, and, after money, selfishness and greed for gain came in, on account of Lysander, who, though himself incorruptible, yet filled his country with luxury and love of gold, as he brought back gold and silver from the wars, and disregarded the laws of Lykurgus. Before this, when those laws were in force, Sparta was like a wise and practised warrior more than a city, or rather, she with her simple staff and cloak, like Herakles with his lion-skin and club, ruled over a willing Greece, deposed bad kings or factions, decided wars, and crushed revolutions; and that, too, often without moving a single soldier, but merely by sending a commissioner, who was at once obeyed, even as bees collect and rank themselves in order when their queen appears. Sparta then had so much order and justice as to be able to supply her neighbours; and I cannot understand those who say that the Lacedaemonians “knew how to obey, but not how to rule;” nor that story of some one who said to king Theopompus that the safety of Sparta lay in her kings knowing how to rule. “Rather,” he answered, “in her citizens knowing how to obey.”

They would not brook an incapable commander: their very obedience is a lesson in the art of command; for a good leader makes good followers, and just as it is the object of the horse-breaker to turn out a gentle and tractable horse, so it is the object of rulers to implant in men the spirit of obedience. But the Lacedaemonians produced a desire in other states to be ruled by them and to obey them; for they used to send embassies and ask not for ships or money or troops, but for one Spartan for a leader; and when they obtained him, they respected him and feared him, as, for instance, the Sicilians had Gylippus as a general, the people of Chalkidike had Brasidas, while Lysander and Kallikratidas and Agesilaus were made use of by all the Greeks in Asia Minor. These men were called Regulators and Pacificators in each several state, and the whole city of Sparta was regarded as a school and example of orderly public life and of settled political institutions. This was alluded to by Stratonikus when he said in jest that the Athenians ought to conduct mysteries and shows, the Eleans to be stewards at the games, and the Lacedaemonians to be beaten if the others did not do right. This was not spoken seriously; but Antisthenes, the Sokratic philosopher, was serious when he said of the Thebans, who were in high spirits after their victory at Leuktra, that they were as pleased as schoolboys who had beaten their master.

XXXI

Not that this was Lykurgus’s main object, that his country should dominate over as many other states as possible; but seeing that, in states as in individuals, happiness is derived from virtue and single-mindedness, he directed all his efforts to implant in his countrymen feelings of honour, self-reliance, and self-control. These were also taken as the basis of their constitution by Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and all who have written with any success upon this subject. But they have left mere dissertations; Lykurgus produced an inimitable constitution, confuted those who complained of the unreality of the ‘Essay on the True Philosopher,’ by showing them the spectacle of an entire city acting like philosophers, and thereby obtained for himself a greater reputation than that of any other Greek legislator at any period. For this reason Aristotle says that he has less honour in Lacedaemon than he deserves, although his memory is greatly respected; for he has a temple, and they sacrifice to him every year as if he was a god. It is also said that after his remains were carried home, his tomb was struck by lightning. This distinction befell scarcely any other man of note except Euripides, who died long after him, and was buried at Arethusa in Macedonia. It was considered a great proof and token of his fame by the admirers of Euripides, that this should happen to him after his death which happened before to the especial favourite of Heaven. Some say that Lykurgus died at Kirrha, but Apollothemis says that he was taken to Elis and died there, and Timaeus and Aristoxenus say that he ended his days in Crete. Aristoxenus even says that the Cretans show his tomb in what is called the Strangers’ Road in Pergamia. He is said to have left one son, Antiorus, who died childless, and so ended the family. His companions and relatives and their descendants kept up the practice of meeting together for a long period; and the days when they met were called Lykurgids. Aristokrates the son of Hipparchus says that when Lykurgus died in Crete, his friends burned his body and threw the ashes into the sea, at his own request, as he feared that if any remains of him should be brought back to Lacedaemon, they would think themselves absolved from their oath, and change the constitution. This is the story of Lykurgus.

LIFE OF
NUMA.

I

There is a considerable conflict of opinion about the time of King Numa’s reign, although several pedigrees seem to be accurately traced to him. One Clodius, in a book on the verification of dates, insists that all these old records were destroyed during the Gaulish troubles, and that those which are now extant were composed by interested persons, by whose means men who had no right to such honours claimed descent from the noblest families. Though Numa is said to have been a friend of Pythagoras, yet some deny that he had any tincture of Greek learning, arguing that either he was born with a natural capacity for sound learning, or that he was taught by some barbarian.1 Others say that Pythagoras was born much later, some five generations after the times of Numa, but that Pythagoras the Spartan, who won the Stadium race at Olympia on the thirteenth Olympiad, wandered into Italy, and there meeting Numa, assisted him in the establishment of his constitution; and that from this cause, the Roman constitution in many points resembles the Laconian. The Olympic games were instituted in the third year of Numa’s reign. Another story is that Numa was a Sabine by birth, and the Sabines consider themselves to be of Lacedaemonian origin. It is hard to reconcile the dates, especially those which refer to Olympiads, the table of which is said to have been made out by Hippias of Elis, on no trustworthy basis. However, what things I have heard about Numa that are worthy of mention I shall proceed to relate, beginning from a starting-point of my own.

II

Rome had been founded, and Romulus had reigned, for thirty-seven years, when upon the fifth day of the month of July, which day is now called nonae caprotinae, he was performing a public sacrifice outside the gates, at a place called the Goat’s Marsh, in the presence of the Senate and most of the people. Suddenly a great commotion began in the air, thick clouds covered the earth, with violent gusts and showers. The people fled in terror, and Romulus disappeared. His body could never be found, but suspicion fell upon the patricians, and a report was current among the populace that they had long been jealous of his power as king, and had determined to get it into their own hands. Indeed, he had dealt with them very harshly and tyrannically. Fearing this suspicion, they gave out that he was not dead, but had been caught up into heaven; and Proclus, a man of mark, swore that he saw Romulus ascend into heaven in his armour as he was, and that he heard a voice ordering that he should be called Quirinus. Another disturbance took place in Rome about the election of the next king, because the new citizens were not yet thoroughly amalgamated with the old ones, the people were unquiet, and the patricians suspicious of one another. Nevertheless they all determined that they would have a king, but they disagreed not merely about who, but of what race he should be.

Romulus’s original colonists thought it a monstrous thing that the Sabines, because they had been admitted to a share of the city and the country, should propose to rule over it; while the Sabines not unreasonably urged that because, after the death of Tatius, they had acquiesced in Romulus reigning alone, now in their turn they ought to furnish a king of their own nation. They had not, they said, been adopted by a more powerful race than themselves, but had, by their combination with the Romans, greatly raised the power and renown of their city.

The two races were at issue on these points. The patricians, fearing that confusion might arise if the state were left without a head, made one of their own number every day assume the insignia of royalty, perform the usual sacrifices to the gods, and transact business for six hours by day, and six by night. This equal division of their periods of rule was not only just for those in office, but prevented any jealousy of them being felt by the populace, each day and night, because they saw one who had been a king become a private person. This form of government the Romans call an interregnum.

III

But, although they appeared to manage things so smoothly, suspicions and threatenings of disturbance arose, for men said that they meditated altering the form of government to an oligarchy, in order to keep all political power in their own hands, and would not therefore elect a king. Hereupon the two factions agreed that one should select a king from the ranks of the other. This, they thought, would both put an end to their quarrels for the present, and also ensure the candidate who should be chosen being impartial, because he would be friendly to the one party because it had chosen him, and to the other because he belonged to it by birth. The Sabines gave the Romans their choice which they would do; and they decided that it would be better to choose a Sabine king themselves, than to be ruled by a Roman chosen by the Sabines. After deliberation amongst themselves, they chose Numa Pompilius, a man who was not one of those Sabines who had settled in Rome, but whose excellence was so well-known to all, that the Sabines, as soon as they heard his name, were even more eager for him than the Romans who had chosen him. When they had informed the people of their decision, they sent an embassy to Numa, composed of the leading men of both parties, to beg of him to come to Rome and assume the crown.

Numa belonged to a celebrated Sabine city, Cures, from which the united Romans and Sabines called themselves Quirites. He was the son of Pomponius, an honourable citizen, and was the youngest of four brothers. By a miraculous coincidence he was born on the very day on which Romulus founded Rome; that is, the tenth day before the Calends of May. His naturally good disposition had been so educated by sorrow and philosophic pursuits, that he rose superior not merely to commonplace vices, but even to the worship of brute force, so common among barbarians, and considered true courage to consist in the conquest of his own passions. Accordingly he banished all luxury and extravagance from his house, and was known as a trusty friend and counsellor, both by his countrymen and by strangers. When at leisure, he disregarded sensual enjoyments and money-getting, but devoted himself to the service of the gods and to speculations about their nature and power, so that he obtained great celebrity. Indeed Tatius, when he was acting as joint-king with Romulus, chose him for the husband of his only daughter Tatia. But Numa was not elated by his marriage, and did not remove to the town where his father-in-law was king, but stayed where he was in Cures, among the Sabines, tending his aged father; while Tatia also preferred the quiet of a private citizen’s life to the pomp which she might have enjoyed in Rome. She is said to have died in the thirteenth year after her marriage.

IV

Now Numa was in the habit of leaving the city and passing much of his time in the country, wandering alone in the sacred groves and dwelling in desert places. Hence the story first arose that it was not from any derangement of intellect that he shunned human society, but because he held converse with higher beings, and had been admitted to marriage with the gods, and that, by passing his time in converse with the nymph Egeria, who loved him, he became blessed, and learned heavenly wisdom. It is evident that this is the same as many ancient myths; such as that told by the Phrygians about Attis, that of the Bithynians about Herodotus, that of the Arcadians about Endymion, and many others. Yet it seems probable that a god, who loves man better than bird or beast, should take pleasure in conversing with those men who are remarkable for goodness, and not despise nor disdain to hold communion with the wise and righteous. But it is hard to believe that a god or deity could feel the passion of love for a human form; although the Egyptians not unreasonably say, that a woman may be impregnated by the spirit of a god, but that a man can have no material union with a god. However it is very right to believe that a god can feel friendship for a man, and from this may spring a love which watches over him and guides him in the path of virtue. There is truth in the myths of Phorbas, of Hyacinthus, and of Admetus, who were all loved by Apollo, as was also Hippolytus of Sicyon. It is said that whenever he set sail from Sikyon to Kirrha on the opposite coast, the Pythia would recite the verse,

“Now goes our dear Hippolytus to sea,”

as if the god knew that he was coming and rejoiced at it.

There is also a legend that Pan loved Pindar and his verses; and for the Muse’s sake, Hesiod and Archilochus were honoured after their deaths; while Sophokles during his life is said, by a legend which remains current at the present day, to have become the friend of Aesculapius, and on his death to have had the rites of burial supplied by the care of another god.

If, then, we believe the legends which are told about these persons, why should we doubt that Zaleukus, Minos, Zoroaster, Numa, and Lykurgus were inspired by Heaven, when they governed their kingdoms and gave them laws? We may suppose that the gods, when in an earnest mood, would hold converse with such men as these, the best of their kind, to talk with and encourage them, just as they visit the poets, if they do at all, when inclined for pleasure. However, if any one thinks differently, as Bacchylides says, “The way is broad.”

The other view, which some take about Lykurgus and Numa and such men, seems very plausible, that they, having to deal with an obstinate and unmanageable people when introducing great political changes, invented the idea of their own divine mission as a means of safety for themselves.

V

It was in Numa’s fortieth year that the envoys came from Rome to ask him to be king. Their spokesmen were Proculus and Velesius, one of whom had very nearly been elected king, for the Romulus people inclined much to Proculus, and those of Tatius were equally in favour of Velesius. These men made a short speech, imagining that Numa would be delighted with his fortune; but it appears that it took much hard pleading to induce a man who had lived all his life in peace to take the command of a city which owed its origin and its increase alike to war. He said, in the presence of his father and of Marcius, one of his relations, “Every change in a man’s life is dangerous; and when a man is not in want of anything needful, and has no cause for being dissatisfied with his lot, it is sheer madness for him to change his habits and way of life; for these, at any rate, have the advantage of security, while in the new state all is uncertain. Not even uncertain are the perils of royalty, judging from Romulus himself, who was suspected of having plotted against his partner Tatius, and whose peers were suspected of having assassinated him. Yet these men call Romulus the child of the gods, and tell how he had a divinely sent nurse, and was preserved by a miracle while yet a child; while I was born of mortal parents, and brought up by people whom you all know: even the points which you praise in my character are far from those which make a good king, being love of leisure and of unprofitable speculation, and also a great fondness for peace and unwarlike matters, and for men who meet together for the glory of the gods or for cheerful converse with one another, and who at other times plough their fields and feed their cattle at home. But you Romans have very likely many wars left upon your hands by Romulus, for the conduct of which the state requires a vigorous warrior in the prime of life. The people too, from their successes, are accustomed to and eager for war, and are known to be longing for fresh conquests and possessions; so that they would ridicule me when I told them to honour the gods and act justly, and if I tried to instil a hatred of wars and of brute force into a city which wants a general more than a king.”

VI

As he refused the offered crown in such terms, the Romans used every kind of entreaty to induce him to accept it, begging him not to plunge the state again into civil war, because there was no other man whom the two parties would agree to receive as their king. In their absence, his father and Marcius begged him not to refuse so great and marvellous an offer. “If,” they said, “you do not desire wealth, because of your simple life, and do not care for the glory of royalty, because you derive more glory from your own virtue, yet think that to be king is to serve God, who gives you this office and will not allow your righteousness to lie idle, useful only to yourself. Do not therefore shrink from assuming this office, which gives you an opportunity to conduct the solemn ceremonials of religion with due pomp, and to civilise the people and turn their hearts, which can be effected more easily by a king than by any one else. This people loved Tatius, though he was a foreigner, and they respect the memory of Romulus as if he was a god. And who knows, if the people, although victorious, may not have had enough of wars, and, sated with triumphs and spoils, may not be desirous of a gentle and just ruler under whom they may enjoy rest and peace. If, however, they are madly bent upon war, is it not better that you should hold the reins, and direct their fury elsewhere, becoming yourself a bond of union and friendship between the Sabine nation and this powerful and flourishing city?” Besides these arguments, it is said that the omens were favourable, and that the people of the city, as soon as they heard of the embassy, came and besought him to go and become king, and thus unite and combine the two races.

VII

When he had made up his mind, he sacrificed to the gods, and started for Rome. The Senate and people met him and showed great affection for him; the matrons also greeted him, and there were sacrifices in the temples, and every one was as joyous as if he had received a kingdom instead of a king. When they came into the Forum, the interrex or temporary king, Spurius Vettius, put it to the vote, and all the people voted for Numa. When they offered him the insignia of royalty, he bade them stop, saying that he wished to have his crown confirmed to him by God as well as by man. Taking the prophets and priests he ascended the Capitol, which the Romans at that time called the Tarpeian Hill. There the chief of the prophets made him turn towards the south, covered his head, and then standing behind him with his hand laid upon his head, he prayed, and looked for a sign or omen sent from the gods in every quarter of the heavens. A strange silence prevailed among the people in the Forum, as they watched him eagerly, until a prosperous omen was observed. Then Numa received the royal robes and came down from the hill among the people. They received him with cheers and congratulations, as the most pious of men, and as beloved of Heaven. When he became king, his first act was to disband the body-guard of three hundred men, whom Romulus always had kept about his person, who were called Celeres, that is, swift; for Numa would not distrust a loyal people nor reign over a disloyal one. Next he instituted a third high priest, in addition to the existing priests of Jupiter and Mars, whom, in honour of Romulus, he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The elder priests are called Flamens from the skull-caps which they wear, and the word is derived from the Greek word for felt; for at that time Greek words were mingled with Latin ones more than now. For instance, the laena worn by the priests is said by Juba to be the Greek chlaina, and the boy, whose parents must be both alive, who is servant to the priest of Jupiter, is called Camillus, just as the Greeks sometimes call Hermes (Mercury) Cadmilus, from his being the servant of the gods.

VIII

Numa, after confirming his popularity by these measures, proceeded at once to attempt to convert the city from the practice of war and the strong hand, to that of right and justice, just as a man tries to soften and mould a mass of iron. The city at that time was indeed what Plato calls “inflamed and angry,” for it owed its very existence to the reckless daring by which it had thrust aside the most warlike races of the country, and had recruited its strength by many campaigns and ceaseless war, and, as carpentry becomes more fixed in its place by blows, so the city seemed to gain fresh power from its dangers. Thinking that it would be a very difficult task to change the habits of this excited and savage people, and to teach them the arts of peace, he looked to the gods for help, and by sacrifices, processions, and choral dances, which he himself organised and arranged, he awed, interested, and softened the manners of the Romans, artfully beguiling them out of their warlike ferocity. Sometimes he spoke of supernatural terrors, evil omens, and unpropitious voices, so as to influence them by means of superstition. These measures proved his wisdom, and showed him a true disciple of Pythagoras, for the worship of the gods was an important part of his state policy, as it is of Pythagoras’s system of philosophy. His love of outward show and stratagem was also said to be derived from Pythagoras, for as the latter tamed an eagle and made it alight upon him, and when walking through the crowd at Olympia showed his golden thigh, and did all the other surprising devices which made Timon of Phlius write the epigram—

“Pythagoras by magic arts,

And mystic talk deludes men’s hearts,”

so did Numa invent the story of his amour with a wood-nymph and his secret converse with her, and of his enjoying the society of the Muses. He referred most of his prophetic utterances to the Muses, and taught the Romans to worship one of them especially, whom he called Tacita, which means silent or dumb. This seems to have been done in imitation of Pythagoras, who especially revered silence. His legislation about images was also connected with the Pythagorean doctrine, which says that first principles cannot be touched or seen, but are invisible spiritual essences; for Numa forbade the Romans to worship any likenesses of men or of beasts. Among them there was no image of a god, either carved or moulded, in the early times. For a hundred and seventy years they built temples, and placed shrines in them, but made no image of any living thing, considering that it was wrong to make the worse like the better, and that God cannot be comprehended otherwise than by thought. Their sacrifices also were connected with the Pythagorean doctrine; they were for the most part bloodless, and performed with flour, libations of wine, and all the commonest things. But besides these, there are other distinct proofs of the connection of these two men with one another. One of these is that the Romans enrolled Pythagoras as a citizen, as we are told by Epicharmus the comic poet, in a letter which he wrote to Antenor. He was a man who lived in old times and underwent the Pythagorean training. Another proof is that of his four sons, King Numa named one Mamercus after the son of Pythagoras; from whom sprung the ancient patrician house of the Aemilii. This name was originally given him in sport by the king, who used to call him aimulos or wily. I myself have heard many Romans narrate that an oracle once bade the Romans establish the wisest and the bravest of the Greeks in their own city, and that in consequence of it they set up two brazen statues in the Forum, one of Alkibiades and one of Pythagoras. But all this can be so easily disputed that it is not worth while to pursue it farther or to put any trust in it.

IX

To Numa also is referred the institution of the Pontifices, or high priests; and he himself is said to have been one of the first. The Pontifices are so called, according to some authorities, because they worship the gods, who are powerful and almighty; for powerful in Latin is potens. Others say that it refers to an exception made in favour of possibilities, meaning that the legislator ordered the priests to perform what services lay in their power, and did not deny that there are some which they cannot. But the most usually received and most absurd derivation is that the word means nothing more than bridge builders, and that they were so named from the sacrifices which are offered upon the sacred bridge, which are of great sanctity and antiquity. The Latins call a bridge pontem. This bridge is intrusted to the care of the priests, like any other immovable holy relic; for the Romans think that the removal of the wooden bridge would call down the wrath of Heaven. It is said to be entirely composed of wood, in accordance with some oracle, without any iron whatever.

The stone bridge was built many years afterwards, when Aemilius was Quaestor. However, it is said that the wooden bridge itself does not date from the time of Numa, but that it was finished by Marcius, the grandson of Numa, when he was king.

The chief priest, or Pontifex Maximus, is an interpreter and prophet or rather expounder of the will of Heaven. He not only sees that the public sacrifices are properly conducted, but even watches those who offer private sacrifices, opposes all departure from established custom, and points out to each man how to honour the gods and how to pray to them. He also presides over the holy maidens called vestals.

The consecration of the vestal virgins, and the worship and watching of the eternal flame by them, are entirely attributed to Numa, and explained either by the pure and uncorruptible essence of fire being intrusted to the keeping of those who are stainless and undefiled, or by that which is barren and without fruit being associated with maidens.

Indeed, in Greece, wherever an eternal fire is kept up, as at Delphi and Athens, it is not maidens, but widows, past the age to wed, that tend it. When any of these fires chance to go out, as, for instance, the sacred lamp went out at Athens when Aristion was despot, and the fire went out at Delphi when the temple was burned by the Persians, and at Rome in the revolutions during the time of the wars with King Mithridates the fire, and even the altar upon which it burned, was swept away; then they say that it must not be lighted from another fire, but that an entirely new fire must be made, lighted by a pure and undefiled ray from the sun. They usually light it with mirrors made by hollowing the surface of an isosceles right-angled triangle, which conducts all the rays of light into one point. Now when it is placed opposite to the sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters are collected together into that point, the ray thus formed passes through the thin air, and at once lights the dryest and lightest of the objects against which it strikes, for that ray has the strength and force of fire itself.

Some say that the only duty of the vestal virgins is to watch that eternal fire, but others say they perform certain secret rites, about which we have written as much as it is lawful to divulge, in the Life of Camillus.

X

The first maidens who were consecrated by Numa were named Gegania and Verenia; and afterwards Canuleia and Tarpeia were added. Servius subsequently added two more to their number, which has remained six ever since his reign. Numa ordained that the maidens should observe celibacy for thirty years, during the first ten years of which they were to learn their duties, during the next perform them, and during the last to teach others. After this period any of them who wished might marry and cease to be priestesses; but it is said that very few availed themselves of this privilege, and that those few were not happy, but, by their regrets and sorrow for the life they had left, made the others scruple to leave it, prefer to remain virgins till their death. They had great privileges, such as that of disposing of their property by will when their fathers were still alive, like women who have borne three children. When they walk abroad they are escorted by lictors with the fasces; and if they happen to meet any criminal who is being taken to execution, he is not put to death; but the vestal must swear that she met him accidentally, and not on purpose. When they use a litter, no one may pass under it on pain of death. The vestals are corrected by stripes for any faults which they commit, sometimes by the Pontifex Maximus, who flogs the culprit without her clothes, but with a curtain drawn before her. She that breaks her vow of celibacy is buried alive at the Colline Gate, at which there is a mound of earth which stretches some way inside the city wall. In it they construct an underground chamber, of small size, which is entered from above. In it is a bed with bedding, and a lamp burning; and also some small means of supporting life, such as bread, a little water in a vessel, milk, and oil, as though they wished to avoid the pollution of one who had been consecrated with such holy ceremonies dying of hunger. The guilty one is placed in a litter, covered in, and gagged with thongs so that she cannot utter a sound. Then they carry her through the Forum. All make way in silence, and accompany her passage with downcast looks, without speaking. There is no more fearful sight than this, nor any day when the city is plunged into deeper mourning. When the litter reaches the appointed spot, the servants loose her bonds, and the chief priest, after private prayer and lifting his hands to Heaven before his dreadful duty, leads her out, closely veiled, places her upon a ladder which leads down into the subterranean chamber. After this he turns away with the other priests; the ladder is drawn up after she has descended, and the site of the chamber is obliterated by masses of earth which are piled upon it, so that the place looks like any other part of the mound. Thus are the vestals punished who lose their chastity.

XI

Numa is said to have built the Temple of Vesta, which was to contain the sacred fire, in a circular form, imitating thereby not the shape of the earth, but that of the entire universe, in the midst of which the Pythagoreans place the element of fire, which they call Vesta and the Unit. The earth they say is not motionless, and not in the centre of its orbit, but revolves round the central fire, occupying by no means the first or the most honourable place in the system of the universe. These ideas are said to have been entertained by Plato also in his old age; for he too thought that the earth was in a subordinate position, and that the centre of the universe was occupied by some nobler body.

XII

The Pontifices also explain, to those who inquire of them, the proper ceremonies at funerals. For Numa taught them not to think that there was any pollution in death, but that we must pay due honours to the gods below, because they will receive all that is noblest on earth. Especially he taught them to honour the goddess Libitina, the goddess who presides over funeral rites, whether she be Proserpine, or rather Venus, as the most learned Romans imagine, not unnaturally referring our birth and our death to the same divinity.

He also defined the periods of mourning, according to the age of the deceased. He allowed none for a child under three years of age, and for one older the mourning was only to last as many months as he lived years, provided those were not more than ten. The longest mourning was not to continue above ten months, after which space widows were permitted to marry again; but she that took another husband before that term was out was obliged by his decree to sacrifice a cow with calf.

Of Numa’s many other institutions I shall only mention two, that of the Salii and of the Feciales, which especially show his love of justice. The Feciales are, as it were, guardians of peace, and in my opinion obtain their name from their office; for they were to act as mediators, and not to permit an appeal to arms before all hope of obtaining justice by fair means had been lost. The Greeks call it peace when two states settle their differences by negotiation and not by arms; and the Roman Feciales frequently went to states that had done wrong and begged them to think better of what they had done. If they rejected their offers, then the Feciales called the gods to witness, invoked dreadful curses upon themselves and their country, if they were about to fight in an unjust cause, and so declared war. Against the will of the Feciales, or without their approval, no Roman, whether king or common soldier, was allowed to take up arms, but the general was obliged first to have it certified to him by the Feciales that the right was on his side, and then to take his measures for a campaign. It is said that the great disaster with the Gauls befell the city in consequence of this ceremony having been neglected. The barbarians were besieging Clusium; Fabius Ambustus was sent as an ambassador to their camp to make terms on behalf of the besieged. His proposals met with a harsh reply, and he, thinking that his mission was at an end, had the audacity to appear before the ranks of the men of Clusium in arms, and to challenge the bravest of the barbarians to single combat. He won the fight, slew his opponent and stripped his body; but the Gauls recognised him, and sent a herald to Rome, complaining that Fabius had broken faith and not kept his word, and had waged war against them without its being previously declared. Hereupon the Feciales urged the Senate to deliver the man up to the Gauls, but he appealed to the people, and by their favour escaped his just doom. Soon after the Gauls came and sacked Rome, except the Capitol. But this is treated of more at length in the ‘Life of Camillus.’

XIII

The priests called Salii are said to owe their origin to the following circumstances: In the eighth year of Numa’s reign an epidemic raged throughout Italy, and afflicted the city of Rome. Now amidst the general distress it is related that a brazen shield fell from heaven into the hands of Numa. Upon this the king made an inspired speech, which he had learned from Egeria and the Muses. The shield, he said, came for the salvation of the city, and they must guard it, and make eleven more like it, so that no thief could steal the one that fell from heaven, because he could not tell which it was. Moreover the place and the meadows round about it, where he was wont to converse with the Muses, must be consecrated to them, and the well by which it was watered must be pointed out as holy water to the vestal virgins, that they might daily take some thence to purify and sprinkle their temple. The truth of this is said to have been proved by the immediate cessation of the plague. He bade workmen compete in imitating the shield, and, when all others refused to attempt it, Veturius Mamurius, one of the best workmen of the time, produced so admirable an imitation, and made all the shields so exactly alike, that even Numa himself could not tell which was the original. He next appointed the Salii to guard and keep them. These priests were called Salii, not, as some say, after a man of Samothrace or of Mantinea named Salius, who first taught the art of dancing under arms, but rather from the springing dance itself, which they dance through the city when they carry out the shields in the month of March, dressed in scarlet tunics, girt with brazen girdles, with brazen helmets on their heads and little daggers with which they strike the shields. The rest of their dance is done with their feet; they move gracefully, whirling round, swiftly and airily counter-changing their positions with light and vigorous motions according to rhythm and measure. The shields are called ancilia, because of their shape; for they are not round, nor with a perfect circumference, but are cut out of a wavy line, and curl in at the thickest part towards each other; or they may be called ancilia after the name of the elbow, ankon, on which they are carried; at least so Juba conjectures in his endeavours to find a Greek derivation for the word. The name may be connected with the fall of the shield from above (anekathen), or with the healing (akesis) of the plague, and the cessation of that terrible calamity, if we must refer the word to a Greek root.

It is related that, to reward Mamurius for his workmanship, his name is mentioned in the song which the Salii sing while they dance their Pyrrhic dance; others, however, say that it is not Veturium Mamurium that they say, but Veterem Memoriam, which means ancient memory.

XIV

After he had arranged all religious ceremonies, he built, near the temple of Vesta, the Regia, as a kind of royal palace; and there he spent most of his time, engaged in religious duties, instructing the priests, or awaiting some divine colloquy. He had also another house on the hill of Quirinus, the site of which is even now pointed out.

In all religious processions through the city the heralds went first to bid the people cease their work, and attend to the ceremony; for just as the Pythagoreans are said to forbid the worship of the gods in a cursory manner, and to insist that men shall set out from their homes with this purpose and none other in their minds, so Numa thought it wrong that the citizens should see or hear any religious ceremony in a careless, half-hearted manner, and made them cease from all worldly cares and attend with all their hearts to the most important of all duties, religion; so he cleared the streets of all the hammering, and cries, and noises which attend the practice of ordinary trades and handicrafts, before any holy ceremony. Some trace of this custom still survives in the practice of crying out Hoc age when the consul is taking the auspices or making a sacrifice. These words mean “Do this thing,” and are used to make the bystanders orderly and attentive. Many of his other precepts are like those of the Pythagoreans; for just as they forbid men to sit upon a quart measure, or to stir the fire with a sword, or to turn back when they set out upon a journey, and bid them sacrifice an odd number to the gods above, and an even one to those below, all of which things had a mystical meaning, which was hidden from the common mass of mankind, so also some of Numa’s rites can only be explained by reference to some secret legend, such as his forbidding men to make a libation to the gods with wine made from an unpruned vine, and his ordering that no sacrifice should be made without flour, and that men should turn round while worshipping and sit after they had worshipped. The first two of these seem to point to cultivation of the fruits of the earth, as a part of righteousness; the turning round of the worshippers is said to be in imitation of the revolution of the globe, but it seems more probable that, as all temples look towards the east, the worshipper who enters with his back to the sun turns round towards this god also, and begs of them both, as he makes his circuit, to fulfil his prayer. Unless indeed there is an allusion to the symbolical wheel of the Egyptians, and the change of posture means that nothing human is constant, and that, however God may turn about our lives, it is our duty to be content. The act of sitting after prayer was said to portend that such as were good would obtain a solid and lasting fulfilment of their prayers. Or again, this attitude of rest marks the division between different periods of prayer; so that after the end of one prayer they seat themselves in the presence of the gods, in order that under their auspices they may begin the next. This fully agrees with what has been said above, and shows that the lawgiver intended to accustom his countrymen not to offer their prayers in a hurry, or in the intervals of doing something else, but when they were at leisure and not pressed for time.

XV

By this religious training the city became so easily managed by Numa, and so impressed by his power, as to believe stories of the wildest character about him, and to think nothing incredible or impossible if he wished to do it. For instance, it is related that once he invited many of the citizens to dine with him, and placed before them common vessels and poor fare; but, as they were about to begin dinner, he suddenly said that his familiar goddess was about to visit him, and at once displayed abundance of golden cups and tables covered with costly delicacies. The strangest story of all is that of his conversation with Jupiter. The legend runs that Mount Aventine was not at this time enclosed within the city, but was full of fountains and shady glens, and haunted by two divinities, Picus and Faunus, who may be compared to Satyrs or to Pan, and who, in knowledge of herbs and magic, seem equal to what the Greeks call the Daktyli of Mount Ida. These creatures roamed about Italy playing their tricks, but Numa caught them by filling the spring at which they drank with wine and honey. They turned into all kinds of shapes, and assumed strange and terrible forms, but when they found that they were unable to escape, they told Numa much of the future, and showed him how to make a charm against thunder-bolts, which is used to this day, and is made of onions and hair and sprats. Some say that it was not these deities who told him the charm, but that they by magic arts brought down Jupiter from heaven, and he, in a rage, ordered Numa to make the charm of “Heads”; and when Numa added, “Of onions,” he said “Of men’s”—“Hair,” said Numa, again taking away the terrible part of the imprecation. When then Jupiter said “With living”—“Sprats,” said Numa, answering as Egeria had taught him. The god went away appeased, and the place was in consequence called Ilicius. This was how the charm was discovered.

These ridiculous legends show the way in which the people had become accustomed to regard the gods. Indeed Numa is said to have placed all his hopes in religion, to such an extent that even when a message was brought him, saying, “The enemy are approaching,” he smiled and said, “And I am sacrificing.”

XVI

The first temples that he founded are said to have been those of Fides or Faith, and Terminus. Fides is said to have revealed to the Romans the greatest of all oaths, which they even now make use of; while Terminus is the god of boundaries, to whom they sacrifice publicly, and also privately at the divisions of men’s estates; at the present time with living victims, but in old days this was a bloodless sacrifice, for Numa argued that the god of boundaries must be a lover of peace, and a witness of righteousness, and therefore averse to bloodshed.

Indeed Numa was the first king who defined the boundaries of the country, since Romulus was unwilling, by measuring what was really his own, to show how much he had taken from other states: for boundaries, if preserved, are barriers against violence; if disregarded, they become standing proofs of lawless injustice. The city had originally but a small territory of its own, and Romulus gained the greater part of its possessions by the sword. All this Numa distributed among the needy citizens, thereby removing the want which urged them to deeds of violence, and, by turning the people’s thoughts to husbandry, he made them grow more civilised as their land grew more cultivated. No profession makes men such passionate lovers of peace as that of a man who farms his own land; for he retains enough of the warlike spirit to fight fiercely in defence of his own property, but has lost all desire to despoil and wrong his neighbours. It was for this reason that Numa encouraged agriculture among the Romans, as a spell to charm away war, and loved the art more because of its influence on men’s minds than because of the wealth which it produced. He divided the whole country into districts, which he called pagi, and appointed a head man for each, and a patrol to guard it. And sometimes he himself would inspect them, and, forming an opinion of each man’s character from the condition of his farm, would raise some to honours and offices of trust, and blaming others for their remissness, would lead them to do better in future.

XVII

Of his other political measures, that which is most admired is his division of the populace according to their trades. For whereas the city, as has been said, originally consisted of two races, which stood aloof one from the other and would not combine into one, which led to endless quarrels and rivalries, Numa, reflecting that substances which are hard and difficult to combine together, can nevertheless be mixed and formed into one mass if they are broken up into small pieces, because then they more easily fit into each other, determined to divide the whole mass of the people of Rome into many classes, and thus, by creating numerous petty rivalries, to obliterate their original and greatest cause of variance.

His division was according to their trades, and consisted of the musicians, the goldsmiths, the builders, the dyers, the shoemakers, the carriers, the coppersmiths, and the potters. All the other trades he united into one guild. He assigned to each trade its special privileges, common to all the members, and arranged that each should have its own times of meeting, and worship its own special patron god, and by this means he did away with that habit, which hitherto had prevailed among the citizens, of some calling themselves Sabines, and some Romans; one boasting that they were Tatius’s men, and other Romulus’s. So this division produced a complete fusion and unity. Moreover he has been much praised for another of his measures, that, namely, of correcting the old law which allows fathers to sell their sons for slaves. He abolished this power in the case of married men, who had married with their father’s consent; for he thought it a monstrous injustice that a woman, who had married a free man, should be compelled to be the wife of a slave.

XVIII

He also dealt with astronomical matters, not with perfect accuracy, and yet not altogether without knowledge. During the reign of Romulus the months had been in a state of great disorder, some not containing twenty days, some five-and-thirty, and some even more, because the Romans could not reconcile the discrepancies which arise from reckoning by the sun and the moon, and only insisted upon one thing, that the year should consist of three hundred and sixty days.

Numa reckoned the variation to consist of eleven days, as the lunar year contains three hundred and fifty-four days, and the solar year three hundred and sixty-five. He doubled these eleven days and introduced them every other year, after February, as an intercalary month, twenty-two days in duration, which was called by the Romans Mercedinus. This was a remedy for the irregularities of the calendar which itself required more extensive remedies.

He also altered the order of the months, putting March, which used to be the first month, third, and making January the first, which in the time of Romulus had been the eleventh, and February the second, which then had been the twelfth. There are many writers who say that these months, January and February, were added to the calendar by Numa, and that originally there had only been ten months in the year, just as some barbarians have three, and in Greece the Arcadians have four, and the Acarnanians six. The Egyptians originally had but one month in their year, and afterwards are said to have divided it into four mouths; wherefore, though they live in the newest of all countries, they appear to be the most ancient of all nations, and in their genealogies reckon an incredible number of years, because they count their months as years.

XIX

One proof that the Romans used to reckon ten months and not twelve in the year is the name of the last month; for up to the present day it is called December, the tenth, and the order of the months shows that March was the first, for the fifth month from it they called Quintilis, the fifth; and the sixth month Sextilis, and so on for the others, although, by their putting January and February before March, it resulted that the month which they number fifth is really seventh in order. Moreover, there is a legend that the month of March, being the first, was dedicated by Romulus to Mars, and the second, April, to Aphrodité (Venus); in which month they sacrifice to this goddess, and the women bathe on the first day of it crowned with myrtle. Some, however, say that April is not named after Aphrodité, because the word April does not contain the letter h, and that it comes from the Latin word aperio, and means the month in which the spring-time opens the buds of plants; for that is what the word signifies. Of the following months, May is named after Maia, the mother of Hermes or Mercury, for it is dedicated to her, and June from Juno. Some say that these names signify old age and youth, for old men are called by the Latins majores, and young men juniores. The remaining months they named, from the order in which they came, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth: Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, December. Then Quintilis was called Julius after Julius Caesar, who conquered Pompeius; and Sextilis was called Augustus, after the second of the Roman Emperors. The next two months Domitian altered to his own titles, but not for any long time, as after his death they resumed their old names of September and October. The last two alone have preserved their original names without change. Of the months, added or altered by Numa, Februarius means the month of purification, for that is as nearly as possible the meaning of the word, and during it they sacrifice to the dead, and hold the festival of the Lupercalia, which resembles a ceremony of purification. The first month, Januarius, is named after Janus. My opinion is, that Numa moved the month named after Mars from its precedence, wishing the art of good government to be honoured before that of war. For Janus in very ancient times was either a deity or a king, who established a social polity, and made men cease from a savage life like that of wild beasts. And for this reason his statues are made with a double face, because he turned men’s way of life from one form to another.

XX

There is a temple to him in Rome, which has two doors, and which they call the gate of war. It is the custom to open the temple in time of war, and to close it during peace. This scarcely ever took place, as the empire was almost always at war with some state, being by its very greatness continually brought into collision with the neighbouring tribes. Only in the time of Caesar Augustus, after he had conquered Antonius, it was closed; and before that, during the consulship of Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius, for a short time, and then was almost immediately reopened, as a new war broke out. But during Numa’s reign no one saw it open for a single day, and it remained closed for forty-three years continuously, so utterly had he made wars to cease on all sides. Not only was the spirit of the Romans subdued and pacified by the gentle and just character of their king, but even the neighbouring cities, as if some soothing healthful air was breathed over them from Rome, altered their habits and longed to live quiet and well-governed, cultivating the earth, bringing up their families in peace, and worshipping the gods. And gay festivals and entertainments, during which the people of the various states fearlessly mixed with one another, prevailed throughout Italy, for Numa’s knowledge of all that was good and noble was shed abroad like water from a fountain, and the atmosphere of holy calm by which he was surrounded spread over all men. The very poets when they wrote of that peaceful time were unable to find adequate expressions for it, as one writes—

“Across the shields are cobwebs laid,

Rust eats the lance and keen edged blade;

No more we hear the trumpets bray.

And from our eyes no more is slumber chased away.”

No war, revolution, or political disturbance of any kind is recorded during Numa’s reign, neither was there any envy or hatred of him or any attempt by others to obtain the crown; but either fear of the gods who visibly protected him, or reverence for his virtues, or the special grace of Heaven, made men’s lives innocent and untainted with evil, and formed a striking proof of the truth of what Plato said many years afterwards, that the only escape from misery for men is when by Divine Providence philosophy is combined with royal power, and used to exalt virtue over vice. Blessed indeed is the truly wise man, and blessed are they who hear the words of his mouth. Indeed his people require no restraints or punishments, but seeing a plain example of virtue in the life of their chief, they themselves of their own accord reform their lives, and model them upon that gentle and blessed rule of love and just dealing one with another which it is the noblest work of politicians to establish. He is most truly a king who can teach such lessons as these to his subjects, and Numa beyond all others seems to have clearly discerned this truth.

XXI

Historians differ in their accounts of his wives and children. Some say that he married Tatia alone, and was the father of one daughter only, named Pompilia; but others, besides her, assign to him four sons, named Pompo, Pinus, Calpus, and Mamercus, from whom descended the four noble families of the Pomponii, Pinarii, Calphurnii, and Mamerci, which for this reason took the title of Rex, that is, king. Others again say that these pedigrees were invented to flatter these families, and state that the Pompilian family descends not from Tatia, but from Lucretia, whom he married after he became king. All, however, agree that Pompilia married Marcius, the son of that Marcius who encouraged Numa to accept the crown. This man accompanied Numa to Rome, was made a member of the Senate, and after Numa’s death laid claim to the crown, but was worsted by Tullus Hostilius and made away with himself. His son Marcius, who married Pompilia, remained in Rome, and became the father of Ancus Marcius, who was king after Tullus Hostilius, and who was only five years old when Numa died.

We are told by Piso that Numa died, not by a sudden death, but by slow decay from sheer old age, having lived a little more than eighty years.

XXII

He was enviable even in death, for all the friendly and allied nations assembled at his funeral with national offerings. The senators bore his bier, which was attended by the chief priests, while the crowd of men, women and children who were present, followed with such weeping and wailing, that one would have thought that, instead of an aged king, each man was about to bury his own dearest friend, who had died in the prime of life. At his own wish, it is said, the body was not burned, but placed in two stone coffins and buried on the Janiculum Hill. One of these contained his body, and the other the sacred books which he himself had written, as Greek legislators write their laws upon tablets. During his life he had taught the priests the contents of these books, and their meaning and spirit, and ordered them to be buried with his corpse, because it was right that holy mysteries should be contained, not in soulless writings, but in the minds of living men. For the same reason they say that the Pythagoreans never reduced their maxims to writing, but implanted them in the memories of worthy men; and when some of their difficult processes in geometry were divulged to some unworthy men, they said that Heaven would mark its sense of the wickedness which had been committed by some great public calamity; so that, as Numa’s system so greatly resembled that of Pythagoras, we can easily pardon those who endeavour to establish a connection between them.

Valerius of Antium says that twelve sacred books and twelve books of Greek philosophy were placed in the coffin. Four hundred years afterwards, when Publius Cornelius and Marcus Baebius were consuls, a great fall of rain took place, and the torrent washed away the earth and exposed the coffins. When the lids were removed, one of the coffins was seen by all men to be empty, and without any trace of a corpse in it; the other contained the books, which were read by Petilius the praetor, who reported to the Senate that in his opinion it was not right that their contents should be made known to the people, and they were therefore carried to the Comitium and burned there.

All good and just men receive most praise after their death, because their unpopularity dies with them or even before them; but Numa’s glory was enhanced by the unhappy reigns of his successors. Of five kings who succeeded him, the last was expelled and died an exile, and of the other four, not one died a natural death, but three were murdered by conspirators, and Tullus Hostilius, who was king next after Numa, and who derided and insulted his wise ordinances, especially those connected with religion, as lazy and effeminate, and who urged the people to take up arms, was cut down in the midst of his boastings by a terrible disease, and became subject to superstitious fears in no way resembling Numa’s piety. His subjects were led to share these terrors, more especially by the manner of his death, which is said to have been by the stroke of a thunderbolt.

COMPARISON OF
NUMA WITH LYKURGUS.

I

Now that we have gone through the lives of Numa and Lykurgus, we must attempt, without being daunted by difficulties, to reconcile the points in which they appear to differ from each other. Much they appear to have had in common, as, for example, their self-control, their piety, and their political and educational ability; and while the peculiar glory of Numa is his acceptance of the throne, that of Lykurgus is his abdication. Numa received it without having asked for it; Lykurgus when in full possession gave it up. Numa, though a private man and not even a Roman, was chosen by the Romans as their king; but Lykurgus from being a king reduced himself to a private station. It is honourable to obtain a crown by righteousness, but it is also honourable to prefer righteousness to a crown. Numa’s virtue made him so celebrated that he was judged worthy to be king, Lykurgus’ made him so great that he did not care to be king.

Again, like those who tune the strings of a lyre, Lykurgus drew tighter the relaxed and licentious Sparta, while Numa merely slackened the highly strung and warlike Rome, so that here Lykurgus had the more difficult task. He had to persuade his countrymen, not to take off their armour and lay aside their swords, but to leave off using gold and silver, and to lay aside costly hangings and furniture; he had not to make them exchange wars for sacrifices and gay festivals, but to cease from feasts and drinking-parties, and work hard both in the field and in the palaestra to train themselves for war.

For this reason, Numa was able to effect his purpose without difficulty, and without any loss of popularity and respect; while Lykurgus was struck and pelted, and in danger of his life, and even so could scarcely carry out his reforms. Yet the genius of Numa was kindly and gentle, and so softened and changed the reckless fiery Romans that they became peaceful, law-abiding citizens; and if we must reckon Lykurgus’ treatment of the Helots as part of his system, it cannot be denied that Numa was a far more civilised lawgiver, seeing that he allowed even to actual slaves some taste of liberty, by his institution of feasting them together with their masters at the festival of Saturn.

For this custom of allowing the labourers to share in the harvest-feast is traced to Numa. Some say that this is in remembrance of the equality which existed in the time of Saturn, when there was neither master nor slave, but all were kinsmen and had equal rights.

II

Both evidently encouraged the spirit of independence and self-control among their people, while of other virtues, Lykurgus loved bravery, and Numa loved justice best; unless indeed we should say that, from the very different temper and habits of the two states, they required to be treated in a different manner. It was not from cowardice, but because he scorned to do an injustice, that Numa did not make war; while Lykurgus made his countrymen warlike, not in order that they might do wrong, but that they might not be wronged. Each found that the existing system required very important alterations to check its excesses and supply its defects. Numa’s reforms were all in favour of the people, whom he classified into a mixed and motley multitude of goldsmiths and musicians and cobblers; while the constitution introduced by Lykurgus was severely aristocratic, driving all handicrafts into the hands of slaves and foreigners, and confining the citizens to the use of the spear and shield, as men whose trade was war alone, and who knew nothing but how to obey their leaders and to conquer their enemies. In Sparta a free man was not permitted to make money in business, in order that he might be truly free.

Each thing connected with the business of making money, like that of preparing food for dinner, was left in the hands of slaves and helots. Numa made no regulations of this kind, but, while he put an end to military plundering, raised no objection to other methods of making money, nor did he try to reduce inequalities of fortune, but allowed wealth to increase unchecked, and disregarded the influx of poor men into the city and the increase of poverty there, whereas he ought at the very outset, like Lykurgus, while men’s fortunes were still tolerably equal, to have raised some barrier against the encroachments of wealth, and to have restrained the terrible evils which take their rise and origin in it. As for the division of the land among the citizens, in my opinion, Lykurgus cannot be blamed for doing it, nor yet can Numa for not doing it. The equality thus produced was the very foundation and corner-stone of the Lacedaemonian constitution, while Numa had no motive for disturbing the Roman lands, which had only been recently distributed among the citizens, or to alter the arrangements made by Romulus, which we may suppose were still in force throughout the country.

III

With regard to a community of wives and children, each took a wise and statesman-like course to prevent jealousy, although the means employed by each were different. A Roman who possessed a sufficient family of his own might be prevailed upon by a friend who had no children to transfer his wife to him, being fully empowered to give her away, by divorce, for this purpose; but a Lacedaemonian was accustomed to lend his wife for intercourse with a friend, while she remained living in his house, and without the marriage being thereby dissolved. Many, we are told, even invited those who, they thought, would beget fine and noble children, to converse with their wives. The distinction between the two customs seems to be this: the Spartans affected an unconcern and insensibility about a matter which excites most men to violent rage and jealousy; the Romans modestly veiled it by a legal contract which seems to admit how hard it is for a man to give up his wife to another. Moreover Numa’s regulations about young girls were of a much more feminine and orderly nature, while those of Lykurgus were so highflown and unbecoming to women, as to have been the subject of notice by the poets, who call them Phainomerides, that is with bare thighs, as Ibykus says; and they accuse them of lust, as Euripides says—

“They stay not, as befits a maid, at home,

But with young men in shameless dresses roam.”

For in truth the sides of the maiden’s tunic were not fastened together at the skirt, and so flew open and exposed the thigh as they walked, which is most clearly alluded to in the lines of Sophokles—

“She that wanders nigh,

With scanty skirt that shows the thigh,

A Spartan maiden fair and free,

Hermione.”

On this account they are said to have become bolder than they should be, and to have first shown this spirit towards their husbands, ruling uncontrolled over their households, and afterwards in public matters, where they freely expressed their opinions upon the most important subjects. On the other hand, Numa preserved that respect and honour due from men to matrons which they had met with under Romulus, who paid them these honours to atone for having carried them off by force, but he implanted in them habits of modesty, sobriety, and silence, forbidding them even to touch wine, or to speak even when necessary except in their husbands’ presence. It is stated that once, because a woman pleaded her own cause in the Forum, the Senate sent to ask the oracle what this strange event might portend for the state.

A great proof of the obedience and modesty of the most part of them is the way in which the names of those who did any wrong is remembered. For, just as in Greece, historians record the names of those who first made war against their own kindred or murdered their parents, so the Romans tell us that the first man who put away his wife was Spurius Carvilius, nothing of the kind having happened in Rome for two hundred and thirty years from its foundation; and that the wife of Pinarius, Thalaea by name, was the first to quarrel with her mother-in-law Gegania in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus—so well and orderly were marriages arranged by this lawgiver.

IV

The rest of their laws for the training and marriage of maidens agree with one another, although Lykurgus put off the time of marriage till they were full-grown, in order that their intercourse, demanded as it was by nature, might produce love and friendship in the married pair rather than the dislike often experienced by an immature child towards her husband, and also that their bodies might be better able to support the trials of child-bearing, which he regarded as the sole object of marriage; whereas the Romans gave their daughters in marriage at the age of twelve years or even younger, thinking thus to hand over a girl to her husband pure and uncorrupt both in body and mind. It is clear that the former system is best for the mere production of children, and the latter for moulding consorts for life. But by his superintendence of the young, his collecting them into companies, his training and drill, with the table and exercises common to all, Lykurgus showed that he was immensely superior to Numa, who, like any commonplace lawgiver, left the whole training of the young in the hands of their fathers, regulated only by their caprice or needs; so that whoever chose might bring up his son as a shipwright, a coppersmith, or a musician, as though the citizens ought not from the very outset to direct their attention to one object, but were like people who have embarked in the same ship for various causes, who only in time of danger act together for the common advantage of all, and at other times pursue each his own private ends. Allowance must be made for ordinary lawgivers, who fail through want of power or of knowledge in establishing such a system; but no such excuse can be made for Numa, who was a wise man, and who was made king of a newly-created state which would not have opposed any of his designs. What could be of greater importance than to regulate the education of the young and so to train them that they might all become alike in their lives and all bear the same impress of virtue? It was to this that Lykurgus owed the permanence of his laws; for he could not have trusted to the oaths which he made them take, if he had not by education and training so steeped the minds of the young in the spirit of his laws, and by his method of bringing them up implanted in them such a love for the state, that the most important of his enactments remained in force for more than five hundred years; for the lives of all Spartans seem to have been coloured by these laws. That which was the aim and end of Numa’s policy, that Rome should be at peace and friendly with her neighbours, ceased immediately upon his death; at once the double-gated temple, which he kept closed as if he really kept war locked up in it, had both its gates thrown open and filled Italy with slaughter. His excellent and righteous policy did not last for a moment, for the people were not educated to support it, and therefore it could not be lasting. But, it may be asked, did not Rome flourish by her wars? It is hard to answer such a question, in an age which values wealth, luxury, and dominion more than a gentle peaceful life that wrongs no one and suffices for itself. Yet this fact seems to tell for Lykurgus, that the Romans gained such an enormous increase of power by departing from Numa’s policy, while the Lacedaemonians, as soon as they fell away from the discipline of Lykurgus, having been the haughtiest became the most contemptible of Greeks, and not only lost their supremacy, but had even to struggle for their bare existence. On the other hand, it was truly glorious for Numa that he was a stranger and sent for by the Romans to be their king; that he effected all his reforms without violence, and ruled a city composed of discordant elements without any armed force such as Lykurgus had to assist him, winning over all men and reducing them to order by his wisdom and justice.

LIFE OF
SOLON.

I

Didymus the grammarian, in the book about Solon’s laws which he wrote in answer to Asklepiades, quotes a saying of one Philokles, that Solon was the son of Euphorion, which is quite at variance with the testimony of all other writers who have mentioned Solon: for they all say that he was the son of Exekestides, a man whose fortune and power were only moderate, but whose family was of the noblest in Athens; for he was descended from Kodrus the last Athenian king. Herakleides of Pontus relates that the mother of Solon was first cousin to the mother of Peisistratus. The two boys, we are told, were friends when young, and when in after years they differed in politics they still never entertained harsh or angry feelings towards one another, but kept alive the sacred flame of their former intimate friendship. Peisistratus is even said to have dedicated the statue of Love in the Academy where those who are going to run in the sacred torch-race light their torches.

II

According to Hermippus, Solon, finding that his father had by his generosity diminished his fortune, and feeling ashamed to be dependent upon others, when he himself was come of a house more accustomed to give than to receive, embarked in trade, although his friends were eager to supply him with all that he could wish for. Some, however, say that Solon travelled more with a view to gaining experience and learning than to making money. He was indeed eager to learn, as he wrote when an old man,

“Old to grow, but ever learning,”

but disregarded wealth, for he wrote that he regarded as equally rich the man who owned

“Gold and broad acres, corn and wine;

And he that hath but clothes and food,

A wife, and youthful strength divine.”

Yet elsewhere he has written, but

“I long for wealth, not by fraud obtained,

For curses wait on riches basely gained.”

There is no reason for an upright statesman either to be over anxious for luxuries or to despise necessaries. At that period, as Hesiod tells us, “Work was no disgrace,” nor did trade carry any reproach, while the profession of travelling merchant was even honourable, as it civilised barbarous tribes, and gained the friendship of kings, and learned much in many lands. Some merchants founded great cities, as, for example, Protis, who was beloved by the Gauls living near the Rhone, founded Marseilles. It is also said that Thales the sage, and Hippocrates the mathematician, travelled as merchants, and that Plato defrayed the expenses of his journey to Egypt by the oil which he disposed of in that country.

III

Solon’s extravagance and luxurious mode of life, and his poems, which treat of pleasure more from a worldly than a philosophic point of view, are attributed to his mercantile training; for the great perils of a merchant’s life require to be paid in corresponding pleasures. Yet it is clear that he considered himself as belonging to the class of the poor, rather than that of the rich, from the following verses:

“The base are rich, the good are poor; and yet

Our virtue for their gold we would not change;

For that at least is ours for evermore,

While wealth we see from hand to hand doth range.”

His poetry was originally written merely for his own amusement in his leisure hours; but afterwards he introduced into it philosophic sentiments, and interwove political events with his poems, not in order to record them historically, but in some cases to explain his own conduct, and in others to instruct, encourage, or rebuke the Athenians. Some say that he endeavoured to throw his laws into an epic form, and tell us that the poem began—

“To Jove I pray, great Saturn’s son divine,

To grant his favour to these laws of mine.”

Of ethical philosophy, he, like most of the sages of antiquity, was most interested in that branch which deals with political obligations. As to natural science, his views are very crude and antiquated, as we see from the following verses:

“From clouds the snow and hail descend,

And thunderbolts the lightnings send;

The waves run high when gales do blow,

Without the wind they’re still enow.”

Indeed, of all the sages of that time, Thales alone seems to have known more of physics than was necessary to supply man’s every-day needs; all the others having gained their reputation for political wisdom.

IV

These wise men are said to have met at Delphi, and again at Corinth, where they were entertained by the despot Periander. Their reputation was greatly increased by the tripod which was sent to all of them and refused by all with a gracious rivalry. The story goes that some men of Cos were casting a net, and some strangers from Miletus bought the haul of them before it reached the surface.

The net brought up a golden tripod, the same which, it is said, Helen threw into the sea at that spot, in accordance with some ancient oracle, when she was sailing away from Troy. A dispute arose at first between the strangers and the fishermen; afterwards it was taken up by their respective cities, who even came to blows about it. Finally they consulted the oracle at Delphi, which ordered it to be given to the wisest. Now it was first sent to Miletus, to Thales, as the men of Cos willingly gave it to that one man, although they had fought with all the Milesians together about it. Thales said that Bias was wiser than himself, and sent it to him; and by him it was again sent to another man, as being wiser yet. So it went on, being sent from one to another until it came to Thales a second time, and at last was sent from Miletus to Thebes and consecrated to Apollo Ismenius. As Theophrastus tells the story, the tripod was first sent to Bias at Priéne, and secondly to Thales at Miletus, and so on through all of the wise men until it again reached Bias, and was finally offered at Delphi. This is the more common version of the story, although some say that it was not a tripod but a bowl sent by Croesus, others that it was a drinking-cup left behind by one Bathykles.

V

Anacharsis is said to have met Solon, and afterwards Thales in private, and to have conversed with them. The story goes that Anacharsis came to Athens, went to Solon’s door, and knocked, saying that he was a stranger and had come to enter into friendship with him. When Solon answered that friendships were best made at home, Anacharsis said, “Well then, do you, who are at home, enter into friendship with me.” Solon, admiring the man’s cleverness, received him kindly, and kept him for some time in his house. He was at this time engaged in politics, and was composing his laws. Anacharsis, when he discovered this, laughed at Solon’s undertaking, if he thought to restrain the crimes and greed of the citizens by written laws, which he said were just like spiders’ webs; for, like them, they caught the weaker criminals, but were broken through by the stronger and more important.

To this Solon answered, that men keep covenants, because it is to the advantage of neither party to break them; and that he so suited his laws to his countrymen, that it was to the advantage of every one to abide by them rather than to break them. Nevertheless, things turned out more as Anacharsis thought than as Solon wished. Anacharsis said too, when present at an assembly of the people, that he was surprised to see that in Greece wise men spoke upon public affairs, and ignorant men decided them.

VI

When Solon went to Thales at Miletus, he expressed his wonder at his having never married and had a family. Thales made no answer at the time, but a few days afterwards arranged that a man should come to him and say that he left Athens ten days before. When Solon inquired of him, whether anything new had happened at Athens, the man answered, as Thales had instructed him, that “there was no news, except the death of a young man who had been escorted to his grave by the whole city. He was the son, they told him, of a leading citizen of great repute for his goodness, but the father was not present, for they said he had been travelling abroad for some years.” “Unhappy man,” said Solon, “what was his name?” “I heard his name,” answered the man, “but I cannot remember it; beyond that there was much talk of his wisdom and justice.” Thus by each of his answers he increased Solon’s alarm, until he at last in his excitement asked the stranger whether it were not Solon’s son that was dead. The stranger said that it was. Solon was proceeding to beat his head and show all the other marks of grief, when Thales stopped him, saying with a smile, “This, Solon, which has the power to strike down so strong a man as you, has ever prevented my marrying and having children. But be of good courage, for this tale which you have been told is untrue.” This story is said by Hermippus to have been told by Pataikos, he who said that he had inherited the soul of Aesop.

VII

It is a strange and unworthy feeling that prompts a man not to claim that to which he has a right, for fear that he may one day lose it; for by the same reasoning he might refuse wealth, reputation, or wisdom, for fear of losing them hereafter. We see even virtue, the greatest and most dear of all possessions, can be destroyed by disease or evil drugs; and Thales by avoiding marriage still had just as much to fear, unless indeed he ceased to love his friends, his kinsmen, and his native land. But even he adopted his sister’s son Kybisthus; for the soul has a spring of affection within it, and is formed not only to perceive, to reflect, and to remember, but also to love. If it finds nothing to love at home, it will find something abroad; and when affection, like a desert spot, has no legitimate possessors, it is usurped by bastard children or even servants, who when they have obtained our love, make us fear for them and be anxious about them. So that one may often see men, in a cynical temper, inveighing against marriage and children, who themselves shortly afterwards will be plunged into unmanly excesses of grief, at the loss of their child by some slave or concubine. Some have even shown terrible grief at the death of dogs and horses; whereas others, who have lost noble sons, made no unusual or unseemly exhibition of sorrow, but passed the remainder of their lives calmly and composedly. Indeed it is weakness, not affection, which produces such endless misery and dread to those who have not learned to take a rational view of the uncertainty of life, and who cannot enjoy the presence of their loved ones because of their constant agony for fear of losing them. We should not make ourselves poor for fear of losing our property, nor should we guard ourselves against a possible loss of friends by making none; still less ought we to avoid having children for fear that our child might die. But we have already dwelt too much upon this subject.

VIII

After a long and harassing war with the Megarians about the possession of the Island of Salamis, the Athenians finally gave up in sheer weariness, and passed a law forbidding any one for the future, either to speak or to write in favour of the Athenian claim to Salamis, upon pain of death. Solon, grieved at this dishonour, and observing that many of the younger men were eager for an excuse to fight, but dared not propose to do so because of this law, pretended to have lost his reason. His family gave out that he was insane, but he meanwhile composed a poem, and when he had learned it by heart, rushed out into the market-place wearing a small felt cap, and having assembled a crowd, mounted the herald’s stone and recited the poem which begins with the lines—

“A herald I from Salamis am come,

My verse will tell you what should there be done.”

The name of this poem is Salamis; it consists of a hundred beautifully written lines. After he had sung it, his friends began to commend it, and Peisistratus made a speech to the people, which caused such enthusiasm that they abrogated the law and renewed the war, with Solon as their leader. The common version of the story runs thus: Solon sailed with Peisistratus to Kolias, where he found all the women of the city performing the customary sacrifice to Demeter (Ceres). At the same time, he sent a trusty man to Salamis, who represented himself as a deserter, and bade the Megarians follow him at once to Kolias, if they wished to capture all the women of the first Athenian families. The Megarians were duped, and sent off a force in a ship. As soon as Solon saw this ship sail away from the island, he ordered the women out of the way, dressed up those young men who were still beardless in their clothes, headdresses, and shoes, gave them daggers, and ordered them to dance and disport themselves near the seashore until the enemy landed, and their ship was certain to be captured. So the Megarians, imagining them to be women, fell upon them, struggling which should first seize them, but they were cut off to a man by the Athenians, who at once sailed to Salamis and captured it.

IX

Others say that the island was not taken in this way, but that first of all Solon received the following oracular response from Apollo at Delphi:

“Appease the land’s true lords, the heroes blest,

Who near Asopia’s fair margin rest,

And from their tombs still look towards the West.”

After this, Solon is said to have sailed by night, unnoticed by the Megarians, and to have sacrificed to the heroes Periphemus and Kychreus. His next act was to raise five hundred Athenian volunteers, who by a public decree were to be absolute masters of the island if they could conquer it. With these he set sail in a number of fishing-boats, with a triaconter or ship of war of thirty oars, sailing in company, and anchored off a certain cape which stretches towards Euboea. The Megarians in Euboea heard an indistinct rumour of this, and at once ran to arms, and sent a ship to reconnoitre the enemy. This ship, when it came near Solon’s fleet, was captured and its crew taken prisoners. On board of it Solon placed some picked men, and ordered them to make sail for the city of Salamis, and to conceal themselves as far as they could. Meanwhile he with the remaining Athenians attacked the Megarian forces by land; and while the battle was at its hottest, the men in the ship succeeded in surprising the city.

This story appears to be borne out by the proceedings which were instituted in memory of the capture. In this ceremony an Athenian ship used to sail to Salamis, at first in silence, and then as they neared the shore with warlike shouts. Then a man completely armed used to leap out and run, shouting as he went, up to the top of the hill called Skiradion, where he met those who came by land. Close by this place stands the temple of Ares, which Solon built; for he conquered the Megarians in the battle, and sent away the survivors with a flag of truce.

X

However, as the Megarians still continued the war, to the great misery of both sides, they agreed to make the Lacedaemonians arbitrators and judges between them. Most writers say that Solon brought the great authority of Homer’s ‘Iliad’ to his aid, by interpolating in the catologue of ships the two verses—

“Ajax from Salamis twelve vessels good

Brought, and he placed them where the Athenians stood,”

which he had read as evidence before the court.

The Athenians, however, say that all this is nonsense, but that Solon proved to the arbitrators that Philaeus and Eurysakes, the sons of Ajax, when they were enrolled as Athenian citizens, made over the island to Athens, and dwelt, one at Brauron, in Attica, and the other at Melité; moreover, there is an Athenian tribe which claims descent from Philaeus, to which Peisistratus belonged. Wishing, however, yet more thoroughly to prove his case against the Megarians, he based an argument on the tombs in the island, in which the corpses were buried, not in the Megarian, but in the Athenian manner. For the Megarians bury their dead looking towards the east, and the Athenians towards the west. But Hereas of Megara denies this, and says that the Megarians also bury their dead looking towards the west, and moreover, that each Athenian had a coffin to himself, while the Megarians place two or three bodies in one coffin. However, Solon supported his case by quoting certain oracles from Delphi, in which the god addresses Salamis as Ionian. The Spartan arbitrators were five in number, their names being Kritolaidas, Amompharetus, Hypsichidas, Anaxilos, and Kleomenes.

XI

Solon’s reputation and power were greatly increased by this, but he became much more celebrated and well-known in Greece by his speeches on behalf of the temple at Delphi, in which he urged the necessity of checking the insolent conduct of the people of Kirrha towards the temple, and of rallying in defence of the god. The Amphiktyons, prevailed upon by his eloquence, declared war, as we learn from Aristotle, among other writers, in his book about the winners of the prize at the Pythian games, in which he attributes this decision to Solon. However, he was not made general in that war, as Hermippus relates, quoting from Evanthes of Samos; for Aeschines the orator does not mention him, and, in the records of Delphi, Alkmaeon, not Solon, is mentioned as general of the Athenians on that occasion.

XII

Athens had long been suffering from the anger of the gods, which it had incurred by the treatment of Kylon’s party. These conspirators took sanctuary in Athene’s temple, but were induced by Megakles the archon to quit it and stand their trial. They fastened a thread to the shrine of the goddess, and kept hold of it so as still to be under her protection. But as they were coming down from the Acropolis, just beside the temple of the Furies, the string broke, and Megakles and the other archons, thinking that the goddess rejected their appeal, seized them. Some of them were stoned to death outside the temple, and some who had fled for sanctuary to the altars were slain there. Only those who fell as suppliants at the feet of the archons’ wives were spared. After this the archons were called accursed, and were viewed with horror; moreover, the survivors of Kylon’s party regained strength, and continued their intrigues against Megakles and the archons. At the time of which we are speaking these dissensions had reached their height, and the city was divided into two factions, when Solon, who was already a man of great reputation, came forward with some of the noblest Athenians, and by his entreaties and arguments prevailed upon those magistrates who were called accursed, to stand trial and be judged by a jury of three hundred citizens selected from the best families. Myron of Phlya prosecuted, and the archons were found guilty, and forced to leave the country. The bodies of such of them as had died were dug up, and cast out beyond the borders of Attica.

During these disorders the Athenians were again attacked by the Megarians, and lost Nisaea, and were again driven out of Salamis. The city was also a prey to superstitious terrors, and apparitions were seen, so that the prophets, after inspecting their victims, said that the city was polluted and under a curse, and that it required purification. Upon this they sent for Epimenides the Phaestian, of Crete, who is reckoned among the seven wise men of Greece, by some of those who do not admit Periander into their number. He was thought to enjoy the favour of Heaven, and was skilled in all the lore of the sacred mysteries, and in the sources of divine inspiration; wherefore he was commonly reported to be the child of the nymph Balte, and to be one of the old Curetes of Crete revived. He came to Athens and was a friend to Solon, assisting him greatly in his legislation. He remodelled their religious rites, and made their mourning more moderate, introducing certain sacrifices shortly after the funeral, and abolishing the harsh and barbarous treatment which women were for the most part subject to before in times of mourning. Above all, by purifications and atoning sacrifices, and the erection of new temples, he so sanctified and hallowed the city as to make the minds of the people obedient to the laws, and easily guided into unity and concord. It is said that he saw Munychia, and viewed it carefully for some time in silence. Then he said to the bystanders, “How blind is man to the future. The Athenians would eat this place up with their teeth if they knew what misfortunes it will bring upon them?” A prophetic saying of the same kind is attributed to Thales. He bade his friends bury him in a low and neglected quarter of Miletus, telling them that one day it would be the market-place of the city. Epimenides was greatly honoured by the Athenians, and was offered large sums of money by them, and great privileges, but he refused them all, and only asked for a branch of the sacred olive-tree, which he received and went his way.

XIII

When the troubles about Kylon were over, and the accursed men cast out of the country, the Athenians relapsed into their old dispute about the constitution. The state was divided into as many factions as there were parts of the country, for the Diakrii, or mountaineers, favoured democracy; the Pedioei, oligarchy; while those who dwelt along the seashore, called Parali, preferred a constitution midway between these two forms, and thus prevented either of the other parties from carrying their point. Moreover, the state was on the verge of revolution, because of the excessive poverty of some citizens, and the enormous wealth of others, and it appeared that the only means of putting an end to these disorders was by establishing an absolute despotism. The whole people were in debt to a few wealthy men; they either cultivated their farms, in which case they were obliged to pay one-sixth of the profit to their creditors, and were called Hektemori, or servants, or else they had raised loans upon personal security, and had become the slaves of their creditors, who either employed them at home, or sold them to foreigners. Many were even compelled to sell their own children, which was not illegal, and to leave the country because of the harshness of their creditors.

The greater part, and those of most spirit, combined together, and encouraged one another not to suffer such oppression any longer, but to choose some trustworthy person to protect their interests, to set free all enslaved debtors, redistribute the land, and, in a word, entirely remodel the constitution.

XIV

In this position of affairs, the most sensible men in Athens perceived that Solon was a person who shared the vices of neither faction, as he took no part in the oppressive conduct of the wealthy, and yet had sufficient fortune to save him from the straits to which the poor were reduced. In consequence of this, they begged him to come forward and end their disputes. But Phanias of Lesbos says that Solon deceived both parties, in order to save the state, promising the poor a redistribution of lands, and the rich a confirmation of their securities. However, Solon himself tells us that it was with reluctance that he interfered, as he was threatened by the avarice of the one party, and the desperation of the other. He was chosen archon next after Philombrotus, to act as an arbitrator and lawgiver at once, because the rich had confidence in him as a man of easy fortune, and the poor trusted him as a good man. It is said also that a saying which he had let fall some time before, that “equality does not breed strife,” was much circulated at the time, and pleased both parties, because the rich thought it meant that property should be distributed according to merit and desert, while the poor thought it meant according to rule and measure. Both parties were now elate with hope, and their leaders urged Solon to seize the supreme power in the state, of which he was practically possessed, and make himself king. Many even of the more moderate class of politicians, who saw how weary and difficult a task it would be to reform the state by debates and legislative measures, were quite willing that so wise and honest a man should undertake the sole management of affairs. It is even said that Solon received an oracle as follows:

“Take thou the helm, the vessel guide,

Athens will rally to thy side.”

His intimate friends were loudest in their reproaches, pointing out that it was merely the name of despot from which he shrunk, and that in his case his virtues would lead men to regard him as a legitimate hereditary sovereign; instancing also Tunnondas, who in former times had been chosen by the Euboeans, and, at the present time, Pittakus, who had been chosen king of Mitylene. But nothing could shake Solon’s determination. He told his friends that monarchy is indeed a pleasant place, but there is no way out of it; and he inserted the following verses in answer to Phokus, in one of his poems:

“But if I spared

My country, and with dread tyrannic sway,

Forbore to stain and to pollute my glory;

I feel no shame at this; nay rather thus,

I think that I excel mankind.”

From which it is clear that he possessed a great reputation even before he became the lawgiver of Athens.

In answer to the reproaches of many of his friends at his refusal to make himself despot, he wrote as follows:

“Not a clever man was Solon, not a calculating mind,

For he would not take the kingdom, which the gods to him inclined,

In his net he caught the prey, but would not draw it forth to land,

Overpowered by his terrors, feeble both of heart and hand;

For a man of greater spirit would have occupied the throne,

Proud to be the Lord of Athens, though ’twere for a day alone,

Though the next day he and his into oblivion were thrown.”

XV

This is the way in which he says the masses, and low-minded men, spoke of him. He, however, firmly rejecting the throne, proceeded quietly to administer public affairs, in laying down his laws without any weak yielding to the powerful, or any attempt to court popularity. Such as were good, he did not meddle with, fearing that if he

“Disturbed and overset the state,”

he might not have sufficient power to

“Reconstitute and organise again,”

in the best way. He carried out his measures by persuasion, and, where he thought he could succeed, by force; in his own words,

“Combining Force and Justice both together.”

Being afterwards asked whether he had composed the best possible laws for the Athenians, he answered, “The best that they would endure.” And the habit of Athenians of later times, who soften down harsh words by using politer equivalents, calling harlots “mistresses,” taxes “contributions,” garrisons of cities “protectors,” and the common prison “the house,” was, it seems, first invented by Solon, who devised the name of “relief from burdens” for his measure to abolish all debts.

This was his first measure; namely, to put an end to all existing debts and obligations, and to forbid any one in future to lend money upon security of the person of the debtor. Some writers, among whom is Androtion, say that he benefited the poor, not by the absolute extinction of debt, but by establishing a lower rate of interest; and that this measure was called “Relief from burdens,” and together with it the two other measures for the enlargement of measures and of the value of money, which were passed about the same time. For he ordered a mina, which was before constituted of seventy three drachmas, to contain a hundred, so that, though they paid the same amount, yet the value was less; thus those who had much to pay were benefited, and still their creditors were not cheated. But most writers say that the “Relief from burdens” meant the extinction of all securities whatever, and this agrees best with what we read in his poems. For Solon prides himself in these upon having

“Taken off the mortgages, which on the land were laid,

And made the country free, which was formerly enslaved.”

While he speaks of bringing back Athenian citizens who had been sold into slavery abroad,

“In distant lands who roam,

Their native tongue forgot,

Or here endure at home

A slave’s disgraceful lot,”

and of making them free men again.

It is said that in consequence of this measure he met with the greatest trouble of his life. As he was meditating how he might put an end to debt, and what words and preambles were best for the introduction of this law, he took counsel with his most intimate friends, such as Konon and Kleinias and Hipponikus, informing them that he had no intention of interfering with the tenure of land, but that he intended to abolishing all existing securities. They instantly took time by the forelock, borrowed large sums from the wealthy, and bought up a great extent of land. Presently the decree came forth, and they remained in enjoyment of these estates, but did not repay their loan to their creditors. This brought Solon into great discredit, for the people believed that he had been their accomplice. But he soon proved that this must be false, by remitting a debt of five talents which he himself had lent; and some state the sum at fifteen talents, amongst whom is Polyzelus of Rhodes. However, his friends were for ever afterwards called “The Swindlers.”

XVI

By this measure he pleased neither party, but the rich were dissatisfied at the loss of their securities, and the poor were still more so because the land was not divided afresh, as they hoped it would be, and because he had not, like Lykurgus, established absolute equality.

But Lykurgus was eleventh in direct descent from Herakles, and had reigned in Lacedaemon for many years, and had his own great reputation, friends, and interest to assist him in carrying out his reforms: and although he chose to effect his purpose by violence, so that his eye was actually knocked out, yet he succeeded in carrying that measure, so valuable for the safety and concord of the state, by which it was rendered impossible for any citizen to be either rich or poor. Solon’s power could not reach this height, as he was only a commoner and a moderate man; yet he did all that was in his power, relying solely upon the confidence and goodwill of his countrymen.

It is clear that they were disappointed, and expected more from his legislation, from his own verses—

“Once they speculated gaily, what good luck should them befall,

Now they look upon me coldly, as a traitor to them all.”

Yet he says, if any one else had been in his position,

“He ne’er would have desisted from unsettling the laws,

Till he himself got all the cream.”

However, not long afterwards, they perceived the public benefits which he had conferred upon them, forgot their private grievances, and made a public sacrifice in honour of the Seisachtheia, or “Relief from burdens.” Moreover, they constituted Solon supreme reformer and lawgiver, not over some departments only, but placing everything alike in his hands; magistracies, public assemblies, senate, and law-courts. He had full powers to confirm or abolish any of these, and to fix the proper qualifications for members of them, and their numbers and times of meeting.

XVII

First of all, then, he repealed all the laws of Drakon, except those relating to murder, because of their harshness and the excessive punishments which they awarded. For death was the punishment for almost every offence, so that even men convicted of idleness were executed, and those who stole pot-herbs or fruits suffered just like sacrilegious robbers and murderers. So that Demades afterwards made the joke that Drakon’s laws were not written with ink, but with blood. It is said that Drakon himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones.

XVIII

In the next place, Solon, who wished to leave all magistracies as he found them, in the hands of the wealthy classes, but to give the people a share in the rest of the constitution, from which they were then excluded, took a census of the wealth of the citizens, and made a first class of those who had an annual income of not less than five hundred medimni of dry or liquid produce; these he called Pentakosiomedimni. The next class were the Hippeis, or knights, consisting of those who were able to keep a horse, or who had an income of three hundred medimni. The third class were the Zeugitae, whose property qualification was two hundred medimni of dry or liquid produce; and the last class were the Thetes, whom Solon did not permit to be magistrates, but whose only political privilege was the right of attending the public assemblies and sitting as jurymen in the law courts. This privilege was at first insignificant, but afterwards became of infinite importance, because most disputes were settled before a jury. Even in those cases which he allowed the magistrates to settle, he provided a final appeal to the people.

Solon moreover is said to have purposely worded his laws vaguely and with several interpretations, in order to increase the powers of these juries, because persons who could not settle their disputes by the letter of the law were obliged to have recourse to juries of the people, and to refer all disputes to them, as being to a certain extent above the laws. He himself notices this in the following verses:

“I gave the people all the strength they needed,

Yet kept the power of the nobles strong;

Thus each from other’s violence I shielded,

Not letting either do the other wrong.”

Thinking that the weakness of the populace required still further protection, he permitted any man to prosecute on behalf of any other who might be ill-treated. Thus if a man were struck or injured, any one else who was able and willing might prosecute on his behalf, and the lawgiver by this means endeavoured to make the whole body of citizens act together and feel as one. A saying of his is recorded which quite agrees with the spirit of this law. Being asked, what he thought was the best managed city? “That,” he answered, “in which those who are not wronged espouse the cause of those who are, and punish their oppressors.”

XIX

He established the senate of the Areopagus of those who had held the yearly office of archon, and himself became a member of it because he had been archon. But in addition to this, observing that the people were becoming turbulent and unruly, in consequence of their relief from debt, he formed a second senate, consisting of a hundred men selected from each of the four tribes, to deliberate on measures in the first instance, and he permitted no measures to be proposed before the general assembly, which had not been previously discussed in this senate. The upper senate he intended to exercise a general supervision, and to maintain the laws, and he thought that with these two senates as her anchors, the ship of the state would ride more securely, and that the people would be less inclined to disorder. Most writers say that Solon constituted the senate of the Areopagus, as is related above; and this view is supported by the fact that Drakon nowhere mentions or names the Areopagites, but in all cases of murder refers to the Ephetai. However, the eighth law on the thirteenth table of the laws of Solon runs thus:—

“All citizens who were disfranchised before the magistracy of Solon shall resume their rights, except those who have been condemned by the Areopagus, or by the Ephetai, or by the king—archons, in the prytaneum, for murder or manslaughter, or attempts to overthrow the government and who were in exile when this law was made.”

This again proves that the senate of the Areopagus existed before the time of Solon; for who could those persons be who were condemned by the court of the Areopagus, if Solon was the first who gave the senate of the Areopagus a criminal jurisdiction; though perhaps some words have been left out, or indistinctly written, and the law means “all those who had been condemned on the charges which now are judged by the court of the Areopagus, the Ephetai, or the Prytanies, when this law was made, must remain disfranchised, though the others become enfranchised?” Of these explanations the reader himself must consider which he prefers.

XX

The strangest of his remaining laws is that which declared disfranchised a citizen who in a party conflict took neither side; apparently his object was to prevent any one regarding home politics in a listless, uninterested fashion, securing his own personal property, and priding himself upon exemption from the misfortunes of his country, and to encourage men boldly to attach themselves to the right party and to share all its dangers, rather than in safety to watch and see which side would be successful. That also is a strange and even ludicrous provision in one of his laws, which permits an heiress, whose husband proves impotent, to avail herself of the services of the next of kin to obtain an heir to her estate. Some, however, say that this law rightly serves men who know themselves to be unfit for marriage, and who nevertheless marry heiresses for their money, and try to make the laws override nature; for, when they see their wife having intercourse with whom she pleases, they will either break off the marriage, or live in constant shame, and so pay the penalty of their avarice and wrong-doing. It is a good provision also, that the heiress may not converse with any one, but only with him whom she may choose from among her husband’s relations, so that her offspring may be all in the family. This is pointed at by his ordinance that the bride and bridegroom should be shut in the same room and eat a quince together, and that the husband of an heiress should approach her at least thrice in each month. For even if no children are born, still this is a mark of respect to a good wife, and puts an end to many misunderstandings, preventing their leading to an actual quarrel.

In other marriages he suppressed dowries, and ordered the bride to bring to her husband three dresses and a few articles of furniture of no great value; for he did not wish marriages to be treated as money bargains or means of gain, but that men and women should enter into marriage for love and happiness and procreation of children. Dionysius, the despot of Syracuse, when his mother wished to be married to a young citizen, told her that he had indeed broken the laws of the state when he seized the throne, but that he could not disregard the laws of nature so far as to countenance such a monstrous union. These disproportioned matches ought not to be permitted in any state, nor should men be allowed to form unequal loveless alliances, which are in no sense true marriages. A magistrate or lawgiver might well address an old man who marries a young girl in the words of Sophokles: “Poor wretch, a hopeful bridegroom you will be;” and if he found a young man fattening like a partridge in the house of a rich old woman, he ought to transfer him to some young maiden who is without a husband. So much for this subject.

XXI

Besides these, Solon’s law which forbids men to speak evil of the dead is much praised. It is good to think of the departed as sacred, and it is only just to refrain from attacking the absent, while it is politic, also, to prevent hatred from being eternal. He also forbade people to speak evil of the living in temples, courts of justice, public buildings, or during the national games; and imposed a fine of three drachmas to the person offended, and two to the state. His reason for this was that it shows a violent and uncultivated nature not to be able to restrain one’s passion in certain places and at certain times, although it is hard to do so always, and to some persons impossible; and a legislator should frame his laws with a view to what he can reasonably hope to effect, and rather correct a few persons usefully than punish a number to no purpose.

He gained credit also by his law about wills. Before his time these were not permitted at Athens, but the money and lands of a deceased person were inherited by his family in all cases. Solon, however, permitted any one who had no children to leave his property to whom he would, honouring friendship more than nearness of kin, and giving a man absolute power to dispose of his inheritance. Yet, on the other hand, he did not permit legacies to be given without any restrictions, but disallowed all that were obtained by the effects of disease or by administration of drugs to the testator, or by imprisonment and violence, or by the solicitations of his wife, as he rightly considered that to be persuaded by one’s wife against one’s better judgment is the same as to submit to force. For Solon held that a man’s reason was perverted by deceit as much as by violence, and by pleasure no less than by pain.

He regulated, moreover, the journeys of the women, and their mournings and festivals. A woman was not allowed to travel with more than three dresses, nor with more than an obolus’ worth of food or drink, nor a basket more than a cubit in length; nor was she to travel at night, except in a waggon with a light carried in front of it. He abolished the habits of tearing themselves at funerals, and of reciting set forms of dirges, and of hiring mourners. He also forbade them to sacrifice an ox for the funeral feast, and to bury more than three garments with the body, and to visit other persons’ graves. Most of these things are forbidden by our own laws also; with the addition, that by our laws those who offend thus are fined by the gynaeconomi, or regulators of the women, for giving way to unmanly and womanish sorrow.

XXII

Observing that the city was filled with men who came from all countries to take refuge in Attica, that the country was for the most part poor and unproductive, and that merchants also are unwilling to despatch cargoes to a country which has nothing to export, he encouraged his countrymen to embark in trade, and made a law that a son was not obliged to support his father, if his father had not taught him a trade. As for Lykurgus, whose city was clear of strangers, and whose land was “unstinted, and with room for twice the number,” as Euripides says, and who above all had all the Helots, throughout Lacedaemon, who were best kept employed, in order to break their spirit by labour and hardship, it was very well that his citizens should disdain laborious handicrafts and devote their whole attention to the art of war.

But Solon had not the power to change the whole life of his countrymen by his laws, but rather was forced to suit his laws to existing circumstances, and, as he saw that the soil was so poor that it could only suffice for the farmers, and was unable to feed a mass of idle people as well, he gave great honour to trade, and gave powers to the senate of the Areopagus to inquire what each man’s source of income might be, and to punish the idle. A harsher measure was that of which we are told by Herakleides of Pontus, his making it unnecessary for illegitimate children to maintain their father. Yet if a man abstains from an honourable marriage, and lives with a woman more for his own pleasure in her society than with a view to producing a family, he is rightly served, and cannot upbraid his children with neglecting him, because he has made their birth their reproach.

XXIII

Altogether Solon’s laws concerning women are very strange. He permitted a husband to kill an adulterer taken in the act; but if any one carried off a free woman and forced her, he assessed the penalty at one hundred drachmas. If he obtained her favours by persuasion, he was to pay twenty drachmas, except in the case of those who openly ply for hire, alluding to harlots; for they come to those who offer them money without any concealment. Moreover, he forbade men to sell their sisters and daughters, except in the case of unchastity. Now to punish the same offence at one time with unrelenting severity, and at another in a light and trifling manner, by imposing so slight a fine, is unreasonable, unless the scarcity of specie in the city at that period made fines which were paid in money more valuable than they would now be; indeed, in the valuation of things for sacrifice, a sheep and a drachma were reckoned as each equal to a medimnus of corn. To the victor at the Isthmian games he appointed a reward of a hundred drachmas, and to the victor in the Olympian, five hundred. He gave five drachmas for every wolf that was killed, and one drachma for every wolf’s whelp; and we are told by Demetrius of Phalerum that the first of these sums was the price of an ox, and the second that of a sheep. The prices of choice victims, which he settled in his sixteenth tablet of laws, would naturally be higher than those of ordinary beasts, but even thus they are cheap compared with prices at the present day. It was an ancient practice among the Athenians to destroy the wolves, because their country was better fitted for pasture than for growing crops. Some say that the Athenian tribes derive their names, not from the sons of Ion, but from the different professions in which men were then divided: thus the fighting men were named Hoplites, and the tradesmen Ergadeis; the two remaining ones being the Geleontes, or farmers, and the Aigikoreis, or goat-herds and graziers. With regard to water, as the country is not supplied with either rivers or lakes, but the people depend chiefly upon artificial wells, he made a law, that wherever there was a public well within four furlongs, people should use it, but if it were farther off, then they must dig a private well for themselves; but if a man dug a depth of sixty feet on his own estate without finding water, then he was to have the right of filling a six-gallon pitcher twice a day at his neighbour’s well; for Solon thought it right to help the distressed, and yet not to encourage laziness. He also made very judicious regulations about planting trees, ordering that they should not be planted within five feet of a neighbour’s property, except in the case of olives and fig-trees, which were not to be planted within nine feet; for these trees spread out their roots farther than others, and spoil the growth of any others by taking away their nourishment and by giving off hurtful juices. Trenches and pits he ordered to be dug as far away from another man’s property as they were deep; and no hive of bees was to be placed within three hundred feet of those already established by another man.

XXIV

Oil was the only product of the country which he allowed to be exported, everything else being forbidden; and he ordered that if any one broke this law the archon was to solemnly curse him, unless he paid a hundred drachmas into the public treasury. This law is written on the first of his tablets. From this we see that the old story is not altogether incredible, that the export of figs was forbidden, and that the men who informed against those who had done so were therefore called sycophants. He also made laws about damage received from animals, one of which was that a dog who had bitten a man should be delivered up to him tied to a stick three cubits long, an ingenious device for safety.

One is astounded at his law of adopting foreigners into the state, which permits no one to become a full citizen in Athens unless he be either exiled for life from his native city, or transfers himself with his whole family to Athens to practise his trade there. It is said that his object in this was not so much to exclude other classes of people from the city, as to assure these of a safe refuge there; and these he thought would be good and faithful citizens, because the former had been banished from their own country, and the latter had abandoned it of their own freewill. Another peculiarity of Solon’s laws was the public dining-table in the prytaneum. Here he did not allow the same person to dine often, while he punished the man who was invited and would not come, because the one seemed gluttonous, and the other contemptuous.

XXV

He ordered that all his laws should remain in force for a hundred years, and he wrote them upon triangular wooden tablets, which revolved upon an axis in oblong recesses, some small remains of which have been preserved in the prytaneum down to the present day. These, we are told by Aristotle, were called Kurbeis. The comic poet Kratinus also says,

“By Solon and by Draco, mighty legislators once,

Whose tablets light the fire now to warm a dish of pulse.”

Some say that the term Kurbeis is only applied to those on which are written the laws which regulate religious matters.

The senate swore by a collective oath that it would enforce Solon’s laws; and each of the Thesmothetae took an oath to the same effect at the altar in the market-place, protesting that, if he transgressed any of the laws, he would offer a golden statue as big as himself to the temple at Delphi.

Observing the irregularity of the months, and that the motions of the moon did not accord either with the rising or setting of the sun, but that frequently she in the same day overtakes and passes by him, he ordered that day to be called “the old and the new,” and that the part of it before their conjunction should belong to the old month, while the rest of the day after it belonged to the new one, being, it seems, the first to rightly interpret the verse of Homer—

“The old month ended and the new began.”

He called the next day that of the new moon. After the twentieth, he no longer reckoned forwards, but backwards, as the moon decreased, until the thirtieth of the month.

When Solon had passed all his laws, as people came to him every day to praise or blame, or advise him to add or take away from what he had written, while innumerable people wanted to ask questions, and discuss points, and kept bidding him explain what was the object of this or that regulation, he, feeling that he could not do all this, and that, if he did not, his motives would be misunderstood; wishing, moreover, to escape from troubles and the criticism and fault-finding of his countrymen [for, as he himself writes, it is “Hard in great measures every one to please”], made his private commercial business an excuse for leaving the country, and set sail after having obtained from the Athenians leave of absence for ten years. In this time he thought they would become used to his laws.

XXVI

He first went to Egypt, where he spent some time, as he himself says,

“At Nilus’ outlets, by Canopus’ strand.”

And he also discussed points of philosophy with Psenophis of Heliopolis, and with Sonchis of Sais, the most distinguished of the Egyptian priests. From them he heard the tale of the island Atlantis, as we are told by Plato, and endeavoured to translate it into a poetical form for the enjoyment of his countrymen. He next sailed to Cyprus, where he was warmly received by Philocyprus, one of the local sovereigns, who ruled over a small city founded by Demophon, the son of Theseus, near the river Klarius, in a position which was easily defended, but inconvenient.

As a fair plain lay below, Solon persuaded him to remove the city to a pleasanter and less contracted site, and himself personally superintended the building of the new city, which he arranged so well both for convenience and safety, that many new settlers joined Philocyprus, and he was envied by the neighbouring kings. For this reason, in honour of Solon, he named the new city Soloi, the name of the old one having been Aipeia. Solon himself mentions this event, in one of his elegiac poems, in which he addresses Philocyprus, saying—

“Long may’st thou reign,

Ruling thy race from Soloi’s throne with glory,

But me may Venus of the violet crown

Send safe away from Cyprus famed in story.

May Heaven to these new walls propitious prove,

And bear me safely to the land I love.”

XXVII

Some writers argue, on chronological grounds, that Solon’s meeting with Croesus must have been an invention. But I cannot think that so famous a story, which is confirmed by so many writers, and, moreover, which so truly exhibits Solon’s greatness of mind and wisdom, ought to be given up because of the so-called rules of chronology, which have been discussed by innumerable persons, up to the present day, without their being ever able to make their dates agree. The story goes that Solon at Croesus’s desire came to Sardis, and there felt much like a continental when he goes down to the seaside for the first time; for he thinks each river he comes to must be the sea, and so Solon, as he walked through the court and saw many of the courtiers richly attired and each of them swaggering about with a train of attendants and body-guards, thought that each one must be the king, until he was brought before the king himself, who, as far as precious stones, richly dyed clothes, and cunningly worked gold could adorn him, was splendid and admirable, indeed a grand and gorgeous spectacle to behold. When Solon was brought into his presence, he showed none of the feelings and made none of the remarks about the sight, which Croesus expected, but evidently despised such vulgar ostentation. Croesus then ordered his treasures to be exhibited to him, and all the rest of his possessions and valuables; not that Solon needed this, for the sight of Croesus himself was enough to show him what sort of man he was. When, after having seen all this, he was again brought before the king, Croesus asked him whether he knew any man more happy than himself. Solon at once answered that one Tellus, a fellow countryman of his own, was more happy. He explained that Tellus was a good man, and left a family of good sons; that he passed his life beyond the reach of want, and died gloriously in battle for his country. At this, Croesus began to think that Solon must be a cross-grained churlish fellow, if he did not measure happiness by silver and gold, but preferred the life and death of some private man of low degree to such power and empire as his. However, he asked him a second time, whether he knew any one more happy than himself, next to Tellus. Solon answered that he knew two men, Kleobis and Biton, remarkable for their love for each other and for their mother, who, as the oxen that drew their mother travelled slowly, put themselves under the yoke and drew the carriage with her in it to the temple of Here. She was congratulated by all the citizens, and was very proud of them; and they offered sacrifice, drank some wine, and then passed away by a painless death after so much glory.

“Then,” asked Croesus angrily, “do you not reckon me at all among happy men?” Solon, who did not wish to flatter him, nor yet to exasperate him farther, answered, “O King of the Lydians, we Greeks have been endowed with moderate gifts, by Heaven, and our wisdom is of a cautious and homely cast, not of a royal and magnificent character; so, being moderate itself, and seeing the manifold chances to which life is exposed, it does not permit us to take a pride in our present possessions, nor to admire the good fortune of any man when it is liable to change. Strange things await every man in the unknown future; and we think that man alone happy whose life has been brought to a fortunate termination. To congratulate a man who is yet alive and exposed to the caprice of fortune is like proclaiming and crowning as victor one who has not yet run his race, for his good fortune is uncertain and liable to reversal.” After speaking thus, Solon took his leave, having enraged Croesus, who could not take his good advice.

XXVIII

Aesop, the writer of the fables, who had been sent for to Sardis by Croesus and enjoyed his favour, was vexed at the king’s ungracious reception of Solon, and advised him thus: “Solon,” said he, “one ought either to say very little to kings or else say what they wish most to hear.” “Not so,” said Solon; “one should either say very little to them, or else say what is best for them to hear.” So at that time Croesus despised Solon; but after he had been defeated by Cyrus, his city taken, and he himself was about to be burned alive upon a pyre erected in the presence of all the Persians and of Cyrus himself, then he thrice cried out, “Solon,” as loud as he could. Cyrus, surprised at this, sent to ask what man or god Solon might be, who was invoked by a man in such extremity. Croesus, without any concealment said, “He is one of the wise men of Greece, whom I sent for, not because I wished to listen to him and learn what I was ignorant of, but in order that he might see and tell of my wealth, which I find it is a greater misfortune to lose than it was a blessing to possess. For, while I possessed it, all I enjoyed was opinion and empty talk; whereas, now the loss of it has brought me in very deed into terrible and irreparable misfortunes and sufferings. Now this man, who foresaw what might befall me, bade me look to the end of my life, and not be arrogant on the strength of a fleeting prosperity.”

When this was reported to Cyrus, he being a wiser man than Croesus, and finding Solon’s words strongly borne out by the example before him, not only released Croesus, but treated him with favour for the rest of his life; so that Solon had the glory of having by the same words saved one king’s life and given instruction to another.

XXIX

During Solon’s absence the strife of the factions at Athens was renewed; Lykurgus was the chief of the party of the Pediaei, Megakles, the son of Alkmaeon, led the Parali, and Peisistratus, the Diakrii, who were joined by the mass of the poorer classes who hated the rich. Thus the city still obeyed Solon’s laws, but was longing for change, and all men hoped for a new revolution, in which they trusted to get not only their rights, but something more, and to triumph over the opposite faction. In this state of affairs Solon landed at Athens, and was received with respect by all the citizens. Although, on account of his age, he was no longer able to engage in politics as keenly as before, still he met the leaders of the various factions privately and endeavoured to arrange their differences and reconcile them to one another. Peisistratus appeared to pay more attention to him than the others, for he was crafty and pleasant of speech, a protector of the poor, and a man of moderation even in his quarrels. The qualities which he had not, he affected to possess, giving himself out to be a cautious and law-abiding man, who loved even-handed justice and was enraged at any revolutionary proceedings. Thus he deceived the people; but Solon soon saw through him, and detected his plans before any one else. He was not shocked, but endeavoured to turn him from his purpose by advice, saying to him and to others that if his desire to be first and his wish to make himself master could be removed, there would be no more excellent and virtuous citizen than Peisistratus.

At this time Thespis was beginning to introduce the drama, and the novelty of his exhibition attracted many people, although the regular contests were not yet introduced. Solon, who was fond of seeing sights and gaining knowledge, and whose old age was spent in leisure and amusements and good fellowship, went to see Thespis, who acted in his own play, as the ancient custom was. After the play was over, he asked him if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies before so many people. When Thespis answered that there was no harm in saying and doing these things in jest, Solon violently struck the ground with his stick, saying, “If we praise and approve of such jests as these, we shall soon find people jesting with our business.”

XXX

When Peisistratus wounded himself and was driven into the market-place in a cart to excite the people, whom he told that he had been so treated by his enemies because he defended the constitution, and while he was surrounded by a noisy crowd of sympathisers, Solon came near him and said, “Son of Hippokrates, you are dishonourably imitating Homer’s Ulysses. You are doing this to deceive your fellow citizens, while he mutilated himself to deceive the enemy.” Upon this, as the people were willing to take up arms on behalf of Peisistratus, they assembled at the Pnyx, where Ariston proposed that a body-guard of fifty club-bearers should be assigned to Peisistratus. Solon opposed this, urging many arguments, like what we read in his poems:

“You hang upon a crafty speaker’s words;”

and again,

“Each alone a fox in cunning,

You grow stupid when you meet.”

But as he saw that the poor were eager to serve Peisistratus, while the rich held back from cowardice, he went away, after saying that he was wiser than the one class, and braver than the other; wiser, namely, than those who did not understand what was going on, and braver than those who did understand, but did not dare to oppose the despotism with which they were threatened.

The people carried the proposal, and would not be so mean as to make any stipulation with Peisistratus about the number of his body-guard, but permitted him to keep as many as he pleased until he seized the Acropolis. When this took place, the city was convulsed; Megakles and the other descendants of Alkmaeon fled, but Solon, although he was now very old and had no one to stand by him, nevertheless came into the market-place and addressed the citizens, reproaching them for their folly and remissness, and urging them to make a final effort to retain their freedom. It was then that he made the memorable remark that, in former days it would have been easier for them to have prevented despotism from appearing amongst them, but that now it would be more glorious to cut it down, when it had arrived at its full growth. However, as no one listened to him, because of the general terror, he went home, armed himself, and took his post in the street outside his door, saying, “I have done all I could for my country and her laws.” After this he remained quiet, though his friends urged him to leave Athens. He, however, wrote poems reproaching the Athenians—

“Through your own cowardice you suffered wrong,

Blame then yourselves and not the gods for this;

’Twas you yourselves that made the tyrant strong,

And rightly do you now your freedom miss.”

XXXI

At this many of his friends told him that the despot would surely put him to death, and when they asked him what he trusted to, that he performed such mad freaks, he answered, “To my age.” But Peisistratus, after he became established as sovereign, showed such marked favour to Solon that he even was advised by him, and received his approval in several cases. For he enforced most of Solon’s laws, both observing them himself and obliging his friends to do so. Indeed, when accused of murder before the court of the Areopagus, he appeared in due form to stand his trial, but his accuser let the case fall through. He also made other laws himself, one of which is that those who are maimed in war shall be kept at the public expense. Herakleides says that this was done in imitation of Solon, who had already proposed it in the case of Thersippus. But Theophrastus tells us that it was not Solon, but Peisistratus, who made the law about idleness, by means of which he rendered the city more quiet, and the country better cultivated.

Solon also attempted to write a great poem about the fable of ‘Atlantis,’ which he had learned from the chroniclers of Sais particularly concerned the Athenians, but he did not finish it, not, as Plato says, for want of leisure, but rather because of his advanced age, which made him fear that the task was too great for him. His own words tell us that he had abundance of leisure—

“Old I grow, but ever learning,”

and,

“Venus and Bacchus are all my care,

And the Muses, that charm the hearts of men.”

Plato eagerly took in hand the scheme of the ‘Atlantis,’ as though it were a fine site for a palace, which had come to be his by inheritance, still unbuilt on. He placed in the beginning of it such splendid entrance-halls and vestibules as we find in no other tale or legend or poem, but, as he began the work too late, he died before he was able to finish it; so that the more we enjoy what he has written, the more we grieve over what is lost. As the temple of Olympic Zeus among the temples of Athens, so the ‘Atlantis’ is the only one among Plato’s many noble writings that is unfinished.

Solon lived on into the reign of Peisistratus for a long time, according to Herakleides of Pontus, but less than two years, according to Phanias of Eresus. For Peisistratus became despot in the archonship of Komius, and Phanias tells us that Solon died during the archonship of Hegesistratus, Komias’ successor. The story that his ashes were scattered round the island of Salamis is legendary and improbable, yet it is confirmed by many trustworthy writers, amongst whom is the philosopher Aristotle.

LIFE OF
POPLICOLA.

I

As a parallel to Solon we shall take Poplicola, who was honoured with this name by the Romans, his original name having been Publius Valerius, a supposed descendant of that Valerius who in ancient times was especially instrumental in making the Romans and Sabines cease to be enemies and become one people; for it was he who persuaded the two kings to meet and make terms of peace. Valerius, a descendant of this hero, was a man of eminence in Rome, which was then ruled by the kings, because of his eloquence and wealth. He always spoke boldly on the side of justice, and assisted the poor and needy with such kindness that it was clear that, in case of a revolution, he would become the first man in the state.

Tarquinius Superbus, the king, had not come to his throne justly, but by wicked and lawless violence, and as he reigned tyrannically and insolently, the people hated him, and seized the opportunity of the death of Lucretia, after her dishonour, to drive him out. Lucius Brutus, who was determined to change the form of government, applied to Valerius first of all, and with his vigorous assistance drove out the king. After these events Valerius kept quiet, as long as it seemed likely that the people would choose a single general to replace their king, because he thought that it was Brutus’s right to be elected, as he had been the leader of the revolution. However the people, disgusted with the idea of monarchy, and thinking that they could more easily endure to be ruled by two men, proposed that two consuls should be chosen. Valerius now became a candidate, hoping that he and Brutus would be elected; but he was not chosen. Brutus, instead of Valerius, whom he would have preferred, had as a colleague Tarquinius Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, who was not a better man than Valerius, but was elected because the men in power at Rome, seeing what intrigues the exiled king was setting on foot to secure his return, wished to have for their general a man who was his sworn personal enemy.

II

Valerius, disgusted at the idea that he was not trusted to fight for his country because he had not suffered any personal wrong at the hands of the king, left the senate, refused to attend public meetings, and ceased to take any part whatever in public affairs, so that people began to fear that in his rage he might go over to the king’s party and destroy the tottering edifice of Roman liberty. Brutus suspected some others besides him, and proposed on a certain day to hold a solemn sacrifice and bind the senate by an oath. Valerius, however, came cheerfully into the Forum, and was the first to swear that he would never yield anything to the Tarquins, but would fight for liberty to the death, by which he greatly delighted the senate and encouraged the leading men of the state. His acts too, immediately confirmed his words, for ambassadors came from Tarquin with specious and seductive proposals, such as he thought would win over the people, coming from a king who seemed to have laid aside his insolence and only to wish for his just rights. The consuls thought it right that these proposals should be laid before the people, but Valerius would not permit it, not wishing that the poorer citizens, to whom the war was a greater burden than the monarchy had been, should have any excuse for revolt.

III

After this came other ambassadors, announcing that Tarquin would give up his throne, put an end to the war, and only ask for his own property and that of his relatives and friends, upon which to live in exile. Many were inclined to agree to this, and amongst them Collatinus, when Brutus, an inflexible and harsh-tempered man, rushed into the Forum, calling out that his colleague was a traitor, who wished to furnish the tyrant with the means of continuing the war and recovering his throne, when he ought rather to grudge him food to keep him from starving. The citizens assembled, and Caius Minucius, a private citizen, was the first man who addressed them, encouraging Brutus, and pointing out to the Romans how much better it was that the money should be used to help them than to help their enemies. In spite of this, however, the Romans decided that, as they now possessed the liberty for which they had fought, they would not lose the additional blessing of peace for the sake of this property, but would cast it from them after the tyrant to which it belonged.

Tarquin really cared little for the property, and the demand was merely made in order to sound the people and arrange a plot for the betrayal of the state, which was managed by the ambassadors whom he had nominally sent to look after his property. These men were selling some part of it, keeping some safe, and sending some of it away, and meanwhile intrigued so successfully that they won over two of the best families in Rome, that of the Aquillii, in which were three senators, and that of the Vitellii, among whom were two. All these men were, on the mother’s side, nephews of the consul Collatinus, and the Vitellii were also related to Brutus, for he had married their sister, and by her had a large family. The Vitellii, being relatives and intimate friends of the two elder sons of Brutus, induced them to take part in the conspiracy, holding out to them the hope that they might ally themselves to the great house of Tarquin, soon to be restored to the throne, and would rid themselves of their father’s stupidity and harshness. By harshness, they alluded to his inexorable punishment of bad men, and the stupidity was that which he himself affected for a long time, in order to conceal his real character from the tyrant, which was made matter of reproach to him afterwards.

IV

So, after they had persuaded these young men, they conferred again with the Aquillii, and determined that all the conspirators should swear a great and terrible oath, in which a man is killed, and each person then pours a libation of his blood, and touches his entrails. The room in which they meant to do this was, as may be supposed, a dark and half-ruined one. Now a servant of the name of Vindicius happened to conceal himself in it; not that he had any designs or any knowledge of what was going on, but chancing to be in the room when the conspirators solemnly entered, he was afraid of being detected there, and so hid himself behind a chest, where he could see what was done and hear what was said by them. They agreed to assassinate both consuls, and wrote a letter to Tarquin acquainting him with their determination, which they gave to the ambassadors, who were lodging in the house of the Aquillii as their guests, and were present at this scene. After this they dispersed, and Vindicius came out from his hiding-place. He was at a loss what use to make of the discovery which Fortune had thrown in his way, for he thought it a shocking thing, as indeed it was, for him to make such a fearful revelation to Brutus about his sons, or to Collatinus about his nephews, and he would not trust any private citizen with a secret of such importance. Tormented by his secret, and unable to remain quiet, he addressed himself to Valerius, chiefly moved to do so by his affable kindly temper; for his house was open all day to those who wished to speak with him, and he never refused an interview or rejected a poor man’s petition.

V

When, then, Vindicius came before him and told him all that he knew in the presence only of his wife and his brother Marcus, Valerius was astounded and horrified. He would not let the man go, but locked him up, set his wife to guard the door, and bade his brother to surround the king’s quarters, to seize the letter, if possible, keeping a strict watch over all the servants there. He himself, with a large train of clients, friends and servants, went to the house of the Aquillii, who were not within. As no one expected him, he pushed into the house and found the letter lying in the ambassadors’ apartments.

While he was thus employed, the Aquillii returned in haste, and assembling a force at the door endeavoured to take away the letter from him. His own party came to his assistance, and with their gowns twisted round their necks with much buffeting made their way to the Forum. The same thing happened at the king’s quarters, where Marcus laid hold of another letter which was being taken thither concealed among some baggage, and brought as many of the king’s party as he could into the Forum.

VI

When the consuls had put a stop to the confusion, Vindicius, at Valerius’s command, was brought out of his prison, and a court was held. The letters were recognised, and the culprits had nothing to say for themselves. All were silent and downcast, and a few, thinking to please Brutus, hinted at banishment as the penalty of their crime. Collatinus by his tears, and Valerius by his silence gave them hopes of mercy. But Brutus, addressing each of his sons by name, said, “Come, Titus, come Tiberius, why do you make no answer to the charges against you?” As, after being asked thrice, they made no answer, he, turning his face to the lictors, said, “I have done my work, do yours.” They immediately seized upon the young men, tore off their clothes, tied their hands behind their backs, and scourged them. Although the people had not the heart to look at so dreadful a sight, yet it is said that Brutus never turned away his head, and showed no pity on his stern countenance, but sat savagely looking on at the execution of his sons until at last they were laid on the ground and their heads severed with an axe. Then he handed over the rest of the culprits to be dealt with by his colleague, rose, and left the Forum. His conduct cannot be praised, and yet it is above censure. Either virtue in his mind overpowered every other feeling, or his sorrow was so great as to produce insensibility. In neither case was there anything unworthy, or even human in his conduct, but it was either that of a god or a brute beast. It is better, however, that we should speak in praise of so great a man rather than allow our weakness to distrust his virtue. Indeed the Romans think that even the foundation of the city by Romulus was not so great an event as the confirmation of its constitution by Brutus.

VII

When he left the Forum all men were silent for a long while, shuddering at what had been done. The Aquillii took heart at the mildness of Collatinus, and asked for time to prepare their defence. They also begged that Vindicius might be given up to them, because he was their servant, and ought not to be on the side of their accusers. Collatinus was willing to allow this, but Valerius said that he was not able to give the man up, because he was surrounded by so large a crowd, and called upon the people not to disperse without punishing the traitors. At last he laid his hands upon the two corpses, called for Brutus, and reproached Collatinus for making his colleague act against nature by condemning his own sons to death, and then thinking to please the wives of these traitors and public enemies by saving their lives. The consul, vexed at this, ordered the lictors to seize Vindicius. They forced their way through the crowd, tried to lay hold of him, and struck those who defended him, but the friends of Valerius stood in front of him and beat them off, and the people raised a shout for Brutus. He returned, and when silence was restored said that he had, as a father, full power to condemn his sons to death, but that as for the other culprits, their fate should be decided by the free vote of the citizens, and that any one might come forward and address the people. The people, however, would listen to no speeches, but voted unanimously for their death, and they were all beheaded.

Collatinus, it seems, had been viewed with suspicion before because of his connection with the royal family, and his second name, Tarquinius, was odious to the people. After these events, having utterly failed as consul, he voluntarily laid down that office, and left the city. So now there was another election, and Valerius received the due reward of his patriotism and was gloriously made consul. Thinking that Vindicius ought to receive something for his services, he made him a freedman, the first ever made in Rome, and allowed him to vote in whatever tribe he chose to be enrolled. The other freedmen were not allowed the suffrage till, long after, it was given them by Appius to obtain popularity among them. The whole ceremony is up to the present day called vindicta, after Vindicius, we are told.

VIII

After this they allowed the king’s property to be plundered, and destroyed the palace. Tarquinius had obtained the pleasantest part of the Field of Mars, and had consecrated it to that god. This field had just been cut, and the corn lay on the ground, for the people thought that they must not thresh it or make any use of it, because of the ground being consecrated, so they took the sheaves and threw them into the river. In the same way they cut down the trees and threw them in, leaving the whole place for the god, but uncultivated and unfruitful. As there were many things of different sorts all floating together in the river, the current did not carry them far, but when the first masses settled on a shallow place, the rest which were carried down upon them could not get past, but became heaped up there, and the stream compacted them securely by the mud which it deposited upon them, not only increasing the size of the whole mass, but firmly cementing it together. The waves did not shake it, but gently beat it into a solid consistency. Now, from its size, it began to receive additions, as most of what the river brought down settled upon it. It is now a sacred island close by the city, with temples and walks, and in the Latin tongue it has a name which means “between two bridges.” Some state that this did not happen when Tarquinia’s field was consecrated, but in later times when Tarquinia gave up another field next to that one, for the public use. This Tarquinia was a priestess, one of the Vestal virgins, and she was greatly honoured for having done so, and was allowed to appear as a witness in court, which no other woman could do; she also was permitted to marry, by a decree of the senate, but did not avail herself of it. These are the legends which they tell about this island.

IX

Tarquin now gave up all hopes of recovering his throne by intrigue, and appealed to the Etruscans, who willingly espoused his cause and endeavoured to restore him with a great army. The consuls led out the Romans to fight against them, posting them in holy places one of which is called the Arsian grove, and another the Aesuvian meadow. When they were about to join battle, Aruns, the son of Tarquin, and Brutus, the Roman consul, attacked one another, not by chance, but with fell hatred and rage, the one urging his horse against the tyrant and enemy of his country, the other against the man who drove him into exile. Falling upon one another with more fury than judgment, they made no attempt to defend themselves, but only to strike, and both perished. The struggle, so terribly begun, was continued with equal ferocity on both sides, until the armies, after great losses, were separated by a tempest. Valerius was in great straits, not knowing how the battle had gone, and observing that his soldiers were despondent when they looked at the corpses of their comrades, and elated when they saw those of the enemy, so equal and undecided had been the slaughter. Yet each side, when it viewed its own dead close by, was more inclined to own itself defeated, than to claim the victory because of the supposed losses of the enemy. Night came on, and it was spent as may be imagined by men who had fought so hard. When all was quiet in both camps, we are told that the grove was shaken, and that from it proceeded a loud voice which declared that the Etruscans had lost one man more than the Romans. Apparently it was the voice of a god; for immediately the Romans raised a bold and joyous shout, and the Etruscans, panic-stricken, ran out of their camp and dispersed. The Romans attacked the camp, took prisoners all that were left in it, something less than five thousand, and plundered it. The dead, when counted, proved to be eleven thousand three hundred of the enemy, and of the Romans the same number save one. This battle is said to have been fought on the Calends of March. Valerius triumphed after it in a four-horse chariot, being the first consul that ever did so. And it was a magnificent sight, and did not, as some say, offend the spectators; for, if so, the habit of doing it would not have been so carefully kept up for so many years. The people were also pleased with the honours which Valerius paid to his colleague in arranging a splendid funeral for him; he also pronounced a funeral oration over him, which was so much approved of by the Romans that from that day forth it became the custom for all good and great men at their deaths to have an oration made over them by the leading men of the time. This is said to have been older even than the Greek funeral orations, unless, as Anaximenes tells us, Solon introduced this custom.

X

But the people were vexed and angry, because though Brutus, whom they thought the author of their liberty, would not be consul alone, but had one colleague after another, yet “Valerius,” they said, “has got all power into his own hands, and is not so much the heir of the consulship of Brutus as of the tyranny of Tarquin. And what use is it for him to praise Brutus while he imitates Tarquin in his deeds, swaggering down into the Forum with all the rods and axes before him, from a house larger than the king’s palace used to be.” Indeed, Valerius lived in rather too splendid a house on the Velian Hill, looking down into the Forum, and difficult to climb up to, so that when he walked down from it he did indeed look like a tragedy king leaving his palace. But now he proved how valuable a thing it is for a statesman engaged in important matters to keep his ears open to the truth, and shut against flattery. Hearing from his friends what the people thought of him, he did not argue or grieve at it, but suddenly assembled a number of workmen and during the night destroyed his entire house down to the very foundations, so that on the next day the Romans collected in crowds to see it, admiring the magnanimity of the man, but sorrowing at the destruction of so great and noble a house, which, like many a man, had been put to death undeservedly, and expressing their concern for their consul, who had no house to live in. Valerius, indeed, had to be entertained by his friends, until the people gave him a site and built him a house upon it, of more moderate proportions than the other, in the place where at the present day stands the temple of Vica Pota. Wishing to make not only himself but his office cease to be an object of terror to his countrymen, he removed the axes from the bundles of rods carried by the lictors, and when he entered the assembly of the people he ordered his fasces to be bowed and lowered before them, to show respect to the majesty of the people. This custom the consuls observe to this day. By these acts he did not really humble himself as he appeared to the Romans to be doing, but he so completely destroyed any illwill which had been felt against him that by giving up the semblance of power he really gained the reality, as the people were eager to serve him and obey him. For this reason they surnamed him Poplicola, which means “lover of the people,” and this name so took the place of his former one that we shall use it during the remainder of this account of his life.

XI

He permitted any one to become a candidate for the consulship; and while he was sole consul he used his power to effect the greatest of his reforms, because he did not know who his new colleague might be, and whether he would not thwart him through ignorance or illwill. First of all he brought up the senate to its proper number, for many senators had perished, some at Tarquin’s hands in former years, and some in the late battle. It is said that he elected no less than a hundred and sixty-four new senators. After this, he enacted laws which greatly added to the power of the people, the first one of which gave accused persons a power of appeal from the decision of the consuls to the people. The second appointed the penalty of death to those who entered upon any public office without the consent of the people. The third was to assist the poor, as it relieved them from taxes and enabled them all to apply themselves with greater assiduity to trade. The law, too, which he enacted about disobedience to the consuls is no less popular in its spirit, and favours the people more than the great nobles. He assessed the fine for disobedience at the price of five oxen and two sheep. Now the value of a sheep was ten obols, and that of an ox a hundred, for at this period the Romans did not make much use of coined money, but possessed abundance of cattle. For this reason at this day they call property peculia, from pecus, a sheep, and on their oldest coins they marked the figure of an ox, a sheep, or a pig. Their children, too, were distinguished by the names of Suillii, Bubulci, Caprarii and Porcii, for capra means a goat, and porcus a pig.

XII

Though Poplicola favoured the people so much in these laws, and showed such great moderation, yet in one instance he appointed a terrible penalty. One of his laws enacted that any citizen was at liberty to put to death anyone who tried to make himself king, without any form of trial. No penalty was to be enforced, if the man could bring forward proofs of the other’s intention. His reason for this was that it was impossible for any one to attempt to make himself king, unperceived by some of his countrymen, but quite possible for him, although detected, to become too powerful to be brought to trial. So, before he made his attempt on the crown, any one was at liberty to exact from him that penalty, which he would be unable to do after his success.

His law about the treasury was also much approved. It being necessary that the citizens should contribute taxes to carry on the war, as he did not wish to touch the revenue himself or to allow his friends to do so, and was even unwilling that the public money should be brought into a private man’s house, he appointed the Temple of Saturn to be used as a treasury, which it is to this day, and he appointed also two of the younger citizens as quaestors, to manage the accounts. The first quaestors were Publius Venturius and Marcus Minucius, and a large sum of money was collected, for a hundred and thirty thousand persons were taxed, although orphans and widows were exempted.

When he had settled all these matters, he nominated Lucretius, the father of Lucretia, as his colleague, and gave up the fasces to him as a mark of respect, because he was the elder man. This custom, that the elder of the two consuls has the fasces carried before him, remains to this day. As Lucretius died shortly afterwards, a new election took place, and Marcus Horatius was elected, and acted as Poplicola’s colleague for the remainder of his year of office.

XIII

As Tarquin was stirring up the Etruscans to a second war with Rome, a great portent is said to have taken place. While he was yet king, and had all but finished the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, he, either in accordance with some prophecy or otherwise, ordered certain Etruscan workmen at Veii to make an earthenware four-horse chariot to be placed on the top of the temple. Shortly afterwards he was driven from the throne, and the chariot, which had been modelled in clay, was placed in the furnace. Here it did not, as clay generally does, shrink and become smaller in the fire, as the wet dries out of it, but swelled to so great a size, and became so hard and strong that it could only be got out of the furnace by taking off the roof and sides. As this was decided by the prophets to be a sign from Heaven that those who possessed the chariot would be prosperous and fortunate, the Veientines determined not to give it up to the Romans, arguing that it belonged to Tarquin, not to those who had cast him out.

A few days afterwards there were horse-races there; everything proceeded as usual, but as the driver of the winning chariot, after receiving his crown as victor, was driving slowly out of the circus, the horses suddenly became excited for no apparent cause, and, either guided by Heaven or by chance, rushed towards Rome, their driver with them, for he finding it impossible to stop them was forced to let them whirl him along until they reached the Capitol, where they threw him down near what is called the Ratumenan Gate. The Veientines, struck with fear and wonder at this event, permitted the workmen to deliver up the earthenware chariot to the Romans.

XIV

Tarquinius the son of Demaratus, when at war with the Sabines, vowed that he would build the temple of Jupiter Olympius, but it was built by Tarquinius Superbus, the son or grandson of him who made the vow. He had not time to dedicate it, but was dethroned just before its completion. Now when it was finished and thoroughly decorated, Poplicola was eager to have the glory of dedicating it. Many of the nobles, however, grudged him this, and were more incensed at this than at all the glory which he had won as a general and as a legislator; for that, they said, was his vocation, but this was not. They stirred up Horatius to oppose him and urged him to claim the right to dedicate the temple. So when Poplicola was of necessity absent on military service, the senate decreed that Horatius should dedicate it, and brought him up into the Capitol to do so, a thing which they never could have done had Poplicola been present. Some say that the two consuls casts lots, and that the one, sorely against his will, drew the lot to command the army in the field, and the other that to dedicate the temple. But we may conjecture how this was, from the events which took place at the dedication. On the Ides of September, which corresponds with the full moon in our month Metageitnion, all the people assembled in the Capitol, and Horatius, after silence had been enjoined upon all, performed the ceremony of dedication. When, as is customary, he was about to take hold of the doors of the temple and say the prayer of dedication, Marcus, Poplicola’s brother, who had long been standing near the doors watching his opportunity, said to him, “Consul, your son has just died of sickness in the camp.” All who heard this were grieved, but Horatius, undisturbed, merely said, “Fling his corpse where you please, for I cannot grieve for him,” and completed the dedication service. The story was false, invented by Marcus to confuse Horatius. His conduct is a remarkable instance of presence of mind, whether it be that he at once saw through the trick, or believed the story and was not disturbed by it.

XV

The same fortune seems to have attended the second temple also. The first, as we have related, was built by Tarquin, and dedicated by Horatius. This was destroyed by fire in the civil wars. The second was built by Sulla, but the name of Catulus appears as its dedicator, for Sulla died before it was completed. This again was burned during the civil tumults in the time of Vitellius, and Vespasian built a third, which had nearly the same fortune as the others, except that he saw it completed, and did not see it shortly afterwards destroyed, being thus more fortunate than Tarquin in seeing the completion, and than Sulla in seeing the dedication of his work. When Vespasian died the Capitol was burned. The fourth and present temple was built and dedicated by Domitian. It is said that Tarquin spent forty thousand pounds of silver in building the foundations; but there is no private citizen in Rome at the present day who could bear the expense of gilding the existing temple, which cost more than twelve thousand talents. Its columns are of Pentelic marble, exquisitely proportioned, which I myself saw at Athens; but at Rome they were again cut and polished, by which process they did not gain so much in gloss as they lost in symmetry, for they now appear too slender. However, if any one who wonders at the expense of the temple in the Capitol were to see the splendour of any one portico, hall, or chamber in the house of Domitian, he would certainly be led to parody that line of Epicharmus upon an extravagant fellow,

“Not good-natured, but possessed with the disease of giving,”

and would say that Domitian was not pious or admirable, but possessed with the disease of building, and turned everything into bricks and mortar, just as it is said Midas turned things into gold. So much for this.

XVI

Tarquin, after the great battle in which his son was slain by Brutus, took refuge at Clusium and begged Lars Porsena, the most powerful king in Italy, to assist him. He was thought to be an honourable and ambitious man, and promised his aid. First he sent an embassy to Rome, ordering them to receive Tarquin; and when the Romans refused to obey, he declared war against them, and telling them at what place and time he would attack them, marched against them with a great army. At Rome, Poplicola, though absent, was chosen consul for the second time, and with him, Titus Lucretius. He returned to Rome, and by way of putting a slight upon Porsena, went and founded the city of Sigliuria, while his army was close at hand. He built the walls of this place at a vast expense, and sent away seven hundred colonists to it, as if the war with which he was menaced was a very unimportant matter. But, nevertheless, Porsena made a sharp assault upon the walls of Rome, drove away the garrison, and very nearly entered the town. Poplicola forestalled him by sallying from one of the gates, and fought by the banks of the Tiber against overwhelming numbers until he was severely wounded and had to be carried out of the battle. As the same fate befell his colleague Lucretius, the Romans lost heart and endeavoured to save themselves by flight into the town. As the enemy also began to push across the wooden bridge, Rome was in danger of being taken. But Horatius, surnamed Cocles, and with him two of the noblest citizens, named Herminius and Lartius, held the wooden bridge against them. This Horatius was surnamed Cocles because he had lost an eye in the wars, or as some say because of the flatness of his nose, which made his eyes and eyebrows seem to meet, having nothing to separate them, and therefore the people meaning to call him Cyclops, by a mistake of pronunciation, named him Cocles. This man stood at the end of the bridge and kept off the enemy until his friends behind had cut down the bridge. Then he plunged into the river in his armour and swam to the other bank, though wounded by an Etruscan spear in the thigh. Poplicola, in admiration of his valour, at once proposed and passed a decree that every Roman should give him the price of one day’s provisions. Moreover, he gave him as much land as he could plough in one day. And a brazen statue of him was placed in the temple of Vulcan, by which honourable allusion was made to the lameness caused by his wound.

XVII

As Porsena pressed the siege, the Romans suffered from famine, and another separate army of Etruscans invaded their territory. But Poplicola, who was now consul for the third time, though he thought it his chief duty to remain stedfast and hold out the city against Porsena, did nevertheless sally out and attack these men, routing them with a loss of five thousand. Now as to the legend of Mucius, it is told in many different ways, but I will relate it as it seems most probable that it happened. He was a man of great courage, and very daring in war, who, meaning to assassinate Porsena, stole into the camp in an Etruscan dress and speaking the Etruscan language. When he arrived at the raised platform on which the king was sitting, he did not exactly know which was he, and being afraid to ask, he drew his sword and killed the man who of all the party looked most as if he were the king. Hereupon, he was seized and questioned. A fire was burning close by in a brazier which had been brought for Porsena to offer sacrifice. Mucius held his right hand over this, and while the flesh was being consumed looked at Porsena cheerfully and calmly, until he in astonishment acquitted him and restored him his sword, which Mucius took with his left hand. On account of this he is said to have been named Scaevola, which means left-handed. He then said that though he did not fear Porsena, he was conquered by his generosity, and out of kindness would tell him what torture would have failed to extort: “Three hundred young Romans like-minded with myself are at present concealed in your camp. I was chosen by lot to make the first attempt, and am not grieved that I failed to kill a man of honour, who ought to be a friend rather than an enemy to the Romans.” Porsena, hearing this, believed it to be true, and became much more inclined to make peace, not, I imagine, so much for fear of the three hundred, as out of admiration for the spirit and valour of the Romans. This Mucius is called Scaevola by all writers, but Athenodorus, the son of Sandon, in his book which is dedicated to Octavia, the sister of Caesar Augustus, says that he was also named Posthumus.

XVIII

Poplicola, who did not think Porsena so terrible as an enemy as he would be valuable as a friend and ally, was willing that he should decide the quarrel between the Romans and Tarquin, and often proposed that he should do so, feeling sure that he would discover him to be a wretch who had been most deservedly dethroned. But Tarquin roughly answered that he would submit his claims to no judge, and least of all to Porsena, who had been his ally and now seemed inclined to desert him. Porsena was angered at this, and, as his son Aruns also pleaded hard for the Romans, put an end to the war upon condition that they should give up the portion of Etruscan territory which they had seized, restore their prisoners, and receive back their deserters. Upon this, ten youths of the noblest families were given as hostages, and as many maidens, among whom was Valeria, the daughter of Poplicola.

XIX

While these negotiations were going on, and Porsena, through his confidence in the good faith of the Romans, had relaxed the discipline of his camp, these Roman maidens came down to bathe in the river at a place where a bank, in the form of a crescent, makes the water smooth and undisturbed. As they saw no guards, nor any one passing except in boats, they determined to swim across, although the stream was strong and deep. Some say that one of them, by name Cloelia, rode on a horse across the river, encouraging the others as they swam. When they had got safe across they went to Poplicola, but he was displeased with them because it made him seem more faithless than Porsena, and he feared lest this daring feat of the maidens might be suspected of being a preconcerted plot of the Romans. For these reasons he sent them back to Porsena. Now Tarquin and his party, foreseeing that this would be done, laid an ambush on the further bank and attacked those who were escorting the girls with superior numbers. Still they made a stout defence, and meanwhile Valeria, the daughter of Poplicola, made her way through the combatants and escaped, and three slaves who also got away took care of her. The others were mixed up with the fight, and were in considerable danger, when Aruns, Porsena’s son, came to the rescue, put the enemy to the rout, and saved the Romans. When the girls were brought before Porsena, he asked which it was that had conceived the attempt to escape and encouraged the others. Being told that it was Cloelia, he smiled kindly upon her, and presented her with one of his own horses, splendidly caparisoned. This is relied upon by those who say that it was Cloelia alone who rode on horseback over the river, as proving their case. Others say that it was not because she used a horse, but to honour her manly spirit that the Etruscan king made her this present. A statue of her, on horseback, stands in the Sacred Way as you go up to the Palatine Hill, which by some is said not to be a statue of Cloelia, but of Valeria.

Porsena, after making peace with the Romans, among many other instances of generosity, ordered his army to carry back nothing but their arms when they retired, leaving the entrenched camp full of food and property of every kind for the Romans. For this reason, at the present day, whenever there is a sale of any public property, especially that which is taken in war, proclamation is always made, “Porsena’s goods for sale,” so that the Romans have never forgotten the kindness which they received from him. A brazen statue of him used to stand near the senate house, of plain and oldfashioned workmanship.

XX

After this the Sabines invaded the country. Marcus Valerius, Poplicola’s brother, and Posthumius Tubertus were then consuls, and Marcus, acting by the advice of Poplicola, who was present, won two great battles, in the second of which he slew thirteen thousand of the enemy without the Romans losing a man. He was rewarded for this, in addition to his triumph, by having a house built for him upon the Palatine Hill at the public expense. And whereas all other street doors open inwards, the doors of that house were made to open outwards, as a perpetual memorial of the honour paid him by the people, who thus made way for him. It is said that all the doors in Greece used once to open this way, arguing from the comedies, in which those who are coming out of a house always knock at the door, to warn those who are passing or standing near not to be struck by the leaves of the door, as they open.

XXI

Next year Poplicola was consul for the fourth time. There was an expectation of a war against the Latins and Sabines combined.

Moreover the city seemed to have displeased the gods; for all the pregnant women were delivered prematurely, and of imperfectly formed children. Poplicola, after appeasing the gods below according to the injunctions of the Sibylline books, re-established certain games in accordance with an oracle, brought the city into a more hopeful state of mind, and began to consider what he had to fear from earthly foes, for the enemy’s army was large and formidable. There was one Appius Clausus, a Sabine, of great wealth and remarkable personal strength, and a virtuous and eloquent man, who, like all great men, was the object of envy and ill-will to many. He was accused by his enemies of having put an end to the war, because he wished to increase the power of Rome, in order to enable him the more easily to triumph over the liberties of his own country, and make himself king of it. Perceiving that the populace eagerly listened to these tales, and that he was an object of dislike to the war party and the army, he began to fear impeachment: so, having numerous followers, besides his personal friends and relatives, he was able to divide the state into two parties. This caused great delay in the Sabines’ preparations for attacking the Romans, and Poplicola, feeling it to be his duty not merely to watch but to assist Clausus, sent envoys, who spoke to him as follows: “Poplicola feels that you are a man of honour, who would be unwilling to take vengeance upon your countrymen, although you have been shamefully treated by them. But if you choose to put yourself in safety by leaving your country and a people that hates you, he will receive you, both in his public and his private capacity, in a manner worthy of your own high character and of the dignity of Rome.” After much deliberation, Clausus decided that he could not do better than accept this offer, and assembled all his friends. They in their turn influenced many others, so that he was able to transplant to Rome five thousand of the most peaceful and respectable families of the Sabine nation. Poplicola, who had notice of their arrival, welcomed them kindly and graciously. He made them all citizens of Rome, and gave each of them two acres of land along the river Anio. He gave Clausus twenty-five acres, and enrolled him among the Senators. Clausus afterwards became one of the first men in Rome for wisdom and power, and his descendants, the Claudian family, was one of the most illustrious in history.

XXII

Though the disputes of the Sabines were settled by this migration, yet their popular orators would not let them rest, but vehemently urged that they ought not to let Appius, a deserter and an enemy, prevail upon them to let the Romans go unpunished—a thing which he could not persuade them to do when he was present among them. They proceeded to Fidenae with a great army and encamped there, and laid two thousand men in ambush before Rome, in wooded and broken ground, meaning in the morning to send out a few horsemen to plunder ostentatiously. These men were ordered to ride up close to Rome, and then to retire till their pursuers were drawn into the snare. Poplicola heard of this plan the same day from deserters, and quickly made all necessary arrangements. At evening he sent Postumius Balbus, his son-in-law, with three thousand men to occupy the tops of the hills under which the Sabine ambush was placed. His colleague, Lucretius, was ordered to take the swiftest-footed and noblest youth of the city, and pursue the plundering horsemen, while he himself with the rest of the forces made a circuitous march and outflanked the enemy. It chanced that a thick mist came on about dawn, in the midst of which Postumius charged down from the hills upon the men in ambush with a loud shout, while Lucretius sent his men to attack the cavalry, and Poplicola fell upon the enemy’s camp. The Sabines were routed in every quarter, and even when fighting no longer were cut down by the Romans, their rash confidence proving ruinous to them. Each party thought that the others must be safe, and did not care to stay and fight where they were, but those who were in the camp ran to those in the ambush, and those in the ambush towards the camp, each of them meeting those with whom they hoped to take refuge, and finding that those who they had hoped would help them needed help themselves. The Sabines would have been all put to the sword, had not the neighbouring city of Fidenae afforded them a refuge, especially for the men from the camp. Such as could not reach Fidenae were either put to death or taken prisoners.

XXIII

The Romans, accustomed as they are to refer all great success to the intervention of Heaven, thought that the whole glory of this achievement was due to the general. The first thing heard was the victorious soldiers declaring that Poplicola had delivered up the enemy to them blind and lame, and all but in chains, for them to slaughter at their ease. The people were enriched by the plunder and the sale of the prisoners for slaves. Poplicola enjoyed a triumph, and previously delivering over the administration of the city to the two succeeding consuls, died shortly afterwards, having attained to the highest pitch of glory that man can reach. The people, as if they had done nothing during his life to honour him as he deserved, and were now for the first time to show their gratitude, decreed him a public funeral, and moreover that every person should contribute the coin called quadrans, to show him respect. The women also made a common agreement to wear mourning for him for a whole year. He was buried by a decree of the people within the city near the place called Velia, and all his family were given the privilege of burial there. At the present day not one of the family is actually buried there, but the corpse is carried thither, and laid down, while some one places a lighted torch under it for a moment, after which it is carried away. By this ceremony they claim the right, although they forego it, and bury the corpse outside the city.

COMPARISON OF
SOLON AND POPLICOLA.

I

It is a point peculiar to this comparison, and which does not occur in any of the other Lives which I have written, that in turn one imitates and the other bears witness to his fellow’s deeds. Observe, for instance, Solon’s definition of happiness before Croesus, how much better it suits Poplicola than Tellus. He says that Tellus was fortunate because of his good luck, his virtue, and his noble children; but yet he makes no mention of him or of his children in his poetry, and he never was a man of any renown, or held any high office.

Now Poplicola’s virtues made him the most powerful and glorious of the Romans during his life, and six hundred years after his death the very noblest families of Rome, those named Publicola and Messala and Valerius, are proud to trace their descent from him, even at the present day. Tellus, it is true, died like a brave man fighting in the ranks, but Poplicola slew his enemies, which is much better than being killed oneself, and made his country victorious by skill as a general and a statesman, and, after triumphing and enjoying honours of every kind, died the death which Solon thought so enviable. Besides, Solon, in his answer to Mimnermus about the time of life, has written the verses:

“To me may favouring Heaven send,

That all my friends may mourn my end,”

in which he bears witness to the good fortune of Poplicola; for he, when he died, was mourned not only by all his friends and relations but by the whole city, in which thousands wept for him, while all the women wore mourning for him as if he were a son or father of them all that they had lost.

Solon says in his poems,

“I long for wealth, but not procured

By means unholy.”

Now Poplicola not only possessed wealth honourably acquired, but also was able to spend it, much to his credit, in relieving the needy. Thus if Solon was the wisest, Poplicola was certainly the most fortunate of men; for what Solon prayed for as the greatest blessing, Poplicola possessed and enjoyed to the end of his days.

II

Thus has Solon done honour to Poplicola; and he again honoured Solon by regarding him as the best model a man could follow in establishing a free constitution: for he took away the excessive power and dignity of the consuls and made them inoffensive to the people, and indeed made use of many of Solon’s own laws; as he empowered the people to elect their own consuls, and gave defendants a right of appeal to the people from other courts, just as Solon had done. He did not, like Solon, make two senates, but he increased the existing one to nearly double its number. His grounds for the appointment of quaestors was to give the consul leisure for more important matters, if he was an honest man; and if he was a bad man, to remove the opportunity of fraud which he would have had if he were supreme over the state and the treasury at once. In hatred of tyrants Poplicola exceeded Solon, for he fixed the penalty for a man who might be proved to be attempting to make himself king, whereas the Roman allowed any one to kill him without trial. And while Solon justly prided himself upon his having been offered the opportunity to make himself despot, with the full consent of his fellow-countrymen, and yet having refused it, Poplicola deserves even greater credit for having been placed in an office of almost despotic power, and having made it more popular, not using the privileges with which he was entrusted. Indeed Solon seems to have been the first to perceive that a people

“Obeys its rulers best,

When not too free, yet not too much opprest.”

III

The relief of debtors was a device peculiar to Solon, which, more than anything else confirmed the liberty of the citizens. For laws to establish equality are of no use if poor men are prevented from enjoying it because of their debts; and in the states which appear to be the most free, men become mere slaves to the rich, and conduct the whole business of the state at their dictation. It should be especially noted that although an abolition of debt would naturally produce a civil war, yet this measure of Solon’s, like an unusual but powerful dose of medicine, actually put an end to the existing condition of internal strife; for the well-known probity of Solon’s character outweighed the discredit of the means to which he resorted. In fact Solon began his public life with greater glory than Poplicola, for he was the leading spirit, and followed no man, but entirely single handed effected the most important reforms; while Poplicola was more enviable and fortunate at the close of his career.

Solon himself saw his own constitution overthrown, while that of Poplicola preserved order in the city down to the time of the civil wars; and the reason was that Solon, as soon as he had enacted his laws, went on his travels, leaving them written on wooden tablets, defenceless against all assailants; whereas Poplicola remained at home, acted as consul, and by his statesmanship ensured the success and permanence of the new constitution. Moreover, Solon could not stop Peisistratus, although he perceived his designs, but was forced to see a despotism established; while Poplicola destroyed a monarchy which had existed for many years, showing equal virtue with Solon, but greater good fortune and power to enable him to carry out his intentions.

IV

With regard to warlike achievements, Daimachus of Plataea will not even admit that Solon made the campaign against the Megarians, which we have related; but Poplicola both by strategy and personal valour won many great battles. As a statesman, Solon seems to have acted somewhat childishly in pretending that he was mad, in order to make his speech about Salamis, while Poplicola ran the very greatest risks in driving out the tyrant and crushing the conspiracy. He was especially responsible for the chief criminals being put to death, and thus not only drove the Tarquins out of the city, but cut off and destroyed their hopes of return. And while he showed such vigour in enterprises that required spirit and courage, he was equally admirable in peaceful negotiations and the arts of persuasion; for he skilfully won over the formidable Porsena to be the friend instead of the enemy of Rome.

Still we may be reminded that Solon stirred up the Athenians to capture Salamis, which they had given up to the Megarians, while Poplicola withdrew the Romans from a country which they had conquered. We must, however, consider the circumstances under which these events took place. A subtle politician deals with every thing so as to turn it to the greatest advantage, and will often lose a part in order to save the whole, and by sacrificing some small advantage gain another more important one, as did Poplicola on that occasion; for he, by withdrawing from a foreign country, preserved his own, gained the enemy’s camp for the Romans, who before were only too glad to save their city from ruin, and at last, by converting his enemy into an arbitrator and winning his cause, obtained all the fruits of victory: for Porsena put an end to the war, and left behind him all his war material to show his respect for the noble character of the consul.

LIFE OF
THEMISTOKLES.

I

Themistokles came of a family too obscure to entitle him to distinction. His father, Neokles, was a middle-class Athenian citizen, of the township of Phrearri and the tribe Leontis. He was base born on his mother’s side, as the epigram tells us:

“My name’s Abrotonon from Thrace,

I boast not old Athenian race;

Yet, humble though my lineage be,

Themistokles was born of me.”

Phanias, however, says that the mother of Themistokles was a Carian, not a Thracian, and that her name was not Abrotonon but Euterpe. Manthes even tells us that she came from the city of Halikarnassus in Caria. All base-born Athenians were made to assemble at Kynosarges, a gymnasium outside the walls sacred to Herakles, who was regarded as base born among the gods because his mother was a mortal; and Themistokles induced several youths of noble birth to come to Kynosarges with him and join in the wrestling there, an ingenious device for destroying the exclusive privileges of birth. But, for all that, he evidently was of the blood of Lykomedes; for when the barbarians burned down the temple of the Initiation at Phlya, which belonged to the whole race of the descendants of Lykomedes, it was restored by Themistokles, as we are told by Simonides.

II

He is agreed by all to have been a child of vigorous impulses, naturally clever, and inclined to take an interest in important affairs and questions of statesmanship. During his holidays and times of leisure he did not play and trifle as other children do, but was always found arranging some speech by himself and thinking it over. The speech was always an attack on, or a defence of, some one of his playfellows. His schoolmaster was wont to say, “You will be nothing petty, my boy; you will be either a very good or a very bad man.”

In his learning, he cared nothing for the exercises intended to form the character, and mere showy accomplishments and graces, but eagerly applied himself to all real knowledge, trusting to his natural gifts to enable him to master what was thought to be too abstruse for his time of life. In consequence of this, when in society he was ridiculed by those who thought themselves well mannered and well educated, he was obliged to make the somewhat vulgar retort that he could not tune a lute or play upon the harp, but he could make a small and obscure state great and glorious.

In spite of all this, Stesimbrotus says that Themistokles was a pupil of Anaxagoras, and attended the lectures of Melissus the physicist; but here he is wrong as to dates. Melissus was the general who was opposed to Perikles, a much younger man than Themistokles, when he was besieging Samos, and Anaxagoras was one of Perikles’s friends. One is more inclined to believe those who tell us that Themistokles was a follower and admirer of Mnesiphilus of Phrearri, who was neither an orator nor a natural philosopher, but a man who had deeply studied what went by the name of wisdom, but was really political sharp practice and expedients of statesmanship, which he had, as it were, inherited as a legacy from Solon. Those who in later times mixed up this science with forensic devices, and used it, not to deal with the facts of politics, but the abstract ideas of speculative philosophy, were named Sophists. Themistokles used to converse with this man when he had already begun his political career. In his childhood he was capricious and unsteady, his genius, as yet untempered by reason and experience, showing great capacities both for good and evil, and after breaking out into vice, as he himself used afterwards to admit, saying that the colts which are the hardest to break in usually make the most valuable horses when properly taught. But as for the stories which some have fabricated out of this, about his being disinherited by his father, and about his mother committing suicide through grief at her son’s disgrace, they seem to be untrue. On the other hand, some writers tell us that his father, wishing to dissuade him from taking part in politics, pointed out to him the old triremes lying abandoned on the beach, and told him that politicians, when the people had no farther use for them, were cast aside in like manner.

III

Very early in life Themistokles took a vigorous part in public affairs, possessed by vehement ambition. Determined from the very outset that he would become the leading man in the state, he eagerly entered into all the schemes for displacing those who where then at the head of affairs, especially attacking Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, whose policy he opposed on every occasion. Yet his enmity with this man seems to have had a very boyish commencement; for they both entertained a passion for the beautiful Stesilaus, who, we are told by Ariston the philosopher, was descended from a family residing in the island of Keos. After this difference they espoused different parties in the state, and their different temper and habits widened the breach between them. Aristeides was of a mild and honourable nature, and as a statesman cared nothing for popularity or personal glory, but did what he thought right with great caution and strict rectitude. He was thus often brought into collision with Themistokles, who was trying to engage the people in many new schemes, and to introduce startling reforms, by which he would himself have gained credit, and which Aristeides steadily opposed.

He is said to have been so recklessly ambitious and so frenziedly eager to take part in great events, that though he was very young at the time of the battle of Marathon, when the country rang with the praises of the generalship of Miltiades, he was often to be seen buried in thought, passing sleepless nights and refusing invitations to wine-parties, and that he answered those who asked him the cause of his change of habits, that the trophies of Miltiades would not let him sleep. Other men thought that the victory of Marathon had put an end to the war, but Themistokles saw that it was but the prelude to a greater contest, in which he prepared himself to stand forth as the champion of Greece, and, foreseeing long before what was to come, endeavoured to make the city of Athens ready to meet it.

IV

First of all, he had the courage to propose that the Athenians, instead of dividing amongst themselves the revenues derived from the silver mines at Laurium, should construct ships out of this fund for the war with Aegina. This was then at its height, and the Aeginetans, who had a large navy, were masters of the sea. By this means Themistokles was more easily enabled to carry his point, not trying to terrify the people by alluding to Darius and the Persians, who lived a long way off, and whom few feared would ever come to attack them, but by cleverly appealing to their feelings of patriotism against the Aeginetans, to make them consent to the outlay.

With that money a hundred triremes were built, which were subsequently used to fight against Xerxes. After this he kept gradually turning the thoughts of the Athenians in the direction of the sea, because their land force was unable even to hold its own against the neighbouring states, while with a powerful fleet they could both beat off the barbarians and make themselves masters of the whole of Greece. Thus, as Plato says, instead of stationary soldiers as they were, he made them roving sailors, and gave rise to the contemptuous remark that Themistokles took away from the citizens of Athens the shield and the spear, and reduced them to the oar and the rower’s bench. This, we are told by Stesimbrotus, he effected after quelling the opposition of Miltiades, who spoke on the other side. Whether his proceedings at this time were strictly constitutional or no I shall leave to others to determine; but that the only safety of Greece lay in its fleet, and that those triremes were the salvation of the Athenians after their city was taken, can be proved by the testimony, among others, of Xerxes himself; for although his land force was unbroken, he fled after his naval defeat, as though no longer able to contend with the Greeks, and he left Mardonius behind more to prevent pursuit, in my opinion, than with any hopes of conquest.

V

Some writers tell us that he was a keen man of business, and explain that his grand style of living made this necessary; for he made costly sacrifices, and entertained foreigners in a splendid manner, all of which required a large expenditure; but some accuse him of meanness and avarice, and even say that he sold presents which were sent for his table. When Philides the horse-dealer refused to sell him a colt, he threatened that he would soon make a wooden horse of the man’s house; meaning that he would stir up lawsuits and claims against him from some of his relations.

In ambition he surpassed every one. When yet a young and unknown man he prevailed upon Epikles of Hermione, the admired performer on the harp, to practise his art in his house, hoping thereby to bring many people to it to listen. And he displeased the Greeks when he went to the Olympian games by vying with Kimon in the luxury of his table, his tents, and his other furniture. It was thought very proper for Kimon, a young man of noble birth, to do so; but for a man who had not yet made himself a reputation, and had not means to support the expense, such extravagance seemed mere vulgar ostentation. In the dramatic contest, which even then excited great interest and rivalry, the play whose expenses he paid for won the prize. He put up a tablet in memory of his success bearing the words: Themistokles of Phrearri was choragus, Phrynichus wrote the play, Adeimantus was archon. Yet he was popular, for he knew every one of the citizens by name, and gave impartial judgment in all cases referred to him as arbitrator. Once, when Simonides of Keos asked him to strain a point in his favour, Themistokles, who was a general at the time, answered that Simonides would be a bad poet if he sang out of tune; and he would be a bad magistrate if he favoured men against the law. At another time he rallied Simonides on his folly in abusing the Corinthians, who inhabited so fine a city, and in having his own statue carved, though he was so ugly. He continued to increase in popularity by judiciously courting the favour of the people, and was at length able to secure the triumph of his own party, and the banishment of his rival Aristeides.

VI

As the Persians were now about to invade Greece, the Athenians deliberated as to who should be their leader. It is said that most men refused the post of General through fear, but that Epikydes, the son of Euphemides, a clever mob-orator, but cowardly and accessible to bribes, desired to be appointed, and seemed very likely to be elected. Themistokles, fearing that the state would be utterly ruined if its affairs fell into such hands, bribed him into forgetting his ambitious designs, and withdrawing his candidature.

He was much admired for his conduct when envoys came from the Persian king to demand earth and water, in token of submission. He seized the interpreter, and by a decree of the people had him put to death, because he had dared to translate the commands of a barbarian into the language of free Greeks. He acted in the same way to Arthmias of Zelea. This man, at the instance of Themistokles, was declared infamous, he and his children and his descendants for ever, because he brought Persian gold among the Greeks. His greatest achievement of all, however, was, that he put an end to all the internal wars in Greece, and reconciled the states with one another, inducing them to defer the settlement of their feuds until after the Persian war. In this he is said to have been greatly assisted by Chileon the Arcadian.

VII

On his appointment as General, he at once endeavoured to prevail upon his countrymen to man their fleet, leave their city, and go to meet the enemy by sea as far from Greece as possible. As this met with great opposition, he, together with the Lacedaemonians, led a large force as far as the Vale of Tempe, which they intended to make their first line of defence, as Thessaly had not at that time declared for the Persians. When, however, the armies were forced to retire from thence, and all Greece, up to Boeotia, declared for the Persians, the Athenians became more willing to listen to Themistokles about fighting by sea, and he was sent with a fleet to guard the straits at Artemisium. Here the Greeks chose the Lacedaemonians, and their general, Eurybiades, to take the command; but the Athenians refused to submit to any other state, because they alone furnished more ships than all the rest. Themistokles, at this crisis perceiving the danger, gave up his claims to Eurybiades, and soothed the wounded pride of the Athenians, telling them that if they proved themselves brave men in the war, they would find that all the other states in Greece would cheerfully recognise their supremacy. On this account he seems more than any one else to deserve the credit of having saved Greece, and to have covered the Athenians with glory by teaching them to surpass their enemies in bravery, and their allies in good sense. When the Persian fleet reached Aphetai, Eurybiades was terrified at the number of ships at the mouth of the Straits, and, learning that two hundred sail more were gone round the outside of Euboea to take him in the rear, he at once wished to retire further into Greece, and support the fleet by the land army in Peloponnesus, for he regarded the Persian king’s fleet as utterly irresistible at sea. Upon this the Euboeans, who feared to be deserted by the Greeks, sent one Pelagon with a large sum of money, to make secret proposals to Themistokles. He took the money, Herodotus tells us, and gave it to Eurybiades and his party. One of those who most vehemently opposed him was Architeles, the captain of the Sacred Trireme, who had not sufficient money to pay his crew, and therefore wished to sail back to Athens. Themistokles stirred up the anger of his men to such a pitch that they rushed upon him and took away his supper. At this, Architeles was much vexed, but Themistokles sent him a basket containing bread and meat, with a talent of silver hidden underneath it, with a message bidding him eat his supper and pay his men the next day, but that, if he did not, Themistokles would denounce him to his countrymen as having received bribes from the enemy. This we are told by Phanias of Lesbos.

VIII

The battles which took place in the Straits with the Persian ships, were indeed indecisive, but the experience gained in them was of the greatest value to the Greeks, as they were taught by their result that multitudes of ships and splendid ensigns, and the boastful war-cries of barbarians, avail nothing against men who dare to fight hand to hand, and that they must disregard all these and boldly grapple with their enemies. Pindar seems to have understood this when he says, about the battle at Artemisium, that there

“The sons of Athena laid

Their freedom’s grand foundation.”

for indeed confidence leads to victory. This Artemisium is a promontory of the island of Euboea, stretching northwards beyond Hestiaea; and opposite to it is Olizon, which was once part of the dominions of Philoktetes. There is upon it a small temple of Artemis (Diana), which is called the “Temple towards the East.” Round it stand trees and a circle of pillars of white stone. This stone, when rubbed in the hand, has the colour and smell of saffron. On one of these pillars were written the following verses:

“The sons of Athens once o’ercame in fight

All Asia’s tribes, on yonder sea;

They raised these pillars round Diana’s shrine,

To thank her for their victory.”

Even now a place is pointed out on the beach where, under a great heap of sand, there is a deep bed of black ashes where it is thought the wrecks and dead bodies were burned.

IX

But when the news of Thermopylae was brought to the Greeks at Artemisium, that Leonidas had fallen, and Xerxes was in possession of the passes, they retired further into Greece, the Athenians protecting the rear on account of their bravery, and full of pride at their achievements. At all the harbours and landing-places along the coast, Themistokles, as he passed by, cut conspicuous inscriptions on stones, some of which he found on the spot, and others which he himself set up at all the watering-places and convenient stations for ships. In these inscriptions he besought the Ionians, if possible, to come over to the Athenians, who were their fathers, and who were fighting for their liberty; and if they could not do this, to throw the barbarian army into confusion during battle. He hoped that these writings would either bring the Ionians over to the side of the Greeks, or make them suspected of treason by the Persians.

Meanwhile Xerxes invaded Greece through Doris, and came into Phokis, where he burned the city of the Phokaeans. The Greeks made no resistance, although the Athenians begged them to make a stand in Boeotia, and cover Attica, urging that they had fought in defence of the whole of Greece at Artemisium. However, as no one would listen to them, but all the rest of the Greeks determined to defend the Peloponnesus, and were collecting all their forces within it, and building a wall across the Isthmus from sea to sea, the Athenians were enraged at their treachery, and disheartened at being thus abandoned to their fate. They had no thoughts of resisting so enormous an army; and the only thing they could do under the circumstances, to abandon their city and trust to their ships, was distasteful to the people, who saw nothing to be gained by victory, and no advantage in life, if they had to desert the temples of their gods and the monuments of their fathers.

X

At this crisis, Themistokles, despairing of influencing the populace by human reasoning, just as a dramatist has recourse to supernatural machinery, produced signs and wonders and oracles. He argued that it was a portent that the sacred snake during those days deserted his usual haunt. The priests, who found their daily offerings to him of the first fruits of the sacrifices left untouched, told the people, at the instigation of Themistokles, that the goddess Athena (Minerva) had left the city, and was leading them to the sea. He also swayed the popular mind by the oracle, in which he argued that by “wooden walls” ships were alluded to; and that Apollo spoke of Salamis as “divine,” not terrible or sad, because Salamis would be the cause of great good fortune to the Greeks. Having thus gained his point, he proposed a decree, that the city be left to the care of the tutelary goddess of the Athenians, that all able-bodied men should embark in the ships of war, and that each man should take the best measures in his power to save the women and children and slaves.

When this decree was passed, most of the Athenians sent their aged folks and women over to Troezen, where they were hospitably received by the Troezenians, who decreed that they should be maintained at the public expense, receiving each two obols a day, that the children should be allowed to pick the fruit from any man’s tree, and even that their school expenses should be paid. This decree was proposed by Nikagoras.

The Athenians at this time had no public funds, yet Aristotle tells us that the Senate of the Areopagus, by supplying each fighting man with eight drachmas, did good service in manning the fleet; and Kleidemus tells us that this money was obtained by an artifice of Themistokles. When the Athenians were going down to the Peiraeus, he gave out that the Gorgon’s head had been lost from the statue of the goddess. Themistokles, under pretext of seeking for it, searched every man, and found great stores of money hidden in their luggage, which he confiscated, and thus was able to supply the crews of the ships with abundance of necessaries. When the whole city put to sea, the sight affected some to pity, while others admired their courage in sending their families out of the way that they might not be disturbed by weeping and wailing as they went over to Salamis. Yet many of the aged citizens who were left behind at Athens afforded a piteous sight; and even the domestic animals, as they ran howling to the sea-shore, accompanying their masters, touched men’s hearts. It is said that the dog of Xanthippus, the father of Perikles, could not endure to be separated from him, and jumping into the sea swam alongside of his trireme, reached Salamis, and then at once died. His tomb is even now to be seen at the place called Kynossema.

XI

Besides these great achievements, Themistokles, perceiving that his countrymen longed to have Aristeides back again, and fearing that he might ally himself with the Persian, and work ruin to Greece out of anger against his own country (for Aristeides had been banished from Athens before the war when Themistokles came into power), proposed a decree, that any citizen who had been banished for a term of years, might return and do his best by word and deed to serve his country together with the other citizens.

Eurybiades, on account of the prestige of Sparta, held the chief command of the fleet, but was unwilling to risk a battle, preferring to weigh anchor and sail to the Isthmus where the land army of the Peloponnesians was assembled. This project was opposed by Themistokles; and it was on this occasion that he made use of the following well-known saying: When Eurybiades said to him, “Themistokles, in the public games they whip those who rise before their turn.” “True,” said Themistokles, “but they do not crown those who lag behind.” And when Eurybiades raised his staff as if he would strike him, Themistokles said, “Strike, but hear me.” When Eurybiades, in wonder at his gentle temper, bade him speak, he again urged Eurybiades to remain at Salamis. Some one then said, that a man without a city had no right to tell those who still possessed one to abandon it, but Themistokles turning upon him, answered, “Wretch, we Athenians have indeed abandoned our walls and houses, because we scorn to be slaves for the sake of mere buildings, but we have the greatest city of all Greece, our two hundred ships of war, which now are ready to help you if you choose to be saved by their means; but, if you betray us and leave us, some of the Greeks will soon learn to their cost that the Athenians have obtained a free city and a territory no worse than that which they left behind.” When Eurybiades heard Themistokles use this language, he began to fear that the Athenians might really sail away and leave him.

When Eretrieus tried to say something to Themistokles, he answered, “Do you too dare to say anything about war, you, who like a cuttle-fish, have a sword but no heart.”

XII

It is said by some writers that while Themistokles was talking about these matters upon the deck of his ship, an owl was seen to fly from the right-hand side of the fleet, and to perch upon his mast; which omen encouraged all the Athenians to fight. But when the Persian host poured down to Phalerum, covering the whole sea-shore, and the king himself was seen with all his forces, coming down to the beach with the infantry, the Greeks forgot the words of Themistokles, and began to cast eager glances towards the Isthmus and to be angry with any one who proposed to do anything else than withdraw. They determined to retire by night, and the steersmen were given orders to prepare for a voyage. Themistokles, enraged at the idea of the Greek fleet dispersing, and losing the advantage of the narrow waters, planned the affair of Sikinnus. This Sikinnus was a Persian who had been taken prisoner, and who was fond of Themistokles and took charge of his children. He sent this man secretly to Xerxes, ordering him to say that Themistokles, the general of the Athenians, has determined to come over to the king of the Persians, and is the first to tell him that the Greeks are about to retreat. He bids him not to allow them to fly, but to attack them while they are disheartened at not being supported by a land force, and destroy their fleet.

Xerxes, who imagined this to be said for his advantage, was delighted, and at once gave orders to the commanders of his ships to make ready for battle at their leisure, all but two hundred, whom he ordered to put to sea at once, surround the whole strait, and close up the passages through the islands, so that no one of the enemy could escape. While this was being done, Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus, who was the first to perceive it, came to the tent of Themistokles, although the latter was his enemy, and had driven him into exile. When Themistokles came to meet him, he told him they were surrounded; knowing the frank and noble character of Aristeides, Themistokles told him the whole plot, and begged him as a man in whom the Greeks could trust, to encourage them to fight a battle in the straits. Aristeides praised Themistokles for what he had done, and went round to the other generals and captains of ships, inciting them to fight. Yet they were inclined to doubt even the word of Aristeides, when a trireme from the island of Tenos, under the command of Panaitios, came in, having deserted from the enemy, and brought the news that the Greeks were really surrounded. Then, in a spirit of anger and despair, they prepared for the struggle.

XIII

At daybreak Xerxes took his seat on a high cliff overlooking all his host, just above the Temple of Herakles, we are told by Phanodemus, where the strait between Salamis and Attica is narrowest, but according to Akestodorus, close to the Megarian frontier, upon the mountains called Horns. Here he sat upon the golden throne, with many scribes standing near, whose duty it was to write down the events of the battle.

While Themistokles was sacrificing on the beach, beside the admiral’s ship, three most beautiful captive boys were brought to him, splendidly adorned with gold and fine clothes. They were said to be the children of Sandauke, the sister of Xerxes, and Artäuktes. When Euphrantides the prophet saw them, there shone at once from the victims on the altar a great and brilliant flame, and at the same time some one was heard to sneeze on the right hand, which is a good omen. Euphrantides now besought Themistokles to sacrifice these young men as victims to Dionysus, to whom human beings are sacrificed; so should the Greeks obtain safety and victory. Themistokles was struck with horror at this terrible proposal; but the multitude, who, as is natural with people in great danger, hoped to be saved by miraculous rather than by ordinary means, called upon the God with one voice, and leading the captives up to the altar, compelled him to offer them up as the prophet bade him. This story rests on the authority of Phanias of Lesbos, who was a man of education, and well read in history.

XIV

As for the numbers of the Persian fleet, the poet Aeschylus, as though he knew it clearly, writes as follows in his tragedy of the Persae:

“And well I know a thousand sail

That day did Xerxes meet,

And seven and two hundred more,

The fastest of his fleet.”

The Athenian ships, a hundred and eighty in number, had each eighteen men on deck, four of whom were archers, and the rest heavy-armed soldiers. Themistokles now chose the time for the battle as judiciously as he had chosen the place, and would not bring his triremes into line of battle before the fresh wind off the sea, as is usual in the morning, raised a heavy swell in the straits. This did not damage the low flat ships of the Greeks, but it caught the high-sterned Persian ships, over-weighted as they were with lofty decks, and presented their broadsides to the Greeks, who eagerly attacked them, watching Themistokles because he was their best example, and also because Ariamenes, Xerxes’s admiral, and the bravest and best of the king’s brothers, attacked him in a huge ship, from which, as if from a castle, he poured darts and arrows upon him.

But Ameinias of Dekeleia and Sokles of Pedia, who were both sailing in the same vessel, met him stem to stem. Each ship crashed into the other with its iron beak, and was torn open. Ariamenes attempted to board the Greek ship, but these two men set upon him with their spears, and drove him into the sea. His body was noticed by Queen Artemisia floating amongst the other wreckage, and was by her brought to Xerxes.

XV

At this period of the battle it is said that a great light was seen to shine from Eleusis, and that a great noise was heard upon the Thriasian plain near the sea, as though multitudes of men were escorting the mystic Iacchus in procession. From the place where these sounds were heard a mist seemed to spread over the sea and envelop the ships. Others thought that they saw spirit-forms of armed men come from Aegina, and hold their hands before the ships of the Greeks. These it was supposed were the Aeakid heroes, to whom prayers for help had been offered just before the battle. The first man to capture a ship was Lykomedes, an Athenian captain, who cut off its ensign and dedicated it to Apollo with the laurel crown at the Temple at Phlyae.

In the narrow straits the Persians were unable to bring more than a part of their fleet into action, and their ships got into each other’s way, so that the Greeks could meet them on equal terms, and, although they resisted until evening, completely routed them, winning, as Simonides calls it, that “glorious and famous victory,” the greatest exploit ever achieved at sea, which owed its success to the bravery of the sailors and the genius of Themistokles.

XVI

After this naval defeat, Xerxes, enraged at his failure, endeavoured to fill up the strait with earth, and so to make a passage for his land forces to Salamis, to attack the Greeks there. Now Themistokles, in order to try the temper of Aristeides, proposed that the fleet should sail to the Hellespont, and break the bridge of boats there, “in order,” said he, “that we may conquer Asia in Europe.” But Aristeides disapproved of this measure, saying, “Hitherto we have fought against the Persian king, while he has been at his ease; but if we shut him up in Greece, and drive the chief of so large an army to despair, he will no longer sit quietly under a golden umbrella to look on at his battles, but will strain every nerve and superintend every operation in person, and so will easily retrieve his losses and form better plans for the future.”

“Instead of breaking down the existing bridge for him, Themistokles,” said he, “we ought rather, if possible, at once to build another, and send the man out of Europe as quickly as possible.” “Well then,” answered Themistokles, “if you think that our interest lies in that direction, we ought all to consider and contrive to send him out of Greece as fast as we can.” When this resolution was adopted, Themistokles sent one of the king’s eunuchs, whom he had found among the prisoners, bidding him warn Xerxes that “the Greeks had determined after their victory to sail to the Hellespont and break the bridge, but that Themistokles, out of his regard for the king, advises him to proceed as fast as he can to his own sea, and cross over it, while he (Themistokles) gained time for him by delaying the allied fleet.” Xerxes, hearing thus, was much alarmed and retired in all haste. And indeed the battle with Mardonius at Plataea shows us which of the two was right; for the Greeks there could scarcely deal with a small part of the Persian army, and what therefore could they have done with the whole?

XVII

Herodotus tells us that, of Greek States, Aegina received the prize of valour, and that, of the generals, it was awarded to Themistokles, though against the will of the voters. When the armies retired to the Isthmus all the generals laid their votes on the altar there, and each man declared himself to deserve the first prize for valour, and Themistokles to deserve the second. However, the Lacedaemonians brought him home with them to Sparta, and gave Eurybiades the first prize for valour, but Themistokles that for wisdom, a crown of olive-leaves. They also gave him the best chariot in their city, and sent three hundred of their young men to escort him out of the country. It is also related that at the next Olympian games, when Themistokles appeared upon the race-course, all the spectators took no further interest in the contests, but passed the whole day in admiring and applauding him, and in pointing him out to such as were strangers; so that he was delighted, and said to his friends that he had now received his reward for all his labours on behalf of Greece.

XVIII

He was by nature excessively fond of admiration, as we may judge from the stories about him which have been preserved. Once, when he was made admiral of the Athenian fleet, he put off all the necessary business of his office until the day appointed for sailing, in order that he might have a great many dealings with various people all at once, and so appear to be a person of great influence and importance. And when he saw the corpses floating in the sea with gold bracelets and necklaces, he himself passed them by, but pointed them out to a friend who was following, saying, “Do you pick them up and keep them; for you are not Themistokles.” A beautiful youth, named Antiphates, regarded him coolly at first, but eventually became submissive to him because of his immense reputation. “Young man,” said Themistokles, “it has taken some time, but we have at length both regained our right minds.” He used to say that the Athenians neither admired nor respected him, but used him like a plane-tree under which they took shelter in storm, but which in fair weather they lopped and stripped of its leaves. Once when a citizen of Seriphos said to him that he owed his glory, not to himself but to his city, he answered, “Very true; I should not have become a great man if I had been a Seriphian, nor would you if you had been an Athenian.” When one of his fellow-generals, who thought that he had done the state good service, was taking a haughty tone, and comparing his exploits with those of Themistokles, he said, “The day after a feast, once upon a time, boasted that it was better than the feast-day itself, because on that day all men are full of anxiety and trouble, while upon the next day every one enjoys what has been prepared at his leisure. But the feast-day answered, ‘Very true, only but for me you never would have been at all.’ So now,” said he, “if I had not come first, where would you all have been now?” His son, who was spoiled by his mother, and by himself to please her, he said was the most powerful person in Greece; for the Athenians ruled the Greeks, he ruled the Athenians, his wife ruled him, and his son ruled his wife. Wishing to be singular in all things, when he put up a plot of ground for sale, he ordered the crier to announce that there were good neighbours next to it. When two men paid their addresses to his daughter, he chose the more agreeable instead of the richer of the two, saying that he preferred a man without money to money without a man. Such was his character, as shown in his talk.

XIX

Immediately after the great war, he began to rebuild and fortify the city. In order to succeed in this, Theopompus says that he bribed the Spartan ephors into laying aside opposition, but most writers say that he outwitted them by proceeding to Sparta nominally on an embassy. Then when the Spartans complained to him that Athens was being fortified, and when Poliarchus came expressly from Aegina to charge him with it, he denied it, and bade them send commissioners to Athens to see whether it was true, wishing both to obtain time for the fortifications to be built, and also to place these commissioners in the hands of the Athenians, as hostages for his own safety. His expectations were realised; for the Lacedaemonians, on discovering the truth, did him no harm, but dissembled their anger and sent him away. After this he built Peiraeus, as he perceived the excellence of its harbours, and was desirous to turn the whole attention of the Athenians to naval pursuits. In this he pursued a policy exactly the opposite to that of the ancient kings of Attica; for they are said to have endeavoured to keep their subjects away from the sea, and to accustom them to till the ground instead of going on board ships, quoting the legend that Athene and Poseidon had a contest for the possession of the land, and that she gained a decision in her favour by the production of the sacred olive. Themistokles, on the other hand, did not so much “stick Peiraeus on to Athens,” as Aristophanes the comic poet said, as make the city dependent upon Peiraeus, and the land dependent on the sea. By this means he transferred power from the nobles to the people, because sailors and pilots became the real strength of the State. For this reason the thirty tyrants destroyed the bema, or tribune on the place of public assembly, which was built looking towards the sea, and built another which looked inland, because they thought that the naval supremacy of Athens had been the origin of its democratic constitution, and that an oligarchy had less to fear from men who cultivated the land.

XX

Themistokles had even more extended views than these about making the Athenians supreme at sea. When Xerxes was gone, the whole Greek fleet was drawn up on shore for the winter at Pagasae. Themistokles then publicly told the Athenians that he had a plan which would save and benefit them all, but which must not be divulged. The Athenians bade him tell Aristeides only, and to execute his designs if he approved.

Themistokles then told Aristeides that his design was to burn the whole Greek fleet as they lay on the beach. But Aristeides came forward and told the people that no proposal could be more advantageous or more villainous; so that the Athenians forbade Themistokles to proceed with it. On another occasion the Lacedaemonians proposed, in a meeting of the Amphiktyonic council, that all States that had taken no part in the Persian war should be excluded from that council; Themistokles, fearing that if the Lacedaemonians should exclude Thessaly, Argos, and Thebes, they would have complete control over the votes, and be able to carry what measures they pleased, made representations to the various States, and influenced the votes of their deputies at the meeting, pointing out to them that there were only thirty-one States which took any part in the war, and that most of these were very small ones, so that it would be unreasonable for one or two powerful States to pronounce the rest of Greece outlawed, and be supreme in the council. After this he generally opposed the Lacedaemonians; wherefore they paid special court to Kimon, in order to establish him as a political rival to Themistokles.

XXI

Moreover, he made himself odious to the allies by sailing about the islands and wringing money from them. A case in point is the conversation which Herodotus tells us he held with the people of Andros, when trying to get money from them. He said that he was come, bringing with him two gods, Persuasion and Necessity; but they replied that they also possessed two equally powerful ones, Poverty and Helplessness, by whom they were prevented from supplying him with money. The poet, Timokreon of Rhodes, in one of his songs, writes bitterly of Themistokles, saying that he was prevailed upon by the bribes which he received from exiles to restore them to their native country, but abandoned himself, who was his guest and friend. The song runs as follows:

“Though ye may sing Pausanias or Xanthippus in your lays,

Or Leotychides, ’tis Aristeides whom I praise,

The best of men as yet produced by holy Athens’ State,

Since thus upon Themistokles has fall’n Latona’s hate:

That liar and that traitor base, who for a bribe unclean,

Refused to reinstate a man who his own guest had been.

His friend too, in his native Ialysus, but who took

Three silver talents with him, and his friend forsook.

Bad luck go with the fellow, who unjustly some restores

From exile, while some others he had banished from our shores,

And some he puts to death; and sits among us gorged with pelf.

He kept an ample table at the Isthmian games himself,

And gave to every guest that came full plenty of cold meat,

The which they with a prayer did each and every of them eat,

But their prayer was ‘Next year be there no Themistokles to meet.’”

And after the exile and condemnation of Themistokles, Timokreon wrote much more abusively about him in a song which begins,

“Muse, far away,

Sound this my lay,

For it both meet and right is.”

It is said that Timokreon was exiled from home for having dealings with the Persians, and that Themistokles confirmed his sentence. When, then, Themistokles was charged with intriguing with the Persians, Timokreon wrote upon him,

“Timokreon is not the only Greek

That turned a traitor, Persian gold to seek;

I’m not the only fox without a tail,

But others put their honour up for sale.”

XXII

As the Athenians, through his unpopularity, eagerly listened to any story to his discredit, he was obliged to weary them by constantly repeating the tale of his own exploits to them. In answer to those who were angry with him, he would ask, “Are you weary of always receiving benefits from the same hand?” He also vexed the people by building the Temple of Artemis of Good Counsel, as he called her, hinting that he had taken good counsel for the Greeks. This temple he placed close to his own house in Melite, at the place where at the present day the public executioner casts out the bodies of executed criminals, and the clothes and ropes of men who have hanged themselves. Even in our own times a small statue of Themistokles used to stand in the Temple of Artemis of Good Counsel; and he seems to have been a hero not only in mind, but in appearance. The Athenians made use of ostracism to banish him, in order to reduce his extravagant pretensions, as they always were wont to do in the case of men whom they thought over powerful and unfit for living in the equality of a democracy. For ostracism implied no censure, but was intended as a vent for envious feelings, which were satisfied by seeing the object of their hatred thus humbled.

XXIII

When Themistokles was banished from Athens, he lived in Argos, during which time the proceedings of Pausanias gave a great opportunity to his enemies. He was impeached on a charge of treason by Leobotes, the son of Alkmaeon of Agraulai, and the Spartans joined in the impeachment. Pausanias, indeed, at first concealed his treacherous designs from Themistokles, although he was his friend; but when he saw that Themistokles was banished, and chafing at the treatment he had received, he was encouraged to ask him to share his treason, and showed him the letters which he had received from the Persian king, at the same time inflaming his resentment against the Greeks, whom he spoke of as ungrateful wretches. Themistokles refused utterly to join Pausanias, but nevertheless told no one of his treasonable practices, either because he hoped that he would desist, or that his visionary and impossible projects would be disclosed by other means. And thus it was that when Pausanias was put to death, certain letters and writings on this subject were found, which threw suspicion upon Themistokles. The Lacedaemonians loudly condemned him, and many of his own countrymen, because of the enmity they bore him, brought charges against him. He did not appear in person at first, but answered these attacks by letters. In these he told his accusers that he had always sought to rule, and was not born to obey; so that he never would sell himself and Greece to be a slave to the Persians. But in spite of these arguments, his enemies prevailed upon the Athenians to send men with orders to seize him, and bring him to be tried by Greece.

XXIV

He was apprised of this in time to take refuge in Korkyra, a State which was under obligations to him. For once, when Korkyra was at variance with Corinth, he had been chosen to arbitrate between them, and had reconciled them, giving as his award that the Corinthians were to pay down twenty talents, and each State to have an equal share in the city and island of Leucas, as being a colony from both of them. From thence he fled to Epirus; but, being still pursued by the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, he adopted a desperate resolution. Admetus, the king of the Molossians, had once made some request to the Athenians, which Themistokles, who was then in the height of his power, insultingly refused to grant. Admetus was deeply incensed, and eager for vengeance; but now Themistokles feared the fresh fury of his countrymen more than this old grudge of the king’s, put himself at his mercy, and became a suppliant to Admetus in a novel and strange fashion; for he lay down at the hearth of Admetus, holding that prince’s infant son, which is considered among the Molossians to be the most solemn manner of becoming a suppliant, and one which cannot be refused. Some say that Phthia, the king’s wife, suggested this posture to Themistokles, and placed her infant on the hearth with him; while others say that Admetus, in order to be able to allege religious reasons for his refusal to give up Themistokles to his pursuers, himself arranged the scene with him. After this, Epikrates, of the township of Acharnai, managed to convey his wife and children out of Athens to join him, for which, we are told by Stesimbrotus, Kimon subsequently had him condemned and executed. But, singularly enough, afterwards Stesimbrotus either forgets his wife and children, or makes Themistokles forget them, when he says that he sailed to Sicily and demanded the daughter of the despot Hiero in marriage, promising that he would make all Greece obey him. As Hiero rejected his proposals, he then went to Asia.

XXV

Now it is not probable that this ever took place. Theophrastus, in his treatise on monarchy, relates that when Hiero sent race-horses to Olympia and pitched a costly tent there, Themistokles said to the assembled Greeks that they ought to destroy the despot’s tent, and not permit his horses to run. Thucydides too informs us that he crossed to the Aegean sea, and set sail from Pydna, none of his fellow-travellers knowing who he was until the ship was driven by contrary winds to Naxos, which was then being besieged by the Athenians. Then he became alarmed, and told the captain and the pilot who he was, and, partly by entreaties, partly by threats that he would denounce them to the Athenians, and say that they well knew who he was, but were carrying him out of the country for a bribe, he prevailed on them to hold on their course to the coast of Asia.

Of his property, much was concealed by his friends and sent over to him in Asia; but what was confiscated to the public treasury amounted, according to Theopompus, to a hundred talents, and according to Theophrastus to eighty, albeit Themistokles, before his entrance into political life, did not possess property worth three talents.

XXVI

When he sailed to Kyme, he found that many of the inhabitants of the Ionic coast were watching for an opportunity to capture him, especially Ergoteles and Pythodorus (for indeed, to men who cared not how they made their money, he would have been a rich prize, as the Persian king had offered a reward of two hundred talents for him), he fled to Aegae, a little Aeolian city, where he was known by no one except his friend Nikogenes, the richest of all the Aeolians, who was well known to the Persians of the interior. In this man’s house he lay concealed for some days. Here, after the feast which followed a sacrifice, Olbius, who took charge of Nikogenes’s children, fell into a kind of inspired frenzy, and spoke the following verse:

“Night shall speak and give thee counsel, night shall give thee victory.” After this Themistokles dreamed a dream. He thought that a snake was coiling itself upon his belly and crawling up towards his throat. As soon as it reached his throat, it became an eagle and flapped its wings, lifted him up, and carried him a long distance, until he saw a golden herald’s staff. The eagle set him down upon this securely, and he felt free from all terror and anxiety. After this he was sent away by Nikogenes, who made use of the following device. Most barbarian nations, and the Persians especially, are violently jealous in their treatment of women. They guard not only their wives, but their purchased slaves and concubines, with the greatest care, not permitting them to be seen by any one out of doors, but when they are at home they lock them up, and when they are on a journey they place them in waggons with curtains all round them. Such a waggon was prepared for Themistokles, and he travelled in it, his escort telling all whom they met that they were conveying a Greek lady from Ionia to one of the king’s courtiers.

XXVII

Thucydides and Charon of Lampsakus relate that Xerxes was now dead, and that Themistokles gave himself up to his son; but Ephorus, Deinon, Kleitarchus, Herakleides, and many others, say that it was to Xerxes himself that he came. But the narrative of Thucydides agrees better with the dates, although they are not thoroughly settled.

At this perilous crisis Themistokles first applied to Artabanus, a chiliarch, or officer in command of a regiment of a thousand men, whom he told that he was a Greek, and that he wished to have an interview with the king about matters of the utmost importance, and in which the king was especially interested. He replied, “Stranger, the customs of different races are different, and each has its own standard of right and wrong; yet among all men it is thought right to honour, admire, and to defend one’s own customs. Now we are told that you chiefly prize freedom and equality; we on the other hand think it the best of all our laws to honour the king, and to worship him as we should worship the statue of a god that preserves us all. Wherefore if you are come with the intention of adopting our customs, and of prostrating yourself before the king, you may be permitted to see the king, and speak with him; but if not, you must use some other person to communicate with him; for it is not the custom for the king to converse with any one who does not prostrate himself before him.” Themistokles, hearing this, said to him, “Artabanus, I am come to increase the glory and power of the king, and will both myself adopt your customs, since the god that has exalted the Persians will have it so, and will also increase the number of those who prostrate themselves before the king. So let this be no impediment to the interview with him which I desire.” “Whom of the Greeks,” asked Artabanus, “are we to tell him is come? for you do not seem to have the manners of a man of humble station.” “No one,” answered Themistokles, “must learn my name before the king himself.” This is the story which we are told by Phanias. But Eratosthenes, in his treatise on wealth, tells us also that Themistokles was introduced to Artabanus by an Eretrian lady with whom the latter lived.

XXVIII

When he was brought into the king’s presence he prostrated himself, and stood silent. The king then told his interpreter to ask him who he was; and when the interpreter had asked this question, he told him to answer, “I am, O King, Themistokles the Athenian, an exile, a man who has wrought much evil to the Persians, but more good than evil, in that I stopped the pursuit when Greece was safe, and I was able to do you a kindness as all was well at home. In my present fallen fortunes I am prepared to be grateful for any mark of favour you may show me, or to deprecate your anger, should you bear a grudge against me. You may see, from the violence of my own countrymen against me, how great were the benefits which I conferred upon the Persians; so now use me rather as a means of proving your magnanimity than of glutting your wrath. Wherefore save me, your suppliant, and do not destroy one who has become the enemy of Greece.” Themistokles also introduced a supernatural element into his speech by relating the vision which he saw at the house of Nikogenes, and also a prophecy which he received at the shrine of Jupiter of Dodona, which bade him “go to the namesake of the god,” from which he concluded that the god sent him to the king, because they were both great, and called kings. To this speech the Persian king made no answer, although he was astonished at his bold spirit; but in conversation with his friends he spoke as though this were the greatest possible piece of good fortune, and in his prayers begged Arimanios to make his enemies ever continue to banish their ablest men. He is said to have offered a sacrifice to the gods and to have drunk wine at once, and during the night in his soundest sleep he thrice cried out, “I have got Themistokles the Athenian.”

XXIX

At daybreak he called together his friends and sent for Themistokles, who augured nothing pleasant from the insults and abuse which he received from the people at the palace gates, when they heard his name. Moreover Roxanes the chiliarch, as Themistokles passed by him in silence into the king’s presence, whispered, “Thou subtle serpent of Greece, the king’s good genius has led thee hither.” But when he was come before the king and had prostrated himself a second time, the king embraced him, and said in a friendly tone that he already owed him two hundred talents: for as he had brought himself he was clearly entitled to the reward which was offered to any one else who would do so. He also promised him much more than this, and encouraged him to speak at length upon the affairs of Greece. To this Themistokles answered, that human speech was like embroidered tapestry, because when spread out it shows all its figures, but when wrapped up it both conceals and spoils them, wherefore he asked for time. The king was pleased with his simile, and bade him take what time he chose. He asked for a year, during which he learned the Persian language sufficiently to talk to the king without an interpreter. This led the people to imagine that he discoursed about the affairs of Greece; but many changes were made at that time in the great officers of the court, and the nobles disliked Themistokles, imagining that he dared to speak about them to the king. Indeed, he was honoured as no other foreigner ever was, and went hunting with the king and lived in his family circle, so that he came into the presence of the king’s mother, and became her intimate friend, and at the king’s command was instructed in the mysteries of the Magi.

When Demaratus the Spartan was bidden to ask for a boon, he asked to be allowed to drive through Sardis wearing his tiara upright like that of the king. Mithropaustes, the king’s cousin, took hold of Demaratus by his tiara, saying, “You have no brains for the king’s tiara to cover; do you think you would become Zeus if you were given his thunderbolt to wield?” The king was very angry with Demaratus because of this request, but Themistokles by his entreaties restored him to favour. It is also said that the later Persian kings, whose politics were more mixed up with those of Greece, used to promise any Greek whom they wished to desert to them that they would treat him better than Themistokles. We are told that Themistokles himself, after he became a great man and was courted by many, was seated one day at a magnificent banquet, and said to his children, “My sons, we should have been ruined if it had not been for our ruin.” Most writers agree that three cities, Magnesia, Lampsakus, and Myous, were allotted to him for bread, wine, and meat. To these Neanthes of Kyzikus and Phanias add two more, Perkote and Palaiskepsis, which were to supply bedding and clothing respectively.

XXX

On one occasion, when he went down to the seaside on some business connected with Greece, a Persian named Epixyes, Satrap of Upper Phrygia, plotted his assassination. He had long kept some Pisidians who were to kill him when he passed the night in the town of Leontokophalos, which means ‘Lion’s Head.’ It is said that the mother of the gods appeared to him while he was sleeping at noon and said, “Themistokles, be late at Lion’s Head, lest you fall in with a lion. As a recompense for this warning, I demand Mnesiptolema for my handmaid.” Themistokles, disturbed at this, after praying to the goddess, left the highway and made a circuit by another road, avoiding that place; when it was night he encamped in the open country. As one of the sumpter cattle that carried his tent had fallen into a river, Themistokles’s servants hung up the rich hangings, which were dripping with wet, in order to dry them. The Pisidians meanwhile came up to the camp with drawn swords, and, not clearly distinguishing in the moonlight the things hung out to dry, thought that they must be the tent of Themistokles, and that they would find him asleep within it. When they came close to it and raised the hangings, the servants who were on the watch fell upon them and seized them. Having thus escaped from danger, he built a temple to Dindymene at Magnesia to commemorate the appearance of the goddess, and appointed his daughter Mnesiptolema to be its priestess.

XXXI

When he came to Sardis, he leisurely examined the temples and the offerings which they contained, and in the temple of the mother of the gods, he found a bronze female figure called the Water-carrier, about two cubits high, which he himself, when overseer of the water supply of Athens, had made out of the fines imposed upon those who took water illegally.

Either feeling touched at the statue being a captive, or else willing to show the Athenians how much power he possessed in Persia, he proposed to the Satrap of Lydia to send it back to Athens. This man became angry at his demand, and said that he should write to the king, and tell him of it. Themistokles in terror applied himself to the harem of the Satrap, and by bribing the ladies there induced them to pacify him, while he himself took care to be more cautious in future, as he saw that he had to fear the enmity of the native Persians. For this reason, Theopompus tells us, he ceased to wander about Asia, but resided at Magnesia, where, receiving rich presents and honoured equally with the greatest Persian nobles, he lived for a long time in tranquillity; for the king’s attention was so entirely directed to the affairs of the provinces of the interior that he had no leisure for operations against Greece. But when Egypt revolted, and the Athenians assisted it, and Greek triremes sailed as far as Cyprus and Cilicia, and Kimon was master of the sea, then the king determined to attack the Greeks, and prevent their development at his expense. Armies were put in motion, generals were appointed, and frequent messages were sent to Themistokles from the king, bidding him attack Greece and fulfil his promises. Themistokles, unmoved by resentment against his countrymen, and uninfluenced by the thought of the splendid position which he might occupy as commander-in-chief, possibly too, thinking that his task was an impossible one, as Greece possessed many great generals, especially Kimon, who had a most brilliant reputation, but chiefly because he would not soil his glory and disgrace the trophies which he had won, determined, as indeed was his best course, to bring his life to a fitting close. He offered sacrifice to the gods, called his friends together, and, having taken leave of them, drank bull’s blood, according to the most common tradition, but according to others, some quickly-operating poison, and died at Magnesia in the sixty-fifth year of a life almost entirely spent in great political and military employments.

The King of Persia, when he heard of the manner of his death and his reasons for dying, admired him more than ever, and continued to treat his family and friends with kindness.

XXXII

Themistokles left five children, Neokles, Diokles, Archeptolis, Polyeuktus, Kleophantus, by his first wife Archippe, who was the daughter of Lysander, of the township of Alopekai. Of these Kleophantus is mentioned by Plato the philosopher as being an excellent horseman, but otherwise worthless. Of the elder ones, Neokles was bitten by a horse and died while still a child, and Diokles was adopted by his grandfather Lysander. He also had several daughters by his second wife, of whom Mnesiptolema married Archeptolis, her father’s half-brother; Italia married Panthoides of the island of Chios, and Sybaris married Nikomedes, an Athenian. After Themistokles’s death, his nephew Phrasikles sailed to Magnesia, and with her brother’s consent married Nicomache, and also took charge of the youngest child, who was named Asia.

The people of Magnesia show a splendid tomb of Themistokles in their market-place; but with regard to the fate of his remains we must pay no attention to Andokides, who in his address to his friends, tells us that the Athenians stole them and tore them to pieces, because he would tell any falsehood to excite the hatred of the nobles against the people. Phylarchus, too, writes his history in such dramatic form that he all but resorts to the actual machinery of the stage, bringing forward one Neokles, and Demopolis as the children of Themistokles to make a touching scene, which anyone can see is untrue. Diodorus the topographer, in his treatise ‘On Tombs’ says, more as a conjecture than as knowing it for a fact, that in the great harbour of Peiraeus a kind of elbow juts out from the promontory of Alkimus, and that when one sails past this, going inwards, where the sea is most sheltered, there is a large foundation, and upon it the tomb of Themistokles, shaped like an altar. It is thought that the comic poet Plato alludes to this in the following verses:

“By the sea’s margin, by the watery strand,

Thy monument, Themistokles, shall stand;

By this directed to thy native shore

The merchant shall convey his freighted store;

And when our fleets are summoned to the fight,

Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight.”

The descendants of Themistokles are given certain privileges at Magnesia even to the present day, for I know that Themistokles, an Athenian, my friend and fellow-student in the school of Ammonias the philosopher, enjoyed them.

LIFE OF
CAMILLUS.

I

The strangest fact in the life of Furius Camillus is that, although he was a most successful general and won great victories, though he was five times appointed dictator, triumphed four times, and was called the second founder of Rome, yet he never once was consul. The reason of this is to be found in the political condition of Rome at that time; for the people, being at variance with the senate, refused to elect consuls, and chose military tribunes instead, who, although they had full consular powers, yet on account of their number were less offensive to the people than consuls. To have affairs managed by six men instead of two appears to have been a consolation to those who had suffered from the arbitrary rule of a few. It was during this period that Camillus reached the height of power and glory, and yet he would not become consul against the will of the people, although several occasions occurred when he might have been elected, but in his various appointments he always contrived, even when he had sole command, to share his power with others, while even when he had colleagues he kept all the glory for himself. His moderation prevented any one from grudging him power, while his successes were due to his genius, in which he confessedly surpassed all his countrymen.

II

The family of the Furii was not a very illustrious one before Camillus gained glory in the great battle with the Aequi and Volsci, where he served under the dictator Postumius Tubertus. Riding out before the rest of the army, he was struck in the thigh by a dart, but tore it out, assailed the bravest of the enemy, and put them to flight. After this, amongst other honours he was appointed censor, an office of great dignity at that time. One admirable measure is recorded of his censorship, that by arguments and threatening them with fines he persuaded the unmarried citizens to marry the widow women, whose number was very great on account of the wars. Another measure to which he was forced was that of taxing orphans, who had hitherto been exempt from taxation. This was rendered necessary by the constant campaigns which were carried on at a great expense, and more especially by the siege of Veii. Some call the inhabitants of this city Veientani. It was the bulwark of Etruria, possessing as many fighting men as Rome itself; the citizens were rich, luxurious, and extravagant in their habits, and fought bravely many times for honour and for power against the Romans. At this period, having been defeated in several great battles, the people of Veii had given up any schemes of conquest, but had built strong and high walls, filled their city with arms and provisions, and all kinds of material of war, and fearlessly endured a siege, which was long, no doubt, but which became no less irksome and difficult to the besiegers. Accustomed as the Romans had been to make short campaigns in summer weather, and to spend their winters at home, they were now for the first time compelled by their tribunes to establish forts and entrench their camp, and pass both summer and winter in the enemy’s country for seven years in succession. The generals were complained of, and as they seemed to be carrying on the siege remissly, they were removed, and others appointed, among them Camillus, who was then tribune for the second time. But he effected nothing in the siege at that time, because he was sent to fight the Faliscans and Capenates, who had insulted the Roman territory throughout the war with Veii, when the Roman army was engaged elsewhere, but were now driven by Camillus with great loss to the shelter of their city walls.

III

After this, while the war was at its height, much alarm was caused by the strange phenomenon seen at the Alban lake, which could not be accounted for on ordinary physical principles. The season was autumn, and the summer had not been remarkable for rain or for moist winds, so that many of the streams and marshes in Italy were quite dried up, and others held out with difficulty, while the rivers, as is usual in summer, were very low and deeply sunk in their bed. But the Alban lake, which is self-contained, lying as it does surrounded by fertile hills, began for no reason, except it may be the will of Heaven, to increase in volume and to encroach upon the hillsides near it, until it reached their very tops, rising quietly and without disturbance. At first the portent only amazed the shepherds and herdsmen of the neighbourhood; but when the lake by the weight of its waters broke through the thin isthmus of land which restrained it, and poured down in a mighty stream through the fertile plains below to the sea, then not only the Romans, but all the people of Italy, thought it a portent of the gravest character. Much talk about it took place in the camp before Veii, so that the besieged also learned what was happening at the lake.

IV

As always happens during a long siege, where there are frequent opportunities of intercourse between the two parties, one of the Romans had become intimate with a citizen of Veii, who was learned in legendary lore, and was even thought to have supernatural sources of information. When this man heard of the overflowing of the lake, his Roman friend observed that he was overjoyed, and laughed at the idea of the siege being successful. The Roman told him that these were not the only portents which troubled the Romans at the present time, but that there were others stranger than this, about which he should like to consult him, and, if possible, save himself in the common ruin of his country. The man eagerly attended to his discourse, imagining that he was about to hear some great secrets. The Roman thus decoyed him away farther and farther from the city gate, when he suddenly seized him and lifted him from the ground. Being the stronger man, and being assisted by several soldiers from the camp, he overpowered him, and brought him before the generals. Here the man, seeing that there was no escape, and that no one can resist his destiny, told them of the ancient oracles about his city, how it could not be taken until its enemies drove back the waters of the Alban lake, and prevented its joining the sea. When the senate heard this they were at a loss what to do, and determined to send an embassy to Delphi to enquire of the God. The embassy consisted of men of mark and importance, being Licinius Cossus, Valerius Potitus, and Fabius Ambustus. After a prosperous journey they returned with a response from Apollo, pointing out certain ceremonies which had been neglected in the feast of the Latin games, and bidding them, if possible, force the waters of the Alban lake away from the sea into its ancient course, or, if this could not be done, to divide the stream by canals and watercourses, and so to expend it in the plain. When the answer was brought back, the priests took the necessary steps about the sacrifices, while the people turned their attention to the diversion of the water.

V

In the tenth year of the war, the Senate recalled all the rest of the generals, and made Camillus Dictator. He chose Cornelius Scipio to be his Master of the Knights, and made a vow to the gods, that, if he succeeded in bringing the war to a glorious close, he would celebrate a great festival, and build a shrine to the goddess whom the Romans call Mater Matuta. This goddess, from the rites with which she is worshipped, one would imagine to be the same as the Greek Leukothea. For they bring a slave girl into the temple and beat her, and then drive her out; they take their brothers’ children in their arms in preference to their own, and generally their ceremonies seem to allude to the nursing of Bacchus, and to the misfortunes which befell Ino because of her husband’s concubine. After this, Camillus invaded the Faliscan territory, and in a great battle overthrew that people, and the Capenates who came to their assistance. Next, he turned his attention to the siege of Veii, and, perceiving that it would be a difficult matter to take the city by assault, he ordered mines to be dug, as the ground near the walls was easily worked, and the mines could be sunk to a sufficient depth to escape the notice of the besieged. As this work succeeded to his wish, he made a demonstration above ground to call the enemy to the walls and distract their attention, while others made their way unperceived through the mine to the Temple of Juno in the citadel, the largest and most sacred edifice in the city. Here, it is said, was the King of the Veientines, engaged in sacrificing. The soothsayer inspected the entrails, and cried with a loud voice, that the goddess would give the victory to whoever offered that victim. The Romans in the mine, hearing these words, quickly tore up the floor, and burst through it with shouts and rattling arms. The enemy fled in terror, and they seized the victims and carried them to Camillus. However, this story sounds rather fabulous.

The city was stormed, and the Romans carried off an enormous mass of plunder. Camillus, who viewed them from the citadel, at first stood weeping, but when, congratulated by the bystanders, raised his hands to heaven and said, “Great Jupiter, and all ye other gods, that see all good and evil deeds alike, ye know that it is not in unrighteous conquest, but in self-defence, that the Romans have taken this city of their lawless enemies. If,” he continued, “there awaits us any reverse of fortune to counterbalance this good luck, I pray that it may fall, not upon the city or army of Rome, but, as lightly as may be, upon my own head.” After these words he turned round to the right, as is the Roman habit after prayer, and while turning, stumbled and fell. All those present were terrified at the omen, but he recovered himself, saying that, as he had prayed, he had received a slight hurt to temper his great good fortune.

VI

When the city was sacked, he determined to send the statue of Juno to Rome, according to his vow. When workmen were assembled for this purpose, he offered sacrifice, and prayed to the goddess to look kindly on his efforts, and to graciously take up her abode among the gods of Rome. It is said that the statue answered that it wished to do so, and approved of his proceedings. But Livy tells us that Camillus offered his prayers while touching the statue, and that some of the bystanders said, “She consents, and is willing to come.” However, those who insist on the supernatural form of the story have one great argument in their favour, in the marvellous fortune of Rome, which never could from such small beginnings have reached, such a pitch of glory and power without many direct manifestations of the favour of Heaven. Moreover, other appearances of the same kind are to be compared with it, such as that statues have often been known to sweat, have been heard to groan, and have even turned away and shut their eyes, as has been related by many historians before our own time. And I have heard of many miraculous occurrences even at the present day, resting on evidence which cannot be lightly impugned. However, the weakness of human nature makes it equally dangerous to put too much faith in such matters or to entirely disbelieve them, as the one leads to superstition and folly, and the other to neglect and contempt of the gods. Our best course is caution, and the “golden mean.”

VII

Camillus, either because he was elated by the magnificence of his exploit in having taken a city as large as Rome after a ten years’ siege, or else because he had been so flattered by his admirers that his pride overcame his sober judgment, conducted his triumph with great ostentation, especially in driving through Rome in a chariot, drawn by four white horses, which never was done by any general before or since, for this carriage is thought to be sacred to Jupiter, the king and father of the gods. The citizens, unaccustomed to splendour, were displeased with him for this, and their dislike was increased by his opposition to the law for a redistribution of the people. The tribunes proposed that the Senate and people should be divided into two parts, one of which should stay at Rome and the other remove to the captured city, because they would be more powerful if they possessed two great cities, instead of one, and held the land in common, still remaining one nation. The lower classes, which were numerous and poor, eagerly took up the scheme, and continually clamoured round the speakers at the rostra, demanding to have it put to the vote. But the Senate and the nobles thought that it was not a redistribution, but the absolute destruction of Rome which the tribunes were demanding, and in their anger rallied round Camillus. He, fearing to have a contest on the matter, kept putting off the people and inventing reasons for delay, so as to prevent the law being brought forward to be voted upon. This increased his unpopularity; but the greatest and most obvious reason for the dislike which the people bore him arose from his demand for the tenth part of the spoils; very naturally, though perhaps he scarcely deserved it. On his way to Veii it seems he had made a vow, that if he took the city he would dedicate the tenth part of the spoil to Apollo. But when the city was taken and plundered, he either was unwilling to interfere with his countrymen, or else forgot his vow, and allowed them to enrich themselves with the booty. Afterwards, when he had laid down his dictatorship, he brought the matter before the Senate, and the soothsayers declared that the victims for sacrifice showed, when inspected, that the gods were angry and must be propitiated.

VIII

The Senate decreed, not that the plunder should be given up, for that would have been scarcely possible to carry out, but that those who had taken any should be put on their oath, and contribute a tenth part of its value. This measure bore very hardly upon the soldiers, poor hard-working men, who were now compelled to repay so large a proportion of what they had earned and spent. Camillus was clamorously assailed by them, and, having no better excuse to put forward, made the extraordinary statement that he had forgotten his vow when the city was plundered. The people angrily said that he had vowed to offer up a tithe of the enemy’s property, but that he really was taking a tithe from the citizens instead. However, all the contributions were made, and it was determined that with them a golden bowl should be made and sent to Apollo at Delphi. There was a scarcity of gold in the city, and while the government were deliberating how it was to be obtained, the matrons held a meeting among themselves, and offered their golden ornaments to make the offering, which came to eight talents’ weight of gold. The Senate rewarded them by permitting them to have a funeral oration pronounced over their graves the same as men; for hitherto it had not been customary at Rome to make any speeches at the funerals of women. They also chose three of the noblest citizens to travel with the offering, and sent them in a well-manned ship of war, splendidly equipped. Both storms and calms at sea are said to be dangerous, and they chanced on this occasion to come very near destruction, and miraculously escaped, for in a calm off the Aeolian Islands they were assailed by Liparian triremes, who took them for pirates. At their earnest entreaty these people forbore to run down their vessel, but took it in tow and brought it into their harbour, where they treated it as a piratical craft, and put up the crew and the property on board for sale by public auction. With great difficulty, by the goodness and influence of one man, Timesitheos, a general, they obtained their release, and were allowed to proceed. Timesitheos even launched some ships of his own, with which he escorted them to Delphi, where he also took part in the ceremony of consecration. In return for his services, as was only just, he received special honours at Rome.

IX

The tribunes of the people again began to agitate about the redistribution of land and occupation of Veii, but a war with the Faliscans gave the leading men a seasonable opportunity to elect magistrates after their own hearts for the coming year. Camillus was appointed military tribune, with five others, as it was thought that the State required a general of tried experience. At the decree of the Senate, Camillus raised a force and invaded the Faliscan territory. He now besieged Falerii, a strong city well provided with all munitions of war, which he considered it would be a work of no small time and labour to take; but he was desirous of employing the people in a long siege, to prevent their having leisure for factious proceedings at home. This was ever the policy of the Romans, to work off the elements of internal strife in attacks on their neighbours.

X

The Faliscans thought so little of the siege, from the strength of their defences, that, except when on duty on the walls, they used to walk about their city in their ordinary dress, and their children were sent regularly to school, and used to be taken by their master to walk and take exercise outside the walls. For the Faliscans, like the Greeks, had one common school, as they wished all their children to be brought up together. The schoolmaster determined to betray these boys to the enemy, and led them outside the walls for exercise every day, and then led them back again. By this means he gradually accustomed them to going out as if there was no danger, until finally he took all the boys and handed them over to the Roman pickets, bidding them bring him to Camillus. When he was brought before him he said that he was a schoolmaster, that he preferred the favour of Camillus to his duty, and that he came to hand over to him the city of Falerii in the persons of these boys.

Camillus was very much shocked. He said that war is indeed harsh, and is carried on by savage and unrighteous means, but yet there are laws of war which are observed by good men, and one ought not so much to strive for victory, as to forego advantages gained by wicked and villainous means: thus a truly great general ought to succeed by his own warlike virtues, not by the baseness of others.

Having spoken thus, he ordered his slaves to tear the schoolmaster’s clothes, tie his hands behind his back, and give the boys sticks and scourges with which to drive him back to the city. The Faliscans had just discovered the treachery of their schoolmaster, and, as may be expected, the whole city was filled with mourning at such a calamity, men and women together running in confusion to the gates and walls of the city, when the boys drove in their schoolmaster with blows and insults, calling Camillus their saviour, their father, and their god. Not only those who were parents, but all the citizens were struck with admiration at the goodness of Camillus. They at once assembled, and despatched ambassadors, putting themselves unreservedly in his hands. These men Camillus sent on to Rome, where they stated before the Senate, that the Romans, by preferring justice to conquest, had taught them to prefer submission to freedom, although they did not think that they fell short of the Romans in strength so much as in virtue. The Senate referred the ambassadors to Camillus for their first answer; and he, after receiving a contribution in money, and having made a treaty of alliance with the Faliscans, drew off his forces.

XI

But the soldiers, who had been looking forward to plundering Falerii, when they returned to Rome empty handed, abused Camillus to the other citizens, saying that he was a hater of the people, and grudged poor men a chance of enriching themselves. When the tribunes reintroduced the proposal of redistribution of the land, and removing half the city to Veii, Camillus openly, without caring how unpopular he became, opposed the measure. The people, sorely against their will, gave up the measure, but hated Camillus so fiercely that even his domestic afflictions (for he had just lost one of his two sons by sickness) could not move them to pity. Being of a kind and loving nature, he was dreadfully cast down at this misfortune, and spent all his time within doors mourning with the women of his family, while his enemies were preparing an impeachment against him.

XII

His accuser was Lucius Apuleius, and the charge brought against him was embezzlement of the spoils of Etruria. He was even said to have in his possession some brazen gates which were taken in that country. The people were much excited against him, and it was clear that, whatever the charge against him might be, they would condemn him. Consequently he assembled his friends and comrades, who were a great number in all, and begged them not to permit him to be ruined by false accusations, and made a laughing-stock to his enemies. But when his friends, after consulting together, answered that they did not think that they could prevent his being condemned, but that they would assist him to pay any fine that might be imposed, he, unable to bear such treatment, determined in a rage to leave Rome and go into exile. He embraced his wife and son, and walked from his house silently as far as the gate of the city. There he turned back, and, stretching out his hands towards the Capitol, prayed to the gods that, if he was driven out of Rome unjustly by the insolence and hatred of the people, the Romans might soon repent of their conduct to him, and appear before the world begging him to return, and longing for their Camillus back again.

XIII

Like Achilles, he thus cursed his countrymen and left them. His cause was undefended, and in his absence he was condemned to pay a fine of fifteen thousand ases, which in Greek money is fifteen hundred drachmas, for the as was the Roman coin at that time, and consequently ten copper ases were called a denarius.

Every Roman believes that the prayers of Camillus were quickly heard by Justice, and that a terrible retribution was exacted for his wrongs, which filled all men’s mouths at that time; so terrible a fate befell Rome, with such destruction, danger, and disgrace, whether it arose from mere chance, or whether it be the office of some god to punish those who requite virtue with ingratitude.

XIV

The first omen of impending evil was the death of Julius the Censor; for the Romans reverence the office of censor, and account it sacred. Another omen was that, a short time before Camillus went into exile, one Marcus Caedicius, a man of no particular note, and not even a senator, but a thoroughly respectable man, communicated a matter of some importance to the tribunes of the people. He said that the night before he had been walking along what is called the New Road, when some one called him by name. He turned round and could see no one, but heard a voice louder than man’s say, “Go, Marcus Caedicius, tell the government early in the morning that in a short time they may expect the Gauls.” When the tribunes of the people heard this they laughed him to scorn, and shortly afterwards Camillus left the city.

XV

The Gauls are a people of the Celtic race, and are said to have become too numerous for their own country, and consequently to have left it to search for some other land to dwell in. As they consisted of a large multitude of young warriors, they started in two bodies, one of which, went towards the northern ocean, and, passing the Rhipaean mountains, settled in the most distant part of Europe. The other body established themselves between the Pyrenees and the Alps, and for a long time dwelt near the Senones and Celtorii. At last they tasted wine, which was then for the first time brought thither out of Italy. In an ecstasy of delight at the drink they wildly snatched up their arms, took their families with them, and rushed to the Alps in search of the country which produced such fruits as this, considering all other countries to be savage and uncultivated. The man who first introduced wine among them and encouraged them to proceed to Italy was said to be one Aruns, an Etruscan of some note, who, though a well-meaning man, had met with the following misfortune. He had been left guardian to an orphan named Lucumo, one of the richest and handsomest of his countrymen. This boy lived in the house of Aruns from his childhood, and when he grew up he would not leave it, but pretended to delight in his society. It was long before Aruns discovered that Lucumo had debauched his wife, and that their passion was mutual; but at length they were unable any longer to conceal their intrigue, and the youth openly attempted to carry off the woman from her husband. He went to law, but was unable to contend with the numerous friends and great wealth of Lucumo, and so left the country. Hearing about the Gauls, he went to them and incited them to invade Italy.

XVI

They immediately made themselves masters of the country, which reaches from the Alps down to the sea on both sides of Italy, which in ancient times belonged to the Etruscans, as we see by the names, for the upper sea is called the Adriatic from Adria, an Etruscan city, and the lower is called the Etruscan Sea. It is a thickly wooded country, with plenty of pasturage, and well watered. At that period it contained eighteen fair and large cities, with a thriving commercial population. The Gauls took these cities, drove out their inhabitants, and occupied them themselves. This, however, took place some time previously to our story.

XVII

The Gauls at this time marched against the Etruscan city of Clusium and besieged it. The inhabitants appealed to the Romans to send ambassadors and letters to the barbarians, and they sent three of the Fabian family, men of the first importance in Rome. They were well received, because of the name of Rome, by the Gauls, who desisted from their siege and held a conference with them. The Romans inquired what wrong the Gauls had suffered from the people of Clusium that they should attack their city. To this Brennus, the king of the Gauls, answered with a laugh, “The people of Clusium wrong us by holding a large territory, although they can only inhabit and cultivate a small one, while they will not give a share of it to us, who are numerous and poor. You Romans were wronged in just the same way in old times by the people of Alba, and Fidenae, and Ardea, and at the present day by the Veientines and Capenates, and by many of the Faliscans and Volscians. You make campaigns against these people if they will not share their good things with you, you sell them for slaves and plunder their territory, and destroy their cities; and in this you do nothing wrong, but merely obey the most ancient of all laws, that the property of the weak belongs to the strong, a law which prevails among the gods on the one hand, and even among wild beasts, amongst whom the stronger always encroach upon the weaker ones. So now cease to pity the besieged men of Clusium, for fear you should teach the Gauls to become good-natured and pitiful towards the nations that have been wronged by the Romans.”

This speech showed the Romans that Brennus had no thought of coming to terms, and they in consequence went into Clusium and encouraged the inhabitants to attack the barbarians under their guidance, either because they wished to make trial of the valour of the Gauls, or to make a display of their own. The people of Clusium made a sally, and a battle took place near their wall. In this one of the Fabii, Quintus Ambustus by name, was on horseback, and rode to attack a fine powerful Gaul who was riding far in advance of the rest. At first the Roman was not recognised because the fight was sharp, and the flashing of his arms prevented his face being clearly seen. But when he slew his antagonist and jumped down from his horse to strip his body of its spoils, Brennus recognised him, and called the gods to witness his violation of the common law of all nations, in coming to them as an ambassador and fighting against them as an enemy. He immediately put a stop to the battle and took no further heed of the people of Clusium, but directed his army against Rome. However, as he did not wish it to be thought that the bad conduct of the Romans pleased the Gauls, who only wanted a pretext for hostilities, he sent and demanded that Fabius should be delivered up to him to be punished, and at the same time led his army slowly forwards.

XVIII

At Rome the Senate was called together, and many blamed Fabius, while those priests who are called Feciales urged the Senate in the name of religion to throw the whole blame of what had happened upon one guilty head, and, by delivering him up, to clear the rest of the city from sharing his guilt. These Feciales were instituted by the mildest and justest of the kings of Rome, Numa Pompilius, to be guardians of peace, and examiners of the reasons which justify a nation in going to war. However the Senate referred the matter to the people, and when the priests repeated their charges against Fabius before them, the people so despised and slighted religion as to appoint Fabius and his brothers military tribunes. The Gauls, when they heard this, were enraged, and hurried on, disregarding everything but speed. The nations through which they passed, terrified at their glancing arms and their strength and courage, thought that their land was indeed lost and that their cities would at once be taken, but to their wonder and delight the Gauls did them no hurt, and took nothing from their fields, but marched close by their cities, calling out that they were marching against Rome, and were at war with the Romans only, and held all other men to be their friends. To meet this impetuous rush, the military tribunes led out the Romans, who, in numbers indeed were quite a match for the Gauls, for they amounted to no less than forty thousand heavy-armed men, but for the most part untrained and serving for the first time.

Besides this disadvantage, they neglected the duties of religion, for they neither made the usual sacrifices nor consulted the soothsayers. Confusion also was produced by the number of commanders, though frequently before this, in much less important campaigns, they had chosen single generals, whom they called dictators, as they knew that nothing is so important at a dangerous crisis as that all should unanimously and in good order obey the commands of one irresponsible chief. And the unfair treatment which Camillus had received now bore disastrous fruits, for no man dared to use authority except to flatter and gain the favour of the people.

They proceeded about eleven miles from the city, and halted for the night on the banks of the river Allia, which joins the Tiber not far from where their camp was pitched. Here the barbarians appeared, and, after an unskilfully managed battle, the want of discipline of the Romans caused their ruin. The Gauls drove the left wing into the river and destroyed it, but the right of the army, which took refuge in the hills to avoid the enemy’s charge on level ground, suffered less, and most of them reached the city safely. The rest, who survived after the enemy were weary of slaughter, took refuge at Veii, imagining that all was over with Rome.

XIX

This battle took place about the summer solstice at the time of full moon, on the very day on which in former times the great disaster befel the Fabii, when three hundred of that race were slain by the Etruscans. But this defeat wiped out the memory of the former one, and the day was always afterwards called that of the Allia, from the river of that name.

It is a vexed question whether we ought to consider some days unlucky, or whether Herakleitus was right in rebuking Hesiod for calling some days good and some bad, because he knew not that the nature of all days is the same. However the mention of a few remarkable instances is germane to the matter of which we are treating. It happened that on the fifth day of the Boeotian month Hippodromios, which the Athenians call Hekatombeion,1 two signal victories were won by the Boeotians, both of which restored liberty to Greece; one, when they conquered the Spartans at Leuktra, and the other, when, more than two hundred years before this, they conquered the Thessalians under Lattamyas at Kerêssus.

Again, the Persians were beaten by the Greeks on the sixth of Boedromion at Marathon, and on the third they were beaten both at Plataea and at Mykale, and at Arbela on the twenty-fifth of the same month. The Athenians too won their naval victory under Chabrias at Naxos on the full moon of Boedromion, and that of Salamis on the twentieth of that month, as I have explained in my treatise ‘On Days.’

The month of Thargelion evidently brings misfortune to the barbarians, for Alexander defeated the Persian king’s generals on the Granicus in Thargelion, and the Carthaginians were defeated by Timoleon in Sicily on the twenty-seventh of Thargelion, at which same time Troy is believed to have been taken, according to Ephorus, Kallisthenes, Damastes and Phylarchus.

On the other hand, the month Metageitnion, which the Boeotians call Panemos, is unfavourable to the Greeks, for on the seventh of that month they were defeated by Antipater at Kranon and utterly ruined; and before that, were defeated during that month by Philip at Chaeronea. And on that same day and month and year Archidamus and his troops, who had crossed over into Italy, were cut to pieces by the natives. The twenty-first day of that month is also observed by the Carthaginians as that which has always brought the heaviest misfortunes upon them. And I am well aware that at the time of the celebration of the mysteries Thebes was destroyed for the second time by Alexander, and that after this Athens was garrisoned by Macedonian soldiers on the twentieth of Boedromion, on which day they bring out the mystic Iacchus in procession. And similarly the Romans, under the command of Caepio, on that same day lost their camp to the Gauls, and afterwards, under Lucullus, defeated Tigranes and the Armenians. King Attalus and Pompeius the Great died on their own birthdays. And I could mention many others, who have had both good and evil fortune on the same anniversaries. But the Romans regard that day as especially unlucky, and on account of it, two other days in every month are thought so, as superstitious feeling is increased by misfortune. This subject I have treated at greater length in my treatise on ‘Roman Questions.’

XX

If, after the battle, the Gauls had at once followed up the fugitives, nothing could have prevented their taking Rome and destroying every one who was left in it; such terror did the beaten troops produce when they reached home, and such panic fear seized upon every one. However the barbarians scarcely believed in the completeness of their victory, and betook themselves to making merry over their success and to dividing the spoils taken in the Roman camp, so that they afforded those who left the city time to effect their escape, and those who remained in it time to recover their courage and make preparations for standing a siege. They abandoned all but the Capitol to the enemy, and fortified it with additional ramparts and stores of missiles. One of their first acts was to convey most of their holy things into the Capitol, while the Vestal virgins took the sacred fire and their other sacred objects and fled with them from the city. Some indeed say that nothing is entrusted to them except the eternal fire, which King Numa appointed to be worshiped as the origin of all things. For fire has the liveliest motion of anything in nature; and everything is produced by motion or with some kind of motion. All other parts of matter when heat is absent lie useless and apparently dead, requiring the power of fire as the breath of life, to call them into existence and make them capable of action.

Numa therefore, being a learned man and commonly supposed on account of his wisdom to hold communion with the Muses, consecrated fire, and ordered it to be kept unquenched for ever as an emblem of the eternal power that orders all things. Others say that, as among the Greeks, a purificatory fire burns before the temple, but that within are other holy things which no man may see, except only the virgins, who are named Vestals; and a very wide-spread notion is, that the famous Trojan Palladium, which was brought to Italy by Aeneas, is kept there. Others say that the Samothracian gods are there, whom Dardanus brought to Troy after he had founded it, and caused to be worshipped there, which, after the fall of Troy, Aeneas carried off and kept until he settled in Italy. But those who pretend to know most about such matters say that there are two jars of no great size in the temple, one open and empty, and the other full and sealed, and that these may be seen only by the holy virgins. Others think that this is a mistake, arising from the fact that, at the time of which we are treating, the Vestal virgins placed most of their sacred things in two jars and concealed them in the earth under the Temple of Quirinus, which place even to the present day is called the Doliola, or place of the jars.

XXI

However this may be, the Vestals took the most important of their holy things and betook themselves to flight along the Tiber. Here Lucius Albinus, a plebian, was journeying among the fugitives, with his wife and infant children and their few necessaries in a waggon. When he saw the Vestal virgins, without any attendants, journeying on foot and in distress, carrying in their bosoms the sacred images of the gods, he at once removed his wife, children, and property from the waggon and handed it over to them, to escape into one of the Greek cities in Italy. The piety of Albinus and his care for the duties of religion at so terrible a crisis deserve to be recorded.

The rest of the priests and the old men who had been consuls, and been honoured with triumphs, could not bear to leave the city. At the instance of Fabius, the Pontifex Maximus, they put on their sacred vestments and robes of state, and after offering prayer to the gods, as if they were consecrating themselves as victims to be offered on behalf of their country, they sat down in their ivory chairs in the Forum in full senatorial costume, and waited what fortune might befal them.

XXII

On the third day after the battle Brennus appeared, leading his army to attack the city. At first, seeing the gates open and no guards on the walls, he feared some ambuscade, as he could not believe that the Romans had so utterly despaired of themselves. When he discovered the truth, he marched through the Colline Gate, and captured Rome, a little more than three hundred and sixty years after its foundation, if we can believe that any accurate record has been kept of those periods whose confusion has produced such difficulties in the chronology of later times. However, an indistinct rumour of the fall of Rome seems at once to have reached Greece: for Herakleides of Pontus, who lived about that time, speaks in his book ‘On the Spirit,’ of a rumour from the west that an army had come from the Hyperboreans and had sacked a Greek colony called Rome, which stood somewhere in that direction, near the great ocean. Now, as Herakleides was fond of strange legends, I should not be surprised if he adorned the original true tale of the capture of the city with these accessories of “the Hyperboreans” and “the great ocean.” Aristotle, the philosopher, had evidently heard quite accurately that the city was taken by the Gauls, but he says that it was saved by one Lucius: now Camillus’s name was Marcus, not Lucius. All this, however, was pure conjecture.

Brennus, after taking possession of Rome, posted a force to watch the Capitol, and himself went down to the Forum, and wondered at the men who sat there silent, with all their ornaments, how they neither rose from their seats at the approach of the enemy, nor changed colour, but sat leaning on their staffs with fearless confidence, quietly looking at one another. The Gauls were astonished at so strange a sight, and for a long time they forbore to approach and touch them, as if they were superior beings. But when one of them ventured to draw near to Marcus Papirius and gently stroke his long beard, Papirius struck him on the head with his staff, at which the barbarian drew his sword and slew him. Upon this they fell upon the rest and killed them, with any other Romans whom they found, and spent many days in plundering the houses, after which they burned them and pulled them down in their rage at the men in the Capitol, because they would not surrender, but drove them back when they assaulted it. For this reason they wreaked their vengeance on the city, and put to death all their captives, men and women, old and young alike.

XXIII

As the siege was a long one, the Gauls began to want for provisions. They divided themselves into two bodies, one of which remained with the king and carried on the siege, while the others scoured the country, plundering and destroying the villages, not going all together in a body, but scattered in small detachments in various directions, as their elation at their success caused them to have no fear about separating their forces. Their largest and best disciplined body marched towards Ardea, where Camillus, since his banishment, had lived as a private person. All his thoughts, however, were bent not upon avoiding or fleeing from the Gauls, but upon defeating them if possible. And so, seeing that the people of Ardea were sufficient in numbers, but wanting in confidence because of the want of experience and remissness of their leaders, he first began to tell the younger men that they ought not to ascribe the misfortunes of the Romans to the bravery of the Gauls, for the misconduct of the former had given them a triumph which they did not deserve. It would, he urged, be a glorious thing, even at the risk of some danger, to drive away a tribe of savage barbarians, who if they were victorious always exterminated the vanquished: while, if they only showed bravery and confidence, he could, by watching his opportunity, lead them to certain victory. As the younger men eagerly listened to these words, Camillus proceeded to confer with the chief magistrates of the Ardeates. After obtaining their consent also, he armed all those who were capable of service, but kept them within the walls, as he wished to conceal their presence from the enemy who were now close at hand. But when the Gauls after scouring the country returned laden with plunder and carelessly encamped in the plain, and when at night by the influence of wine and sleep all was quiet in their camp, Camillus, who had learned the state of the case from spies, led out the men of Ardea, and marching over the intervening ground in silence, about midnight attacked their entrenched camp with loud shouts and blasts of his trumpet, which threw the Gauls, half-drunk and heavy with sleep as they were, into great confusion. Few recovered their senses so far as to attempt to resist Camillus, and those few fell where they stood; but most of them were slain as they lay helpless with wine and sleep. Such as escaped from the camp and wandered about the fields were despatched by cavalry the next day.

XXIV

The fame of this action, when noised among the neighbouring cities, called many men to arms, especially those Romans who had escaped to Veii after the battle of the Allia. These men lamented their fate, saying, “What a general has Providence removed from Rome in Camillus, whose successes now bring glory to Ardea, while the city that produced and brought up so great a man has utterly perished. And now we, for want of a general to lead us, are sitting still inside the walls of a city not our own, and giving up Italy to the enemy. Come, let us send to the men of Ardea, and beg their general of them, or else ourselves take up our arms and march to him. He is no longer an exile, nor are we any longer his countrymen, for our country is ours no more, but is in the hands of the enemy.”

This was agreed, and they sent to beg Camillus to become their general. But he refused, saying that he would not do so without a decree from the citizens in the Capitol; for they as long as they survived, represented the city of Rome, and therefore although he would gladly obey their commands, he would not be so officious as to interfere against their will. The soldiers admired the honourable scruples of Camillus, but there was a great difficulty in representing them to the garrison of the Capitol; indeed, it seemed altogether impossible for a messenger to reach the citadel while the city was in the possession of the enemy.

XXV

One of the younger Romans, Pontius Cominius, of the middle class of citizens, but with an honourable ambition to distinguish himself, undertook the adventure. He would not take any writing to the garrison, for fear that if he were taken the enemy might discover Camillus’s plans. He dressed himself in poor clothes, with corks concealed under them, and performed most of the journey fearlessly by daylight, but when he came near the city he went by night. As it was impossible to cross the river by the bridge, which was held by the Gauls, he wrapped what few clothes he had round his head, and trusted to his corks to float him over to the city. After he had landed, he walked round, observing by the lights and the noise where the Gauls were most wakeful, until he reached the Carmentan Gate, where all was quiet. At this place the Capitolian Hill forms a steep and precipitous crag, up which he climbed by a hollow in the cliff, and joined the garrison. After greeting them and making known his name, he proceeded to an interview with the leading men. A meeting of the Senate was called, at which he recounted Camillus’s victory, which they had not heard of, and explained the determination of the soldiers. He then begged them to confirm Camillus’s appointment as general, because the citizens without the walls would obey no other.

When the Senate heard this, they deliberated, and finally appointed Camillus dictator, and sent back Pontius by the same way that he came, which he was able to accomplish as fortunately as before. He eluded the Gauls, and brought the decree of the senate to the Romans outside the walls.

XXVI

They heard the news with enthusiasm, so that Camillus when he came, found that they already numbered twenty thousand, while he drew many additional troops from the neighbouring friendly cities. Thus was Camillus a second time appointed dictator, and, proceeding to Veii, joined the soldiers there, to whom he added many others from the allies, and prepared to attack the enemy. But meanwhile at Rome, some of the Gauls happening to pass by the place where Pontius climbed up the Capitol, noticed in many places the marks of where he had clutched at the rock with his hands and feet, torn off the plants which grew upon it, and thrown down the mould. They brought the news to the king, who came and viewed the place. He said nothing at the time, but in the evening he called together those Gauls who were lightest and most accustomed to climb mountains, and thus addressed them: “The road up the rock, which we by ourselves could not discover, has been proved by our enemies not to be impassable to men, and it would be disgraceful for us after having begun so well to leave our enterprise incomplete, and to give up the place as impregnable after the enemy themselves have shown us how it may be taken. Where it is easy for one man to climb, it cannot be hard for many to climb one by one, as their numbers will give them confidence and mutual support. Suitable honours and presents will be given to those who distinguish themselves.”

XXVII

After this speech of their king, the Gauls eagerly volunteered for the assault, and about midnight many of them climbed silently up the rock, which although rough and precipitous was easier of ascent than they had imagined, so that the first of them reached the top, and were on the point of preparing to attack the rampart and its sleeping garrison, for neither men nor dogs noticed them. But there were sacred geese kept in the temple of Juno, which in other times were fed without stint, but which then, as there was scarcely food enough for the men, were somewhat neglected. These birds are naturally quick of hearing and timid, and now being rendered wakeful and wild by hunger, quickly perceived the Gauls climbing up, and rushing noisily to the place woke the garrison, while the Gauls feeling that they were discovered no longer preserved silence, but violently assaulted the place. The Romans, snatching up whatever arms came first to hand, ran to repulse them: and first of all Manlius, a man of consular rank, strong of body and full of courage, fell in with two of the enemy. As one of them lifted up his battleaxe, Manlius cut off his right hand with his sword, while he dashed his shield into the other’s face, and threw him backwards down the cliff. After this he stood upon the wall, and with the help of those who assembled round him, beat off the rest, for not many had reached the top, or effected anything commensurate with the boldness of the attempt. Having thus escaped the danger, the Romans threw their sentinel down the rock; while on Manlius they conferred by vote a reward for his bravery, intended more for honour than advantage; for each man gave him a day’s rations, which consisted of half a Roman pound of meal, and the fourth part of a Greek cotyle of wine.

XXVIII

This affair disheartened the Gauls, who were also in want of provisions, for they could not forage as before for fear of Camillus, while disease also crept in among them, encamped as they were in the ruins of Rome among heaps of dead bodies, while the deep layer of ashes became blown by the wind into the air, making it dry and harsh, and the vapours of the conflagrations were injurious to breathe. They were especially distressed by the change from a cloudy country where there are plenty of shady retreats, to the flat burning plains of Rome in autumn, and their siege of the Capitol became wearisome, for they had now beleaguered it for seven months; so that there was much sickness in their camp, and so many died that they no longer buried the dead. Yet for all this the besieged fared no better. Hunger pressed them, and their ignorance of what Camillus was doing disheartened them; for no one could reach them with news, because the city was strictly watched by Gauls. As both parties were in these straits, proposals for a capitulation took place; at first among the outposts on both sides; afterwards the chief men on each side. Brennus, the Gaulish king, and Sulpicius the Roman tribune, met, and it was agreed that the Romans should pay a thousand pounds of gold, and that the Gauls should, on receiving it, at once leave the country. Both parties swore to observe these conditions, but when the gold was being weighed, the Gauls at first tampered with the scales unperceived, and then openly pulled the beam, so that the Romans became angry. But at this Brennus insolently took off his sword and belt, and flung them into the scale; and when Sulpicius asked, “What is this?” “What should it be,” replied the Gaul; “but woe to the vanquished!” At this some of the Romans were angry and thought that they ought to take back their gold into the Capitol, and again endure the siege; while others said that they must put up with insults, provided they were not too outrageous, and not think that there was any additional disgrace in paying more than they had agreed, because in paying any ransom at all, they were acting from sheer necessity rather than feelings of honour.

XXIX

While the Romans were thus disputing with the Gauls, and with one another, Camillus with his army was at the gates. Learning what was being done, he ordered the mass of his soldiers to follow him quietly and in good order, and himself pushed on with the picked troops to join the Romans, who all made way for him, and received him as dictator with silence and respect. He then took the gold from the scales and gave it to his victors, and ordered the Gauls to take the scales and the beam, and depart, “for,” said he, “it is the custom of the Romans to defend their country not with gold but with iron.” At this Brennus became angry, and said that he was being wronged by the treaty being broken; and Camillus answered that the negotiations were illegal, because when they began he was already dictator, and therefore, as no one else had any authority, the treaty had been made by the Gauls with persons who were not authorized to treat. But now, if they wished, they might make fresh proposals, for he was come with full legal powers to pardon such as made their submission, and to punish unrepentant evil-doers. Enraged at this, Brennus began to skirmish, and the two parties, mixed up as they were, in houses and lands where no military formation was possible, did go so far as to draw their swords and push one another about; but Brennus soon recovered his temper, and drew off the Gauls, with but little loss, in their camp.

During the night he got them all under arms, left the city, and, after a march of about eight miles, encamped by the side of the Gabinian Road. But at daybreak, Camillus was upon him, in glittering armour, leading on the Romans who had now recovered their courage. After a long and fiercely contested battle they routed the Gauls and took their camp. Some of the fugitives were at once pursued and slain, but most of them straggled about the country, and were put to death by the people of the neighbouring towns and villages who sallied out upon them.

XXX

Thus was Rome strangely taken, and yet more strangely preserved, after having been for seven months in the possession of the Gauls, for they entered it a few days after the Ides of Quintilis, and left it about the Ides of February. Camillus, as we may easily imagine, entered the city in a triumph, as the saviour of his lost country, and the restorer of Rome to itself; for as he drove into the city he was accompanied by those who had before left it, with their wives and children, while those who had been besieged in the Capitol, and all but starved there, came out to meet him embracing one another, weeping, and scarcely believing in their present happiness. The priests and servants of the gods also appeared with such of the sacred things as they had saved, either by burying them on the spot, or by carrying them away, and now displayed these images, which had not been seen for so long a time, to the citizens, who greeted them with joy, as if the gods themselves were again returning to Rome. Camillus performed a sacrifice to the gods, and purified the city in the manner recommended by experts, and then proceeded to restore all the previously existing temples, while he himself added another to Aius Loquutius, or Rumour, having carefully sought out the place at which the voice in the night miraculously foretold the coming of the Gaulish host to Marcus Caedicius.

XXXI

With great difficulty the sites of the temples were cleared of rubbish by the zeal of Camillus and the labour of the priests; but as the city was utterly destroyed, and required to be entirely rebuilt, the people became disheartened at so great an undertaking. Men who had lost their all were inclined to wait, and indeed required rest after their misfortunes, rather than labours and toils, which neither their bodies nor their purses were able to endure. And thus it came to pass that they turned their thoughts a second time towards Veii, a city which stood quite ready to be inhabited. This gave opportunities to their mob orators to make speeches, as usual, which they knew would be pleasing to the people, in which Camillus was disrespectfully spoken of as depriving them of a city which stood ready to receive them, for his own prviate ambition, and was said to be compelling them to live encamped in the midst of ruins, and re-erect their houses in that vast heap of ashes, all in order that he might be called, not merely the leader and general of Rome, but might usurp the place of Romulus and be called her founder. Fearing disturbances, the Senate would not permit Camillus to lay down his dictatorship for a year, although he wished to do so, and although no dictator before this had ever remained in office for more than six months. In the meantime the senators themselves encouraged and consoled the people by personal appeals, pointing to the tombs and monuments of their ancestors, and recalling to their minds the temples and holy places which Romulus and Numa and the other kings had consecrated and left in charge to them. More especially they dwelt upon the omen of the newly severed head which had been found when the foundations of the Capitol were dug, by which it was proved that that spot was fated to become the head of Italy, and the fire of Vesta which the virgins had relighted after the war, and which it would be a disgrace for them to extinguish, and to abandon the city, whether they were to see it inhabited by foreigners or turned into fields for cattle to feed in. While persistently urging these considerations both in public speeches and in private interviews with the people, they were much affected by the lamentations of the poor over their helpless condition. The people begged that, as they had, like people after a shipwreck, saved their lives and nothing else, they might not, in addition to this misfortune, be compelled to put together the ruins of a city which had been utterly destroyed, while another was standing ready to receive them.

XXXII

Under these circumstances, Camillus determined to debate the question publicly. He himself made a long appeal on behalf of his native place, and many other speeches were delivered. Finally he rose, and bade Lucius Lucretius, whose privilege it was, to vote first, and then after him the rest in order. Silence was enforced, and Lucretius was just on the point of voting when a centurion in command of a detachment of the guard of the day marched by, and in a loud voice called to the standard-bearer: “Pitch the standard here: here it is best for us to stay.” When these words were heard so opportunely in the midst of their deliberations about the future, Lucretius reverently said that he accepted the omen, and gave his vote in accordance with it, and his example was followed by all the rest. The people now showed a strange revulsion of feeling, for they encouraged one another to begin the work of rebuilding, not on any regular plan, but just as each man happened to find a convenient place for his work. Consequently they quickly rebuilt the city, for within a year it is said that both the city walls and the private houses were completed; but it was full of intricate, narrow lanes and inconveniently placed houses.

The priests, who had been ordered by Camillus to mark out the boundaries where the temples had stood among the general wreck, when in their circuit of the Palatine Hill they came upon the chapel of Mars, found it, like every other building, destroyed and levelled to the ground by the Gauls, but while thoroughly examining the place they found the augur’s staff of Romulus hidden under a deep heap of ashes. This staff is curved at one end, and is called lituus. They use it to divide the heavens into squares when taking the auspices, just as Romulus himself did, as he was deeply skilled in divination. When he vanished from among mankind, the priests kept his staff just like any other sacred object. That at such a time, when all the other holy things perished, this should have been preserved, gave them good hopes of Rome, which that omen seemed to presage would be eternal.

XXXIII

Before they had finished rebuilding the city they became involved in a war, for the Aequians, Volscians, and Latins combined their forces and invaded the country, while the Etruscans besieged Sutrium, a city in alliance with Rome. The tribunes in command of the Roman forces encamped near the Marcian heights, and were there besieged by the Latins and in danger of having their camp taken. They sent to Rome for assistance, and the Romans appointed Camillus dictator for the third time. About this war there are two different accounts, of which I will mention the legendary one first:—It is said that the Latins, either merely as a pretext, or really wishing to amalgamate the two races as before, sent a demand to Rome for free unmarried women to be delivered up for them to marry. As the Romans were at their wits’ ends what to do, because they feared to go to war, being scarcely recovered from their late mishap, while they suspected that the women would be used as hostages if they gave them up, and that the proposal of intermarriage was merely a feint, a slave girl named Tutula, or, as some say, Philotis, advised the magistrates to send her and the best-looking of the female slaves, dressed like brides of noble birth, and that she would manage the rest. The magistrates approved of her proposal, chose such girls as she thought suitable, and having dressed them in fine clothes and jewellery, handed them over to the Latins, who were encamped at no great distance from the city. At night the girls stole the daggers of the enemies, and Tutula or Philotis climbed up a wild fig-tree, stretched out her cloak behind her, and raised a torch as a signal, which had been agreed upon between her and the magistrates, though no other citizen knew of it. Wherefore, the soldiers rushed out of the gates with a great clamour and disturbance, calling to one another and scarcely able to keep their ranks as their chiefs hurried them along. When they reached the enemy’s camp, they found them asleep and not expecting an attack, so that they took their camp and slew most of them. This took place on the nones of the month Quintilis, now called July, and the festival which then takes place is in memory of the events of that day. First they march out of the gates in a mass, calling out the common names of the country, such as Caius, Marcus, or Lucius, in imitation of their hurried calling for each other on that occasion. Next, female slaves splendidly dressed walk round laughing and romping with all whom they meet. These girls also perform a sort of fight among themselves, like those who on that day took their share in the fight with the Latins: and afterwards they sit down to a feast, under the shade of fig-tree boughs. They call this day the nonae caprotinae, probably from the wild fig-tree from which the slave girl waved the torch; for in Latin a wild fig-tree is called caprificus. Others say that most of these things were said and done when Romulus disappeared, for on this very day he was snatched away, outside the city gates, in a sudden storm and darkness, or as some think during an eclipse of the sun: and they say that the day is called nonae caprotiae from the place, because Romulus was carried off while holding a meeting of the entire people at the place called the Goat’s Marsh, as is written in his life.

XXXIV

The other story is approved by most writers, who relate it as follows:—Camillus, after being appointed dictator for the third time, and learning that the army under the command of the military tribunes was being besieged by the Latins and Volscians, was compelled to arm even those citizens who were past the age for service in the field. He marched by a long circuit to the Marcian heights unnoticed by the enemy, and established his army behind them. By lighting fires he announced his arrival to the Romans in the camp, who took courage, and began to meditate sallying out of their camp and attacking the enemy. But the Latins and Volscians kept close within the rampart of their camp, which they fortified with many additional palisades, on all sides, for they now were between two hostile armies, and intended to await succour from home, while they also expected a force from Etruria to come to their aid. Camillus, perceiving this, and fearing that he might be surrounded in his turn, vigorously used his opportunity. The rampart of the allies was formed of wood, and as a strong wind blew down from the mountains at daybreak, he prepared combustibles, and early in the morning got his forces under arms. One division he sent to attack the enemy’s camp with darts, and missile weapons, and loud shouts, while he himself, with those who were in charge of the fire, waited for his opportunity on that side towards which the wind usually blew. When the other troops were engaged with the enemy, the sun rose, and a strong wind got up. At this Camillus gave the signal for attack, and at once enveloped the palisades with lighted missiles. As the flames quickly spread in the thick wooden palisades, the Latins, finding their camp girt with flames, were driven into a small compass, and finally obliged to sally out of their entrenchments, outside of which the Romans stood ready to receive them. Few of those who broke out escaped, while all who remained in the camp perished in the flames, until the Romans extinguished them and began to plunder.

XXXV

After this exploit, Camillus left his son Lucius in charge of the camp, to guard the prisoners and the booty, and himself invaded the enemy’s country. He took the capital of the Aequi, reduced the Volsci to subjection, and marched at once upon Sutrium to relieve that city, whose inhabitants had not heard of his successes, but were still besieged by the Etruscans. The Sutrians had just surrendered, and had been turned out of their city by the enemy with nothing but the clothes they had on. Camillus met them on the road with their wives and children, weeping over their misfortune. He was greatly moved at so piteous a sight, and, perceiving that the Romans were touched by the despairing entreaties of the people of Sutrium, who clung to them with tears in their eyes, determined that he would at once avenge their wrongs, and march upon Sutrium that very day, arguing that men who were merry with success, having just captured a wealthy city, with no enemy either left within its walls or expected from without, would be found in careless disorder. In this conjecture he was right; for he not only marched through the country, but even obtained possession of the walls and gates unperceived by the enemy, who had posted no guards, but were carousing in the various private houses. Indeed when they learned that the Romans were in possession of the town, they were in such a condition of intoxication that most of them could not even attempt to escape, but shamefully waited in the houses where they were until they were either killed or taken prisoners. Thus was the city of Sutrium twice taken in one day, and thus did the victors lose their prize, and the dispossessed inhabitants regain their homes by Camillus’s means.

XXXVI

The triumph which he enjoyed after these campaigns added to his popularity and glory as much as either of the former; for even those who disliked him most, and who had insisted that all his successes were due to good fortune more than to skill, were now forced to admit the brilliancy of his generalship, and to give his genius its due. The chief of his enemies and detractors was Marcus Manlius, he who had been the first man to fling the Gauls down the cliff in the night attack on the Capitol, and who in remembrance of this was surnamed Capitolinus. This man, endeavouring to make himself the first man in Rome, and not being able to surpass the fame of Camillus by fair means, made the accusation against him usual in such cases, that he was intending to make himself king. This falsehood he repeated in his addresses to the people, with whom he was making himself popular, especially with those who were in debt; some of whom he defended, and assisted in coming to terms with their creditors, while others he forcibly rescued from the officers of the law, so that many needy persons were attracted to him, and became the terror of all respectable citizens by their riotous disturbances in the Forum. To put an end to these disorders, Quintus Capitolinus was created dictator, and he put Manlius in prison; but the people upon this went into mourning, a thing only done on the occasion of some great public disaster, and the Senate, terrified at this, ordered Manlius to be acquitted. Manlius was not improved by his captivity, but was more turbulent and disorderly in his conduct than he had been before. Camillus was now again elected military tribune, and Manlius was impeached: but the place in which he was tried told greatly against his accusers. For the very spot on the Capitol on which Manlius fought with the Gauls on that night was visible from the Forum, and the sight of it raised a strong feeling in his favour; while he himself pointed to it, and, with tears in his eyes, reminded them of how he had fought for them, so that his judges were at their wits’ end, and often adjourned the trial, for they could not acquit him of a crime which was clearly proved against him, and yet they could not bring themselves to let the law take its course, when the scene before them reminded them constantly of his great exploit. Camillus, perceiving this, removed the court to the Petelian Grove outside the city gates, where, as the Capitol was not visible, the prosecutor was able to press home his charges against Manlius, while the judges were not prevented from punishing him for his recent crimes by their remembrance of what he had done in former times. He was convicted, led to the Capitol, and thrown down the cliff, which thus witnessed both the most glorious deed of his life, and his miserable end. The Romans destroyed his house, on the site of which they built the Temple of Juno Moneta, and decreed that for the future no patrician might dwell upon the Capitol.

XXXVII

Camillus, when appointed military tribune for the sixth time, begged to be excused, as he was growing old, and perhaps feared that such unbroken success and glory would call down upon him the wrath of the gods.2 His most obvious reason for declining the appointment was the state of his health, for at this time he was sick. However, the people would not permit him to retire, but loudly urged that they did not want him to ride on horseback or fight in the ranks, but merely to advise and superintend. Thus they compelled him to accept the office, and with one of his colleagues, Lucius Furius, at once to lead an army against the enemy. He left the city and encamped near the enemy, where he wished to remain inactive, in order that, if a battle should be necessary, he might recover his health sufficiently to take part in it. But as his colleague Lucius, who longed to distinguish himself, was so eager for action that he could not be restrained, and excited the subordinate officers, Camillus, fearing that it might be supposed that he grudged younger men an opportunity of gaining laurels, agreed, sorely against his will, to allow his colleague to lead out the army and offer battle, while he with a few troops remained behind in the camp. But when he heard that Lucius had rashly engaged and that the Romans were defeated, he could not restrain himself, but leaping from his couch met them with his followers at the gate of the camp. Here he forced his way through the fugitives and attacked the pursuing force, so that those Romans whom he had passed at once turned and followed him, while those who were still outside the camp rallied round him, calling upon one another not to desert their general. The enemy’s pursuit was thus checked, and on the following day Camillus marched out with his entire force, entirely defeated them, and entering their camp together with the fugitives, put most of them to the sword. After this, hearing that Satria had been captured by the Etruscans, and all the Roman colonists there put to death, he sent the greater part of his force back to Rome, reserving only the youngest and most vigorous of the soldiers, with whom he assaulted the Etruscans who held the city, and conquered them, killing many, and putting the rest to flight.

XXXVIII

By his return to Rome with great spoils, he proved that those men were right who had not feared that weakness or old age would impair the faculties of a general of daring and experience, but who had chosen him, ill and unwilling to act as he was, rather than men in the prime of life, who were eager to hold military commands. For this reason, when the people of Tusculum were reported to be in insurrection, they bade Camillus take one of the other five tribunes as his colleague, and march against them. Camillus, in spite of all that the rest of the tribunes could urge, for they all wished to be taken, chose Lucius Furius, whom no one could have supposed he would have chosen; for he it was who had been so eager to fight, against the better judgment of Camillus, and so had brought about the defeat in the late war; however, Camillus chose him rather than any other, wishing, it would appear, to conceal his misfortune and wipe out his disgrace.

The people of Tusculum cleverly repaired their fault. When Camillus marched to attack them they filled the country with men working in the fields and tending cattle just as in time of peace; the city gates were open, the boys at school, the lower classes plying various trades, and the richer citizens walking in the market-place in peaceful dress. The magistrates bustled about the city, pointing out where the Romans were to be quartered, as if the thought of treachery had never entered their minds. Camillus, though this conduct did not shake his belief in their guilt, was moved to pity by their repentance. He ordered them to go to Rome and beg the Senate to pardon them; and when they appeared, he himself used his influence to procure their forgiveness, and the admission of Tusculum to the Roman franchise. These were the most remarkable events of his sixth tribuneship.

XXXIX

After this, Licinius Stolo put himself at the head of the plebeians in their great quarrel with the Senate. They demanded that consuls should be re-established, one of whom should always be a plebeian, and that they should never both be patricians. Tribunes of the people were appointed, but the people would not suffer any election of consuls to be held. As this want of chief magistrates seemed likely to lead to still greater disorders, the Senate, much against the will of the people, appointed Camillus dictator for the fourth time. He himself did not wish for the post, for he was loth to oppose men who had been his comrades in many hard-fought campaigns, as indeed he had spent much more of his life in the camp with his soldiers than with the patrician party in political intrigues, by one of which he was now appointed, as that party hoped that if successful he would crush the power of the plebeians, while in case of failure he would be ruined. However, he made an effort to deal with the present difficulty. Knowing the day on which the tribunes intended to bring forward their law, he published a muster-roll of men for military service, and charged the people to leave the Forum and meet him on the Field of Mars, threatening those who disobeyed with a heavy fine. But when the tribunes answered his threats by vowing that they would fine him fifty thousand drachmas unless he ceased his interference with the people’s right of voting, he retired to his own house, and after a few days laid down his office on pretence of sickness. This he did, either because he feared a second condemnation and banishment, which would be a disgrace to an old man and one who had done such great deeds, or else because he saw that the people were too strong to be overpowered, and he did not wish to make the attempt.

The Senate appointed another dictator, but he made that very Licinius Stolo, the leader of the popular party, his master of the horse, and thus enabled him to pass a law which was especially distasteful to the patricians, for it forbade any one to possess more than five hundred jugera of land. Stolo, after this success, became an important personage; but, a short time afterwards, he was convicted of possessing more land than his own law permitted, and was punished according to its provisions.

XL

There still remained the difficulty about the consular elections, the most important point at issue between the two parties, and the Senate was greatly disturbed at it, when news arrived that the Gauls, starting from the Adriatic Sea, were a second time marching in great force upon Rome. At the same time evident traces of their approach could be seen, as the country was being plundered, and such of the inhabitants as could not easily reach Rome were taking refuge in the mountains.

This terrible tidings put an end to all internal disputes. The Senate and people formed themselves into one assembly, and with one voice appointed Camillus dictator for the fifth time. He was now a very old man, being near his eightieth year; but at this pressing crisis he made none of his former excuses, but at once took the chief command and levied an army for the war. As he knew that the chief power of the Gauls lay in their swords, with which they dealt heavy blows on the heads and shoulders of their enemy, without any skill in fence, he prepared for most of his soldiers helmets made entirely of smooth iron, so that the swords would either break or glance off them, while he also had brass rims fitted to their shields, because the wood by itself could not endure a blow. He also instructed the soldiers to use long pikes, and to thrust them forward to receive the sword-cuts of the enemy.

XLI

When the Gauls were encamped on the banks of the Anio, near the city, loaded with masses of plunder, Camillus led out his troops and posted them in a glen from which many valleys branched out, so that the greater part of the force was concealed, and that which was seen appeared to be clinging in terror to the hilly ground. Camillus, wishing to confirm the enemy in this idea, would not move to prevent the country being plundered before his eyes, but palisaded his camp and remained quiet within it, until he saw that the foraging parties of the Gauls straggled in careless disorder, while those in the camp did nothing but eat and drink. Then, sending forward his light troops before daybreak to be ready to harass the Gauls and prevent their forming their ranks properly as they came out of their camp, he marched the heavy-armed men down into the plain at sunrise, a numerous and confident body, and not, as the Gauls fancied, a few disheartened men.

The very fact of his commencing the attack dashed the courage of the Gauls; next, the attacks of the light troops, before they had got into their wonted array and divided themselves into regiments, produced disorder. When at last Camillus led on the heavy-armed troops, the Gauls ran to meet them brandishing their swords, but the Romans with their pikes advanced and met them, receiving their sword-cuts on their armour, which soon made the Gaulish swords bend double, as they were made of soft iron hammered out thin, while the shields of the Gauls were pierced and weighed down by the pikes that stuck in them. They therefore dropped their own arms, and endeavoured to seize the pikes and turn them against their enemies. But the Romans, seeing them now defenceless, began to use their swords, and slew many of the first ranks, while the rest took to flight all over the flat country; for Camillus had taken care to guard the hills and rough ground, while the Gauls knew that they, in their over-confidence, had been at no pains to fortify their camp, and that the Romans could easily take it.

This battle is said to have been fought thirteen years after the capture of Rome, and in consequence of it the Romans conceived a contempt for these barbarians, whom they had before greatly dreaded, and even believed that their former victories over the Gauls were due to their being weakened by pestilence, and to fortunate circumstances, rather than to their own valour. This raised so great a terror of them, that a law was passed which relieved the priests from military service except in case of a Gaulish invasion.

XLII

This was the last of Camillus’s military exploits, though during this campaign he took the city of Velitrae, which yielded to him without a battle. But his greatest political struggle was yet to come, for it was harder to deal with the people now that they were elated with victory. They insisted that the existing constitution should be annulled, and that one of the two consuls should be chosen from among them. They were opposed by the Senate, which would not permit Camillus to lay down his office, as the patricians imagined that with the help of his great power they could more easily defend their privileges. One day, however, as Camillus was sitting publicly doing business in the Forum, a viator or servant sent by the tribunes of the people bade him follow him, and even laid his hand upon him as if to arrest him. At this such a disturbance arose as had never been known before, as Camillus’s party endeavoured to push the officer down from the tribunal, while the people clamoured to him to drag the dictator from his seat. Camillus himself, not knowing what to do, would not lay down his office, but called the Senate to meet. Before entering the Senate house, he turned round to the Capitol and prayed that the gods would bring affairs to a happy termination, vowing that when the present disorders were at an end he would build a Temple of Concord. After a violent debate, the Senate agreed to adopt the milder course of yielding to the popular demand, and permitting one of the two consuls to be chosen from the people. When the dictator announced this decision of the Senate to the people, they at once, as was natural, were delighted with the Senate, and escorted Camillus home with applause and shouts. On the next day they met and decreed that the Temple of Concord which Camillus had vowed should be erected on a spot facing the Forum, where these events had taken place; moreover, that the Latin games should continue for four days instead of three, and that all citizens of Rome should at once offer sacrifice and crown themselves with garlands.

In the assembly for the election of consuls, over which Camillus presided there were elected Marcus Aemilius, a patrician, and Lucius Sextius, the first plebeian ever elected consul. This was the result of Camillus’s administration.

XLIII

In the following year a pestilence broke out in Rome which destroyed enormous numbers of people, and among them most of the leading men. And in this year died Camillus, at a ripe old age, full of years and honours, more regretted by the Romans than all those who died of the plague.

LIFE OF
PERIKLES.

I

One day in Rome, Caesar, seeing some rich foreigners nursing and petting young lapdogs and monkeys, enquired whether in their parts of the world the women bore no children: a truly imperial reproof to those who waste on animals the affection which they ought to bestow upon mankind. May we not equally blame those who waste the curiosity and love of knowledge which belongs to human nature, by directing it to worthless, not to useful objects? It is indeed unavoidable that external objects, whether good or bad, should produce some effect upon our senses; but every man is able, if he chooses, to concentrate his mind upon any subject he may please. For this reason we ought to seek virtue, not merely in order to contemplate it, but that we may ourselves derive some benefit from so doing. Just as those colours whose blooming and pleasant hues refresh our sight are grateful to the eyes, so we ought by our studies to delight in that which is useful for our own lives; and this is to be found in the acts of good men, which when narrated incite us to imitate them. The effect does not take place in other cases, for we frequently admire what we do not wish to produce; indeed we often are charmed with the work, but despise the workman, as in the case of dyes and perfumery which we take pleasure in, although we regard dyers and perfumers as vulgar artizans. That was a clever saying of Antisthenes, who answered, when he heard that Ismenias was a capital flute-player, “But he must be a worthless man, for if he were not, he would not be such a capital flute-player!” and King Philip of Macedon, when his son played brilliantly and agreeably on the harp at an entertainment, said to him, “Are you not ashamed, to play so well?”

It is enough for a king, if he sometimes employs his leisure in listening to musicians, and it is quite a sufficient tribute from him to the Muses, if he is present at the performances of other persons.

II

If a man devotes himself to these trifling arts, the time which he wastes upon them proves that he is incapable of higher things. No well nurtured youth, on seeing the statue of Jupiter Olympius at Pisa, wishes that he were a Pheidias, or that he were a Polykleitus on seeing the statue of Juno at Argos, nor yet while he takes pleasure in poetry, does he wish that he were an Anakreon, a Philetas, or an Archilochus; for it does not necessarily follow that we esteem the workman because we are pleased with the work. For this reason men are not benefited by any spectacle which does not encourage them to imitation, and where reflection upon what they have observed does not make them also wish to do likewise; whereas we both admire the deeds to which virtue incites, and long to emulate the doers of them.

We enjoy the good things which we owe to fortune, but we admire virtuous actions; and while we wish to receive the former, we wish ourselves to benefit others by the latter. That which is in itself admirable kindles in us a desire of emulation, whether we see noble deeds presented before us, or read of them in history. It was with this purpose that I have engaged in writing biography, and have arranged this tenth book to contain the lives of Perikles and of Fabius Maximus, who fought against Hannibal, men who especially resembled one another in the gentleness and justice of their disposition, and who were both of the greatest service to their native countries, because they were able to endure with patience the follies of their governments and colleagues. Of my success, the reader of the following pages will be able to judge for themself.

III

Perikles was of the tribe Akamantis, and of the township of Cholargos, and was descended from the noblest families in Athens, on both his father’s and mother’s side. His father, Xanthippus, defeated the Persian generals at Mykalé, while his mother, Agariste, was a descendant of Kleisthenes, who drove the sons of Peisistratus out of Athens, put an end to their despotic rule, and established a new constitution admirably calculated to reconcile all parties and save the country. She dreamed that she had brought forth a lion, and a few days afterwards was delivered of Perikles. His body was symmetrical, but his head was long out of all proportion; for which reason in nearly all his statues he is represented wearing a helmet, as the sculptors did not wish, I suppose, to reproach him with this blemish. The Attic poets called him squill-head, and the comic poet, Kratinus, in his play ‘Cheirones,’ says,

“From Kronos old and faction,

Is sprung a tyrant dread,

And all Olympus calls him,

The man-compelling head.”

And again in the play of ‘Nemesis’

“Come, hospitable Zeus, with lofty head.”

Telekleides, too, speaks of him as sitting

“Bowed down

With a dreadful frown,

Because matters of state have gone wrong,

Until at last,

From his head so vast,

His ideas burst forth in a throng.”

And Eupolis, in his play of ‘Demoi,’ asking questions about each of the great orators as they come up from the other world one after the other, when at last Perikles ascends, says,

“The great headpiece of those below.”

IV

Most writers tell us that his tutor in music was Damon, whose name they say should be pronounced with the first syllable short. Aristotle, however, says that he studied under Pythokleides. This Damon, it seems, was a sophist of the highest order, who used the name of music to conceal this accomplishment from the world, but who really trained Perikles for his political contests just as a trainer prepares an athlete for the games. However, Damon’s use of music as a pretext did not impose upon the Athenians, who banished him by ostracism, as a busybody and lover of despotism. He was ridiculed by the comic poets; thus Plato represents some one as addressing him,

“Answer me this, I humbly do beseech,

For thou, like Cheiron, Perikles did’st teach.”

Perikles also attended the lectures of Zeno, of Elea, on natural philosophy, in which that philosopher followed the method of Parmenides. Zeno moreover had made an especial study of how to reduce any man to silence who questioned him, and how to enclose him between the horns of a dilemma, which is alluded to by Timon of Phlius in the following verses:

“Nor weak the strength of him of two-edged tongue,

Zeno that carps at all.”

But it was Anaxagoras of Klazomenae who had most to do with forming Perikles’s style, teaching him an elevation and sublimity of expression beyond that of ordinary popular speakers, and altogether purifying and ennobling his mind. This Anaxagoras was called Nous, or Intelligence, by the men of that day, either because they admired his own intellect, or because he taught that an abstract intelligence is to be traced in all the concrete forms of matter, and that to this, and not to chance, the universe owes its origin.

V

Perikles greatly admired Anaxagoras, and became deeply interested in these grand speculations, which gave him a haughty spirit and a lofty style of oratory far removed from vulgarity and low buffoonery, and also an imperturbable gravity of countenance, and a calmness of demeanour and appearance which no incident could disturb as he was speaking, while the tone of his voice never showed that he heeded any interruption. These advantages greatly impressed the people. Once he sat quietly all day in the market-place despatching some pressing business, reviled in the foulest terms all the while by some low worthless fellow. Towards evening he walked home, the man following him and heaping abuse upon him. When about to enter his own door, as it was dark, he ordered one of his servants to take a torch and light the man home. The poet Ion, however, says that Perikles was overbearing and insolent in conversation, and that his pride had in it a great deal of contempt for others; while he praises Kimon’s civil, sensible, and polished address. But we may disregard Ion, as a mere dramatic poet who always sees in great men something upon which to exercise his satiric vein; whereas Zeno used to invite those who called the haughtiness of Perikles a mere courting of popularity and affectation of grandeur, to court popularity themselves in the same fashion, since the acting of such a part might insensibly mould their dispositions until they resembled that of their model.

VI

These were not the only advantages which Perikles gained from his intimacy with Anaxagoras, but he seems to have learned to despise those superstitious fears which the common phenomena of the heavens produce in those who, ignorant of their cause, and knowing nothing about them, refer them all to the immediate action of the gods. Knowledge of physical science, while it puts an end to superstitious terrors, replaces them by a sound basis of piety. It is said that once a ram with one horn was sent from the country as a present to Perikles, and that Lampon the prophet, as soon as he saw this strong horn growing out of the middle of the creature’s forehead, said that as there were two parties in the state, that of Thucydides and that of Perikles, he who possessed this mystic animal would unite the two into one. Anaxagoras cut open the beast’s skull, and pointed out that its brain did not fill the whole space, but was sunken into the shape of an egg, and all collected at that part from which the horn grew. At the time all men looked with admiration on Anaxagoras, but afterwards, when Thucydides had fallen, and all the state had become united under Perikles, they admired Lampon equally.

There is, I imagine, no reason why both the prophet and the natural philosopher should not have been right, the one discovering the cause, and the other the meaning. The one considered why the horn grew so, and for what reason; the other declared what it meant by growing so, and for what end it took place. Those who say that when the cause of a portent is found out the portent is explained away, do not reflect that the same reasoning which explains away heavenly portents would also put an end to the meaning of the conventional signals used by mankind. The ringing of bells, the blaze of beacon fires, and the shadows on a dial are all of them produced by natural causes, but have a further meaning. But perhaps all this belongs to another subject.

VII

Perikles when young greatly feared the people. He had a certain personal likeness to the despot Peisistratus; and as his own voice was sweet, and he was ready and fluent in speech, old men who had known Peisistratus were struck by his resemblance to him. He was also rich, of noble birth, and had powerful friends, so that he feared he might be banished by ostracism, and consequently held aloof from politics, but proved himself a brave and daring soldier in the wars. But when Aristeides was dead, Themistokles banished, and Kimon generally absent on distant campaigns, Perikles engaged in public affairs, taking the popular side, that of the poor and many against that of the rich and few, quite contrary to his own feelings, which were entirely aristocratic. He feared, it seems, that he might be suspected of a design to make himself despot, and seeing that Kimon took the side of the nobility, and was much beloved by them, he betook himself to the people, as a means of obtaining safety for himself, and a strong party to combat that of Kimon. He immediately altered his mode of life; was never seen in any street except that which led to the market-place and the national assembly, and declined all invitations to dinner and such like social gatherings, so utterly that during the whole of his long political life he never dined with one of his friends, except when his first cousin, Euryptolemus, was married. On this occasion he sat at table till the libations were poured, upon which he at once got up and went away. For solemnity is wont to unbend at festive gatherings, and a majestic demeanour is hard to keep up when one is in familiar intercourse with others. True virtue, indeed, appears more glorious the more it is seen, and a really good man’s life is never so much admired by the outside world as by his own intimate friends. But Perikles feared to make himself too common even with the people, and only addressed them after long intervals—not speaking upon every subject, and, not constantly addressing them, but, as Kritolaus says, keeping himself like the Salaminian trireme for great crises, and allowing his friends and the other orators to manage matters of less moment. One of these friends is said to have been Ephialtes, who destroyed the power of the Council of the Areopagus, “pouring out,” as Plato, the comic poet, said, “a full and unmixed draught of liberty for the citizens,” under the influence of which the poets of the time said that the Athenian people

“Nibbled at Euboea, like a horse that spurns the rein,

And wantonly would leap upon the islands in the main.”

VIII

Wishing to adopt a style of speaking consonant with his haughty manner and lofty spirit, Perikles made free use of the instrument which Anaxagoras as it were put into his hand, and often tinged his oratory with natural philosophy. He far surpassed all others by using this “lofty intelligence and power of universal consummation,” as the divine Plato calls it;1 in addition to his natural advantages, adorning his oratory with apt illustrations drawn from physical science.

For this reason some think that he was nicknamed the Olympian; though some refer this to his improvement of the city by new and beautiful buildings, and others from his power both as a politician and a general. It is not by any means unlikely that these causes all combined to produce the name. Yet the comedies of that time, when they allude to him, either in jest or earnest, always appear to think that this name was given him because of his manner of speaking, as they speak of him as “thundering and lightening,” and “rolling fateful thunders from his tongue.” A saying of Thucydides, the son of Melesias, has been preserved, which jestingly testifies to the power of Perikles’s eloquence. Thucydides was the leader of the conservative party, and for a long time struggled to hold his own against Perikles in debate. One day Archidamus, the King of Sparta, asked him whether he or Perikles was the best wrestler. “When I throw him in wrestling,” Thucydides answered, “he beats me by proving that he never was down, and making the spectators believe him.” For all this Perikles was very cautious about his words, and whenever he ascended the tribune to speak, used first to pray to the gods that nothing unfitted for the present occasion might fall from his lips. He left no writings, except the measures which he brought forward, and very few of his sayings are recorded. One of these was, that he called Aegina “the eyesore of the Peiraeus,” and that “he saw war coming upon Athens from Peloponnesus.” Stesimbrotus tells us that when he was pronouncing a public funeral oration over those who fell in Samos, he said that they had become immortal, even as the gods: for we do not see the gods, but we conceive them to be immortal by the respect which we pay them, and the blessings which we receive from them; and the same is the case with those who die for their country.

IX

Thucydides represents the constitution under Perikles as a democracy in name, but really an aristocracy, because the government was all in the hands of one leading citizen. But as many other writers tell us that during his administration the people received grants of land abroad, and were indulged with dramatic entertainments, and payments for their services, in consequence of which they fell into bad habits, and became extravagant and licentious, instead of sober hard-working people as they had been before, let us consider the history of this change, viewing it by the light of the facts themselves. First of all, as we have already said, Perikles had to measure himself with Kimon, and to transfer the affections of the people from Kimon to himself. As he was not so rich a man as Kimon, who used from his own ample means to give a dinner daily to any poor Athenian who required it, clothe aged persons, and take away the fences round his property, so that any one might gather the fruit, Perikles, unable to vie with him in this, turned his attention to a distribution of the public funds among the people, at the suggestion, we are told by Aristotle, of Damonides of Oia. By the money paid for public spectacles, for citizens acting as jurymen and other paid offices, and largesses, he soon won over the people to his side, so that he was able to use them in his attack upon the Senate of the Areopagus, of which he himself was not a member, never having been chosen Archon, or Thesmothete, or King Archon, or Polemarch. These offices had from ancient times been obtained by lot, and it was only through them that those who had approved themselves in the discharge of them were advanced to the Areopagus. For this reason it was that Perikles, when he gained strength with the populace, destroyed this Senate, making Ephialtes bring forward a bill which restricted its judicial powers, while he himself succeeded in getting Kimon banished by ostracism, as a friend of Sparta and a hater of the people, although he was second to no Athenian in birth or fortune, had won most brilliant victories over the Persians, and had filled Athens with plunder and spoils of war, as will be found related in his life. So great was the power of Perikles with the common people.

X

One of the provisions of ostracism was that the person banished should remain in exile for ten years. But during this period the Lacedaemonians with a great force invaded the territory of Tanagra, and, as the Athenians at once marched out to attack them, Kimon came back from exile, took his place in full armour among the ranks of his own tribe, and hoped by distinguishing himself in the battle amongst his fellow citizens to prove the falsehood of the Laconian sympathies with which he had been charged. However, the friends of Perikles drove him away, as an exile. On the other hand, Perikles fought more bravely in that battle than he had ever fought before, and surpassed every one in reckless daring. The friends of Kimon also, whom Perikles had accused of Laconian leanings, fell, all together, in their ranks; and the Athenians felt great sorrow for their treatment of Kimon, and a great longing for his restoration, now that they had lost a great battle on the frontier, and expected to be hard pressed during the summer by the Lacedaemonians. Perikles, perceiving this, lost no time in gratifying the popular wish, but himself proposed the decree for his recall; and Kimon on his return reconciled the two States, for he was on familiar terms with the Spartans, who were hated by Perikles and the other leaders of the common people. Some say that, before Kimon’s recall by Perikles, a secret compact was made with him by Elpinike, Kimon’s sister, that Kimon was to proceed on foreign service against the Persians with a fleet of two hundred ships, while Perikles was to retain his power in the city. It is also said that, when Kimon was being tried for his life, Elpinike softened the resentment of Perikles, who was one of those appointed to impeach him. When Elpinike came to beg her brother’s life of him, he answered with a smile, “Elpinike, you are too old to meddle in affairs of this sort.” But, for all that, he spoke only once, for form’s sake, and pressed Kimon less than any of his other prosecutors. How, then, can one put any faith in Idomeneus, when he accuses Perikles of procuring the assassination of his friend and colleague Ephialtes, because he was jealous of his reputation? This seems an ignoble calumny, which Idomeneus has drawn from some obscure source to fling at a man who, no doubt, was not faultless, but of a generous spirit and noble mind, incapable of entertaining so savage and brutal a design. Ephialtes was disliked and feared by the nobles, and was inexorable in punishing those who wronged the people; wherefore his enemies had him assassinated by means of Aristodikus of Tanagra. This we are told by Aristotle. Kimon died in Cyprus, while in command of the Athenian forces.

XI

The nobles now perceived that Perikles was the most important man in the State, and far more powerful than any other citizen; wherefore, as they still hoped to check his authority, and not allow him to be omnipotent, they set up Thucydides, of the township of Alopekae, as his rival, a man of good sense, and a relative of Kimon, but less of a warrior and more of a politician, who, by watching his opportunities, and opposing Perikles in debate, soon brought about a balance of power. He did not allow the nobles to mix themselves up with the people in the public assembly, as they had been wont to do, so that their dignity was lost among the masses; but he collected them into a separate body, and by thus concentrating their strength was able to use it to counterbalance that of the other party. From the beginning these two factions had been but imperfectly welded together, because their tendencies were different; but now the struggle for power between Perikles and Thucydides drew a sharp line of demarcation between them, and one was called the party of the Many, the other that of the Few. Perikles now courted the people in every way, constantly arranging public spectacles, festivals, and processions in the city, by which he educated the Athenians to take pleasure in refined amusements; and also he sent out sixty triremes to cruise every year, in which many of the people served for hire for eight months, learning and practising seamanship. Besides this he sent a thousand settlers to the Chersonese, five hundred to Naxos, half as many to Andros, a thousand to dwell among the Thracian tribe of the Bisaltae, and others to the new colony in Italy founded by the city of Sybaris, which was named Thurii. By this means he relieved the state of numerous idle agitators, assisted the necessitous, and overawed the allies of Athens by placing his colonists near them to watch their behaviour.

XII

The building of the temples, by which Athens was adorned, the people delighted, and the rest of the world astonished, and which now alone prove that the tales of the ancient power and glory of Greece are no fables, was what particularly excited the spleen of the opposite faction, who inveighed against him in the public assembly, declaring that the Athenians had disgraced themselves by transferring the common treasury of the Greeks from the island of Delos to their own custody. “Perikles himself,” they urged, “has taken away the only possible excuse for such an act—the fear that it might be exposed to the attacks of the Persians when at Delos, whereas it would be safe at Athens. Greece has been outraged, and feels itself openly tyrannised over, when it sees us using the funds which we extorted from it for the war against the Persians, for gilding and beautifying our city, as if it were a vain woman, and adorning it with precious marbles, and statues, and temples, worth a thousand talents.” To this Perikles replied, that the allies had no right to consider how their money was spent, so long as Athens defended them from the Persians; while they supplied neither horses, ships, nor men, but merely money, which the Athenians had a right to spend as they pleased, provided they afforded them that security which it purchased. It was right, he argued, that, after the city had provided all that was necessary for war, it should devote its surplus money to the erection of buildings which would be a glory to it for all ages, while these works would create plenty by leaving no man unemployed, and encouraging all sorts of handicraft, so that nearly the whole city would earn wages, and thus derive both its beauty and its profit from itself. For those who were in the flower of their age, military service offered a means of earning money from the common stock; while, as he did not wish the mechanics and lower classes to be without their share, nor yet to see them receive it without doing work for it, he had laid the foundations of great edifices which would require industries of every kind to complete them; and he had done this in the interests of the lower classes, who thus, although they remained at home, would have just as good a claim to their share of the public funds as those who were serving at sea, in garrison, or in the field. The different materials used, such as stone, brass, ivory, gold, ebony, cypress-wood, and so forth, would require special artizans for each, such as carpenters, modellers, smiths, stone masons, dyers, melters and moulders of gold, and ivory painters, embroiderers, workers in relief; and also men to bring them to the city, such as sailors and captains of ships and pilots for such as came by sea; and, for those who came by land, carriage builders, horse breeders, drivers, rope makers, linen manufacturers, shoemakers, road menders, and miners. Each trade, moreover, employed a number of unskilled labourers, so that, in a word, there would be work for persons of every age and every class, and general prosperity would be the result.

XIII

These buildings were of immense size, and unequalled in beauty and grace, as the workmen endeavoured to make the execution surpass the design in beauty; but what was most remarkable was the speed with which they were built. All these edifices, each of which one would have thought, it would have taken many generations to complete, were all finished during the most brilliant period of one man’s administration. We are told that Zeuxis, hearing Agatharchus, the painter, boasting how easily and rapidly he could produce a picture, said, “I paint very slowly.” Ease, and speed of execution, seldom produces work of any permanent value or delicacy. It is the time which is spent in laborious production for which we are repaid by the durable character of the result. And this makes Perikles’s work all the more wonderful, because it was built in a short time, and yet has lasted for ages. In beauty each of them at once appeared venerable as soon as it was built; but even at the present day the work looks as fresh as ever, for they bloom with an eternal freshness which defies time, and seems to make the work instinct with an unfading spirit of youth.

The overseer and manager of the whole was Pheidias, although there were other excellent architects and workmen, such as Kallikrates and Iktinus, who built the Parthenon on the site of the old Hekatompedon, which had been destroyed by the Persians, and Koroebus, who began to build the Temple of Initiation at Eleusis, but who only lived to see the columns erected and the architraves placed upon them. On his death, Metagenes, of Xypete, added the frieze and the upper row of columns, and Xenokles, of Cholargos, crowned it with the domed roof over the shrine. As to the long wall, about which Sokrates says that he heard Perikles bring forward a motion, Kallikrates undertook to build it. Kratinus satirises the work for being slowly accomplished, saying

“He builds in speeches, but he does no work.”

The Odeum, which internally consisted of many rows of seats and many columns, and externally of a roof sloping on all sides from a central point, was said to have been built in imitation of the king of Persia’s tent, and was built under Perikles’s direction. For this reason Kratinus alludes to him in his play of the ‘Thracian Woman’—

“Our Jove with lofty skull appears;

The Odeum on his head he bears,

Because he fears the oyster-shell no more.”

Perikles at that period used his influence to pass a decree for establishing a musical competition at the Panathenaic festival; and, being himself chosen judge, he laid down rules as to how the candidates were to sing, and play the flute or the harp. At that period, and ever afterwards, all musical contests took place in the Odeum.

The Propylaea, before the Acropolis, were finished in five years, by Mnesikles the architect; and a miraculous incident during the work seemed to show that the goddess did not disapprove, but rather encouraged and assisted the building. The most energetic and active of the workmen fell from a great height, and lay in a dangerous condition, given over by his doctors. Perikles grieved much for him; but the goddess appeared to him in a dream, and suggested a course of treatment by which Perikles quickly healed the workman. In consequence of this, he set up the brazen statue of Athene the Healer, near the old altar in the Acropolis. The golden statue of the goddess was made by Pheidias, and his name appears upon the basement in the inscription. Almost everything was in his hands, and he gave his orders to all the workmen—as we have said before—because of his friendship with Perikles. This led to their both being envied and belied; for it was said that Perikles, with the connivance of Pheidias, carried on intrigues with Athenian ladies, who came ostensibly to see the works. This accusation was taken up by the comic poets, who charged him with great profligacy, hinting that he had an improper passion for the wife of Menippus, his friend, and a lieutenant-general in the army. Even the bird-fancying of Pyrilampes, because he was a friend of Perikles, was misrepresented, and he was said to give peacocks to the ladies who granted their favours to Perikles. But, indeed, how can we wonder at satirists bringing foul accusations against their betters, and offering them up as victims to the spite of the populace, when we find Stesimbrotus, of Thasos, actually inventing that unnatural and abominable falsehood of Perikles’s intrigue with his own daughter-in-law. So hard is it to discover the truth, because the history of past ages is rendered difficult by the lapse of time; while in contemporary history the truth is always obscured, either by private spite and hatred, or by a desire to curry favour with the chief men of the time.

XIV

When the speakers of Thucydides’s party complained that Perikles had wasted the public money, and destroyed the revenue, he asked the people in the assembly whether they thought he had spent much. When they answered “Very much indeed,” he said in reply, “Do not, then, put it down to the public account, but to mine; and I will inscribe my name upon all the public buildings.” When Perikles said this, the people, either in admiration of his magnificence of manner, or being eager to bear their share in the glory of the new buildings, shouted to him with one accord to take what money he pleased from the treasury, and spend it as he pleased, without stint. And finally, he underwent the trial of ostracism with Thucydides, and not only succeeded in driving him into exile, but broke up his party.

XV

As now there was no opposition to encounter in the city, and all parties had been blended into one, Perikles undertook the sole administration of the home and foreign affairs of Athens, dealing with the public revenue, the army, the navy, the islands and maritime affairs, and the great sources of strength which Athens derived from her alliances, as well with Greek as with foreign princes and states. Henceforth he became quite a different man: he no longer gave way to the people, and ceased to watch the breath of popular favour; but he changed the loose and licentious democracy, which had hitherto existed, into a stricter aristocratic, or rather monarchical, form of government. This he used honourably and unswervingly for the public benefit, finding the people, as a rule, willing to second the measures which he explained to them to be necessary, and to which he asked their consent, but occasionally having to use violence, and to force them, much against their will, to do what was expedient; like a physician dealing with some complicated disorder, who at one time allows his patient innocent recreation, and at another inflicts upon him sharp pains and bitter, though salutary, draughts. Every possible kind of disorder was to be found among a people possessing so great an empire as the Athenians; and he alone was able to bring them into harmony, by playing alternately upon their hopes and fears, checking them when over-confident, and raising their spirits when they were cast down and disheartened. Thus, as Plato says, he was able to prove that oratory is the art of influencing men’s minds, and to use it in its highest application, when it deals with men’s passions and characters, which, like certain strings of a musical instrument, require a skilful and delicate touch. The secret of his power is to be found, however, as Thucydides says, not so much in his mere oratory, as in his pure and blameless life, because he was so well known to be incorruptible, and indifferent to money; for though he made the city, which was a great one, into the greatest and richest city of Greece, and though he himself became more powerful than many independent sovereigns, who were able to leave their kingdoms to their sons, yet Perikles did not increase by one single drachma the estate which he received from his father.

XVI

This is the clear account of his power which is given by Thucydides the historian; though the comic poets misrepresent him atrociously, calling his immediate followers the New Peisistratidae, and calling upon him to swear that he never would make himself despot, as though his pre-eminence was not to be borne in a free state. And Telekleides says, that the Athenians delivered up into his hands

“The tribute from the towns, the towns themselves,

The city walls, to build or to destroy,

The right of making either peace or war,

And all the wealth and produce of the land.”

And all this was not on any special occasion, or when his administration was especially popular, but for forty years he held the first place among such men as Ephialtes, Leokrates, Myronides, Kimon, Tolmides, and Thucydides; and, after the fall and banishment of Thucydides by ostracism, he united in himself for five-and-twenty years all the various offices of state, which were supposed to last only for one year; and yet during the whole of that period proved himself incorruptible by bribes. As to his paternal estate, he was loth to lose it, and still more to be troubled with the management of it; consequently, he adopted what seemed to him the simplest and most exact method of dealing with it. Every year’s produce was sold all together, and with the money thus obtained, he would buy what was necessary for his household in the market, and thus regulate his expenditure. This did not make him popular with his sons when they grew up; nor yet did the women of his family think him a liberal manager, but blamed his exact regulation of his daily expenses, which allowed none of the superfluities common in great and wealthy households, but which made the debit and credit exactly balance each other. One servant, Euangelos, kept all his accounts, as no one else had either capacity or education enough to be able to do so. These proceedings differed greatly from those of Anaxagoras the philosopher, who left his house, and let his estate go to ruin, while he pursued his lofty speculations. I conceive, however, that the life of a philosopher and that of a practical politician are not the same, as the one directs his thoughts to abstract ideas, while the other devotes his genius to supplying the real wants of mankind, and in some cases finds wealth not only necessary, but most valuable to him, as indeed it was to Perikles, who assisted many of the poorer citizens. It is said that, as Perikles was engaged in public affairs, Anaxagoras, who was now an old man and in want, covered his head with his robe, and determined to starve himself to death; but when Perikles heard of this, he at once ran to him, and besought him to live, lamenting, not Anaxagoras’s fate, but his own, if he should lose so valuable a political adviser. Then Anaxagoras uncovered his head, and said to him, “Perikles, those who want to use a lamp supply it with oil.”

XVII

As the Lacedaemonians began to be jealous of the prosperity of the Athenians, Perikles, wishing to raise the spirit of the people and to make them feel capable of immense operations, passed a decree, inviting all the Greeks, whether inhabiting Europe or Asia, whether living in large cities or small ones, to send representatives to a meeting at Athens to deliberate about the restoration of the Greek temples which had been burned by the barbarians, about the sacrifices which were due in consequence of the vows which they had made to the gods on behalf of Greece before joining battle, and about the sea, that all men might be able to sail upon it in peace and without fear. To carry out this decree twenty men, selected from the citizens over fifty years of age, were sent out, five of whom invited the Ionian and Dorian Greeks in Asia and the islands as far as Lesbos and Rhodes, five went to the inhabitants of the Hellespont and Thrace as far as Byzantium, and five more proceeded to Boeotia, Phokis, and Peloponnesus, passing from thence through Lokris to the neighbouring continent as far as Akarnania and Ambrakia; while the remainder journeyed through Euboea to the Oetaeans and the Malian gulf, and to the Achaeans of Phthia and the Thessalians, urging them to join the assembly and take part in the deliberations concerning the peace and well-being of Greece. However, nothing was effected, and the cities never assembled, in consequence it is said of the covert hostility of the Lacedaemonians, and because the attempt was first made in Peloponnesus and failed there: yet I have inserted an account of it in order to show the lofty spirit and the magnificent designs of Perikles.

XVIII

In his campaigns he was chiefly remarkable for caution, for he would not, if he could help it, begin a battle of which the issue was doubtful; nor did he wish to emulate those generals who have won themselves a great reputation by running risks, and trusting to good luck. But he ever used to say to his countrymen, that none of them should come by their deaths through any act of his. Observing that Tolmides, the son of Tolmaeus, elated by previous successes and by the credit which he had gained as a general, was about to invade Boeotia in a reckless manner, and had persuaded a thousand young men to follow him without any support whatever, he endeavoured to stop him, and made that memorable saying in the public assembly, that if Tolmides would not take the advice of Perikles, he would at any rate do well to consult that best of advisers, Time. This speech had but little success at the time; but when, a few days afterwards, the news came that Tolmides had fallen in action at Koronea, and many noble citizens with him, Perikles was greatly respected and admired as a wise and patriotic man.

XIX

His most successful campaign was that in the Chersonesus, which proved the salvation of the Greeks residing there: for he not only settled a thousand colonists there, and thus increased the available force of the cities, but built a continuous line of fortifications reaching across the isthmus from one sea to the other, by which he shut off the Thracians, who had previously ravaged the peninsula, and put an end to a constant and harassing border warfare to which the settlers were exposed, as they had for neighbours tribes of wild plundering barbarians.

But that by which he obtained most glory and renown was when he started from Pegae, in the Megarian territory, and sailed round the Peloponnesus with a fleet of a hundred triremes; for he not only laid waste much of the country near the coast, as Tolmides had previously done, but he proceeded far inland, away from his ships, leading the troops who were on board, and terrified the inhabitants so much that they shut themselves up in their strongholds. The men of Sikyon alone ventured to meet him at Nemea, and them he overthrew in a pitched battle, and erected a trophy. Next he took on board troops from the friendly district of Achaia, and, crossing over to the opposite side of the Corinthian Gulf, coasted along past the mouth of the river Achelous, overran Akarnania, drove the people of Oeneadae to the shelter of their city walls, and after ravaging the country returned home, having made himself a terror to his enemies, and done good service to Athens; for not the least casualty, even by accident, befel the troops under his command.

XX

When he sailed into the Black Sea with a great and splendidly equipped fleet, he assisted the Greek cities there, and treated them with consideration; and showed the neighbouring savage tribes and their chiefs the greatness of his force, and his confidence in his power, by sailing where he pleased, and taking complete control over that sea. He left at Sinope thirteen ships, and a land force under the command of Lamachus, to act against Timesileon, who had made himself despot of that city. When he and his party were driven out, Perikles passed a decree that six hundred Athenian volunteers should sail to Sinope, and become citizens there, receiving the houses and lands which had formerly been in the possession of the despot and his party. But in other cases he would not agree to the impulsive proposals of the Athenians, and he opposed them when, elated by their power and good fortune, they talked of recovering Egypt and attacking the seaboard of the Persian empire. Many, too, were inflamed with that ill-starred notion of an attempt on Sicily, which was afterwards blown into a flame by Alkibiades and other orators. Some even dreamed of the conquest of Etruria and Carthage, in consequence of the greatness which the Athenian empire had already reached, and the full tide of success which seemed to attend it.

XXI

Perikles, however, restrained these outbursts, and would not allow the people to meddle with foreign states, but used the power of Athens chiefly to preserve and guard her already existing empire, thinking it to be of paramount importance to oppose the Lacedaemonians, a task to which he bent all his energies, as is proved by many of his acts, especially in connection with the Sacred War. In this war the Lacedaemonians sent a force to Delphi, and made the Phokaeans, who held it, give it up to the people of Delphi: but as soon as they were gone Perikles made an expedition into the country, and restored the temple to the Phokaeans; and as the Lacedaemonians had scratched the oracle which the Delphians had given them, on the forehead of the brazen wolf there, Perikles got a response from the oracle for the Athenians, and carved it on the right side of the same wolf.

XXII

Events proved that Perikles was right in confining the Athenian empire to Greece. First of all Euboea revolted, and he was obliged to lead an army to subdue that island. Shortly after this, news came that the Megarians had become hostile, and that an army, under the command of Pleistoanax, king of the Lacedaemonians, was menacing the frontier of Attica. Perikles now in all haste withdrew his troops from Euboea, to meet the invader. He did not venture on an engagement with the numerous and warlike forces of the enemy, although repeatedly invited by them to fight: but, observing that Pleistoanax was a very young man, and entirely under the influence of Kleandrides, whom the Ephors had sent to act as his tutor and counsellor because of his tender years, he opened secret negotiations with the latter, who at once, for a bribe, agreed to withdraw the Peloponnesians from Attica. When their army returned and dispersed, the Lacedaemonians were so incensed that they imposed a fine on their king, and condemned Kleandrides, who fled the country, to be put to death. This Kleandrides was the father of Gylippus, who caused the ruin of the Athenian expedition in Sicily. Avarice seems to have been hereditary in the family, for Gylippus himself, after brilliant exploits in war, was convicted of taking bribes, and banished from Sparta in disgrace. This is more fully set forth in the Life of Lysander.

XXIII

When Perikles submitted the accounts of the campaign to the people, there was an item of ten talents, “for a necessary purpose,” which the people passed without any questioning, or any curiosity to learn the secret. Some historians, amongst whom is Theophrastus the philosopher, say that Perikles sent ten talents annually to Sparta, by means of which he bribed the chief magistrates to defer the war, thus not buying peace, but time to make preparations for a better defence. He immediately turned his attention to the insurgents in Euboea, and proceeding thither with a fleet of fifty sail, and five thousand heavy armed troops, he reduced their cities to submission. He banished from Chalkis the “equestrian order,” as it was called, consisting of men of wealth and station; and he drove all the inhabitants of Hestiaea out of their country, replacing them by Athenian settlers.

He treated these people with this pitiless severity, because they had captured an Athenian ship, and put its crew to the sword.

XXIV

After this, as the Athenians and Lacedaemonians made a truce for thirty years, Perikles decreed the expedition against Samos, on the pretext that they had disregarded the commands of the Athenians, to cease from their war with the Milesians. It was thought that he began this war with the Samians to please Aspasia, and this is, therefore, a good opportunity to discuss that person’s character, and how she possessed so great influence and ability that the leading politicians of the day were at her feet, while philosophers discussed and admired her discourse. It is agreed that she was of Milesian origin, and that her father’s name was Axiochus; and she is said to have reserved her favours for the most powerful personages in Greece, in imitation of Thargelia, an Ionian lady of ancient times, of great beauty, ability, and attractions, who had many lovers among the Greeks, and brought them all over to the Persian interest, by which means the seeds of the Persian faction were sown in many cities of Greece, as they were all men of great influence and position.

Now some writers say that Perikles valued Aspasia only for her wisdom and political ability. Indeed Sokrates and his friends used to frequent her society; and those who listened to her discourse used to bring their wives with them, that they too might profit by it, although her profession was far from being honourable or decent, for she kept courtesans in her house. Aeschines says that Lysikles, the sheep dealer, a low-born and low-minded man, became one of the first men in Athens, because he lived with Aspasia after Perikles’s death. In Plato’s dialogue too, called ‘Menexenus,’ though the first part is written in a humorous style, yet there is in it thus much of serious truth, that she was thought to discuss questions of rhetoric with many Athenians. But Perikles seems to have been more enamoured of Aspasia’s person than her intellect. He was married to a woman who was nearly related to him, who had previously been the wife of Hipponikus, by whom she became the mother of Kallias the rich. By her Perikles had two sons, Xanthippus and Paralus; but afterwards, as they could not live comfortably together, he, at his wife’s wish, handed her over to another husband, and himself lived with Aspasia, of whom he was passionately fond. It is said that he never went in or out of his house during the day without kissing her. In the comedies of the time, she is spoken of as the new Omphale and as Deianeira, and sometimes as Hera (Juno). Kratinus plainly speaks of her as a harlot in the following lines:

“To him Vice bore a Juno new,

Aspasia, shameless harlot.”

He is thought to have had a bastard son by her, who is mentioned by Eupolis in his play of ‘The Townships,’ where Perikles is introduced, asking, “Lives then my son?” to which Myronides answers:

“He lives, and long had claimed a manly name,

But that he feared his harlot mother’s shame.”

It is said that Aspasia became so illustrious and well known that the Cyrus who fought with his brother for the empire of Persia, called his favourite concubine Aspasia, though she had before been named Milto. She was a Phokaean by birth, the daughter of Hermotimus. After the death of Cyrus in battle, she was taken into the king’s harem, and acquired great influence with him. These particulars about Aspasia occurred to my memory, and I thought that perhaps I might please my readers by relating them.

XXV

Perikles is accused of going to war with Samos to save the Milesians, at the request of Aspasia. These States were at war about the possession of the city of Priéne, and the Samians, who were victorious, would not lay down their arms and allow the Athenians to settle the matter by arbitration, as they ordered them to do. For this reason Perikles proceeded to Samos, put an end to the oligarchical form of government there, and sent fifty hostages and as many children to Lemnos, to ensure the good behaviour of the leading men. It is said that each of these hostages offered him a talent for his own freedom, and that much more was offered by that party which was loth to see a democracy established in the city. Besides all this, Pissuthnes the Persian, who had a liking for the Samians, sent and offered him ten thousand pieces of gold if he would spare the city. Perikles, however, took none of these bribes, but dealt with Samos as he had previously determined, and returned to Athens. The Samians now at once revolted, as Pissuthnes managed to get them back their hostages, and furnished them with the means of carrying on the war. Perikles now made a second expedition against them, and found them in no mind to submit quietly, but determined to dispute the empire of the seas with the Athenians. Perikles gained a signal victory over them in a sea-fight off the Goats’ Island, beating a fleet of seventy ships with only forty-four, twenty of which were transports.

XXVI

Simultaneously with his victory and the flight of the enemy he obtained command of the harbour of Samos, and besieged the Samians in their city. They, in spite of their defeat, still possessed courage enough to sally out and fight a battle under the walls; but soon a larger force arrived from Athens, and the Samians were completely blockaded.

Perikles now with sixty ships sailed out of the Archipelago into the Mediterranean, according to the most current report intending to meet the Phoenician fleet which was coming to help the Samians, but, according to Stesimbrotus, with the intention of attacking Cyprus, which seems improbable. Whatever his intention may have been, his expedition was a failure, for Melissus, the son of Ithagenes, a man of culture, who was then in command of the Samian forces, conceiving a contempt for the small force of the Athenians and the want of experience of their leaders after Perikles’s departure, persuaded his countrymen to attack them. In the battle the Samians proved victorious, taking many Athenians prisoners, and destroying many of their ships. By this victory they obtained command of the sea, and were able to supply themselves with more warlike stores than they had possessed before. Aristotle even says that Perikles himself was before this beaten by Melissus in a sea-fight. The Samians branded the figure of an owl on the foreheads of their Athenian prisoners, to revenge themselves for the branding of their own prisoners by the Athenians with the figure of a samaina. This is a ship having a beak turned up like a swine’s snout, but with a roomy hull, so as both to carry a large cargo and sail fast. This class of vessel is called samaina because it was first built at Samos by Polykrates, the despot of that island. It is said that the verse of Aristophanes,

“The Samians are a deeply lettered race,”

alludes to this branding.

XXVII

When Perikles heard of the disaster which had befallen his army, he returned in all haste to assist them. He beat Melissus, who came out to meet him, and, after putting the enemy to rout, at once built a wall round their city, preferring to reduce it by blockade to risking the lives of his countrymen in an assault. As time went on the Athenians became impatient and eager to fight, and it was hard to restrain their ardour. Perikles divided the whole force into eight divisions, and made them all draw lots. The division which drew the white bean he permitted to feast and take their ease, while the rest did their duty. For this reason those who are enjoying themselves call it a “white day,” in allusion to the white bean. Ephorus tells us that Perikles made use of battering engines in this siege, being attracted by their novelty, and that Artemon the mechanician was present, who was surnamed Periphoretus because he was lame, and carried in a litter to see such of the works as required his superintendence. This story is proved to be false by Herakleides of Pontus, he quoting Anakreon’s poems, in which Artemon Periphoretus is mentioned many generations before the revolt and siege of Samos. He tells us that Artemon was an effeminate coward who spent most of his time indoors, with two slaves holding a brazen shield over his head for fear that anything should fall upon it, and if he was obliged to go out, used to be carried in a hammock slung so low as almost to touch the ground, from which he received the name of Periphoretus.

XXVIII

In the ninth month of the siege the Samians surrendered. Perikles demolished their walls, confiscated their fleet, and imposed a heavy fine upon them, some part of which was paid at once by the Samians, who gave hostages for the payment of the remainder at fixed periods. Douris, of Samos, makes a lamentable story of this, accusing Perikles and the Athenians of great cruelty, no mention of which is to be found in Thucydides, Ephorus, or Aristotle. He obviously does not tell the truth when he says that Perikles took the captains and marine soldiers of each ship to the market-place at Miletus, bound them to planks, and after they had been so for ten days and were in a miserable state, knocked them on the head with clubs and cast out their bodies without burial. But Douris, even in cases where he has no personal bias, prefers writing an exciting story to keeping to the exact truth, and in this instance probably exaggerated the sufferings of his countrymen in order to gratify his dislike of the Athenians.

Perikles, after the reduction of Samos, returned to Athens, where he buried those who had fallen in the war in a magnificent manner, and was much admired for the funeral oration which, as is customary, was spoken by him over the graves of his countrymen. When he descended from the rostrum the women greeted him, crowning him with garlands and ribbons like a victorious athlete, and Elpinike drawing near to him said, “A fine exploit, truly, Perikles, and well worthy of a crown, to lose many of our brave fellow-citizens, not fighting with Persians or Phoenicians, as my brother Kimon did, but in ruining a city of men of our own blood and our own allies.” At these words of Elpinike, Perikles merely smiled and repeated the verse of Archilochus—

“Too old thou art for rich perfumes.”

Ion says that his victory over the Samians wonderfully flattered his vanity. Agamemnon, he was wont to say, took ten years to take a barbarian city, but he in nine months had made himself master of the first and most powerful city in Ionia. And the comparison was not an unjust one, for truly the war was a very great undertaking, and its issue quite uncertain, since, as Thucydides tells us, the Samians came very near to wresting the empire of the sea from the Athenians.

XXIX

After these events, as the clouds were gathering for the Peloponnesian war, Perikles persuaded the Athenians to send assistance to the people of Korkyra, who were at war with the Corinthians, and thus to attach to their own side an island with a powerful naval force, at a moment when the Peloponnesians had all but declared war against them.

When the people passed this decree, Perikles sent only ten ships under the command of Lacedaemonius, the son of Kimon, as if he designed a deliberate insult; for the house of Kimon was on peculiarly friendly terms with the Lacedaemonians. His design in sending Lacedaemonius out, against his will, and with so few ships, was that if he performed nothing brilliant he might be accused, even more than he was already, of leaning to the side of the Spartans. Indeed, by all means in his power, he always threw obstacles in the way of the advancement of Kimon’s family, representing that by their very names they were aliens, one son being named Lacedaemonius, another Thessalus, another Eleius. Moreover, the mother of all three was an Arcadian.

Now Perikles was much reproached for sending these ten ships, which were of little value to the Korkyreans, and gave a great handle to his enemies to use against him, and in consequence sent a larger force after them to Korkyra, which arrived there after the battle. The Corinthians, enraged at this, complained in the congress of Sparta of the conduct of the Athenians, as did also the Megarians, who said that they were excluded from every market and every harbour which was in Athenian hands, contrary to the ancient rights and common privileges of the Hellenic race. The people of Aegina also considered themselves to be oppressed and ill-treated, and secretly bemoaned their grievances in the ears of the Spartans, for they dared not openly bring any charges against the Athenians. At this time, too, Potidaea, a city subject to Athens, but a colony of Corinth, revolted, and its siege materially hastened the outbreak of the war. Archidamus, indeed, the king of the Lacedaemonians, sent ambassadors to Athens, was willing to submit all disputed points to arbitration, and endeavoured to moderate the excitement of his allies, so that war probably would not have broken out if the Athenians could have been persuaded to rescind their decree of exclusion against the Megarians, and to come to terms with them. And, for this reason, Perikles, who was particularly opposed to this, and urged the people not to give way to the Megarians, alone bore the blame of having begun the war.

XXX

It is said, that when an embassy arrived at Athens from Lacedaemon to treat upon these matters, Perikles argued that there was a law which forbade the tablet, on which the decree against the Megarians was written, to be taken down. “Then,” said Polyalkes, one of the ambassadors, “do not take it down, but turn it with its face to the wall; for there is no law against that!”

Clever as this retort was, it had no effect on Perikles. He had, it seems, some private spite at the Megarians, though the ground of quarrel which he put publicly forward was that the Megarians had applied to their own use some of the sacred ground; and he passed a decree for a herald to be sent to the Megarians, and then to go on to the Lacedaemonians to complain of their conduct. This decree of Perikles is worded in a candid and reasonable manner; but the herald, Anthemokritus, was thought to have met his death at the hands of the Megarians, and Charinus passed a decree to the effect that Athens should wage war against them to the death, without truce or armistice; that any Megarian found in Attica should be punished with death, and that the generals, when taking the usual oath for each year, should swear in addition that they would invade the Megarian territory twice every year; and that Anthemokritus should be buried near the city gate leading into the Thriasian plain, which is now called the Double Gate.

Now, the Megarians say that they were not to blame for the murder of Anthemokritus, and lay it upon Perikles and Aspasia, quoting the hackneyed rhymes from the ‘Acharnians,’ of Aristophanes:

“Some young Athenians in their drunken play,

From Megara Simaetha stole away,

The men of Megara next, with angered soul,

Two of Aspasia’s choicest harlots stole.”

XXXI

How the dispute originated it is hard to say, but all writers agree in throwing on Perikles the blame of refusing to reverse the decree. Some attribute his firmness to a wise calculation, saying that the demand was merely made in order to try him, and that any concessions would have been regarded as a sign of weakness; while others say that he treated the Lacedaemonians so cavalierly through pride and a desire to show his own strength. But the worst motive of all, and that to which most men attribute his conduct, was as follows: Pheidias, the sculptor, was, as we have related, entrusted with the task of producing the statue of the tutelary goddess of Athens. His intimacy with Perikles, with whom he had great influence, gained for him many enemies, who, wishing to experiment on the temper of the people towards Perikles himself, bribed Menon, one of Pheidias’s fellow-workmen, to seat himself in the market-place as a suppliant who begged that he might receive protection while he denounced and prosecuted Pheidias. The people took this man under its protection, and Pheidias was prosecuted before the Senate. The alleged charges of theft were not proved, for Pheidias, by the advice of Perikles, had originally fashioned the golden part of the statue in such a manner that it could all be taken off and weighed, and this Perikles bade the prosecutor do on this occasion. But the glory which Pheidias obtained by the reality of his work made him an object of envy and hatred, especially when in his sculpture of the battle with the Amazons on the shield of the goddess he introduced his own portrait as a bald-headed old man lifting a great stone with both hands, and also a very fine representation of Perikles, fighting with an Amazon. The position of the hand, which was holding a spear before the face of Perikles, was ingeniously devised as if to conceal the portrait, which, nevertheless, could plainly be seen on either side of it. For this, Pheidias was imprisoned, and there fell sick and died, though some say that his enemies poisoned him in order to cast suspicion upon Perikles. At the instance of Glykon, the people voted to Menon, the informer, an immunity from public burdens, and ordered the generals of the State to provide for the wretch’s safety.

XXXII

About the same time Aspasia was prosecuted for impiety, at the suit of Hermippus, the comic playwright, who moreover accused her of harbouring free-born Athenian ladies, with whom Perikles carried on intrigues. Also Diopeithes proposed a decree, that prosecutions should be instituted against all persons who disbelieved in religion, and held theories of their own about heavenly phenomena. This was aimed at Perikles through the philosopher Anaxagoras. As the people adopted this decree, and eagerly listened to these slanderous accusations, another decree was carried by Drakontides, that Perikles should lay the accounts of his dealings with the public revenue before the Prytanes, and that the judges should carry their suffrage from the altar in the Acropolis, and go and determine the cause in the city. At the motion of Hagnon this part of the decree was reversed, but he succeeded in having the action conducted before fifteen hundred judges, in a form of trial which one might call either one for theft, or taking of bribes, or for public wrong-doing. Aspasia was acquitted, quite contrary to justice, according to Aeschines, because Perikles shed tears and made a personal appeal to the judges on her behalf. He feared that Anaxagoras would be convicted, and sent him out of the city before his trial commenced. And now, as he had become unpopular by means of Pheidias, he at once blew the war into a flame, hoping to put an end to these prosecutions, and to restore his own personal ascendancy by involving the State in important and dangerous crises, in which it would have to rely for guidance upon himself alone.

These are the causes which are assigned for his refusal to permit the Athenians to make any concession to the Lacedaemonians, but the real history of the transaction will never be known.

XXXIII

Now, as the Lacedaemonians knew that if he could be removed from power they would find the Athenians much more easy to deal with, they bade them, “drive forth the accursed thing,” alluding to Perikles’s descent from the Alkmaeonidae by his mother’s side, as we are told by Thucydides the historian. But this attempt had just the contrary effect to that which they intended; for, instead of suspicion and dislike, Perikles met with much greater honour and respect from his countrymen than before, because they saw that he was an object of especial dislike to the enemy. For this reason, before the Peloponnesians, under Archidamus, invaded Attica, he warned the Athenians that if Archidamus, when he laid waste everything else, spared his own private estate because of the friendly private relations existing between them, or in order to give his personal enemies a ground for impeaching him, that he should give both the land and the farm buildings upon it to the State.

The Lacedaemonians invaded Attica with a great host of their own troops and those of their allies, led by Archidamus, their king. They proceeded, ravaging the country as they went, as far as Acharnae (close to Athens), where they encamped, imagining that the Athenians would never endure to see them there, but would be driven by pride and shame to come out and fight them. However, Perikles thought that it would be a very serious matter to fight for the very existence of Athens against sixty thousand Peloponnesian and Boeotian2 heavy-armed troops, and so he pacified those who were dissatisfied at his inactivity by pointing out that trees when cut down quickly grow again, but that when the men of a State are lost, it is hard to raise up others to take their place. He would not call an assembly of the people, because he feared that they would force him to act against his better judgment, but, just as the captain of a ship, when a storm comes on at sea, places everything in the best trim to meet it, and trusting to his own skill and seamanship, disregarding the tears and entreaties of the sea-sick and terrified passengers; so did Perikles shut the gates of Athens, place sufficient forces to ensure the safety of the city at all points, and calmly carry out his own policy, taking little heed of the noisy grumblings of the discontented. Many of his friends besought him to attack, many of his enemies threatened him and abused him, and many songs and offensive jests were written about him, speaking of him as a coward, and one who was betraying the city to its enemies. Kleon too attacked him, using the anger which the citizens felt against him to advance his own personal popularity, as we see from the following lines of Hermippus:

“King of Satyrs, wherefore fear you

Spear to wield, and only dare to

Talk in swelling phrase, while yet you

Cower, Teles like,

And when goaded on, past bearing,

By our Kleon’s tongue so daring,

Only gnash your teeth despairing,

Still afraid to strike.”

XXXIV

Perikles was unmoved by any of these attacks, but quietly endured all this storm of obloquy. He sent a fleet of a hundred ships to attack Peloponnesus, but did not sail with it himself, remaining at home to keep a tight hand over Athens until the Peloponnesians drew off their forces. He regained his popularity with the common people, who suffered much from the war, by giving them allowances of money from the public revenue, and grants of land; for he drove out the entire population of the island of Aegina, and divided the land by lot among the Athenians. A certain amount of relief also was experienced by reflecting upon the injuries which they were inflicting on the enemy; for the fleet as it sailed round Peloponnesus destroyed many small villages and cities, and ravaged a great extent of country, while Perikles himself led an expedition into the territory of Megara and laid it all waste. By this it is clear that the allies, although they did much damage to the Athenians, yet suffered equally themselves, and never could have protracted the war for such a length of time as it really lasted, but, as Perikles foretold, must soon have desisted had not Providence interfered and confounded human counsels. For now the pestilence fell among the Athenians, and cut off the flower of their youth. Suffering both in body and mind they raved against Perikles, just as people when delirious with disease attack their fathers or their physicians. They endeavoured to ruin him, urged on by his personal enemies, who assured them that he was the author of the plague, because he had brought all the country people into the city, where they were compelled to live during the heat of summer, crowded together in small rooms and stifling tents, living an idle life too, and breathing foul air instead of the pure country breezes to which they were accustomed. The cause of this, they said, was the man who, when the war began, admitted the masses of the country people into the city, and then made no use of them, but allowed them to be penned up together like cattle, and transmit the contagion from one to another, without devising any remedy or alleviation of their sufferings.

XXXV

Hoping to relieve them somewhat, and also to annoy the enemy, Perikles manned a hundred and fifty ships, placed on board, besides the sailors, many brave infantry and cavalry soldiers, and was about to put to sea. The Athenians conceived great hopes, and the enemy no less terror from so large an armament. When all was ready, and Perikles himself had just embarked in his own trireme, an eclipse of the sun took place, producing total darkness, and all men were terrified at so great a portent. Perikles, observing that his helmsman was alarmed and knew not what to do, held his cloak over the man’s eyes and asked him if he thought that a terrible portent. As he answered that he did not, Perikles said: “What is the difference, then, between it and an eclipse of the sun, except that the eclipse is caused by something larger than my cloak?” This subject is discussed by the philosophers in their schools.

Perikles sailed with the fleet, but did nothing worthy of so great a force. He besieged the sacred city of Epidaurus, but, although he had great hopes of taking it, he failed on account of the plague, which destroyed not only his own men, but every one who came in contact with them. After this he again endeavoured to encourage the Athenians, to whom he had become an object of dislike. However, he did not succeed in pacifying them, but they condemned him by a public vote to be general no more, and to pay a fine which is stated at the lowest estimate to have been fifteen talents, and at the highest fifty. This was carried, according to Idomeneus, by Kleon, but according to Theophrastus by Simmias; whilst Herakleides of Pontus says that it was effected by Lakrateides.

XXXVI

He soon regained his public position, for the people’s outburst of anger was quenched by the blow they had dealt him, just as a bee leaves its sting in the wound; but his private affairs were in great distress and disorder, as he had lost many of his relatives during the plague, while others were estranged from him on political grounds. Xanthippus too, the eldest of his legitimate sons, who was a spendthrift by nature and married to a woman of expensive habits, a daughter of Tisander, the son of Epilykus, could not bear with his father’s stingy ways and the small amount of money which he allowed him. He consequently sent to one of his friends and borrowed money from him as if Perikles had authorised him to do so. When the friend asked for his money back again, Perikles prosecuted him, at which proceeding young Xanthippus was enraged and abused his father, sneering at his way of life and his discussions with the sophists. When some athlete accidentally killed Epitimus of Pharsalus with a javelin, he said that Perikles spent the whole day arguing with Protagoras whether in strict accuracy the javelin, or the man who threw it, or the stewards of the games, ought to be considered the authors of the mishap. And, besides this, Stesimbrotus tells us that Xanthippus put about that scandal about his father and his own wife, so that the father and son remained irreconcilable enemies until Xanthippus’s death, which happened during the plague, by an attack of that disorder. At the same time Perikles lost his sister and most of his relations, especially those who supported his policy. Yet he would not yield, nor abate his firmness and constancy of spirit because of these afflictions, but was not observed to weep or mourn, or attend the funeral of any of his relations, until he lost Paralus, the last of his legitimate offspring. Crushed by this blow, he tried in vain to keep up his grand air of indifference, and when carrying a garland to lay upon the corpse he was overpowered by his feelings, so as to burst into a passion of tears and sobs, which he had never done before in his whole life.

XXXVII

Athens made trial of her other generals and public men to conduct her affairs, but none appeared to be of sufficient weight or reputation to have such a charge entrusted to him. The city longed for Perikles, and invited him again to lead its counsels and direct its armies; and he, although dejected in spirits and living in seclusion in his own house, was yet persuaded by Alkibiades and his other friends to resume the direction of affairs. The people apologised for their ungrateful treatment of him, and when he was again in office and elected as general, he begged of them to be released from the operations of the law of bastardy, which he himself had originally introduced, in order that his name and race might not altogether become extinct for want of an heir. The provisions of the law were as follows:—Perikles many years before, when he was at the height of his power and had children born to him, as we have related, of legitimate birth, proposed a law that only those born of an Athenian father and mother should be reckoned Athenian citizens. But when the king of Egypt sent a present of forty thousand medimni of wheat to be divided among the citizens, many lawsuits arose about the citizenship of men whose birth had never been questioned before that law came into force, and many vexatious informations were laid. Nearly five thousand men were convicted of illegitimacy of birth and sold for slaves, while those who retained their citizenship and proved themselves to be genuine Athenians amounted to fourteen thousand and forty. It was indeed an unreasonable request that a law which had been enforced in so many instances should now be broken in the person of its own author, but Perikles’s domestic misfortunes, in which he seemed to have paid the penalty for his former haughtiness and pride, touched the hearts of the Athenians so much that they thought his sorrows deserving of their pity, and his request such as he was entitled to make and they to grant in common charity, and they consented to his illegitimate son being enrolled in his own tribe and bearing his own name. This man was subsequently put to death by the people, together with all his colleagues, for their conduct after the sea-fight at Arginusae.

XXXVIII

After this it appears that Perikles was attacked by the plague, not acutely or continuously, as in most cases, but in a slow wasting fashion, exhibiting many varieties of symptoms, and gradually undermining his strength. Theophrastus, in his treatise on Ethics, discusses whether a man’s character can be changed by disease, and whether virtue depends upon bodily health. As an example, he quotes a story that Perikles, when one of his friends came to visit him during his sickness, showed him a charm hung round his neck, as a proof that he must be indeed ill to submit to such a piece of folly. As he was now on his deathbed, the most distinguished of the citizens and his surviving friends collected round him and spoke admiringly of his nobleness and immense power, enumerating also the number of his exploits, and the trophies which he had set up for victories gained; for while in chief command he had won no less than nine victories for Athens. They were talking thus to one another in his presence, imagining that he could no longer understand them, but had lost his power of attending to them. He, however, was following all that they said, and suddenly broke silence, saying that he was surprised at their remembering and praising him for the exploits which depended entirely upon fortune for their success, and which many other generals had done as well as himself, while they did not mention his greatest and most glorious title to fame. “No Athenian,” said he, “ever wore black because of me.”

XXXIX

Perikles was to be admired, not only for his gentleness and mildness of spirit, which he preserved through the most violent political crises and outbreaks of personal hatred to himself, but also for his lofty disposition. He himself accounted it his greatest virtue that he never gave way to feelings of envy or hatred, but from his own exalted pinnacle of greatness never regarded any man as so much his enemy that he could never be his friend. This alone, in my opinion, justifies that outrageous nickname of his, and gives it a certain propriety; for so serene and impartial a man, utterly uncorrupt though possessed of great power, might naturally be called Olympian. Thus it is that we believe that the gods, who are the authors of all good and of no evil to men, rule over us and over all created things, not as the poets describe them in their bewildering fashion, which their own poems prove to be untrue. The poets describe the abode of the gods as a safe and untroubled place where no wind or clouds are, always enjoying a mild air and clear light, thinking such a place to be fittest for a life of immortal blessedness; while they represent the gods themselves as full of disorder and anger and spite and other passions, which are not becoming even to mortal men of common sense. Those reflections, however, perhaps belong to another subject.

Events soon made the loss of Perikles felt and regretted by the Athenians. Those who during his lifetime had complained that his power completely threw them into the shade, when after his death they had made trial of other orators and statesmen, were obliged to confess that with all his arrogance no man ever was really more moderate, and that his real mildness in dealing with men was as remarkable as his apparent pride and assumption. His power, which had been so grudged and envied, and called monarchy and despotism, now was proved to have been the saving of the State; such an amount of corrupt dealing and wickedness suddenly broke out in public affairs, which he before had crushed and forced to hide itself, and so prevented its becoming incurable through impunity and licence.

LIFE OF
FABIUS MAXIMUS.

I

Such a man did Perikles show himself to be in his most memorable acts, as far as they are extant.

Let us now turn our attention to Fabius.

The first of the family is said to descend from one of the nymphs, according to some writers, according to others from an Italian lady who became the mother of Fabius by Hercules near the river Tiber. From him descended the family of the Fabii, one of the largest and most renowned in Rome. Some say that the men of this race were the first to use pitfalls in hunting, and were anciently named Fodii in consequence; for up to the present day ditches are called fossae, and to dig is called fodere in Latin: and thus in time the two sounds became confused, and they obtained the name of Fabii. The family produced many distinguished men, the greatest of whom was Rullus, who was for that reason named Maximus by the Romans. From him Fabius Maximus, of whom I am now writing, was fourth in descent. His own personal nickname was Verrucosus, because he had a little wart growing on his upper lip. The name of Ovicula, signifying sheep, was also given him while yet a child, because of his slow and gentle disposition. He was quiet and silent, very cautious in taking part in children’s games, and learned his lessons slowly and with difficulty, which, combined with his easy obliging ways with his comrades, made those who did not know him think that he was dull and stupid. Few there were who could discern, hidden in the depths of his soul, his glorious and lion-like character. Soon, however, as time went on, and he began to take part in public affairs, he proved that his apparent want of energy was really due to serenity of intellect, that he was cautious because he weighed matters well beforehand, and that while he was never eager or easily moved, yet he was always steady and trustworthy. Observing the immense extent of the empire, and the numerous wars in which it was engaged, he exercised his body in warlike exercises, regarding it as his natural means of defence, while he also studied oratory as the means by which to influence the people, in a style suited to his own life and character. In his speeches there were no flowery passages, no empty graces of style, but there was a plain common sense peculiar to himself, and a depth of sententious maxims which is said to have resembled Thucydides. One of his speeches is extant, a funeral oration which he made in public over his son who died after he had been consul.

II

He was consul five times, and in his first consulship obtained a triumph over the Ligurians. They were defeated by him and driven with great loss to take refuge in the Alps, and thus were prevented from ravaging the neighbouring parts of Italy as they had been wont to do. When Hannibal invaded Italy, won his first battle at the Trebia, and marched through Etruria, laying everything waste as he went, the Romans were terribly disheartened and cast down, and terrible prodigies took place, some of the usual kind, that is, by lightning, and others of an entirely new and strange character. It was said that shields of their own accord became drenched with blood: that at Antium standing corn bled when it was cut by the reapers; that red-hot stones fell from heaven, and that the sky above Falerii was seen to open and tablets to fall, on one of which was written the words “Mars is shaking his arms.”

None of these omens had any effect upon Caius Flaminius, the consul, for, besides his naturally spirited and ambitious nature, he was excited by the successes which he had previously won, contrary to all reasonable probability. Once, against the express command of the Senate, and in spite of the opposition of his colleague, he engaged with the Gauls and won a victory over them. Fabius also was but little disturbed by the omens, because of their strange and unintelligible character, though many were alarmed at them. Knowing how few the enemy were in numbers, and their great want of money and supplies, he advised the Romans not to offer battle to a man who had at his disposal an army trained by many previous encounters to a rare pitch of perfection, but rather to send reinforcements to their allies, keep a tight hand over their subject cities, and allow Hannibal’s brilliant little force to die away like a lamp which flares up brightly with but little oil to sustain it.

III

This reasoning had no effect upon Flaminius, who said that he would not endure to see an enemy marching upon Rome, and would not, like Camillus of old, fight in the streets of Rome herself. He ordered the military tribunes to put the army in motion, and himself leaped upon his horse’s back. The horse for no visible reason shied in violent terror, and Flaminius was thrown headlong to the ground. He did not, however, alter his determination, but marched to meet Hannibal, and drew up his forces for battle near the lake Thrasymenus, in Etruria. When the armies met, an earthquake took place which destroyed cities, changed the courses of rivers, and cast down the crests of precipices; but in spite of its violence, no one of the combatants perceived it. Flaminius himself, after many feats of strength and courage, fell dead, and around him lay the bravest Romans. The rest fled, and the slaughter was so great that fifteen thousand were killed, and as many more taken prisoners. Hannibal generously desired to bury the body of Flaminius with military honours, to show his esteem for the consul’s bravery; but it could not be found among the slain, and no one knew how it disappeared.

The defeat at the Trebia had not been clearly explained either by the general who wrote the despatch, or by the messenger who carried it, as they falsely represented it to have been a drawn battle; but as soon as the praetor Pomponius heard the news of this second misfortune, he assembled the people in the Forum, and said, without any roundabout apologies whatever, “Romans, we have lost a great battle, the army is destroyed, and the consul Flaminius has fallen. Now, therefore, take counsel for your own safety.” These words produced the same impression on the people that a gust of wind does upon the sea. No one could calmly reflect after such a sudden downfall of their hopes. All, however, agreed that the State required one irresponsible ruler, which the Romans call a dictatorship, and a man who would fulfil this office with fearless energy. Such a man, they felt, was Fabius Maximus, who was sufficiently qualified for the office by his abilities and the respect which his countrymen bore him, and was moreover at that time of life when the strength of the body is fully capable of carrying out the ideas of the mind, but when courage is somewhat tempered by discretion.

IV

As soon as the people had passed their decree, Fabius was appointed dictator,1 and appointed Marcus Minucius his master of the horse. First, however, he begged of the Senate to allow him the use of a horse during his campaigns. There was an ancient law forbidding this practice, either because the main strength of the army was thought to lie in the columns of infantry, and for that reason the dictator ought to remain always with them, or else because, while in all other respects the dictator’s power is equal to that of a king, it was thought well that in this one point he should have to ask leave of the people. Next, however, Fabius, wishing at once to show the greatness and splendour of his office, and so make the citizens more ready to obey him, appeared in public with all his twenty-four lictors at once; and when the surviving consul met him, he sent an officer to bid him dismiss his lictors, lay aside his insignia of office, and come before him as a mere private citizen. After this he began in the best possible way, that is, by a religious ceremony, and assured the people that it was in consequence of the impiety and carelessness of their late general, not by any fault of the army, that they had been defeated. Thus he encouraged them not to fear their enemies, but to respect the gods and render them propitious, not that he implanted any superstitious observances among them, but he confirmed their valour by piety, and took away from them all fear of the enemy by the hopes which he held out to them of divine protection. At this time many of the holy and mysterious books, which contain secrets of great value to the State, were inspected. These are called the Sibylline books. One of the sentences preserved in these was said to have an evident bearing on contemporary events; what it was can only be guessed at by what was done. The dictator appeared before the people and publicly vowed to the gods a ver sacrum, that is, all the young which the next spring should produce, from the goats, the sheep, and the kine on every mountain, and plain, and river, and pasture within the bounds of Italy. All these he swore that he would sacrifice, and moreover that he would exhibit musical and dramatic shows, and expend upon them the sum of three hundred and thirty-three sestertia, and three hundred and thirty-three denarii, and one-third of a denarius. The sum total of this in our Greek money is eighty-three thousand five hundred and eighty-three drachmas and two obols. What the particular virtue of this exact number may be it is hard to determine, unless it be on account of the value of the number three, which is by nature perfect, and the first of odd numbers, the first also of plurals, and containing within itself all the elements of the qualities of number.

V

Fabius, by teaching the people to rest their hopes on religion, made them view the future with a more cheerful heart. For his own part, he trusted entirely to himself to win the victory, believing that Heaven grants men success according to the valour and conduct which they display. He marched against Hannibal, not with any design of fighting him, but of wearing out his army by long delays, until he could, by his superior numbers and resources, deal with him easily. With this object in view he always took care to secure himself from Hannibal’s cavalry, by occupying the mountains overhanging the Carthaginian camp, where he remained quiet as long as the enemy did, but when they moved he used to accompany them, showing himself at intervals upon the heights at such a distance as not to be forced to fight against his will, and yet, from the very slowness of his movements, making the enemy fear that at every moment he was about to attack. By these dilatory manoeuvres he incurred general contempt, and was looked upon with disgust by his own soldiers, while the enemy, with the exception of one man, thought him utterly without warlike enterprise. That man was Hannibal himself. He alone perceived Fabius’s true generalship and thorough comprehension of the war, and saw that either he must by some means be brought to fight a battle, or else the Carthaginians were lost, if they could not make use of their superiority in arms, but were to be worn away and reduced in number and resources, in which they were already deficient. He put in force every conceivable military stratagem and device, like a skilful wrestler when he tries to lay hold of his antagonist, and kept attacking Fabius, skirmishing round him, and drawing him from place to place, in his endeavours to make him quit his policy of caution. But Fabius was convinced that he was right, and steadily declined battle. His master of the horse, Minucius, who longed for action, gave him much trouble. This man made unseemly boasts, and harangued the army, filling it with wild excitement and self-confidence. The soldiers in derision used to call Fabius Hannibal’s lacquey, because he followed him wherever he went, and thought Minucius a really great general, and worthy of the name of Roman. Minucius, encouraged in his arrogant vauntings, began to ridicule the habit of encamping on the mountain-tops, saying that the dictator always took care to provide them with good seats from which to behold the spectacle of the burning and plundering of Italy, and used to ask the friends of Fabius whether he took his army up so near the sky because he had ceased to take any interest in what went on on the earth below, or whether it was in order to conceal it from the enemy among the clouds and mists. When Fabius was informed of these insults by his friends, who begged him to wipe away this disgrace by risking a battle, he answered, “If I did so, I should be more cowardly than I am now thought to be, in abandoning the policy which I have determined on because of men’s slanders and sneers. It is no shame to fear for one’s country, but to regard the opinions and spiteful criticisms of the people would be unworthy of the high office which I hold, and would show me the slave of those whom I ought to govern and restrain when they would fain do wrong.”

VI

After this, Hannibal made a blunder. Wishing to move his army further from that of Fabius, and to gain an open part of the country where he could obtain forage, he ordered his guides one night after supper to lead the way at once to Casinatum. They, misunderstanding him because of his foreign pronunciation, led his forces to the borders of Campania, near the city of Casilinum, through the midst of which flows the river Lothronus, which the Romans call Vulturnus. This country is full of mountains, except one valley that runs towards the sea-coast, where the river at the end of its course overflows into extensive marshes, with deep beds of sand. The beach itself is rough and impracticable for shipping.

When Hannibal was marching down this valley, Fabius, by his superior knowledge of the country, came up with him, placed four thousand men to guard the narrow outlet, established the main body in a safe position in the mountains, and with the light-armed troops fell upon and harassed the rear of Hannibal’s army, throwing it all into disorder, and killing about eight hundred men. Upon this, Hannibal determined to retrace his steps. Perceiving the mistake which he had made, and the danger he was in, he crucified his guides, but still could not tell how to force his way out through the Roman army which was in possession of the mountain passes. While all were terrified and disheartened, believing themselves to be beset on all sides by dangers from which there was no escape, Hannibal decided on extricating himself by stratagem. Taking about two thousand captured oxen, he ordered his soldiers to bind a torch or faggot of dry wood to their horns, and at night at a given signal to set them on fire, and drive the animals towards the narrow outlet near the enemy’s camp. While this was being done, he got the remainder of the troops under arms and led them slowly forward. The cattle, while the flame was moderate, and burned only the wood, walked steadily forward towards the mountain side, astonishing the shepherds on the mountain, who thought that it must be an army, marching in one great column, carrying torches. But when their horns were burned to the quick, causing them considerable pain, the beasts, now scorched by the fire from one another as they shook their heads, set off in wild career over the mountains, with their foreheads and tails blazing, setting fire to a great part of the wood through which they passed. The Romans watching the pass were terribly scared at the sight; for the flames looked like torches carried by men running, and they fell into great confusion and alarm, thinking that they were surrounded, and about to be attacked on all sides by the enemy. They dared not remain at their post, but abandoned the pass, and made for the main body. At that moment Hannibal’s light troops took possession of the heights commanding the outlet, and the main army marched safely through, loaded with plunder.

VII

It happened that while it was yet night Fabius perceived the trick; for some of the oxen in their flight had fallen into the hands of the Romans; but, fearing to fall into an ambuscade in the darkness, he kept his men quiet under arms. When day broke he pursued and attacked the rearguard, which led to many confused skirmishes in the rough ground, and produced great confusion, till Hannibal sent back his practised Spanish mountaineers from the head of his column. These men, being light and active, attacked the heavily-armed Roman infantry and beat off Fabius’ attack with very considerable loss. Now Fabius’s unpopularity reached its highest pitch, and he was regarded with scorn and contempt. He had, they said, determined to refrain from a pitched battle, meaning to overcome Hannibal by superior generalship, and he had been defeated in that too. And Hannibal himself, wishing to increase the dislike which the Romans felt for him, though he burned and ravaged every other part of Italy, forbade his men to touch Fabius’s own estates, and even placed a guard to see that no damage was done to them. This was reported at Rome, greatly to his discredit; and the tribunes of the people brought all kinds of false accusations against him in public harangues, instigated chiefly by Metilius, who was not Fabius’s personal enemy, but being a relative of Minucius, the Master of the Horse, thought that he was pressing the interests of the latter by giving currency to all these scandalous reports about Fabius. He was also disliked by the Senate because of the terms which he had arranged with Hannibal about the exchange of prisoners. The two commanders agreed that the prisoners should be exchanged man for man, and that if either party had more than the other, he should redeem for two hundred and fifty drachmas per man. When, then, this exchange took place, two hundred and forty Romans were found remaining in Hannibal’s hands. The Senate determined not to send these men’s ransom, and blamed Fabius for having acted improperly and against the interests of the State in taking back men whose cowardice had made them fall into the hands of the enemy. Fabius, on hearing this, was not moved at the discontent of the citizens, but having no money, as he could not bear to deceive Hannibal and give up his countrymen, sent his son to Rome with orders to sell part of his estate, and bring him the money at once to the camp. The young man soon sold the land, and quickly returned. Fabius now sent the ransom to Hannibal and recovered the prisoners, many of whom afterwards offered to repay him; but he would take nothing, and forgave their debt to them all.

VIII

After this the priests recalled him to Rome to perform certain sacrifices. He now transferred the command to Minucius, and not merely ordered him as dictator not to fight or entangle himself with the enemy, but even gave him much advice and besought him not to do so, all of which Minucius set at nought, and at once attacked the enemy. Once he observed that Hannibal had sent the greater part of his army out to forage for provisions, and, attacking the remaining troops, he drove them into their intrenched camp, slew many, and terrified the rest, who feared that he might carry the camp by assault. When Hannibal’s forces collected again, Minucius effected his retreat with safety, having excited both himself and the army with his success, and filled them with a spirit of reckless daring. Soon an inflated report of the action reached Rome. Fabius, when he heard of it, said that with Minucius he feared success more than failure; but the populace were delighted, and joyfully collected in the Forum, where Metilius the tribune ascended the rostra, and made a speech glorifying Minucius, and accusing Fabius not merely of remissness or cowardice, but of actual treachery, accusing also the other leading men of the city of having brought on the war from the very beginning in order to destroy the constitution; and he also charged them with having placed the city in the hands of one man as dictator, who by his dilatory proceedings would give Hannibal time to establish himself firmly and to obtain reinforcements from Africa to enable him to conquer Italy.

IX

When Fabius addressed the people, he did not deign to make any defence against the accusations of the tribune, but said that he should accomplish his sacrifices and sacred duties as quickly as possible, in order to return to the army and punish Minucius for having fought a battle against his orders. At this a great clamour was raised by the people, who feared for their favourite Minucius, for a dictator has power to imprison any man, and even to put him to death; and they thought that Fabius, a mild-tempered man now at last stirred up to wrath, would be harsh and inexorable. All refrained from speaking, but Metilius, having nothing to fear because of the privileges of his office of tribune (for that is the only office which does not lose its prerogatives on the election of a dictator, but remains untouched though all the rest are annulled), made a violent appeal to the people, begging them not to give up Minucius, nor allow him to be treated as Manlius Torquatus treated his son, who had him beheaded, although he had fought most bravely and gained a crown of laurel for his victory. He asked them to remove Fabius from his dictatorship, and to bestow it upon one who was able and willing to save the country. Excited as they were by these words, they yet did not venture upon removing Fabius from his post, in spite of their feeling against him, but they decreed that Minucius should conduct the war, having equal powers with the dictator, a thing never before done in Rome, but which occurred shortly afterwards, after the disaster at Cannae, when Marcus Junius was dictator in the camp, and, as many members of the Senate had perished in the battle, they chose another dictator, Fabius Buteo. However, he, after enrolling the new senators, on the same day dismissed his lictors, got rid of the crowd which escorted him, and mixed with the people in the Forum, transacting some business of his own as a private man.

X

Now the people, by placing Minucius on the same footing with the dictator, thought to humble Fabius, but they formed a very false estimate of his character. He did not reckon their ignorance to be his misfortune, but as Diogenes the philosopher, when some one said “They are deriding you,” answered “But I am not derided,” thinking that those alone are derided who are affected and disturbed by it, so Fabius quietly and unconcernedly endured all that was done, hereby affording an example of the truth of that philosophic maxim that a good and honest man can suffer no disgrace. Yet he grieved over the folly of the people on public grounds, because they had given a man of reckless ambition an opportunity for indulging his desire for battle; and, fearing that Minucius would be altogether beside himself with pride and vain glory, and would soon do some irreparable mischief, he left Rome unperceived by any one. On reaching the camp, he found Minucius no longer endurable, but insolent and overbearing, and demanding to have the sole command every other day. To this Fabius would not agree, but divided his forces with him, thinking it better to command a part than partly to command the whole of the army. He took the first and fourth legion, and left the second and third to Minucius, dividing the auxiliary troops equally with him.

As Minucius gave himself great airs, and was gratified at the thought that the greatest officer in the State had been humbled and brought low by his means, Fabius reminded him that if he judged aright, he would regard Hannibal, not Fabius, as his enemy; but that if he persisted in his rivalry with his colleagues, he must beware lest he, the honoured victor, should appear more careless of the safety and success of his countrymen, than he who had been overcome and ill-treated by them.

XI

Minucius thought all this to be merely the expression of the old man’s jealousy. He took his allotted troops, and encamped apart from him. Hannibal was not ignorant of what was passing, and watched all their movements narrowly.

There was a hill between the two armies, which it was not difficult to take, which when taken would afford an army a safe position, and one well supplied with necessaries. The plain by which it was surrounded appeared to be perfectly smooth, but was nevertheless intersected with ditches and other hollow depressions. On this account Hannibal would not take the hill, although he could easily have done so, but preferred to leave it untouched, in order to draw the enemy into fighting for its possession. But as soon as he saw Fabius separated from Minucius, he placed during the night some troops in the depressions and hollows which we have mentioned, and at daybreak sent a few men to take the hill, in order to draw Minucius into fighting for it, in which he succeeded. Minucius first sent out his light troops, then his cavalry, and finally, seeing that Hannibal was reinforcing the troops on the hill, he came down with his entire force. He fought stoutly, and held his own against the soldiers on the hill, who shot their missiles at him; when Hannibal, seeing him thoroughly deceived, and offering an unprotected flank to the troops in the ambush, gave them the signal to charge. Upon this they attacked the Romans from all sides, rushing upon them with loud shouts, cutting off the rearmost men, and throwing the whole army into confusion and panic. Minucius himself lost heart and kept glancing first at one and then at another of his officers, none of whom ventured to stand their ground, but betook themselves in a confused mass to running away, a proceeding which brought them no safety, for the Numidian horsemen, as the day was now theirs, scoured the plain, encompassing the fugitives, and cut off all stragglers.

XII

Fabius had carefully watched the Romans, and saw in what danger they were. Conscious, it would seem, of what was going to happen, he had kept his troops under arms, and gained his information of what was going on, not from the reports of scouts, but from his own eyesight, from a convenient height outside of his camp. As soon as he saw the army surrounded and panic-stricken, and heard the cries of the Romans, who no longer fought, but were overcome by terror, and betaking themselves to flight, he smote his thigh and with a deep sigh, said to his friends, “By Hercules, now Minucius has ruined himself, quicker than I expected, and yet slower than his manoeuvres warranted.” Having given orders to carry out the standards as quickly as possible, and for the whole army to follow, he said aloud, “My men, hurry on your march: think of Marcus Minucius; he is a brave man and loves his country. If he has made any mistake in his haste to drive out the enemy, we will blame him for that at another time.” The appearance of Fabius scared and drove back the Numidians, who were slaughtering the fugitives in the plain; next he bore against those who were attacking the Roman rear, slaying all he met, though most of them, before they were cut off and treated as they had treated the Romans, betook themselves to flight. Hannibal seeing that the fortune of the battle was changed, and how Fabius himself, with a strength beyond his years, was forcing his way through the thickest battle up the hill to reach Minucius, withdrew his troops, and, sounding a retreat, led them back into his entrenched camp, affording a most seasonable relief to the Romans. It is said that Hannibal as he retired, spoke jokingly about Fabius to his friends in the words, “Did I not often warn you that the dark cloud which has so long brooded on the mountain tops, would at last break upon us with blasts of hail and storm?”

XIII

After the battle Fabius collected the spoils of such of the enemy as were slain, and drew off his forces without letting fall a single boastful or offensive expression about his colleague. But Minucius assembled his own troops, and thus addressed them, “My fellow-soldiers, it is beyond human skill to make no mistakes in matters of importance, but it is the part of a man of courage and sense to use his mistakes as warnings for the future. I myself confess that I have little fault to find with Fortune, and great reason to thank her; for in the space of one day I have learned what I never knew in all my previous life: that is, that I am not able to command others, but myself require a commander, and I have no ambition to conquer a man by whom it is more glorious to be defeated. The dictator is your leader in everything except in this, that I will lead you to express your thankfulness to him, by being the first to offer myself to him as an example of obedience and willingness to carry out his orders.” After these words he ordered the eagles to be raised aloft and all the soldiers to follow them to the camp of Fabius. On entering it, he proceeded to the General’s tent, to the surprise and wonderment of all. When Fabius was come out, he placed his standards in the ground before him, and himself addressed him as father in a loud voice, while his soldiers greeted those of Fabius by the name of their Patrons, which is the name by which freed men address those who have set them free. Silence being enforced, Minucius said: “Dictator, you have won two victories to-day, for you have conquered Hannibal by your bravery, and your colleague by your kindness and your generalship. By the one you have saved our lives, and by the other you have taught us our duty, for we have been disgracefully defeated by Hannibal, but beneficially and honourably by you. I call you my excellent father, having no more honourable appellation to bestow, since I owe a greater debt of gratitude to you than to him who begot me. To him I merely owe my single life, but to you I owe not only that but the lives of all my men.” After these words he embraced Fabius, and the soldiers followed his example, embracing and kissing one another, so that the camp was full of joy and of most blessed tears.

XIV

After this, Fabius laid down his office, and consuls were again elected. Those who were first elected followed the defensive policy of Fabius, avoiding pitched battles with Hannibal, but reinforcing the allies and preventing defections. But when Terentius Varro was made consul, a man of low birth, but notorious for his rash temper and his popularity with the people, he made no secret, in his inexperience and self-confidence, of his intention of risking everything on one cast. He was always reiterating in his public speeches that under such generals as Fabius the war made no progress, whereas he would conquer the enemy the first day he saw him. By means of these boastful speeches he enrolled as soldiers such a multitude as the Romans had never before had at their disposal in any war, for there collected for the battle eighty-eight thousand men. This caused great disquietude to Fabius and other sensible Romans, who feared that if so many of the youth of Rome were cut off, the city would never recover from the blow. They addressed themselves therefore to the other consul, Paulus Aemilius, a man of great experience in war, but disagreeable to the people and afraid of them because he had once been fined by them. Fabius encouraged him to attempt to hold the other consul’s rashness in check, pointing out that he would have to fight for his country’s safety with Terentius Varro no less than with Hannibal. Varro, he said, will hasten to engage because he does not know his own strength, and Hannibal will do so because he knows his own weakness. “I myself, Paulus,” said he, “am more to be believed than Varro as to the condition of Hannibal’s affairs, and I am sure that if no battle takes place with him for a year, he will either perish in this country or be compelled to quit it; because even now, when he seems to be victorious and carrying all before him, not one of his enemies have come over to his side, while scarcely a third of the force which he brought from home is now surviving.” It is said that Paulus answered as follows: “For my own part, Fabius, it is better for me to fall by the spears of the enemy than be again condemned by the votes of my own countrymen; but if public affairs are indeed in this critical situation, I will endeavour rather to approve myself a good general to you than to all those who are urging me to the opposite course.” With this determination Paulus began the campaign.

XV

Varro induced his colleague to adopt the system of each consul holding the chief command on alternate days. He proceeded to encamp near Hannibal on the banks of the river Aufidus, close to the village of Cannae. At daybreak he showed the signal of battle (a red tunic displayed over the General’s tent), so that the Carthaginians were at first disheartened at the daring of the consul and the great number of his troops, more than twice that of their own army. Hannibal ordered his soldiers to get under arms, and himself rode with a few others to a rising ground, from which he viewed the enemy, who were already forming their ranks. When one Gisco, a man of his own rank, said to him that the numbers of the enemy were wonderful, Hannibal with a serious air replied, “Another circumstance much more wonderful than this has escaped your notice, Gisco.” When Gisco asked what it might be, Hannibal answered, “It is, that among all those men before you there is not one named Gisco.” At this unexpected answer they all began to laugh, and as they came down the hill they kept telling this joke to all whom they met, so that the laugh became universal, and Hannibal’s staff was quite overpowered with merriment. The Carthaginian soldiers seeing this took courage, thinking that their General must be in a position to despise his enemy if he could thus laugh and jest in the presence of danger.

XVI

In the battle Hannibal employed several stratagems: first, in securing the advantage of position, by getting the wind at his back, for it blew a hurricane, raising a harsh dust from the sandy plains, which rose over the Carthaginians and blew in the faces of the Romans, throwing them into confusion. Secondly, in his disposition of his forces he showed great skill. The best troops were placed on the wings, and the centre, which was composed of the worst, was made to project far beyond the rest of the line. The troops on each wing were told that when the Romans had driven in this part of the line and were so become partly enclosed, that each wing must turn inwards, and attack them in the flank and rear and endeavour to surround them. This was the cause of the greatest slaughter; for when the centre gave way, and made room for the pursuing Romans, Hannibal’s line assumed a crescent form, and the commanders of the select battalions charging from the right and left of the Romans attacked them in flank, destroying every man except such as escaped being surrounded. It is related that a similar disaster befel the Roman cavalry. The horse of Paulus was wounded, and threw its rider, upon which man after man of his staff dismounted and came to help the consul on foot. The cavalry, seeing this, took it for a general order to dismount, and at once attacked the enemy on foot. Hannibal, seeing this, said, “I am better pleased at this than if he had handed them over to me bound hand and foot.” This anecdote is found in those writers who have described the incidents of the battle in detail. Of the consuls, Varro escaped with a few followers to Venusia. Paulus, in the whirling eddies of the rout, covered with darts which still stuck in his wounds, and overwhelmed with sorrow at the defeat, sat down on a stone to await his death at the hands of the enemy. The blood with which his face and head were covered made it hard for any one to recognise him; but even his own friends and servants passed him by, taking no heed of him. Only Cornelius Lentulus, a young patrician, saw and recognised him. Dismounting from his horse and leading it up to him he begged him to take it and preserve his life, at a time when the State especially needed a wise ruler. But he refused, and forced the youth, in spite of his tears, to remount his horse. He then took him by the hand, saying, “Lentulus, tell Fabius Maximus, and bear witness yourself, that Paulus Aemilius followed his instructions to the last, and departed from nothing of what was agreed upon between us; but he was vanquished first by Varro, and secondly by Hannibal.” Having given Lentulus these instructions he sent him away, and flinging himself on to the enemy’s swords perished. In that battle it is reckoned that fifty thousand Romans fell, and four thousand were taken prisoners, besides not less than ten thousand who were taken after the battle in the camps of the two consuls.

XVII

After this immense success, Hannibal was urged by his friends to follow up his victory and enter Rome with the fugitives, promising that five days thereafter he should sup in the Capitol. It is not easy to say what reasons could have deterred him from doing so, and it seems rather as if some divinity prevented his march, and inspired him with the dilatory and timid policy which he followed. It is said that the Carthaginian, Barca, said to him, “You know how to win a victory, but do not know how to use one.” Yet so great a change was effected by this victory that he, who before it had not possessed a single city, market, or harbour in Italy, and had to obtain his provisions with the utmost difficulty by plunder, having no regular base of operations, but merely wandering about with his army as though carrying on brigandage on a large scale, now saw nearly the whole of Italy at his feet. Some of the largest and most powerful States came over to him of their own accord, and he attacked and took Capua, the most important city next to Rome itself.

It would appear that the saying of Euripides, that “adversity tries our friends,” applies also to good generals. That which before this battle was called Fabius’s cowardice and remissness, was now regarded as more than human sagacity, and a foresight so wonderful as to be beyond belief. Rome at once centred her last hopes upon Fabius, taking refuge in his wisdom as men take sanctuary at an altar, believing his discretion to be the chief cause of her surviving this present crisis, even as in the old Gaulish troubles. For though he had been so cautious and backward at a time when there seemed to be no imminent danger, yet now when every one was giving way to useless grief and lamentation, he alone walked through the streets at a calm pace, with a composed countenance and kindly voice, stopped all womanish wailings and assemblies in public to lament their losses, persuaded the Senate to meet, and gave fresh courage to the magistrates, being really himself the moving spirit and strength of the State, which looked to him alone to command it.

XVIII

He placed guards at the gates to prevent the mob from quitting the city, and regulated the period of mourning, bidding every man mourn for thirty days in his own house, after which all signs of mourning were to be put away. As the feast of Ceres fell during those days, it was thought better to omit both the sacrifices and the processions than to have them marred by the consciousness of their misfortune, which would be painfully evident in the small number of worshippers and their downcast looks. However, everything that the soothsayers commanded to appease the anger of the gods and to expiate prodigies was carried out. Fabius Pictor, a relative of the great Fabius, was sent to Delphi, and of two of the Vestal virgins who were found to have been seduced, one was buried alive, as is the usual custom, while the other died by her own hand. Especially admirable was the spirit and the calm composure of the city when the consul Varro returned after his flight. He came humbled to the dust, as a man would who had been the cause of a terrible disaster, but at the gate the Senate and all the people went out to greet him. The chief men and the magistrates, amongst whom was Fabius, having obtained silence, spoke in praise of him “because he had not despaired of the State after such a calamity, but had come back to undertake the conduct of affairs and do what he could for his countrymen as one who thought they might yet be saved.”

XIX

When they learned that Hannibal after the battle had turned away from Rome to other parts of Italy, the Romans again took courage and sent out armies and generals. Of those the most remarkable were Fabius Maximus and Claudius Marcellus, both equally admirable, but from an entirely different point of view. Marcellus, as has been related in his Life, was a man of activity and high spirit, rejoicing in a hand-to-hand fight, and just like the lordly warriors of Homer. With a truly venturesome audacity, he in his first battles outdid in boldness even the bold Hannibal himself; while Fabius, on the other hand, was convinced that his former reasoning was true, and believed that without any one fighting or even meddling with Hannibal, his army would wear itself out and consume away, just as the body of an athlete when overstrained and exerted soon loses its fine condition. For this reason Poseidonius calls Fabius the shield, and Marcellus the sword of Rome, because the steadiness of Fabius, combined with the warlike ardour of Marcellus, proved the saving of the state. Hannibal, frequently meeting Marcellus, who was like a raging torrent, had his forces shaken and weakened; while Fabius, like a deep quiet river kept constantly undermining them and wasting them away unperceived. Hannibal was at length reduced to such extremities that he was weary of fighting Marcellus, and feared Fabius even though he did not fight: for these were the persons whom he generally had to deal with, as praetors, consuls, or pro-consuls, for each of them was five times consul. He drew Marcellus, when consul for the fifth time, into an ambuscade; but although he tried every art and stratagem upon Fabius he could effect nothing, except once, when he very nearly succeeded in ruining him. He forged letters from the leading citizens of Metapontum, and then sent them to Fabius. These letters were to the effect that the city would surrender if he appeared before it, and that the conspirators were only waiting for his approach. Fabius was so much moved by these letters as to take a part of his army and commence a night march thither; but meeting with unfavourable omens on the way he turned back, and soon afterwards learned that the letters were a stratagem of Hannibal’s, who was waiting for him under the city walls. This escape one may attribute to the favour of Heaven.

XX

In the case of revolts and insurrections among the subject cities and allies, Fabius thought it best to restrain them and discountenance their proceedings in a gentle manner, not treating every suspected person with harshness, or inquiring too strictly into every case of suspected disloyalty. It is said that a Marsian soldier, one of the chief men of the allies for bravery and nobility of birth, was discovered by Fabius to be engaged in organizing a revolt. Fabius showed no sign of anger, but admitted that he had not been treated with the distinction he deserved, and said that in the present instance he should blame his officers for distributing rewards more by favour than by merit; but that in future he should be vexed with him if he did not apply directly to himself when he had any request to make. Saying this, he presented him with a war horse and other marks of honour, so that thenceforth the man always served him with the utmost zeal and fidelity. He thought it a shame that trainers of horses and dogs should be able to tame the savage spirit of those animals by careful attention and education rather than by whips and clogs, and yet that a commander of men should not rely chiefly on mild and conciliatory measures, but treat them more harshly than gardeners treat the wild fig-trees, wild pears, and wild olives, which they by careful cultivation turn into trees bearing good fruit. His captains informed him that a certain soldier, a Lucanian by birth, was irregular and often absent from his duty. He made inquiries as to what his general conduct was. All agreed that it would be difficult to find a better soldier, and related some of his exploits. Fabius at length discovered that the cause of his absence was that he was in love with a certain girl, and that he continually ran the risk of making long journeys from the camp to meet her. Without the knowledge of the soldier, he sent and apprehended this girl, whom he concealed in his own tent. Then he invited the Lucanian to a private interview, and addressed him as follows:—“You have been observed frequently to pass the night outside of the camp, contrary to the ancient practice and discipline of the Roman army: but also, you have been observed to be a brave man. Your crime is atoned for by your valiant deeds, but for the future I shall commit you to the custody of another person.” Then, to the astonishment of the soldier, he led the girl forward, joined their hands, and said: “This lady pledges her word that you will remain in the camp with us. You must prove by your conduct that it was not from any unworthy motive, for which she was the pretext, but solely through love for her that you used to desert your post.” This is the story which is related about him.

XXI

Fabius obtained possession of Tarentum by treachery in the following manner. In his army was a young man of Tarentum whose sister was devotedly attached to him. Her lover was a Bruttian, and one of the officers of Hannibal’s garrison there. This gave the Tarentine hopes of effecting his purpose, and with the consent of Fabius he went into the city, being commonly supposed to have run away to see his sister. For the first few days the Bruttian remained in his quarters, as she wished her amour with him not to be known to her brother. He then, however, said: “There was a rumour in the army that you were intimate with one of the chiefs of the garrison. Who is he? for if he is as they say, a man of courage and distinction—war, which throws everything into confusion, will care little what countryman he may be. Nothing is disgraceful which we cannot avoid; but it is a blessing, at a time when justice has no power, that we should yield to a not disagreeable necessity.” Upon this the lady sent for her Bruttian admirer and introduced him to her brother. He, by encouraging the stranger in his passion, and assuring him that he would induce his sister to look favourably on it, had no difficulty in inducing the man, who was a mercenary soldier, to break his faith in expectation of the great rewards which he was promised by Fabius. This is the account given of the transaction by most writers, though some say that the lady by whose means the Bruttian was seduced from his allegiance was not a Tarentine, but a Bruttian by race, who was on intimate terms with Fabius; and that as soon as she discovered that a fellow-countryman and acquaintance of hers was in command of the Bruttian garrison, told Fabius of it, and by interviews which she had with the officer outside the walls gradually won him over to the Roman interests.

XXII

While these negotiations were in progress, Fabius, wishing to contrive something to draw Hannibal away, sent orders to the troops at Rhegium to ravage the Bruttian country and take Caulonia by storm. The troops at Rhegium were a body of eight thousand men, mostly deserters: and the most worthless of those disgraced soldiers whom Marcellus brought from Sicily, so that their loss would not cause any sorrow or harm to Rome; while he hoped that by throwing them out as a bait to Hannibal he might draw him away from Tarentum, as indeed he did. Hannibal at once started with his army to attack them, and meanwhile, on the sixth day after Fabius arrived before Tarentum, the young man having previously concerted measures with the Bruttian and his sister, came to him by night and told him that all was ready; knowing accurately and having well inspected the place where the Bruttian would be ready to open the gate and let in the besiegers. Fabius would not depend entirely upon the chance of treachery; but though he himself went quietly to the appointed place, the rest of the army attacked the town both by sea and land, with great clamour and disturbance, until, when most of the Tarentines had run to repel the assault, the Bruttian gave the word to Fabius, and, mounting his scaling ladders, he took the place. On this occasion Fabius seems to have acted unworthily of his reputation, for he ordered the chief Bruttian officers to be put to the sword, that it might not be said that he gained the place by treachery. However, he did not obtain this glory, and gained a reputation for faithlessness and cruelty. Many of the Tarentines were put to death, thirty thousand were sold for slaves, and the city was sacked by the soldiers. Three thousand talents were brought into the public treasury.

While everything else was being carried off, it is said that the clerk who was taking the inventory asked Fabius what his pleasure was with regard to the gods, meaning the statues and pictures. Fabius replied, “Let us leave the Tarentines their angry gods.” However, he took the statue of Hercules from Tarentum and placed it in the Capitol, and near to it he placed a brazen statue of himself on horseback, acting in this respect much worse than Marcellus, or rather proving that Marcellus was a man of extraordinary mildness and generosity of temper, as is shown in his Life.

XXIII

Hannibal is said to have been hastening to relieve Tarentum, and to have been within five miles of it when it was taken. He said aloud: “So then, the Romans also have a Hannibal; we have lost Tarentum just as we gained it.” Moreover in private he acknowledged to his friends that he had long seen that it was very difficult, and now thought it impossible for them to conquer Italy under existing circumstances.

Fabius enjoyed a second triumph for this success, which was more glorious than his first. He had contended with Hannibal and easily baffled all his attempts just as a good wrestler disengages himself with ease from the clutches of an antagonist whose strength is beginning to fail him; for Hannibal’s army was no longer what it had been, being partly corrupted by luxury and plunder, and partly also worn out by unremitting toils and battles.

One Marcus Livius had been in command of Tarentum when Hannibal obtained possession of it. In spite of this, he held the citadel, from which he could not be dislodged, until Tarentum was recaptured by the Romans. This man was vexed at the honours paid to Fabius, and once, in a transport of envy and vain glory, he said before the Senate that he, not Fabius, was the real author of the recapture of the town. Fabius with a smile answered: “Very true; for if you had not lost the place, I could never have recaptured it.”

XXIV

The Romans, among many other marks of respect for Fabius, elected his son consul. When he had entered on this office and was making some arrangements for the conduct of the war, his father, either because of his age and infirmities or else intending to try his son, mounted on horseback and rode towards him through the crowd of bystanders. The young man seeing him at a distance would not endure this slight, but sent a lictor to bid his father dismount and come on foot, if he wanted anything of the consul. Those present were vexed at this order, and looked on Fabius in silence, as if they thought that he was unworthily treated, considering his great reputation: but he himself instantly alighted, ran to his son, and embracing him, said: “You both think and act rightly, my son; for you know whom you command, and how great an office you hold. Thus it was that we and our ancestors made Rome great, by thinking less of our parents and of our children than of the glory of our country.” It is even said to be true that the great grandfather of Fabius, although he had been consul five times, had finished several campaigns with splendid triumphs, and was one of the most illustrious men in Rome, yet acted as lieutenant to his son when consul in the field, and that in the subsequent triumph the son drove into Rome in a chariot and four, while he with the other officers followed him on horseback, glorying in the fact that although he was his son’s master, and although he was and was accounted the first citizen in Rome, yet he submitted himself to the laws and the chief magistrate. Nor did he deserve admiration for this alone.

Fabius had the misfortune to lose his son, and this he bore with fortitude, as became a man of sense and an excellent parent. He himself pronounced the funeral oration which is always spoken by some relative on the deaths of illustrious men, and afterwards he wrote a copy of his speech and distributed it to his friends.

XXV

Cornelius Scipio meanwhile had been sent to Spain, where he had defeated the Carthaginians in many battles and driven them out of the country, and had also overcome many tribes, taken many cities, and done glorious deeds for Rome. On his return he was received with great honour and respect, and, feeling that the people expected some extraordinary exploit from him, he decided that it was too tame a proceeding to fight Hannibal in Italy, and determined to pour troops into Africa, attack Carthage, and transfer the theatre of war from Italy to that country. He bent all his energies to persuade the people to approve of this project, but was violently opposed by Fabius, who spread great alarm through the city, pointing out that it was being exposed to great danger by a reckless young man, and endeavouring by every means in his power to prevent the Romans from adopting Scipio’s plan. He carried his point with the Senate, but the people believed that he was envious of Scipio’s prosperity and desired to check him, because he feared that if he did gain some signal success, and either put an end to the war altogether or remove it from Italy, he himself might be thought a feeble and dilatory general for not having finished the war in so many campaigns.

It appears that at first Fabius opposed him on grounds of prudence and caution, really fearing the dangers of his project, but that the contest gradually became a personal one, and he was moved by feelings of jealousy to hinder the rise of Scipio; for he tried to induce Crassus, Scipio’s colleague, not to give up the province of Africa to Scipio, but if the expedition were determined on, to go thither himself, and he prevented his being supplied with funds for the campaign. Scipio being thus compelled to raise funds himself, obtained them from the cities in Etruria which were devoted to his interests. Crassus likewise was not inclined to quarrel with him, and was also obliged to remain in Italy by his office of Pontifex Maximus.

XXVI

Fabius now tried another method to oppose Scipio. He dissuaded the youth of the city from taking service with him by continually vociferating in all public meetings that Scipio not only was himself running away from Hannibal, but also was about to take all the remaining forces of Italy out of the country with him, deluding the young men with vain hopes, and so persuading them to leave their parents and wives, and their city too, while a victorious and invincible enemy was at its very gates. By these representations he alarmed the Romans, who decreed that Scipio should only use the troops in Sicily, and three hundred of the best men of his Spanish army. In this transaction Fabius seems to have acted according to the dictates of his own cautious disposition.

However, when Scipio crossed over into Africa, news came to Rome at once of great and glorious exploits performed and great battles won. As substantial proof of these there came many trophies of war, and the king of Numidia as a captive. Two camps were burned and destroyed, with great slaughter of men, and loss of horses and war material in the flames. Embassies also were sent to Hannibal from Carthage, begging him in piteous terms to abandon his fruitless hopes in Italy and come home to help them, while in Rome the name of Scipio was in every man’s mouth because of his successes. At this period Fabius proposed that a successor to Scipio should be sent out, without having any reason to allege for it except the old proverb that it is dangerous to entrust such important operations to the luck of one man, because it is hard for the same man always to be lucky. This proposal of his offended most of his countrymen, who thought him a peevish and malignant old man, or else that he was timid and spiritless from old age, and excessively terrified at Hannibal; for, even when Hannibal quitted Italy and withdrew his forces, Fabius would not permit the joy of his countrymen to be unmixed with alarm, as he informed them that now the fortunes of Rome were in a more critical situation than ever, because Hannibal would be much more to be dreaded in Africa under the walls of Carthage itself, where he would lead an army, yet reeking with the blood of many Roman dictators, consuls and generals, to attack Scipio. By these words the city was again filled with terror, and although the war had been removed to Africa yet its alarms seemed to have come nearer to Rome.

XXVII

However Scipio, after no long time, defeated Hannibal in a pitched battle and crushed the pride of Carthage under foot. He gave the Romans the enjoyment of a success beyond their hopes, and truly

“Restored the city, shaken by the storm.”

Fabius Maximus did not survive till the end of the war, nor did he live to hear of Hannibal’s defeat, or see the glorious and lasting prosperity of his country, for about the time when Hannibal left Italy he fell sick and died.

The Thebans, we are told, buried Epameinondas at the public expense, because he died so poor that they say nothing was found in his house except an iron spit. Fabius was not honoured by the Romans with a funeral at the public expense, yet every citizen contributed the smallest Roman coin towards the expenses, not that he needed the money, but because they buried him as the father of the people, so that in his death he received the honourable respect which he had deserved in his life.

COMPARISON OF
PERIKLES AND FABIUS MAXIMUS.

I

Such is the story of these men’s lives. As they both gave many proofs of ability in war and politics, let us first turn our attention to their warlike exploits. And here we must notice that Perikles found the Athenian people at the height of their power and prosperity, so that from the flourishing condition of the State it could scarcely meet with any great disaster, whereas Fabius performed his great services to Rome when it was in the last extremity of danger, and did not merely, like Perikles, confirm the prosperity of his country, but greatly improved it, having found it in a lamentable condition. Moreover, the successes of Kimon, the victories of Myronides and Leokrates, and the many achievements of Tolmides rather gave Perikles when in chief command an occasion for public rejoicing and festivity, than any opportunity for either conquests abroad or defensive wars at home. Fabius, on the other hand, had before his eyes the spectacle of many defeats and routs of Roman armies, of many consuls and generals fallen in battle, of lakes, plains and forests filled with the bodies of the slain, and of rivers running with blood. Yet with his mature and unbending intellect he undertook to extricate Rome from these dangers, and as it were by his own strength alone supported the State, so that it was not utterly overwhelmed by these terrible disasters. Nevertheless it would appear not to be so hard a task to manage a State in adversity, when it is humble and is compelled by its misfortunes to obey wise counsellors, as it is to check and bridle a people excited and arrogant with good fortune, which was especially the case with Perikles and the Athenians. On the other hand, considering the terrible nature of the blows which had fallen on the Romans, Fabius must have been a great and strong-minded man not to be disconcerted by them, but still to be able to carry out the policy upon which he had determined.

II

We may set the capture of Samos by Perikles against the retaking of Tarentum by Fabius, and also the conquest of Euboea by the one against that of the Campanian cities by the other, though Capua itself was recovered by the consuls, Fulvius and Appius. Fabius seems never to have fought a pitched battle, except that one which gained him his first triumph, while Perikles set up nine trophies for victories by sea and land. But again, there is no action of Perikles which can be compared to that of Fabius when he snatched away Minucius from the grasp of Hannibal, and saved an entire Roman army from destruction. That was an exploit glorious for the courage, generalship, and kindness of heart displayed by Fabius; but, on the other hand Perikles, made no such blunder as did Fabius, when out-generalled by Hannibal with the cattle. Here, although Fabius caught his enemy in a defile which he had entered by chance, yet he let him escape by night, and next day found his tardy movements outstripped, and himself defeated by the man whom he had just before so completely cut off. If it be the part of a good general, not merely to deal with the present, but to make conjectures about the future, we may remark that the Peloponnesian war ended just as Perikles had foretold, for the Athenians frittered away their strength; whereas the Romans, contrary to the expectation of Fabius, by sending Scipio to attack Carthage gained a complete victory, not by chance, but by the skill of their general and the courage of their troops, who overthrew the enemy in a pitched battle. Thus the one was proved to be right by the misfortunes of his country, and the other proved to be wrong by its success, indeed it is just as much a fault in a general to receive a check from want of foresight as to let slip an opportunity through diffidence; and both these failings, excess of confidence and want of confidence, are common to all except the most consummate generals. Thus much for their military talents.

III

In political matters, the Peloponnesian war is a great blot upon the fame of Perikles; for it is said to have been caused by his refusal to yield the least point to the Lacedaemonians. I do not imagine, however, that Fabius Maximus would have yielded anything to the Carthaginians, but would have bravely risked any danger in defence of the Roman Empire. The kind treatment of Minucius by Fabius and his mildness of character contrast very favourably with the bitter party feud of Perikles with Kimon and Thucydides, who were men of good birth, and belonging to the conservative party, and whom Perikles drove into exile by the ostracism. Then, too, the power of Perikles was much greater than that of Fabius. Perikles would not permit the State to suffer disaster because of the bad management of her generals. One of them alone, Tolmides, succeeded in having his own way, against the wishes of Perikles, and perished in an attack on the Boeotians, while all the rest, because of his immense influence and power, submitted themselves to his authority and regulated their proceedings by his ideas. Whereas Fabius, although he could avoid any error in managing his own army, was thwarted by his being powerless to control the movements of other generals.

For the Romans would not have suffered so many defeats if Fabius had enjoyed the same power that Perikles did in Athens. As to their generosity with regard to money, the one was remarkable for never receiving bribes, while the other spent much on ransoming prisoners at his own expense; although this was not much above six talents, while it is hard for any one to tell the amount of money which Perikles might have taken from foreign princes and Greek allied states, all of which he refused and kept his hands clean. As to the great public works, the construction of the temples, and of the public buildings with which Perikles adorned Athens, the whole of the edifices in Rome together, before the time of the emperors, are not worthy to be compared to them, for they far surpassed them both in largeness of scale and in beauty of design.

LIFE OF
ALKIBIADES.

I

The pedigree of Alkibiades is said to begin with Eurysakes the son of Ajax, while on the mother’s side he descended from Alkmaeon, being the son of Deinomache, the daughter of Megakles. His father Kleinias fought bravely at Artemisium in a trireme fitted out at his own expense, and subsequently fell fighting the Boeotians, in the battle of Koronea. Alkibiades after this was entrusted to Perikles and Ariphron, the two sons of Xanthippus, who acted as his guardians because they were the next of kin. It has been well remarked that the friendship of Sokrates for him did not a little to increase his fame, seeing that Nikias, Demosthenes, Lamakus, Phormio, Thrasybulus, and Theramenes, were all men of mark in his lifetime, and yet we do not know the name of the mother of any one of them, while we know the name even of the nurse of Alkibiades, who was a Laconian, named Amykla, and that of Zopyrus, his paedagogus, one of which pieces of information we owe to Antisthenes, and the other to Plato. As to the beauty of Alkibiades, it is not necessary to say anything except that it was equally fascinating when he was a boy, a youth, and a man. The saying of Euripides, that all beauties have a beautiful autumn of their charms, is not universally true, but it was so in the case of Alkibiades and of a few other persons because of the symmetry and vigour of their frames. Even his lisp is said to have added a charm to his speech, and to have made his talk more persuasive. His lisp is mentioned by Aristophanes in the verses in which he satirises Theorus, in which Alkibiades calls him Theolus, for he pronounced the letter r like l. Archippus also gives a sneering account of the son of Alkibiades, who, he said, swaggered in his walk, trailing his cloak, that he might look as like his father as possible, and

“Bends his affected neck, and lisping speaks.”

II

His character, in the course of his varied and brilliant career, developed many strange inconsistencies and contradictions. Emulation and love of distinction were the most prominent of his many violent passions, as is clear from the anecdotes of his childhood. Once when hard pressed in wrestling, rather than fall, he began to bite his opponent’s hands. The other let go his hold, and said, “You bite, Alkibiades, like a woman.” “No,” said he, “like a lion.” While yet a child, he was playing at knucklebones with other boys in a narrow street, and when his turn came to throw, a loaded waggon was passing. He at first ordered the driver to stop his team because his throw was to take place directly in the path of the waggon. Then as the boor who was driving would not stop, the other children made way; but Alkibiades flung himself down on his face directly in front of the horses, and bade him drive on at his peril. The man, in alarm, now stopped his horses, and the others were terrified and ran up to him.

In learning he was fairly obedient to all his teachers, except in playing the flute, which he refused to do, declaring that it was unfit for a gentleman. He said that playing on the harp or lyre did not disfigure the face, but that when a man was blowing at a flute, his own friends could scarcely recognise him. Besides, the lyre accompanies the voice of the performer, while the flute takes all the breath of the player and prevents him even from speaking. “Let the children of the Thebans,” he used to say, “learn to play the flute, for they know not how to speak; but we Athenians according to tradition have the goddess Athene (Minerva) for our patroness, and Apollo for our tutelary divinity; and of these the first threw away the flute in disgust, and the other actually flayed the flute player Marsyas.” With such talk as this, between jest and earnest, Alkibiades gave up flute-playing himself, and induced his friends to do so, for all the youth of Athens soon heard and approved of Alkibiades’s derision of the flute and those who learned it. In consequence of this the flute went entirely out of fashion, and was regarded with contempt.

III

In Antiphon’s scandalous chronicle, we read that Alkibiades once ran away from home to the house of one of his admirers.

Ariphron, his other guardian, proposed to have him cried; but Perikles forbade it, saying that, if he was dead, he would only be found one day sooner because of it, while if he was safe, he would be disgraced for life. Antiphon also tells us that he killed one of his servants by striking him with a club, at the gymnasium of Sibyrtus. But perhaps we ought not to believe these stories, which were written by an enemy with the avowed purpose of defaming his character.

IV

His youthful beauty soon caused him to be surrounded with noble admirers, but the regard of Sokrates for him is a great proof of his natural goodness of disposition, which that philosopher could discern in him, but which he feared would wither away like a faded flower before the temptations of wealth and position, and the mass of sycophants by whom he was soon beset. For no one ever was so enclosed and enveloped in the good things of this life as Alkibiades, so that no breath of criticism or free speech could ever reach him. Yet, with all these flatterers about him, trying to prevent his ever hearing a word of wholesome advice or reproof, he was led by his own goodness of heart to pay special attention to Sokrates, to whom he attached himself in preference to all his rich and fashionable admirers.

He soon became intimate with Sokrates, and when he discovered that this man did not wish to caress and admire him, but to expose his ignorance, search out his faults, and bring down his vain unreasoning conceit, he then

“Let fall his feathers like a craven cock.”

He considered that the conversation of Sokrates was really a divine instrument for the discipline and education of youth; and thus learning to despise himself, and to admire his friend, charmed with his good nature, and full of reverence for his virtues, he became insensibly in love with him, though not as the world loveth; so that all men were astonished to see him dining with Sokrates, wrestling with him, and sharing his tent, while he treated all his other admirers with harshness and some even with insolence, as in the case of Anytus the son of Anthemion. This man, who was an admirer of Alkibiades, was entertaining a party of friends, and asked him to come. Alkibiades refused the invitation, but got drunk that night at a riotous party at his own house, in which state he proceeded in a disorderly procession to Anytus. Here he looked into the room where the guests were, and seeing the tables covered with gold and silver drinking-cups, ordered his slaves to carry away half of them, and then, without deigning to enter the room, went home again. Anytus’ guests were vexed at this, and complained of his being so arrogantly and outrageously treated. “Say rather, considerately,” answered Anytus, “for although he might have taken them all, yet he has left us the half of them.”

V

In this same way he used to treat his other admirers, with the exception, it is said, of one of the resident aliens,1 a man of small means who sold all that he had and carried the money, amounting to about a hundred staters, to Alkibiades, begging him to accept it. Alkibiades laughed at him, and invited him to dinner. After dinner he gave him back his money, and ordered him next day to go and overbid those who were about to bid for the office of farmer of the taxes. The poor man begged to be excused, because the price was several talents, but Alkibiades threatened to have him beaten if he did not do so, for he had some private grudge of his own against the farmers of the taxes. Accordingly the alien went next morning early into the market-place and bid a talent. The tax farmers now clustered round him angrily, bidding him name some one as security, imagining that he would not be able to find one. The poor man was now in great trouble and was about to steal away, when Alkibiades, who was at some distance, called out to the presiding magistrates, “Write down my name. I am his friend, and I will be surety for him.” On hearing this, the tax farmers were greatly embarrassed, for their habit was to pay the rent of each year with the proceeds of the next, and they saw no way of doing so in this instance. Consequently they begged the man to desist from bidding, and offered him money. Alkibiades would not permit him to take less than a talent, and when this was given him he let him go. This was the way in which he did him a kindness.

VI

The love of Sokrates, though he had many rivals, yet overpowered them all, for his words touched the heart of Alkibiades and moved him to tears. Sometimes his flatterers would bribe him by the offer of some pleasure, to which he would yield and slip away from Sokrates, but he was then pursued like a fugitive slave by the latter, of whom he stood in awe, though he treated every one else with insolence and contempt. Kleanthes used to say that Sokrates’s only hold upon him was through his ears, while he scorned to meddle with the rest of his body. And indeed Alkibiades was very prone to pleasure, as one would gather from what Thucydides says on the subject. Those too who played on his vanity and love of distinction induced him to embark on vast projects before he was ripe for them, assuring him that as soon as he began to take a leading part in politics, he would not only eclipse all the rest of the generals and orators, but would even surpass Perikles in power and renown. But just as iron which has been softened in the fire is again hardened by cold, and under its influence contracts its expanded particles, so did Sokrates, when he found Alkibiades puffed up by vain and empty conceit, bring him down to his proper level by his conversation, rendering him humble minded by pointing out to him his many deficiencies.

VII

After he had finished his education, he went into a school, and asked the master for a volume of Homer. When the master said that he possessed none of Homer’s writings, he struck him with his fist, and left him. Another schoolmaster told him that he had a copy of Homer corrected by himself. “Do you,” asked he, “you who are able to correct Homer, teach boys to read! One would think that you could instruct men.”

One day he wished to speak to Perikles, and came to his house. Hearing that he was not at leisure, but was engaged in considering how he was to give in his accounts to the Athenians, Alkibiades, as he went away, said, “It would be better if he considered how to avoid giving in any accounts at all to the Athenians.”

While yet a lad he served in the campaign of Potidaea, where he shared the tent of Sokrates, and took his place next him in the ranks. In an obstinate engagement they both showed great courage, and when Alkibiades was wounded and fell to the ground, Sokrates stood in front of him, defending him, and so saved his life and arms from the enemy. Properly, therefore, the prize for valour belonged to Sokrates; but when the generals appeared anxious to bestow it upon Alkibiades because of his great reputation, Sokrates, who wished to encourage his love for glory, was the first to give his testimony in his favour, and to call upon them to crown him as victor and to give him the suit of armour which was the prize. And also at the battle of Delium, when the Athenians were routed, Alkibiades, who was on horseback, when he saw Sokrates retreating on foot with a few others, would not ride on, but stayed by him and defended him, though the enemy were pressing them and cutting off many of them. These things, however, happened afterwards.

VIII

He once struck Hipponikus, the father of Kallias, a man of great wealth and noble birth, a blow with his fist, not being moved to it by anger, or any dispute, but having agreed previously with his friends to do so for a joke. When every one in the city cried out at his indecent and arrogant conduct, Alkibiades next morning at daybreak came to the house of Hipponikus, knocked, and came to him. Here he threw off his cloak, and offered him his body, bidding him flog him and punish him for what he had done. Hipponikus, however, pardoned him, and they became friends, so much so that Hipponikus chose him for the husband of his daughter Hipparete. Some writers say that not Hipponikus but Kallias his son gave Hipparete to Alkibiades to wife, with a dowry of ten talents, and that when her first child was born Alkibiades demanded and received ten more talents, as if he had made a previous agreement to that effect. Upon this Kallias, fearing that Alkibiades might plot against his life, gave public notice in the assembly that if he died childless, he would leave his house and all his property to the State.

Hipparete was a quiet and loving wife, but was so constantly insulted by her husband’s amours with foreign and Athenian courtesans, that she at length left his house and went to her brother’s. Alkibiades took no heed of this, but continued in his debauchery.

It was necessary for her to deliver her petition for separation to the magistrate with her own hand, and when she came to do so, Alkibiades laid hold of her, and took her home with him through the market-place, no one daring to oppose him and take her from him. She lived with him until her death, which took place not long after Alkibiades sailed for Ephesus. In this instance his violence does not seem to have been altogether lawless or without excuse, for the object of the law in making a wife appear in person in public seems to be that she may have an opportunity of meeting her husband and making up her quarrel with him.

IX

He had a dog of remarkable size and beauty, for which he had paid seventy minae. It had a very fine tail, which he cut off. When his friends blamed him, and said that every one was sorry for the dog and angry with him for what he had done, he laughed and said, “Then I have succeeded; for I wish the Athenians to gossip about this, for fear they should say something worse about me.”

X

It is said that his first public act was on the occasion of a voluntary subscription for the State. He did not intend doing anything of the sort, but as he was passing he heard a great noise, and finding that voluntary subscriptions were being made, went and subscribed. The people cheered and applauded him, at which he was so much delighted as to forget a quail which he had in his cloak. When it escaped and ran about bewildered, the Athenians applauded all the more, and many rose and chased it. It was caught by the pilot Antiochus, who restored it, and became one of Alkibiades’s greatest friends. Starting with great advantages from his noble birth, his wealth, his recognised bravery in battle, and his many friends and relatives, he relied upon nothing so much as on his eloquence for making himself popular and influential. His rhetorical powers are borne witness to by the comic dramatists; and the greatest of orators, Demosthenes, in his speech against Meidias, speaks of Alkibiades as being most eloquent, besides his other charms. If we are to believe Theophrastus, who has inquired more diligently into these various tales than any one else, Alkibiades excelled all men of his time in readiness of invention and resource. However, as he wished not merely to speak to the purpose, but also to clothe his thoughts in the most appropriate language, he did not always succeed in combining the two, and often hesitated and stopped, seeking for the right word, and not continuing his speech until it occurred to him.

XI

He was renowned for his stud, and for the number of his racing chariots. No other person, king or commoner, ever entered seven four-horse chariots for the race at Olympia except Alkibiades. His winning the first, second, and fourth prizes with these, as Thucydides tells us, though Euripides says that he won the third also, excels in glory any other successes by other persons in these races. The poem of Euripides runs as follows:

“Son of Kleinias, thee I sing,

In truth it is a noble thing,

First, second, and third place

To win in chariot race,

To hear the herald thrice thy name proclaim,

And thrice to bear away the olive crown of fame.”

XII

His success was rendered all the more conspicuous by the manner in which the various States vied with one another in showing him honour. Ephesus pitched a magnificent tent for his accommodation, Chios furnished his horses with provender, and himself with animals for sacrifice; and Lesbos supplied him with wine, and every thing else necessary for giving great entertainments. Yet even at this brilliant period of his life he incurred discredit, either by his own fault or through the spite of his enemies. The story is that an Athenian named Diomedes, a respectable man and a friend of Alkibiades, was desirous of winning a victory at Olympia. Hearing that there was a chariot and four which belonged to the city of Argos, and knowing that Alkibiades had great influence and many friends in that place, he persuaded him to buy the chariot for him. Alkibiades, however, bought the chariot and entered it for the race as his own, leaving Diomedes to call upon heaven and earth to witness his ill-treatment. It appears that a trial took place about this matter, and Isokrates wrote a speech about this chariot in defence of the son of Alkibiades, in which Tisias, not Diomedes, is mentioned as the prosecutor.

XIII

When, as a mere boy, Alkibiades plunged into political life, he at once surpassed most of the statesmen of the age. His chief rivals were Phaeax, the son of Erasistratus, and Nikias, the son of Nikeratus, the latter a man advanced in life, and bearing the reputation of being an excellent general, while the former, like Alkibiades himself, was a young man of good family, just rising into notice, but inferior to him in many respects, particularly in oratory. Though affable and persuasive in private circles, he could not speak equally well in public, for he was, as Eupolis says,

“At conversation best of men, at public speaking worst.”

In a certain attack on Alkibiades and Phaeax, we find, among other charges, Alkibiades accused of using the gold and silver plate of the city of Athens as his own for his daily use.

There was at Athens one Hyperbolus, of the township of Peirithois, whom Thucydides mentions as a worthless man, and one who was constantly ridiculed by the comic dramatists. From his utter disregard of what was said of him, and his carelessness for his honour, which, though it was mere shameless impudence and apathy, was thought by some to show firmness and true courage, he was pleasing to no party, but frequently made use of by the people when they wished to have a scurrilous attack made upon those in power. At this time he was about to resort to the proceeding called ostracism, by which from time to time the Athenians force into exile those citizens who are remarkable for influence and power, rather because they envy them than because they fear them.

But as it was clear that one of the three, Nikias, Phaeax, and Alkibiades, would be ostracised, Alkibiades combined their several parties, arranged matters with Nikias, and turned the ostracism against Hyperbolus himself. Some say that it was not Nikias but Phaeax with whom Alkibiades joined interest, and that with the assistance of his political party he managed to expel Hyperbolus, who never expected any such treatment; for before that time this punishment had never been extended to low persons of no reputation, as Plato, the comic dramatist, says in the lines where he mentions Hyperbolus:

“Full worthy to be punished though he be,

Yet ostracism’s not for such as he.”

We have elsewhere given a fuller account of this affair.

XIV

Alkibiades was dissatisfied at the respect shown for Nikias, both by enemies of the State and by the citizens of Athens. Alkibiades was the proxenus2 of the Lacedaemonians at Athens, and paid especial court to those Spartans who had been captured at Pylos; yet, when the Lacedaemonians discovered that it was chiefly by Nikias’s means that they obtained peace, and recovered their prisoners, they were lavish of their attentions to him. The common phrase among the Greeks of that time was that Perikles had begun the war, and Nikias had finished it; and the peace was usually called the peace of Nikias. Alkibiades, irritated beyond measure at his rival’s success, began to meditate how he could destroy the existing treaty. He perceived that the Argives, hating and fearing Sparta, wished to break off from it, and he encouraged them by secret assurances of an Athenian alliance, and also both by his agents and in person he urged the leading men not to give way to the Lacedaemonians, or yield any points to them, but to turn to Athens, and await their co-operation, for the Athenians, he said, already began to regret that they had made peace at all, and would soon break it.

When the Lacedaemonians made an alliance with the Boeotians, and delivered up Panaktus to the Athenians in a dismantled condition, not with its walls standing, as they ought to have done, Alkibiades exasperated the rage of the Athenians by his speeches, and raised a clamour against Nikias by the plausible accusation that he, when general, had hung back from capturing the enemy’s forces which were cut off in the island of Sphakteria, and that when they had been captured by another, he had released them and restored them to their homes, in order to gain the favour of the Lacedaemonians. And for all that, although he was such a friend of the Lacedaemonians, he had not dissuaded them from forming alliances with Corinth and with the Boeotians, while he prevented the Athenians from becoming allies of any Greek State which might wish it, if the step did not happen to please the Lacedaemonians.

Upon this, while Nikias was smarting under these accusations, ambassadors arrived from Lacedaemon with instructions to propose reasonable terms, and announcing that they came with full powers to conclude the negotiations for peace on an equitable basis. The Senate received them willingly, and next day they were to appear before the people. Fearing that they would succeed, Alkibiades contrived to obtain a private interview with them, in which he addressed them as follows: “What is this that you do, men of Sparta! Do you not know that the Senate always treats those who appear before it in a kindly and reasonable manner, but the people are always full of pride and ambition? If you say that you have plenary powers, they will bewilder you by their violence and force great concessions from you. So come, cease this folly, if you wish to negotiate with the Athenians in a moderate way, and not to be forced into conceding points against your will. Discuss all the points at issue, but do not say that you have full power to decide them. I will do my best to assist you, as a friend to Lacedaemon.” After these words he confirmed his promise by an oath, and thus completely detached them from Nikias and left them trusting him only, and admiring him as a man of remarkable sense and intelligence. On the following day the people assembled, and the ambassadors appeared before them. When they were politely asked by Alkibiades in what capacity they came, they said that they were not plenipotentiaries. Immediately upon this Alkibiades assailed them with furious invective, as though they, not he, were in the wrong, calling them faithless equivocators, who had not come either to speak or to do anything honest. The Senate was vexed at its treatment, and the people were excessively enraged, while Nikias, who knew nothing of the trick, was astounded and covered with confusion at the conduct of the ambassadors.

XV

The Lacedaemonian alliance being put an end to by this means, Alkibiades, who was now elected one of the generals of Athens, at once formed an alliance with Argos, Elis and Mantinea. No one approved of the way in which he effected this, but still the result was very important, as it agitated all the States in Peloponnesus, and set them against one another, brought so many men into line to fight the Lacedaemonians at the battle of Mantinea, and removed the scene of conflict so far from Athens, that the Lacedaemonians could gain no great advantage by victory, whereas if they failed, they would have to struggle for their very existence. After this battle the select regiment at Argos, called the “Thousand,” endeavoured to overthrow the government and establish themselves as masters of the city; and with the assistance of the Lacedaemonians they destroyed the constitution. But the people took up arms again, and defeated the usurpers; and Alkibiades coming to their aid, made the victory of the popular side more complete. He persuaded the citizens to build long walls down to the sea, and to trust entirely to the Athenian naval forces for support. He even sent them carpenters and stonemasons from Athens, and showed great zeal on their behalf, which tended to increase his personal interest and power no less than that of his country. He advised the people of Patrae also to join their city to the sea by long walls; and when some one said to the people of Patrae, that the Athenians would swallow them up, he answered, “Perhaps they may, but it will be by degrees and beginning with the feet, whereas the Lacedaemonians will seize them by the head and do it at once.”

However, Alkibiades ever pressed the Athenians to establish their empire by land as well as by sea, reminding them of the oath which the young men take in the Temple of Agraulos, and which it was their duty to confirm by their deeds. This oath is, that they will regard wheat, barley, vines and olives as the boundaries of Attica, by which it is hinted that they ought to make all cultivated and fruitful lands their own.

XVI

In the midst of all this display of political ability, eloquence, and statesmanlike prudence, he lived a life of great luxury, debauchery, and profuse expenditure, swaggering through the market-place with his long effeminate mantle trailing on the ground. He had the deck of his trireme cut away, that he might sleep more comfortably, having his bed slung on girths instead of resting on the planks; and he carried a shield not emblazoned with the ancestral bearings of his family, but with a Cupid wielding a thunderbolt. The leading men of Athens viewed his conduct with disgust and apprehension, fearing his scornful and overbearing manner, as being nearly allied to the demeanour of a despot, while Aristophanes has expressed the feeling of the people towards him in the line,

“They love, they hate, they cannot live without him.”

And again he alludes to him in a bitterer spirit in the verse:

“A lion’s cub ’tis best you should not rear,

For if you do, your master he’ll appear.”

His voluntary contributions of money to the State, his public exhibitions and services, and displays of munificence, which could not be equalled in splendour, his noble birth, his persuasive speech, his strength, beauty, and bravery, and all his other shining qualities, combined to make the Athenians endure him, and always give his errors the mildest names, calling them youthful escapades and honourable emulation. For example, he locked up Agatharchus the painter, and when he had painted his house let him go with a present. He boxed Taurea’s ears because he was exhibiting shows in rivalry with him, and contending with him for the prize. And he even took one of the captive Melian women for his mistress, and brought up a child which he had by her. This was thought to show his good nature; but this term cannot be applied to the slaughter of all the males above puberty in the island of Melos, which was done in accordance with a decree promoted by Alkibiades.

When Aristophon painted the courtesan Nemea embracing Alkibiades, all men eagerly crowded to see it; but older men were vexed at these things too, thinking them only fit for despots, and considering them to be open violations of the laws. Indeed Archestratus spoke very much to the purpose when he said that Greece could not bear more than one Alkibiades. Once, when Alkibiades had made a successful speech in the public assembly, and was being conducted home in triumph by his friends, Timon the misanthrope met him, and did not get out of his way, as he did to every one else, but came up to him and took him by the hand, saying, “Go on, my boy, increase in glory; for your increase will bring ruin to all this crowd.” Some laughed, some cursed him, but others took his words to heart. So various were the opinions formed about Alkibiades, because of the inconsistency of his character.

XVII

Even during the lifetime of Perikles, the Athenians had a hankering after Sicily, and after his death they endeavoured to obtain possession of it, by sending troops to the assistance of those cities which were oppressed by the Syracusans, and thus paving the way for a greater armament. It was, however, Alkibiades who fanned their desires into a flame, and who persuaded them to abandon these half-hearted attempts, to proceed with a great force to the island, and to endeavour to subdue it. He raised great expectations among the people, but his own aspirations were far more entensive; for he regarded the conquest of Sicily not merely as an end, but as a stepping-stone to greater things. While Nikias was dissuading the people from the attempt, on the ground that it would be a difficult matter to capture the city of Syracuse, Alkibiades was dreaming of Carthage and Libya; and after these were gained, he meditated the conquest of Italy and of Peloponnesus, regarding Sicily as little more than a convenient magazine and place of arms. He greatly excited the younger Athenians by his vast designs, and they listened eagerly to the marvellous stories of the old who had served in that country; so that many of them would spend their time sitting in the gymnasia and public seats, drawing sketches of the shape of the island of Sicily, and of the position of Libya and Carthage. It is said that Sokrates the philosopher, and Meton the astronomer, did not expect that the state would gain any advantage from this expedition; the former probably receiving a presentiment of disaster, as was his wont, from his familiar spirit. Meton either made calculations which led him to fear what was about to happen, or else gathered it from the art of prophecy. He feigned madness, and seizing a torch, attempted to set his house on fire. Some say that Meton made no pretence of madness, but that he burned down his house one night, and next morning came and besought the Athenians, after such a misfortune, to exempt his son from serving with the expedition. Thus he deceived his fellow citizens and carried his point.

XVIII

Nikias, much against his will, was chosen to lead the expedition. His unwillingness was in a great measure due to the fact that Alkibiades was to act as his colleague; for the Athenians thought that the war would be conducted better if the rashness of Alkibiades was tempered by the prudence of Nikias, because the third general, Lamachus, although advanced in years, yet had the reputation of being no less daring and reckless a soldier than Alkibiades himself.

When the public assembly were debating about the number of the troops and the preparation for the armament, Nikias made another attempt to oppose the whole measure and to put a stop to the war. Alkibiades, however, took the other side and carried all before him. The orator Demostratus moved, that the generals should be empowered to demand whatever stores and war material they pleased, and have absolute power to carry on the war at their own discretion. This was agreed to by the people, and all was ready for setting sail, when unlucky omens occurred. The festival of Adonis took place at that very time, and during it the women carry about in many parts of the city figures dressed like corpses going to be buried, and imitate the ceremony of a funeral by tearing their hair and singing dirges. And besides this, the mutilation of the Hermae in one night, when all of them had their faces disfigured, disturbed many even of those who, as a rule, despised such things. A story was put about that the Corinthians, of whom the Syracusans were a colony, had done it, hoping that such an evil omen might make the Athenians either postpone or give up their expedition. But the people paid no heed to this insinuation, and still less to those who argued that there was no omen in the matter at all, but that it was the work of extravagant young men after their wine. They regarded the incident with feelings of rage and fear, imagining that it proved the existence of an organised plot aimed at greater matters. Both the Senate and the General Assembly met several times during the next few days, and inquired sharply into every thing that could throw any light upon it.

XIX

During this time, Androkles, a popular speaker, brought forward several slaves and resident aliens, who charged Alkibiades and his friends with mutilating certain other statues, and with parodying the ceremonies of initiation to the sacred mysteries when in their cups. They said that the part of the Herald was taken by Theodorus, that of the Torch-bearer by Polytion, and that of Hierophant by Alkibiades himself, while the rest of the company were present and were initiated, and were addressed by them as Mysts, which means persons who have been initiated into the mysteries. These are the charges which we find specified in the indictment drawn against Alkibiades by Thessalus the son of Kimon, in which he accuses Alkibiades of sacrilege against the two goddesses, Demeter (Ceres) and Proserpine. The people now became very much enraged with Alkibiades, and were still more exasperated by his personal enemy Androkles. Alkibiades was at first alarmed, but soon perceived that all the sailors of the fleet about to sail to Sicily were on his side, as were also the soldiers. A body of a thousand Argives and Mantineans also were heard to say that they were going to cross the seas and fight in a distant land all for the sake of Alkibiades, and that if he did not meet with fair play, they would at once desert. Encouraged by this, he appeared at the appointed time to defend himself, which disconcerted and disheartened his enemies, who feared that the people might deal leniently with him because they required his services. Matters being in this posture, they prevailed upon some of the orators who were not known to be enemies to Alkibiades, but who hated him nevertheless, to move before the people that it was an absurd proceeding for the irresponsible general of so great a force of Athenians and their allies to waste his time while the court was drawing lots for the jury, and filling water-clocks with water. “Let him sail, and may good luck attend him, and when the war is finished let him return and speak in his defence, for the laws will be the same then as now.” Alkibiades saw clearly their malicious object in postponing his trial, and said publicly that it was very hard to leave such accusations and slanders behind him, and to be sent out in command of a great expedition with such a terrible fate hanging over him. If he could not prove his innocence, he ought to be put to death; and if he could clear himself of these charges, it was only just that he should be enabled to attack the enemy with a light heart, without having to fear false accusers at home.

XX

He did not, however, succeed in this, but was ordered to sail, and put to sea with his colleagues, having under their orders a fleet of nearly one hundred and forty triremes, five thousand one hundred heavy-armed troops, archers, slingers, and light-armed troops to the number of about thirteen hundred, and all other stores and provisions in proportion. After reaching Italy and capturing Rhegium, he gave his opinion as to the manner in which the war ought to be conducted; but as Nikias opposed him and was joined by Lamachus, he sailed over to Sicily and induced the city of Catana to join them, but did nothing further, because he was sent for at once to return and stand his trial at Athens. At first, as we have stated, Alkibiades was only vaguely suspected, and only the testimony of slaves and resident aliens could be obtained against him; but afterwards, during his absence, his enemies had worked hard to get up a case against him, and connected his sacrilegious conduct about the mysteries with the mutilation of the Hermae, which they argued were all the work of one body of conspirators, bent upon revolution and the destruction of the existing form of government. All those who were in any degree implicated were cast into prison without a trial, and they were much vexed they had not immediately brought Alkibiades to trial and obtained judgment against him on such grave charges as these. Any of his friends, relations, or acquaintances who fell into their hands received very harsh treatment.

Thucydides has omitted the names of those who impeached him, but others give their names as Diokleides and Teukrus, among whom is Phrynichus the comic dramatist, who writes as follows:—

“And, dearest Hermes, do not fall

And break your head; and, worst of all,

To some new Diokleides show the way,

By slander base to swear men’s lives away.”

And again Hermes says:

“I will not fall. I will not for my pains

Let Teukrus fatten on informers’ gains.”

Though really the informers brought no decided evidence forward for any important charge, one of them, when asked how he recognised the faces of the statue-breakers, answered that he saw them by the light of the moon: a signal falsehood, because it was done on the night of the new moon. This answer made the more thoughtful citizens unwilling to press the charge, but had no effect whatever on the people, who were as eager as ever, and continued to cast into prison any man who might be informed against.

XXI

One of those who was imprisoned was the orator Andokides, whom Hellanikus, the historian, reckons as a descendant of Odysseus (Ulysses). Andokides was thought to be a man of aristocratic and antipopular sentiments, and what made him particularly suspected of having taken part in the statue-breaking, was that the large statue of Hermes, near his house, the gift of the tribe Aegeis, was one of the very few which remained unbroken. Wherefore even at the present day it is called the Hermes of Andokides, and everyone speaks of it by that name in spite of the inscription on it.

It happened that Andokides, while in custody, formed an acquaintance and friendship for one of the other persons who were imprisoned on the same charge, a man of the name of Timaeus, of inferior birth and position to himself, but much cleverer and more courageous. This man persuaded Andokides to inform against himself and some few others, because, by a decree of the people, any one who acted as informer was to be given a free pardon, whereas no one could count upon the results of a trial, which the more prominent citizens had especial reasons for dreading. He pointed out that it was better to save his life by a lie than to be put to death with infamy as if he was really guilty; moreover, looking at the whole affair, it was best to sacrifice a few persons of doubtful character to the fury of the people, and thereby to save many good men from becoming its victims. Andokides was convinced by these arguments of Timaeus, and by informing against himself and some others obtained a pardon for himself, while all those whose names he mentioned were put to death, except such as had fled the country.

To procure greater credit to his information, Andokides even accused his own servants. However, the people did not abate their rage, but, ceasing to take any further interest in the statue-breakers, they turned savagely against Alkibiades. Finally, they despatched the Salaminian trireme after him, ingeniously ordering its officers not to use any personal violence, but to speak him fair and bid him return to stand his trial and set himself right with the people.

They were afraid of an outbreak, or even of a mutiny in the army in Sicily, which Alkibiades could have raised with the greatest ease, if he had wished to do so. Indeed, the soldiers became disheartened when he left them, and looked forward to long delays and periods of dull inaction under Nikias’s command, now that he who used to spur matters on was gone. Lamachus, indeed, was a brave and skilful soldier, but his poverty prevented his opinions from carrying their due weight.

XXII

Alkibiades the moment he sailed away lost Messina for the Athenians. There was a party in that city ready to deliver it up, which he knew well, and by disclosing their intentions to the Syracusan party he effectually ruined the plot. At Thurii he landed, and concealed himself so that he could not be found. When one of his friends said to him, “Alkibiades, do you not trust your native country?” He answered, “Yes, in other matters; but when my life is at stake I would not trust my own mother, for fear that she might mistake a black bean for a white one.” Afterwards hearing that the Athenians had condemned him to death, he said, “I will show them that I am still alive.”

The indictment against him is framed thus:

“Thessalus, the son of Kimon, of the township of Lakia, accuses Alkibiades, the son of Kleinias, of the township of the Skambonidae, of sacrilege against the two goddesses, Demeter and Kora, by parodying the sacred mysteries and giving a representation of them in his own house, wearing himself such a robe as the Hierophant does when he shows the holy things, and calling himself the Hierophant, Poulytion, the Torch-bearer, Theodorus, of the township of Phegaea, the Herald, and addressing the rest of the company as Mysts and Epopts (Initiates and Novices), contrary to the rules and ceremonies established by the Eumolpidae, and Kerykes, and the priests of Eleusis.” As he did not appear, they condemned him, forfeited his goods, and even caused all the priests and priestesses to curse him publicly. It is said that Theano, the daughter of Menon, the priestess of the temple of Agraulos, was the only one who refused to carry out this decree, alleging that it was to pray and not to curse that she had become a priestess.

XXIII

While these terrible decrees and sentences were being passed against Alkibiades, he was living at Argos; for as soon as he left Thurii, he fled to the Peloponnesus, where, terrified at the violence of his enemies, he determined to abandon his country, and sent to Sparta demanding a safe asylum, on the strength of a promise that he would do the Spartans more good than he had in time past done them harm. The Spartans agreed to his request, and invited him to come. On his arrival, he at once effected one important matter, by stirring up the dilatory Spartans to send Gylippus at once to Syracuse with reinforcements for that city, to destroy the Athenian army in Sicily. Next, he brought them to declare war against the Athenians themselves; while his third and most terrible blow to Athens was his causing the Lacedaemonians to seize and fortify Dekeleia, which did more to ruin Athens than any other measure throughout the war. With his great public reputation, Alkibiades was no less popular in private life, and he deluded the people by pretending to adopt the Laconian habits. When they saw him closely shaved, bathing in cold water, eating dry bread and black broth, they wondered, and began to doubt whether this man ever had kept a professed cook, used perfumes, or endured to wear a Milesian mantle. For Alkibiades, among his other extraordinary qualities, had this especial art of captivating men by assimilating his own manners and habits to theirs, being able to change, more quickly than the chameleon, from one mode of life to another. The chameleon, indeed, cannot turn itself white; but Alkibiades never found anything, good or bad, which he could not imitate to the life. Thus at Sparta he was fond of exercise, frugal and severe; in Ionia, luxurious, frivolous, and lazy; in Thrace, he drank deep; in Thessaly he proved himself a good horseman; while, when he was consorting with the satrap Tissaphernes, he outdid even the Persian splendour and pomp. It was not his real character that he so often and so easily changed, but as he knew that if he appeared in his true colours, he would be universally disliked, he concealed his real self under an apparent adoption of the ways and fashions of whatever place he was in. In Lacedaemon you would say, looking at his appearance,

“’Tis not Achilles’ son, ’tis he himself.”

He was just such a man as Lykurgus himself would have trained; but if you examined his habits and actions more closely, you would say:

“’Tis the same woman still.”

For while King Agis was away in the wars, Alkibiades seduced his wife Timaea, so that she became pregnant by him, and did not even deny the fact. When her child was born it was called Leotychides in public, but in her own house she whispered to her friends and attendants that his name was Alkibiades, so greatly was she enamoured of him. He himself used to say in jest that he had not acted thus out of wanton passion, but in order that his race might one day rule in Lacedaemon. King Agis heard of all this from many informants, but was most convinced of its truth by a computation of the time before the birth of the child. Terrified at an earthquake, he had once quitted his wife’s chamber, and for ten months afterwards had never conversed with her. As it was at the end of this period that Leotychides was born, he declared that the child was not his; and for this reason he never succeeded to the throne.

XXIV

After the Athenian disaster in Sicily, ambassadors came to Sparta from Chios, Lesbos, and Kyzikus. The claims of the Lesbians were favoured by the Boeotians, and those of the people of Kyzikus by Pharnabazus; but, at the recommendation of Alkibiades, the Lacedaemonians decided to give the preference to the Chians. He himself sailed to that island, caused nearly the whole of the cities of Ionia to revolt from Athens, and injured the Athenian cause much by constantly assisting the Lacedaemonian generals. King Agis, however, was already his personal enemy, because of Alkibiades’s intrigue with his wife, and now was enraged at his successes; for it was said that scarcely anything was done without Alkibiades. The other leading men in Sparta also hated Alkibiades, because he had thrown them into the shade; and they had sufficient influence with the home government to obtain an order for his execution, to be sent to the generals in Ionia.

Alkibiades received warning of this in good time. Alarmed at the news, he still continued to co-operate with the Lacedaemonians, but utterly refused to trust his person among them. To ensure his safety, he betook himself to Tissaphernes, the satrap or viceroy for the king of Persia in that province, and at once became the most important personage amongst his followers. The barbarian being himself a lover of deceit and of crooked ways, admired his cleverness and versatility; while no man’s nature could resist the fascinations and charms of the society of Alkibiades, which Tissaphernes now enjoyed daily. Although he hated the Greeks as much as any Persian, yet he was so overpowered by the flatteries of Alkibiades, that he in his turn repaid him with compliments even more excessive. He decreed that the pleasantest of his parks, a place charmingly wooded and watered, with delightful walks and summer-houses, should be called “the Alkibiades;” and all men from that time forth spoke of it by that name.

XXV

Now that Alkibiades had determined that the Spartans were not to be trusted, and that he was in fear of Agis, their king, he began to speak evil of them to Tissaphernes, withholding him from assisting them thoroughly, and enabling them to conquer the Athenians, but advising him rather to starve the Lacedaemonians forces by insufficient supplies, so as to play one side off against the other, and thus encourage them to wear each other out, in order that in the end both might be so weakened as to fall an easy prey to the Persians.

Tissaphernes at once adopted this policy, and made no secret of his regard and admiration for Alkibiades, who was now looked up to by the Greeks on both sides, while the Athenians repented of their decrees against him. He also began to fear that if their city were to be utterly destroyed he would necessarily fall into the hands of his enemies, the Lacedaemonians.

The most important post in the Athenian empire at this time was the island of Samos. Here lay the greater part of their fleet, and it was from this headquarters that they sent out expeditions to recover the revolted cities of Ionia, and guarded those which they still retained, as, in spite of their great losses, they still possessed a fleet capable of holding its own against the Lacedaemonians. They were in great fear of Tissaphernes and the Phoenician fleet of a hundred and fifty sail of triremes, which was said to be on the point of arriving, because if it really came all would be over with Athens. Alkibiades, knowing this, sent a secret message to the Athenian leaders at Samos, holding out hopes of bringing Tissaphernes over to the Athenian side. He would not, he said, do this to please the populace of Athens, because he could not trust them, but he would effect it if the nobility would, like brave gentlemen, put an end to the insolent behaviour of the lower orders, and would themselves undertake to save the city and empire of Athens.

All were eager to adopt the proposal of Alkibiades, except Phrynichus of the demos or township of Deirades, who suspected the real truth, that Alkibiades cared nothing about the form of government which might be established at Athens, but was seeking for some excuse for being restored to his native country, and thought, by his harsh language about the people, to ingratiate himself with the nobles. He was, however, overruled; and, being now clearly marked as the personal enemy of Alkibiades, sent a secret message to Astyochus, the admiral of the Lacedaemonian fleet, bidding him beware of Alkibiades, who was playing a double game. However, he met his match in perfidy. Astyochus, desirous of gaining the favour of Tissaphernes, and seeing that Alkibiades had great influence with him, betrayed Phrynichus’s letter to them. Alkibiades upon this at once sent persons to Samos to charge Phrynichus with this act of treason, and he, seeing that all men were shocked at what he had done, and were indignant with him, and being at his wit’s end, endeavoured to heal one mischief by another. He sent a second letter to Astyochus, reproaching him for his betrayal of confidence, and promising that he would enable him to capture the fleet and camp of the Athenians. However, the treachery of Phrynichus did no harm to the Athenians, because of the counter treachery of Astyochus, who communicated this letter also to Alkibiades. Now Phrynichus, expecting a second charge of treason from Alkibiades, was beforehand with him, in announcing to the Athenians that the enemy were about to attack them, and advising them to keep near their ships, and to fortify their camp.3 This they proceeded to do, when there came a second letter from Alkibiades, warning them against Phrynichus, who meditated betraying the harbour to the enemy. This letter was not believed at the time, for men imagined that Alkibiades, who knew perfectly well all the movements and intentions of the enemy, was making use of that knowledge to destroy his personal enemy Phrynichus, by exciting an undeserved suspicion against him. Yet, when afterwards Hermon, one of the Athenian horse-patrol, stabbed Phrynichus with his dagger in the market-place, the Athenians, after trying the case, decided that the deceased was guilty of treason, and crowned Hermon and his comrades with garlands.

XXVI

The friends of Alkibiades being in a majority at Samos, now despatched Peisander to Athens to attempt the subversion of the republic, and to encourage the nobles to seize the government, and put an end to the democratic constitution. If this was done, they conceived that Alkibiades would make Tissaphernes their friend and ally, and this was the pretext and excuse put forward by those who established the oligarchy. When, however, the so-called Five Thousand, who really were the Four Hundred, were at the head of affairs, they paid but little attention to Alkibiades, and were very remiss in carrying on the war, partly because they distrusted the citizens, who were not yet accustomed to the new constitution, and partly because they thought that the Lacedaemonians, who were always favourable to oligarchical governments, would deal more tenderly with them on that account. The Athenian populace remained quiet, though sorely against its will, because of the terror inspired by the oligarchs, for no small number of citizens who had opposed the Four Hundred had been put to death; but the men of Samos, as soon as they heard the news, were indignant, and wished at once to sail to Peiraeus. They sent at once for Alkibiades, elected him their general, and bade him lead them on to crush this new despotism. Alkibiades on this occasion acted like a really great commander, and not at all as one would expect of a man who had suddenly been raised to power by popular favour.

He refused to curry favour with the soldiery by carrying out their wishes, regardless of their having found him a homeless exile, and having made him the commander of so many ships and so many men; but he resisted their impulse, and by preventing their committing so great an error, without doubt saved the Athenian empire. For if the fleet had left Samos, the enemy could without a battle have made themselves masters of the whole of Ionia, the Hellespont, and the islands in the Aegean while Athenians would have fought with Athenians in their own city. All this was prevented by Alkibiades alone, who not only persuaded the populace, and pointed out the folly of such proceedings in public speeches, but even entreated and commanded each individual man to remain at Samos. He was assisted in this by Thrasybulus, of the township of Steiria, who was present, and spoke in his loud voice, which was said to be the loudest of any Athenian of his time. This was a noble achievement of Alkibiades, and so, too, was his undertaking that the Phoenician fleet, which the Lacedaemonians expected would be sent by the Persian king to help them, should either be won over to the Athenian side, or at any rate prevented from joining the Lacedaemonians. In order to effect this, he sailed away in great haste, and, although the Phoenician fleet was at Aspendus, yet Tissaphernes brought it no further, and deceived the Lacedaemonians. Both parties gave Alkibiades the credit of having detained it, and more especially the Lacedaemonians, who imagined that he was teaching the Persians to allow the Greeks to destroy one another, for it was perfectly clear that such a force, if added to either of the contending parties, must have made them complete masters of the sea.

XXVII

After this the government of the Four Hundred was dissolved, as the friends of Alkibiades eagerly took the side of the popular party. Although the Athenians now wished and even commanded Alkibiades to return to his native city, yet he felt that he ought not to come home emptyhanded, and owing his restoration to the good nature of the people, but rather to return after some glorious achievement. With this intention he at first left Samos with a few ships and cruised in the seas near Knidus and Kôs; then, hearing that Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, had gone to the Hellespont with all his fleet, and that the Athenian fleet had followed him, he hurried to the assistance of the Athenian commanders.

Sailing northwards with eighteen triremes he chanced to arrive towards evening, at the end of a sea-fight off Abydos, in which neither party had won any decided advantage. The appearance of his squadron caused very different feelings among the combatants, for the Athenians were alarmed, and the enemy encouraged. However, he soon hoisted an Athenian flag, and bore down upon that part of the Peloponnesian fleet which had been hitherto victorious. He put them to flight, compelled them to run their ships ashore, and then attacking them, disabled their ships, and broke them to pieces, forcing the crews to swim ashore, where Pharnabazus the satrap led a force to the water’s edge to fight for the preservation of the vessels. In the end the Athenians took thirty ships, recovered those of their own which had been captured, and erected a trophy, as victors.

Alkibiades gained great glory by this splendid piece of good fortune, and at once went off with rich presents and a gorgeous military retinue, to display his fresh laurels to Tissaphernes. He met, however, with a very different reception to that which he expected, for Tissaphernes, whose mind had been poisoned against him by the Lacedaemonians, and who feared that the king might be displeased with his own dealings with Alkibiades, considered that he had arrived at a very opportune moment, and at once seized him and imprisoned him at Sardis; thinking that this arbitrary act would prove to the world that the other suspicions of an understanding between them were unfounded.

XXVIII

Thirty days afterwards, Alkibiades by some means obtained a horse, eluded his guards, and fled for refuge to Klazomenae. He gave out that he had been privately released by Tissaphernes himself, in order to disgrace that satrap, and at once sailed to the Athenian fleet in the Hellespont. Learning that Mindarus and Pharnabazus were both in the city of Kyzikus, he encouraged his soldiers by a speech, in which he told them that they would have to fight at sea, on land, and against the town walls too, for that if they were not completely victorious they could get no pay. He manned his ships and proceeded to Prokonessus, ordering all small vessels which they met to be seized and detained in the interior of the fleet, in order that the enemy might not learn his movements. It happened also that a heavy thunderstorm with rain and darkness assisted his design, as he not only was unseen by the enemy, but was never suspected of any intention of attack by the Athenians themselves, who had given up any idea of going to sea when he ordered them on board. Little by little the clouds cleared away, and disclosed the Peloponnesian fleet cruising off the harbour of Kyzikus. Alkibiades, fearing that if the enemy saw how numerous his own fleet was, they would take refuge on shore, ordered the other commanders to remain behind under easy sail, and himself with forty ships went on ahead to entice them to an engagement. The Peloponnesians, deceived by this manoeuvre, at once attacked these few ships, despising their small numbers. But the little squadron engaged them until the rest came up, when they fled ashore in terror. Alkibiades with twenty of the fastest sailing ships broke through the enemy’s line, ran his ships ashore, landed their crews, and attacked the fugitives from the enemy’s fleet with terrible slaughter. Mindarus and Pharnabazus now came to the rescue, but they were beaten back; Mindarus died fighting bravely, and Pharnabazus only saved himself by flight. By this battle the Athenians obtained possession of many dead bodies of their enemies,4 many stand of arms, the whole of the hostile fleet, and the town of Kyzikus, which they took by storm, putting its Peloponnesian garrison to the sword, as soon as Pharnabazus withdrew his troops. They now not merely obtained a firm hold on the Hellespont, but were able to drive the Lacedaemonians from the sea in all quarters. A despatch was captured, written in the Laconian fashion, informing the Ephors of the disaster. “Our ships are gone; Mindarus is slain; the men are starving; we know not what to do.”

XXIX

The men who had served under Alkibiades were so elated by this victory that they disdained to mix with the rest of the army, alleging that the others had often been defeated, and that they were invincible. Indeed, not long before, Thrasyllus had received a defeat near Ephesus, upon which the Ephesians erected the brazen trophy to the disgrace of the Athenians; so that the soldiers of Alkibiades reproached those of Thrasyllus with this, glorifying themselves and their commander, and refusing to allow the others to make use of their places of exercise or their quarters in camp. However, when Pharnabazus with a large force of infantry and calvary attacked them while they were invading the territory of Abydos, Alkibiades led them out to fight him, defeated him, and, together with Thrasyllus, pursued him till nightfall. After this the soldiers fraternised with each other and returned to their camp rejoicing together. On the following day Alkibiades erected a trophy and ravaged the country of Pharnabazus, no one daring to oppose him. He even took priests and priestesses prisoners, but released them without ransom.

The city of Chalkedon had revolted from Athens, and received a Lacedaemonian harmost5 and garrison. Alkibiades was eager to attack them, but, hearing that they had collected all the property6 in their country and placed it in the hands of the Bithynians, a friendly tribe, he led his whole army to the Bithynian frontier and sent a herald to that people reproaching them for what they had done. In terror, the Bithynians gave up the property to him, and entered into an alliance with him.

XXX

He now completely invested Chalkedon, by building a wall reaching from sea to sea. Pharnabazus came down to raise the siege, and Hippokrates, the harmost of the city, led out his forces and attacked the Athenians at the same time. Alkibiades arranged his army so as to be able to fight them both at once, forced Pharnabazus to retreat with disgrace, killed Hippokrates, and put his force to flight with severe loss. He now took a cruise round the Hellespont, to raise contributions from the towns on the coast, during which he took Selymbria, where he, very unnecessarily, was exposed to great personal risk. The party who intended to betray the city had arranged to show a torch as a signal at midnight, but were compelled to do so before the appointed time, fearing one of the conspirators, who suddenly changed his mind. When then the torch was raised, the army was not ready for the assault, but Alkibiades, taking some thirty men with him, ran at full speed up to the walls, giving orders to the rest to follow. The city gate was opened for him, and, twenty peltasts7 having joined his thirty soldiers, he entered, when he perceived the men of Selymbria under arms marching down the street to meet him. To await their onset would have been ruin, while pride forbade a hitherto invincible general to retire. Ordering his trumpet to sound, he bade one of those present proclaim aloud that the Selymbrians ought not to appear in arms against the Athenians. This speech made some of the townspeople less eager to fight, as they imagined that their enemies were all within the walls, while it encouraged others who hoped to arrange matters peaceably. While they were standing opposite to one another and parleying, Alkibiades’s army came up, and he, truly conjecturing that the Selymbrians were really disposed to be friendly, began to fear that his Thracian troops might sack the city; for many of these barbarians were serving in his army as volunteers, from a particular attachment they had to his person. He therefore sent them all out of the city, and did not permit the terrified people of Selymbria to suffer any violence, but, having exacted a contribution of money and placed a garrison in the town, he sailed away.

XXXI

Meanwhile the generals who were besieging Chalkedon made an agreement with Pharnabazus, on these conditions. They were to receive a sum of money; the people of Chalkedon were to become subjects of Athens as before; Pharnabazus was not to lay waste the province; and he was to provide an escort and a safe-conduct for an Athenian embassy to the Persian king. On the return of Alkibiades, Pharnabazus desired him to swear to observe these conditions, but Alkibiades refused to do so unless Pharnabazus swore first. After this capitulation he proceeded to Byzantium, which had revolted from Athens, and built a wall round that city. Anaxilaus and Lykurgus, with some others, now offered to betray the city if the lives and property of the inhabitants were spared. Upon this Alkibiades put about a report that his presence was urgently required on the Ionian coast, and sailed away by daylight with all his fleet. The same night he landed with all his soldiers, and marched up to the walls in silence, while the fleet, with a great clamour and disturbance, forced its way into the harbour. The suddenness of this assault, entirely unexpected as it was, terrified the people of Byzantium, and gave those of them who inclined to the Athenian side an opportunity of admitting Alkibiades quietly, while the attention of every one was directed to the ships in the harbour. The town did not, however, surrender altogether without fighting; for the Peloponnesians, Megarians, and Boeotians who were in it drove the Athenians back into their ships with loss, and when they heard that the land forces had entered the town they formed in line and engaged them. A severe battle took place, but Alkibiades on the right wing, and Theramenes on the left, were at length victorious, and took prisoners the survivors, some three hundred in number. After this battle no citizen of Byzantium was either put to death or banished, those being the terms on which the conspirators had delivered up the city, namely, that they should suffer no loss of life or property.

Anaxilaus was afterwards tried at Sparta for having betrayed the city, and justified what he had done, saying that he was not a Lacedaemonian, but a Byzantine, and that he saw Byzantium, not Sparta, in danger, as the city was surrounded by the enemy’s siege works, no provisions being brought in to it, and what there was in it being consumed by the Peloponnesians and Boeotians, while the people of Byzantium with their wives and children were starving. He did not, he said, betray the city to the enemy, but relieved it from the miseries of war, imitating therein the noblest Lacedaemonians, whose only idea of what was noble and just was what would serve their own country. The Lacedaemonians, on hearing this speech, were ashamed to press the charge, and acquitted him.

XXXII

Now, at length, Alkibiades began to wish to see his native country again, and still more to be seen and admired by his countrymen after his splendid series of victories. He proceeded home with the Athenian fleet, which was magnificently adorned with shields and trophies, and had many prizes in tow, and the flags of many more which he had captured and destroyed—all of them together amounting to not less than two hundred. But we cannot believe the additions which Douris the Samian, who says that he is a descendant of Alkibiades, makes to this story, to the effect that Chrysogonus, the victor at the Pythian games, played on the flute to mark the time for the rowers, while Kallipides the tragedian, attired in his buskins, purple robe, and other theatrical properties, gave them orders, and that the admiral’s ship came into harbour with purple sails, as if returning from a party of pleasure. Neither Theopompus, nor Ephorus, nor Xenophon mentions these circumstances, nor was it likely that he should present himself before the Athenians in such a swaggering fashion, when he was returning home from exile, after having suffered such a variety of misfortunes. The truth is, he sailed to Athens with considerable misgivings, and on his arrival would not leave his ship until from her deck he saw Euryptolemus his cousin, with many of his friends and relatives, assembled to welcome him.

When he landed, the people seemed to have no eyes for the other generals, but all rushed towards him, and escorted him on his way, cheering him, embracing him, and crowning him with flowers. Those who could not get near him gazed upon him from a distance, and the older men pointed him out to the younger ones. Yet the joy of the citizens was mingled with tears in the midst of their rejoicings, when they thought of their past disasters, for they reflected that they would not have failed in Sicily, or met with any of their other terrible disappointments, if they had not parted with Alkibiades when in the full tide of prosperity. He had found Athens barely able to hold her own at sea, by land mistress of little more than the ground on which the city stood, and torn by internal strife; from which miserable and forlorn condition he had restored her so completely, that she was again not only omnipotent at sea, but also victorious everywhere on land.

XXXIII

Before his return a decree had been passed authorising him to do so, at the instance of Kritias, the son of Kallaeschrus, who himself alludes to it in his poems, mentioning the service which he performed for Alkibiades in the following verse:

“I moved your restoration by decree,

And that you’re home again you owe to me.”

Immediately on the return of Alkibiades, the people assembled in the Pnyx, where he addressed them. He spoke with tears of his misfortunes, for which he partly reproached his countrymen, though he attributed them chiefly to his own unlucky fortune, and he greatly raised their hopes by speaking encouragingly about their probable successes in the future. He was honoured with golden crowns, and elected sole general with absolute power both by sea and land. A decree was also passed by which his property was restored to him, and the Eumolpidae and Kerykes were ordered to retract the curses which they had invoked upon him at the instance of the people. When all the rest obeyed, Theodorus the hierophant excused himself, saying, If he has done the State no wrong, I never cursed him.

XXXIV

While Alkibiades was in this glorious career of prosperity, some persons in spite of his success foreboded evil from the day which he had chosen for his return home; for on the day on which he sailed into the harbour the statue of Athene on the Acropolis is stripped of its garments and ornaments, which are cleaned, while it in the meanwhile is covered up to conceal it from human eyes. This ceremony takes place on the 25th of the month Thargelion, which day is considered by the Athenians to be the unluckiest of all. Moreover, the goddess did not appear to receive Alkibiades with a kindly welcome, but to turn away her face from him and drive him from her presence. Be this as it may, all went well and just as Alkibiades wished. A fleet of a hundred triremes was manned, and placed at his disposal, but he with creditable pride refused to set sail until after the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries. Since the permanent occupation of Dekeleia and of the passes commanding the road to Eleusis by the enemy, the procession had been necessarily shorn of many of its distinctive features, as it had to be sent by sea. All the customary sacrifices, dances, and other rites which used to be practised on the road, when Iacchus is carried along in solemn procession, were of necessity omitted. It seemed therefore to Alkibiades that it would both honour the gods and increase his own reputation among men, if he restored the ancient form of this ceremony, escorting the procession with his troops and protecting it from the enemy; for he argued that Agis would lose prestige if he did not attack, but allowed the procession to pass unmolested, whereas if he did attack, Alkibiades would be able to fight in a holy cause, in defence of the most sacred institutions of his country, with all his countrymen present as witnesses of his own valour. When he determined to do this, after concerting measures with the Eumolpidae and Kerykes, he placed vedettes on the mountains and sent an advanced guard off at day-break, following with the priests, novices, and initiators marching in the midst of his army, in great good order and perfect silence. It was an august and solemn procession, and all who did not envy him said that he had performed the office of a high priest in addition of that of a general. The enemy made no attack, and he led his troops safely back to Athens, full of pride himself, and making his army proud to think itself invincible while under his command. He had so won the affections of the poor and the lower orders, that they were strangely desirous of living under his rule. Many even besought him to put down the malignity of his personal enemies, sweep away laws, decrees, and other pernicious nonsense, and carry on the government without fear of a factious opposition.

XXXV

What his own views about making himself despot of Athens may have been we cannot tell; but the leading citizens took alarm at this, and hurried him away as quickly as possible to sea, voting whatever measures he pleased, and allowing him to choose his own colleagues. He set sail with his hundred ships, reached Andros, and defeated the inhabitants of that island, and the Lacedaemonian garrison there. He did not, however, capture the city, and this afterwards became one of the points urged against him by his enemies. Indeed, if there ever was a man destroyed by his reputation, it was Alkibiades. Being supposed to be such a prodigy of daring and subtlety, his failures were regarded with suspicion, as if he could have succeeded had he been in earnest; for his countrymen would not believe that he could really fail in anything which he seriously attempted. They expected to hear of the capture of Chios, and of the whole Ionian coast, and were vexed at not at once receiving the news of a complete success. They did not take into account the want of money which Alkibiades felt, while warring against men who had the king of Persia for their paymaster, and which made frequent absences from his camp necessary to provide subsistence for his troops. It was one of these expeditions, indeed, which exposed him to the last and most important of the many charges brought against him. Lysander had been sent by the Lacedaemonians to take the command of their fleet. On his arrival, by means of the money paid by Cyrus, he raised the pay of his sailors from three obols a day to four. Alkibiades, who could with difficulty pay his men even three obols, went to Caria to levy contributions, leaving in command of the fleet one Antiochus, a good seaman, but a thoughtless and silly man. He had distinct orders from Alkibiades not to fight even if the enemy attacked him, but such was his insolent disregard of these instructions that he manned his own trireme and one other, sailed to Ephesus, and there passed along the line of the enemy’s ships, as they lay on the beach, using the most scurrilous and insulting language and gestures. At first Lysander put to sea with a few ships to pursue him, but as the Athenians came out to assist him, the action became general. The entire fleets engaged and Lysander was victorious. He killed Antiochus, captured many ships and men, and set up a trophy. When Alkibiades on his return to Samos heard of this, he put to sea with all his ships, and offered battle to Lysander; but he was satisfied with his previous victory, and refused the offer.

XXXVI

Thrasybulus, the son of Thrason, a bitter personal enemy of Alkibiades, now set sail for Athens to accuse him, and to exasperate his enemies in the city against him. He made a speech to the people, representing that Alkibiades had ruined their affairs and lost their ships by insolently abusing his authority and entrusting the command, during his own absence, to men who owed their influence with him to deep drinking and cracking seamen’s jokes, and that he securely traversed the provinces to raise money, indulging in drunken debauches with Ionian courtezans, while the enemy’s fleet was riding close to his own. He was also blamed for the construction of certain forts in Thrace, near Bisanthe, which he destined as a place of refuge for himself, as if he could not or would not live in his native city.

The Athenians were so wrought upon by these charges against Alkibiades, that they elected other generals to supersede him, thus showing their anger and dislike for him. Alkibiades, on learning this, left the Athenian camp altogether, got together a force of foreign troops, and made war on the irregular Thracian tribes on his own account, thus obtaining much plunder and freeing the neighbouring Greek cities from the dread of the barbarians. Now when the generals Tydeus, Menander, and Adeimantus came with the entire Athenian fleet to Aegospotamoi, they used early every morning to go to Lampsakus to challenge the fleet of Lysander, which lay there, to a sea-fight. After this ceremony they would return and spend the whole day in careless indolence, as if despising their enemy. Alkibiades, who lived close by, did not disregard their danger, but even rode over on horseback and pointed out to the generals that they were very badly quartered in a place where there was no harbour and no city, having to obtain all their provisions from Sestos, and, when the ships were once hauled up on shore, allowing the men to leave them unguarded and straggle where they pleased, although they were in the presence of a fleet which was trained to act in silence and good order at the command of one man.

XXXVII

Though Alkibiades gave this advice, and urged the generals to remove to Sestos, they would not listen to him. Tydeus indeed rudely bade him begone, for they, not he, were now generals. Alkibiades, too, suspected that there was some treachery in the case, and retired, telling his personal friends, who escorted him out of the camp, that if he had not been so outrageously insulted by the generals, he could in a few days have compelled the Lacedaemonians either to fight a battle at sea against their will, or abandon their ships. To some this seemed mere boasting, while others thought that he could very possibly effect it by bringing many Thracian light-armed troops and cavalry to assault the camp on the land side. However, the result soon proved that he had rightly seen the fault of the Athenian position. Lysander suddenly and unexpectedly assailed it, and except eight triremes which escaped under Konon, took all the rest, nearly two hundred in number. Lysander also put three thousand prisoners to the sword. He shortly afterwards captured Athens, burned her ships, and pulled down her Long Walls. Alkibiades, terrified at seeing the Lacedaemonians omnipotent by sea and land, shifted his quarters to Bithynia, sending thither a great amount of treasure, and taking much with him, but leaving much more in his Thracian fortresses. In Bithynia, however, he suffered much loss at the hands of the natives, and determined to proceed to the court of Artaxerxes, thinking that the Persian king, if he would make trial of him, would find that he was not inferior to Themistokles in ability, while he sought him in a much more honourable way; for it was not to revenge himself on his fellow-citizens, as Themistokles did, but to assist his own country against its enemy that he meant to solicit the king’s aid. Imagining that Pharnabazus would be able to grant him a safe passage to the Persian court, he went into Phrygia to meet him, and remained there for some time, paying his court to the satrap, and receiving from him marks of respect.

XXXVIII

The Athenians were terribly cast down at the loss of their empire; but when Lysander robbed them of their liberty as well, by establishing the government of the Thirty Tyrants, they began to entertain thoughts which never had occurred to them before, while it was yet possible that the State might be saved from ruin. They bewailed their past blunders and mistakes, and of these they considered their second fit of passion with Alkibiades to have been the greatest. They had cast him off for no fault of his own, but merely because they were angry with his follower for having lost a few ships disgracefully; they had much more disgraced themselves by losing the services of the ablest and bravest general whom they possessed. Even in their present abasement a vague hope prevailed among them that Athens could not be utterly lost while Alkibiades was alive; for he had not during his former exile been satisfied with a quiet life, and surely now, however prosperous his private circumstances might be, he would not endure to see the triumph of the Lacedaemonians, and the arrogant tyranny of the Thirty. Indeed this was proved to be no vain dream by the care which the Thirty took to watch all the motions of Alkibiades. At last, Kritias informed Lysander, that while Athens was governed by a democracy, the Lacedaemonian empire in Greece could never be safe; and if the Athenians were ever so much inclined to an oligarchical form of government, Alkibiades, if he lived, would not long suffer them to submit to it. However, Lysander was not prevailed upon by these arguments until a despatch came from Sparta bidding him make away with Alkibiades, either because the home government feared his ability and enterprise, or because they wished to please his enemy, King Agis.

XXXIX

Lysander now sent orders for his death to Pharnabazus, who entrusted their execution to his brother Magaeus and his uncle Susamithres. Alkibiades was at this time dwelling in a village in Phrygia, with Timandra the courtezan, and one night he dreamed that he was dressed in his mistress’s clothes, and that she, holding his head in her arms, was painting his face and adorning him like a woman. Others say that he saw Magaeus in his dream cutting off his head, and his body all in flames. All, however, agree that the dream took place shortly before his death. His murderers did not dare to enter the house, but stood round it in a circle and set it on fire. Alkibiades, on discovering them, flung most of the bedding and clothes on to the fire, wrapped his cloak round his left arm, and with his dagger in his right dashed through the flames unhurt, not giving his clothes time to catch fire. None of the barbarians dared to await his onset, but as soon as they saw him they scattered, and from a distance shot at him with darts and arrows. After he had fallen and the barbarians were gone, Timandra took up his corpse, covered it with her own clothes, and, as far as was in her power, showed it every mark of honour and respect.

This Timandra is said to have been the mother of Lais, commonly called the Corinthian, who really was brought as a captive from Hykkara, a small town in Sicily. Some writers, although they agree in their account of the manner of his death, differ as to its cause, alleging that it was neither due to Pharnabazus nor to Lysander nor the Lacedaemonians, but that Alkibiades had debauched a girl of noble birth and was living with her, and that her relatives, enraged at this insult, during the night set fire to the house in which Alkibiades was living, and, as has been related, shot him as he leaped out through the flames.

LIFE OF
CAIUS MARCIUS CORIOLANUS.

I

The patrician family of the Marcii at Rome produced many illustrious men, amongst whom was Ancus Marcius, the grandson of Numa, who became king after the death of Tullus Hostilius. To this family also belonged Publius and Quintus Marcius, who supplied Rome with abundance of excellent water, and Censorinus, twice appointed censor by the Roman people, who afterwards passed a law that no one should hold that office twice.

Caius Marcius, the subject of this memoir, was an orphan, and brought up by a widowed mother. He proved that, hard though the lot of an orphan may be, yet it does not prevent a man’s becoming great and distinguished, and that the bad alone allege it as an excuse for an intemperate life. He also proves to us that a naturally noble nature, if it be not properly disciplined, will produce many good and bad qualities together, just as a rich field, if not properly tilled, will produce both weeds and good fruit. The immense energy and courage of his mind used to urge him to attempt and to perform great exploits, but his harsh and ambitious temper made it difficult for him to live on friendly terms with his companions. They used to admire his indifference to pleasure and pain, and his contempt for bribes, but in politics they were angered by his morose and haughty manner, too proud for a citizen of a republic. Indeed there is no advantage to be gained from a liberal education so great as that of softening and disciplining the natural ferocity of our disposition, by teaching it moderation, and how to avoid all extremes. However, at that period warlike virtues were valued above all others at Rome, which is proved by the Romans possessing only one word for virtue and for bravery, so that virtue, a general term, is applied by them to the particular form, courage.

II

Marcius, having an especial passion for war, was familiar from childhood with the use of arms. Reflecting that artificial weapons are of little use without a body capable of wielding them, he so trained himself for all possible emergencies that he was both able to run swiftly and also to grapple with his foe so strongly that few could escape from him. Those who entered into any contest with him, when beaten, used to ascribe their defeat to his immense bodily strength, which no exertions could tire out.

III

He served his first campaign while yet a youth, when Tarquin, the exiled King of Rome, after many battles and defeats, staked all upon one last throw, and assembled an army to attack Rome. His force consisted chiefly of Latins, but many other Italian states took his part in the war, not from any attachment to his person, but through fear and dislike of the growing power of Rome. In the battle which ensued, in which various turns of fortune took place, Marcius, while fighting bravely under the eye of the dictator himself, saw a Roman fallen and helpless near him. He at once made for this man, stood in front of him, and killed his assailant. After the victory, Marcius was among the first who received the oak-leaf crown. This crown is given to him who has saved the life of a citizen in battle, and is composed of oak-leaves, either out of compliment to the Arcadians, whom the oracle calls ‘acorn eaters,’ or because in any campaign in any country it is easy to obtain oak-boughs, or it may be that the oak, sacred to Jupiter the protector of cities, forms a suitable crown for one who has saved the life of a citizen. The oak is the most beautiful of all wild trees, and the strongest of those which are artificially cultivated. It afforded men in early times both food and drink, by its acorns and the honey found in it, while by the bird-lime which it produces, it enables them to catch most kinds of birds and other creatures, as additional dainties.

This was the battle in which they say that the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, appeared, and immediately after the battle were soon in the Forum at Rome announcing the victory, with their horses dripping with sweat, at the spot where now there is a temple built in their honour beside the fountain. In memory of this, the day of the victory, the 15th of July, is kept sacred to the Dioscuri.

IV

To win distinction early in life is said to quench and satisfy the eagerness of some men whose desire for glory is not keen; but for those with whom it is the ruling passion of their lives, the gaining of honours only urges them on, as a ship is urged by a gale, to fresh achievements. They do not regard themselves as having received a reward, but as having given a pledge for the future, and they feel it their duty not to disgrace the reputation which they have acquired, but to eclipse their former fame by some new deed of prowess. Marcius, feeling this, was ever trying to surpass himself in valour, and gained such prizes and trophies that the later generals under whom he served were always striving to outdo the former ones in their expressions of esteem for him, and their testimony to his merits. Many as were the wars in which Rome was then engaged, Marcius never returned from any without a prize for valour or some especial mark of distinction. Other men were brave in order to win glory, but Marcius won glory in order to please his mother. That she should hear him praised, see him crowned, and embrace him weeping for joy, was the greatest honour and happiness of his life. Epameinondas is said to have had the same feelings, and to have considered it to be his greatest good-fortune that his father and mother were both alive to witness his triumphant success at the battle of Leuktra. He, however, enjoyed the sympathy and applause of both parents, but Marcius, being fatherless, lavished on his mother all that affection which should have belonged to his father, besides her own share. So boundless was his love for Volumnia that at her earnest desire he even married a wife, but still continued to live in the house of his mother.

V

At this time, when his reputation and influence were very considerable because of his prowess, there was a party-quarrel going on in Rome between the patricians, who wished to defend the privileges of men of property, and the people, who were suffering terrible ill-treatment at the hands of their creditors. Those who possessed a small property were forced either to pledge or to sell it, while those who were absolutely destitute were carried off and imprisoned, though they might be scarred and enfeebled from the wars in which they had served in defence of their country. The last campaign was that against the Sabines, after which their rich creditors promised to treat them with less harshness. In pursuance of a decree of the Senate, Marcus Valerius the consul was the guarantee of this promise. But when, after serving manfully in this campaign and conquering the enemy, they met with no better treatment from their creditors, and the Senate seemed unmindful of its engagements, allowing them to be imprisoned and distresses to be levied upon their property as before, there were violent outbreaks and riots in the city. This disturbed condition of the commonwealth was taken advantage of by the enemy, who invaded the country and plundered it. When the consuls called all men of military age to arms, no one obeyed, and then at last the patricians hesitated. Some thought that they ought to yield to the lower classes, and make some concessions instead of enforcing the strict letter of the law against them; while others, among whom was Marcius, opposed this idea, not because he thought the money of great consequence, but because he considered this to be the beginning of an outburst of democratic insolence which a wise government would take timely measures to suppress before it gathered strength.

VI

As the Senate, although it frequently met, came to no decision on this matter, the plebeians suddenly assembled in a body, left the city, and established themselves on what was afterwards called the Mons Sacer, or Sacred Hill, near the river Anio. They abstained from all factious proceedings, and merely stated that they had been driven from the city by the wealthy classes. Air and water and a place in which to be buried, they said, could be obtained anywhere in Italy, and they could get nothing more than this in Rome, except the privilege of being wounded or slain in fighting battles on behalf of the rich. At this demonstration, the Senate became alarmed, and sent the most moderate and popular of its members to treat with the people. The spokesman of this embassy was Menenius Agrippa, who, after begging the plebeians to come to terms, and pleading the cause of the Senate with them, wound up his speech by the following fable: Once upon a time, said he, all the members revolted against the belly, reproaching it with lying idle in the body, and making all the other members work in order to provide it with food; but the belly laughed them to scorn, saying that it was quite true that it took all the food which the body obtained, but that it afterwards distributed it among all the members. “This,” he said, “is the part played by the Senate in the body politic. It digests and arranges all the affairs of the State, and provides all of you with wholesome and useful measures.”

VII

Upon this they came to terms, after stipulating that five men should be chosen to defend the cause of the people, who are now known as tribunes of the people. They chose for the first tribunes the leaders of the revolt, the chief of whom were Junius Brutus and Sicinius Vellutus. As soon as the State was one again, the people assembled under arms, and zealously offered their services for war to their rulers. Marcius, though but little pleased with these concessions which the plebeians had wrung from the patricians, yet, noticing that many patricians were of his mind, called upon them not to be outdone in patriotism by the plebeians, but to prove themselves their superiors in valour rather than in political strength.

VIII

Corioli was the most important city of the Volscian nation, with which Rome then was at war. The consul Cominius was besieging it, and the Volscians, fearing it might be taken, gathered from all quarters, meaning to fight a battle under the city walls, and so place the Romans between two fires. Cominius divided his army, and led one part of it to fight the relieving force, leaving Titus Lartius, a man of the noblest birth in Rome, to continue the siege with the rest of his troops. The garrison of Corioli, despising the small numbers of their besiegers, attacked them and forced them to take shelter within their camp. But there Marcius with a few followers checked their onset, slew the foremost, and with a loud voice called on the Romans to rally. He was, as Cato said a soldier should be, not merely able to deal weighty blows, but struck terror into his enemies by the loud tones of his voice and his martial appearance, so that few dared to stand their ground before him. Many soldiers rallied round him and forced the enemy to retreat; but he, not satisfied with this, followed them close and drove them in headlong flight back to the city. On arriving there, although he saw that the Romans were slackening their pursuit as many missiles were aimed at them from the city walls, and none of them thought of daring to enter together with the fugitives into a city full of armed men, yet he stood and cheered them on, loudly telling them that fortune had opened the city gates as much to the pursuers as to the pursued. Few cared to follow him, but he, forcing his way through the crowd of fugitives, entered the city with them, none daring at first to withstand him. Soon, when the enemy saw how few of the Romans were within the gates, they rallied and attacked them. Marcius, in the confused mass of friends and foes, fought with incredible strength, swiftness, and courage, overthrowing all whom he attacked, driving some to the further parts of the town, and forcing others to lay down their arms, so that Lartius was able to march the rest of the Roman army into the gates unmolested.

IX

When the city was taken, the greater part of the soldiers fell to plundering it, which greatly vexed Marcius. He loudly exclaimed that it was a disgraceful thing, when the consul was on the point of engaging with the enemy, that they should be plundering, or, on the pretext of plunder, keeping themselves safe out of harm’s way. Few paid any attention to him, but with those few he marched on the track of the main body, frequently encouraging his followers to greater speed, and not to give way to fatigue, and frequently praying to Heaven that he might not come too late for the battle, but arrive in time to share the labours and perils of his countrymen. There was at that time a custom among the Romans, when they were drawn up in order of battle, ready to take their shields in their hands, and to gird themselves with the trabea, to make their will verbally, naming their heir in the presence of three or four witnesses. The Roman army was found by Marcius in the act of performing this ceremony. At first some were alarmed at seeing him appear with only a few followers, covered with blood and sweat; but when he ran joyously up to the consul and told him that Corioli was taken, Cominius embraced him, and all the ranks took fresh courage, some because they heard, and others because they guessed the glorious news. They eagerly demanded to be led to battle. Marcius now enquired of Cominius how the enemy’s line of battle was arranged, and where it was strongest. When the consul answered that he believed that the men of Antium, the proudest and bravest troops of the Volscians, were posted in the centre, he answered, “I beg of you, place us opposite to those men.” The consul, filled with admiration for his spirit, placed him there. As soon as the armies met, Marcius charged before the rest, and the Volscians gave way before his onset. The centre, where he attacked, was quite broken, but the ranks on either side wheeled round and surrounded him, so that the consul feared for his safety, and despatched the choicest of his own troops to his aid. They found a hot battle raging round Marcius, and many slain, but by the shock of their charge they drove off the enemy in confusion. As they began to pursue them, they begged Marcius, now weary with toil and wounds, to retire to the camp, but he, saying that “it was not for victors to be weary,” joined in the pursuit. The rest of the Volscian army was defeated, many were slain, and many taken.

X

On the next day Lartius and the rest joined the consul. He ascended a rostrum, and after returning suitable thanks to Heaven for such unexampled successes, turned to Marcius. First he praised his conduct in the highest terms, having himself witnessed some part of it, and having learned the rest from Lartius. Next, as there were many prisoners, horses, and other spoil, he bade him, before it was divided, choose a tenth part for himself. He also presented him with a horse and trappings, as a reward for his bravery. As all the Romans murmured their approval, Marcius coming forward said that he gladly accepted the horse, and was thankful for the praise which he had received from the consul. As for the rest, he considered that to be mere pay, not a prize, and refused it, preferring to take his share with the rest. “One especial favour,” said he, “I do beg of you. I had a friend among the Volscians, who now is a captive, and from having been a rich and free man has fallen to the condition of a slave. I wish to relieve him from one of his many misfortunes—that of losing his liberty and being sold for a slave.” After these words, Marcius was cheered more than he had been before, and men admired his disinterestedness more than they had admired his bravery. Even those who grudged him his extraordinary honours now thought that by his unselfishness he had shown himself worthy of them, and admired his courage in refusing such presents more than the courage by which he had won the right to them. Indeed, the right use of riches is more glorious than that of arms, but not to desire them at all is better even than using them well.

XI

When the cheering caused by Marcius’s speech had subsided, Cominius said: “Fellow soldiers, we cannot force a man against his will to receive these presents; but, unless his achievements have already won it for him, let us give him the title of Coriolanus, which he cannot refuse, seeing for what it is bestowed, and let us confirm it by a general vote.”

Hence he obtained the third name of Coriolanus. From this we may clearly see that his own personal name was Caius, and that Marcius was the common name of his family, while the third name was added afterwards to mark some particular exploit, peculiarity, or virtue in the bearer. So also did the Greeks in former ages give men names derived from their actions, such as Kallinikus (the Victor), or Soter (the Preserver); or from their appearance, as Fusco (the Fat), or Gripus (the Hook-nosed); or from their virtues, as Euergetes (the Benefactor), or Philadelphus (the Lover of his Brethren), which were names of the Ptolemies: or from their success, as Eudaemon (the Fortunate), a name given to the second king of the race of Battus. Some princes have even had names given them in jest, as Antigonus was called Doson (the Promiser), and Ptolemy Lathyrus (the Vetch).

The Romans used this sort of name much more commonly, as for instance they named one of the Metelli Diadematus, or wearer of the diadem, because he walked about for a long time with his head bound up because of a wound in the forehead.

Another of the same family was named Celer (the Swift), because of the wonderful quickness with which he provided a show of gladiators on the occasion of his father’s funeral. Some even to the present day derive their names from the circumstances of their birth, as for instance a child is named Proculus if his father be abroad when he is born, and Postumus if he be dead. If one of twins survive, he is named Vopiscus. Of names taken from bodily peculiarities they use not only Sulla (the Pimply), Niger (the Swarthy), Rufus (the Red-haired), but even such as Caecus (the Blind), and Claudus (the Lame), wisely endeavouring to accustom men to consider neither blindness nor any other bodily defect to be any disgrace or matter of reproach, but to answer to these names as if they were their own. However, this belongs to a different branch of study.

XII

When the war was over, the popular orators renewed the party-quarrels, not that they had any new cause of complaint or any just grievance to proceed upon; but the evil result which had necessarily been produced by their former riotous contests were now made the ground of attacks on the patricians. A great part of the country was left unsown and untilled, while the war gave no opportunities for importation from other countries. The demagogues, therefore, seeing that there was no corn in the market, and that even if there had been any, the people were not able to buy it, spread malicious accusations against the rich, saying that they had purposely produced this famine in order to pay off an old grudge against the people. At this juncture ambassadors arrived from the town of Velitrae, who delivered up their city to the Romans, desiring that they would send some new inhabitants to people it, as a pestilence had made such havoc among the citizens that there was scarcely a tenth part of them remaining alive.

The wiser Romans thought that this demand of the people of Velitrae would confer a most seasonable relief on themselves, and would put an end to their domestic troubles, if they could only transfer the more violent partizans of the popular party thither, and so purge the State of its more disorderly elements. The consuls accordingly chose out all these men and sent them to colonize Velitrae, and enrolled the rest for a campaign against the Volsci, that they might not have leisure for revolutionary plottings, but that when they were all gathered together, rich and poor, patrician and plebeian alike, to share in the common dangers of a camp, they might learn to regard one another with less hatred and illwill.

XIII

But Sicinnius and Brutus, the tribunes of the people, now interposed, crying aloud that the consuls were veiling a most barbarous action under the specious name of sending out colonists. They were despatching many poor men to certain destruction by transporting them to a city whose air was full of pestilence and the stench from unburied corpses, where they were to dwell under the auspices of a god who was not only not their own, but angry with them. And after that, as if it was not sufficient for them that some of the citizens should be starved, and others be exposed to the plague, they must needs plunge wantonly into war, in order that the city might suffer every conceivable misery at once, because it had refused any longer to remain in slavery to the rich. Excited by these speeches, the people would not enrol themselves as soldiers for the war, and looked with suspicion on the proposal for the new colony. The Senate was greatly perplexed, but Marcius, now a person of great importance and very highly thought of in the State, began to place himself in direct opposition to the popular leaders, and to support the patrician cause. In spite of the efforts of the demagogues, a colony was sent out to Velitrae, those whose names were drawn by lot being compelled by heavy penalties to go thither; but as the people utterly refused to serve in the campaign against the Volscians, Marcius made up a troop of his own clients, with which and what others he could persuade to join him he made an inroad into the territory of Antium. Here he found much corn, and captured many prisoners and much cattle. He kept none of it for himself, but returned to Rome with his troops loaded with plunder. This caused the others to repent of their determination, when they saw the wealth which these men had obtained, but it embittered their hatred of Marcius, whom they regarded as gaining glory for himself at the expense of the people.

XIV

Shortly after this, however, Marcius stood for the consulship, and then the people relented and felt ashamed to affront such a man, first in arms as in place, and the author of so many benefits to the State. It was the custom at Rome for those who were candidates for any office to address and ingratiate themselves with the people, going about the Forum in a toga without any tunic underneath it, either in order to show their humility by such a dress, or else in order to display the wounds which they had received, in token of their valour. At that early period there could be no suspicion of bribery, and it was not for that reason that the citizens wished their candidates to come down among them ungirt and without a tunic. It was not till long afterwards that votes were bought and sold, and that a candidature became an affair of money. This habit of receiving bribes, when once introduced, spread to the courts of justice and to the armies of the commonwealth, and finally brought the city under the despotic rule of the emperors, as the power of arms was not equal to that of money. For it was well said that he who first introduced the habit of feasting and bribing voters ruined the constitution. This plague crept secretly and silently into Rome, and was for a long time undiscovered. We cannot tell who was the first to bribe the people or the courts of law at Rome. At Athens it is said that the first man who gave money to the judges for his acquittal was Anytus the son of Anthemion, when he was tried for treachery at Pylos towards the end of the Peloponnesian War, a period when men of uncorrupted simplicity and virtue were still to be found in the Forum at Rome.

XV

Marcius displayed many scars, gained in the numerous battles in which for seventeen years in succession he had always taken a prominent part. The people were abashed at these evidences of his valour, and agreed among themselves that they would return him as consul. But when, on the day of election, he appeared in the Forum, escorted by a splendid procession of the entire Senate, and all the patricians were seen collected round him evidently intent upon obtaining his election, many of the people lost their feeling of goodwill towards him, and regarded him with indignation and envy; which passions were assisted by their fear lest, if a man of such aristocratic tendencies and such influence with the patricians should obtain power, he might altogether destroy the liberties of the people. For these reasons they did not elect Marcius. When two persons had been elected consuls, the Senate was much irritated, considering that it, rather than its candidate Marcius, had been insulted, while he was much enraged, and could not bear his disgrace with any temper or patience, being accustomed always to yield to the more violent and ferocious emotions as being the more spirited course, without any mixture of gravity and self-restraint, virtues so necessary for political life. He had never learned how essential it is for one who undertakes to deal with men, and engage in public business, to avoid above all things that self-will which, as Plato says, is of the family of solitude, and to become longsuffering and patient, qualities which some foolish people hold very cheap. Marcius, plain and straightforward, thinking it to be the duty of a brave man to bear down all opposition, and not reflecting that it is rather a sign of weakness and feebleness of mind to be unable to restrain one’s passion, flung away in a rage, bitterly irritated against the people. The young aristocracy of Rome, who had ever been his fast friends, now did him an ill service by encouraging and exasperating his anger by their expressions of sympathy; for he was their favourite leader and a most kind instructor in the art of war when on a campaign, as he taught them to delight in deeds of prowess without envying and grudging one another their proper meed of praise.

XVI

While this was the state of affairs at Rome, a large amount of corn arrived there, some of which had been bought in Italy, but most of it sent as a present from Sicily by Gelon the despot; which gave most men hopes that the famine would come to an end, and that the quarrel between the patricians and plebeians would, under these improved circumstances, be made up. The Senate at once assembled, and the people eagerly waited outside the doors of the senate house, expecting and hoping that prices would be lowered, and that the present of corn would be distributed gratis among them; and indeed some of the senators advised the adoption of that course. Marcius, however, rose and bitterly inveighed against those who favoured the people, calling them demagogues and betrayers of their own order, alleging that by such gratification they did but cherish that spirit of boldness and arrogance which had been spread among the people against the patricians, which they would have done well to crush upon its first appearance, and not suffer the plebeians to grow so strong by giving so much power to the tribunes of the people. Now, he urged, they had become formidable because every demand they made had been agreed to, and nothing done against their wishes; they contemned the authority of the consuls, and lived in defiance of the constitution, governed only by their own seditious ringleaders, to whom they gave the title of tribunes. For the Senate to sit and decree largesses of corn to the populace, as is done in the most democratic States in Greece, would merely be to pay them for their disobedience, to the common ruin of all classes. “They cannot,” he went on to say, “consider this largess of corn to be a reward for the campaign in which they have refused to serve, or for the secession by which they betrayed their country, or the scandals which they have been so willing to believe against the Senate. As they cannot be said to deserve this bounty, they will imagine that it has been bestowed upon them by you because you fear them, and wish to pay your court to them. In this case there will be no bounds to their insubordination, and they never will cease from riots and disorders. To give it them is clearly an insane proceeding; nay, we ought rather, if we are wise, to take away from them this privilege of the tribuneship, which is a distinct subversion of the consulate, and a cause of dissension in the city, which now is no longer one, as before, but is rent asunder in such a manner that there is no prospect of our ever being reunited, and ceasing to be divided into two hostile factions.”

XVII

With much talk to this effect Marcius excited the young men, with whom he was influential, and nearly all the richer classes, who loudly declared that he was the only man in the State who was insensible both to force and to flattery. Some of the elders, however, opposed him, foreseeing what would be the result of his policy. Indeed, no good resulted from it. The tribunes of the people, as soon as they heard that Marcius had carried his point, rushed down into the forum and called loudly upon the people to assemble and stand by them. A disorderly assembly took place, and on a report being made of Marcius’s speech, the fury of the people was so great that it was proposed to break into the senate house; but the tribunes turned all the blame upon Marcius alone, and sent for him to come and speak in his own defence. As this demand was insolently refused, the tribunes themselves, together with the aediles, went to bring him by force, and actually laid hands upon him. However, the patricians rallied round him, thrust away the tribunes of the people, and even beat the aediles, their assistants in this quarrel. Night put an end to the conflict, but at daybreak the consuls, seeing the people terribly excited, and gathering in the forum from all quarters, began to fear the consequences of their fury. They assembled the senators and bade them endeavour, by mild language and healing measures, to pacify the multitude, as it was no season for pride or for standing upon their dignity, but if they were wise they would perceive that so dangerous and critical a posture of affairs required a temperate and popular policy. The majority of the senators yielded, and the consuls proceeded to soothe the people in the best way they could, answering gently such charges as had been brought against them, even speaking with the utmost caution when blaming the people for their late outrageous conduct, and declaring that there should be no difference of opinion between them about the way in which corn should be supplied, and about the price of provisions.

XVIII

As the people now for the most part had cooled down, and from their attentive and orderly demeanour were evidently much wrought upon by the words of the consuls, the tribunes came forward and addressed them. They said that now that the Senate had come to a better frame of mind, the people would willingly make concessions in their turn; but they insisted that Marcius should apologise for his conduct, or deny if he could that he had excited the Senate to destroy the constitution, that when summoned to appear he had disobeyed, and that finally he had, by beating and insulting the aediles in the market-place, done all that lay in his power to raise a civil war and make the citizens shed one another’s blood. Their object in saying this was either to humble Marcius, by making him entreat the clemency of the people, which was much against his haughty temper, or else expecting that he would yield to his fiery nature and make the breach between himself and the people incurable. The latter was what they hoped for from their knowledge of his character.

Marcius came forward to speak in his defence, and the people stood listening in dead silence. But when, instead of the apologetic speech which they expected, he began to speak with a freedom which seemed more like accusing them than defending himself, while the tones of his voice and the expression of his countenance showed a fearless contempt for his audience, the people became angry, and plainly showed their disapprobation of what he said. Upon this, Sicinnius, the boldest of the tribunes, after a short consultation with his colleagues, came forward and said that the tribunes had condemned Marcius to suffer the penalty of death, and ordered the aediles to lead him at once to the Capitol, and cast him down the Tarpeian rock. When the aediles laid hold of him, many of the people themselves seemed struck with horror and remorse, and the patricians in the wildest excitement, called upon one another to rescue him, and by main force tore him from his assailants and placed him in the midst of themselves. Some of them held out their hands and besought the populace by signs, as no voice could be heard in such an uproar. At last the friends and relations of the tribunes, seeing that it was impossible to carry out their sentence on Marcius without much bloodshed, persuaded them to alter the cruel and unprecedented part of the sentence, and not to put him to death by violence, or without a trial, but to refer the matter to the people, to be voted upon by them. Upon this Sicinnius, turning to the patricians, demanded what they meant by rescuing Marcius from the people when they intended to punish him. They at once retorted, “Nay, what do you mean by dragging one of the bravest and best men in Rome to a cruel and illegal death?” “You shall not,” answered Sicinnius, “make that a ground of quarrel with the people, for we allow you what you demand, that this man be put on his trial. You, Marcius, we summon to appear in the forum on the third market-day ensuing, and prove your innocence if you can, as the votes of your countrymen will be then taken about your conduct.”

XIX

The patricians were glad enough to terminate the affair in this way, and retired rejoicing, bearing Marcius with them. During the time which was to elapse before the third market-day (which the Romans hold on every ninth day, and therefore call them nundinae), they had some hope that a campaign against the people of Antium would enable them to put off the trial until the people’s anger had abated through length of time and warlike occupations; afterwards, as they came to terms at once with the Antiates, the patricians held frequent meetings, in which they expressed their fear of the people, and considered by what means they could avoid delivering Marcius up to them, and prevent their mob orators from exciting them. Appius Claudius, who had the reputation of being the bitterest enemy of the people in Rome, gave it as his opinion that the Senate would destroy itself and ruin the State utterly if it permitted the people to assume the power of trying patricians and voting on their trials; while the older men, and those who were more inclined to the popular side, thought that this power would render the people gentle and temperate, and not savage and cruel. The people, they said, did not despise the Senate, but imagined that they were despised by it, so that this privilege of holding the trial would agreeably salve their wounded vanity, and, as they exercised their franchise, they would lay aside their anger.

XX

Marcius, perceiving that the Senate, divided between their regard for himself and their fear of the people, knew not what to do, himself asked the tribunes of the people what it was that he was charged with, and what indictment they intended to bring against him at his trial. When they answered that the charge against him was one of treason, because he had attempted to make himself absolute despot in Rome, and that they would prove it, he at once rose, saying that he would at once defend himself before the people on that score, and that if he were convicted, he would not refuse to undergo any punishment whatever; “Only,” said he, “do not bring forward some other charge against me, and deceive the Senate.” When they had agreed upon these conditions, the trial took place.

The tribunes, however, when the people assembled, made them vote by tribes, and not by centuries;1 by which device the votes of rich respectable men who had served the State in the wars would be swamped by those of the needy rabble who cared nothing for truth or honour. In the next place, they passed by the charge of treason, as being impossible to prove, and repeated what Marcius had originally said before the Senate, when he dissuaded them from lowering the price of corn, and advised the abolition of the office of tribune. A new count in the indictment was that he had not paid over the money raised by the sale of the plunder after his expedition against Antium, but had divided it among his own followers. This last accusation is said to have disturbed Marcius more than all the rest, as he had never expected it, and was not prepared with any answer that would satisfy the people, so that the praises which he bestowed on those who had made that campaign with him only angered the far greater number who had not done so. At last the people voted. Marcius was condemned by a majority of the tribes, and was sentenced to perpetual banishment. After sentence was passed, the people displayed greater joy than if they had won a pitched battle, while the Senate was downcast and filled with regret at not having run any risks rather than allow the people to obtain so much power, and use it so insolently. Nor was there any need for distinctions of dress or anything else to distinguish the two parties, because a plebeian might be told at once by his delight, a patrician by his sorrow.

XXI

Marcius himself, however, remained unmoved. Proud and haughty as ever, he appeared not to be sorry for himself, and to be the only one of the patricians who was not. This calmness, however, was not due to any evenness of temper or any intention of bearing his wrongs meekly. It arose from concentrated rage and fury, which many do not know to be an expression of great grief. When the mind is inflamed with this passion, it casts out all ideas of submission or of quiet. Hence an angry man is courageous, just as a fever patient is hot, because of the inflamed throbbing excitement of his mind. And Marcius soon showed that this was his own condition. He went home, embraced his weeping wife and mother, bade them bear this calamity with patience, and at once proceeded to the city gates, escorted by the patricians in a body. Thence, taking nothing with him, and asking no man for any thing, he went off, accompanied by three or four of his clients. He remained for a few days at some farms near the city, agitated deeply by conflicting passions. His anger suggested no scheme by which he might benefit himself, but only how to revenge himself on the Romans. At length he decided that he would raise up a cruel war against them, and proceeded at once to make application to the neighbouring nation of the Volscians, whom he knew to be rich and powerful, and only to have suffered sufficiently by their late defeats to make them desirous of renewing their quarrel with Rome.

XXII

There was a certain citizen of Antium named Tullus Aufidius, who, from his wealth, courage, and noble birth, was regarded as the most important man in the whole Volscian nation. Marcius knew that this man hated him more than any other Roman; for in battle they had often met, and by challenging and defying one another, as young warriors are wont to do, they had, in addition to their national antipathy, gained a violent personal hatred for one another. In spite of this, however, knowing the generous nature of Tullus, and longing more than any Volscian to requite the Romans for their treatment, he justified the verses,

“’Tis hard to strive with rage, which aye,

Though life’s the forfeit, gains its way.”

He disguised himself as completely as he could, and, like Ulysses,

“Into the city of his foes he came.”

XXIII

It was evening when he entered Antium, and although many met him, no one recognised him. He went to Tullus’s house, and entering, sat down by the hearth in silence, with his head wrapped in his cloak. The domestics, astonished at his behaviour, did not dare to disturb him, as there was a certain dignity about his appearance and his silence, but went and told Tullus, who was at supper, of this strange incident. Tullus rose, went to him, and inquired who he was and what he wanted. Then at length Marcius uncovered his face, and, after a short pause, said, “If you do not recognise me, Tullus, or if you do not believe your eyes, I must myself tell you who I am. I am Caius Marcius, who has wrought you and the Volscians more mischief than any one else, and who, lest I should deny this, have received the additional title of Coriolanus. This I cannot lose: every thing else has been taken from me by the envious spite of the people, and the treacherous remissness of the upper classes. I am an exile, and I now sit as a suppliant on your hearth, begging you, not for safety or protection, for should I have come hither if I feared to die, but for vengeance against those who drove me forth, which I am already beginning to receive by putting myself in your hands. If then, my brave Tullus, you wish to attack your foes, make use of my misfortunes, and let my disgrace be the common happiness of all the Volscians. I shall fight for you much better than I have fought against you, because I have the advantage of knowing exactly the strength and weakness of the enemy. If, however, you are tired of war, I have no wish for life, nor is it to your credit to save the life of one who once was your personal enemy, and who now is worn out and useless.” Tullus was greatly delighted with this speech, and giving him his right hand, answered, “Rise, Marcius, and be of good courage. You have brought us a noble present, yourself; rest assured that the Volscians will not be ungrateful.” He then feasted Marcius with great hospitality, and for some days they conferred together as to the best method of carrying on the war.

XXIV

Rome meanwhile was disturbed by the anger of the patricians towards the plebeians, especially on account of the banishment of Marcius, and by many portents which were observed both by the priests and by private persons, one of which was as follows. There was one Titus Latinus, a man of no great note, but a respectable citizen and by no means addicted to superstition. He dreamed that he saw Jupiter face to face, and that the god bade him tell the Senate that “they had sent a bad dancer before his procession, and one who was very displeasing to him.”

On first seeing this vision he said that he disregarded it; but after it had occurred a second and a third time he had the unhappiness to see his son sicken and die, while he himself suddenly lost the use of his limbs.

He told this story in the senate house, to which he had been carried on a litter; and as soon as he had told it, he found his bodily strength return, rose, and walked home.

The senators, greatly astonished, inquired into the matter. It was found that a slave, convicted of some crime, had been ordered by his master to be flogged through the market-place, and then put to death. While this was being done, and the wretch was twisting his body in every kind of contortion as he writhed under the blows, the procession by chance was following after him. Many of those who walked in it were shocked at the unseemliness of the spectacle, and disgusted at its inhumanity, but no one did anything more than reproach and execrate a man who treated his slaves with so much cruelty.

At that period men treated their slaves with great kindness, because the master himself worked and ate in their company, and so could sympathise more with them. The great punishment for a slave who had done wrong was to make him carry round the neighbourhood the piece of wood on which the pole of a waggon is rested. The slave who has done this and been seen by the neighbours and friends, lost his credit, and was called furcifer, for the Romans call that piece of timber furca, “a fork,” which the Greeks call hypostates, “a supporter.”

XXV

So when Latinus related his dream to the senators, and they were wondering who the bad and unacceptable dancer could be who had led the procession, some of them remembered the slave who had been flogged through the market-place and there put to death. At the instance of the priests, the master of the slave was punished for his cruelty, and the procession and ceremonies were performed anew in honour of the gods. Hence we may see how wisely Numa arranged this, among other matters of ceremonial. Whenever the magistrates or priests were engaged in any religious rite, a herald walked before them crying in a loud voice “Hoc age.” The meaning of the phrase is, “Do this,” meaning to tell the people to apply their minds entirely to the religious ceremony, and not to allow any thought of worldly things to distract their attention, because men as a rule only attend to such matters by putting a certain constraint on their thoughts.

It is the custom in Rome to begin a sacrifice, a procession, or a spectacle, over again, not only when anything of this kind happens, but for any trifling reason. Thus, if one of the horses drawing the sacred car called Thensa stumbles, or the charioteer takes the reins in his left hand, they have decreed that the procession must begin again. In later times they have been known to perform one sacrifice thirty times, because every time some slight omission or mistake took place.

XXVI

Meanwhile Marcius and Tullus in Antium held private conferences with the chief men of the Volscians, and advised them to begin the war while Rome was divided by its domestic quarrels. They discountenanced this proposal, because a truce and cessation of hostilities for two years had been agreed upon: but the Romans themselves gave them a pretext for breaking the truce, by a proclamation which was made at the public games, that all Volscians should quit the city before sunset. Some say this was effected by a stratagem of Marcius, who sent a false accusation against the Volscians to the magistrates at Rome, saying that during the public games they meant to attack the Romans and burn the city. This proclamation made them yet bitterer enemies to the Romans than before; and Tullus, wishing to bring the business to a climax, induced his countrymen to send ambassadors to Rome to demand back the cities and territory which the Romans had taken from the Volscians in the late war. The Romans were very indignant when they heard these demands, and made answer, that the Volscians might be the first to take up arms, but that the Romans would be the last to lay them down. Upon this, Tullus convoked a general assembly, in which, after determining upon war, he advised them to summon Marcius to their aid, not owing him any grudge for what they had suffered at his hands, but believing that he would be more valuable to them as a friend than he had been dangerous as an enemy.

XXVII

Marcius was called before the assembly, and having addressed the people, was thought by them to know how to speak as well as how to fight, and was considered to be a man of great ability and courage. He, together with Tullus, was nominated general with unlimited powers. As he feared the Volscians would take a long time to prepare for the war, and that meanwhile the opportunity for attack might pass away, he ordered the leading men in the city to make all necessary preparations, and himself taking the boldest and most forward as volunteers, without levying any troops by compulsory conscription, made a sudden and unexpected inroad into the Roman territory. Here he obtained so much plunder that the Volscians were wearied with carrying it off and consuming it in their camp. However, his least object was to obtain plunder and lay waste the country; his main desire was to render the patricians suspected by the people. While all else was ravaged and destroyed, he carefully protected their farms, and would not allow any damage to be done or anything to be carried off from them. This increased the disorders at Rome, the patricians reproaching the people for having unjustly banished so able a man, while the plebeians accused them of having invited Marcius to attack in order to obtain their revenge, and said that, while others fought, they sat as idle spectators, having in the war itself a sure safeguard of their wealth and estates. Having produced this new quarrel among the Romans, and, besides loading the Volscians with plunder, having taught them to despise their enemy, Marcius led his troops back in safety.

XXVIII

By great and zealous exertions the entire Volscian nation was soon assembled under arms. The force thus raised was very large; part was left to garrison the cities, as a measure of precaution, while the rest was to be used in the campaign against Rome. Marcius now left Tullus to determine which corps he would command. Tullus, in answer, said that as Marcius, he knew, was as brave a man as himself, and had always enjoyed better fortune in all his battles, he had better command the army in the field. He himself, he added, would remain behind, watch over the safety of the Volscian cities, and supply the troops with necessaries. Marcius, strengthened by this division of the command, marched to the town of Circeii, a Roman colony. As it surrendered, he did it no harm, but laid waste the country of Latium, where he expected the Romans would fight a battle in defence of their allies the Latins, who frequently sent to entreat their protection. But at Rome the people were unwilling to fight, and the consuls were just at the expiry of their term of office, so that they did not care to run any risks, and therefore rejected the appeals of the Latins. Marcius now led his troops against the Latian cities, Tolerium, Labici, Pedum, and Bola, all of which he took by storm, sold the inhabitants for slaves, and plundered the houses. Those cities, however, which voluntarily came to his side he treated with the utmost consideration, even pitching his camp at a distance, for fear they might be injured by the soldiery against his will, and never plundering their territory.

XXIX

When at last he took Bollae, a town not more than twelve miles from Rome, obtaining immense booty and putting nearly all the adult inhabitants to the sword, then not even those Volscians who had been appointed to garrison the cities would any longer remain at their posts, but seized their arms and joined the army of Marcius, declaring that he was their only general, and that they would recognise no other leader. His renown and glory spread throughout all Italy, and all men were astonished that one man by changing sides should have produced so great a change. The affairs of Rome were in the last disorder, the people refusing to fight, while internal quarrels and seditious speeches took place daily, until news came that Lavinium was being invested by the enemy. This town contains the most ancient images and sacred things of the tutelary deities of Rome, and is the origin of the Roman people, being the first town founded by Aeneas.

Upon this a very singular change of opinions befel both the people and the Senate. The people were eager to annul their sentence against Marcius, and to beg him to return, but the Senate, after meeting and considering this proposal, finally rejected it, either out of a mere spirit of opposition to anything proposed by the people, or because they did not wish him to return by favour of the people; or it may be because they themselves were now angry with him for having shown himself the enemy of all classes alike, although he had only been injured by one, and for having become the avowed enemy of his country, in which he knew that the best and noblest all sympathised with him, and had suffered along with him. When this resolution was made known to the people, they were unable to proceed to vote or to pass any bill on the subject, without a previous decree of the Senate.

XXX

Marcius when he heard of this was more exasperated than ever. He raised his siege of Lavinium, marched straight upon Rome, and pitched his camp five miles from the city, at the place called Fossae Cluiliae. The appearance of his army caused much terror and disturbance, but nevertheless put an end to sedition, for no magistrate or patrician dared any longer oppose the people’s desire to recall him. When they beheld the women running distractedly through the city, the old men weeping and praying at the altars, and no one able to take courage and form any plan of defence, it was agreed that the people had been right in wishing to come to terms with Marcius, and that the Senate had committed a fatal error in inflicting a new outrage upon him, just at the time when all unkindness might have been buried. It was determined, therefore, by the whole city that an embassy should be despatched to Marcius, to offer him restoration to his own country, and to beg of him to make peace. Those of the Senate who were sent were relations of Marcius, and expected to be warmly welcomed by a man who was their near relation and personal friend. Nothing of the kind, however, happened. They were conducted through the enemy’s camp, and found him seated, and displaying insufferable pride and arrogance, with the chiefs of the Volscians standing round him. He bade the ambassadors deliver their message; and after they had, in a supplicatory fashion, pronounced a conciliatory oration, he answered them, dwelling with bitterness on his own unjust treatment; and then in his capacity of general-in-chief of the Volscians, he bade them restore the cities and territory which they had conquered in the late war, and to grant the franchise to the Volscians on the same terms as enjoyed by the Latins. These, he said, were the only conditions on which a just and lasting peace could be made. He allowed them a space of thirty days for deliberation, and on the departure of the ambassadors immediately drew off his forces.

XXXI

This affair gave an opportunity to several of the Volscians, who had long envied and disliked his reputation, and the influence which he had with the people. Among these was Tullus himself, who had not been personally wronged by Marcius, but who, as it is natural he should, felt vexed at being totally eclipsed and thrown into the shade, for the Volscians now thought Marcius the greatest man in their whole nation, and considered that any one else ought to be thankful for any measure of authority that he might think fit to bestow. Hence secret hints were exchanged, and private meetings held, in which his enemies expressed their dissatisfaction, calling the retreat from Rome an act of treason, not indeed that he had betrayed any cities or armies to the enemy, but he had granted them time, by which all other things are won and lost. He had given the enemy a breathing time, they said, of thirty days, being no less than they required to put themselves in a posture of defence.

Marcius during this time was not idle, for he attacked and defeated the allies of the Romans, and captured seven large and populous towns. The Romans did not venture to come to help their allies, but hung back from taking the field, and seemed as if paralysed and benumbed. When the term had expired, Marcius presented himself a second time before Rome, with his entire army. The Romans now sent a second embassy, begging him to lay aside his anger, withdraw the Volscians from the country, and then to make such terms as would be for the advantage of both nations. The Romans, they said, would yield nothing to fear; but if he thought that special concessions ought to be made to the Volscians, they would be duly considered if they laid down their arms. To this Marcius answered that, as general of the Volscians, he could give them no answer; but that as one who was still a citizen of Rome he would advise them to adopt a humbler frame of mind, and come to him in three days with a ratification of his proposals. If they should come to any other determination, he warned them that it would not be safe for them to come to his camp again with empty words.

XXXII

When the ambassadors returned, and the Senate heard their report, they determined in this dreadful extremity to let go their sheet anchor. They ordered all the priests, ministers, and guardians of the sacred mysteries, and all the hereditary prophets who watched the omens given by the flight of birds, to go in procession to Marcius, dressed in their sacred vestments, and beseech him to desist from the war, and then to negotiate conditions of peace between his countrymen and the Volscians. Marcius received the priests in his camp, but relaxed nothing of his former harshness, bidding the Romans either accept his proposals or continue the war.

When the priests returned, the Romans resolved in future to remain within the city, repulse any assault which might be made on the walls, and trust to time and fortune, as it was evident that they could not be saved by anything that they could do. The city was full of confusion, excitement, and panic terror, until there happened something like what is mentioned in Homer, but which men as a rule are unwilling to believe. He observes that on great and important occasions

“Athene placed a thought within his mind;”

and again—

“But some one of th’ immortals changed my mind,

And made me think of what the folk would say;”

and—

“Because he thought it, or because the god

Commanded him to do so.”

Men despise the poet, as if, in order to carry out his absurd mythological scheme, he denied each man his liberty of will. Now Homer does nothing of this kind, for whatever is reasonable and likely he ascribes to the exercise of our own powers, as we see in the common phrase—

“But I reflected in my mighty soul;”

and—

“Thus spoke he, but the son of Peleus raged,

Divided was his soul within his breast;”

and again—

“But she persuaded not

The wise Bellerophon, of noble mind.”

But in strange and unlikely actions, where the actors must have been under the influence of some supernatural impulse, he does speak of the god not as destroying, but as directing the human will; nor does the god directly produce any decision, but suggests ideas which influence that decision. Thus the act is not an involuntary one, but opportunity is given for a voluntary act, with confidence and good hope superadded. For either we must admit that the gods have no dealings and influence at all with men, or else it must be in this way that they act when they assist and strengthen us, not of course by moving our hands and feet, but by filling our minds with thoughts and ideas which either encourage us to do what is right, or restrain us from what is wrong.

XXXIII

At Rome at this time the women were praying in all the temples, especially in that of Jupiter in the Capitol, where the noblest ladies in Rome were assembled. Among them was Valeria, the sister of the great Poplicola, who had done such great services to the State both in peace and war. Poplicola died some time before, as has been related in his Life, but his sister was held in great honour and esteem in Rome, as her life did credit to her noble birth. She now experienced one of the divine impulses of which I have spoken, and, inspired by Heaven to do what was best for her country, rose and called on the other ladies to accompany her to the house of Volumnia, the mother of Marcius. On entering, and finding her sitting with her daughter-in-law, nursing the children of Marcius, Valeria placed her companions in a circle round them, and spoke as follows: “Volumnia, and you, Virgilia, we have come to you, as women to women, without any decree of the Senate or instructions from a magistrate; but Heaven, it would appear, has heard our prayers, and has inspired us with the idea of coming hither to beg of you to save our countrymen, and to gain for yourselves greater glory than that of the Sabine women when they reconciled their husbands and their fathers. Come with us to Marcius, join us in supplicating him for mercy, and bear an honourable testimony to your country, that it never has thought of hurting you, however terribly it has been injured by Marcius, but that it restores you to him uninjured, although possibly it will gain no better terms by so doing.” When Valeria had spoken thus, the other women applauded, and Volumnia answered in the following words: “My friends, besides those sufferings which all are now undergoing, we are especially to be pitied. We have lost the glory and goodness of our Marcius, and now see him more imprisoned in than protected by the army of the enemy. But the greatest misfortune of all is that our country should have become so weak as to be obliged to rest its hopes of safety on us. I cannot tell if he will pay any attention to us, seeing that he has treated his native country with scorn, although he used to love it better than his mother, his wife, and his children. However, take us, and make what use of us you can. Lead us into his presence, and there, if we can do nothing else, we can die at his feet supplicating for Rome.”

XXXIV

Having spoken thus, she took Virgilia and her children, and proceeded, in company with the other women, to the Volscian camp. Their piteous appearance produced, even in their enemies, a silent respect. Marcius himself was seated on his tribunal with the chief officers; and when he saw the procession of women was at first filled with amazement; but when he recognised his mother walking first, although he tried to support his usual stern composure, he was overcome by his emotion. He could not bear to receive her sitting, but descended and ran to meet her. He embraced his mother first, and longest of all; and then his wife and children, no longer restraining his tears and caresses, but completely carried away by his feelings.

XXXV

When he had taken his fill of embraces, perceiving that his mother desired to address him, he called the chiefs of the Volscians together, and listened to Volumnia, who addressed him as follows:

“You may judge, my son, by our dress and appearance, even though we keep silence, to what a miserable condition your exile has reduced us at home. Think now, how unhappy we must be, beyond all other women, when fortune has made the sight which ought to be most pleasing to us, most terrible, when I see my son, and your wife here sees her husband, besieging his native city. Even that which consoles people under all other misfortunes, prayer to the gods, has become impossible for us. We cannot beg of heaven to give us the victory and to save you, but our prayers for you must always resemble the imprecations of our enemies against Rome. Your wife and children are in such a position, that they must either lose you or lose their native country. For my own part, I cannot bear to live until fortune decides the event of this war. If I cannot now persuade you to make a lasting peace, and so become the benefactor instead of the scourge of the two nations, be well assured that you shall never assail Rome without first passing over the corpse of your mother. I cannot wait for that day on which I shall either see my countrymen triumphing over my son, or my son triumphing over his country. If indeed I were to ask you to betray the Volscians and save your country, this would be a hard request for you to grant; for though it is base to destroy one’s own fellow citizens, it is equally wrong to betray those who have trusted you. But we merely ask for a respite from our sufferings, which will save both nations alike from ruin, and which will be all the more glorious for the Volscians because their superiority in the field has put them in a position to grant us the greatest of blessings, peace and concord, in which they also will share alike with us. You will be chiefly to be thanked for these blessings, if we obtain them, and chiefly to be blamed if we do not. For though the issue of war is always doubtful, this much is evident, that if you succeed, you will become your country’s evil genius, and if you fail, you will have inflicted the greatest miseries on men who are your friends and benefactors, merely in order to gratify your own private spite.”

XXXVI

While Volumnia spoke thus, Marcius listened to her in silence. After she had ceased, he stood for a long while without speaking, until she again addressed him. “Why art thou silent, my son? Is it honourable to make everything give way to your rancorous hatred, and is it a disgrace to yield to your mother, when she pleads for such important matters? Does it become a great man to remember that he has been ill treated, and does it not rather become him to recollect the debt which children owe to their parents. And yet no one ought to be more grateful than you yourself, who punish ingratitude so bitterly: in spite of which, though you have already taken a deep revenge on your country for its ill treatment of you, you have not made your mother any return for her kindness. It would have been right for me to gain my point without any pressure, when pleading in such a just and honourable cause; but if I cannot prevail by words, this resource alone is left me.” Saying this, she fell at his feet, together with his wife and children. Marcius, crying out, “What have you done to me, mother?” raised her from the ground, and pressing her hand violently, exclaimed, “You have conquered; your victory is a blessed one for Rome, but ruinous to me, for I shall retreat conquered by you alone.” After speaking thus, and conferring for a short time in private with his mother and his wife, he at their own request sent them back to Rome, and the following night led away the Volscian army. Various opinions were current among the Volscians about what had taken place. Some blamed him severely, while others approved, because they wished for peace. Others again, though they disliked what he had done, yet did not regard him as a traitor, but as a soft-hearted man who had yielded to overwhelming pressure. However, no one disobeyed him, but all followed him in his retreat, though more out of regard for his noble character than for his authority.

XXXVII

The Roman people, when the war was at an end, showed even more plainly than before what terror and despair they had been in. As soon as they saw the Volscians retreating from their walls, all the temples were opened, and filled with worshippers crowned with garlands and sacrificing as if for a victory. The joy of the senate and people was most conspicuously shown in their gratitude to the women, whom they spoke of as having beyond all doubt saved Rome. The senate decreed that the magistrates should grant to the women any mark of respect and esteem which they themselves might choose. The women decided on the building of the temple of Female Fortune, the expenses of which they themselves offered to subscribe, only asking the state to undertake the maintenance of the services in it. The senate praised their public spirit, but ordered the temple and shrine to be built at the public expense. Nevertheless, the women with their own money provided a second image of the goddess, which the Romans say, when it was placed in the temple was heard to say,

“A pleasing gift have women placed me here.”

XXXVIII

The legend says that this voice was twice heard, which seems impossible and hard for us to believe. It is not impossible for statues to sweat, to shed tears, or to be covered with spots of blood, because wood and stone often when mouldering or decaying, collect moisture within them, and not only send it forth with many colours derived from their own substance, but also receive other colours from the air; and there is nothing that forbids us to believe that by such appearances as these heaven may foreshadow the future. It is also possible that statues should make sounds like moaning or sighing, by the tearing asunder of the particles of which they are composed; but that articulate human speech should come from inanimate things is altogether impossible, for neither the human soul, nor even a god can utter words without a body fitted with the organs of speech. Whenever therefore we find many credible witnesses who force us to believe something of this kind, we must suppose that the imagination was influenced by some sensation which appeared to resemble a real one, just as in dreams we seem to hear when we hear not, and to see when we see not. Those persons, however, who are full of religious fervour and love of the gods, and who refuse to disbelieve or reject anything of this kind, find in its miraculous character, and in the fact that the ways of God are not as our ways, a great support to their faith. For He resembles mankind in nothing, neither in nature, nor movement, nor learning, nor power, and so it is not to be wondered at if He does what seems to us impossible. Nay, though He differs from us in every respect, it is in his works that He is most unlike us. But, as Herakleitus says, our knowledge of things divine mostly fails for want of faith.

XXXIX

When Marcius returned to Antium, Tullus, who had long hated him and envied his superiority, determined to put him to death, thinking that if he let slip the present opportunity he should not obtain another. Having suborned many to bear witness against him, he called upon him publicly to render an account to the Volscians of what he had done as their general. Marcius, fearing to be reduced to a private station while his enemy Tullus, who had great influence with his countrymen, was general, answered that he had been given his office of commander-in-chief by the Volscian nation, and to them alone would he surrender it, but that as to an account of what he had done, he was ready at that moment, if they chose, to render it to the people of Antium. Accordingly the people assembled, and the popular orators endeavoured by their speeches to excite the lower classes against Marcius. When, however, he rose to speak, the mob were awed to silence, while the nobility, and those who had gained by the peace, made no secret of their good will towards him, and of their intention to vote in his favour. Under these circumstances, Tullus was unwilling to let him speak, for he was a brilliant orator, and his former services far outweighed his last offence. Indeed, the whole indictment was a proof of how much they owed him, for they never could have thought themselves wronged by not taking Rome, if Marcius had not brought them so near to taking it. Tullus, therefore, thought that it would not do to wait, or to trust to the mob, but he and the boldest of his accomplices, crying out that the Volscians could not listen to the traitor, nor endure him to play the despot over them by not laying down his command, rushed upon him in a body and killed him, without any of the bystanders interfering in his behalf. However, the most part of the nation was displeased at this act, as was soon proved by the numbers who came from every city to see his dead body, by the splendid funeral with which he was honoured, and by the arms and trophies which were hung over his tomb, as that of a brave man and a consummate general.

The Romans, when they heard of his death, made no sign of either honour or anger towards him, except that they gave permission to the women, at their request, to wear mourning for him for ten months, as if they were each mourning for her father, her brother, or her son. This was the extreme limit of the period of mourning, which was fixed by Numa Pompilius, as has been related in his Life.

The loss of Marcius was at once felt by the Volscians. First of all, they quarrelled with the Aequi, their friends and allies, and even came to blows with them; next, they were defeated by the Romans in a battle in which Tullus was slain, and the flower of the Volscian army perished. After this disaster they were glad to surrender at discretion, and become the subjects of Rome.

COMPARISON OF
ALKIBIADES AND CORIOLANUS.

I

As all the most memorable achievements of both Alkibiades and Coriolanus are now before us, we may begin our comparison by observing that as to military exploits, the balance is nearly even; for both alike gave proofs of great personal bravery and great skill in generalship, unless it be thought that Alkibiades proved himself the more perfect general because of his many victories both by sea and land. Both alike obtained great success for their native countries while they remained in command of their countrymen, and both succeeded even more remarkably when fighting against them. As to their respective policy, that of Alkibiades was disliked by the more respectable citizens, because of his personal arrogance, and the arts to which he stooped to gain the favour of the lower classes; while the proud ungracious haughtiness of Coriolanus caused him to be hated by the people of Rome. In this respect neither of them can be praised; yet he who tries to gain the favour of the people is less to blame than he who insults them for fear he should be thought to court them. Although it is wrong to flatter the people in order to gain power, yet to owe one’s power only to terror, and to ill treat and keep down the masses is disgraceful as well as wrong.

II

It is not difficult to see why Marcius is considered to have been a simple-minded and straightforward character, while Alkibiades has the reputation of a false and tricky politician. The latter has been especially blamed for the manner in which he deceived and outwitted the Lacedaemonian ambassadors, by which, as we learn from Thucydides, he brought the truce between the two nations to an end. Yet that stroke of policy, though it again involved Athens in war, rendered her strong and formidable, through the alliance with Argos and Mantinea, which she owed to Alkibiades. Marcius also, we are told by Dionysius, produced a quarrel between the Romans and the Volscians by bringing a false accusation against those Volscians who came to see the festival at Rome; and in this case the wickedness of his object increased his guilt, because he did not act from a desire of personal aggrandisement, or from political rivalry, as did Alkibiades, but merely yielding to what Dion calls the unprofitable passion of anger, he threw a large part of Italy into confusion, and in his rage against his native country destroyed many innocent cities. On the other hand, the anger of Alkibiades caused great misfortune to his countrymen; yet as soon as he found that they had relented towards him he returned cheerfully to his allegiance, and after being banished for the second time, did not take any delight in seeing their generals defeated, and could not sit still and let them make mistakes and uselessly expose themselves to danger. He did just what Aristeides is so much praised for doing to Themistokles; he went to the generals, although they were not his friends, and pointed out to them what ought to be done.

Marcius, again, is to be blamed for having made the whole of Rome suffer for what only a part of it had done, while the best and most important class of citizens had been wronged equally with himself, and warmly sympathised with him. Afterwards, although his countrymen sent him many embassies, beseeching his forgiveness for their one act of ignorance and passion, he would not listen to them, but showed that it was with the intention of utterly destroying Rome, not of obtaining his own restoration to it, that he had begun that terrible and savage war against it. This, then, may be noted as the difference between their respective positions: Alkibiades went back to the Athenian side when the Spartans began to plot against him, because he both feared them and hated them; but Marcius, who was in every respect well treated by the Volscians, could not honourably desert their cause. He had been elected their commander-in-chief, and besides this great power enjoyed their entire confidence; while Alkibiades, though his assistance was found useful by the Lacedaemonians, was never trusted by them, but remained without any recognised position, first in Sparta and then in the camp in Asia Minor, till he finally threw himself into the arms of Tissaphernes, unless, indeed, he took this step to save Athens, hoping some day to be restored to her.

III

As to money, Alkibiades has been blamed for receiving it discreditably in bribes, and for spending it in luxurious extravagance; while the generals who offered Marcius money as an honourable reward for his valour could not prevail upon him to accept it. This, however, made him especially unpopular in the debates about freeing the people from debt, because it was said that he pressed so hardly on the poor, not because he wished to make money by them, but purely through arrogance and pride. Antipater, in a letter to a friend on the death of Aristotle the philosopher, observes, “Besides his other abilities, the man had the art of persuasion.” Now Marcius had not this art; and its absence made all his exploits and all his virtues unpleasant even to those who benefited by them, as they could not endure his pride and haughtiness, which brooked no compeer. Alkibiades, on the other hand, knew how to deal on friendly terms with every one, and we need not therefore be surprised at the pleasure which men took in his successes, while even some of his failures had a charm of their own for his friends. Hence it was that Alkibiades, even after inflicting many grievous losses upon his countrymen, was chosen by them as commander-in-chief, whereas Marcius, when after a splendid display of courage and conduct he tried for the consulship which he deserved, failed to obtain it. The one could not be hated by his countrymen, even when they were ill treated by him; while the other, though admired by all, was loved by none.

IV

Marcius, indeed, effected nothing great when in command of his own countrymen, but only when fighting against them, whereas the Athenians frequently benefited by the successes of Alkibiades, when he was acting as their commander-in-chief. Alkibiades when present easily triumphed over his enemies, whereas Marcius, although present, was condemned by the Romans, and put to death by the Volscians. Moreover, though he was wrongfully slain, yet he himself furnished his enemies with a pretext for his murder, by refusing the public offer of peace made by the Romans, and then yielding to the private entreaties of his mother and wife, so that he did not put an end to the enmity between the two nations, but left them at war, and yet lost a favourable opportunity for the Volscians.

If he was influenced by a feeling of duty towards the Volscians, he ought to have obtained their consent before withdrawing their forces from before Rome; but if he cared nothing for them, or for anything except the gratification of his own passion, and with this feeling made war upon his country, and only paused in the moment of victory, it was not creditable to him to spare his country for his mother’s sake, but rather he should have spared his country and his mother with it; for his mother and his wife were but a part of Rome, which he was besieging. That he should have treated the public supplications of ambassadors and the prayers of priests with contempt, and afterwards have drawn off his forces to please his mother, is not so much a credit to her as a disgrace to his country, which was saved by the tears and entreaties of one woman, as though it did not deserve to survive on its own merits. The mercy which he showed the Romans was so harshly and offensively granted that it pleased neither party; he withdrew his forces without having either having come to an understanding with his friends or his foes. All this must be attributed to his haughty, unbending temper, which is in all cases odious, but which in an ambitious man renders him savage and inexorable. Such men will not seek for popularity, thinking themselves already sufficiently distinguished, and then are angry at finding themselves unpopular.

Indeed, neither Metellus, nor Aristeides, nor Epameinondas would stoop to court the favour of the people, and had a thorough contempt for all that the people can either give or take away; yet although they were often ostracised, convicted, and condemned to pay fines, they were not angry with their fellow countrymen for their folly, but came back and became reconciled to them as soon as they repented. The man who will not court the people, ought least of all to bear malice against them, reflecting that anger at not being elected to an office in the state, must spring from an excessive desire to obtain it.

V

Alkibiades made no secret of his delight in being honoured and his vexation when slighted, and in consequence endeavoured to make himself acceptable to all with whom he had to do. Marcius was prevented by his pride from courting those who could have bestowed honour and advancement upon him, while his ambition tortured him if these were withheld.

These are the points which we find to blame in his character, which in all other respects was a noble one. With regard to temperance, and contempt for money, he may be compared with the greatest and purest men of Greece, not merely with Alkibiades, who cared only too little for such things, and paid no regard to his reputation.

LIFE OF
TIMOLEON.

It was for the sake of others that I first undertook to write biographies, but I soon began to dwell upon and delight in them for myself, endeavouring to the best of my ability to regulate my own life, and to make it like that of those who were reflected in their history as it were in a mirror before me. By the study of their biographies, we receive each man as a guest into our minds, and we seem to understand their character as the result of a personal acquaintance, because we have obtained from their acts the best and most important means of forming an opinion about them. “What greater pleasure could’st thou gain than this?” What more valuable for the elevation of our own character? Demokritus says, that we ought to pray that we may meet with propitious phantasms, and that from the infinite space which surrounds us good and congenial phantasms, rather than base and sinister ones, may be brought into contact with us. He degrades philosophy by foisting into it a theory which is untrue, and which leads to unbounded superstition; whereas we, by our familiarity with history, and habit of writing it, so train ourselves by constantly receiving into our minds the memorials of the great and good, that should anything base or vicious be placed in our way by the society into which we are necessarily thrown, we reject it and expel it from our thoughts, by fixing them calmly and severely on some of these great examples. Of these, I have chosen for you in this present instance, the life of Timoleon the Corinthian, and that of Aemilius Paulus, men who both laid their plans with skill, and carried them out with good fortune, so as to raise a question whether it was more by good luck or by good sense that they succeeded in their most important achievements.

I

The state of affairs at Syracuse, before the mission of Timoleon to Sicily, was this. Dion had driven out the despot1 Dionysius, but was immediately afterwards slain by treachery, and those who, under Dion, had freed the Syracusans, quarrelled amongst themselves. The city, which received a constant succession of despots, was almost forsaken because of its many troubles. Of the rest of Sicily, one part was rendered quite ruined and uninhabited by the wars, and most of the cities were held by barbarians of various nations, and soldiers who were under no paymaster. As these men willingly lent their aid to effect changes of dynasty, Dionysius, in the twelfth year of his exile, collected a body of foreign troops, drove out Nysaeus, the then ruler of Syracuse, again restored his empire, and was re-established as despot. He had strangely lost the greatest known empire at the hands of a few men, and more strangely still became again the lord of those who had driven him out, after having been an exile and a beggar. Those then of the Syracusans who remained in the city were the subjects of a despot not naturally humane, and whose heart now had been embittered by misfortune:2 but the better class of citizens and the men of note fled to Hiketes, the ruler of Leontini, swore allegiance to him, and chose him as their general for the war. This man was nowise better than the avowed despots, but they had no other resource, and they trusted him because he was a Syracusan by birth, and had a force capable of encountering that of their own despot.

II

Meanwhile the Carthaginians came to Sicily with a great fleet, and were hovering off the island watching their opportunity. The Sicilians in terror wished to send an embassy to Greece, and ask for help from the Corinthians, not merely on account of their kinship with them, and of the many kindnesses which they had received from them, but also because they saw that the whole city loved freedom, and hated despots, and that it had waged its greatest and most important wars, not for supremacy and greed of power, but on behalf of the liberty of Greece. But Hiketes who had obtained his post of commander-in-chief with a view, not to the liberation of Syracuse, but the establishment of himself as despot there, had already had secret negotiations with the Carthaginians, though in public he commended the Syracusans, and sent ambassadors of his own with the rest to Peloponnesus: not that he wished that any assistance should come thence, but, in case the Corinthians, as was probable, should refuse their help because of the disturbed state of Greece, he hoped that he should more easily be able to bring matters round to suit the Carthaginian interest, and to use them as allies either against the Syracusan citizens, or against their despot. Of this treacherous design he was shortly afterwards convicted.

III

When the ambassadors arrived, the Corinthians, who had always been in the habit of watching over the interests of their colonies, especially Syracuse, and who were not at war with any of the Greek States at that time, but living in peace and leisure, eagerly voted to help them. A General was now sought for, and while the government was nominating and proposing those who were eager for an opportunity of distinguishing themselves, a man of the people stood up and named Timoleon, the son of Timodemus, one who no longer took any part in politics, and who had no hope or thought of obtaining the post: but some god, it seems, put it into the man’s mind to name him, such a kind fortune was at once shown at his election, and such success attended his actions, illustrating his noble character. He was of a good family, both his father Timodemus, and his mother Demariste being of rank in the city. He was a lover of his country, and of a mild temper, except only that he had a violent hatred for despotism and all that is base. His nature was so happily constituted, that in his campaigns he showed much judgment when young, and no less daring when old. He had an elder brother, Timophanes, who was in no respect like him, but rash, and inflamed with a passion for monarchy by worthless friends and foreign soldiers, with whom he spent all his time: he was reckless in a campaign, and loved danger for its own sake, and by this he won the hearts of his fellow-citizens, and was given commands, as being a man of courage and of action. Timoleon assisted him in obtaining these commands, by concealing his faults or making them appear small, and by magnifying the clever things which he did.

IV

Now in the battle which the Corinthians fought against the Argives and Kleoneans, Timoleon was ranked among the hoplites,3 and his brother Timophanes, who was in command of the cavalry, fell into great danger. His horse received a wound, and threw him off among the enemy. Of his companions, some at once dispersed in panic, while those who remained by him, being a few against many, with difficulty held their own. When Timoleon saw what had happened, he ran to the rescue, and held his shield in front of Timophanes as he lay, and, after receiving many blows, both from missiles and in hand-to-hand fight, on his arms and body, with difficulty drove back the enemy and saved his brother.

When the Corinthians, fearing lest they might again suffer what they did once before when their own allies took their city, decreed that they would keep four hundred mercenary soldiers, they made Timophanes their commander.

But he, disdaining truth and honour, immediately took measures to get the city into his own power, and showed his tyrannical disposition by putting to death many of the leading citizens without a trial. Timoleon was grieved at this, and, treating the other’s crime as his own misfortune, endeavoured to argue with him, and begged him to abandon his foolish and wicked design, and to seek for some means of making amends to his fellow-citizens. However, as he rejected his brother’s advice, and treated him with contempt, Timoleon took Aeschylus, his kinsman, brother of the wife of Timophanes, and his friend the seer, whom Theopompus calls Satyrus, but Ephorus and Timaeus call Orthagoras, and, after an interval of a few days, again went to his brother. The three men now stood round him, and besought him even now to listen to reason, and repent of his ambition; but as Timophanes at first laughed at them, and then became angry and indignant, Timoleon stepped a little aside, and covering his face, stood weeping, while the other two drew their swords and quickly despatched him.

V

When this deed was noised abroad, the more generous of the Corinthians praised Timoleon for his abhorrence of wickedness and his greatness of soul, because, though of a kindly disposition, and fond of his own family, he had nevertheless preferred his country to his family, and truth and justice to his own advantage. He had distinguished himself in his country’s cause both by saving his brother’s life, and by putting him to death when he plotted to reduce her to slavery. However, those who could not endure to live in a democracy, and who were accustomed to look up to those in power, pretended to rejoice in the death of the tyrant, but by their abuse of Timoleon for having done an unholy and impious deed, reduced him to a state of great melancholy. Hearing that his mother took it greatly to heart, and that she used harsh words and invoked terrible curses upon him, he went to her to try to bring her to another state of mind, but she would not endure the sight of him, but shut the door against him. Then indeed he became very dejected, and disordered in his mind, so as to form an intention of destroying himself by starvation; but this his friends would not permit, but prevailed on him by force and entreaty so that he determined to live, but alone by himself. He gave up all interest in public affairs, and at first did not even enter the city, but passed his time wandering in the wildest part of the country in an agony of mind.

VI

Thus our judgments, if they do not borrow from reason and philosophy a fixity and steadiness of purpose in their acts, are easily swayed and influenced by the praise or blame of others, which make us distrust our own opinions.

For not only, it seems, must the deed itself be noble and just, but also the principle from which we do it must be stable and unchangeable, so that we may make up our minds and then act from conviction. If we do not, then like those epicures who most eagerly seize upon the daintiest food and soonest become satiated and nauseate it, so we become filled with sorrow and remorse when the deed is done, because the splendid ideas of virtue and honour which led us to do it fade away in our minds on account of our own moral weakness. A remorseful change of mind renders even a noble action base, whereas the determination which is grounded on knowledge and reason cannot change even if its actions fail. Wherefore Phokion the Athenian, who opposed the measures of Leosthenes, when Leosthenes seemed to have succeeded, and he saw the Athenians sacrificing and priding themselves on their victory, said that he should have wished that he had himself done what had been done, but he should wish to have given the same counsel that he did give. Aristeides the Lokrian, one of the companions of Plato, put this even more strongly when Dionysius the elder asked for one of his daughters in marriage. “I had rather,” he said, “see the girl a corpse, than the consort of a despot.” A short time afterwards when Dionysius put his sons to death and insultingly asked him whether he were still of the same mind about the disposal of his daughter, he answered, that he was grieved at what had happened, but had not changed his mind about what he had said. And these words perhaps show a greater and more perfect virtue than Phokion’s.

VII

Now Timoleon’s misery, after the deed was done, whether it was caused by pity for the dead or filial reverence for his mother, so broke down and humbled his spirit that for nearly twenty years he took no part in any important public affair. So when he was nominated as General, and when the people gladly received his name and elected him, Telekleides, who at that time was the first man in the city for power and reputation, stood up and spoke encouragingly to Timoleon, bidding him prove himself brave and noble in the campaign.4 “If,” said he, “you fight well, we shall think that we slew a tyrant, but if badly, that we murdered your brother.”

While Timoleon was preparing for his voyage and collecting his soldiers, letters were brought to the Corinthians from Hiketes plainly showing that he had changed sides and betrayed them.

For as soon as he had sent off his ambassadors to Corinth, he openly joined the Carthaginians, and in concert with them attempted to drive out Dionysius and establish himself as despot of Syracuse.

Fearing that the opportunity would escape him if an army and general came from Corinth before he had succeeded, he sent a letter to the Corinthians to say that they need not incur the trouble and expense of sending an expedition to Sicily and risking their lives, especially as the Carthaginians would dispute their passage, and were now watching for their expedition with a numerous fleet; and that, as they had been so slow, he should be obliged to make these Carthaginians his allies to attack the despot.

When these letters were read, even if any of the Corinthians had been lukewarm about the expedition, now their anger against Hiketes stirred them up to co-operate vigorously with Timoleon and assist him in equipping his force.

VIII

When the ships were ready, and everything had been provided for the soldiers, the priestesses of Proserpine had a dream that the two goddesses appeared dressed for a journey, and said that they were going to accompany Timoleon on his voyage to Sicily.

Hereupon the Corinthians equipped a sacred trireme, and named it after the two goddesses. Timoleon himself proceeded to Delphi and sacrificed to the god, and when he came into the place where oracles were delivered, a portent occurred to him. From among the various offerings suspended there, a victor’s wreath, embroidered with crowns and symbols of victory slipped down and was carried by the air so as to alight upon the head of Timoleon; so that it appeared that the god sent him forth to his campaign already crowned with success. He started with only seven ships from Corinth, two from Korkyra, and one from Leukadia; and as he put to sea at night and was sailing with a fair wind, he suddenly saw the heavens open above his ship and pour down a flood of brilliant light. After this a torch like that used at the mysteries rose up before them, and, proceeding on the same course, alighted on that part of Italy for which the pilots were steering. The seers explained that this appearance corroborated the dream of the priestesses, and that the light from heaven showed that the two goddesses were joining the expedition; for Sicily is sacred to Proserpine, as the myth tells us that she was carried off there, and that the island itself was given her as a wedding present.

The fleet, encouraged by these proofs of divine favour, crossed the open sea, and proceeded along the Italian coast. But the news from Sicily gave Timoleon much concern, and dispirited his soldiers. For Hiketes had conquered Dionysius, and taken the greater part of Syracuse; he had driven him into the citadel and what is called the island, and was besieging and blockading him there, and urging the Carthaginians to take measures to prevent Timoleon from landing in Sicily, in order that, when the Greeks were driven off, he and his new allies might partition the island between themselves.

IX

The Carthaginians sent twenty triremes to Rhegium, having on board ambassadors from Hiketes to Timoleon charged with instructions as bad as his deeds. For their proposals were plausible, though their plan was base, being that Timoleon, if he chose, should come as an adviser to Hiketes and partake of his conquests; but that he should send his ships and soldiers back to Corinth, as the war was within a little of being finished, and as the Carthaginians were determined to oppose his passage by force if he attempted it. So the Corinthians, when they reached Rhegium, found these ambassadors, and saw the Carthaginian fleet cruising to intercept them. They were enraged at this treatment, and all were filled with anger against Hiketes, and with fear for the people of Sicily, who, they clearly saw, were to be the prize of the treachery of Hiketes and the ambition of the Carthaginians. Yet it seemed impossible that they should overcome both the fleet of the barbarians which was riding there, double their own in number, and also the forces under Hiketes at Syracuse, of which they had expected to be put in command.

X

Nevertheless Timoleon met the ambassadors and the Carthaginian admirals, and mildly informed them that “he would accede to their proposals, for what could he do if he refused them? but that he wished, before they parted, to listen to them, and to answer them publicly before the people of Rhegium, a city of Greek origin and friendly to both parties; as this would conduce to his own safety, and they also would be the more bound to stand by their proposal about the Syracusans if they took the people of Rhegium as their witnesses.” He made this overture to help a plot which he had of stealing a march upon them, and the leading men of the Rhegines assisted him in it, as they wished the Corinthian influence to prevail in Sicily, and feared to have the barbarians for neighbours. Accordingly they called together an assembly and shut the city gates, that the citizens might not attend to anything else, and then, coming forward, they made speeches of great length, one man treating the subject after another without coming to any conclusion, but merely wasting the time, until the Corinthian triremes had put to sea. The Carthaginians were kept at the assembly without suspecting anything, because Timoleon himself was present and gave them to understand that he was just upon the point of rising and making them a speech. But when news was secretly conveyed to him that the fleet was under way, and that his ship alone was left behind waiting for him, he slipped through the crowd, the Rhegines who stood round the bema5 helping to conceal him, and, gaining the seashore, sailed off with all haste.

They reached Tauromenium in Sicily, where they were hospitably received by Andromachus, the ruler and lord of that city, who had long before invited them thither. This Andromachus was the father of Timaeus, the historian, and being as he was by far the most powerful of the legitimate princes of Sicily, ruled his subjects according to law and justice, and never concealed his dislike and hatred of the despots. For this reason he permitted Timoleon to make his city his headquarters, and prevailed on the citizens to cast in their lot with the Syracusans and free their native land.

XI

At Rhegium meanwhile, the Carthaginians, when the assembly broke up and Timoleon was gone, were infuriated at being outwitted, and became a standing joke to the people of Rhegium, because they, although they were Phoenicians, yet did not seem to enjoy a piece of deceit when it was at their own expense. They then sent an ambassador in a trireme to Tauromenium, who made a long speech to Andromachus, threatening him in a bombastic and barbarian style with their vengeance if he did not at once turn the Corinthians out of his city. At last he pointed to his outstretched hand, and turning it over threatened that he would so deal with the city. Andromachus laughed, and made no other answer than to hold out his own hand in the same way, now with one side up, and now with the other, and bade him sail away unless he wished to have his ship so dealt with.

Hiketes, when he heard of Timoleon’s arrival, in his terror sent for many of the Carthaginian ships of war; and now the Syracusans began utterly to despair of their safety, seeing the Carthaginians in possession of the harbour, Hiketes holding the city, and Dionysius still master of the promontory, while Timoleon was as it were hanging on the outskirts of Sicily in that little fortress of Tauromenium, with but little hope and a weak force, for he had no more than one thousand soldiers and the necessary supplies for them. Nor had the cities of Sicily any trust in him, as they were in great distress, and greatly exasperated against those who pretended to lead armies to their succour, on account of the treachery of Kallippus and Pharax; who, one an Athenian and the other a Lacedaemonian, but both giving out that they were come to fight for freedom and to put down despotism, did so tyrannise themselves, that the reign of the despots in Sicily seemed to have been a golden age, and those who died in slavery were thought more happy than those who lived to see liberty.

XII

So thinking that the Corinthian would be no better than these men, and that the same plausible and specious baits would be held out to lure them with hopes and pleasant promises under the yoke of a new master, they all viewed the proposals of the Corinthians with suspicion and shrank back from them except the Adranites. These were the inhabitants of a small city, sacred to Adranus, a god whose worship extends especially throughout Sicily. They were at feud with one another, as one party invited Hiketes and the Carthaginians, while the other sent for Timoleon to help them. And by some chance it happened that as each party strove to get there first, they both arrived at the same time; Hiketes with five thousand soldiers, whereas Timoleon altogether had no more than twelve hundred.

Starting with these men from Tauromenium, which is forty-two miles from Adranum, he made but a short march on the first day, and then encamped. On the next day he marched steadily forward, passed some difficult country, and late in the day heard that Hiketas had just reached the little fortress and was encamping before it. On this the officers halted the van of the army, thinking that the men would be fresher after taking food and rest; but Timoleon went to them and begged them not to do so, but to lead them on as fast as they could, and fall upon the enemy while they were in disorder, as it was probable they would be, having just come off their march, and being busy about pitching their tents, and cooking their supper. Saying this he seized his shield,6 and led the way himself as to an assured victory; and the rest, reassured, followed him confidently. They were distant only about thirty furlongs. These were soon passed, and they fell headlong upon the enemy, who were in confusion, and fled as soon as they discovered their attack. For this reason no more than three hundred of them were slain, but twice as many were taken prisoners, and their camp was captured. The people of Adranum now opened their gates, and made their submission to Timoleon, relating with awe and wonder how, at the outset of the battle, the sacred doors of the temple flew open of their own accord, and the spear of the god was seen to quiver at the point, while his face was covered with a thick sweat.

XIII

These portents, it seems, did not merely presage the victory, but also the subsequent events, of which this was the prosperous beginning. Immediately several cities sent ambassadors and joined Timoleon, as did also Mamercus the despot of Katana, a man of warlike tastes and great wealth, who made an alliance with him. But the most important thing of all was that Dionysius himself, who had now lost all hope of success, and was on the point of being starved out, despising Hiketes for being so shamefully beaten, but admiring Timoleon, sent to him and offered to deliver up both himself and the citadel to the Corinthians.

Timoleon, accepting this unexpected piece of good fortune, sent Eukleides and Telemachus, Corinthian officers, into the citadel, and four hundred men besides, not all together nor openly, for that was impossible in the face of the enemy, who were blockading it, but by stealth, and in small bodies. So these soldiers took possession of the citadel, and the palace with all its furniture, and all the military stores. There were a good many horses, and every species of artillery and missile weapon. Also there were arms and armour for seventy thousand men, which had been stored up there for a long time, and Dionysius also had two thousand soldiers, all of whom he handed over to Timoleon with the rest of the fortress, and then, with his money and a few of his friends, he put to sea, and passed unnoticed through Hiketes’s cruisers. He proceeded to the camp of Timoleon, appearing for the first time as a private person in great humility, and was sent to Corinth in one ship, and with a small allowance of money. He had been born and bred in the most splendid and greatest of empires, and had reigned over it for ten years, but for twelve more, since the time that Dion attacked him, he had constantly been in troubles and wars, during which all the cruelties which he had exercised on others, were more than avenged upon himself, by the miserable death of his wife and family, which are more particularly dwelt upon in the life of Dion.

XIV

Now when Dionysius reached Corinth, there was no one in Greece who did not wish to see him and speak to him. Some, who rejoiced in his misfortunes, came to see him out of hatred, in order to trample on him now that he was down, while others sympathised with him in his change of fortune, reflecting on the inscrutable ways of the gods, and the uncertainty of human affairs. For that age produced nothing in nature or art so remarkable as that change of fortune which showed the man, who not long before had been supreme ruler of Sicily, now dining at Corinth at the cook’s shop, lounging at the perfumer’s, drinking at the taverns, instructing female singers, and carefully arguing with them about their songs in the theatre, and about the laws of music. Some thought that Dionysius acted thus from folly, and indolent love of pleasure, but others considered that it was in order that he might be looked down upon, and not be an object of terror or suspicion to the Corinthians, as he would have been if they thought that he ill brooked his reverse of fortune, and still nourished ambitious designs, and that his foolish and licentious mode of life was thus to be accounted for.

XV

But for all that, certain of his sayings are remembered, which sufficiently prove that he showed real greatness of mind in adapting himself to his altered circumstances. When he arrived at Leukas, which, like Syracuse, was a Corinthian colony, he said that he was like a young man who has got into disgrace. They associate gaily with their brothers, but are ashamed to meet their fathers, and avoid them: and so he was ashamed to go to the parent city, but would gladly live there with them. Another time in Corinth, when some stranger coarsely jeered at the philosophic studies in which he used to delight when in power, and at last asked him what good he had obtained from the wisdom of Plato, “Do you think,” answered he, “that I have gained nothing from Plato, when I bear my reverse of fortune as I do.” When Aristoxenus, the musician, and some others asked him what fault he had found with Plato, and why, he answered that absolute power, amongst its many evils, was especially unfortunate in this, that none of a despot’s so-called friends dare to speak their mind openly. And he himself, he said, had been by such men deprived of the friendship of Plato. A man, who thought himself witty, once tried to make a joke of Dionysius by shaking out his cloak, when he came into his presence, as is the custom before despots, to show that one has no concealed weapons; but he repaid the jest by begging him to do it when he left him, that he might be sure that he had not stolen any of his property.

Philip of Macedon once, when they were drinking together, made some sneering remark about the poetry and tragedies which Dionysius the elder had written, pretending to be at a loss to know how he found time for such pursuits; but Dionysius cleverly answered, “He wrote them during the time which you and I, and all who are thought such lucky fellows, spend over our wine.”

Plato never saw Dionysius at Corinth, for he was dead at that time; but Diogenes of Sinope, when he first met him, said, “How unworthily you live, Dionysius.” Dionysius answered him, “Thank you, Diogenes, for sympathising with my misfortunes.” “Why,” said Diogenes; “do you suppose that I sympathise with you, and am not rather grieved that a slave like you, a man fit, like your father, to grow old and die on a miserable throne, should be living in luxury and enjoyment amongst us?” So, when I compare with these sayings of his the lamentations which Philistius pours forth over the daughters of Leptines, that they had fallen from the glories of sovereign power into a humble station, they seem to me like the complainings of a woman who has lost her perfumes, her purple dresses, or her jewels.

These details, I think, for readers who are at leisure, are not foreign to the design of biography, and not without value.

XVI

If the fall of Dionysius seems strange, the good fortune of Timoleon was no less wonderful. Within fifty days of his landing in Sicily, he was master of the citadel of Syracuse, and sent back Dionysius to Peloponnesus. Encouraged by his success, the Corinthians sent him a reinforcement of two thousand hoplites and two hundred horse. These men reached Thurii, but there found it impossible to cross over into Sicily, as the Carthaginians held the sea with a great fleet. As it was necessary for them to remain there for a time, they made use of their leisure to perform a most excellent action. For the Thurians made an expedition against the Bruttii,7 and meanwhile these men took charge of their city, and guarded it carefully and trustily as if it had been their own.

Hiketes meanwhile was besieging the citadel of Syracuse, and preventing corn from being brought by sea to the Corinthians. He also obtained two strangers, whom he sent to assassinate Timoleon, who, trusting in the favour shown him by the gods, was living carelessly and unsuspectingly among the people of Adranum. These men, hearing that he was about to offer sacrifice, came into the temple with daggers under their cloaks, and mingling with the crowd round the altar, kept edging towards him. They were just on the point of arranging their attack, when a man struck one of them on the head with his sword, and he fell. Neither the assailant nor the accomplice of the fallen man stood his ground, but the one with his sword still in his hand ran and took refuge on a high rock, while the other laid hold of the altar, and begged for pardon at Timoleon’s hands if he revealed the whole plot. When assured of his safety he confessed that he and the man who had been killed had been sent thither to assassinate Timoleon. Meanwhile others brought back the man from the rock, who loudly declared that he had done no wrong, but had justly slain him in vengeance for his father, whom this wretch had killed at Leontini. Several of those present bore witness to the truth of his story, and they marvelled much at the ways of Fortune, how she makes the most incongruous elements work together to accomplish her purposes. The Corinthians honoured the man with a present of ten minae, because he had co-operated with the guardian angel of Timoleon, and had put off the satisfaction of his private wrong until a time when it saved the life of the general. This good fortune excited men’s feelings so that they guarded and reverenced Timoleon as a sacred person sent by heaven to restore the liberties of Sicily.

XVII

When Hiketes failed in this attempt on Timoleon, and saw that many were joining him, he began to blame himself for only using the great Carthaginian force that was present by stealth, and as if he was ashamed of it, concealing his alliance and using them clandestinely, and he sent for Mago, their General, to come with all the force at his disposal. He sailed in with a formidable fleet of a hundred and fifty ships, and took possession of the harbour, disembarked sixty thousand troops, and encamped with them in the city of Syracuse, so that all men thought that the long-talked-of and expected subjugation of Sicily to the barbarian was imminent. For the Carthaginians during their endless wars in Sicily had never before taken Syracuse, but now, by the invitation of the traitor Hiketes, the city was turned into a barbarian camp. The Corinthians in the citadel were in a position of great danger and difficulty, as they no longer had sufficient provisions, because the harbours were blockaded, and they perpetually had to divide their forces for skirmishes and battles at the walls, and to repel every device and method of attack known in sieges.

XVIII

Timoleon, however, relieved them by sending corn from Katana in small fishing-smacks and boats, which, chiefly in stormy weather, stole in through the triremes of the barbarians when they were scattered by the roughness of the sea. Mago and Hiketes, perceiving this, determined to take Katana, from which place the besieged drew their supplies, and they sailed from Syracuse with the best of their troops. The Corinthian Neon, the General in command of the besieged force, observing from the citadel that those of the enemy who were left behind kept careless guard, suddenly fell upon them, and, slaying some and routing the rest he made himself master of Achradina, which is the strongest and least assailable part of the city of Syracuse, which, as it were, consists of several towns.

Being now in possession of abundance of provisions and money, he did not leave the place, and go back to the citadel on the promontory, but fortified the circuit of Achradina and held it conjointly with the Acropolis, with which he connected its fortifications. A horseman from Syracuse brought the news of the capture of Achradina to Mago and Hiketes when they were close to Katana. Alarmed at the news they returned with all speed, having neither taken the city they went to take, nor kept the one which they had taken.

XIX

It may be doubted whether these actions owe more to fortune than to courage and conduct; but the next event can only be ascribed to fortune. The Corinthian troops at Thurii were in fear of the Carthaginian triremes under Hanno which were watching them, and as the sea had for many days been excessively rough, in consequence of a gale, determined to march on foot through the Bruttii. Partly by persuasion and partly by force they made their way to Rhegium, while the sea was still very stormy. The Carthaginian Admiral, who no longer expected the Corinthians, and thought that he was waiting there to no purpose, persuaded himself that he had invented a masterpiece of deceit. He ordered his sailors to crown themselves with garlands, decked out his triremes with Greek shields and wreaths of palm, and set out for Syracuse. As he passed the citadel they cheered loudly, and with uproarious merriment called out to the garrison that they had come back after a complete victory over the Corinthians, hoping by this means to dispirit the besieged. But while he was playing these silly tricks the Corinthians had reached Rhegium, and as no one disputed their passage, and the cessation of the gale had made the straits singularly smooth and calm, they embarked in the passage boats and what fishing-smacks were to be found, and crossed over into Sicily, so easily and in such calm weather that they were able to make their horses swim alongside of the vessels and tow them by their halters.

XX

As soon as they had crossed, Timoleon met them, and at once obtained possession of Messina, and, after reviewing them, marched on Syracuse at once, confiding more in his good fortune and his former successes than in the number of his troops, which amounted to no more than four thousand. When Mago heard of this march, he was much disquieted, and his suspicions of his allies were increased by the following circumstance. In the marshes round the city, into which runs much fresh water from springs and rivers which find their way into the sea, there was a great quantity of eels, which afforded plenty of sport for those who cared to fish for them; and the mercenary soldiers on both sides used to meet and fish whenever there was a cessation of hostilities. As they were all Greeks, and had no private grounds for hatred, they would cheerfully risk their lives in battle against each other, but during times of truce they conversed freely. So then, while engaged in fishing, they talked to one another, and admired the beauty of the sea, and the fine situation of the city. Then one of the Corinthian garrison said, “Can it be that you, Greeks as you are, should be endeavouring to betray to the barbarian so great and beautiful a city as this, and that you should be trying to establish these base and cruel Carthaginians nearer to our country? Rather ought you to wish that there were more Sicilies to act as bulwarks of Greece. Do you suppose that these men have gathered together their host from the pillars of Herakles and the Atlantic coast, and risked their lives at sea, merely to support the dynasty of Hiketes? He, if he had the spirit of a real prince, never would have turned out his brethren, and invited the enemy into his native land, but would have made terms with Timoleon and the Corinthians, and been honoured accordingly.” These words were noised abroad in the camp by the mercenaries, and gave Mago the pretext which he had long been waiting for, to abandon their cause on the plea of suspecting their fidelity. Wherefore, although Hiketes begged him to remain, and pointed out how far superior he was to the enemy, yet he, thinking that Timoleon’s army surpassed his in courage and good fortune as much as his did in numbers, weighed anchor at once and sailed to Africa, letting Sicily slip through his fingers, to his great disgrace, for no assignable reason.

XXI

On the next day appeared Timoleon with his troops in battle array. As soon as they learned their departure, and saw the harbour, they proceeded to mock at the cowardice of Mago, and they sent a crier round the city offering a reward to any one who would tell them to what place the Carthaginian force had run away. Nevertheless, Hiketes still showed a bold front, and did not relax his hold on the city, and, as the part which was in his possession was strong and hard of access, Timoleon divided his army, and himself led the assault on the most difficult side of the position, by the river Anapus, ordering another body, under Isias the Corinthian, to attack from Achradina. A third corps, consisting of the newly arrived reinforcement under Deinarchus and Demaretus were to attack Epipolae. The assault took place simultaneously on all sides. The speedy rout of Hiketes and capture of the city may be justly ascribed to the skill of the General; but the fact that not one of the Corinthians was killed or wounded is due to Timoleon’s good fortune, which seemed to vie with his courage and try to make those who read of his exploits wonder at their good luck more than their merit.

In a few days not only was all Sicily and Italy ringing with his fame, but throughout Greece his great successes were known, and the city of Corinth, which scarcely thought that the expedition had reached Sicily, heard at the same time that the troops were safe and victorious, so prosperously did affairs turn out, and with such speed did fortune publish the glory of his deeds.

XXII

Timoleon, having thus gained possession of the fortified citadel on the promontory, did not fall into the same snare as Dion, and was not moved to spare the place for the sake of its beautiful and costly architecture. Dion’s jealousy of the people led him to distrust them, and proved his ruin; but Timoleon took a very different course. He made proclamation that any Syracusan who chose might come with a crowbar and take part in the destruction of the despot’s castle. When they had all assembled, in order to mark that day and that proclamation as the real beginning of liberty, they not only destroyed and subverted the castle, but also the houses and tombs of the despots. Timoleon at once had the place levelled, and built upon it courts of justice, delighting the citizens by substituting a republic for a tyranny.

Having taken the city, he was now at a loss for citizens, for some had been killed in the wars and revolutions, and some had gone into exile to avoid the despots, so that the market-place of Syracuse was overrun with herbage so deep and thick that horses were pastured on it, while the grooms lay on the grass near them. The other cities, except a very few, had become the haunts of deer and wild boars, and persons at leisure used to hunt them with dogs in the suburbs and round the walls. None of those who had taken refuge in the various forts and castles would return to the city, as they all felt a dread and hatred of public assemblies and politics, which had produced the greater part of the tyrants under whom they had suffered. In this difficulty it occurred to Timoleon and the Syracusans to apply to the Corinthians, and ask them to send out fresh colonists from Greece. Otherwise, they said, the land must lie uncultivated, and, above all, they were looking forward to a great war with Africa, as they heard that on Mago’s return the Carthaginians were so enraged at his failure, that, though he committed suicide to avoid a worse fate, they had crucified his dead body, and were collecting a great force, meaning next summer to invade Sicily.

XXIII

When these letters from Timoleon reached them, together with ambassadors from the Syracusans, who besought them to take upon them the care of this their poor city, and once again become the founders of it, the Corinthians were not tempted by greed to take unfair advantages and seize the city for themselves, but first sent heralds to all the games held in honour of the gods throughout Greece, and to all places where people assembled, to proclaim that the Corinthians, having abolished despotism at Syracuse and driven out the despot, invite all Syracusans and other Sicilian Greeks who choose to go and dwell in the city under free institutions, receiving an equal and just share of the land. Next they sent messengers to Asia Minor and the islands, wherever they heard that most of the scattered bands of exiles had settled, and invited them all to come to Corinth, as the Corinthians would at their own expense furnish them with vessels and commanders and a safe convoy to Syracuse.

By these proclamations Corinth gained great and well-deserved renown, seeing that she had forced Syracuse from its tyrants, saved it from the barbarians, and given back the country to its own citizens. The exiles, however, when assembled at Corinth found their numbers too small, and begged to be allowed to receive among them others from Corinth and the rest of Greece. When by this means they had raised their numbers to not less than ten thousand, they sailed to Syracuse. Many citizens from Italy and Sicily had already joined Timoleon, who, when he found their numbers (according to Athanis) amount to sixty thousand, divided the country among them, and sold the houses for a thousand talents, affording the original citizens the option of purchasing their own houses. At the same time, to relieve the financial distress of the State, with a view to the approaching war, he even sold all the statues. A vote of the assembly was taken about each one, and he was condemned, like a criminal on his trial. On this occasion they say that the Syracusans, though they condemned all the rest, decided on keeping that of the ancient prince Gelo, because they admired and respected him for his victory over the Carthaginians at Himera.

XXIV

The life of Syracuse being rekindled by this influx of citizens from all quarters, Timoleon determined to set free the other cities also, and to exterminate the despots in Sicily. In the course of his campaigns against them he compelled Hiketes to renounce his alliance with the Carthaginians, to demolish his castle, and to live in Leontini as a private citizen. Leptines, the despot of Apollonia and of several smaller towns, fearing to be taken by him, surrendered. Timoleon spared his life, and sent him to Corinth, as he thought that it reflected credit upon his native city, that the despots of Sicily should be seen by all Greece living there as humble exiles. As for the soldiers whom he had in his pay, he determined not to keep them idle, but to support them by the plunder of an enemy’s country. So while he himself returned to Syracuse, to superintend the reconstruction of the constitution, and to assist the lawgivers Kephalus and Dionysius in framing the best form of polity, he sent the troops under Deinarchus and Demaretus to subdue the western portion of the island, which had fallen into the hands of the Carthaginians. Here they induced several cities to revolt from the barbarians, and not only gained abundant pay and plunder for themselves from their conquests, but were able to furnish funds for the approaching war.

XXV

During this time the Carthaginian forces sailed to Lilybaeum with seventy thousand men, two hundred ships of war, and a thousand transports carrying engines of war, four horse chariots, provisions, and other war material, as they meant no longer to use half measures, but at one swoop to drive the Greeks out of Sicily. Their force indeed was sufficient for the conquest of the Sikeliot Greeks even if they had not been weakened by their internal strife.

Hearing that their own part of the island was being ravaged, they at once in great anger marched to attack the Corinthians, under the command of Hasdrubal and Hamilcar. News of this quickly reached Syracuse, and the great numbers of the enemy caused such panic among the citizens, that, numerous as they were, Timoleon could only induce three thousand to get under arms and follow him. Besides these, there was the paid force, four thousand in number; and of these again about a thousand were overcome by their fears on the march, and went back, declaring that Timoleon could not be in his right senses, but must be insane to march with five thousand foot and a thousand horse to attack seventy thousand men, and to separate his force eight days’ journey from Syracuse, in a place where there was no hope of shelter for the fugitives or of honourable burial for the dead. Timoleon treated it as an advantage that these men disclosed their cowardice before the day of battle. He encouraged the rest, and led them with all haste to the river Krimesus, where he heard that the Carthaginians were concentrating.

XXVI

As he was mounting a hill, beyond which he expected to see the camp and army of the enemy, there met him some mules loaded with parsley. It occurred to the soldiers that this was a bad omen, for we generally use parsley for wreathing tombs; indeed from this practice arises the proverb, when a man is dangerously ill, that he is ready for his parsley. Wishing to rid them from this superstition and to stop their fears, Timoleon halted them, and made a suitable speech, pointing out that their crown of victory had come of its own accord into their hands before the battle, for this is the herb with which the Corinthians crown the victors at the Isthmian games, accounting it sacred and peculiar to their own country. For then parsley was used for the crown at the Isthmian games, as it is even to this day at those of Nemea, and the pine has only been lately introduced. So Timoleon, having addressed his soldiers, as has been said, first crowned himself with the parsley, and then his officers and men did so likewise. But the prophets perceiving two eagles flying towards them, one of whom carried a snake in its talons, while the other flew along with loud and inspiriting cries, pointed them out to the soldiers, who all began to pray and invoke the gods.

XXVII

The time of year was the beginning of summer, near the solstice at the end of the month Thargelion.8 A thick mist rose from the river, and all the plain was concealed in fog, so that nothing could be seen of the enemy, but only a confused murmur from the movement of that great host reached the hill. The Corinthians, when they had reached the summit, paused and piled their arms. Now the sun shone out, and the mist rose from the valley. Gathering together, it hung in clouds about the hill-tops, while below, the river Krimesus appeared, with the enemy crossing it.

First went the four-horse chariots in terrible pomp, all drawn up in battle array, while next to them followed ten thousand hoplites with white shields. These they conjectured to be native Carthaginians by the splendour of their equipments and their slow and orderly march. Following these came the other nations, turbulently and confusedly struggling across. Timoleon, seeing that the river kept off the mass of the enemy, and allowed them to fight with just so many as they chose, pointed out to his soldiers how the enemy’s array was broken by the stream, some having crossed, and some being still crossing. He ordered Demaretus to take the cavalry and charge the Carthaginians, to prevent their having time to form in order of battle. But he himself marched down to the plain, having drawn up his force with the other Sicilian Greeks and a few strangers on each of the wings, but with his Syracusans and the best of the paid force under his own command in the centre.

For a short time he held back, watching the effect of the cavalry charge; but seeing that they were unable to come to blows with the Carthaginians because of the chariots which careered about in front of their ranks, and that they constantly had to fall back to avoid their array being broken, and then to make short rushes as occasion served, he himself took his shield, and called to the infantry to follow him and be of good cheer. It seemed to them that his voice was more than man’s, and louder than was his wont, either from their faculties being strained by the excitement of the contest, or else because, as most of them believed, some god shouted with him. Quickly they raised their war-cry in answer, and begged him to lead them on and wait no longer. Ordering the cavalry to ride round the line of chariots and attack the infantry in flank, he closed up the foremost ranks, and with the trumpet sounding the charge, attacked the Carthaginians.

XXVIII

They manfully encountered his first assault, and being armed with iron cuirasses and brass helmets, and protected with large shields, they were able to withstand the thrust of the Greek spears. But when the struggle came to be decided with swords, where skill as well as strength was employed, there suddenly broke upon them from the mountains a terrible storm of thunder with vivid flashes of lightning. The mist, which had hitherto hung about the mountain peaks, now rolled down on to the field of battle, with violent gusts, hail, and rain. The Greeks received it on their backs, while the rain beat into the faces of the barbarians, and the lightning dazzled their eyes, as the storm swept violently along with frequent flashes from the clouds. These were great disadvantages, especially to inexperienced men, as the thunder and the pattering of the rain and hail on their armour prevented their hearing the commands of their officers. The Carthaginians, not being lightly equipped, but, as has been narrated, in complete armour, slipped on the muddy ground and were encumbered by the wet folds of their dress, which rendered them less active in the fight, and easily overcome by the Greeks, since when they fell in the slippery mud they could not rise again with their shields. The river Krimesus, which had been held up by the multitudes that were crossing it, was now swollen to a torrent by the rain, and the plain through which it runs, lying as it does under many steep glens and ravines, was now covered with streams not running in the ordinary channels, in which the Carthaginians stumbled and were hard bested.

At last, from the violence of the storm, and the Greeks having cut to pieces their front rank, a chosen body of four hundred men, the great mass turned and fled. Many were overtaken and slain on the plain, and many more perished in the river, while the light-armed troops prevented most of them from gaining the shelter of the mountains. It was said that among the myriads of slain there were three thousand citizens of Carthage—a great loss and grief to that city, for they belonged to the noblest and richest classes; nor do we ever hear of so many native Carthaginians having perished in any one battle before this, as they generally make use of Libyan, Spanish and Numidian troops, so that in case of defeat the loss falls upon other nations.

XXIX

The Greeks discovered the rank of the dead by the richness of their spoil; for when they collected the booty no account was taken of iron or brass, such an abundance was there of silver and gold; for they crossed the river and captured the enemy’s camp. Of the captives, the greater part were stolen by the soldiers, and sold privately, but a body of five thousand was brought into the common stock. Two hundred chariots also were taken. The most glorious and magnificent spectacle of all was the tent of Timoleon, round which booty of every kind was piled up in heaps, among which were a thousand corslets of exquisite workmanship, and ten thousand shields. As they were but few to gather the plunder of so many, and as they fell in with such riches, it was only on the third day that they managed to erect a trophy of their victory. Together with the despatch announcing his success, Timoleon sent home to Corinth the finest of the arms and armour, desiring to make his country envied by all men, when they should see, in that alone of all Greek cities, that the most important shrines were not adorned with Grecian spoils, nor with offerings obtained by the slaughter of men of their own race and blood, dismal memorials at best, but with spoils of the barbarian, whose inscriptions bore noble testimony to the justice, as well as the courage of the victors, telling how the Corinthians and their general, Timoleon, having freed the Greeks who dwell in Sicily from the yoke of Carthage, set up these thank-offerings to the gods.

XXX

After the victory he left the paid force in the enemy’s country, to ravage and plunder the Carthaginian dominions, and himself proceeded to Syracuse. He now ordered out of the island those mercenary troops by whom he had been deserted before the battle; and even forced them to quit Sicily before sunset. These men crossed into Italy and perished there at the hands of the Bruttians, who broke their word to them and betrayed them. This was the penalty which Heaven imposed on them for their desertion. But Mamercus, the despot of Catana, and Hiketes, either through disgust at Timoleon’s successes, or else fearing him as a man not likely to keep faith with despots, made an alliance with Carthage, as they said that the Carthaginians, unless they wished to be utterly driven out of Sicily, must send a competent force and a general. Gisco the son of Hanno sailed thither with seventy ships, and also with a force of Greek mercenary soldiers, whom the Carthaginians had never used before; but now they were full of admiration for the Greeks, as being the most warlike and invincible of men. Having effected a junction of their forces in the territory of Messina, they cut to pieces a body of four hundred foreign soldiers whom Timoleon sent against them; and in the Carthaginian dominion they laid an ambush near the place called Hietae, and cut off the hired troops of Euthymus the Leukadian. Both these circumstances made the good fortune of Timoleon more renowned. For these were some of the men who under Philomelus of Phokis and Onomarchus sacrilegiously took Delphi, and shared in the plunder of the temple. As all men loathed them and shrank from them as from men under a curse, they wandered about Peloponnesus until Timoleon, being unable to get any other soldiers, enlisted them in his service. When they reached Sicily, they were victorious in every battle which they fought where he was present. After the most important struggles of the war were over, they were sent to reinforce others, and so perished and came to nought; and not all at once, but piecemeal, as if their avenging fate had given way to Timoleon’s good fortune for a season, lest the good should suffer from the punishment of the wicked. Thus the kindness of the gods towards Timoleon was no less seen and wondered at in his failures than in his successes.

XXXI

The people of Syracuse were much nettled by the insulting jests passed upon them by the despots. Mamercus, who plumed himself on his poems and tragedies, gave himself great airs after conquering the mercenaries, and when he hung up their shields as offerings to the gods, he inscribed this insolent elegiac couplet upon them.

“These, with purple wrought, and ivory, gold, and amber,

We with our simple shields conquered and laid in the dust.”

After these events, while Timoleon was on a campaign in the direction of Kalauria, Hiketes invaded the Syracusan territory, did much damage and insult, and retired loaded with spoil, past the very walls of Kalauria, despising Timoleon, who had but a small force with him. He, however, let him pass, but then pursued with his cavalry and light troops. Hiketes, perceiving this, halted after crossing the river Damyrias, and drew up his troops along the farther bank to dispute the passage, encouraged to do so by the different nature of the ford, and the steepness of the hills on either hand. Now a strange rivalry and contest arose among Timoleon’s captains, which delayed their onset. No one chose to let any one else lead the way against the enemy, but each man wished to be first; so that their crossing was conducted in a disorderly fashion, each man trying to push by and outstrip the rest. Hereupon Timoleon, wishing to choose the leaders by lot, took a ring from each. These he threw into his own cloak, mixed them up, and showed the first which he drew out, which happened to be engraved with the figure of a trophy of victory. When the young men saw this they raised a shout of joy, and would not wait for the rest to be drawn, but each man, as fast as he could, rode through the river and set upon the enemy. Their assault was irresistible; the enemy fled, all of them throwing away their shields, and with the loss of a hundred men.

XXXII

Soon after this, while Timoleon was campaigning in the Leontine country, he took Hiketes alive, with his son Eupolemus, and Euthymus, the commander of his cavalry. The soldiers seized and bound them, and led them into Timoleon’s presence. Hiketes and his son were put to death as despots and traitors; nor did Euthymus meet with compassion, though he was a man of renown in athletic contest, and of great personal bravery, because of a scoffing speech of which he was accused against the Corinthians. The story goes that he was addressing the people of Leontini on the subject of the Corinthian invasion, and told them that there was nothing to be alarmed at if

“Corinthian ladies have come out from home.”9

Thus it is that most people seem to suffer more from hard words than hard deeds, and are more excited by insult than by actual hurt. What we do to our enemies in war is done of necessity, but the evil we say of them seems to spring from an excess of spite.

XXXIII

On Timoleon’s return the Syracusans brought the family and daughters of Hiketes before the public assembly for trial, and condemned them to death. And this, methinks, is the most heartless of Timoleon’s actions, that for want of a word from him these poor creatures should have perished. He seems not to have interfered, and to have let the people give full vent to their desire to avenge Dion, who dethroned Dionysius. For Hiketes was the man who threw Dion’s wife Arete alive into the sea, with her sister Aristomache and her little son, as is told in the Life of Dion.

XXXIV

After this he marched against Mamercus at Catana. He beat him in a pitched battle near the river Abolus, routing him with a loss of two thousand men, no small part of whom belonged to the Phoenician contingent under Gisco. Hereupon, at the request of the Carthaginians, he made peace, stipulating that they should hold the country beyond the river Lykus, and that those who wished should be allowed to have it and go to reside at Syracuse, with their families and property, and also that they should give up their alliance with the despots. In despair at this Mamercus sailed to Italy, to try to bring the Lucanians against Timoleon and the Syracusans; but he was deserted by his followers, who turned their ships back, sailed to Syracuse, and surrendered Catana to Timoleon. Mamercus now was forced to take refuge in Messina with Hippo, the despot there. But Timoleon came and besieged it both by sea and land. Hippo endeavoured to escape on a ship, and was taken. The people of Messina, to whom he was delivered up, brought every one, even the boys from school, into the theatre, to witness that most salutary spectacle, a tyrant meeting with his deserts. He was put to death with torture; but Mamercus surrendered himself to Timoleon on condition that he should have a fair trial before the people of Syracuse, and that Timoleon should say nothing against him. When he was brought to Syracuse he was brought before the people, and tried to deliver a long premeditated speech to them, but meeting with interruptions and seeing that the assembly was inexorable he flung away his cloak and rushed across the theatre, striking his head against a stone step with the intention of killing himself. However he failed, and paid the penalty of his crimes by suffering the death of a pirate.

XXXV

In this fashion the despotisms were put down by Timoleon, and the wars finished. The whole island, which had become a mere wilderness through the constant wars, and was grown hateful to the very natives, under his administration became so civilized and desirable a country that colonists sailed to it from those very places to which its own citizens had formerly betaken themselves to escape from it. For Akragas and Gela, large cities, which after the war with Athens had been destroyed by the Carthaginians, were now repeopled; the former colonists led by Megellus and Pheristus, from Elea on the south coast of Italy, and the latter by a party led by Gorgus, who sailed from Keos and collected together the former citizens.

When these cities were being reorganised Timoleon not only afforded them peace and safety, but also gave them great assistance, and showed so great an interest in them as to be loved and respected by them as their real Founder. The other cities also all of them looked upon him with the same feelings, so that no peace could be made by them, no laws established, no country divided among settlers, no constitutional changes made that seemed satisfactory, unless he had a hand in them, and arranged them just as an architect, when a building is finished, gives some graceful touches which adorn the whole.

XXXVI

There were many Greeks, in his lifetime, who became great, and did great things, such as Timotheus, and Agesilaus, and Pelopidas, and Timoleon’s great model, Epameinondas. But these men’s actions produced a glory which was involved in much strain and toil, and some of their deeds have incurred censure, and even been repented of. Whereas those of Timoleon, if we except the terrible affair of his brother, have nothing in them to which we cannot apply, like Timaeus, that verse of Sophocles—

“Ye gods, what Venus or what grace divine

Took part in this.”

For as in the poetry of Antimachus, and the paintings of Dionysius, the Kolophonians, we find a certain vigour and power, yet think them forced in expression, and produced with much labour, while the paintings of Nikomachus and the verses of Homer, besides their other graces and merits, have the charm of seeming to have been composed easily and without effort, so also the campaigns of Timoleon, when compared with the laborious and hardly contested ones of Epameinondas or Agesilaus, seem to have, besides their glory, a wonderful ease, which property is not so much to be attributed to good luck as to prosperous valour. He, however, ascribed all his successes to Fortune, for in writing to his friends at home, and in his public speeches to the Syracusans, he frequently expressed his thankfulness to this goddess, who, having determined to save Sicily, had chosen to ascribe to him the credit of doing it. In his house he built a chapel to Automatia,—the goddess under whose auspices blessings and glory came as it were of themselves. To her he offered sacrifices, and consecrated his house to her. He lived in a house which the Syracusans had bestowed upon him as a special prize for his successes as general, and also the most beautiful and pleasant country seat, where indeed he spent most of his leisure time with his wife and children, whom he had sent for from Corinth. For he never returned to Corinth, nor mixed himself up in the troubles of Greece, nor did he expose himself to the hatred of political faction, which is the rock upon which great generals commonly split, in their insatiate thirst for honour and power; but he remained in Sicily, enjoying the blessings of which he was the author; the greatest of which was to see so many cities, and so many tens of thousands, all made happy and prosperous by his means.

XXXVII

But since, as Simonides says, all larks must have crests, and all republics sycophants, so two of the popular leaders, Laphystius and Demaenetus, attacked Timoleon. When Laphystius was insisting on his giving bail for some lawsuit, he would not permit the people to hoot at him or stop him; for he said that all his labours and dangers had been endured to obtain for every Syracusan the right of appealing to the laws. Demaenetus made many attacks in the public assembly on his generalship; but he made him no answer except to declare his thankfulness to the gods for having granted his prayer that he might see all Syracusans in possession of liberty of speech.

Though he confessedly had performed the greatest and most glorious actions of any Greek of his time, and though he had gained the glory of having alone done that which the orators in their speeches at great public meetings used to urge the entire nation to attempt, he was fortunately removed from the troubles which fell upon ancient Greece, and saved from defiling his hands with the blood of his countrymen. His courage and conduct were shown at the expense of barbarians and despots; his mildness of temper was experienced by Greeks; he was able to erect the trophies for most of his victories, without causing tears and mourning to the citizens; but nevertheless, within eight years, he restored Sicily to its native inhabitants, freed from the scourges which had afflicted it for so long a time and seemed so ineradicable. When advanced in years he suffered from a dimness of sight, which soon became total blindness. He had done nothing to cause it, and had met with no accident, but the disease was congenital, and in time produced a cataract. Many of his relatives are said in a similar fashion to have lost their sight when advanced in years. But Athanis tells us that during the war with Hippo and Mamercus, at the camp at Mylae, his eyesight became affected, and that this was noticed by all, but that he did not on that account desist from the siege, but persevered in the war, till he captured the two despots; but as soon as he returned to Syracuse he resigned his post of commander-in-chief, begging the citizens to allow him to do so, as the war had been brought to a happy conclusion.

XXXVIII

That he endured his misfortune without repining is not to be wondered at; but one must admire the respect and love shown him when blind by the people of Syracuse. They constantly visited him, and brought with them any strangers that might be staying with them, both to his town and country house, to show them their benefactor, glorying in the fact that he had chosen to spend his life amongst them, and had scorned the magnificent reception which his exploits would have ensured him, had he returned to Greece. Of the many important tributes to his worth none was greater than the decree of the Syracusans that whenever they should be engaged in war with foreign tribes, they would have a Corinthian for their general. Great honour was also reflected upon him by their conduct in the public assembly; for, though they managed ordinary business by themselves, on the occasion of any important debate they used to call him in. Then he would drive through the market-place into the theatre; and when the carriage in which he sat was brought in, the people would rise and salute him with one voice. Having returned their greeting, and allowed a short time for their cheers and blessings, he would hear the disputed point debated, and then give his opinion. When this had been voted upon his servants would lead his carriage out of the theatre, while the citizens, cheering and applauding him as he went, proceeded to despatch their other business without him.

XXXIX

Cherished in his old age with such respect and honour, as the common father of his country, Timoleon at length, after a slight illness, died. Some time was given for the Syracusans to prepare his funeral, and for neighbours and foreigners to assemble, so that the ceremony was performed with great splendour. The bier, magnificently adorned, and carried by young men chosen by lot, passed over the place where once the castle of Dionysius had been pulled down. The procession was joined by tens of thousands of men and women, whose appearance was gay enough for a festival, for they all wore garlands and white robes. Their lamentations and tears mingled with their praises of the deceased showed that they were not performing this as a matter of mere outward respect and compliance with a decree, but that they expressed real sorrow and loving gratitude. At last, when the bier was placed upon the pyre, Demetrius, the loudest voiced of the heralds at that time, read aloud the following:—

“The Syracusan people solemnise, at the cost of two hundred minae, the funeral of this man, the Corinthian Timoleon, son of Timodemus. They have passed a vote to honour him for all future time with festival matches in music, horse and chariot races, and gymnastics, because, after having put down the despots, subdued the foreign enemy, and recolonized the greatest among the ruined cities, he restored to the Sicilian Greeks their constitution and laws.”10

They buried him in the market-place, and afterwards surrounded the spot with a colonnade, and built a palastra in it for the young men to practise in, and called it the Timoleonteum; and, living under the constitution and laws which he established, they passed many years in prosperity.

LIFE OF
AEMILIUS.

II1

Most writers agree that the Aemilian was one of the most noble and ancient of the patrician families of Rome. Those who tell us that King Numa was a pupil of Pythagoras, narrate also that Mamercus, the founder of this family, was a son of that philosopher, who for his singular grace and subtlety of speech was surnamed Aemilius. Most of the members of the family who gained distinction by their valour, were also fortunate, and even the mishap of Lucius Paullus at Cannae bore ample testimony to his prudence and valour. For since he could not prevail upon his colleague to refrain from battle, he, though against his better judgment, took part in it, and disdained to fly; but when he who had begun the contest fled from it, he stood firm, and died fighting the enemy. This Aemilius had a daughter, who married Scipio the Great, and a son who is the subject of this memoir. Born in an age which was rendered illustrious by the valour and wisdom of many distinguished men, he eclipsed them all, though he followed none of the studies by which young men were then gaining themselves a reputation, but chose a different path. He did not practise at the bar, nor could he bring himself to court the favour of the people by the greetings, embraces, and professions of friendship to which most men used to stoop to obtain popularity. Not that he was by nature unfitted for such pursuits; but he considered it better to gain a reputation for courage, justice, and truth, in which he soon outshone his contemporaries.

III

The first honourable office for which he was a candidate was that of aedile, for which he was elected against twelve others, who, they say, all afterwards became consuls. When chosen a priest of the college of Augurs, whom the Romans appoint to watch and register the omens derived from the flight of birds, or the signs of the heavens, he so carefully applied himself to learning the ancient customs and religion of his ancestors, that the priesthood, hitherto merely considered as an empty title of honour and sought after for that reason only, became regarded as the sublimest craft of all, confirming the saying of the philosophers, that holiness consists in a knowledge of how to serve the gods. Under him everything was done with both zeal and skill. He neglected all other duties, when engaged upon these, neither omitting any part nor adding any, arguing with his companions, when they blamed him for his care about trifles, that though a man might think that heaven was merciful and forgiving of negligences, yet that habitual disregard and overlooking of such points was dangerous for the state, seeing that no one ever begins till some flagrant breach of the law to disturb the constitution, but those who are careless of accuracy in small things soon begin to neglect the most important. He was no less severe in exacting and maintaining military discipline than with religious observances, never forgetting the general in the demagogue, nor, as many then did, endeavouring to make his first command lead to a second by indulgence and affability to his troops, but, like a priest expounding mysteries, he carefully taught them everything requisite for a campaign, and, by his severity to the careless and disobedient, restored the former glory to his country; for he seemed to think victory over the enemy was merely a subordinate incident in the great work of disciplining his fellow-citizens.

IV

When the Romans were at war with Antiochus the Great, and all their most experienced generals were employed against him, there arose another war in the west of Europe, in consequence of revolutionary movements in Spain. Aemilius was appointed commander to conduct this war, not with six lictors only, like ordinary generals, but twelve, so as to give him consular authority. He defeated the barbarians in two pitched battles, with a loss of nearly thirty thousand. The credit of this exploit belongs peculiarly to the general, who made such use of the advantage of the ground, and the ford over a certain river, as to render victory an easy matter for his soldiers. He also took two hundred and fifty cities, which opened their gates to him. Having established a lasting peace in his province he returned to Rome, not having gained a penny by his command. For he was careless of money-making, though he spent his fortune without stint; and it was so small, that after his death it hardly sufficed to make up the dower of his wife.

V

He married Papiria, the daughter of Papirius Maso, a consular; and after living with her for a considerable time, divorced her, though he had by her an illustrious family, for she was the mother of the renowned Scipio, and of Fabius Maximus. No reason for their separation has come down to us, but there is much truth in that other story about a divorce, that some Roman put away his wife; and his friends then blamed him, saying, “Is she not chaste? is she not beautiful? is she not fruitful?” He, stretching out his shoe, said, “Is it not beautiful? is it not new? But none of you can tell where it pinches me. In fact, some men divorce their wives for great and manifest faults, yet the little but constant irritation which proceeds from incompatible tempers and habits, though unnoticed by the world at large, does gradually produce between married people breaches which cannot be healed.”

So Aemilius put away Papiria, and married again. By his second marriage he had two sons, whom he kept at home, but those by the former marriage he had adopted into the greatest and noblest families of Rome, the elder into that of Fabius Maximus, who had five times been consul, while the younger was treated by Scipio Africanus as his cousin, and took the name of Scipio.

Of his two daughters, one married a son of Cato, the other Aelius Tubero, an excellent man, who supported his poverty more gloriously than any other Roman. There were sixteen in the family, all Aelii; and one small house and estate sufficed for them all, with their numerous offspring and their wives, among whom was the daughter of our Aemilius, who, though her father had twice been consul and twice triumphed, was not ashamed of the poverty of her husband, but was proud of the virtue that kept him poor. But nowadays brothers and kinsmen, unless their inheritances be divided by mountain ranges, rivers, and walls like fortifications, with plenty of space between them, quarrel without ceasing. These are the materials for reflection which history affords to those who choose to make use of them.

VI

Aemilius, when elected consul, marched against the sub-Alpine Ligurians, called by some Ligustines, a brave and spirited nation, and from their nearness to Rome, skilled in the arts of war. Mixed with the Gauls, and the Iberians of the sea coast, they inhabit the extremity of Italy where it dies away into the Alps, and also that part of the Alps which is washed by the Tuscan Sea, opposite the Libyan coast. At this time they took also to seafaring, and, sailing forth in small piratical ships, they plundered and preyed upon commerce as far as the columns of Heracles. On Aemilius’s approach they opposed him, forty thousand strong; but he, with only eight thousand, attacked five-fold his own numbers, put them to rout, and having chased them into their fastnesses, offered them reasonable and moderate terms; for it was not the Roman policy utterly to exterminate the Ligurian race, but to leave them as an outwork to protect Italy against the constant movements of the Gaulish tribes.

Trusting in Aemilius they surrendered all their ships and their cities into his hands. He did the cities no hurt, or at most destroyed the walls, and restored them to the owners, but he carried off all the ships, leaving them nothing larger than a six-oared boat; while he set free the numerous captives which they had taken both by sea and land, among whom were some Roman citizens. These were his glorious exploits in that consulship. Afterwards he frequently let his desire for re-election be seen, and once became a candidate, but as he failed and was passed over, he thenceforth remained in retirement, occupying himself with religious matters, and teaching his children not only the Roman education in which he himself had been brought up, but also the Greek, and that more carefully. For not only were the grammarians, philosophers, and orators Greek, but also the sculptors and painters, and the young men kept Greeks to manage their horses and hounds, and instruct them in hunting. Aemilius, unless hindered by public business, always was present at the exercises and studies of his sons, and was the kindest father in Rome.

VII

This was the period during which the Romans, who were at war with Perseus, King of Macedon, complained of their generals, whose ignorance and cowardice had led to the most disgraceful and ridiculous failure, and to the sustaining of much more loss than they inflicted. They, who had just driven Antiochus, called the Great, out of Asia Minor, beyond Taurus, and restricted him to Syria, making him glad to purchase peace at the price of fifteen thousand talents; who, a little before, had crushed Philip in Thessaly, and set free the Greeks from the power of Macedon; and who had also utterly subdued Hannibal himself, a man whose daring and immense resources rendered him far more dangerous an opponent than any king, thought that it was not to be borne that Perseus should wage war as if he were on equal terms with the Roman people, and that, too, with only the remnants of his father’s routed forces; for they did not know that Philip, after his defeat, had greatly increased the power and efficiency of the Macedonian army. To explain which, I shall briefly relate the story from the beginning.

VIII

Antigonus, who was the most powerful of the generals and successors of Alexander, and who obtained for himself and his family the title of king, had a son named Demetrius, whose son was Antigonus, called Gonatas. His son again was named Demetrius, who, after reigning some short time, died, leaving a son Philip, a mere boy in years. Fearing disturbance during his minority, the Macedonian nobles made Antigonus, a cousin of the deceased, Regent and commander-in-chief, associating with him in this office the mother of Philip. Finding him a moderate and useful ruler, they soon gave him the title of king. He had the soubriquet of Doson, as though he were only a promiser, not a performer of his engagements. After this man, Philip came to the throne, and, while yet a boy, distinguished himself in all that becomes a king, so as to raise men’s hopes that he might restore the empire of Macedon to its ancient glory, and be alone able to check the power of Rome, which now menaced the whole world. Defeated in a great battle at Scotussa by Titus Flamininus, he bent to the storm, surrendered all that he had to the Romans, and was thankful for mild treatment. Afterwards, chafing at his subordinate position, and thinking that to reign dependent on the pleasure of the Romans was more worthy of a slave who cares only for sensual pleasure, than of a man of spirit, he gave his whole mind up to preparations for war, and secretly and unscrupulously collected materials for it. Of the cities in his kingdom, he allowed those on the sea-coast and the main roads to fall into partial decay, so that his power might be despised, while he collected great forces in the interior. Here he filled all the outposts, fortresses, and cities with arms, money, and men fit for service, and thus trained the nation for war, yet kept his preparations secret. In his arsenals were arms for thirty thousand men; eight million medimni of corn were stored in his fortresses, and such a mass of treasure as would pay an army of ten thousand men for ten years. But before he could put all these forces in motion and begin the great struggle, he died of grief and remorse, for he had, as he admitted, unjustly put his other son Demetrius to death on the calumnies of one far worse than he was. Perseus, the survivor, inherited his father’s hatred of the Romans with his kingdom, but was not of a calibre to carry out his designs, as his small and degraded mind was chiefly possessed by avarice. He is said not even to have been legitimate, but that Philip’s wife obtained him when a baby from his real mother, a midwife of Argos, named Gnathaina, and palmed him off upon her husband. And this seems to have been one reason for her putting Demetrius to death, for fear that if the family had a legitimate heir, this one’s bastardy would be discovered.

IX

However, low-born and low-minded though he was, yet having by the force of circumstances drifted into war, he held his own and maintained himself for a long time against the Romans, defeating generals of consular rank with great armies, and even capturing some of them. Publius Licinius, who first invaded Macedonia, was defeated in a cavalry engagement, with a loss of two thousand five hundred brave men killed, and six hundred prisoners. Perseus next by a sudden attack made himself master of the Roman naval station at Oreus, took twenty store ships, sunk the rest, which were loaded with grain, and took also four quinqueremes.2 He fought also a second battle, in which he drove back the consular general Hostilius, who was trying to invade Macedonia near Elimiae; and when he tried to steal in through Thessaly, he again offered battle, which the Roman declined. As an accessory to the war he now made a campaign against the Dardans, as if affecting to despise the Romans and to be at leisure. Here he cut to pieces ten thousand of the barbarians, and carried off much plunder. He also had secret negotiations with the Gauls who dwell near the Ister, called Basternae, a nation of warlike horsemen, and by means of Genthius their king he endeavoured to induce the Illyrians to take part in the war. There was even a report that the barbarians had been induced by his bribes to march through the southern part of Gaul beside the Adriatic, and so invade Italy.

X

The Romans, when they learnt all this, determined that they would disregard political influence in their choice of a general, and choose some man of sense and capable of undertaking great operations. Such a one was Paulus Aemilius, a man of advanced age, being about sixty years old, but still in full vigour of body, and surrounded by kinsmen, grown-up sons, and friends, who all urged him to listen to the appeal of his country and be consul. He at first treated the people with little respect, and shunned their eager professions of zeal, on the plea that he did not wish for the command; but as they waited on him daily, and called for him to come into the forum and shouted his name, he was at length prevailed upon. When a candidate, he seemed to enter the field not with a view to getting office, but to giving victory and strength in battle to his fellow-citizens; with such zeal and confidence did they unanimously elect him consul for the second time, not permitting lots to be cast for provinces by the two consuls, as is usual, but at once decreeing to him the management of the Macedonian war. It is said that when he was named general against Perseus, he was escorted home in triumph by the people en masse, and found his daughter Tertia, who was quite a little child, in tears. He embraced her, and asked her why she was crying; and she, throwing her arms round him and kissing him, said, “Do you not know, father, that our Perseus is dead?” meaning a little dog which she had brought up, which was so named. Aemilius said, “May this bring good luck, my daughter: I accept the omen.” This story Cicero the orator tells in his book on Divination.

XI

It being the custom that the consuls-elect should return thanks, and make a gracious speech to the people from the rostrum, Aemilius called together the people and said that he had sought for his former consulship because he wanted office, but for this one because they wanted a general: wherefore he felt no gratitude towards them, but would lay down his consulship if they thought that they would succeed better in the war under some one else; but if they felt confidence in him, he asked them not to interfere with his acts as general, nor to gossip about him, but to furnish quietly what was wanted for the war; for if they tried to command their commander they would afford even a more sorry spectacle than they had already done. By these words he made the citizens stand greatly in awe of him, and gave them great expectations of what he would effect, while all rejoiced that they had passed over those who used to flatter them, and had chosen a general of independence and spirit. So much did the Roman people respect bravery and honour, because it led to conquests, and to making them masters of the world.

XII

I consider it to have been by divine favour that Aemilius Paulus on starting for his campaign met with such a fortunate and calm voyage, and so speedily and safely arrived at the camp; but as to the war itself, and his conduct of it, accomplished as it was partly by swift daring, partly by wise dispositions, by the valour of friends, confidence in the midst of dangers, and reliance on sound plans, I cannot tell of any glorious and distinguished exploit, which, as in the case of other generals, owed its success to his good fortune; unless, indeed, any one should count as good fortune for Aemilius the avarice of Perseus, which destroyed the great and well-founded hopes of the Macedonians in the war, and brought them to ruin by the meanness of their chief. At his request there came a force of Basternae, a thousand horse and ten thousand light troops who fought with them, all mercenary soldiers—men who knew nothing of tilling the soil, or of sailing the sea, who did not live from the produce of their flocks, but who studied one art and business solely, ever to fight and overcome their antagonists. So, when in the camp at Maedike, these men mixed with the king’s troops, tall in their person, admirable in their drill, boastful and haughty in their defiance of the foe, they gave confidence to the Macedonians, and made them think that the Romans never could withstand their attack, but would be terrified at their appearance and march, outlandish and ferocious as it was. But Perseus, now that he had got such auxiliaries as these, and put his men into such heart, because he was asked for a thousand staters for each officer, became bewildered at the amount of the sum which he would have to pay, and his meanness prevailing over his reason, refused their offers, and broke off the alliance, as if he had been steward of his kingdom for the Romans rather than fighting against them, and had to give an exact account of his expenses in the war to his enemies; though he might have been taught by them, who had besides other war materials, a hundred thousand soldiers collected together ready for use. Yet he, when engaged in war with such a power as this, where such great forces were kept on foot to contend with him, kept doling out and sparing his money as if it were not his own. And still he was not a Lydian or Phoenician, but a man who from his descent ought to have had a share of the spirit of Philip and Alexander, who made all their conquests by the principle that empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that “It is not Philip, but Philip’s gold that takes the cities of Greece.” Alexander, too, when beginning his Indian campaign, seeing the Macedonians laboriously dragging along the rich and unwieldy plunder of the Persians, first burned all the royal carriages, and then persuaded the soldiers to do the like with their own, and start for the war as light as if they had shaken off a burden. But Perseus, when spending his own money to defend himself, his children, and his kingdom, rather than sacrifice a little and win, preferred to be taken to Rome with many others, a rich captive, and show the Romans how much he had saved for them.

XIII

For not only did he dismiss the Gauls and break his word to them, but after inducing Genthius the Illyrian to take part in the war for a bribe of three hundred talents, he lodged the money with that prince’s envoys, all counted, and let them put their seals upon it. Genthius then thinking that he had got what he asked, did a wicked and impious deed in seizing and throwing into prison some Roman ambassadors who were sent to him. Perseus, thinking that Genthius no longer needed money to make him hostile to Rome, since he had given him such a pledge of his hatred of it, and had involved himself in war with it by such a crime, deprived the poor man of his three hundred talents, and shortly afterwards looked calmly on while he and his family were plucked out of their kingdom, like birds out of a nest, by Lucius Anicius, who was sent with an army against him. Aemilius, when he came to contend with such a rival as this, despised him as a man, but was surprised at the force which he had at his disposal. These were four thousand cavalry, and of infantry soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx nearly forty thousand. Encamped by the sea-shore, near the skirts of Mount Olympus, on ground nowhere accessible, and strongly fortified by himself with outworks and defences of wood, Perseus lived in careless security, thinking that by time and expense he should wear out Aemilius’s attack. But he, while he busied his mind with every possible mode of assault, perceiving that his army in consequence of its past want of discipline was impatient, and usurped the general’s province by proposing all sorts of wild schemes, severely reprimanded the soldiers, and ordered them not to meddle with what was not their concern, but only take care that they and their arms were ready, and to use their swords as Romans should when their general should give the word. He ordered the night sentries to go on guard without their spears, that they might be more attentive and less inclined to sleep, having no arms to defend themselves against the enemy.

XIV

The army was chiefly troubled by want of water; for only a very little bad water ran or rather dripped out of a spring near the sea. Aemilius perceiving that Olympus, immediately above him, was a large and well-wooded mountain, and guessing from the greenness of the foliage that it must contain some springs which had their courses underground, dug many pits and wells along the skirts of the mountain, which immediately were filled with pure water, which by the pressure above was driven into these vacant spaces. Yet some say that there are no hidden fountains of water, lying ready in such places as these, and say that it is not because they are dug out or broken into that they flow, but that they have their origin and cause in the saturation of the surrounding earth which becomes saturated by its close texture and coldness, acting upon the moist vapours, which when pressed together low down turn into water. For just as women’s breasts are not receptacles full of milk ready to flow, but change the nutriment which is in them into milk, and so supply it, so also the cold places which are full of springs have no water concealed in them, nor any such reservoirs as would be needed to send out deep rivers from any fixed point, but by their pressure they convert the air and vapour which is in them into water. At any rate, those places which are dug over break more into springs and run more with water, in answer to this treatment of their surface, just as women’s breasts respond to sucking, for it moistens and softens the vapour; whereas land which is not worked is incapable of producing water, not having the motion by which moisture is obtained. Those who argue thus have given sceptics the opportunity of saying, that if it be true, there can be no blood in animals, but that it gathers about wounds, and that the flow of blood is produced by the air, or some change which takes place in the flesh. They are proved to be wrong by those who sink shafts for mines, and meet with rivers in the depths of the earth, which have not collected themselves by degrees, as would be the case if they derived their origin from the sudden movements of the earth, but flow with a full stream. Also, when mountains and rocks are fissured by a blow, there springs out a gush of water, which afterwards ceases. But enough of this.

XV

Aemilius remained quiet for some days, and it is said two such great hosts never were so near together and so quiet. After exploring and trying every place he discovered that there was still one pass unguarded, that, namely, through Perrhaebae by Pythium and Petra. He called a council of war to consider this, being himself more hopeful of success that way, as the place was not watched, than alarmed at the precipices on account of which the enemy neglected it. First of those present, Scipio, surnamed Nasica, son-in-law to Scipio Africanus, afterwards a leading man in the Senate, volunteered to lead the party which was to make this circuitous attack. And next Fabius Maximus, the eldest of the sons of Aemilius, though still only a youth, rose and spiritedly offered his services. Aemilius, delighted, placed under their command not so many troops as Polybius says in his history, but so many as Nasica himself tells us that he had, in a letter which he wrote to one of the princes of that region about this affair. He had three thousand Italians, besides his main body, and five thousand who composed the left wing. Besides these, Nasica took a hundred and twenty horse, and two hundred of Harpalus’s light troops, Thracians and Cretans mixed. He began his march along the road towards the sea, and encamped near the temple of Herakles, as though he intended to sail round to the other side of the enemy’s camp, and so surround him: but when the soldiers had supped, and it was dark, he explained his real plan to his officers, marched all night away from the sea, and halted his men for rest near the temple of Apollo. At this place Olympus is more than ten furlongs high: and this is proved by the epigram which the measurer wrote as follows:

“The height of Olympus’ crest at the temple of Pythian Apollo consists of (measured by the plumb line) ten stades, and besides a hundred feet all but four. It was Xenagoras, the son of Eumelus, who discovered its height. King Apollo, hail to thee; be thou propitious to us.”

And yet geometricians say that neither the height of any mountain nor the depth of any sea is above ten stades (furlongs). However, Xenophanes did not take its altitude conjecturally, but by a proper method with instruments.

XVI

Here then Nasica halted. Perseus in the morning saw Aemilius’s army quiet in its place, and would have had no idea of what was going on had not a Cretan deserter come and told him of the flank march of the Romans. Then he became alarmed, but still did not disturb his camp, but, placing ten thousand foreign mercenaries and two thousand Macedonians under the command of Milo, ordered him to march swiftly and occupy the passes. Now Polybius says that the Romans fell upon these men when they were in their beds, but Nasica tells us that a sharp and dangerous conflict took place upon the heights. He himself was assailed by a Thracian, but struck him through the breast with his spear. However, the enemy were forced back; Milo most shamefully fled in his shirt, without his arms, and Scipio was able to follow, and at the same time lead his forces on to level ground. Perseus, terrified and despairing when he saw them, at once broke up his camp and retreated. But still he was obliged either to give battle before Pydna, or else to disperse his army among the various cities of the kingdom, and so to await the Romans, who, being once entered into his country, could not be driven out without much slaughter and bloodshed. It was urged by his friends that he had a great numerical superiority, and that the troops would fight desperately in defence of their wives and families, especially if their king took the command and shared their danger. He pitched his camp and prepared for battle, viewed the ground, and arranged the commands, intending to set upon the Romans as soon as they appeared. Now the position both possessed a flat plain for the manoeuvres of the phalanx, which requires level ground, and also hills rising one above another offered refuges and means for outflanking the enemy to his light troops. Also two rivers, the Aeson and Leukus, which ran across as it, though not very deep at that season (late autumn), were expected to give some trouble to the Romans.

XVII

Aemilius, on effecting a junction with Nasica, marched in battle array against the enemy. When, however, he saw their position and their numbers, he halted in surprise, considering within himself what he should do. His young officers, eager for battle, rode up to him and begged him not to delay. Conspicuous among these was Nasica, excited by his successful flank march round Olympus. Aemilius smiled at them and answered, “I would do so if I were of your age, but many victories have shown me the mistakes of the vanquished, and prevent my attacking a body of men drawn up in a chosen position with troops on the march and undeployed.” He gave orders that those troops who were in front should gather together and appear to be forming in battle array, while those who were behind pitched their palisades and fortified a camp. Then by wheeling off men by degrees from the front line, he gradually broke up his line of battle, and quietly drew all his forces within the ramparts of his camp. When night fell, and after supper the army had betaken itself to sleep and rest, suddenly the moon, which was full and high in the heavens, became obscured, changed colour, and became totally eclipsed. The Romans, after their custom, called for her to shine again by clattering with brass vessels, and uplifting blazing faggots and torches. The Macedonians did nothing of the sort, but dismay spread over their camp, and they muttered under their breath that this portended the eclipse of their king. Now Aemilius was not unacquainted with the phenomena of eclipses, which result from the moon being at fixed periods brought into the shadow of the earth and darkened, until it passes the obscured tract and is again enlightened by the sun, yet being very devout and learned in divination, he offered to her a sacrifice of eleven calves. At daybreak he sacrificed twenty oxen to Herakles without obtaining a favourable response; but with the one-and-twentieth favourable signs appeared and portents of victory for them, provided they did not attack. He then vowed a hecatomb and sacred games in honour of the god, and ordered his officers to arrange the men in line of battle. But he waited till the sun declined and drew towards the west, that his troops might not fight with the morning sun in their eyes. He passed away the day sitting in his tent, which was pitched looking towards the flat country and the camp of the enemy.

XVIII

Some writers tell us, that about evening, by a device of Aemilius, the battle was begun by the enemy, the Romans having driven a horse without a bridle out of their camp and then tried to catch it, from which pursuit the battle began; but others say that Roman soldiers who were carrying fodder for the cattle were set upon by the Thracians under Alexander, and that to repel them a vigorous sortie was made with seven hundred Ligurians; that many on both sides came up to help their comrades, and so the battle began. Aemilius, like a pilot, seeing by the motion and disturbance of his camp that a storm was at hand, came out of his tent, and going along the lines of the infantry spoke encouraging words to them, while Nasica, riding up to the skirmishers, saw the whole army of the enemy just on the point of attacking. First marched the Thracians, whose aspect they saw was most terrible, as they were tall men, dressed in dark tunics, with large oblong shields and greaves of glittering white, brandishing aloft long heavy swords over their right shoulders. Next to the Thracians were the mercenaries, variously armed, and mixed with Paeonians. After these came a third corps, of Macedonians, picked men of proved courage, and in the flower of their age, glittering with gilded arms and new purple dresses. Behind them again came the phalanxes from the camp with their brazen shields, filling all the plain with the glittering of their armour, and making the hills ring with their shouts. So swiftly and boldly did they advance that those who were first slain fell two furlongs only from the Roman camp.

XIX

When the battle began, Aemilius came up, and found the front ranks of the Macedonians had struck their spear-heads into the Roman shields, so that they could not reach them with their swords. When also the other Macedonians took their shields off their shoulders and placed them in front, and then at the word of command all brought down their pikes, he, viewing the great strength of that serried mass of shields, and the menacing look of the spears that bristled before them, was amazed and terrified, having never seen a more imposing spectacle—and often afterwards he used to speak of that sight, and of his own feelings at it. At the time, however, he put on a cheerful and hopeful look, and rode along the ranks showing himself to the men without helmet or cuirass. But the Macedonian king, according to Polybius, having joined battle, was seized with a fit of cowardice, and rode off to the city on the pretext that he was going to sacrifice to Herakles, a god unlikely to receive the base offerings of cowards or to fulfil their unreasonable prayers; for it is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper. But the god heard the prayers of Aemilius, for he prayed for victory whilst fighting, sword in hand, and invited the god into the battle to aid him. Not but what one Poseidonius, who says that he took part in these transactions, and wrote a history of Perseus in many volumes, says that it was not from cowardice, or on the pretext of offering sacrifice that he left the field, but that on the day before the battle he was kicked on the leg by a horse; that in the battle, though in great pain, and entreated by his friends to desist, he ordered a horse to be brought, and without armour rode up to the phalanx. Here as many missiles were flying about from both sides, an iron javelin struck him, not fairly with its point, but it ran obliquely down his left side, tearing his tunic, and causing a dark bruise on his flesh, the scar of which was long visible. This is what Poseidonius urges in defence of Perseus.

XX

Now as the Romans when they met the phalanx could make no impression upon it, Salovius, the leader of the Pelignians, seized the standard of his regiment and threw it among the enemy. The Pelignians, as the loss of a standard is thought to be a crime and an impiety by all Italians, rushed to the place, and a fierce conflict began there with terrible slaughter. The one party tried to dash aside the long spears with their swords, and to push them with their shields, and to seize them away with their very hands, while the Macedonians, wielding their spears with both hands, drove them through their opponents, armour and all: for no shield or corslet could resist their thrust. They then cast over their own heads the bodies of these Pelignians and Marrucini, who pressed madly like wild creatures up to the line of spears and certain death. When the first rank fell in this manner, those behind gave way: it cannot be said that they fled, but they retreated to a mountain called Olokrus. Poseidonius tells us that Aemilius tore his clothes in despair at seeing these men give ground, while the other Romans were confounded at the phalanx, which could not be assailed, but with its close line of spears, like a palisade, offered no point for attack. But when he saw that, from the inequalities of the ground, and the length of their line, the Macedonian phalanx did not preserve its alignment, and was breaking into gaps and breaches, as is natural should happen in a great army, according to the different attacks of the combatants, who made it bulge inwards in one place, and outward in another, then he came swiftly up, and dividing his men into companies, ordered them to force their way into the spaces and intervals of the enemy’s line, and to make their attack, not in any one place all together, but in several, as they were broken up into several bodies. As soon as Aemilius had given these instructions to the officers, who communicated them to the men, they charged into the spaces, and at once some attacked the now helpless Macedonians in flank, while others got into their rear and cut them off. The phalanx dissolved immediately, and with it was lost all the power and mutual assistance which it gave. Fighting in single combats or small groups, the Macedonians struck in vain with their little daggers at the strong shields reaching to their feet carried by the Romans. Their light targets could ill ward off the blows of the Roman sword, which cut right through all their defensive armour. After a useless resistance they turned and fled.

XXI

But the fight was a sharp one. Here Marcus, the son of Cato, Aemilius’s son-in-law, whilst fighting with great valour let fall his sword. Educated as he had been in the strictest principles of honour, and owing it to such a father to give extraordinary proofs of courage, he thought that life would be intolerable for him if he allowed an enemy to carry off such a trophy from him, and ran about calling upon every friend or acquaintance whom he saw to help him to recover it. Many brave men thus assembled, and with one accord left the rest of the army and followed him. After a sharp conflict and much slaughter, they succeeded in driving the enemy from the ground, and having thus chased it, they betook themselves to searching for the sword. When at last after much trouble it was found among the heaps of arms and corpses, they were overjoyed, and with a shout assailed those of the enemy who still resisted. At length the three thousand picked men were all slain fighting in their ranks. A great slaughter took place among the others as they fled, so that the plain and the skirts of the hills were covered with corpses, and the stream of the river Leukus ran red with blood even on the day after the battle; for, indeed, it is said that more than twenty-five thousand men perished. Of the Romans there fell a hundred, according to Poseidonius, but Nasica says only eighty.

XXII

This battle, fraught with such important issues, was decided in a remarkably short time; beginning to fight at the ninth hour, the Romans were victorious before the tenth. The remainder of the day was occupied in pursuit, which being pressed for some fifteen (English) miles, it was late before they returned to their camp. All the officers on their return were met by their servants with torches, and conducted with songs of triumph to their tents, which were illuminated and wreathed with ivy and laurel; but the general himself was deeply dejected. The youngest of the two sons who were serving under him—his own favourite, the noblest of all his children in character—was nowhere to be found; and it was feared that, being high-spirited and generous, though but a boy in years, he must have become mixed up with the enemy, and so perished. The whole army learned the cause of his sorrow and perplexity, and quitting their suppers, ran about with torches, some to the tent of Aemilius, and some outside the camp to look for him among the corpses. The whole camp was filled with sorrow, and all the plain with noise, covered as it was with men shouting for Scipio—for he had won all hearts from the very beginning, having beyond all his kinsfolk the power of commanding the affections of men. Very late at night, after he had been all but given up for lost, he came in with two or three comrades, covered with the blood of the enemies he had slain, having, like a well-bred hound, been thoughtlessly carried along by the joy of the chase. This was that Scipio who afterwards took by storm Carthage and Numantia, and became by far the most famous and powerful of all the Romans of his time. So fortune, deferring to another season the expression of her jealousy at his success, now permitted Aemilius to take an unalloyed pleasure in his victory.

XXIII

Perseus fled from Pydna to Pella, his cavalry having, as one would expect, all got safe out of the action. But when the infantry met them, they abused them as cowards and traitors, and began to push them from their horses and deal them blows, and so Perseus, terrified at the disturbance, forsook the main road, and to avoid detection took off his purple robe and laid it before him, and carried his crown in his hand; and, that he might talk to his friends as he walked, he got off his horse, and led him. But one of them made excuse that he must tie his shoes, another that he must water his horse, another that he must get himself a drink, and so they gradually fell off from him and left him, not fearing the rage of the enemy so much as his cruelty: for, exasperated by his defeat, he tried to fasten the blame of it upon others instead of himself. When he came to Pella, his treasurers Euktus and Eulaeus met him and blamed him for what had happened, and in an outspoken and unseasonable way gave him advice: at which he was so much enraged that he stabbed them both dead with his dagger. After this no one stayed with him except Evander a Cretan, Archedamus an Aetolian, and Neon a Boeotian. Of the common soldiers the Cretans followed him, not from any love they bore him, but being as eager for his riches as bees are for honey. For he carried great store of wealth with him, and out of it distributed among the Cretans cups and bowls and other gold and silver plate to the amount of fifty talents. But when he reached first Amphipolis, and then Galepsus, and had got a little the better of his fears, his old malady of meanness attacked him, and he would complain to his friends that he had flung some of the drinking cups of Alexander the Great to the Cretans by mistake, and entreated with tears those who had them to give back and take the value in money. Those who understood his character were not taken in by this attempt to play the Cretan with men of Crete, but some believed him and lost their cups for nothing. For he never paid the money, but having swindled his friends out of thirty talents, which soon fell into the hands of the enemy, he sailed with the money to Samothrace, and took sanctuary in the temple of the Dioskuri as a suppliant.

XXIV

The people of Macedon have always been thought to love their kings, but now, as if some main prop had broken, and the whole edifice of government fallen to the ground, they gave themselves up to Aemilius, and in two days constituted him master of the entire kingdom. This seems to confirm the opinion of those who say that these successes were owing to especial good fortune: and the incident of the sacrifice also was clearly sent from Heaven. For when Aemilius was offering sacrifice at Amphipolis, when the sacred rites had been performed, lightning came down upon the altar, and burned up the offering. But in its miraculous character and good luck the swiftness with which the news spread surpasses all these; for on the fourth day after Perseus had been vanquished at Pydna, while the people at Rome were assembled at a horse race, suddenly there arose amongst them a rumour that Aemilius had defeated Perseus in a great battle and had subdued all Macedonia. This report soon spread among the populace, who expressed their joy by applause and shouts throughout the city all that day. Afterwards, as the report could be traced to no trustworthy source, but was merely repeated among them vaguely, it was disbelieved and came to nothing; but in a few days they learned the real story, and wondered at the rumour which had preceded it, combining truth with falsehood.

XXV

There is a legend that the news of the battle on the river Sagra in Italy against the natives was carried the same day into Peloponnesus, and that of the battle of Mykale against the Medes was so carried to Plataea. The victory of the Romans over the Latins under the exiled Tarquins was reported at Rome a little after it took place, by two men, tall and fair, who came from the army. These men they conjectured to have been the Dioskuri (Castor and Pollux). The first man who fell in with them as they stood in the forum, near the fountain, found them washing their horses, which were covered with sweat. He marvelled much at their tale of the victory; and then they are said to have smiled serenely and stroked his beard, which instantly changed from black to yellow, thus causing his story to be believed, besides winning for him the soubriquet of Ahenobarbus, which means ‘brazen beard.’ But that which happened in our own time will make all these credible. When Antonius rebelled against Domitian, and a great war in Germany was expected, Rome was greatly disturbed till suddenly there arose among the people a rumour of victory, and a story ran through Rome that Antonius himself was killed, and that the army under him had been utterly exterminated. And this report was so clear and forcible, that many of the magistrates offered sacrifice for the victory. When the originator of it was sought for, as he could not be found, but the story when traced from one man to another was lost in the vast crowd as if in the sea, and appeared to have no solid foundation, all belief in it died away: but when Domitian set out with his forces to the war, he was met on the way by messengers with despatches describing the victory. The day of this success was the same as that stated by the rumours, though the places were more than two thousand five hundred (English) miles distant. All men of our own time know this to be true.

XXVI

Cnaeus Octavius, the admiral under Aemilius’s orders, now cruised round Samothrace. He did not, from religious motives, violate Perseus’s right of sanctuary, but prevented his leaving the island and escaping. But nevertheless Perseus somehow outwitted him so far as to bribe one Oroandes, a Cretan, who possessed a small vessel, to take him on board. But this man like a true Cretan took the money away by night, and bidding him come the next night with his family and attendants to the harbour near the temple of Demeter, as soon as evening fell, set sail. Now Perseus suffered pitiably in forcing himself, and his wife and children, who were unused to hardships, through a narrow window in the wall, and set up a most pititul wailing when some one who met him wandering on the beach showed him the ship of Oroandes under sail far away at sea. Day was now breaking, and having lost his last hope, he made a hasty retreat to the town wall, and got into it with his wife, before the Romans, though they saw him, could prevent him. But his children he had entrusted to a man named Ion, who once had been a favourite of his, but now betrayed him, and delivered them up to the Romans, thus providing the chief means to compel him, like a wild animal, to come and surrender himself into the hands of those who had his children. He felt most confidence in Nasica, and inquired for him, but as he was not present, after lamenting his fate, and reflecting on the impossibility of acting otherwise, he surrendered himself to Cnaeus.

Now he was able to prove that he had a vice yet more sordid than avarice, namely, base love of life; by which he lost even his title to pity, the only consolation of which fortune does not deprive the fallen. He begged to be brought into the presence of Aemilius, who, to show respect to a great man who had met with a terrible misfortune, rose, and walked to meet him with his friends, with tears in his eyes. But Perseus offered a degrading spectacle by flinging himself down upon his face and embracing his knees, with unmanly cries and entreaties, which Aemilius could not endure to listen to; but looking on him with a pained and sad expression, said, “Wretched man: why do you by this conduct deprive fortune of all blame, by making yourself seem to deserve your mishaps, and to have been unworthy of your former prosperity, but worthy of your present misery? And why do you depreciate the value of my victory, and make my success a small one, by proving degenerate and an unworthy antagonist for Romans? Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.”

XXVII

However, he raised him from the ground, and, having given him his hand, he entrusted him to Tubero, and then taking into his own tent his sons, sons-in-law, and most of the younger officers, he sat silent, wrapt in thought for some time, to their astonishment. Then he said, “Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to another, in regular succession, dashes our joy. Can we, who in less than an hour have trampled under our feet the successor of Alexander the Great, who was so powerful and mighty, and who see these kings who but lately were guarded by their tens of thousands of foot and thousands of horse, now receiving their daily bread from the hands of their foes, can we suppose that our present prosperity is likely to endure for all time? You, young men, be sure that you lay aside your haughty looks and vainglory in your victory, and await with humility what the future may bring forth, ever considering what form of retribution Heaven may have in store for us to set off against our present good fortune.” They say that Aemilius spoke long in this strain, and sent away his young officers with their pride and boastfulness well curbed and restrained by his words, as though with a bridle.

XXVIII

After these events he sent the army into cantonments, to rest, and he himself set out to visit Greece, making a progress which was both glorious and beneficent; for in the cities to which he came he restored the popular constitutions, and bestowed on them presents, from the king’s treasury, of corn and oil. For so much, they say, was found stored up, that all those who received it and asked for it, were satisfied before the mass could be exhausted. At Delphi, seeing a large square column of white marble, on which a golden statue of Perseus was to have been placed, he ordered his own to be placed there, as the vanquished ought to give place to the victors. At Olympia, as the story goes, he uttered that well-known saying, that Pheidias had carved the very Zeus of Homer.

When ten commissioners arrived from Rome, he restored to the Macedonians their country to dwell in, and their cities free and independent, imposing upon them a tribute of a hundred talents, only half what they used to pay to their kings. He exhibited gymnastic spectacles of every kind, and gave splendid sacrifices and feasts in honour of the gods, having boundless resources for the purpose in the king’s treasury; and in ordering and arranging each man’s place at table, and saluting him according to his merit and degree, he showed such a delicate perception of propriety, that the Greeks were astonished that he should carry his administrative talent even into his amusements, and be so business-like in trifles. But he was always delighted that though many splendid things were prepared, he himself was the chief object of interest to his guests, and when they expressed their surprise at his taking such pains, he would answer that the same mind can array an army for battle in the most terrific fashion, or a feast in the most acceptable one. All men praised to the skies his generous magnanimity, because, when a great mass of gold and silver was collected from the king’s treasury, he would not so much as look at it, but handed it over to the quaestors to be put into the public treasury. Of all the spoil, he only allowed his sons, who were fond of reading, to take the king’s books; and when distributing prizes for distinguished bravery in action, he gave Aelius Tubero, his son-in-law, a silver cup of five pounds’ weight. This Tubero is he whom we said lived with fifteen other kinsfolk on a small farm, which supported them all. And that, they say, was the first piece of plate that ever was seen in the Aelian household, brought there by honourable valour; for before that neither they nor their wives used either gold or silver plate.

XXIX

When he had settled all things properly he took leave of the Greeks, and reminding the Macedonians to keep by orderly and unanimous conduct the liberty which the Romans had bestowed upon them, he started for Epirus, as the Senate had passed a decree that the soldiers who had been present in the battle against Perseus should be gratified with the spoil of the cities of Epirus. Desiring therefore to fall upon them all at once and unexpectedly, he sent for ten of the chief men from each city, and ordered them to bring together, on a fixed day, all the gold and silver which they had in their houses and temples. With each party he sent, as if for this purpose, a guard of soldiers and a captain, who was to pretend that he came to seek for and receive the money. But when day broke, they all at the same time fell to sacking and plundering the cities, so that, in one hour, a hundred and fifty thousand people were reduced to slavery, and seventy cities plundered; yet from such ruin and destruction as this, there resulted no more than eleven drachmae for each soldier, while all mankind shuddered at this termination of the war, that a whole nation should be cut to pieces to produce such a pitiful present.

XXX

Aemilius, having performed this work, greatly against his real nature, which was kind and gentle, proceeded to Oricum, and thence crossed to Italy with his army. He himself sailed up the river Tiber in the king’s own ship of sixteen banks of oars, adorned with the arms of the vanquished, and crowns of victory and crimson flags, so that all the people of Rome came out in a body as if to a foretaste of the spectacle of his triumphal entry, and walked beside his ship as she was gently rowed up the river. But the soldiery, casting longing glances at the king’s treasure, like men who had not met with their deserts, were angry and dissatisfied with Aemilius; for this reason really, though the charge they openly put forward was that he was a harsh and tyrannical ruler: so they showed no eagerness for the triumph.

Servius Galba,3 an enemy of Aemilius, who had once commanded a legion under him, hearing this, plucked up spirit to propose openly that he should not be allowed a triumph. He disseminated among the soldiers many calumnies against their general, and so still more exasperately their present temper; next he asked the tribunes of the plebs for another day, as that day would not suffice for his speech, only four hours remaining of it. However, the tribunes bade him speak, and he, beginning a long and abusive speech, consumed all the time. At nightfall the tribunes dismissed the assembly. But the soldiers, now grown bolder, assembled round Galba, and, forming themselves into an organized body, again at daybreak occupied the capitol; for it was thither that the tribunes had summoned the people.

XXXI

The voting began as soon as it was day, and the first tribe voted against the triumph. Soon the rumour of this spread to the rest of the people and to the Senate. Though the masses were grieved at the shameful treatment of Aemilius, they exhausted themselves in useless clamour, but the leading men of the Senate crying out one to another that what was going on was scandalous, encouraged each other to resist the licentious violence of the soldiers, who, if not restrained, were ready to use any kind of lawless violence to prevent Paulus Aemilius enjoying the reward of his victory. These men pushed the mob aside, and mounting to the capitol in a body, bade the tribunes stop the voting until they had said what they wished to the people. When voting ceased and silence was obtained, Marcus Servilius, a man of consular rank, who had challenged and slain twenty-three enemies in single combat, spoke as follows:—“What a commander Aemilius Paulus must be, you are now best able to judge, seeing with what a disobedient and worthless army he has succeeded in such great exploits; but I am surprised at the people’s being proud of the triumphs over the Illyrians and Ligurians, and begrudging itself the sight of the king of Macedon brought alive, and all the glories of Philip and Alexander carried captive to the arms of Rome. Is it not a strange thing that on the unfounded rumour of this victory being circulated, you sacrificed to the gods, praying that you soon might behold this spectacle, yet now that the army has returned after a real victory, you refuse the gods the honour and yourself the pleasure of it, as if you feared to see the extent of your successes, or wished to spare the feelings of your captive enemy; though it would show a nobler feeling than pity for him, not to deprive your general of his triumph for a mean grudge. Your baseness has reached such a pitch that a man without a scar, with his body delicately nurtured in the shade, dares to speak about generalship and triumphs before us who have learned by so many wounds to judge of a general’s vice and virtues.” As he spoke, he opened his clothes, and showed his breast with an incredible number of scars upon it; then turning to Galba, who had made some remarks not very decent “You laugh,” said he, “at these other marks: but I glory in them before my countrymen, for I got them by riding, night and day, in their service. But come, bring them to vote; I will go amongst them and follow them all to the poll, that I may know those who are cowardly and ungrateful, and like rather to be ruled by a demagogue than by a true general.”

XXXII

These words are said to have caused such remorse and repentance among the soldiers, that all the tribes voted Aemilius his triumph. It is said to have been celebrated thus. The people, dressed in white robes, looked on from platforms erected in the horse course, which they call the Circus, and round the Forum, and in all other places which gave them a view of the procession. Every temple was open, and full of flowers and incense, and many officials with staves drove off people who formed disorderly mobs, and kept the way clear. The procession was divided into three days. The first scarcely sufficed for the display of the captured statues, sculptures, and paintings, which were carried on two hundred and fifty carriages. On the following day the finest and most costly of the Macedonian arms and armour were borne along in many waggons, glittering with newly burnished brass and iron, and arranged in a carefully studied disorder, helmets upon shields, and corslets upon greaves, with Cretan targets, Thracian wicker shields and quivers mixed with horses’ bits, naked swords rising out of these, and the long spears of the phalanx ranged in order above them, making a harmonious clash of arms, as they were arranged to clatter when they were driven along, with a harsh and menacing sound, so that the sight of them even after victory was not without terror. After the waggons which bore the arms walked three thousand men, carrying the silver coin in seven hundred and fifty earthen vessels, each carrying three talents, and borne by four men. Others carried the silver drinking horns, and goblets and chalices, each of them disposed so that it could be well seen, and all remarkable for their size and the boldness of their carving.

XXXIII

On the third day, at earliest dawn, marched the trumpeters, not playing the music of a march, but sounding the notes which animate the Romans for a charge. After them were led along a hundred and twenty fat oxen with gilded horns, adorned with crowns and wreaths. They were led by youths clad in finely-fringed waistcloths in which to do the sacrifice, while boys carried the wine for the libations in gold and silver vessels. After these came men carrying the gold coin, divided into vessels of three talents each like the silver. The number of these vessels was eighty all but three. Then came those who carried the consecrated bowl which Aemilius had made of ten talents of gold adorned with jewels, and men carrying the plate of Antigonus and Seleukus, and cups of Therikles-ware,4 and all Perseus’s own service of gold plate.

Next came the chariot of Perseus with his armour; and his crown set upon the top of his armour: and then after a little interval came the captive children of the king, and with them a tearful band of nurses and teachers, who held out their hands in supplication to the spectators, and taught the children to beg them for mercy. There were two boys and one girl, all too young to comprehend the extent of their misfortune. This carelessness made their fallen state all the more pitiable, so that Perseus himself walked almost unnoticed; for the Romans in their pity had eyes only for the children, and many shed tears, while all felt that the sight was more painful than pleasing till the children were gone by.

XXXIV

Behind the children and their attendants walked Perseus himself, dressed in a dark-coloured cloak with country boots, seeming to be dazed and stupefied by the greatness of his fall. A band of his friends and associates followed him with grief-laden countenances, and, by their constantly looking at Perseus, and weeping, gave the spectators the idea that they bewailed his fate without taking any thought about their own. However, Perseus had sent to Aemilius asking to be excused the walking in procession; but he, as it seems in mockery of his cowardice and love of life, answered, “That was formerly in his own hands, and is now if he pleases.” Meaning that death was preferable to dishonour; but the dastard had not spirit enough for that, but buoyed up by some hope, became a part of his own spoils.

After these were borne golden crowns, four hundred in number, which the cities of Greece had sent to Aemilius with deputations, in recognition of his success. Next he came himself, sitting in a splendid chariot, a man worth looking upon even without his present grandeur, dressed in a purple robe sprinkled with gold, and holding a branch of laurel in his right hand. All the army was crowned with laurel and followed the car of the general in military array, at one time singing and laughing over old country songs, then raising in chorus the paean of victory and recital of their deeds, to the glory of Aemilius, who was gazed upon and envied by all, disliked by no good man. Yet it seems that some deity is charged with tempering these great and excessive pieces of good fortune, and skimming as it were the cream off human life, so that none may be absolutely without his ills in this life; but as Homer says, they may seem to fare best whose fortune partakes equally of good and evil.

XXXV

For he had four sons, two, as has been already related, adopted into other families, Scipio and Fabius; and two others who were still children, by his second wife, who lived in his own house. Of these, one died five days before Aemilius’s triumph, at the age of fourteen, and the other, twelve years old, died three days after it; so that there was no Roman that did not grieve for him, and all trembled at the cruelty of fortune, which had burst into a house filled with joy and gladness, and mingled tears and funeral dirges with the triumphal paeans and songs of victory.

XXXVI

Yet Aemilius, rightly thinking that courage is as valuable in supporting misfortunes as it is against the Macedonian phalanx, so arranged matters as to show that for him the evil was overshadowed by the good, and that his private sorrows were eclipsed by the successes of the state, lest he should detract from the importance and glory of the victory. He buried the first child, and immediately afterwards triumphed, as we have said: and when the second died after the triumph, he assembled the people and addressed them, not so much in the words of one who needs consolation, as of one who would console his countrymen, who were grieved at his misfortunes. He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution. “In one day,” said he, “I crossed the Ionian sea from Brundisium to Corcyra; on the fifth day I sacrificed at Delphi; in five more I entered upon my command in Macedonia, performed the usual lustration of the army; and, at once beginning active operations, in fifteen days more I brought the war to a most glorious end. I did not trust in my good fortune as lasting, because every thing favoured me, and there was no danger to be feared from the enemy, but it was during my voyage that I especially feared that the change of fortune would befall me, after I had conquered so great a host, and was bearing with me such spoils and even kings as my captives. However, I reached you safe, and saw the city full of gladness and admiration and thanksgiving, but still I had my suspicions about Fortune, knowing that she never bestows any great kindness unalloyed and without exacting retribution for it. And no sooner had I dismissed this foreboding about some misfortune being about to happen to the state, than I met with this calamity in my own household, having during these holydays had to bury my noble sons, one after the other, who, had they lived, would alone have borne my name.

“Now therefore I fear no further great mischance, and am of good cheer; for a sufficient retribution has been exacted from me for my successes, and the triumpher has been made as notable an example of the uncertainty of human life as the victim; except that Perseus, though conquered, still has his children, while Aemilius, his conqueror, has lost his.”

XXXVII

Such was the noble discourse which they say Aemilius from his simple and true heart pronounced before the people. As to Perseus, though he pitied his fallen fortunes and was most anxious to help him, all he could do was to get him removed from the common prison, called Carcer by the Romans, to a clean and habitable lodging, where, in confinement, according to most authors, he starved himself to death; but some give a strange and extraordinary account of how he died, saying that the soldiers who guarded him became angry with him, and not being able to vex him by any other means, they prevented his going to sleep, watching him by turns, and so carefully keeping him from rest by all manner of devices, that at last he was worn out and died. Two of his children died also; but the third, Alexander, they say became accomplished in repoussé work and other arts. He learned to speak and write the Roman language well, and was employed by the magistrates as a clerk, in which profession he was much esteemed.

XXXVIII

The most popular thing which Aemilius did in connection with Macedonia was that he brought back so much money that the people were not obliged to pay any taxes till the consulship of Hirtius and Pausa, during the first war between Antony and Augustus Caesar. This was remarkable about Aemilius, that he was peculiarly respected and loved by the people, though of the aristocratical party; and though he never said or did anything to make himself popular, but always in politics acted with the party of the nobles. Scipio Africanus was afterwards reproached with this by Appius. These were the leading men in the city, and were candidates for the office of Censor: the one with the Senate and nobles to support him, that being the hereditary party of the Appii; the other being a man of mark in himself, and one who ever enjoyed the greatest love and favour with the people. So when Appius saw Scipio coming into the forum surrounded by men of low birth and freed men, yet men who knew the forum, and who could collect a mob and by their influence and noise could get any measure passed, he called out, “O Paulus Aemilius, groan in your grave, at your son being brought into the Censorship by Aemilius the crier and Licinius Philonicus.” But Scipio kept the people in good humour by constantly augmenting their privileges, whereas Aemilius, though of the aristocratic party, was no less loved by the people than those who courted their favour and caressed them. They showed this by electing him, amongst other dignities, to the Censorship; which office is most sacred, and confers great power, especially in examining men’s lives; for the Censor can expel a senator of evil life from his place, and elect the President of the Senate, and punish licentious young men by taking away their horses. They also register the value of property, and the census of the people. In his time they amounted to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand four hundred and fifty-two. He appointed Marcus Aemilius Lepidus President of the Senate, who four times already had enjoyed that dignity, and he expelled three senators, not men of mark. With regard to the Equites, he and his colleague Marcius Philippus showed equal moderation.

XXXIX

After most of the labours of his life were accomplished, he fell sick of a disorder which at first seemed dangerous, but as time went on appeared not to be mortal, but wearisome and hard to cure.

At length he followed the advice of his physicians, and sailed to Paestum, in Italy. There he passed his time chiefly in the peaceful meadows near the sea-shore; but the people of Rome regretted his absence, and in the public theatre often would pray for his return, and speak of their longing to see him. When the time for some religious ceremony at which he had to be present approached, and he also considered himself sufficiently strong, he returned to Rome. He performed the sacrifice, with the other priests, the people surrounding him with congratulations. On the next day he again officiated, offering a thank-offering to the gods for his recovery. When this sacrifice was finished, he went home and lay down, and before any one noticed how changed he was, he fell into a delirious trance, and died in three days, having in his life wanted none of those things which are thought to render men happy. Even his funeral procession was admirable and enviable, and a noble tribute to his valour and goodness. I do not mean gold, ivory, and other expensive and vain-glorious apparatus, but love, honour, and respect, not only shown by his own countrymen, but also by foreigners. For of the Iberians, Ligurians, and Macedonians who happened to be in Rome, the strongest carried the bier, while the elder men followed after, praising Aemilius as the saviour and benefactor of their countries. For he not only during his period of conquest had treated them mildly and humanely, but throughout the rest of his life was always bestowing benefits upon them as persons peculiarly connected with himself. His estate, they say, scarcely amounted to three hundred and seventy thousand sesterces,5 which he left to be shared between his two sons; but Scipio, the younger, consented to give up his share to his brother, as he was a member of a rich family, that of Africanus. Such is said to have been the life and character of Aemilius Paulus.

COMPARISON OF
PAULUS AEMILIUS AND TIMOLEON.

I

The characters of these men being such as is shown in their histories, it is evident that in comparing them we shall find few differences and points of variance. Even their wars were in both cases waged against notable antagonists, the one with the Macedonians, the other with the Carthaginians: while their conquests were glorious, as the one took Macedonia, and crushed the dynasty of Antigonus in the person of its seventh king, while the other drove all the despots from Sicily and set the island free. Unless indeed any one should insinuate that Aemilius attacked Perseus when he was in great strength and had conquered the Romans before, whereas Timoleon fell upon Dionysius when he was quite worn out and helpless: though again it might be urged on behalf of Timoleon that he overcame many despots and the great power of Carthage, with an army hastily collected from all sources, not, like Aemilius, commanding men who were inured to war and knew how to obey, but making use of disorderly mercenary soldiers who only fought when it pleased them to do so. An equal success, gained with such unequal means, reflects the greater credit on the general.

II

Both were just and incorruptible in their conduct: but Aemilius seems to have had the advantage of the customs and state of feeling among his countrymen, by which he was trained to integrity, while Timoleon without any such encouragement acted virtuously, from his own nature. This is proved by the fact that the Romans of that period were all submissive to authority, and carried out the traditions of the state, respecting the laws and the opinions of their countrymen: whereas, except Dion, no Greek leader or general of that time had anything to do with Sicilian affairs who did not take bribes: though many suspected than Dion was meditating making himself king, and that he had dreams of an empire like that of Sparta.

Timaeus tells us that the Syracusans sent away Gylippus in disgrace for his insatiable covetousness, and the bribes which they discovered that he received when in command. And many writers had dwelt upon the wicked and treacherous acts which Pharax the Spartan and Kallippus the Athenian committed, when they were endeavouring to make themselves masters of Sicily. Yet, what were they, and what resources had they, that they conceived such great designs: the one being only a follower of Dionysius when he was banished from Syracuse, the other a captain of mercenaries under Dion? But Timoleon, who was sent to the Syracusans as generalissimo at their own request and prayer, did not seek for command, but had a right to it. Yet when he received his power as general and ruler from them of their own free will, he voluntarily decided to hold it only till he should have expelled from Sicily all those who were reigning despotically. In Aemilius again we must admire this, that he subdued so great an empire and yet did not enrich himself by one drachma, and never even saw or touched the king’s treasures, although he distributed much of them in presents to others. And still, I do not say that Timoleon is to be blamed for having received a fine house and estate; for there is no disgrace in receiving it by such means, though not to take it is better, and shows almost superhuman virtue, which cares not to take what is lawfully within its reach. Yet, as the strongest bodies are those which can equally well support the extremes of heat and cold, so the noblest minds are those which prosperity does not render insolent and overbearing, nor ill fortune depress: and here Aemilius appears more nearly to approach absolute perfection, as, when in great misfortune and grief for his children, he showed the same dignity and firmness as after the greatest success. Whereas Timoleon, though he acted towards his brother as became a noble nature, yet could not support himself against his sorrow by reason, but was so crushed by remorse and grief that for twenty years he could not appear or speak in the public assembly. We ought indeed to shrink from and feel shame at what is base; but the nature which is over-cautious to avoid blame may be gentle and kindly, but cannot be great.

LIFE OF
PELOPIDAS.

I

Cato the elder, speaking to some persons who were praising a man of reckless daring and audacity in war, observed that there is a difference between a man’s setting a high value on courage, and setting a low value on his own life—and rightly. For a daring soldier in the army of Antigonus, but of broken and ill health, being asked by the king the reason of his paleness, confessed that he was suffering from some secret disorder. When then the king, anxious for him, charged his physicians to use the greatest care in their treatment, if a cure were possible, at length this brave fellow, being restored to health, was no longer fond of peril and furious in battle, so that Antigonus reproved him, and expressed surprise at the change. The man made no secret of his reason, but answered: “My, king, you have made me less warlike by freeing me from those miseries on account of which I used to hold my life cheap.” And the Sybarite seems to have spoken to the same effect about the Spartans, when he said that “they do no great thing by dying in the wars in order to escape from such labours and such a mode of life as theirs.” However, no wonder if the Sybarites, effete with luxurious debauchery, thought men mad who despised death for love of honour and noble emulation; whereas the Lacedæmonians were enabled by their valour both to live and to die with pleasure, as the elegy shows, which runs thus:

“’Twas not that life or death itself was good,

That these heroic spirits shed their blood:

This was their aim, and this their latest cry,

‘Let us preserve our honour, live or die.’”

[Pg 2]For neither is avoidance of death blameable, if a man does not cling to his life from dishonourable motives; nor is exposure to peril honourable, if it springs from carelessness of life. For this reason Homer always brings the most daring and warlike heroes into battle well and beautifully armed, and the Greek lawgivers punish the man who throws away his shield, but not him who throws away his sword or spear, showing that it is each man’s duty to take more care that he does not receive hurt himself, than to hurt the enemy, especially if he be the chief of an army or city.

II

For if, as Iphikrates defined it, the light troops resemble the hands, the cavalry the feet, the main body the breast and trunk, and the general the head, then it would appear that he, if he runs into danger and shows personal daring, risks not only his own life, but that of all those whose safety depends upon him; and vice versâ. Wherefore Kallikratidas, although otherwise a great man, yet did not make a good answer to the soothsayer; for when he begged him to beware of death, which was presaged by the sacrifices, he replied that Sparta had more men besides himself. No doubt, in fighting either by sea or land1 Kallikratidas only counted for one, but as a general, he combined in his own person the strength of all the rest, so that he by whose death so many perished, was indeed more than one. A better answer was that of old Antigonus, who, as he was about to begin a sea-fight off Andros, some one having said that the enemy’s fleet was the more numerous, asked, “And for how many do you count me?”—setting a high value, as is due, upon a skilful and brave leader, whose first duty is to keep safe him who preserves all the rest.

So Timotheus said well, when Chares was displaying to the Athenians the wounds on his body, and his shield pierced by a dart. “Now I,” said he, “when I was besieging Samos, was quite ashamed if an arrow fell near me, thinking that I was exposing myself more boyishly than was fitting for the general and leader of so important a force.” In cases where the personal risk of the [Pg 3]general is of great moment to his army, then he must fight and expose himself without stint, and disregard those who say that a general should die of old age, or at any rate, when an old man. But where the gain is small in case of success, while failure ruins everything, no one demands that the work of the common soldier be performed at the risk of the general’s life.

These prefatory remarks occurred to me in writing the Lives of Pelopidas and Marcellus, great men who fell in a manner scarce worthy of themselves: for being both of them most stout in battle, and having each illustrated his country by splendid campaigns, against, too, the most terrible antagonists—the one, as we read, having routed Hannibal, who before was invincible, and the other having in a pitched battle conquered the Lacedæmonians, the ruling state by sea and land—yet they without any consideration endangered themselves and flung away their lives just at the time when there was special need for such men to live and command. And on this account I have drawn a parallel between their lives, tracing out the points of resemblance between them.

III

The family of Pelopidas, the son of Hippokles, was an honourable one at Thebes, as likewise was that of Epameinondas. Bred in great affluence, and having early succeeded to a splendid inheritance, he showed eagerness to relieve the deserving poor, that he might prove that he had become the master, not the servant of his riches. In most cases, Aristotle observes, men either do not use their wealth through narrow-mindedness, or else abuse it through extravagance, and the one class are always the slaves of their pleasures, the other of their gains.

Now, while all other persons gratefully made use of Pelopidas’s liberality and kindness, Epameinondas alone could not be induced to share his wealth; he thereupon shared the other’s poverty, priding himself on simplicity of dress and plainness of food, endurance of fatigue, and thoroughness in the performance of military service; like Kapaneus, in Euripides, who “had plenty of wealth, but was far from proud on account of his wealth,” for he felt ashamed to be seen using more bodily luxuries than the poorest Theban citizen. Epameinondas, whose poverty [Pg 4]was hereditary, made it lighter and more easily borne by the practice of philosophy, and by choosing from the beginning a single life; while Pelopidas made a brilliant marriage and had children born to him, yet, in spite of this, diminished his fortune by disregard of money-making and by giving up all his time to the service of his country. And when his friends blamed him, and said that he was treating lightly a necessary of life, the possession of money, “Necessary, indeed,” he answered, “for Nikodemus here,” pointing to a man who was a cripple and blind.

IV

They were both alike in nobleness of spirit, save that Pelopidas took more pleasure in bodily exercise, and Epameinondas in learning, and that the one in his leisure time frequented the palæstra and the hunting field, while the other would listen to and discuss philosophy. And though they have both many titles to glory, yet judicious persons think nothing so much to their credit as that their friendship should have remained from beginning to end unimpaired through so many important crises, campaigns, and administrations. For any one who considers the administrations of Aristeides and Themistokles, and Kimon and Perikles, and Nikias and Alkibiades, how full they were of mutual enmity, distrust, and jealousy, and then contrasts them with the kindness and respect shown by Pelopidas to Epameinondas, will pronounce with truth these men to have really been colleagues in government and war rather than those who were constantly struggling to get the better of one another instead of the enemy. The true cause of this was their virtue, guided by which they sought no glory or gain for themselves from their deeds, from which envious rivalry always results, but both, inflamed by a noble desire to see their country reach its climax of power and renown in their own time, used one another’s successes for this purpose as if they were their own. Not but what most people think that their closest friendship arose from the campaign of Mantinea, which they made with a contingent sent from Thebes to serve with the Lacedæmonians, who were then their friends and allies. Stationed together in the ranks,2 and fighting [Pg 5]against the Arcadians, when the wing of the Lacedæmonian army in which they were gave way, and many took to flight, they closed up together and beat off their assailants. Pelopidas, having received seven wounds in front, fell down upon a heap of slain, friends and enemies together; but Epameinondas, though he thought him desperately3 hurt, ran forward and stood in defence of his body and arms, risking his life alone against a multitude, determined to die rather than leave Pelopidas lying there. He too was in evil plight, with a spear wound in the breast, and a sword-cut on the arm, when Agesipolis, the Spartan king, came to the rescue from the other wing, and most unexpectedly saved the lives of both.

V

After this, the Spartans behaved towards Thebes outwardly as friends and allies, but really viewed with suspicion the spirit and strength of that state. They especially disliked the club presided over by Ismenias and Androkleides, of which Pelopidas was a member, as being of democratic and revolutionary principles. Consequently Archias and Leontidas4 and Philippus, men of the aristocratic party, wealthy and unscrupulous, persuaded Phœbidas, a Laconian who was passing through the town with an armed force, to seize the Kadmeia5 by surprise, and, banishing the party that opposed them, establish an aristocratic oligarchy which would be subservient to Sparta.

He was persuaded to do this, and attacked the unsuspecting Thebans during the feast of Thesmophoria. When he gained possession of the height, Ismenias was seized and conveyed to Lacedæmon, and there not long afterwards made away with. Pelopidas, Pherenikus, and Androkleides, with many others, went into exile and were outlawed by proclamation. Epameinondas stayed at home disregarded, not being thought to be a man of action, because of his philosophical habits, nor a man of any power, because of his poverty.

VI

When the Lacedæmonians removed Phœbidas from his command and fined him a hundred thousand drachmas, [Pg 6]but nevertheless held the Kadmeia with a garrison, all the other Greeks wondered at their inconsistency, in punishing the doer but approving of the deed; but the Thebans, who had lost their old constitution and were now held in bondage by the party of Archias and Leontidas, had lost all hope of release from their tyrants, who they perceived were merely acting as a guard to the Spartan supremacy in Greece, and therefore could not be put a stop to, unless their enterprise by sea and land could also be checked. However, Leontidas and his party, learning that the exiles were living at Athens, and were popular with the people there, and respected by the upper classes, began to plot against them, and by sending thither men who were unknown to the exiles, they killed Androkleides by stratagem, but failed with the others. There came also despatches from Lacedæmon to the Athenians, ordering them not to take them in nor to meddle in the matter, but to banish the exiles, on the ground that they had been proclaimed to be public enemies by their allies. But the Athenians, who besides their natural and innate kindness were returning a debt of gratitude to the Thebans, who had been main instruments in the re-establishment of their government, and had decreed that if an Athenian should march in arms against the tyrants through Bœotia, no Bœotian should see or hear him, did the Theban exiles no harm.

VII

Now Pelopidas, although one of the youngest of the exiles, yet used to encourage each of them separately, and would make speeches to them all, pointing out that it was both dishonourable and wicked for them to endure to see their country enslaved and garrisoned by foreigners, and, caring only to save their own lives, to shelter themselves behind decrees of the Athenians, and to pay servile court to the orators who had influence with the people. Rather was it, he urged, their duty to run the greatest risk, taking pattern by the courage and patriotism of Thrasybulus, so that, as he once, starting from Thebes, drove out the thirty tyrants from Athens, they also in their turn, starting from Athens, might set Thebes free. When then he prevailed with these arguments, they sent secretly to Thebes to communicate their determination to [Pg 7]such of their friends as were left there. They agreed, and Charon, who was the leading man among them, offered his house for their reception, and Phillidas proceeded to act as secretary to the polemarchs, Archias and Philippus. Epameinondas had long been instilling feelings of patriotism into the youth of Thebes; for in the gymnasia he would bid them lay hold of the Lacedæmonians and wrestle with them, and then seeing them pluming themselves on their success, he would upbraid them, telling them that they ought rather to feel ashamed at being, through their own cowardice, in bondage to men whom they so greatly excelled in strength.

VIII

When a day was fixed on for the attempt, the exiles determined that Pherenikus, with the main body, should remain in the Thriasian6 plain, while a few of the youngest men ran the risk of entering the city; and if anything were to befall these men, the others would take care that neither their parents nor their children should want for necessaries. First Pelopidas volunteered for the attempt, then Mellon and Damokleides and Theopompus, men of the first families, faithful friends to one another, and ever rivals in glory and bravery. Having made up a party of twelve in all, and embraced those who were to stay, and sent a messenger before them to Charon, they set out, dressed in short cloaks, with hounds and carrying stakes for hunting nets, so that no one whom they met on the road might suspect them, but that they might seem to be merely ranging about the country and hunting. When their messenger reached Charon, and told him that they were on their way, Charon did not, even now that the danger was close to him, falter in his determination, but acted like an honourable man, and received them into his house. But one Hipposthenides, not a bad man, but one who loved his country and favoured the exiles, yet proved wanting in that audacity which this emergency, a hazardous one indeed, and the attempt they had in hand, required.

Apparently the importance of the issue with which he was dealing turned him dizzy; he with difficulty grasped the idea that, trusting in the desperate hopes of exiles, these [Pg 8]men were in some fashion about to attempt to overthrow the Lacedæmonian government in Thebes, and the power of Sparta. He went quietly home, and sent one of his friends to Mellon and Pelopidas, bidding them put off their design for the present, to go back to Athens, and await a better opportunity. Chlidon was the name of the messenger, and he hurriedly went to his own house, and, leading out his horse, asked for his bridle. His wife was at her wit’s end, as she had it not to give him, but she said that she had lent it to a neighbour. Hereupon there was a quarrel, and words of ill omen were used, for his wife said that she wished it might be a bad journey for him, and for those that sent him; so that Chlidon, having wasted a great part of the day in this squabble, and also drawing a bad augury from what had happened, gave up his journey altogether, and betook himself to something else. So near was this greatest and most glorious of his adventures of missing its opportunity at its very outset.

IX

Now Pelopidas and his party changed their clothes with country people, and separating, came into the city by different ways while it was still daylight. There was a strong wind, and the weather was snowy, so that they were the less noticed, as most people had betaken themselves to their houses on account of the storm; but those who were in the plot met them as they entered, and brought them to Charon’s house. With the exiles, they amounted to forty-eight in all.

As to their oppressors, Phillidas the secretary, who had been working with the exiles and knew all their plans, having long before invited Archias and his friends to a wine party to meet certain courtesans, intended to endeavour to hand them over to their assailants in as enervated and intoxicated a condition as possible. However before they were very far gone in liquor a rumour was brought to their ears, which, although true, was without confirmation and very vague, to the effect that the exiles were concealed in the city. Though Phillidas endeavoured to change the subject, still Archias sent one of his servants to Charon, ordering him to come instantly. Now it was evening, and Pelopidas and his party were preparing themselves, in the house, and [Pg 9]had already got their corslets on, and had girt on their swords. Suddenly, a knock was heard at the door. One of them ran out, and hearing the servant say that Charon had been sent for by the polemarchs, he in great trepidation brought the news to the rest. At once it occurred to all that the plot had been betrayed, and that they all were lost, without even having done anything worthy of their courage. Yet they agreed that Charon should comply with the summons and that he should unsuspiciously present himself before the Spartan chiefs. He was a man of courage, and slow to lose heart, but now he was panic-stricken and terrified lest when so many brave citizens lost their lives, some suspicion of treachery might rest on himself. So, just when he was going, he brought his son from the women’s apartments, a boy still, but in beauty and strength surpassing all of his own age, and handed him over to Pelopidas’s party, bidding them treat him as an enemy and show no mercy, if they should find him guilty of any deceit or treachery. Many of them shed tears at the feeling shown by Charon, and his noble spirit, and all felt shame, that he should think any of them so base and so affected by their present danger, as to suspect him or even to blame him, and they begged him not to mix up his son with them, but put him out of the way of the coming stroke, that he might be saved and escape from the tyrants, and some day return and avenge his father and his friends. But Charon refused to take away his son, for what life, he asked, or what place of safety could be more honourable to him than an easy death with his father and so many friends? After praying and embracing them all, and bidding them be of good cheer, he went away, taking great pains to adopt a look and tone of voice as different as possible to that of a conspirator.

X

When he came to the door, Archias and Philippus met him and said, “Charon, I have heard that some people have come here, and are concealed in the city, and that some of the citizens are in league with them.” Charon was at first disconcerted, but then enquired who these persons might be, and who they were that gave them shelter. Seeing then that Archias knew nothing for certain, he perceived that the news did not come from [Pg 10]any one who knew the truth. “Take care,” said he, “that this be not a mere idle rumour that is alarming you. However, I will make due enquiries; for we ought not to disregard anything.” Phillidas, who was present, expressed his approval of this, and carrying Archias back again plied him with liquor, prolonging his debauch by holding out the expectation of the women.

Now when Charon returned to his house, he found the conspirators there prepared to fight, not expecting to survive or to win the day, but to die gloriously and kill as many of their enemies as possible. He told Pelopidas’s party the truth, and made up some story about Archias to satisfy the others. This storm was just blown over when Fortune sent a second upon them. A messenger came from Athens, from Archias the hierophant7 to his namesake Archias the Spartan, whose guest and friend he was, bearing a letter which contained no vague and conjectural suspicion, but a detailed account of all that was being done, as was afterwards discovered. Now the messenger, when brought before Archias who was drunk, gave him the letter, and said, “He who sent you this letter bade you read it instantly, for he said it was written about most serious matters.” Archias laughing, said, “Serious matters to-morrow.” He took the letter and placed it under the pillow on which he rested, and again listened to Phillidas about what they were talking of before. This story, handed down in the form of a proverb, is current among the Greeks even now.

XI

As the hour for the attempt seemed now to have arrived, they sallied forth, in two bodies: the one, under Pelopidas and Damokleides, to attack Leontidas and Hypates, who lived near one another, while the other, under Charon and Mellon, went to Archias and Philippus, with women’s gowns over their steel corslets, and their faces concealed by thick wreaths of fir and pine wood; and so when first they entered the door of the dining-room they caused great applause and disturbance, as the guests imagined that the long-expected ladies had at length come. They looked carefully round the party, and having ascertained who each of the guests were, they drew their [Pg 11]swords, and made for Archias and Philippus. When they thus betrayed themselves, Phillidas persuaded some few of the guests to remain quiet, but the rest, who rose and tried to assist the polemarchs, were easily disposed of on account of their drunken condition.

The task of Pelopidas and his party was a harder one; for they went to attack Leontidas, a sober and brave man, and, finding his house shut up, for he was already asleep, they knocked for some time without rousing any one. At length the servant heard them and came and drew back the bolt of the door; then, as soon as the leaves of the door yielded they burst in in a body, and upsetting the servant made for the bedchamber. Leontidas, guessing from the noise and confusion what was going on, started up and seized his dagger, but he forgot to put out the light, and make the men fall upon each other in the darkness. In full view of them, in a blaze of light, he met them at his chamber door, and with a blow of his dagger struck down Kephisodorus, the first man who entered. As he fell dead Leontidas grappled with the next, Pelopidas. The struggle was a fierce one and rendered difficult by the narrow passage and the corpse of Kephisodorus lying in it, but at length Pelopidas gained the upper hand, and having despatched him, immediately went with his party to attack Hypates. And in the same way they broke into his house, but he heard them sooner, and fled away to the neighbours, but was pursued and slain.

XII

Having accomplished this, and joined Mellon’s party, they sent word to the remaining exiles in Attica, and called together the citizens to complete their deliverance, and as they came, gave them arms, taking down the trophies which hung in the public colonnades, and breaking into the workshops of spear-makers and sword-cutlers. And Epameinondas and Gorgidas, with their party, came to help them, armed; for they had collected together no small number of the younger men and the strongest of the elder ones. By this time the whole city was roused, and there was great confusion, lights flitting about, and people running to one another’s houses, but the people had not yet assembled, but being alarmed at what had happened, and knowing nothing for certain, they waited [Pg 12]for daylight. And here the generals of the Lacedæmonian garrison seem to have missed an opportunity in not at once sallying out and attacking them, for the garrison itself consisted of 1500 men, and many people kept running to them for refuge from the city; however, alarmed at the shouts and fires and mass of people assembling from all parts, they remained quiet, holding the Kadmeia only. At daybreak arrived the exiles from Attica, fully armed, and the public assembly met. Epameinondas and Gorgidas led forward the band of Pelopidas, surrounded by the priests, who crowned them with wreaths, and called upon the citizens to fight for their country and their gods. The whole assembly, with shouts and applause, rose at the sight, and received them as their benefactors and saviours.

XIII

After this, Pelopidas, who was chosen Bœotarch,8 with Mellon and Charon as colleagues, at once blockaded the citadel, and made assaults upon it on all sides, being eager to drive out the Lacedæmonians and recover the Kadmeia before an army should come upon them from Sparta. And so little time had he to spare, that the garrison, when going home after their capitulation, met at Megara Kleombrotus, marching with a great force against Thebes. Of the three men who had been governors of Thebes, the Spartans condemned two, Herippidas and Arkissus, to death, and the third, Lysanorides, was heavily fined and banished.

This adventure was called by the Greeks the “sister” of that of Thrasybulus, as it resembled it in the bravery and personal risk of its chief actors, and was, like the other, favoured by fortune. It is difficult to mention any other persons, who with fewer numbers and scantier means than these, conquered men more numerous and powerful than themselves, by sheer daring and ability, or who conferred greater blessings on their own countries; and that which made this more remarkable was the change which it effected. The war which destroyed the prestige of Sparta, and put an end to her empire by sea and land, began in [Pg 13]that night, in which Pelopidas, without having made himself master of any fort, stronghold, or citadel, but merely coming to a private house with eleven others, loosed and broke to pieces, if we may use a true metaphor, the chains of Lacedæmonian supremacy, which seemed fixed and immovable.

XIV

Now when a great Lacedæmonian army invaded Bœotia, the Athenians manifested great alarm. They repudiated their alliance with the Thebans, and impeached those who had shown Bœotian sympathies; some of these men were put to death, others fined and banished. The case of the Thebans seemed desperate, as no one offered to help them; but Pelopidas, who with Gorgidas was Bœotarch, contrived to alienate the Athenians from Sparta by the following plot. Sphodrias, a Spartan, of great renown in the wars, but somewhat flighty and prone to wild enterprises and reckless ambition, had been left near Thespiæ with an army, to receive and assist those Thebans9 who were now sent into exile because they favoured the Lacedæmonians. Pelopidas sent secretly to this man a merchant, a friend of his own, who gave him a bribe, and also made proposals which fascinated him more than the money, that he should attempt some enterprise on a great scale, and surprise Peiræus by a sudden attack when the Athenians were off their guard: for the Lacedæmonians would be better pleased with the capture of Athens than with anything else, and the Thebans would not assist them, for they were at variance with them and regarded them as traitors. At length Sphodrias was prevailed upon to agree to this, and, with his soldiery, invaded Attica by night. He got as far as Eleusis, but there the soldiers lost heart, and the attempt was detected. So, having involved the Spartans in a war of no slight importance, he retired to Thespiæ.

XV

Upon this the Athenians again most eagerly allied themselves with the Thebans, and, aspiring to supremacy at sea, sent embassies round to the other maritime states, [Pg 14]and brought over to their own side those who were willing to revolt from the Spartans. Meanwhile the Thebans, alone in their country of Bœotia, constantly skirmishing with the Lacedæmonians, and not fighting any great battles with them, but organising themselves with the greatest care and discipline, began to pluck up spirit, gaining skill from practice, and becoming confident from the result of these encounters. This was why they say that Antalkidas the Spartan, when King Agesilaus was being carried home wounded from Bœotia, said to him, “Indeed, you are receiving nice lessons from the Thebans, now that you have taught them how to fight against their will.” But their real teacher was not Agesilaus, but those who, seizing fit opportunities, and with due management, skilfully used to let them loose upon their enemies, as men train young mastiffs, and then when they had tasted victory and self-confidence brought them safely back. Of these leaders Pelopidas received the chief credit. From the year in which he was first elected general they never ceased to re-elect him, and he was always either in command of the Sacred Band or most commonly acting as Bœotarch until his death. There took place also about Platæa and Thespiæ defeats and routs of the Lacedæmonians, in which Phœbidas, who seized the Kadmeia, perished; and Pelopidas routed a number of them near Tanagra, and slew Panthoides the governor. Still, although these skirmishes raised the spirits and confidence of the victors, yet they did not cast down the pride of the vanquished; for they were not regular battles, but the Thebans won their successes by well-timed charges and harassing the enemy by alternate retreat and advance.

However, the affair at Tegyra, which in a manner was preliminary to that at Leuktra, won Pelopidas a great reputation; for there was no question of any other general having assisted in the design of the battle, nor of the enemy being thoroughly routed. The city of Orchomenus had taken the Spartan side, and had received two moras10 of Spartan troops for its protection. He always had his eye upon this place, and watched his opportunity. Hearing that the garrison had made an expedition into Lokris, he [Pg 15]marched, hoping to catch Orchomenus defenceless, taking with him the Sacred Band and a few cavalry. When he came to the city he found that the garrison had been relieved by fresh troops from Sparta, and so he led off his men homewards through Tegyra, the only way that he could, by a circuitous route at the foot of the mountains; for the river Melas, which from its very source spreads into morasses and quagmires, made the direct way impassable.

Near the marshes stands a temple of Apollo of Tegyra and an oracle, which is now forsaken; it has not been long so, but flourished up to the Persian War, when Echekrates was priest. There the myths say that the god was born; and the neighbouring mountain is called Delos, and there the overflowings of the river Melas cease, while behind the temple there flow two springs remarkable for the sweetness, coldness, and volume of their waters, which we up to this day call, the one “The Palm,” and the other “The Olive,” as though the goddess had not been delivered between two trees, but two fountains. Indeed, close by is the Ptoüm, whence they say that she was driven in terror by the sudden apparition of a wild boar, and with regard to the legends of Tityos and Pytho, the localities are in like manner associated with the birth of the god. I omit the greater part of these proofs, for our ancestral religion tells us that this god is not to be ranked among those divinities who were born as men, like Herakles and Dionysus, and by their merits were translated from this earthly and suffering body, but he is one of the eternal ones who know no birth, if one may form any conjecture upon such matters from the writings of our wisest and most ancient writers.

XVII

At Tegyra, then, Pelopidas and the Thebans retiring from Orchomenus met the Lacedæmonians marching back from Lokris, in the opposite direction. When they were first descried coming out from the narrow gorges of the hills, some one ran to Pelopidas, and cried out, “We have fallen into the midst of the enemy!” “Why so,” asked he, “more than they into the midst of us?” He at once ordered his cavalry to the front to charge the enemy first, and closed up his infantry, three hundred in number, into a compact body, trusting that wherever he [Pg 16]attacked the enemy he should break through, although they outnumbered him. They consisted of two moras of Lacedæmonians: now Ephorus says that a mora consists of 500 men, but Kallisthenes says 700, and some other authorities, and amongst them Polybius, put it at 900.

Gorgoleon and Theopompus, the polemarchs in command of the Spartans, moved confidently to the attack of the Thebans; and the onset was directed on both sides, with great fury, specially at the persons of the leaders. The two polemarchs dashed against Pelopidas, and both fell; then the slaughter of their immediate followers produced a panic in the whole force, and it gave way to the Thebans, opening a lane through the centre as if for them to pass through. But when Pelopidas led his men into the passage thus offered, and assailed those who stood their ground, passing through it with great slaughter, then all fled in hopeless rout.

The pursuit was not pressed far, for the Thebans feared the vicinity of Orchomenus and of the Spartan reinforcement there; but as far as winning the victory, and forcing their way through the beaten enemy, they were completely successful; so after setting up a trophy and spoiling the dead they returned home in high spirits. For in all the wars which had previously taken place, both with Greeks and barbarians, it never before had happened that Lacedæmonians should be conquered by an inferior force, nor yet even when the numbers on each side were equal. Wherefore they were invincible in their own estimation, and established an ascendant over the minds of their opponents, for they were wont to engage with men who did not themselves think that with equal force they could be a match for the same number of Spartans. But this battle first proved to the rest of Greece that it is not only the Eurotas, and the country between Babuke and Knacion11 that nurtures brave and warlike men, but that wherever the youth of a nation fears disgrace and is willing to risk life for honour, and shrinks from shame more than from danger, these form the troops most terrible to their foes.

XVIII

The Sacred Band, they say, was first formed by Gorgidas, of 300 picked men, whom the city drilled and [Pg 17]lodged in the Kadmeia when on service, wherefore they were called the “city” regiment; for people then generally called the citadel the “city.” Some say that this force was composed of intimate friends, and indeed there is current a saying of Pammenes, that Homer’s Nestor is not a good general when he bids the Greeks assemble by their tribes and clans:

“That tribe to tribe, and clan to clan give aid,”

whereas he ought to have placed side by side men who loved each other, for men care little in time of danger for men of the same tribe or clan, whereas the bond of affection is one that cannot be broken, as men will stand fast in battle from the strength of their affection for others, and from feeling shame at showing themselves cowards before them. Nor is this to be wondered at, seeing that men stand more in awe of the objects of their love when they are absent than they do of others when present, as was the case with that man who begged and entreated one of the enemy to stab him in the breast as he lay wounded, “in order,” said he, “that my friend may not see me lying dead with a wound in the back, and be ashamed of me.” And Iolaus, the favourite of Herakles, is said to have taken part in his labours and to have accompanied him; and Aristotle says that even in his own time lovers would make their vows at the tomb of Iolaus.

It is probable, therefore, that the Sacred Band was so named, because Plato also speaks of a lover as a friend inspired from Heaven. Up to the battle of Chæronea it is said to have continued invincible, and when Philip stood after the battle viewing the slain, in that part of the field where the Three Hundred lay dead in their armour, heaped upon one another, having met the spears of his phalanx face to face, he wondered at the sight, and learning that it was the Band of Lovers, burst into tears, and said, “Perish those who suspect those men of doing or enduring anything base.”

XIX

As to these intimacies between friends, it was not, as the poets say, the disaster of Laius which first introduced the custom into Thebes, but their lawgivers, wishing to soften and improve the natural violence and [Pg 18]ferocity of their passions, used music largely in their education, both in sport and earnest, giving the flute especial honour, and by mixing the youth together in the palæstra, produced many glorious examples of mutual affection. Rightly too did they establish in their city that goddess who is said to be the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, Harmonia; since, wherever warlike power is duly blended with eloquence and refinement, there all things tend to the formation of a harmonious and perfect commonwealth.

Now, as to the Sacred Band, Gorgidas originally placed them in the first rank, and so spread them all along the first line of battle, and did not by this means render their valour so conspicuous, nor did he use them in a mass for any attack, but their courage was weakened by so large an infusion of inferior soldiery; but Pelopidas, after the splendid display of their valour under his own eye at Tegyra, never separated or scattered them, but would stand the brunt of battle, using them as one body. For as horses driven in a chariot go faster than those going loose, not because they more easily cleave the air when galloping in a solid body, but because their rivalry and racing with one another kindles, their spirit, so he imagined that brave men, inciting each other to an emulation in adventure, would prove most useful and forward when acting in one body.

XX

When the Lacedæmonians made peace with all the other Greeks and attacked the Thebans alone, and Kleombrotus, their king, invaded Bœotia with ten thousand hoplites and a thousand cavalry, the danger was not that they should be reduced to their former condition, but absolute destruction plainly threatened their city, and such terror prevailed as never before had been in Bœotia. Pelopidas, when leaving his house, as his wife wept at parting with him and begged him to be careful of his life, answered, “My dear, this is very good advice for private soldiers, but we who are commanders must think about saving the lives of others.” When he reached the camp, he found the Bœotarchs differing in opinion, and he at once gave his voice for the plan of Epameinondas, who voted for battle. He was not named Bœotarch, but [Pg 19]he was in command of the Sacred Band, and enjoyed great confidence, as was only just a man should who had given such proofs of patriotism.

When, then, they had determined to face the enemy, and taken up a position at Leuktra opposite to the Spartan army, Pelopidas saw a vision in his sleep which greatly disturbed him. In the plain of Leuktra there are the tombs of the daughters of Skedasus, whom they call Leuktridæ because of the place of their burial; for there it was that they were buried after they had been violated by some Spartan strangers. When this base and impious deed was done, their father, as he could get no satisfaction from the Lacedæmonians, invoked curses upon the Spartan race, and slew himself at the tombs of his daughters. Oracles and legends always had warned the Spartans to beware of the vengeance of Leuktra, though most of them did not understand it, and were not clear as to the place, since a small sea-side town in Laconia is also called Leuktron, and there is a place of the same name near Megalopolis in Arcadia, and, also, this crime was committed a long time before the battle.

XXI

So now Pelopidas, when asleep in the camp, seemed to see the maidens weeping over their tombs and invoking curses on the Spartans, and Skedasus, who bade him sacrifice a red virgin to the maidens, if he wished to conquer his enemies. And as this command seemed to him shocking and impious, he started up and consulted the prophets and the generals. Some of them forbade him to neglect or disobey the warning, quoting the famous old instances of Menækeus the son of Kreon and Makaria the daughter of Herakles, and, in later times, Pherekydes the philosopher, who was killed by the Lacedæmonians, and whose skin, according to some oracle, is still kept by their kings, and Leonidas, who following the oracle did in some sort offer himself as a victim on behalf of Greece; and futhermore they spoke of those persons whom Themistokles sacrificed to Dionysus before the sea-fight at Salamis. All these are verified by the success which followed them. And again, Agesilaus when starting from the same place that Agamemnon did to fight the same enemies, was asked by the god, during a vision at Aulis, to give him his [Pg 20]daughter as a sacrifice; but he did not give her, but by his softheartedness ruined the expedition, which ingloriously failed. Others spoke on the other side, urging that so barbarous and impious a sacrifice could not be pleasing to any of the powers above, for, they said, it is not the Typhons and giants of legend that rule in heaven, but the father of all gods and men. To believe that there are deities that delight in the blood and slaughter of mankind is probably a foolish fancy; but if there be such, it is our duty to disregard them and treat them as powerless, for these strange and shocking desires can only take their origin and exist in feeble and depraved minds.

XXII

While the chiefs of the army were engaged in this discussion, and Pelopidas especially was at a loss what to do, a filly escaped from some horses at pasture, and running through the ranks stopped opposite them. They admired her coat shining with the brightest red, and the mettled courage of her neigh, but Theokritus the prophet, comprehending what was meant, called to Pelopidas: “Happy man! Here is your victim; let us not expect any other virgin, but take the gift the gods provide you.” Hereupon they caught the filly and led it to the tombs of the maidens. Here, after prayer, they hung garlands on the tombs, and made the sacrifice with joy, explaining to the whole army the vision of Pelopidas and their reasons for the sacrifice.

XXIII

In the battle, Epameinondas brought his main body slantingly towards the left, in order that the Spartan right might be drawn as far as possible away from the other Greeks, and that by falling violently on Kleombrotus with his whole force on that wing, he might overpower and crush him. The enemy, perceiving what was being done, began to alter their own formation, extending their right, with the intention of outflanking and enveloping Epameinondas. At this moment Pelopidas charged with the Three Hundred in serried ranks. He caught the Lacedæmonians in a moment of confusion, when they were not standing ready to make an attack, for Kleombrotus had not time either to extend his right, or to bring the troops back again and close up the ranks. Yet the [Pg 21]Spartans, skilled as they were to the highest pitch in war, had been specially educated and practised in changing their formation without disorder or confusion; each man used any other as his right-hand or rear-rank man, and wherever danger threatened they would meet it, forming and fighting simultaneously. But now, when the main Theban phalanx under Epameinondas, projecting before all the rest of the line, bore down upon them, and when Pelopidas, by a charge of inconceivable speed and daring was already amongst their ranks, their spirit and discipline was so shaken that the rout and slaughter of the Spartans was such as had never been before. In this victory and success as much glory belonged to Pelopidas, though not one of the generals, and only in command of a few men, as to Epameinondas, who was Bœotarch and leader of the whole force.

XXIV

In the invasion of Peloponnesus they were both Bœotarchs, and they brought over to their side most of the nations there, for they detached from the Lacedæmonian alliance Elis, Argos, the whole of Arcadia, and most part of Laconia itself. It was mid-winter, a few days only remained of the last month, and with the new year the law was that the commands should be delivered up and new generals chosen. Death was the penalty in case of disobedience, and all the other Bœotarchs, fearing this law and wishing to avoid the severe weather, wished to withdraw the army homewards, but Pelopidas first, supported by Epameinondas, encouraged his fellow citizens, and crossed the Eurotas. He took many of their towns and wasted all their country up to the sea-coast, with an army of 70,000 Greeks, of whom the Thebans formed less than a twelfth part. But the great reputation which these men enjoyed made the rest follow them without any formal vote or decree to do so; for the first and most fundamental law is that which makes men in need of help follow him who can save them; and even if, like men sailing on a calm sea or anchored close to port, they sometimes murmur at and brave their pilot, yet in time of danger and storm they look up to him and place all their hopes in him, so the Argives and Eleans and Arcadians would at the council-board dispute the Theban [Pg 22]claims to supremacy, but in war and at critical moments they of their own accord obeyed the Theban generals. In this campaign, Arcadia was consolidated into one state; they also separated Messenia, which had been annexed by the Spartans, and bringing back the Messenian exiles established them in the old capital, Ithome. On their homeward march through Kenchreæ they gained a victory over the Athenians, who attempted to harass them and hinder their march through the narrow isthmus of Corinth.

XXV

After these exploits all men were full of admiration and wonder at their courage and success, but at home the envious feelings of their countrymen and political opponents, which grew along with the growth of their renown, prepared a most scurvy reception for them. On their return they were both tried for their lives, on the ground that whereas the law is that during the first month of the year, which they call Boukation, the Bœotarchs must lay down their office, they had held it for four additional months, during which they had been settling the affairs of Messenia, Laconia, and Arcadia. Pelopidas was tried first, and so incurred the greater danger, but both were acquitted.

Epameinondas, who thought that true courage and magnanimity was best shown by forbearance in political strife, bore this contemptible attack with patience, but Pelopidas, who was of a hotter temper, and whose friends encouraged him to revenge, chose this for its opportunity. Menekleides the orator had been one of the conspirators who came with Pelopidas and Mellon to Charon’s house. As, after the revolution, he did not obtain equal rights with the rest, being a man of great ability in speaking, but reckless and ill-conditioned, he took to using his powers to slander and assail the men in power, and was not silenced even by the result of that trial. He got Epameinondas turned out of his office of Bœotarch, and for a long time succeeded in lessening his influence in the state; but Pelopidas he could not misrepresent to the people, so he endeavoured to make a quarrel between him and Charon. He used the usual method of detractors, who if they themselves be inferior to the object of their spite, [Pg 23]try at any rate to prove that he is inferior to some one else; and having the ear of the people, he was ever singing the praises of Charon, and uttering panegyrics on his skill and his success. He endeavoured to set up a memorial of the cavalry battle at Platæa, before the battle of Leuktra, in which the Thebans under Charon were victorious, in the following manner. Androkydes of Kyzikus had been entrusted by the state with the task of painting a picture of some other battle, and had been engaged on it at Thebes. When the war broke out, this picture, nearly completed, was left in the hands of the Thebans; and Menekleides persuaded them to put it up publicly and to write on it the name of Charon, in order to throw the glory of Pelopidas and Epameinondas into the shade; a silly exhibition of ill-feeling indeed, to compare one poor skirmish, in which Gerandas, an obscure Spartan, and some forty men fell, with the great and important services of the others.

Pelopidas indicted this proposal as illegal, arguing that it was not the custom of the Thebans to show honour to individuals, but to keep alive the name of a victory for the glory of the country at large. He bestowed unmeasured praise upon Charon throughout the trial, and proved Menekleides to be a malignant slanderer. He was fined a large sum, and not being able to pay it, subsequently endeavoured to bring about a revolution in the state; by which one gains some insight into his character.

XXVI

Alexander, the tyrant of Pheræ, was at this time at open war with many states of Thessaly, and threatened the independence of all. Ambassadors from these states were sent to Thebes, begging for a military force and a general to be despatched to their assistance. Pelopidas, since Epameinondas was busy settling the affairs of Peloponnesus, offered himself to the Thessalians, as he could not bear that his talents and skill should lie idle, and he thought that where Epameinondas was, no second general could be needed. So he marched with a sufficient army into Thessaly, took Larissa, and, when Alexander begged for terms of peace, endeavoured to convert him into a mild and law-abiding ruler. But he, a wild, desperate, cruel barbarian, when he was accused of insolent [Pg 24]and grasping practices, and Pelopidas used harsh and angry language, went off in a rage, with his body-guard. Pelopidas, having relieved the Thessalians from fear of the tyrant, and reconciled them one to another, proceeded to Macedonia. Here Ptolemy was at war with Alexander the king of Macedonia, and each of them had sent for him to act as arbitrator and judge between them, thinking that he would right whichever of them should prove to have been wronged. He came, and settled their dispute, and after bringing back the exiled party, took Philip, the king’s brother, and thirty other sons of the noblest families as hostages, and kept them at Thebes, to show the Greeks how far the Theban policy extended, merely through its reputation for power and for justice.

This was that Philip who afterwards endeavoured to enslave Greece; at that time he was but a lad, and lived in the house of Pammenes. On this account he was thought to be an imitator of Epameinondas, and perhaps he did take to heart that great man’s energy in war, which was one of his virtues, but as to the spirit of self-restraint, justice, magnanimity and mildness, which formed the true greatness of his character, of this Philip neither by nature or education had the least idea.

XXVII

After these events, the Thessalians again complained of Alexander of Pheræ for attacking their cities, and Pelopidas and Ismenias were sent as ambassadors to them. Pelopidas, however, brought no army with him, as no war was expected, and was forced to make use of the native Thessalians in this emergency. As affairs in Macedonia had again fallen into disorder (for Ptolemy had assassinated the king, and was in possession of the sovereignty, while the friends of the deceased invited Pelopidas to interfere), he wished to do something; and having no troops of his own, he hired some local mercenaries and marched off at once against Ptolemy. When they drew near to each other, Ptolemy by bribes induced the mercenaries to desert to himself, but, fearing the mere name and prestige of Pelopidas, he went out to him as though he were the more powerful of the two, and after greeting him and begging him to be his friend, he agreed to hold the kingdom in trust for the brothers of the [Pg 25]deceased king, and to form a defensive and offensive alliance with Thebes. For the fulfilment of these conditions he gave as hostages his own son Philoxenus and fifty of his companions, whom Pelopidas sent to Thebes, but as he was angry at the desertion of his mercenaries, and learned that their property, wives and children were for the most part placed in Pharsalus, so that by capturing that place he could make them pay the penalty of their crime, he got together a force of Thessalians and came to Pharsalus. When he was just arrived, Alexander the tyrant appeared with his army. Pelopidas and his friends supposed that he had come to establish his innocence, and went to meet him, knowing him to be profligate and bloodthirsty, yet fearing no harm, because of the name of Thebes and their own personal prestige. But he, when he saw them approaching him unarmed and alone, at once secured them and took Pharsalus, striking fear and terror into all his subjects; for they expected that after an act of such daring lawlessness he would spare no one, but treat them as one who had made up his mind to lose his own life.

XXVIII

The Thebans when they heard of this were greatly moved, and at once despatched an army to the rescue, but on account of some quarrel with Epameinondas they appointed others to the command. The tyrant took Pelopidas to Pheræ, and at first allowed any who chose to converse with him, supposing that he would be cast down and humbled by his misfortunes; but when the people of Pheræ came to lament over him, Pelopidas bade them be of good courage, as now if ever the tyrant would have to pay the penalty of his crimes: and he sent a message to the tyrant himself, saving that he was a strange man, to torture and murder his wretched and innocent citizens every day, and to spare him, who he knew would be sure to wreak vengeance on him if he should escape. The tyrant, admiring his spirit and fearlessness, said, “What! does Pelopidas wish to die?” The other, hearing of this answered, “Yes, that you may become even more hateful to heaven than you are now, and so may die sooner.”

Hereupon he prevented the people from having access to him, but Thêbê, the daughter of Jason, and Alexander’s [Pg 26]wife, having heard from the guards of Pelopidas of his daring and nobleness, desired to see the man and converse with him. When she was come she did not, woman-like, at once perceive the greatness of his mind in the position in which he was, but judging from his short-cut hair, his dress and his food, that he was treated ill and not as became such a man, she wept. Pelopidas, not knowing at first who she was, was surprised at this, but, when he knew her, addressed her by her father’s name, for he was a companion and friend of Jason. When she said, “I pity your wife,” “So do I pity you,” answered he, “that without being a prisoner you stay with Alexander.” This speech somehow touched the lady, for she was grieved at the ferocity and licentiousness of the tyrant, who, besides his other atrocities, had debauched her youngest brother. She constantly visited Pelopidas, and, talking to him of her sufferings, became filled with courage, and with hatred of Alexander.

XXIX

The Theban generals invaded Thessaly, but through incompetence or misfortune effected nothing, and had to retreat in disgrace. The state fined them ten thousand drachmas, but sent Epameinondas with the army. There was at once a great fluttering of hope among the cities of Thessaly at the reputation of that general, and the cause of the tyrant tottered to its fall, such fear fell upon his officers and friends, and such a longing to subvert his government upon his subjects, who viewed the future with hope, as now they expected to see the tyrant meet with his deserts. However, Epameinondas, disregarding his own glory in comparison with the safety of Pelopidas, and fearing that if Alexander were driven to despair by seeing his kingdom falling to pieces, he might turn upon him like a wild beast, conducted the war remissly. By degrees and after slow preparation he surrounded the tyrant and confined him to one spot, so as to be able to check any attack that he might venture on, and yet not to excite his savage and ferocious nature; for he had heard of his cruelty and disregard of what is right, and how he would bury men alive, and dress them in the skins of wild boars and bears and then set dogs at them and hunt them with spears, making this his sport, and [Pg 27]how he surrounded two peaceful cities, Melibœa and Skottusa, with his body-guard when the inhabitants were at their public assembly, and slew them all from the youth upwards, and how he had consecrated and crowned the spear with which he killed his uncle Polyphron, and used to address prayers to it and call it the Slayer. Once when he saw a tragedian performing Euripides’ tragedy, the ‘Troades,’ he went suddenly out of the theatre, and sent a message to him to be of good courage, and not act worse for this, for he had not left the house because he disliked his acting, but because he felt ashamed that the citizens should see him weeping at the woes of Hekuba and Andromache, though he never had pitied any of the people whom he had put to death himself. But he, terrified by the prestige and reputation of Epameinondas for strategy,

“Let fall his feathers like a craven cock,”

and quickly sent an embassy to him to make peace. Epameinondas scorned to make a treaty of peace and friendship between the Thebans and such a man, but agreed to an armistice for thirty days, and taking Pelopidas and Ismenias returned home.

XXX

When the Thebans heard that ambassadors were being sent from Athens and Sparta to the Great King to make an alliance with him, they also sent Pelopidas, a step most advantageous to his reputation. As he went on his journey through the Persian provinces he excited the greatest admiration, for the fame of his victories over the Lacedæmonians had spread trumpet-tongued through Asia, and from the time of his first success at Leuktra it had begun to reach far and wide, some new exploit being ever added to it, till it reached to the furthest peoples. Next, when he reached the court, he was an object of wonder and interest to the satraps, generals, and officers there. “This is the man,” they said, “who destroyed the Lacedæmonian dominion over sea and land, and who reduced to the little state at the foot of Taygetus by the Eurotas, that Sparta which a little while before went to war under Agesilaus with the Great King himself about Susa and Ecbatana.” At this Artaxerxes himself was [Pg 28]pleased, and admired Pelopidas and showed him great honour, as he wished it to appear that he was courted and sought after by the most powerful Greeks. After an interview, in which he found that he spoke with sounder sense than the Athenians, and greater simplicity than the Spartans, he esteemed him still more, and after the fashion of monarchs, did not conceal his regard, but let the other ambassadors see plainly that he was highest in favour. Of all the Greeks he showed Antalkidas the greatest honour, when he took off his own wreath of flowers at table and dipping it in scent, gave it him to put on. He attempted no such refinements with Pelopidas, but gave him presents, more splendid and valuable than was customary, and assented to his proposals that all Greek states should be independent, that Messenia should be reconstituted, and that the Thebans should be accounted the king’s old friends.

With these answers, and none of the presents except such as were pledges of friendship and good will, he returned, to the great discredit of the other ambassadors. The Athenians condemned and executed Timagoras, and if it was for the amount of presents which he received, rightly enough; for he not only took silver and gold, but a costly bed and slaves to make it, as if Greeks did not know how, and also eighty cows and their herdsmen, on the pretence of wanting cow’s milk for some weakness that he suffered from; and at last he went down to the sea-coast carried in a palanquin, and four talents were given by the king to his bearers—still, it does not seem to have been his venality which especially disgusted the Athenians. At any rate, Epikrates, called the “Bearded,” once brought a motion before the assembly that instead of electing nine archons yearly they should send nine poor citizens as ambassadors to the Great King, that they might be enriched by him, at which there was great laughter. But it was because of the success of the Thebans that they were so vexed, not reflecting on the power of Pelopidas’s name, and how far it outweighed all their rhetoric in the estimation of one who always inclined to the stronger side.

XXXI

On his return, Pelopidas was welcomed with [Pg 29]no little gratitude because he had re-established Messenia, and obtained freedom for all other Greeks. But Alexander of Pheræ had relapsed into his old courses, and had ravaged the territory of many cities of Thessaly. The Phthiot Achæans and Magnetes formed a league to oppose him, and hearing of Pelopidas’s return, these cities sent to Thebes begging for a force to help them and for him as its general. The Thebans willingly decreed this, but when all was ready and the general was about to march, the sun was eclipsed and darkness fell upon the city. Pelopidas, seeing that all men were disheartened at this, thought that it was useless to force frightened men full of presage of evil, to march with him, nor did he like to risk the lives of six thousand citizens, but he offered his own services to the Thessalians, and took with him three hundred horsemen, volunteers and men of other states. With this force he started, though forbidden by the prophets and against the will of his fellow citizens, who all held that a great portent had been shown in heaven about some celebrated man. However, he was all the fiercer against Alexander, remembering his own sufferings, and hoping from his conversations with Thêbê, that by this time his own family would have turned against him. He was also much encouraged by the glory of the action, that, at a time when the Lacedæmonians were sending out generals and governors to help Dionysius the Sicilian tyrant, and when the Athenians had Alexander in their pay, and had even set up a bronze statue of him as a public benefactor, he might show the Greeks that it was the Thebans alone who took up arms in defence of the oppressed, and who put an end to the violent and illegal rule of despots in Greece.

XXXII

When he had come to Pharsalus and collected his army there, he marched straight to attack Alexander. But he, seeing that Pelopidas’s force of Thebans was small, while he had more than double his numbers of Thessalian hoplites, met him near the shrine of Thetis. When some one said to Pelopidas that the tyrant was coming on with a great force, he answered. “So much the better, for we shall conquer more.”

Between the two armies, near the place called Kynoske[Pg 30]phalæ, or the Dog’s Heads, were some high and isolated hills. Each party tried to occupy these with their infantry, but Pelopidas, knowing his cavalry to be numerous and good, sent it to charge that of the enemy. The enemy’s horse was routed, and pursued over the plain, but meanwhile Alexander had secured the hills, and when the Thessalian infantry came afterwards, and tried to force their way up the hill into that strong position, he was able to cut down the foremost, while the rest suffered from his missiles and could do nothing. Pelopidas now recalled the cavalry, and sent it to attack the enemy’s position in flank, while he himself took his shield and ran to join the infantry in their fight on the hill. Pushing his way through their ranks till he reached the front he infused such strength and ardour into them, that the enemy thought that they attacked with new bodies as well as new spirit. They repulsed one or two assaults, but seeing that the infantry resolutely came on, and also that the cavalry had returned from its pursuit and was threatening their flank, they made an orderly retreat. Pelopidas, when he gained the height, saw below him the whole of the enemy not yet beaten, but confused and shaken. He stood still and looked around him, seeking Alexander himself. When he saw him, on the right, rallying and encouraging his mercenaries, he could no longer restrain his rage, but kindling at the sight, and, reckless of his own person and of his duties as a general, rushed far beyond the rest, shouting and challenging the tyrant to fight. He would not await the attack, but took refuge in the ranks of his body-guard. Pelopidas attacked these troops and cut them down, wounding several mortally, but they from a distance struck him through his armour with their spears, till the Thessalians in great anxiety charged down the hill to the rescue. But he had by this time fallen.

The cavalry now charged and routed the whole body, and pursuing them to a great distance, strewed the country with corpses, for they cut down more than three thousand of them.

XXXIII

It was no wonder that the Thebans who were there grieved at the death of Pelopidas, and called him their father, their saviour, their teacher in all that was [Pg 31]best and noblest; but the Thessalians and their allies, who decreed greater honours than had ever been shown to any brave man, proved their gratitude to him, even more by their sorrow. It is said that the men who were at the fight did not lay aside their armour, nor unbridle their horses, nor even bind up their wounds, when they heard of his death, but warm as they were from victory, in their arms, flocked round the corpse, piling up near it, as a trophy, the arms of their slain enemies. They cut off the manes of their horses, and their own hair, and many went off to their tents, lit no fire, and ate no supper, but there was such silence and despondency in the whole camp as would have befitted men who had been defeated and enslaved by the tyrant, not who had just won a great and glorious victory over him.

As soon as the sad news reached the cities of Thessaly, the chief men, youths, children and priests came forth in procession to receive his body, and carried trophies and wreaths and golden armour in its honour. When the body was about to be brought home, the chiefs of the Thessalians begged the Thebans to allow them to bury him, and one of them spoke as follows: “Allies, we beg of you a favour which will prove to be an honour and a comfort to us in this our great misfortune. We Thessalians shall never again escort Pelopidas, nor render him the honours which he deserved; but if we may have his body to touch, and ourselves adorn it and bury it, we shall then be able to show you that we Thessalians truly feel this misfortune more than even you Thebans. For you have only lost a good general, while we have lost that, and our liberty too, since how can we ever have the heart to ask you for another general, after not giving you your Pelopidas back.”

This proposal the Thebans agreed to.

XXXIV

No funeral was more splendid than this, not indeed in the estimation of those who think that splendour lies in ivory and gold and purple, as Philistius celebrates and praises the funeral of Dionysius, where his tyranny concluded like the pompous finale of some great tragedy. Alexander the Great, when Hephæstion died, not only cut off the manes of the horses and mules, but actu[Pg 32]ally took down the battlements from the walls, that cities might seem in mourning, presenting a shorn and woeful look in contrast to their former appearance.

But these were the commands of tyrants; they were done under compulsion, and caused a feeling of dislike to the person honoured, and of absolute hatred against those who enforced them, but showed no gratitude or desire to honour the dead. They were mere displays of barbaric pride and boastful extravagance, which wastes its superfluity on vain and useless objects; whereas, here was a private citizen who died in a foreign land, without his wife, his children or his friends, and, without any one asking for it or compelling them to it, he was escorted to his grave, buried and crowned with garlands by so many provinces and cities, vying with one another in showing him honour, that he seems to have enjoyed the most blessed fate possible. For as Æsop says, the death of the fortunate is not grievous, but blessed, since it secures their felicity, and puts it out of Fortune’s power. That Spartan spoke well, who, when Diagoras, the Olympic victor, was looking at his sons being in their turn crowned as victors at Olympia, with his grandchildren about him, embraced him and said, “Die, Diagoras; for you cannot rise to Olympus and be a god there.” Yet I do not suppose that any one would compare all the Olympian and Pythian prizes together with one of Pelopidas’s achievements, of which he performed many, and lived the most part of his life esteemed and looked up to, and at last, in his thirteenth Bœotarchy, when fighting gloriously against a tyrant, he died in defence of the liberties of Thessaly.

XXXV

His death caused great sorrow to his allies, but likewise benefited them; for the Thebans as soon as they heard of the death of Pelopidas did not delay for a moment to avenge his fall, but hastily marched with an army of seven thousand hoplites and seven hundred cavalry, under Malkitus and Diogeiton, against Alexander. Finding that he was weakened and shorn of much of his power, they compelled him to restore to the Thessalians their cities, which he held, to liberate the Achæans in Magnesia and Phthiotis, to withdraw his garrisons from [Pg 33]those countries, and to swear to the Thebans, that he would attack, and assist them to attack, any enemy they might choose.

The Thebans were satisfied with these terms; but I will now recount how, shortly afterwards, Heaven exacted retribution from him for the death of Pelopidas. Thêbê his wife, as we have said before, had been taught by Pelopidas not to fear the outward pomp and body-guard of the tyrant, since she was within all his defences. She, dreading his suspicious nature, and hating his cruelty, made a plot with her three brothers, Tisiphonus, Pytholaus, and Lykophron, which she carried out in the following manner. The night patrol of the guard watched in the house, but their bedchamber was upstairs, and before the door there was a dog chained as a guard, very savage with every one except themselves and one of their servants who fed it. Now when Thêbê determined to make the attempt, she got her brothers concealed near at hand during the day in one of the rooms, and when she came, as usual, alone to Alexander’s chamber, she found him asleep. In a little time she came out again, and ordered the servant to take away the dog, as the despot wished to sleep undisturbed. Fearing that the stairs would make a noise when the young men mounted, she covered them with wool, and then brought up her brothers, with their swords drawn. Leaving them outside she herself went in, and taking down the sword that hung over his head, showed it to them as a proof that he was in their power and asleep. The young men now were terrified, and hesitated to act; but she reproached them bitterly, and swore that she would herself awaken Alexander and tell him the whole plot. Between shame and terror she got them in and placed them round the bed, herself holding the light. One of them seized his feet, another held his head back by the hair, and the third despatched him with a stab of his sword, a death, perhaps, easier than he deserved. He was the first, or perhaps the only despot ever assassinated by his own wife. His body after death was dragged about and trodden under foot by the people of Pheræ, a recompense which his villanies deserved.

LIFE OF
MARCELLUS.

I

Poseidonius tells us that Marcus Claudius, who was five times consul of the Roman people, was the son of Marcus, and was the first of his family to receive the name of Marcellus, which means warlike. Indeed, by his experience he became a thorough soldier; his body was strong, and his arm powerful. He was fond of war, and bore himself with a lordly arrogance in battle, though otherwise he was of a quiet and amiable disposition, fond of Greek culture and literature, to the extent of respecting and admiring those who knew it, though he from his want of leisure could not make such progress as he wished. For the Roman chiefs of that period were, if any men ever were, condemned, in the words of Homer,

“From youth to age, disastrous wars to wage.”1

In their youth they fought the Carthaginians on the Sicilian coast; in middle age they fought the Gauls in defence of Italy itself; when advanced in years they again contended with Hannibal and the Carthaginians, not, as common men do, obtaining any relief from constant service because of their old age, but ever urged by their courage and nobility of soul to accept the command in new campaigns.

II

Marcellus was practised in all forms of battle, but was especially skilful in single combat, so that he never declined any man’s challenge, and slew all who challenged him. In Sicily he saved the life of his brother Otacilius when in great peril, by holding his shield over him and killing his assailants. For this conduct, young as he was, [Pg 35]he received crowns2 and rewards from the generals, and as he grew in reputation was elected curule ædile by the people, and augur by the priests. This is a kind of priestly office, to which the law especially assigns the observance of auguries drawn from the flight of birds. During his tenure of the office of ædile, he was obliged, much against his will, to commence a law-suit. He had a son of his own name, in the bloom of youth, of great beauty, and equally with it admired by his countrymen for his modesty and education. Capitolinus, Marcellus’s colleague, a licentious and reckless man, made disgraceful proposals to this lad. He first repelled his attacks alone, but on a second attempt told his father, and Marcellus, being much enraged, summoned the man before the Senate. He attempted many quibbles and subterfuges, and appealed to the tribunes of the people to support him, but as they refused his application he betook himself to pleading denial of the charge. There being no witnesses of what he had said, the Senate decided to send for the boy, and when they saw how he blushed and wept with a modesty mingled with unquenchable rage, they, without requiring any other proof, found Capitolinus guilty, and condemned him to pay a fine, with which Marcellus had silver libation vessels made, and consecrated them to the gods.

III

After twenty-two years the first Punic War came to an end, and the Romans turned their attention to Gaulish troubles. The Insubrians, a Celtic tribe dwelling in Italy at the foot of the Alps, powerful by themselves, were collecting other forces, and enrolling all those Gauls who fought for hire, called Gæsatæ.

It was a wonderful and fortunate circumstance that this Celtic war did not break out at the same time as that with Carthage, but that the Gauls, like the gladiator who waits to fight with the survivor of a pair of combatants, had remained quiet during the whole of that war, and now stepped forward and challenged the victors when they were at leisure. Yet the war caused much terror, because it would take place on their own frontier against their [Pg 36]neighbour states, and because of the ancient reputation of the Gauls, whom the Romans seem to fear more than any other nation. They once lost their city at their hands, and afterwards passed a law that the priests should be exempt from all military service, except in case of another war with Gaul. Their alarm was shown both by their preparations (for it is said that never before or since were there so many thousand Romans under arms), and by their extraordinary sacrifices. For though they never observe the barbarous ceremonies of foreigners, but as far as possible are humane and like the Greeks in their religion, on the outbreak of this war they were compelled to follow certain prophecies in the Sibylline books, and bury alive two Greeks, a man and a woman, and likewise two Gauls, in the place called the Cattle Market: and in accordance with these prophecies they still up to this day in the month of November perform religious mysteries, which may not be seen or spoken of by either Greeks or Gauls.

IV

At the beginning of the war the Romans were some times victorious and sometimes defeated, without coming to any decisive action, until the consulate of Flaminius and Furius, who led a great army against the Insubrians. Then the river that passes through Picenum ran blood, and it was said that three moons were seen at the city of Ariminum, and the augurs, who watch the omens at the consular elections, declared that the appointment of these consuls was wrong and of evil omen for the people. Hereupon the Senate immediately sent despatches to the camp recalling the consuls, that they might as soon as possible return and lay down their office and so undertake nothing as consuls against the enemy. Flaminius, when he received these despatches, did not open them before he had routed the barbarians in battle and overrun their country. So when he returned to Rome loaded with spoil, the people did not go out to meet him, but, because he had not at once obeyed his orders, and had treated them with insolent contempt, very nearly refused him his triumph, and after the triumph reduced him to a private station, forcing both him and his colleague to give up their office. So much regard had the Romans for religion, that they [Pg 37]would not on occasions of the greatest good fortune overlook any neglect of the prophecies and customs of their ancestors, holding it more important for the safety of the state that their generals should reverence the gods than that they should conquer the enemy.

V

As an example of this, Tiberius Sempronius, a man second to no one in Rome for courage and virtue, named as his successors when consul Scipio Nasica and Caius Marcius, and when they were actually in possession of their provinces and armies he happened to consult a book of sacred ritual, and found in it an old custom which he did not know before. It was to this effect. When a consul has hired a house or tent outside the city to watch the flight of birds, if he be obliged before any certain omen appears, to return to the city for what cause soever, he must give up the place which he hired and take another, and make his observation over again from the beginning. This, it seems, Tiberius did not know, and it was after using the same place twice that he named these men consuls. Afterwards, having discovered his error, he laid the matter before the Senate; and that body did not despise this apparently slight irregularity, but sent despatches to the men, who at once left their provinces, returned to Rome, and resigned their office. Now this happened in later times; but in the very times of which we write two men of the best family were deprived of the priesthood: Cornelius Cethegus, because he handled the entrails improperly at a sacrifice, and Quintus Sulpicius, because when he was sacrificing, the crested hat which he wore as flamen, fell off his head. And because, when Minucius the dictator was appointing Caius Flaminius his master of the knights, the mouse which is called the coffin-mouse was heard to squeak, they turned them out of their office, and elected others. But, though so elaborately careful in trifles, they never admitted any superstitious observance, and neither altered nor added anything to their ancestral ritual.

VI

When Flaminius and his colleague had resigned their offices, Marcellus was designated consul by the interreges.3 On entering upon his office he nominated Cnæus Cornelius as his colleague. It was said that the [Pg 38]Gauls were offering terms of reconciliation, and that the Senate wished for peace with them, but that Marcellus raised the spirit of the people and excited them to continue the war. But still a peace was concluded; and it seems to have been the Gæsatæ who renewed the war, by crossing the Alps and stirring up the Insubrians. Thirty thousand in number, they joined that tribe, which was many times larger, and in high spirits at once attacked Acerræ, a city beyond the river Po. From that place Britomartus with ten thousand Gæsatæ proceeded to plunder the country near the Po.

Marcellus hearing this left his colleague before Acerræ with the infantry, heavy baggage, and one-third of the cavalry, and himself, with the rest of the cavalry and about six hundred of the most active foot soldiers, marched night and day till he fell in with the ten thousand Gæsatæ at Clastidium, a Gaulish village which not long before had been subject to the Romans. There was no time for rest or refreshment; for his arrival was at once perceived by the enemy, and his force despised, as he had so little infantry with him, for the Celts thought nothing of his cavalry. Admirable horsemen and proud of their superior skill, they also had greatly the advantage of Marcellus in numbers, and at once, their king riding foremost, charged the Romans with great impetuosity and terrible threats, expecting to sweep them away. Marcellus, fearing that they might surround and outflank his small body, spread out his cavalry, thinning and widening his line, until he presented a front nearly equal to that of the enemy. He was now advancing to the charge, when his horse, scared at the terrible display of the enemy, turned short round, and forcibly carried him back. Marcellus, fearing that this might cause superstitious terror to the Romans, hastily wheeled his horse round on the bridle hand, and having again directed him against the enemy, paid his adorations to the sun, as though he had made this circle not by chance, but of set purpose; for the Romans have this custom, of turning round to worship the gods, and so he, as he was on the point of joining battle, vowed that he would consecrate the finest of the enemies’ arms to Jupiter Feretrius.

VII

At this moment the king of the Gauls, seeing him, [Pg 39]and conjecturing from his dress that he was the Roman leader, rode out far beyond the rest, and made directly for him, defiantly shouting a challenge, and brandishing his spear. He was a man distinguished from the rest of the Gauls by his tall stature and his complete armour, which glittered like the lightning with gold and silver and all kinds of gay devices with which it was incrusted. Marcellus, as he looked along the enemy’s line, thought that these were the finest arms, and were those about which he had made his vow to Jupiter Feretrius. He rushed upon the Gaul, pierced his breastplate with his spear, and by the impetus of his horse bore him to the ground alive, and with a second and third thrust killed him at once. Leaping from his horse and seizing the armour of the dead man, he said, looking up to heaven, “Jupiter Feretrius, thou that seest the great deeds of generals and captains in war, I call thee to witness that I am the third Roman general that has slain the enemy’s general and king, by killing this man here with my own hand: and having killed him I consecrate to thee the first and fairest of the spoils. But do thou grant us like good fortune in the rest of this war.”

Hereupon the Roman cavalry charged, not against cavalry by itself, but they fought against infantry and cavalry mixed together, and won a victory of an unparalleled and wonderful kind; for never before or since that day did such a body of horsemen rout such numbers of horse and foot.

Having slain the greater part of them, and collected their arms and stores, he returned to his colleague, who was with difficulty holding his own against the Celts before the walls of the largest and most populous of Gaulish cities. It is called Mediolanum, and is regarded by the Cisalpine Gauls as their metropolis: consequently they fought vigorously in its defence, and more besieged Cornelius than were besieged by him. But when Marcellus arrived, the Gæsatæ, as soon as they heard of the defeat and death of their king, went home. Mediolanum fell, and the Celts of their own accord surrendered the other cities, and threw themselves upon the mercy of the Romans. They received moderate terms of peace.

VIII

[Pg 40]By a decree of the Senate Marcellus alone triumphed. His procession was glorious, as few others have been, with the splendour and value of the booty exhibited, and the great stature of the captives; but the strangest and most interesting sight of all was the general himself, as he appeared carrying the suit of armour of the Gaul to offer it to the god. He had cut and trimmed the trunk of a tall young oak tree, and had tied and hung the spoils upon it, each put in its proper place. When the procession began, he himself mounted his chariot and four, and carried in state through the city, this the most glorious of all his trophies of victory. The army marched after him with their finest armour, singing as they went songs and pæans of victory in honour of the gods and their leader. Thus he proceeded till he reached the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. Here he dismounted, and dedicated his spoils, being the third, and, up to our day, the last who ever did so: first comes Romulus, with the spoils of Acron of Cæninum; second, Cornelius Cossus offered the spoils of Tolumnius the Etruscan; third, Marcellus offered these spoils of Britomartus, the king of the Gauls; after Marcellus, no man.

The god to whom they are offered is called Jupiter Feretrius, according to some, from the trophy being carried upon a feretrum, or bier, as it is called in the Greek tongue, which then was much mixed with the Latin; but according to others, it is an attribute of Jupiter the Thunderer, for the Romans call striking ferire. Others say that the name comes from striking the enemy; for even now in battle when they are pursuing the enemy they keep shouting, “Feri,” that is, “Strike,” to one another. The word for ordinary spoils is spolia, but for these spolia opima. Yet it is said that Numa Pompilius speaks of first, second, and third degrees of spolia opima, ordering the first to be offered to Jupiter Feretrius, the second to Mars, and the third to Quirinus; and that for the first the prize is three hundred ases, two hundred for the second, and one hundred for the third. But the most common story runs that those spoils alone are spolia opima which are taken at a pitched battle, and first of all, and by the general of [Pg 41]the one side from the general of the other. But of these things enough.

The Roman people were so overjoyed at that victory and the end of the war that they made from the money paid to ransom captives, a golden statue, and sent it to Apollo at Delphi as a thank-offering, and gave a magnificent share of the booty to their allies, and even sent many presents to Hiero the king of Syracuse, their friend and ally.

IX

When Hannibal invaded Italy, Marcellus was sent with an army to Sicily: but when the disaster at Cannæ took place, where many thousand Romans perished, and only a few fugitives collected at Canusium, it was expected that Hannibal would at once march to attack Rome, as he had cut off the greater part of the army. Marcellus at once sent a garrison of fifteen hundred men to guard the city, and afterwards, in obedience to a senatus-consultum, went to Canusium, and taking command of the fugitives collected there, led them out of their fortified camp, to show that he would not deliver up the country to the enemy. The Romans had lost many of their most capable leaders in the wars, and Fabius Maximus, who had the greatest reputation, was blamed by them for sloth and want of enterprise because of his excessive caution in avoiding a defeat. Thinking, therefore, that he was an excellent general for defence, not for attack, they cast their eyes upon Marcellus, and in order to combine his vigour and daring with the cautious and far-seeing tactics of the other, they at one time elected them both consuls, at another made the one consul with the other serving as proconsul. Poseidonius tells us that Fabius was called the shield of the state, and Marcellus the sword. And Hannibal himself said that he feared Fabius as a schoolmaster, but regarded Marcellus as an antagonist, for the former prevented his doing any mischief, while the latter might make him suffer some.

X

At first Hannibal’s soldiers, elated with their victory, roamed with careless confidence out of their camp and plundered the country; where Marcellus fell upon them, and by a series of defeats considerably weakened them. Next, he went to Naples and Nola. At Naples he [Pg 42]encouraged the citizens, who of their own accord wished well to the Roman cause; but at Nola he found the city in a state of faction, as the senate were unable to restrain the populace, who favoured Hannibal. There was one Bandius, a man of the first nobility of the city, and renowned for bravery. This man had fought at Cannæ with conspicuous valour, and had slain many Carthaginians. When after the battle he was found in a heap of slain with his body pierced with darts, Hannibal, in admiration of his courage, not only dismissed him without ransom, but gave him presents and made him a personal friend. Bandius, out of gratitude, was one of the most eager partisans of Hannibal, and, having great influence with the people, was urging them to revolt. Marcellus thought that it would be a crime to put to death a man of such glorious antecedents, and who had taken part in one of the greatest struggles of the Romans; and, besides his natural kindliness, being able by his conversation to win over any man of noble nature, he on one occasion when greeted by Bandius inquired who he might be, though he knew very well, but merely wanted a pretext and opportunity for conversation with him. For, when he answered, “Lucius Bandius,” Marcellus, as though surprised and pleased, said, “Are you indeed that Bandius, of whom all those who fought at Cannæ told us at Rome, the only man who did not desert Paulus Æmilius the consul, but who received upon his own body the greater part of the darts which were aimed at him?” Bandius admitted that he was the man, and endeavoured to speak lightly of his wounds, but Marcellus went on: “Then, as you bear about you such marks of your devotion to our cause, why did you not at once come to me? Do you think us slow to requite the valour of our friends, when it is honoured even by the enemy.” Having spoken to him thus courteously, he embraced him, and presented him with a war-horse and five hundred silver drachmas.

XI

After this Bandius became the firmest partisan and ally of Marcellus, and a terrible denouncer and assailant of the opposite party. This was a numerous one; and their design was, when the Romans should march out of the town against the enemy, to attack their baggage. Mar[Pg 43]cellus, therefore, having marshalled his troops within the city, brought the baggage to the gates, and by proclamation forbade the people of Nola to approach the walls. Thus no force was visible, and he induced Hannibal to march up to the city in disorderly array, as he supposed that within it all was confusion. Then Marcellus ordered the gate nearest him to be thrown open, and with the best equipped of his cavalry charged out of it and fell upon the enemy hand to hand. Presently the infantry poured out of another gate, running with loud shouts; and while Hannibal was dividing his forces to deal with them a third gate opened, and from it issued the remainder of the army, and from all sides attacked the Carthaginians, who were bewildered at the unexpectedness of the attack, and fought without spirit against their immediate assailants, because of the others who they saw would soon beset them.

There first did Hannibal’s troops give way before the Romans, and were chased with great loss into their camp. It is said that more than five thousand perished, and that no more than five hundred Romans fell. But Livy does not consider that a great defeat took place, or that so many of the enemy fell, but he points out that Marcellus gained much glory by that battle, and that the Roman people took courage after their misfortunes, thinking that it was not against an unconquerable and invulnerable foe that they were fighting, but one who could be made to suffer as well as themselves.

XII

For this reason, as one of the consuls was dead, the people called for Marcellus, though he was absent, to become his successor; and in spite of the efforts of the government they put off the day of election until he came to Rome from the army. He was elected consul by the votes of all the tribes, but it thundered at the time, and as the priests declared this an unpropitious omen, but did not dare openly to oppose his election for fear of the people, he himself voluntarily resigned his office. But he did not avoid military service, but was created proconsul, and returning to Nola and his army he harassed those who had chosen the side of Hannibal. When the latter hastily marched to the assistance of his friends, and offered to [Pg 44]fight a pitched battle with Marcellus, he declined; but subsequently, when the greater part of the Carthaginian army was scattered in search of plunder, and no longer expecting an attack, he fell upon it. He had distributed long lances, such as are used on ship-board, among his infantry, and instructed them to watch their opportunity and hurl these from a distance at the Carthaginians, who had no javelin-men, and whose heavy spears were only used to thrust with at close quarters. In consequence, it seems, of this, all who engaged with the Romans that day turned their backs and shamefully fled, losing five thousand killed, six hundred prisoners; while of their elephants, four were killed and two taken alive. And, what was of the greatest importance of all, on the third day after the above battle, three hundred Spanish and Numidian cavalry deserted to the Romans, a thing which never had happened to Hannibal before, as, although his army was composed of so many different nations, he had been able for a very long time to inspire it with the same spirit. These men faithfully served Marcellus and the generals who succeeded him.

XIII

Marcellus, when elected consul for the third time, sailed to Sicily; for Hannibal’s successes in the war had encouraged the Carthaginians to recover that island, especially as Syracusan politics were in a disturbed state in consequence of the death of the despot Hieronymus; and on this account a Roman army under Appius had already been sent there. When Marcellus had taken the command of this army, he received a large accession of Roman soldiers, whose misfortune was as follows. Of the troops who fought with Hannibal at Cannæ, some fled, and some were taken alive, in such numbers that the Romans scarcely thought that they had left sufficient citizens to man the city walls, but this remnant was so full of pride and so great of soul, that, though Hannibal offered to release the captives for a small ransom, they would not take them, but refused by a decree of the Senate, and endured to see some of them put to death, and others sold out of Italy as slaves. The mass of those who had saved themselves by flight they sent to Sicily, with orders not to set foot on the soil of Italy until the war with [Pg 45]Hannibal was over. So when Marcellus went to Sicily, these men came in a body into his presence, and falling on the ground before him besought him to permit them to serve as honourable soldiers, promising with cries and tears that they would prove by their actions that it was more by their bad fortune than their cowardice that the defeat at Cannæ took place. Marcellus was touched with compassion, and wrote to the Senate asking to be allowed to fill up from these men the vacancies which would occur in the ranks of his army. Much discussion followed; and at last the Senate decreed that Rome did not require the services of cowardly citizens, but, if Marcellus nevertheless wished to make use of them, they must not receive any of the crowns and other rewards which are commonly bestowed by generals as the prizes of valour. This decree vexed Marcellus, and after the war in Sicily he returned to Rome and blamed the Senate that, in spite of all that he had done for them, they would not allow him to relieve so many citizens from such a miserable position.

XIV

In Sicily, at this time, he had just cause of complaint against Hippokrates the Syracusan general, who, favouring the Carthaginian side, and wishing to establish himself as despot, put to death many Romans at Leontini. Marcellus took Leontini by storm, and did no harm to the inhabitants, but flogged and executed all the deserters whom he found. Hippokrates first sent to Syracuse a story that Marcellus was exterminating the people of Leontini, and when this report had thrown the city into confusion he fell upon it and made himself master of it. Marcellus hereupon proceeded to Syracuse with his whole army, and encamping near the city sent ambassadors to tell them what had really happened in Leontini. By this, however, he gained nothing, as the Syracusans would not listen to him (for the party of Hippokrates was in the ascendant). He now attacked the city both by sea and land, Appius commanding the land forces, while Marcellus directed a fleet of sixty quinqueremes4 full of armed men and missile weapons. He raised a vast engine upon a raft made by lashing eight ships together, and sailed with it to attack the wall, trusting to the numbers and excellence [Pg 46]of his siege engines, and to his own personal prestige. But Archimedes and his machines cared nothing for this, though he did not speak of any of these engines as being constructed by serious labour, but as the mere holiday sports of a geometrician. He would not indeed have constructed them but at the earnest request of King Hiero, who entreated him to leave the abstract for the concrete, and to bring his ideas within the comprehension of the people by embodying them in tangible forms.

Eudoxus and Archytas were the first who began to treat of this renowned science of mechanics, cleverly illustrating it, and proving such problems as were hard to understand, by means of solid and actual instruments, as, for instance, both of them resorted to mechanical means to find a mean proportional, which is necessary for the solution of many other geometrical questions. This they did by the construction, from various curves and sections, of certain instruments called mesographs. Plato was much vexed at this, and inveighed against them for destroying the real excellence of geometry by making it leave the region of pure intellect and come within that of the senses, and become mixed up with bodies which require much base servile labour. So mechanics became separated from geometry, and, long regarded with contempt by philosophy, was reckoned among the military arts. However Archimedes, who was a relative and friend of Hiero, wrote that with a given power he could move any given weight whatever, and, as it were rejoicing in the strength of his demonstration, he is said to have declared that if he were given another world to stand upon, he could move this upon which we live. Hiero wondered at this, and begged him to put this theory into practice, and show him something great moved by a small force. Archimedes took a three-masted ship, a transport in the king’s navy, which had just been dragged up on land with great labour and many men; in this he placed her usual complement of men and cargo, and then sitting at some distance, without any trouble, by gently pulling with his hand the end of a system of pullies, he dragged it towards him with as smooth and even a motion as if it were passing over the sea. The king wondered greatly at this, and [Pg 47]perceiving the value of his arts, prevailed upon Archimedes to construct for him a number of machines, some for the attack and some for the defence of a city, of which he himself did not make use, as he spent most of his life in unwarlike and literary leisure, but now these engines were ready for use in Syracuse, and also, the inventor was present to direct their working.

XV

So when the Romans attacked by sea and land at once, the Syracusans were at first terrified and silent, dreading that nothing could resist such an armament. But Archimedes opened fire from his machines, throwing upon the land forces all manner of darts and great stones, with an incredible noise and violence, which no man could withstand; but those upon whom they fell were struck down in heaps, and their ranks thrown into confusion, while some of the ships were suddenly seized by iron hooks, and by a counter-balancing weight were drawn up and then plunged to the bottom. Others they caught by irons like hands or claws suspended from cranes, and first pulled them up by their bows till they stood upright upon their sterns, and then cast down into the water, or by means of windlasses and tackles worked inside the city, dashed them against the cliffs and rocks at the base of the walls, with terrible destruction to their crews. Often was seen the fearful sight of a ship lifted out of the sea into the air, swaying and balancing about, until the men were all thrown out or overwhelmed with stones from slings, when the empty vessel would either be dashed against the fortifications, or dropped into the sea by the claws being let go. The great engine which Marcellus was bringing up on the raft, called the Harp, from some resemblance to that instrument, was, while still at a distance, struck by a stone of ten talents weight, and then another and another, which fell with a terrible crash, breaking the platform on which the machine stood, loosening its bolts, and tearing asunder the hulks which supported it. Marcellus, despairing of success, drew off his ships as fast as possible, and sent orders to the land forces to retreat. In a council of war, it was determined to make another assault by night; for they argued that the straining cords which Archimedes used to propel his missiles required a long distance to work [Pg 48]in, and would make the shot fly over them at close quarters, and be practically useless, as they required a long stroke. But he, it appears, had long before prepared engines suited for short as well as long distances, and short darts to use in them; and from many small loop-holes pierced through the wall small scorpions, as they are called, stood ready to shoot the enemy, though invisible to them.

XVI

When then they attacked, expecting that they would not be seen, they again encountered a storm of blows from stones which fell perpendicularly upon their heads and darts which were poured from all parts of the wall. They were forced to retire, and when they came within range of the larger machines missiles were showered upon them as they retreated, destroying many men and throwing the ships into great disorder, without their being able to retaliate. For most of the engines on the walls had been devised by Archimedes, and the Romans thought that they were fighting against gods and not men, as destruction fell upon them from invisible hands.

XVII

However, Marcellus escaped unhurt, and sarcastically said to his own engineers: “Are we to give in to this Briareus of a geometrician, who sits at his ease by the seashore and plays at upsetting our ships, to our lasting disgrace, and surpasses the hundred-handed giant of fable by hurling so many weapons at us at once?” For indeed all the other Syracusans were merely the limbs of Archimedes, and his mind alone directed and guided everything. All other arms were laid aside and the city trusted to his weapons solely for defence and safety. At length Marcellus, seeing that the Romans had become so scared that if only a rope or small beam were seen over the wall they would turn and fly, crying out that Archimedes was bringing some engine to bear upon them, ceased assaulting the place, and trusted to time alone to reduce it. Yet Archimedes had so great a mind and such immense philosophic speculations that although by inventing these engines he had acquired the glory of a more than human intellect, he would not condescend to leave behind him any writings upon the subject, regarding [Pg 49]the whole business of mechanics and the useful arts as base and vulgar, but placed his whole study and delight in those speculations in which absolute beauty and excellence appear unhampered by the necessities of life, and argument is made to soar above its subject matter, since by the latter only bulk and outward appearance, but by the other accuracy of reasoning and wondrous power, can be attained: for it is impossible in the whole science of geometry to find more difficult hypotheses explained on clearer or more simple principles than in his works. Some attribute this to his natural genius, others say that his indefatigable industry made his work seem as though it had been done without labour, though it cost much. For no man by himself could find out the solution of his problems, but as he reads, he begins to think that he could have discovered it himself, by so smooth and easy a road does he lead one up to the point to be proved. One cannot therefore disbelieve the stories which are told of him: how he seemed ever bewitched by the song of some indwelling syren of his own so as to forget to eat his food, and to neglect his person, and how, when dragged forcibly to the baths and perfumers, he would draw geometrical figures with the ashes on the hearth, and when his body was anointed would trace lines on it with his finger, absolutely possessed and inspired by the joy he felt in his art. He discovered many beautiful problems, and is said to have begged his relatives and friends to place upon his tomb when he died a cylinder enclosing a sphere, and to write on it the proof of the ratio of the containing solid to the contained.

XVIII

Such was Archimedes, who at this time rendered himself, and as far as lay in him, the city, invincible.

During the blockade Marcellus took Megara, one of the most ancient of the Greek cities in Sicily, and also captured Hippokrates’ camp at Acrillæ, with a destruction of more than eight thousand of his men, attacking them just as they were planting the palisades of the rampart. He overran a great part of Sicily, induced cities to revolt from Carthage, and beat all forces that opposed him. As time went on, he took prisoner one Damippus, a Spartan, [Pg 50]as he was sailing out of the harbour of Syracuse. The Syracusans desired to ransom this man, and Marcellus, in the course of many negotiations and conferences about him, noticed that a certain tower was carelessly guarded, and that men might be introduced into it secretly, as the wall near it was easy to climb. Having, from his frequent journeys to confer with the besieged near this tower, gained a good idea of its height, he prepared scaling-ladders, and waited till the Syracusans were engaged in celebrating the feast of Artemis, and given up to drinking and amusement. Not only did he gain the tower unobserved, but was able to occupy the whole circuit of wall with his troops, and to break into the Hexapylon.5 When the Syracusans began to discover their position and muster for their defence, he ordered trumpets to sound on all sides, which produced great terror and tumult, as they imagined that no part of the walls remained untaken. Yet the strongest, and that too the largest and finest part of the city, was still left, called Achradina, because it is fortified on the side near the outer town, part of which is called Neapolis, and part Tyche.

XIX

These parts of the city were captured, and at daybreak Marcellus moved down through the Hexapylon, amidst the congratulations of his officers. It is said that when, from the high ground he surveyed that great and fair city, he burst into tears, thinking how sadly it would soon be changed in appearance when sacked by his soldiers. For none of his officers dared to oppose the soldiers when they demanded the privilege of plunder, and many encouraged them to burn and destroy. But Marcellus would not so much as entertain the idea of this, but, much against his will, was forced to permit them to carry off the movable property and slaves, though he forbade them to touch freemen, and gave strict orders that none of the citizens of Syracuse should be slain, dishonoured, or enslaved. Yet even after moderating their license to this extent he thought that the city was sadly ill-treated, and even in such a moment of triumph he showed great sorrow and sympathy for it, as he saw such great wealth and comfort swept away in a few hours; for the treasure was [Pg 51]said to be not less than that which was afterwards taken in Carthage itself. The rest of the city was taken after a short time by treachery, and the soldiers insisted upon plundering it, with the exception of the royal treasury, which was confiscated to the state.

Marcellus was especially grieved at the fate of Archimedes. He was studying something by himself upon a figure which he had drawn, to which he had so utterly given up his thoughts and his sight that he did not notice the assault of the Romans and the capture of the city, and when a soldier suddenly appeared before him and ordered him to follow him into the presence of Marcellus, he refused to do so before he had finished his problem and its solution. The man hereupon in a rage drew his sword and killed him. Others say that the Roman fell upon him at once with a sword to kill him, but he, seeing him, begged him to wait for a little while, that he might not leave his theorem imperfect, and that while he was reflecting upon it, he was slain. A third story is that as he was carrying into Marcellus’s presence his mathematical instruments, sundials, spheres, and quadrants, by which the eye might measure the magnitude of the sun, some soldiers met with him, and supposing that there was gold in the boxes, slew him. But all agree that Marcellus was much grieved, that he turned away from his murderer as though he were an object of abhorrence to gods and men, and that he sought out his family and treated them well.

XX

The Romans up to this time had given foreign nations great proofs of their skill in war and their courage in battle, but had not shown any evidences of kindness of heart, clemency, or any social virtue. Marcellus seems to have been the first who exhibited the Romans in a more amiable light to the Greeks. For he so dealt with his adversaries, and treated so many individuals and cities with kindness that even if any harsh treatment did befall Enna, or Megara, or Syracuse, it was thought to be more by the fault of the vanquished than of the victors. I will mention one instance out of many. There is a city in Sicily called Engyion, of no great size, but very ancient, and renowned for the appearance there of the goddesses called ‘Mothers.’ The foundation of the temple is ascribed [Pg 52]to the Cretans, and they used to show certain lances and helmets inscribed, some with the name of Meriones, some of Ulixes, that is, Odysseus, which were dedicated to these goddesses. This city was eager to espouse the Carthaginian side, but was prevailed upon by one Nikias, the leading man of the city, to join the Romans, by freely speaking his mind in the public assembly and proving that his opponents did not consult the true interests of the state. These men, fearing his power and high reputation, determined to kidnap him, and deliver him up to the Carthaginians. Nikias, discovering this plot, quietly took measures for his own security, but publicly made unseemly speeches about the “Mothers,” and spoke of the received tradition of their appearance with doubt and contempt, to the delight of his enemies, as he seemed to be by these actions justifying the treatment which they meant to inflict upon him. When all their preparations for seizing him were complete there was a public assembly of the citizens, and Nikias, in the midst of a speech upon state policy, suddenly fell to the ground, and after a short time, as all men were, naturally, silent with surprise, he raised his head, and turning it round he began to speak in deep and trembling tones, which he gradually made shriller and more intense, until, seeing the whole theatre, where the meeting was, silent with horror, he threw off his cloak, tore his tunic, and, half naked, rushed to the gate of the theatre, crying out that he was pursued by the “Mothers.” As no one dared to touch or stop him, from fear of the gods, but all made way for him, he passed out of the city gate, not omitting any of the cries and trembling of body of a person under demoniacal possession. His wife, who was in the secret, and her husband’s confederate, first brought her children and prostrated herself as a suppliant before the goddesses, and then under pretence of seeking her wandering husband managed to leave the city without opposition. Thus they safely reached Marcellus at Syracuse; and when, after enduring many affronts and insolent proceeding from the people of Engyion Marcellus took them all prisoners, and imprisoned them, meaning to put them all to death, Nikias at first stood by weeping, but at length, embracing Marcellus as a suppliant, he begged for [Pg 53]the lives of his countrymen, beginning with his own personal enemies, until he relented, and set them all at liberty. Nor did he touch their city, but gave Nikias ample lands and rich presents. This story is told by Poseidonius the philosopher.

XXI

When the Romans recalled Marcellus, to conduct the war in their own country, he removed most of the beautiful ornaments of the city of Syracuse, to be admired at his triumphal procession, and to adorn Rome. For at that time Rome neither possessed nor knew of any works of art, nor had she any delicacy of taste in such matters. Filled with the blood-stained arms and spoils of barbarians, and crowded with trophies of war and memorials of triumphs, she was no pleasant or delightful spectacle, fit to feed the eyes of unwarlike and luxurious spectators, but, as Epameinondas called the plain of Bœotia “the Stage of Ares,” and Xenophon called Ephesus “the Workshop of War,” so, in my opinion, you might call Rome at that time, in the words of Pindar, “the Domain of Ares, who revels in war.” Wherefore Marcellus gained the greater credit with the vulgar, because he enriched the city with statues possessing the Hellenic grace and truth to nature, while Fabius Maximus was more esteemed by the elders. He neither touched nor removed anything of the kind from the city of Tarentum, which he took, but carried off all the money and other property, and let the statues remain, quoting the proverb: “Let us,” said he, “leave the Tarentines their angry gods.” They blamed Marcellus’s proceedings as being invidious for Rome, because he had led not only men, but also gods as captives in his triumph, and also because the people, who before this were accustomed either to fight or to till the ground, and were ignorant of luxury and indolent pleasures, like the Herakles of Euripides,

“Unpolished, rough, but skilled in useful arts,”

were made by Marcellus into idle, babbling connoisseurs of the fine arts, and wasted the greater part of the day in talk about them. He, however, prided himself upon this even before Greeks, saying that he had taught the ignorant Romans to prize and admire the glories of Greek art.

XXII

[Pg 54]Marcellus, whose enemies opposed his claim to a triumph, on the ground that the campaign in Sicily was not completely finished, and that he did not deserve a third triumph, so far gave way as to lead the greater triumphal procession as far as the Alban Mount, and only to enter the city in the lesser form which the Greeks call euan, and the Romans an ovation. The general conducts this, not, as in the triumph, riding in a chariot and four with a crown of laurel, and with trumpets sounding before him, but walking on foot in low shoes surrounded by flute players, and crowned with myrtle, so as to look unwarlike and joyous rather than terrible. And this is a great proof to me that in old times it was the manner and not the importance of the things achieved that settled the form of triumph. Those generals who had gained their point by battle and slaughter probably made their entry in that martial and terrible fashion, having, as is customary in lustrations of armies, crowned the men and wreathed their arms with abundance of laurel: whereas the generals who without an appeal to arms had settled matters satisfactorily by negotiation and persuasive eloquence, were given by custom this peaceful and festive entry into the city. For the flute is a peaceful instrument, and the myrtle is the favorite plant of Aphrodite, who above all the gods hates violence and war. This form of triumph is called ovation, not from the cry of “Evan,” as most people think, for the other also is accompanied with shouts and songs, but the word had been twisted by the Greeks into one that has a meaning in their language, and also they are convinced that some honour is paid to Dionysus in this ceremony, which God we name Evius and Thriambos. It is curious to observe that the great Laconian lawgiver arranged the sacrifices differently to those of Rome. In Sparta those ex-generals who have accomplished their purpose by persuasion or fraud sacrifice an ox, while those who have done it by battle offer a cock. For, though warlike to excess, they thought that a victory gained by clever negotiation was greater and more befitting human beings than one gained by force and courage. Which is to be preferred, I leave to my readers’ consideration.

XXIII

When Marcellus entered upon his fourth [Pg 55]consulship, his enemies induced the Syracusans to send a deputation to Rome, to complain loudly to the Senate of the cruel and unjust treatment which they had received from him. Marcellus chanced to be performing some sacrifice in the Capitol; so when the Syracusans came to the assembled Senate, begging for a hearing that justice might be done them, the other consul stopped them, feeling that Marcellus ought not to be attacked in his absence. But Marcellus as soon as he heard of it, came to the Senate-house, seated himself as consul, on the curule chair, and despatched business; then, when this was finished, he came down and placed himself as a private person in the place where men on their trial usually stood, and called on the Syracusans to prove their charges against him. They were abashed at his majestic confidence of demeanour, and he who had been invincible in arms seemed to them yet more terrible and unapproachable in his consular purple. Nevertheless, encouraged by the enemies of Marcellus, they began their impeachment, and pleaded their cause in a piteous fashion, their chief point being that they, who were friends and allies of the Romans, had been treated in a way in which many other generals had forborne to treat hostile cities. Marcellus answered that they had done the Romans much harm, for which they had received no punishment, except such as could not be prevented in war, because victorious soldiers cannot be restrained from sacking a town which they have won, and their city, he said, was taken because they had refused his frequent offers of terms of agreement. They could not urge that they had been forced into war by their despots, for they had themselves chosen those very despots with the intention of going to war. After both parties had been heard, the Syracusans, according to custom, left the Senate-house. Marcellus came out with them, leaving his colleague to preside over the assembly, and stood outside the doors, without altering his usual demeanour, either from fear of the result or anger against the Syracusans, but serenely awaiting the verdict of the Senate.

When the question was voted upon, and he was announced successful, the Syracusans prostrated themselves [Pg 56]before him, beseeching him with tears to put away his anger against themselves, and to show pity on the city, which was sensible to kindness, and would be grateful to him. Marcellus was touched by their appeal; he became reconciled to them, and was a constant benefactor to their city. He restored them their freedom, their laws, and what remained of their property, and the Senate confirmed his acts. In return for this, besides many other honours they passed a law that whenever Marcellus or any of his descendants should land in Sicily, the Syracusans should wear garlands of flowers and hold a festival with sacrifices to the gods.

XXIV

Next he proceeded against Hannibal; and whereas nearly all the other consuls and generals, after the disaster at Cannæ had thought of nothing but avoiding battles with him, and no one had dared to measure himself with him in the field, he adopted the opposite course, arguing that while they fancied that they were wearing out Hannibal’s army they did not perceive that Italy was being consumed by it. Fabius, he urged, thought too much of safety, and by his policy of waiting, Rome, already drooping under its burdens, would at the end of the war perish as well as Hannibal. He was, he said, like those timid surgeons who shrink from using decisive remedies, and who mistake the sinking strength of the patient for the abatement of disease. His first act was to take some important Samnite towns which had revolted. Here he found great stores of corn and money, and took three thousand of Hannibal’s soldiers who were there as garrison. Next, when Hannibal defeated and killed Cnæus Fulvius, the proconsul in Apulia, with a loss of eleven military tribunes and the greater part of his army, Marcellus sent despatches to Rome, bidding the citizens be of good courage, for he was already on the march, and would abate Hannibal’s exultation. Livy tells us that these despatches when read did not diminish the grief of the Romans, but added to their fear, as they reflected that the risk they were about to run was so much more serious than the defeat they had sustained, as Marcellus was superior to Fulvius.

According to his despatch, he instantly marched [Pg 57]against Hannibal into Lucania, and finding him entrenched on some strong hills near the city of Numistro, he himself encamped in the plain. On the following day he was the first to draw out his army in battle array. Hannibal descended from his position, and fought a great and well-contested battle, for it began at the third hour, and was scarcely over by dark, but without any decisive result. At daybreak he again led out his army and defied Hannibal to fight. But Hannibal retired; and Marcellus, after stripping the corpses of the enemy, and burying his own dead, pursued. His skill and good fortune were greatly admired in this campaign, as he did not fall into any of the numerous ambuscades which were prepared for him by Hannibal, and in all his skirmishes came off victorious. For this reason, as the comitia were impending, the Senate thought that it would be better to call the other consul away from Sicily than to recall Marcellus just as he was thoroughly engaged with Hannibal. When the other consul arrived, they bade him name Quintus Fulvius dictator. For a dictator is not chosen by the people or by the Senate, but one of the consuls or prætors comes forward publicly and names whom he pleases dictator. And this is the reason that the man so named is called dictator; for dicere in Latin means to name. But some think that the dictator is so called because he does not require any vote or show of hands, but on his own responsibility dictates his orders; indeed, the orders of magistrates which are called by the Greeks diatagmata, are called edicts by the Romans.

XXV

When Marcellus’s colleague came to Rome from Sicily, he wished to name another person dictator, and, that he might not be forced to act against his inclination, he sailed away by night back to Sicily. Under these circumstances the people nominated Quintus Fulvius dictator, and the Senate wrote to Marcellus bidding him vote for this person. He did so, confirming the choice of the people, and was himself elected proconsul for the following year. After a conference with Fabius Maximus, at which it was arranged that the latter should make an attempt on Tarentum, while Marcellus should constantly engage Hannibal and so prevent his affording the town any [Pg 58]assistance, he set out, and came upon Hannibal near Canusium. Hannibal frequently shifted his camp, and tried to avoid a battle, but Marcellus was not to be shaken off, and at length attacked his position, and by skirmishing provoked him to fight. Marcellus sustained his attack, and the battle was put an end to by night. Next morning his troops were again beheld under arms, so that Hannibal in great anxiety called together the Carthaginians and besought them to fight as they had never done before. “You see,” said he, “that even after our great victories, we cannot rest in peace, unless we drive away this fellow.” The armies met; and Marcellus seems to have lost the day by an unseasonable manœuvre. His right wing was suffering, and he ordered up one of the legions to support it; but this change produced confusion in the ranks, and gave the victory to the enemy, with a loss of two thousand seven hundred men to the Romans. Marcellus, after retiring to his fortified camp, called together his soldiers, and reproached them, saying that he saw before him the arms and bodies of many Romans, but not one true Roman. They begged forgiveness, but he answered that he could not forgive them when defeated, but would forgive them if victorious. On the morrow he said that he would renew the battle, in order that the Romans might hear of their victory before they heard of their defeat. After these words he gave orders that the troops which had given way should be supplied with rations of barley instead of corn; which had such an effect upon them, that although many were suffering from the hurts in the battle, yet, there was not one who did not suffer more from the reproaches of Marcellus than from his wounds.

XXVI

At daybreak the scarlet robe, the well known signal of battle, was displayed from the general’s tent. The disgraced troops, at their own request, were placed in the first rank; the rest of the army followed under their officers. Hannibal hearing of this exclaimed: “Hercules! What can one do with a man who knows not how to bear either good or bad fortune. This is the only general who, when victorious allows his foe no rest, and when defeated takes none himself. We shall always, it seems, have to be fighting this man, who is equally excited [Pg 59]to attack by his confidence when victor, and his shame when vanquished.”

In the battle the men on each side were fighting on equal terms, when Hannibal ordered his elephants to be brought into the front rank and to attack the Roman lines. Great tumult and disturbance was produced by this, but one of the tribunes, by name Flavius, seizing a standard, stood his ground, and struck the first elephant with the spiked end of the staff, till he forced him to turn back. He then attacked the next one, and those that followed. Marcellus, seeing this, ordered his cavalry to ride as fast as they could to the scene of the confusion and complete the rout of the enemy. They charged briskly and pursued the flying Carthaginians, cutting them down up to their very camp. Great havoc was wrought by the wounded elephants among them; and in all, over eight thousand are said to have perished. Of the Roman force three thousand were killed, and almost all the survivors were wounded, which circumstance enabled Hannibal to leave his camp by night unmolested, and remove himself from the neighbourhood of Marcellus; for Marcellus could not pursue, because of the number of wounded, but marched in a leisurely manner towards Campania, and passed the summer at Sinuessa, recruiting the health of his soldiers.

XXVII

Hannibal, after he had thus torn himself free from Marcellus, sent his army to plunder Italy as recklessly as though it were disbanded; and in Rome Marcellus was ill spoken of. His enemies induced Publius Bibulus, a clever and violent partisan, to attack him. This man frequently addressed assemblies of the people and urged them to transfer the command to another general, since “Marcellus,” he said, “after a little sparring with the enemy had gone to the hot baths to refresh himself as if after a gymnastic contest.” Marcellus, hearing of this, left the army in charge of his legates, and went to Rome to clear his reputation from these slanders; but, in consequence of them he found that he was to undergo a trial. A day was fixed; the people assembled in the Circus Flaminius; Bibulus rose and impeached him. Marcellus spoke shortly and simply in his own defence, but the highest and noblest citizens spoke at great length in his praise, [Pg 60]calling on the people not to show themselves by their vote worse judges of war than Hannibal, who was always as eager to avoid fighting with Marcellus, as he was to fight with other generals. After these speeches had been delivered the accuser was proved to be so far wrong in his impeachment, that Marcellus was not only honourably acquitted, but actually elected consul for the fifth time.

XXVIII

On assuming his office, he first put down an insurrectionary movement in Etruria, by visiting the various towns and using conciliatory language; after this, he wished to consecrate a temple, which he had built out of the spoils of Sicily, to Glory and Valour, but being prevented by the priests on the ground that two gods could not be included in one temple, he began to build another one, being very much vexed at the opposition he encountered, but influenced by omens: for he was disturbed at this time by many portentous occurrences, such as several temples being struck by lightning, and the gold in the temple of Jupiter being gnawed by the mice. It was also reported that an ox had spoken with a human voice, and that a child had been born with the head of an elephant—so the priests kept him in Rome to conduct the expiatory rites and atonements for these, though he was fretting and eager to take the field; for no man ever was so passionately desirous of anything as he was to measure himself with Hannibal in battle. His one dream by night, his only talk to his friends and colleagues, his sole prayer to the gods was that he might meet Hannibal in a fair field. I believe that he would most willingly have enclosed both armies within a wall or palisade, and there have fought out the quarrel. Had it not been that he was now loaded with honours, and had given proofs of his superiority in wisdom and conduct to any other general, men would have said that he showed a more boyish ambition than befitted a man of his age; for he was over sixty years old when he entered upon his fifth consulship.

XXIX

However, when he had completed the necessary sacrifices and purifications enjoined by the soothsayers, he took the field with his colleague, and harassed Hannibal much in the country between the towns of Bantia and Venusia. Hannibal declined battle, but, learning that a [Pg 61]force was detached from the Roman army to attack the Epizephyrian Lokrians, he laid an ambuscade on the mountain near Petelia, and defeated them with a loss of two thousand five hundred men. This excited Marcellus, and he led his forces nearer to those of Hannibal. There was between the two camps a hill of some strength as a military post, overgrown with wood. Its sloping sides afforded a view of either camp, and upon them appeared the sources of several mountain streams.

The Romans were surprised at Hannibal, that, having had the first choice of so excellent a position as this, he had not occupied it, but left it to the enemy. It seems that he indeed thought it a good place to encamp in, but much better to lay an ambuscade in; and, wishing to use it rather for this purpose, he filled the woods and glens with javelin-men and spearmen, persuaded that the place itself would, from its excellent qualities, attract the Romans into it. Nor was he deceived in this expectation; for at once there was much talk in the Roman army about the necessity of occupying the hill, and men pointed out the advantages which would be gained over the enemy by encamping on it, or if necessary, by fortifying it. Now Marcellus determined to ride forward with a few horsemen and reconnoitre it, so he sent for a soothsayer and offered sacrifice. When the first victim was slain, the soothsayer showed him that the liver had no head. On sacrificing for the second time the head appeared of unusual size, while all the other organs were excellent, and this seemed to set at rest the fear which had been caused by the former. Yet the soothsayers said that they were even more disturbed and alarmed at this; for when after very bad and menacing victims unusually excellent ones appear, the sudden change is itself suspicious. But

“Not fire, not walls of iron can hinder fate,”

as Pindar says. Marcellus rode forth with his colleague Crispinus and his son, who was military tribune, in all two hundred and twenty horsemen. Of these none were Romans; they were Etruscans, with the exception of twenty men from Fregellæ, who had given constant proofs of their courage and devotion to Marcellus. On the overhanging [Pg 62]crest of the woody hill, a man, unseen by the Romans, was watching their army. He signalled to the men in ambush what was going on, so that they permitted Marcellus to ride close to them, and then suddenly burst out upon him, and surrounding his little force on all sides, struck and threw their darts, pursued such as ran away, and fought with those who stood their ground. These were the twenty Fregellans. The Etruscans at the outset ran away panic-stricken; but these men forming together defended the consuls until Crispinus, struck by two darts, galloped away, and Marcellus was pierced through the side with a lance. Then even the few survivors of the Fregellans left him lying there, and snatching up his son, who was wounded, made their way back to the camp. The loss amounted to little over forty killed, and five lictors and eighteen horsemen taken. Crispinus, after a few days, died of his wounds. Such a misfortune as this, losing both consuls in one battle, never before befel the Romans.

XXX

Hannibal heard of the fate of all the rest with indifference, but when he was told that Marcellus had fallen he himself hastened to the place, and stood for a long time beside the corpse, admiring its strength and beauty. He made no boastful speech, and showed no joy in his countenance, as a man who had slain a troublesome and dangerous enemy, but, wondering at the strangeness of his ending, he drew the ring from the dead man’s finger, and had the corpse decently attired and burned. The relics he gathered into a silver urn, upon which he placed a golden crown, and sent it to Marcellus’s son. But on the way some Numidians fell in with the party who were escorting the urn, and while they tried to take it away and the others struggled to retain it, the bones were scattered on the ground. Hannibal, on hearing of this, said, “Nothing can be done against the will of heaven.” He ordered the Numidians to be punished, but took no further thought about collecting or sending away the relics of Marcellus, concluding that some god had decreed the strange death and strange lack of burial which had befallen him. This is the story related by Cornelius Nepos and Valerius Maximus, but Livy and Augustus Cæsar declare that the urn was brought to his son, and [Pg 63]that it was splendidly buried. Besides his monuments at Rome there was a gymnasium at Katana in Sicily which bore his name, and statues and votive tablets from the plunder of Syracuse were set tip in Samothrace in the temple of the gods called Kabeiri, and in Lindus (in Rhodes) in the temple of Athena.

On his statue there, according to Poseidonius, these verses are written:

“This monument, O stranger, doth enshrine

Marcellus, of the famous Claudian line,

Who seven times was consul, and in fight

His country’s foes o’erthrew and put to flight.”

For the writer of this epitaph counted his two proconsulates as well as his five consulates. His family remained one of the chief in Rome down to the time of Marcellus, the nephew of Augustus, who was the son of Octavia, Augustus’s sister, and Caius Marcellus. He died in the office of ædile while yet a bridegroom, having just married Augustus’s daughter Julia. In honour of his memory his mother Octavia established a library, and Augustus built a theatre, both of which bore his name.

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 [Pg 65]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 [Pg 66]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.

[Pg 67]

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 medimni1 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 [Pg 68]latter exhibited a cyclic2 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 [Pg 69]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 [Pg 70]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.3 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;

“Not just to seem, but just he loves to be;

And deep he ploughs his noble mind with thought,

To reap a harvest thence of great designs,”

all men turned and looked towards Aristeides, thinking that he came nearest to this ideal virtue.

IV

He stood up vigorously for justice, not merely when it was his interest and that of his friends, but when it was in favour of his enemies and contrary to his own personal feelings to do so. It is said that once when arguing a cause against one of his enemies in a court of law, the judges refused to hear the other party speak in his own defence, after listening to the speech of Aristeides, but were about to condemn him unheard. At this Aristeides came forward and vigorously supported his antagonist’s claim to be allowed his legal right of [Pg 71]reply. Again, when acting as arbitrator between two persons, one of them said that his adversary had done much wrong to Aristeides. “My good man,” said he, “do not tell me of this, but tell me whether he has wronged you or not, for I am judging your cause, not my own.”

When elected to administer the revenues of the state he proved that not only his own colleagues, but those who had previously held office, had embezzled large sums, especially Themistokles,

“A clever man, but with an itching palm.”

For this cause Themistokles, when Aristeides’ accounts were audited, prosecuted him on a charge of malversation, and, according to Idomeneus, obtained a verdict.

However, the better class of citizens being grieved at this, not only remitted the fine, but at once elected him to the same office. He now pretended to regret his former rigour, and was much more remiss in performing his duties, which rendered him very popular with those who were in the habit of embezzling the public money, so that they were loud in his praise, and canvassed the people on his behalf, trusting that he might be re-elected archon. But when the voting was about to begin, he rose and rebuked the Athenians. “When,” he said, “I did you true and honourable service, I was disgraced by you; now, when I have permitted much of the public money to be stolen, I am thought to be an excellent citizen. But I myself am more ashamed of the honour which you now pay me, than I am of my former conviction, and I am sorry for you, because among you it is esteemed more honourable to abet evil-doers than to guard the national property.”

By speaking thus and exposing the peculation which was being practised, he closed the mouths of all those who were so loudly commending him as an honest man, but gained the applause of all true and honourable men.

V

When Datis was sent by Darius, nominally to punish the Athenians for the burning of Sardis, but really to enslave the whole of Greece, he landed at Marathon, and commenced laying waste the country. Of the ten generals appointed by the Athenians for the conduct of the war, [Pg 72]Miltiades had the highest reputation, while Aristeides held the second place. He used his influence in the council of war to support the proposition of Miltiades to fight the enemy at once, and also, as each general had sole command for one day, when his day came round, he gave it to Miltiades, thus teaching his colleagues that obedience to those who know how to command is not any disgrace, but a noble and useful act. By this means he was enabled to put an end to the rivalries between the generals, and to strengthen Miltiades by concentrating in him the power which had before been passed from hand to hand. In the battle the Athenian centre was hard pressed, as the Persians resisted longest in that part of their line which was opposed to the tribes Leontis and Antiochis. Here Themistokles and Aristeides each showed conspicuous valour, fighting side by side, for the former was of the tribe Leontis, the latter of the tribe Antiochis. After the victory was won, and the Persians forced into their ships, they were observed not to sail towards the Archipelago, but to be proceeding in the direction of Athens. Fearing that they might catch the city defenceless, the Athenians determined to hurry back with nine tribes to protect it, and they accomplished their march in one day. Aristeides, with his own tribe, was left to guard the prisoners and the plunder, and well maintained his reputation. Although gold and silver was lying about in heaps, with all kinds of rich tapestry and other countless treasures, he would neither touch them himself nor allow the others to do so, though some helped themselves without his knowledge. Among these was Kallias, the torch-bearer in the Eleusinian mysteries. One of the prisoners, taking him for a king because of his long hair and fillet, fell on his knees before him, and having received his hand as a pledge for his safety pointed out to him a great store of gold concealed in a pit. Kallias now acted most cruelly and wickedly. He took the gold, and killed the poor man for fear that he should tell it to the others. It is said that ever afterwards the descendants of Kallias were jeered at by the comic poets, as being of the family of the man who found the gold in the pit.

Immediately after those events, Aristeides was chosen as Archon Eponymus, that is, the archon who gives his [Pg 73]name to the year. Demetrius of Phalerum says that he filled this office shortly before his death, and after the battle of Platæa. But in the public records of Athens one cannot find any archon of the name of Aristeides among the many who filled the office after Xanthippides, in whose archonship Mardonius was defeated at Platæa, whereas the name of Aristeides does occur next to that of Phanippus, in whose archonship the victory at Marathon was won.

VI

Of all the virtues of Aristeides his justice was that which chiefly commended itself to the people, being that which is of most value in ordinary life. Hence it was that he, although a poor man of mean birth, yet gained for himself the truly imperial title of the Just; a title which has never been emulated by kings and despots, who delight in being called the City-taker, the Thunderbolt, or the Victorious, while some are known as the Eagle or the Hawk, because apparently they prefer strength and lawless violence to justice and goodness. Yet for all this, the gods, to whom they so presumptuously liken themselves, excel mankind chiefly in three attributes, namely in immortality, in power, and in goodness, whereof goodness is by far the most glorious and divine quality. Mere empty space, and all the elements possess immortality, while earthquakes, thunderbolts, violent winds and rushing waters have great power, but justice and equity belong to the gods alone, because of the reason and intelligence which they possess. Now most men regard the gods with admiration, with fear, and with reverence; with admiration, because they are eternal and unchangeable; with fear, because of their power and dominion, with reverence and love because of their justice. Yet men covet immortality, which no flesh can attain to; and also power, which depends mostly upon fortune; while they disregard virtue, the only godlike attribute which it is in our power to obtain; not reflecting that when a man is in a position of great power and authority he will appear like a god if he acts justly, and like a wild beast if he does not.

VII

The character of Aristeides for justice at first made him beloved by the people, but afterwards it gained him their ill-will, chiefly because Themistokles circulated reports that Aristeides had practically closed the public courts of [Pg 74]justice by the fact of all cases being referred to him as arbitrator, and that he was virtually king of Athens, although he had not yet surrounded himself with a body-guard. By this time too the common people, elated with their victory at Marathon, and thinking themselves capable of the greatest exploits, were ill pleased at any private citizen being exalted above the rest by his character and virtues. They flocked into the city from all parts of the country and ostracised Aristeides, veiling their envy of his glory under the pretence that they feared he would make himself king. This custom of ostracism was not intended as a punishment for crime, but was called, in order to give it a plausible title, a check to excessive power. In reality, it was nothing more than a safety-valve, providing a vent for the dislike felt by the people for those whose greatness offended them. It did no irreparable injury to those who fell under its operation, but only banished them for a space of ten years. In later times mean and contemptible persons were subjected to ostracism, until at last, after the ostracism of Hyperbolus the practice was discontinued. The ostracism of Hyperbolus is said to have been brought about in the following manner. Alkibiades and Nikias, the two most powerful citizens in the state, were at the head of two rival parties. The people determined to apply the ostracism to them, and would certainly have banished one or the other of them. They, however, came to terms with one another, combined their several factions, and agreed to have Hyperbolus banished. The people, enraged at this, and thinking that they had been treated with contempt, abolished the practice of ostracism. The way in which it was conducted was as follows. Each man took an oyster-shell, wrote upon it the name of the citizen whom he wished to be banished, and then carried it to a place in the market-place which was fenced off with palings. The archons now first of all counted the whole number of shells; for if the whole number of voters were less than six thousand, the ostracism was null and void. After this, they counted the number of times each name occurred, and that man against whom most votes were recorded they sent into exile for ten years, allowing him the use of his property during that time. Now while the shells were being written upon, on the [Pg 75]occasion of which we have been speaking, a very ignorant country fellow is said to have brought his shell to Aristeides, who was one of the bystanders, and to have asked him to write upon it the name of Aristeides. Aristeides was surprised, and asked him whether Aristeides had ever done him any harm. “No,” answered the man, “nor do I know him by sight, but I am tired of always hearing him called ‘The Just.’” When Aristeides heard this he made no answer, but wrote his name on the man’s shell and gave it back to him. When he was leaving the city he raised his hands to heaven, and prayed exactly the opposite prayer to that of Achilles, that no crisis might befall the Athenians which would compel them to remember Aristeides.

VIII

However, three years afterwards, when Xerxes was advancing upon Attica through Thessaly and Bœotia, the Athenians annulled their decree, and permitted all exiles to return, being especially afraid of Aristeides, lest he should join the enemy and lead many of the citizens to desert with him. In this they took a very false view of his character, for even before this decree he had never ceased to encourage the Greeks to defend their liberty, and after his return, when Themistokles was in sole command of the forces of Athens, he assisted him in every way by word and deed, cheerfully raising his bitterest enemy to the highest position in the state, because the state was benefited thereby.

When Eurybiades and his party were meditating a retreat from Salamis, the Persian ships put to sea at night and hemmed them in, surrounding both the strait and the islands. No one knew that escape was impossible, but Aristeides sailed from Ægina, passed safely through the enemy’s fleet by a miracle, and while it was still night proceeded straight to the tent of Themistokles. Here he called him out, and when they were alone together, he said: “We two, Themistokles, if we are wise, must cease our vain and silly rivalry with one another, and begin a more generous contest to preserve our country, you acting as general and chief, while I help and advise you. Already I perceive that you alone take a right view of the crisis, end desire to fight a battle in the narrow waters as quickly as possible. Now, while your allies have been [Pg 76]opposing you, the enemy have been playing your game, for the sea, both in our front and rear, is full of their ships, so that the Greeks even against their will must play the man and fight; for no way of escape is left for them.” To this Themistokles answered, “I would not willingly, Aristeides, be overcome by you in generosity on this occasion; and I shall endeavour, in emulation of this good beginning which you have made, to surpass it by the glory of my exploits.” At the same time he explained the trick4 which he had played on the barbarian, and begged Aristeides to argue with Eurybiades, and point out how impossible it was for the Greeks to be saved without fighting; for he thought that the opinion of Aristeides would have more weight than his own. Consequently, when in the assembly of the generals Kleokritus the Corinthian attacked Themistokles, and said that even Aristeides did not approve of his plans, because he was present and said nothing, Aristeides answered that he would not have been silent if Themistokles had not spoken to the purpose, but that as it was he held his peace, not for any love he bore him, but because his counsel was the best.

IX

While the Greek admirals were engaged in these discussions, Aristeides, perceiving that Psyttaleia, a small island in the straits near Salamis, was full of the enemy, placed some of the boldest Athenians on board of small boats, attacked the Persians, and slew them to a man, except a few of the chiefs, who wore taken alive. Among these were the three children of Sandauke the sister of the Persian king, whom he at once sent to Themistokles, and it is said that in accordance with some oracle they were sacrificed to Dionysus Omestes,5 at the instance of the prophet Euphrantides. Aristeides now lined the shores of the islet with soldiers, ready to receive any vessel which might be cast upon it, in order that neither any of his friends might be lost, nor any of the enemy take refuge upon it. Indeed, the severest encounter between the two fleets and the main shock of the battle seems [Pg 77]to have taken place at that spot; wherefore the trophy that marks the victory stands on the isle of Psyttaleia.

After the battle was won, Themistokles, wishing to feel Aristeides’s opinion, said to him that they had done a good work, but that a greater one remained, which was to shut up Asia in Europe by sailing as quickly as possible to the Hellespont, and destroying the bridge of boats there. Aristeides answered that he must never propose such a plan, but must take measures to drive the Persians out of Greece as quickly as possible, for fear that so great a multitude, shut up there without the means of retreat, should turn to bay and attack them with the courage of despair. Upon this, Themistokles again sent the eunuch Arnakes, a prisoner, on a secret errand to tell the Persian king that when all the Greeks wished to sail to the Hellespont and destroy the bridge of boats, he had dissuaded them from doing so, wishing to save the king’s life.

X

At this Xerxes became terrified, and at once hurried back to the Hellespont. Mardonius, with about three hundred thousand of the best troops remained behind, and was a formidable enemy, trusting in his land force, and sending defiant proclamations to the Greeks. “You,” he said, “with your ships have beaten landsmen that knew not how to handle an oar; but the land of Thessaly is wide, and the plain of Bœotia is a fair place for good horsemen and heavy armed soldiers to fight upon.”

To the Athenians he sent privately proposals from the Great King, who offered to rebuild their city, present them with a large sum of money, and make them lords over all Greece, if they would desist from the war. The Lacedæmonians, hearing this, were much alarmed, and sent ambassadors to beg the Athenians to send their wives and children to Sparta, and offering to support their old people, as the Athenians were in great distress for food, having lost their city and their country. However, after listening to the Lacedæmonian ambassadors, at the instance of Aristeides they returned a spirited answer, saying that they could forgive their enemies, who knew no better, for supposing that everything could be bought with money, but that they were angry with the Lacedæmonians for only regarding the present poverty and distress of the [Pg 78]Athenians, and that forgetting how bravely they had fought, they should now offer them food to bribe them to fight for Greece. Having passed this motion Aristeides called the ambassadors back into the assembly, and bade them tell the Lacedæmonians that there was not as much gold in the world, either above or under-ground, as the Athenians would require to tempt them to betray Greece.

In answer to the herald sent from Mardonius he pointed to the sun, and said: “As long as yonder sun shall continue its course the Athenians will be enemies to the Persians, because of their ravaged lands and desecrated temples.” Further, he made the priests imprecate curses on any one who had dealings with the Persians or deserted the Greek cause.

When Mardonius invaded Attica a second time, the Athenians again took refuge in Salamis. Aristeides was sent to Lacedæmon and upbraided the Spartans with their slowness and indifference, for allowing the enemy to take Athens a second time, and begged them to help what remained of Greece. The Ephors, on hearing this, pretended to pass the rest of the day in feasting and idleness, for it was the festival of the Hyacinthia; but at nightfall they chose five thousand Spartans, each attended by seven Helots, and sent them off without the knowledge of the Athenian embassy. So when Aristeides next day resumed his reproachful strain, they answered with mocking laughter, that he was talking nonsense and was asleep, for that the army was by this time at the tomb of Orestes in its march against the strangers6 (by strangers they meant the Persians). To this Aristeides answered that it was a sorry jest to have deceived their friends instead of their enemies. These particulars are related by Idomeneus, but in the decree of Aristeides for sending ambassadors it is not his name, but those of Kimon, Xanthippus, and Myronides that are mentioned.

XI

He was elected general with unlimited powers, and proceeded to Platæa with eight thousand Athenians. Here he was met by Pausanias, the commander-in-chief of the Greek forces, with the Spartan contingent, and the [Pg 79]rest of the Greek troops joined them there. The Persian army was encamped along the course of the river Asopus. On account of its enormous size it was not contained in a fortified camp, but a quadrangular wall was constructed round the baggage and most valuable material. Each side of this square was ten furlongs in length.

Tisamenus of Elis, the prophet, now told Pausanias and all the Greeks that they would win the victory if they stood on the defensive and did not attack. Aristeides sent to Delphi, and received a response from the oracle, that the Athenians would conquer if they prayed to Zeus, to Hera of Kithæron, and to Pan and the nymphs Sphragitides, and if they sacrificed to the heroes Androkrates, Leukon, Peisander, Damokrates, Hypsion, Aktaion, and Polyïdus, and if they would fight in their own territory, in the plain of Demeter of Eleusis and her daughter.

This oracle greatly disturbed Aristeides. The heroes to whom he was bidden to sacrifice are the original founders of the city of Platæa, and the cave of the nymphs called Sphragitides, is on one of the peaks of Kithæron, looking towards the point where the sun sets in summer. It is said that there was formerly an oracle there, and that many of the people became possessed, and were called “nympholeptæ.” But as to the plain of the Eleusinian Demeter, and the promise of victory to the Athenians if they fought in their own country, this meant no less than to recall them to Attica and forbid their taking any further part in the war. Whilst Aristeides was thus perplexed, Arimnestus, the general of the Platæans, saw a vision in his sleep. In his dreams he thought that Zeus the Preserver appeared and enquired of him what the Greeks had decided to do, and that he answered, “Lord, to-morrow we shall lead away the army to Eleusis, and fight the Persians there, according to the oracle.” Upon this the god answered, that they had missed the meaning of the oracle, for the places mentioned were near Platæa, where they themselves were encamped, and if they sought they would find them. Arimnestus, after this distinct vision, awoke. He at once sent for the oldest and most learned of the citizens of Platæa, and after debating the matter with them, discovered that near [Pg 80]Hysiæ, under Mount Kithæron, stood a very ancient temple, dedicated to the Eleusinian Demeter and her daughter. He immediately took Aristeides with him and proceeded to the spot, which was excellently placed for the array of an infantry force in the presence of an overwhelming cavalry, because the spurs of Mount Kithæron, where they run down into the plain by the temple, render the ground impassable for cavalry. Close by is the chapel of the hero Androkrates, in the midst of a thick matted grove of trees. In order, however, that the oracle might in no way be defective in its promise of victory, Arimnestus proposed, and the Platæans decreed, that the boundary marks of their territory on the side towards Attica should be removed, and the country given to the Athenians, so that they might fight in their own land for Greece, according to the oracle. This noble act of the Platæans became so famous in later times, that, many years afterwards, Alexander the Great himself, when he had conquered all Asia, caused the walls of Platæa to be rebuilt, and made proclamation at the Olympian games by a herald, “that the king bestowed this honour upon the Platæans in memory of their magnanimous conduct in giving up their territory, and venturing their lives on behalf of the Greeks in the Persian war.”

XII

A controversy arose between the Athenians and the men of Tegea about their respective places in the line of battle. The Tegeans argued that if the Lacedæmonians had the right wing, they ought to be posted on the left; and they spoke at great length about the achievements of their ancestors, as entitling them to that honour. The Athenians were vexed at their pretensions, but Aristeides said: “The present time is not suitable for disputing with the Tegeans about bravery; but to you, men of Sparta, and to the rest of the Greeks, we say that a particular post neither confers courage nor takes it away, but, that in whatever part of the line you may think fit to place us, we will endeavour so to array our ranks and fight the enemy as not to impair the honour which we have gained in former battles. We did not come hither to quarrel with our allies, but to fight the enemy; not to boast about our ancestors, but to fight bravely for Greece. [Pg 81]The coming struggle will clearly show to all the Greeks the real worth and value of each city, each general, and each single citizen.” When the council of generals heard this speech, they allowed the claim of the Athenians, and gave up the left wing to them.

XIII

While the cause of Greece was thus trembling in the balance, and Athens was especially in danger, certain Athenians of noble birth, who had lost their former wealth during the war, and with it their influence in the city, being unable to bear to see others exalted at their expense, met in secret in a house in Platæa and entered into a plot to overturn the free constitution of Athens. If they could not succeed in this, they pledged themselves to ruin, the city and betray it to the Persians. While these men were plotting in the camp, and bringing many over to their side, Aristeides discovered the whole conspiracy. Afraid at such a crisis to take any decisive step, he determined, while carefully watching the conspirators, yet not at once to seize them all, not knowing how far he might have to proceed if he acted according to strict justice. From all the conspirators he arrested eight. Two of these, who would have been the first to be put on their trial, Æschines of Lampra, and Agesias of Acharna, made their escape out of the camp, and Aristeides pardoned the others, as he wished to give an opportunity to those who believed themselves unsuspected, to take courage and repent. He also hinted to them that the war afforded them a means of clearing themselves from any suspicion of disloyalty by fighting for their country like good men and true.

XIV

After this, Mardonius made trial of Grecian courage, by sending the whole of his cavalry, in which he was much the stronger, to attack them where they were, all except the Megarians, encamped at the foot of Mount Kithæron, in an easily-defended rocky country. These men, three thousand in number, were encamped nearer the plain, and suffered much from the attacks of the horsemen, who surrounded them on all sides. They sent a messenger in great haste to Pausanias, begging him to send assistance, as they could not by themselves resist the great numbers of the barbarians. Pausanias, hearing this, [Pg 82]and seeing the camp of the Megarians overwhelmed with darts and arrows, while the defenders were huddled together in a narrow compass, knew not what to do. He did not venture to attack cavalry with the heavy-armed Lacedæmonian infantry, but offered it as an opportunity for winning praise and honour, to the generals who were with him, that they should volunteer to go to help the Megarians in their extremity. All hesitated, but Aristeides claimed the honour for the Athenians, and sent the bravest of his captains, Olympiodorus, with three hundred picked men, besides some archers. As they quickly got into array and charged at a run, Masistius, the leader of the enemy, a man of great bodily strength and beauty, seeing them, wheeled round his horse, and rode to attack them. They sustained his attack and closed with his horsemen, and a sharp struggle took place, both parties fighting as though the issue of the war depended on their exertions. The horse of Masistius was at length wounded by an arrow and threw his rider. Encumbered by his armour, Masistius was too heavy for his own men to carry him away, but also was protected by it from the stabs of the Athenians who fell upon him, for not only his head and breast, but his limbs also were protected by brass and iron. Some one, however, drove the spike at the lower end of his spear through the eye-hole of the helmet, and then the rest of the Persians abandoned the body and fled. The Greeks discovered the importance of their exploit, not from the number of the dead, for but few had fallen, but from the lamentations of the enemy. They cut off their own hair, and the manes of their horses and mules, in sign of mourning for Masistius, and filled the whole plain with weeping and wailing, having lost a man who for courage and high position, was second only to Mardonius himself.

XV

After this cavalry action, both the parties remained quiet for a long time, for the soothsayers foretold victory both to the Greeks and to the Persians if they fought in self-defence, but foretold defeat if they attacked. At length Mardonius, as he only had provisions for a few days longer, and as the Greek army kept growing stronger by the continual reinforcements which it received, deter[Pg 83]mined, sorely against his will, to delay no longer, but to cross the Asopus at daybreak and fall upon the Greeks unexpectedly. In the evening he gave orders to his captains to this effect. About midnight a solitary horseman rode up straight to the Greek camp. He bade the guard send for Aristeides the Athenian, who was at once brought, when the stranger spoke as follows:

“I am Alexander of Macedon, and I have come hither at the greatest risk to myself to do you a service, for fear you should be taken by surprise. Mardonius will attack to-morrow, not because he has any new hope of success, but because he is destitute of provisions, although the soothsayers all forbid him to fight because the sacrifices and oracles are unfavourable, and the army is disheartened. Thus he is forced to put all on a venture, or else to starve if he remains quiet.”

When he had said this, Alexander begged Aristeides to keep the secret to himself, and communicate it to no one else. Aristeides, however, answered that it would not be right for him to conceal it from Pausanias, who was commander-in-chief. Before the battle he said that he would keep it secret from every one else, but that if Greece was victorious, all men then should know the good service so bravely rendered by Alexander. After these words the king of Macedon rode away, and Aristeides, proceeding to the tent of Pausanias, told him the whole matter; they then sent for the other generals, and ordered them to keep the troops under arms, as a battle was expected.

XVI

At this time, Herodotus tells us, Pausanias asked Aristeides to remove the Athenians from the left to the right wing, so as to be opposite to the native Persian troops, on the ground that they would be better able to contend with them, because they understood their mode of fighting, and were confident because they had beaten them once before, while he with the Spartans would take the left wing of the army, where he would be opposed to those Greeks who had taken the Persian side. Most of the Athenian generals thought this a silly and insolent proceeding of Pausanias, that he should leave all the other Greeks in their place, and march them backwards and forward like helots, only to place them opposite the [Pg 84]bravest troops of the enemy. Aristeides, however, said that they were entirely mistaken, for a few days before they had been wrangling with the Tegeans for the honour of being posted on the left wing, and had been delighted when they obtained it; but now, when the Lacedæmonians of their own free will yielded the right wing to them, and in some sort offered them the post of honour in the whole army, they were not delighted at it, and did not consider what an advantage it was to have to fight against foreign barbarians, and not against men of their own race and nation. After these words, the Athenians cheerfully exchanged places with the Lacedæmonians, and much talk went on among them as each man reminded his comrades that the Persians who would come to attack them were no braver, nor better armed than those whom they had defeated at Marathon, but that they had the same bows and arrows, the same embroidered robes and gold ornaments on their effeminate bodies, while we, they said, have arms and bodies such as we had then, and greater confidence because of our victories. We also fight, not merely as other Greeks do, in defence of our city and territory, but for the trophies of Marathon and Salamis, lest the battle of Marathon should be thought to have been won more by Miltiades and Fortune, than by the valour of the Athenians. With such encouraging talk as this the Athenians took up their new position; but the Thebans discovered what had been done from deserters and told Mardonius. He at once, either from fear of the Athenians, or from a chivalrous wish to fight the Spartans himself, led the native Persian troops to his right wing, and ordered the renegade Greeks to take ground opposite the Athenians. When these changes were being observed, Pausanias returned to his original position on the right. Mardonius then returned to the left as before, and the day passed without an engagement. The Greeks now determined in a council of war, to remove their camp to a place farther away and better supplied with water, because they were prevented from using the springs near where they were by the enemy’s great superiority in cavalry.

XVII

When night fell the generals began to lead the army to the place selected for a new camp. The soldiers [Pg 85]were very unwilling to follow them thither and keep together in a body, but as soon as they quitted their first entrenchments, most of them made for the city of Platæa; and there was much confusion as they wandered about and pitched their tents here and there. The Lacedæmonians, much against their will, chanced to be left behind, and quite separated from the rest. One Amompharetus, a spirited and daring man, who had long been eager to fight, and chafed much at the long delays and countermarches which had taken place, now cried aloud that this change of position was no better than a cowardly flight. He refused to leave his post, and said that he and his company would stand where they were, and withstand Mardonius alone. When Pausanias came and assured him that the Greeks in council had decided upon this measure, Amompharetus heaved up a huge stone with both his hands and flinging it down at the feet of Pausanias, said, “With this pebble I give my vote for battle, and for disregarding the cowardly counsels of other Greeks.” Pausanias, not knowing what to do, sent to the Athenians, who were already on the march, begging them to wait and support them, while he set off with the rest of the Spartans in the direction of Platæa, hoping thus to make Amompharetus move.

While these movements were being executed day broke, and Mardonius, who had perceived that the Greeks were leaving their camp, at once marched in order of battle to attack the Lacedæmonians, the Persians shouting and clattering their arms as though they were not going to fight, but to destroy the Greeks as they retreated, which indeed they very nearly succeeded in doing; for Pausanias, when he saw what was taking place, halted his own men, and placed them in battle array, but either because of his anger at Amompharetus, or his excitement at the suddenness of the attack, forgot to send any orders to the main body of the Greeks.

For this reason they came up not in a regular body, but straggling, and after the Lacedæmonians wore already engaged. Pausanias was busy sacrificing to the gods, and as the sacrifices were unfavourable, he ordered the Lacedæmonians to hold their shields quietly rested on the [Pg 86]ground at their feet and await his orders, without attempting any resistance, while he sacrificed again. The enemy’s cavalry was now close at hand, their arrows reached the Lacedæmonians and killed several of them. It was at this moment that Kallikrates, the tallest and handsomest man in the whole Greek army, is said to have been mortally wounded by an arrow. When dying, he said that he did not lament his death, for he left his home meaning to lay down his life for Greece, but that he was grieved that he had never exchanged blows with the enemy before he died. At this time the Lacedæmonians were offering no resistance to the assaults of the enemy, but were standing still in their ranks, shot at by the arrows of the enemy, awaiting the time when it should be the will of the gods and their general that they should fight. Some writers tell us that while Pausanias was offering sacrifice and prayer a little beyond the ranks, some Lydians suddenly fell upon him, and began to plunder the sacrificial vessels, but that Pausanias, and those with him, having no arms, drove them away with sticks and whips; in memory of which they beat young men on the altar at Sparta at the present day, and afterwards lead what is called the Lydian procession.

XVIII

Pausanias was deeply grieved at what was taking place, seeing the priests offering sacrifice after sacrifice, not one of which pleased the gods; at last he turned his eyes towards the temple of Hera and wept. Holding up his hands he besought Hera of Mount Kithæron and all the other gods of the land of Platæa that if it were not the will of the gods that the Greeks should conquer, they might at any rate do some valorous deed before they died, and let their conquerors know that they had fought with brave and experienced warriors. When Pausanias prayed thus, the sacrifices at once became favourable and the soothsayers prophesied victory. The word was given to sot themselves in order of battle, and then at once the Lacedæmonian force resembled some fierce beast turning to bay and setting up his bristles, while the barbarians saw that they had to deal with men who were prepared to fight to the death. Wherefore they set up their great [Pg 87]wicker shields in front of them, and from this shelter shot their arrows at the Lacedæmonians. But the latter advanced without breaking their ranks, overturned the line of wicker shields, and with, terrible thrusts of their spears at the faces and breasts of the Persians, laid many of them low by their fierce and well-disciplined charge. The Persians too fought bravely, and resisted for a long while, laying hold of the spears with their bare hands and breaking most of them in that manner, fighting hand to hand, with their scimitars and axes, and tearing the Lacedæmonians’ shields out of their hands by force.

Meanwhile the Athenians had for a long time stood quietly awaiting the Lacedæmonians. When, however, they heard the shouting and noise of the battle, and a messenger, it is said, reached them from Pausanias, they marched with all speed to help him. As they were hurrying over the plain to where the shouts were heard, the Greeks who had taken the Persian side attacked them. At first when Aristeides saw them, he ran out far before the rest and besought them in a loud voice in the name of the gods of Greece not to hinder the Athenians when they were going to assist those who were venturing their lives on behalf of Greece. But when he saw that they took no notice of his appeal, he no longer attempted to help the Lacedæmonians, but attacked these troops, who numbered about fifty thousand. Of these the greater part gave way at once and retreated, because they saw their barbarian allies retreating, but a fierce battle is said to have raged where the Thebans were, because the best and noblest men of that state had eagerly taken the Persian side from the beginning, while the common people followed them, not of their free will, but being accustomed to obey the nobles.

XIX

Thus was the battle divided into two parts. The Lacedæmonians were the first to rout the Persians. A Spartan, named Arimnestus, killed Mardonius by a blow on the head with a stone, as the oracle in the temple of Amphiaraus had foretold to him. For Mardonius sent a Lydian thither, and another man, a Karian, to the oracle in the cave of Trophonius. This latter was spoken to in the Karian language by the prophet, but the other slept in the [Pg 88]sacred enclosure round the temple of Amphiaraus, and in his dreams saw a servant of the god standing beside him and bidding him begone. When he refused to go, the figure cast a great stone at his head, so that he dreamed that he died of the stroke. This is the story which is told of Mardonius. The Persian fugitives were now driven to take shelter within their wooden fortification. Shortly after these events took place, the Athenians defeated the Thebans, who lost three hundred of their noblest citizens in that battle. After this there came a messenger to them, telling them that the Persians were being besieged in their fortified camp. Hearing this, the Athenians allowed the renegade Greeks to escape, and marched at once to the assault of the camp. Here they found the Lacedæmonians, who were not pressing the enemy, because they had no experience in sieges and attacks on fortified places. The Athenians forced their way in and took the camp with an immense slaughter of the enemy. It is said that out of three hundred thousand only forty thousand under Artabazus escaped. On the side of the Greeks fell only thirteen hundred and sixty men. Of these there were fifty-two Athenians of the Aiantid tribe,7 which, we are told by Kleidemus, distinguished itself beyond all others on that day. For this reason, the Aiantid tribe offered the sacrifice to the nymphs Sphragitides, ordered by the oracle for the victory, at the public expense. Of the Lacedæmonians, there fell ninety-one, and of the Tegeans sixteen. It is hard, therefore, to understand Herodotus when he says that these alone came to blows with the enemy, and that no other Greeks were engaged at all; for both the number of the slain and the tombs of the fallen prove that the victory was won by all the Greeks together. If only three cities had fought, and the rest had done nothing, they never would have inscribed on the altar:

“The Greeks in battle drove the Persian forth

By force of arms, and bravely Greece set free,

To Zeus Protector they this altar reared,

Where all might thank him for their victory.”

This battle was fought on the day of the month Boed[Pg 89]romion, according to the Athenian calendar; and on the twenty-sixth of the month Panemus according to that of the Bœotians, on which day the Hellenic meeting still takes place at Platæa, and sacrifice is offered to Zeus, the Protector of Liberty, in memory of this victory. The discrepancy of the dates is no marvel, seeing that even at the present day, when astronomy is more accurately understood, different cities still begin and end their months on different days.

XX

After the battle, as the Athenians would not assign the prize of valour8 to the Lacedæmonians, nor suffer them to set up a trophy, the common cause of Greece was within a little of being ruined by the quarrels of the two armies, had not Aristeides by argument and entreaty prevailed upon his colleagues, especially Leokrates and Myronides, to submit the dispute to the decision of all the Greeks. Upon this a council was held, at which Theogeiton of Megara said that the prize for valour ought to be given to another city, and not either to Athens or Sparta, if they did not wish to bring about a civil war. To this Kleokritus of Corinth made answer. All men expected that he would demand the honour for Corinth, which city had acquitted itself best, next to Athens and Sparta; but he made a very excellent and conciliatory speech, demanding that the prize should be bestowed on the Platæans, by which means neither of the claimants would be aggrieved. This proposal was agreed to by Aristeides on behalf of the Athenians, and by Pausanias on behalf of the Lacedæmonians. Having thus settled their differences, they set apart from the plunder eighty talents for the Platæans, with which they built the temple of Athena, and the shrine, and also decorated the temple with paintings, which even to this present day retain their lustre. The Lacedæmonians set up a trophy for themselves, and the Athenians another one apart. When they enquired at Delphi what sacrifice was to be offered, the oracle bade them set up an altar to Zeus the Protector of the Free, and not to sacrifice upon it until they had first put out all fires throughout the country, because it [Pg 90]had been defiled by the presence of the barbarian, and had then fetched a new fire pure from pollution, from the hearth at Delphi, which is common to all Greece. The chiefs of the Greeks at once proceeded throughout the Platæan territory, forcing every one to extinguish his fire, even in the case of funeral piles, while Euchidas of Platæa, who promised that he would fetch fire as quickly as possible, proceeded to Delphi. There he purified his body, and having been besprinkled with holy water and crowned with laurel, took fire from the altar, set off running back to Platæa, and arrived there about sunset, having run a distance of a hundred and twenty-five miles in one day. He embraced his fellow citizens, handed the fire to them, fell down, and in a few moments died. The Platæans, to show their admiration of him, buried him in the temple of Artemis Eukleia, with this inscription on his tomb:

“Euchidas ran to Delphi and back again in one day.”

As for Eukleia, most persons believe her to be Artemis, and worship her as that goddess; but some say that she was a daughter of Herakles and Myrto, the daughter of Menœtius, who was the sister of Patroklus, and who, dying a virgin, is worshipped by the Bœotians and Lokrians. An altar and image of her stands in every market-place in these countries, and those who are about to marry, sacrifice to her.

XXI

After this Aristeides proposed at a general assembly of all the Greeks, that all the cities of Greece should every year send deputies and religious representatives to the city of Platæa, and that every fifth year Eleutheria, or a festival in honour of Freedom, should be celebrated there. Also he proposed that there should be a general levy throughout Greece, for the war against the Persians, of ten thousand heavy armed troops, a thousand horse, and a hundred ships of war; and that the Platæans should be held inviolable, and consecrated to the service of the gods, to whom they offered sacrifice on behalf of all Greece. These things were ratified, and the people of Platæa undertook to make yearly sacrifices in honour of those who had fallen fighting for Greece, and whose [Pg 91]bodies were buried there. This they perform even at the present day in the following fashion. On the sixteenth day of the month Maimakterion, which in the Bœotian calendar is called Alalkomenius, they make a procession headed by a trumpeter sounding the charge. After him follow waggons full of myrtle and garlands of flowers, a black bull, libations of wine and milk in jars, and earthenware vessels full of oil and perfume. These are carried by young men of noble birth, for no slave is allowed to take any part in the proceedings, because the men in whose honour the sacrifice is made, died fighting for liberty. Last of all comes the chief magistrate of Platæa, who, during the rest of his term of office, is not allowed to touch iron, or to wear clothes of any colour but white. On this day, however, he wears a scarlet tunic, takes an urn9 from the public record office in one hand, and a sword in the other, and proceeds through the middle of the city to the sepulchres. There he with his own hands draws water from the well, washes the head-stones of the graves, and anoints them with oil. After this he cuts the throat of the bull, places his bones on a funeral pile, and with prayer to Zeus, and Hermes who conducts men’s souls into the nether world, he calls on the brave men who died for Greece, to come to the feast and drink the libations of blood. Next he mixes a large bowl of wine and water, pours out a cup for himself, and says, “I drink to those who died in defence of the freedom of Greece.” This custom is observed even to this day by the Platæans.

XXII

After the return of the Athenians to their own city, Aristeides observed that they desired to adopt a democratic form of government. As he considered that the people had by their bravery deserved a share in the management of affairs, and likewise thought that it would be hard to turn them from their purpose as they had arms in their hands, and were confident in their strength because of the [Pg 92]victories which they had won, he carried a decree that every citizen should have a share in the government, and that the archons should be chosen out of the whole body of Athenians.

When Themistokles told the Athenian assembly that he had in his mind a proposition most valuable to the state, which nevertheless could not be openly discussed, the people bade Aristeides alone listen to what it was and give his opinion upon it. Then Themistokles told Aristeides, that he meditated burning the entire fleet of the Greeks, as they lay drawn up on the beach, as by this means Athens would become the greatest state in Greece, and mistress of all the others. Aristeides, on hearing this, came forward to the assembly and said that the proposal of Themistokles, although most advantageous, was yet most wicked and unjust. When the people heard this, they forbade Themistokles to prosecute his design. So highly did the Athenians prize justice, and so well and faithfully did Aristeides serve them.

XXIII

Being sent as general, with Kimon as his colleague, to the war with Persia, he perceived that Pausanias and the other Spartan generals were harsh and insolent to their allies; and he himself, by treating them with kindness and consideration, aided by the gentle and kindly temper shown by Kimon in the campaign, gradually obtained supreme authority over them, not having won it by arms or fleets, but by courtesy and wise policy. The Athenians, already beloved by the Greeks, on account of the justice of Aristeides and the kindliness of Kimon, were much more endeared to them by the insolent brutality of Pausanias, who always spoke roughly and angrily to the chiefs of the various contingents of allies, and used to punish the common men by stripes, or by forcing them to stand all day with a heavy iron anchor on their shoulders. No one was permitted to obtain straw or forage for their horses, or to draw water from a well before the Spartans had helped themselves, and servants were placed with whips to drive away any who attempted to do so. Aristeides once endeavoured to complain of this to Pausanias, but he knitting his brows, rudely told him that he was not at leisure, and took no notice of his words. [Pg 93]At this the generals and admirals of the Greek states, especially those from Chios, Samos, and Lesbos, besought Aristeides to make himself commander-in-chief, and rally round him all the allied cities, who had long desired to get rid of the Spartan supremacy and to take the side of Athens. He answered that he admitted the justice and even the necessity of their proposals, but that they must prove themselves to be in earnest by some act which would make it impossible for the great body of them to draw back. Upon this, Ouliades of Samos, and Antagoras of Chios conspired together, and off Byzantium, they ran on board of the ship of Pausanias, which was sailing before the rest. He on seeing this, rose up in a rage and threatened that in a short time he would let them know that they had not endangered his ship, but their own native cities. They in answer bade him go his way and be thankful for the victory at Platæa won under his command, for that it was which alone restrained the Greeks from dealing with him as he deserved. Finally they left him, and sailed away to join the Athenian ships. On this occasion the magnanimous conduct of the Lacedæmonians deserves high praise. When they perceived that the heads of their generals were being turned by the greatness of their power, they of their own accord withdrew from the supreme power, and no longer sent any generals to the wars, choosing rather to have moderate citizens who would abide by their laws at home, than to bear rule over the whole of Greece.

Even while the Lacedæmonians remained in command, the Greeks paid a certain contribution to pay the expenses of the war; and as they wished each city to be assessed to pay a reasonable sum, they asked the Athenians to appoint Aristeides to visit each city, learn the extent of its territory and revenues, and fix upon the amount which each was capable of contributing according to its means. Although he was in possession of such a power as this—the whole of Greece having as it were given itself up to be dealt with at his discretion—yet he laid down his office a poorer man than when he accepted it, but having completed his assessment to the satisfaction of all. As the ancients used to tell of the blessedness of the golden age, [Pg 94]even so did the states of Greece honour the assessment made by Aristeides, calling the time when it was made, fortunate and blessed for Greece, especially when no long time afterwards it was doubled, and subsequently trebled. The money which Aristeides proposed to raise amounted to four hundred and sixty talents; to which Perikles added nearly a third part, for Thucydides tells us that at the commencement of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians received six hundred talents a year from their allies. After the death of Perikles, the popular orators gradually raised the sum total to thirteen hundred talents. It was not so much that the money was required for the expenses of a long and costly war, as that these men had accustomed the people to largesses of money, dramatic representations, and the erection of statues and temples. Themistokles was the only man who had sneered at the great reputation which Aristeides had won by his assessment of the Greek states, saying that the praise which was lavished on him was not suitable to a man, but to a chest which kept money safe. This he said as a retort to a saying of Aristeides, who once, when Themistokles said that he thought it the most valuable quality for a general to be able to divine beforehand what the enemy would do, answered, “That, Themistokles, is very true, but it is also the part of an honourable general to keep his hands clean.”

XXV

Aristeides, moreover, bound all the Greeks by an oath to keep the league against the Persians, and himself swore on behalf of Athens, throwing wedges of red hot iron into the sea after the oath was taken, and praying that the gods might so deal with those that broke their faith. But afterwards, when circumstances forced the Athenians to govern with a stronger hand, he bade the Athenians act as they pleased, for he would take upon himself any guilt of perjury which they might incur. And throughout his life Theophrastus observes that Aristeides, though scrupulously just in his dealings with his fellow-citizens, yet sometimes in dealing with other states was guided rather by advantage than by equity. For instance, when the Athenians were debating a proposal of the Samians, that the treasure of the league should be removed from Delos to Athens, a thing distinctly con[Pg 95]trary to the articles of the alliance, Aristeides said that it was not just, but that it was expedient to do so. He himself, at the end of his life, after raising his city to be the ruler of so many people, remained in his original poverty, and took no less pride in his poverty than in the victories which he had won. This is proved by the following anecdote. Kallias, the torch-bearer in the Eleusinian mysteries, a relation of his, was being prosecuted on a capital charge by his private enemies. After speaking with great moderation upon the subject of the indictment, they used the following argument to the jury: “Gentlemen, you all know Aristeides the son of Lysimachus, whose name is renowned throughout Greece. How think you that man fares at home, when you see him appearing in public with such a worn-out cloak? May we not suppose when we see him shivering out of doors, that he has but little to eat at home, and is in want of common necessaries? Yet Kallias, the richest man in Athens, allows this man, who is his own cousin, to be in want, he and his wife and children, though he has often benefited by him and profited by his influence with you.” Kallias, perceiving that the jury were especially wrought upon by this appeal and that it was likely to tell against him, called Aristeides into the court, and begged of him to bear witness to the jury that although he had often offered him money and begged him to accept it he had always refused, answering that he prided himself more upon his poverty than Kallias did upon his wealth; for one may see many persons making both a good and a bad use of riches, but it is hard to meet with a man who bears poverty with honour. Those only should be ashamed of poverty who are poor against their wills. When Aristeides bore witness to the truth of this, on behalf of Kallias, there was no one who heard him but left the court wishing rather to be poor like Aristeides than rich like Kallias. This story is preserved by Æschines, the companion of Sokrates.

Plato considers that this man alone, of all the great men of Athens, is worthy of mention by him. Themistokles, and Kimon, and Perikles, did indeed fill the city with public buildings, and money, and folly, but Aris[Pg 96]teides in his political acts cared for nothing but virtue. One great proof of this is his kindly treatment of Themistokles. Though this man was his enemy throughout, and was the cause of his banishment by ostracism, yet when Themistokles gave him an opportunity of revenging himself in a similar manner he never remembered the injuries which he had received at his hands, but while Kimon, and Alkmæon, and many others, were endeavouring to drive him into exile and bringing all kinds of accusations against him, Aristeides alone never did or said anything against him, and did not rejoice over the spectacle of his enemy’s ruin, just as he never envied his previous prosperity.

XXVI

Some writers say that Aristeides died in Pontus, to which country he had been sent on matters of state: while others say that he died of old age at Athens, respected and honoured by all his countrymen there. Kraterus of Macedonia tells us the following particulars about his end. After Themistokles went into exile the common people grew insolent and produced a numerous brood of informers, who constantly assailed the noblest and most powerful citizens through envy of their prosperity and influence. One of these men, Diophantus of Amphitrope by name, obtained a verdict against Aristeides on a charge of receiving bribes. It was stated that when he was regulating the assessment of the Ionians he received money from them to tax them more lightly. As he was unable to pay the fine of fifty minæ, which the court laid upon him, he left Athens and died somewhere in Ionia. But Kraterus offers no documentary evidence of this, neither of the sentence of his condemnation nor the decree of the people, although in general it is his habit to quote his authority for statements of this kind. And almost all others who have spoken of the harsh treatment of generals by the people mention the banishment of Themistokles, the imprisonment of Miltiades, the fine imposed on Perikles, and the suicide of Paches in court when sentence was pronounced against him, but although they speak of the banishment of Aristeides, they never allude to this trial and sentence upon him.

XXVII

Moreover, there is his tomb at Phalerum, [Pg 97]which is said to have been constructed at the public expense, because he did not leave enough money to defray his funeral expenses. It is also related that his daughters were publicly married at the charges of the state, which provided them each with a dowry of three thousand drachmas. At the instance of Alkibiades, his son Lysimachus was also presented with a hundred silver mines, and as many acres of planted land, and in addition to this, an allowance of four drachmas a day. Kallisthenes also tells us that this Lysimachus leaving a daughter named Polykrite, she was assigned by the Athenians the same daily allowance of food as is bestowed upon the victors in the Olympian games. But Demetrius of Phalerum, Hieronymus of Rhodes, Aristoxenus the musician, and Aristotle, (if we are to believe the ‘Treatise on Nobility’ to be a genuine work of his) say, that Myrto, the granddaughter of Aristeides, lived in the house of Sokrates the philosopher, who was indeed married to another woman, but who took her into his house because she was a widow and destitute of the necessaries of life. These authors are sufficiently confuted by Panætius in his writings on Sokrates. Demetrius of Phalerum says, in his book about Sokrates, that he knew one Lysimachus, a very poor man, who dwelt near the Temple of Iacchus and made his living by the interpretation of dreams. Demetrius further states that he carried a bill before the Assembly by which this man’s mother and sister were provided with a pension of three obols daily at the public expense. Demetrius, however, when himself a legislator, appointed that each of these women should receive a drachma instead of three obols a day. And we need not wonder at the people taking such care of the resident citizens, when we read that, hearing that the granddaughter of Aristogeiton was living in poverty at Lemnos, so poor that no one would marry her, they brought her back to Athens, gave her in marriage to a man of high birth, and bestowed upon her a farm at Potamus for a marriage portion. The city of Athens has shown many instances of this kindness and goodness of heart even down to our times, and is justly praised and admired for it.

LIFE OF
MARCUS CATO.

I

Marcus Cato is said to have been born at Tusculum, but to have been brought up and spent his time upon a farm belonging to his father in the Sabine territory, before he began to take part in war or politics. We know nothing of his ancestry, except that he himself tells us that his father, Marcus, was a good man and brave soldier, and that his grandfather, Cato, received several military rewards for his services, and that having had five horses killed under him, he received the value of them from the public treasury, as an acknowledgment of his gallantry.

It was the Roman custom to call those who had no ancestry to recommend them, but who rose by their own merits, new men. This name was applied to Cato, who said that he was indeed new to honours and posts of importance, but that, in respect of his brave and virtuous ancestry, he was a man of ancient family. His third name originally was not Cato, but Priscus, and was changed to Cato on account of his wisdom, for in Latin catus means “clever.” In appearance he was rather red-haired, and grey-eyed, peculiarities which are ill-naturedly dwelt upon by the writer of the epigram—

“Red-haired, grey-eyed, and savage-tusked as well,

Porcius will find no welcome e’en in hell.”

Accustomed as he was to hard exercise, temperate living, and frequent campaigns, his body was always both healthy and strong; while he also practised the power of speech, thinking it a necessary instrument for a man who does not intend to live an obscure and inactive life. He consequently improved his talents in this respect by pleading causes in the neighbouring villages and towns, [Pg 99]so that he was soon admitted to be a capable speaker, and afterwards to be a good orator. From this time all who conversed with him perceived a gravity and wisdom in his mind which qualified him to undertake the most important duties of a statesman. Not only was he so disinterested as to plead without receiving money from his clients, but he also did not think the glory which he gained in these contests to be that after which a man ought to strive, in comparison with that which is gained in battle and campaigns, in which he was so eager to distinguish himself that when quite a lad his body was covered with wounds, all in front. He himself tells us that he made his first campaign at the age of seventeen, when Hannibal was ranging through Italy uncontrolled. In battle he was prompt, stedfast, and undismayed, and was wont to address the enemy with threats and rough language, and to encourage the others to do so, as he rightly pointed out that this often cows the enemy’s spirit as effectually as blows. When on the march he used to carry his own arms, and be followed by one servant who carried his provisions. It is said that he never spoke harshly to this man, no matter what food he placed before him, but that he would often help him to do his work when he was at leisure from military duty. He drank only water when campaigning, except that when suffering from parching thirst he would ask for some vinegar, and sometimes when his strength fairly failed he would drink a little wine.

II

Near his estate was a cottage which had once belonged to Manius Curius, who three times received the honour of a triumph. Cato used frequently to walk over and look at this cottage, and, as he observed the smallness of the plot of ground attached to it, and the simplicity of the dwelling itself, he would reflect upon how Curius, after having made himself the first man in Rome, after conquering the most warlike nations, and driving King Pyrrhus out of Italy, used to dig this little plot of ground with his own hands, and dwelt in this little cottage, after having thrice triumphed. It was there that the ambassadors of the Samnites found him sitting by the hearth, cooking turnips, and offered him much gold; but he sent them away, saying, “that a man who was contented with [Pg 100]such a supper, had no need of gold, and that it was more honourable for him to conquer those who possessed gold, than to possess it himself.” Cato, after leaving the cottage, full of these memories, returned to his own house and farm, and after viewing its extent and the number of slaves upon it, he increased the amount of his own daily labour, and retrenched his superfluous expenses.

When Fabius Maximus took the city of Tarentum, Cato, who was a very young lad at the time, was serving in his army. He became intimate there with one Nearchus, a philosopher of the Pythagorean school, and listened with much interest to his discourses. Hearing this man, like Plato, describe pleasure as the greatest temptation to evil, and the body as the chief hindrance to the soul, which can only free and purify itself by such a course of reasoning as removes it from and sets it above all bodily passions and feelings, he was yet more encouraged in his love of simplicity and frugality. In other respects he is said to have studied Hellenic literature late in life, and not to have read Greek books till extreme old age, when he greatly improved his style of oratory, partly by the study of Thucydides, but chiefly by that of Demosthenes. Be this as it may, his writings are full of Greek ideas and Greek anecdotes: and many of his apophthegms and maxims are literally translated from the Greek.

III

The estate adjoining that of Cato belonged to one of the most powerful and highly born patricians of Rome, Valerius Flaccus, a man who had a keen eye for rising merit, and generously fostered it until it received public recognition. This man heard accounts of Cato’s life from his servants, how he would proceed to the court early in the morning, and plead the causes of all who required his services, and then on returning to his farm would work with his servants, in winter wearing a coarse coat without sleeves, in summer nothing but his tunic, and how he used to sit at meals with his servants, eating the same loaf and drinking the same wine. Many other stories of his goodness and simplicity and sententious remarks were related to Valerius, who became interested in his neighbour, and invited him to dinner. They became intimate, and Valerius, observing his quiet and ingenuous disposition, [Pg 101]like a plant that requires careful treatment and an extensive space in which to develop itself, encouraged and urged him to take part in the political life of Rome. On going to Rome he at once gained admirers and friends by his able pleadings in the law courts, while he obtained considerable preferment by the interest of Valerius, being appointed first military tribune, and then quæstor. After this he became so distinguished a man as to be able to compete with Valerius himself for the highest offices in the state, and they were elected together, first as consuls, and afterwards as censors. Of the older Romans, Cato attached himself particularly to Fabius Maximus, a man of the greatest renown and power, although it was his disposition and mode of life which Cato especially desired to imitate. Wherefore he did not hesitate to oppose Scipio the Great, who was then a young man, but a rival and opponent of Fabius. Cato was appointed to act as his quæstor in the war in Africa, and on perceiving that Scipio was living with his usual lavish expenditure, and supplying his soldiery with extravagant pay, he sharply rebuked him, saying, “that it was not the waste of the public money that vexed him so much as the ruin of the old frugal habits of the soldiers, who were led to indulge in pleasure and luxury by receiving more pay than was necessary to supply their daily wants.” When Scipio answered that he did not require an economist for his quæstor, at a time when he was preparing to wage war on a grand scale, and reminded him that he would have to give an account to the Roman people of battles won, not of money expended, Cato left the army of Scipio, which was then being assembled in Sicily. He proceeded at once to Rome, and by adding his voice to that of Fabius in the Senate, in blame of Scipio’s unspeakable waste of money, and his childish and unsoldierly love of the public games1 and the theatre, conduct more worthy of the president of a public festival than of the commander-in-chief of an army, prevailed upon the people to send tribunes to enquire into the charges against him, and if they proved true, to bring him back to Rome. When they arrived in Sicily, however, Scipio pointed out to them that the pre[Pg 102]parations which he had made would ensure him the victory, and that although he loved pleasant society in his hours of leisure, yet that he had never allowed his pleasures to interfere with his serious duties. The tribunes were perfectly satisfied with this explanation, and Scipio sailed for Africa.

IV

Cato, however, gained considerable credit by his speeches on this occasion, and the Romans generally called him the new Demosthenes; yet his manner of life was more admired than his eloquence. Cleverness of speech was a quality which nearly all the young men of the time sought to attain, but Cato was singular in his keeping up the severe traditions of his ancestors in labouring with his own hands, eating a simple dinner, lighting no fire to cook his breakfast, wearing a plain dress, living in a mean house, and neither coveting superfluities nor courting their possessors. The Romans were at this period extending their empire so much as to lose much of their own original simplicity of living, as each new conquest brought them into contact with foreign customs and new modes of life. They therefore naturally looked with admiration upon Cato, observing that while they became enervated by pleasures and broke down under labours, he on the other hand seemed unaffected by either, and that too, not only while he was young and eager for fame: but even when he was an old grey-headed man, after he had been consul and had triumphed, he yet, like a victorious athlete, still kept himself in training, and never relaxed his severe discipline. He himself tells us that he never wore a garment worth more than a hundred drachmas, that when he was general and consul he still drank the same wine as his servants, that his dinner never cost him more than thirty ases in the market, and that he only indulged himself to this extent for the good of the state, that he might be strong and able to serve his country in the field. When he was left a piece of Babylonian tapestry he at once disposed of it; none of his rooms were whitewashed, and he never bought a slave for more than fifteen hundred drachmas, seeing that he required, not effeminate and handsome servants, but hardworking and strong men, to tend his horses and [Pg 103]herd his cattle: and these, too, when they grew old and past work he thought it best to sell, and not feed them at his expense when they were useless. His rule was that nothing is cheap which one does not want, but that superfluities are dearly purchased even if they cost but one penny: and that it is better to buy land which can be ploughed, or where cattle can graze, than beds of flowers which require watering, and paths which have to be swept and kept in order.

V

These habits some ascribed to narrowness of mind, while others thought that he carried parsimony and avarice to excess in himself in order by his example to reform and restrain others. Be this as it may, I for my own part consider that his conduct in treating his slaves like beasts of burden, and selling them when old and worn out, is the mark of an excessively harsh disposition, which disregards the claims of our common human nature, and merely considers the question of profit and loss. Kindness, indeed, is of wider application than mere justice; for we naturally treat men alone according to justice and the laws, while kindness and gratitude, as though from a plenteous spring, often extend even to irrational animals. It is right for a good man to feed horses which have been worn out in his service, and not merely to train dogs when they are young, but to take care of them when they are old. When the Athenian people built the Parthenon, they set free the mules which had done the hardest work in drawing the stones up to the acropolis, and let them graze where they pleased unmolested. It is said that one of them came of its own accord to where the works were going on, and used to walk up to the acropolis with the beasts who were drawing up their loads, as if to encourage them and show them the way. This mule was, by a decree of the people of Athens, maintained at the public expense for the rest of its life. The racehorses of Kimon also, who won an Olympic victory, are buried close to the monument of their master. Many persons, too, have made friends and companions of dogs, as did Xanthippus in old times, whose dog swam all the way to Salamis beside his master’s ship when the Athenians left their city, and which he [Pg 104]buried on the promontory which to this day is called the Dog’s Tomb.2 We ought not to treat living things as we do our clothes and our shoes, and throw them away after we have worn them out; but we ought to accustom ourselves to show kindness in these cases, if only in order to teach ourselves our duty towards one another. For my own part I would not even sell an ox that had laboured for me because he was old, much less would I turn an old man out of his accustomed haunts and mode of life, which is as great an affliction to him as sending him into a foreign land, merely that I might gain a few miserable coins by selling one who must be as useless to his buyer as he was to his seller.

Cato, however, as if taking a perverse pleasure in flaunting his meannesses, relates that he left behind him in Spain the horse which he rode when consul there, in order to save the state the cost of carrying him over to Italy. Whether those acts of his are to be ascribed to magnanimity or narrow-mindedness the reader must decide for himself.

VI

He was a man of wonderful temperance, in all other respects also. For example, when he was general, he only drew from the public stock three Attic bushels of wheat a month for himself and his servants, and less than three half-bushels of barley a day for his horses. When he was Governor of Sardinia, where former governors had been in the habit of charging their tents, bedding, and wearing-apparel to the province, and likewise making it pay large sums for their entertainment and that of their friends, he introduced an unheard-of system of economy. He charged nothing to the province, and visited the various cities without a carriage, walking on foot alone, attended by one single public servant carrying his robe of state and the vessel to make libations at a sacrifice. With all this he showed himself so affable and simple to those under his rule, so severe and inexorable in the administration of justice, and so vigilant and careful in seeing that his orders were duly executed, that the government of Rome never was more feared or more loved in Sardinia than when he governed that island.

VII

[Pg 105]His conversation seems also to have had this character, for he was cheerful and harsh all at once, pleasant and yet severe as a companion, fond of jokes, but morose at the same time, just as Plato tells us that Sokrates, if judged merely from his outside, appeared to be only a silly man with a face like a satyr, who was rude to all he met, though his inner nature was earnest and full of thoughts that moved his hearers to tears and touched their hearts. For this reason I cannot understand how any persons can see a likeness between the orations of Lysias and those of Cato; however, this point must be decided by those who are more skilled than myself in the comparison of oratorical styles. I shall now relate a few of his more remarkable sayings, believing that a man’s real character can be better judged of by his words than by his looks, although some people hold the contrary opinion.

VIII

Once when he wished to restrain the Romans from distributing a large quantity of corn as a largesse to the people, he began his speech: “It is difficult, my fellow-citizens, to make the stomach hear reason, because it has no ears.” When desiring to blame the extravagance of the Romans, he said that a city could not be safe in which a fish sold dearer than an ox. He said, too, that the Romans were like sheep, who never form opinions of their own, but follow where the others lead them. “Just so,” said he, “when you are assembled together you are led by men whose advice you would scorn to take about your own private affairs.” With regard to female influence he once said, “All mankind rule their wives, we rule all mankind, and we are ruled by our wives.” This remark, however, is borrowed from Themistokles. He one day, when his child was instigating its mother to lay many commands upon him, said, “Wife, remember that the Athenians rule the Greeks, I rule the Athenians, you rule me, and your child rules you; wherefore let him not abuse his power, which, though he knows it not, is greater than that of anyone else in Greece.” Cato also said that the Romans fixed the price, not only of different dyes, but of different professions. “Just as the dyers,” said he, “dye stuff of whatever colour they see people pleased with, so [Pg 106]do our young men only study and apply themselves to those subjects which are praised and commended by you.” He used also to beg of them, if they had become great by virtue and self-restraint, not to degenerate; and if, on the other hand, their empire had been won by licentiousness and vice, to reform themselves, since by the latter means they had become so great as not to need any further assistance from them. Those who were always seeking office, he said, were like men who could not find their way, who always wished to walk with lictors3 before them to show them the road. He blamed his countrymen for often electing the same men to public offices. “You will appear,” said he, “either to think that the office is not worth much, or else that there are not many worthy to fill it.” Alluding to one of his enemies who led a dissolute and discreditable life, he said: “That man’s mother takes it as a curse rather than a blessing if any one hopes that her son will survive her.” When a certain man sold his ancestral estate, which was situated by the seashore, Cato pretended to admire him, as being more powerful than the sea itself, “for this man,” said he, has “drunk up the fields which the sea itself could not swallow.” When King Eumenes came to Rome the Senate received him with special honours, and he was much courted and run after. Cato, however, held himself aloof and would not go near him, and when some one said “Yet he is an excellent man, and a good friend to Rome,” he answered, “It may be so, but a king is by nature an animal that lives on human flesh.” None of those who had borne the title of king, according to Cato, were to be compared with Epameinondas, or Perikles, or Themistokles, or with Manius Curius or Hamilcar Barcas. He used to say that his enemies hated him because he began his day’s work while it was still dark, and because he neglected his own affairs to attend to those of the public. He also was wont to say that he had rather his good actions should go unrewarded than that his bad ones should be unpunished; and that he pardoned all who did wrong except himself.

IX

When the Romans sent three ambassadors to [Pg 107]Bithynia, one of whom was crippled by the gout, another had been trepanned and had a piece taken out of his head, and the third was thought to be a simpleton, Cato remarked that the Romans had sent an embassy which had neither feet, head, nor heart. When, for the sake of Polybius the historian, Scipio entreated Cato to exert his influence on behalf of the Achæan exiles, after a long debate in the Senate, where some advised that they should be sent back to their own country, and some that they should still be detained at Rome, he got up and said, “Have we nothing better to do than to sit all day discussing whether a parcel of old Greeks shall be buried here or in Achaia?” A few days after the Senate had decreed the restoration of the exiles, Polybius proposed to make another application, that they should be restored to all the offices which they formerly held in Achaia. He asked Cato whether he thought that he should succeed in this second appeal to the Senate; to which Cato answered with a smile, that he was imitating Ulysses, when he returned again into the cave of the Cyclops to fetch the hat and girdle which he had left behind and forgotten. He said that wise men gained more advantage from fools, than fools from wise men; for the wise men avoid the errors of fools, but fools cannot imitate the example of wise men. He said that he loved young men to have red cheeks rather than pale ones, and that he did not care for a soldier who used his hands while he marched and his feet while he fought, or one who snored louder in bed than he shouted in battle. When reproaching a very fat man he said, “How can this man’s body be useful to his country, when all parts between the neck and the groin are possessed by the belly?” Once when an epicure wished to become his friend, he said that he could not live with a man whose palate was more sensitive than his heart. He said also that the soul of a lover inhabits the body of his beloved. He himself tells us, that in his whole life he repented of three things only:—First, that he had trusted a woman with a secret. Secondly, that he had gone by water when he might have gone by land. Thirdly, that he had passed one day without having made his will. To an old man who was acting wrongly he said, “[Pg 108]My good sir, old age is ugly enough without your adding the deformity of wickedness to it.” When a certain tribune, who was suspected of being a poisoner, was endeavouring to carry a bad law, Cato remarked, “Young man, I do not know which is the worst for us, to drink what you mix, or to enact what you propose.” Once when he was abused by a man of vicious life, he answered, “We are not contending upon equal terms; you are accustomed to hearing and using bad language, while I am both unused to hearing it and unwilling to use it.”

X

When he was elected consul, together with his friend and neighbour Valerius Flaccus, the province which fell to his lot was that which the Romans call Hither Spain.4 While he was there engaged in establishing order, partly by persuasion, and partly by force, he was attacked by a large army of the natives, and was in danger of being disgracefully defeated by their overwhelming numbers. Consequently he applied for aid to the neighbouring tribe of the Celtiberians, who demanded as the price of their assistance the sum of two hundred talents. At this every one protested that it was unworthy of Romans to pay barbarians for their alliance, but Cato said that he saw no evil in the practice, since, if the Romans were victorious, they would pay them from the spoils of the enemy, while if they were defeated there would be no one to demand the money and no one to pay it. He won a pitched battle on this occasion, and was very successful in his whole campaign. Polybius indeed tells us that in one day at his command all the cities on this side of the river Guadalquiver pulled down their walls; and yet they were very numerous, and filled with a warlike population. Cato himself tells us that he took more cities than he spent days in Spain; nor is this a vain boast, if the number captured really, as is stated, amounted to four hundred. His soldiers enriched themselves considerably during the campaign; and at the termination of it he distributed a pound of silver to each man, saying that it was better that many Romans should return to Rome with silver in their pockets than that a few should return with gold. [Pg 109]He himself states that he received no part of the plunder except what he ate or drank. “I do not,” said he, “blame those who endeavour to enrich themselves by such means, but I had rather vie with the noblest in virtue than with the richest in wealth, or with the most covetous in covetousness.” He not only kept his own hands clean, but those of his followers also. He took five servants to the war with him. One of these, Paccius by name, bought three boys at a sale of captives; but when Cato heard of it, Paccius, rather than come into his presence, hanged himself. Cato sold the boys, and paid the price into the public treasury.

XI

While he was still in Spain, Scipio the Great, who was his personal enemy, desiring to check his career of success, and to obtain the management of Spanish affairs for himself, contrived to get himself appointed to succeed Cato in his government. He at once hurried to Spain and brought Cato’s rule to an end. Cato, however, at once marched to meet Scipio with an escort of five companies of infantry and five hundred horsemen. On his way he conquered the tribe of the Lacetani; and finding among them six hundred deserters from the Roman army, he put them to death. When Scipio expressed his dissatisfaction with this, Cato sarcastically answered, that Rome would be greatest if those of high birth and station, and those of plebeian origin like himself, would only contend with one another in virtue. However, as the Senate decreed that nothing that Cato had settled in the province should be altered or rearranged, Scipio found that it was he rather than Cato that was disgraced, as he had to pass his time in inglorious idleness, while Cato, after enjoying a triumph, did not retire into a life of luxury and leisure, as is done by so many men whose object is display rather than true virtue, after they have risen to the highest honours in the state by being elected consuls and enjoying the honour of a triumph. He did not impair the glorious example which he had given, by withdrawing his attention from the affairs of his country, but offered his services to his friends and fellow-countrymen, both in the courts of law and in the field, as willingly as those who have just begun their public career, and are keenly eager to be [Pg 110]elected to some new office in which they may win fresh distinction.

XII

He went with the consul Tiberius Sempronius as legate, and assisted him in regulating the country about the Danube and Thrace; and he also served as military tribune under Manius Acilius during his campaign in Greece against Antiochus the Great, who caused more terror to the Romans than any one man since the time of Hannibal. Antiochus had originally inherited nearly the whole of Asia, that is, as much as Seleukus Nikator had possessed, and having added many warlike tribes to his empire, was so elated by his conquests as to attack the Romans, whom he regarded as the only nation remaining in the whole world which was worthy to be his antagonist. He put forward as a plausible reason for beginning the war that he intended to liberate the Greeks, who did not require his interference, as they had just been made free and independent by the Romans, who had delivered them from the tyranny of Philip and the Macedonians. Antiochus crossed over into Greece, which at once became unsettled, and a prey to hopes and fears suggested by her political leaders. Manius at once sent ambassadors to the various cities. Titus Flamininus, as has been related in his Life, restrained the greater part of them from revolutionary proceedings, and kept them to their allegiance, but Cato won over Corinth, Patræ, and Ægium. Most of his time was spent in Athens; and there is said to be still extant a speech which he made to the people there in Greek, in which he speaks with admiration of the virtue of the Athenians of old, and dwells upon his own pleasure in viewing so great and beautiful a city. This, however, is a fabrication, for we know that he conversed with the Athenians through an interpreter, though he was able to speak their language, because he wished to keep to the ways of his fathers, and administer a rebuke to those who extravagantly admired the Greeks. Thus he laughed at Postumius Albinus, who wrote a history in Greek and begged that his mistakes might be pardoned, saying that it would be right to pardon them if he wrote his history by a decree of the council of Amphiktyons. He himself says that the Athenians were surprised it the shortness [Pg 111]and pregnant nature of his talk; for what he said in a few words, his interpreter translated by a great many: and in general he concludes that the Greeks talk from the lips, and the Romans from the heart.

XIII

When Antiochus occupied the pass of Thermopylæ with his army, and, after adding to the natural strength of the place by artificial defences, established himself there as if in an impregnable position, the Romans decided that to attack him in front was altogether impossible, but Cato, remembering how the Persians under Xerxes had turned the Greek forces by a circuitous march over the mountains, took a part of the force and set off by night. When they had gone for some distance over the mountains, the prisoner who served as their guide lost his way, and wandered about in that precipitous and pathless wilderness so as to cause great discouragement to the soldiers. Seeing this, Cato ordered every one to halt and await his orders, and himself, with one companion, one Lucius Manlius, an experienced mountaineer, laboriously and daringly plunged along through intense darkness, for there was no moon, while the trees and rocks added to their difficulties by preventing their seeing distinctly whither they were going, until they came to a path, which, as they thought, led directly down upon the camp of the enemy. Hereupon they set up marks to guide them upon some conspicuous crags of Mount Kallidromus, and returning to the army, led it to these marks, and started along the paths which they had descried. But before they had proceeded far the path ended in a precipice, at which they were both surprised and disheartened; for they could not tell, either by sight or hearing, that they were close to the enemy. It was now about daybreak, and they thought that they heard voices near at hand, and soon were able to see a Greek camp and an outpost at the foot of the precipice. Cato hereupon halted his army, and ordered the Firmiani,5 in whom he reposed especial confidence, to come forward alone. When they had assembled round him, he said, “I wish to take one of the enemy prisoner, and learn from him of what troops this outpost is formed, what their numbers are, how the [Pg 112]rest of the army are placed, and what preparations they have made to resist us. You must dash upon them as quickly and boldly as lions do upon their defenceless prey.” At these words of Cato’s the Firmiani at once rushed down and attacked the outpost. The suddenness of their onset threw the enemy into complete confusion, and they soon caught one of them and brought him before Cato. Learning from this man that all the rest of the army was with King Antiochus himself, guarding the pass of Thermopylæ, and that only a body of six hundred picked Ætolians were watching the path over the mountains, Cato despising so small and contemptible a force, at once drew his sword, and led on his troops with shouts and trumpets sounding the charge. The Ætolians, as soon as they saw the Romans descending from the hills, fled to the main body, and filled it with confusion and terror.

XIV

Meanwhile Manius on the lower ground had attacked the fortifications in the pass with his entire force. Antiochus was struck on the mouth with a stone which knocked out several of his teeth, and the pain of his wound compelled him to wheel round his horse and retreat. His troops nowhere withstood the Romans, but, although they had endless means of escape by roads where they could scarcely be followed, yet they crowded through the narrow pass with deep marshy ground on the one hand and inaccessible rocks upon the other, and there trampled each other to death for fear of the swords of the Romans.

Cato never seems to have been sparing of his own praise, and thought that great deeds required to be told in boastful language. He gives a very pompous account of this battle, and says that all those who saw him pursuing and cutting down the enemy felt that Cato did not owe so much to the Romans, as the Romans owed to Cato. He also says that the consul Manius immediately after the victory was won, enfolded him for a long time in a close embrace, and loudly declared that neither he nor all the Roman people could ever do as much for Cato as he had that day done for them. He was sent immediately after the battle to bear the news of the victory to Rome, and reached Brundusium after a prosperous voyage.

[Pg 113]From that place he drove in one day to Tarentum, and in four more days reached Rome with the news, on the fifth day after his landing. His arrival filled the whole city with feasting and rejoicing, and made the Roman people believe that there was no nation in the world which could resist their arms.

XV

Of Cato’s warlike exploits these which we have related are the most remarkable. In his political life he seems to have thought one of his most important duties to be the impeachment and prosecution of those whom he thought to be bad citizens. He himself attacked many persons, and aided and encouraged others in doing so, a notable example being his conduct towards Scipio in the affair of Petillius. However, as Scipio was a man of noble birth and great spirit, he treated the attack made upon him with contempt, and Cato, perceiving that he could not succeed in getting him condemned to death, desisted from annoying him. But he was active in obtaining the condemnation of Scipio’s brother Lucius, who was adjudged to pay a heavy fine, which was beyond his means to provide, so that he had nearly been cast into prison, but was set free by the intervention of the tribunes of the people.

It is related of him that he once met in the forum a young man who had just succeeded in obtaining the disfranchisement, by an action at law, of an enemy of his father, who was dead. Cato took him by the hand and said, “Thus ought men to honour their parents when they die, not with the blood of lambs and kids, but with the tears and condemnation of their enemies.” He himself is said to have been the defendant in nearly fifty actions, the last of which was tried when he was eighty-six years of age: on which occasion he uttered that well-known saying, that it was hard for a man who had lived in one generation to be obliged to defend himself before another. And this was not the end of his litigations, for four years later, when at the age of ninety, he impeached Servius Galba. Indeed his life, like that of Nestor, seems to havo reached over three generations. He, as had been related, was a bitter political opponent of Scipio Africanus the Great, and he continued his enmity to Scipio’s adopted son, called Scipio the Younger, who was really the son of [Pg 114]Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Perseus and the Macedonians.

XVI

Ten years after his consulship, Cato became a candidate for the office of censor. This is the highest dignity to which a Roman can aspire, and may be regarded as the goal of political life. Its powers are very extensive, and it is especially concerned with the regulation of public morals, and the mode of life of the citizens of Rome. The Romans thought that none of a man’s actions, his marriage, his family, his mode of life, his very entertainments, ought to be uncontrolled, and managed according to his own will and pleasure. They considered that a man’s true character was much more clearly shown by his private life than by his public behaviour, and were wont to choose two citizens, one a patrician, and the other a plebeian, whose duty it was to watch over the morals of the people, and check any tendency to licentiousness or extravagance. These officers they called censors, and they had power to deprive a Roman knight of his horse, and to expel men of loose and disorderly life from the Senate. They also took a census of property, and kept a register of the various tribes and classes of the citizens; and they likewise exercised various other important powers. Cato’s candidature was opposed by nearly all the most distinguished members of the Senate, for the patricians viewed him with especial dislike, regarding it as an insult to the nobility that men of obscure birth should attain to the highest honours in the state, while all those who were conscious of any private vices or departures from the ways of their fathers, feared the severities of one who, they knew, would be harsh and inexorable when in power.

These classes consequently combined together against Cato, and put up no less than seven candidates to contest the censorship with him, and endeavoured to soothe the people by holding out to them hopes of a lenient censor, as though that were what they required. Cato on the other hand would not relax his severity in the least, but threatened evil doers in his speeches from the rostra, and insisted that the city required a most searching reformation. He told the people that if they were wise, they would choose not the most agreeable, but the most [Pg 115]thorough physicians to perform this operation for them, and that these would be himself and Valerius Flaccus; for with him as a colleague he imagined that he might make some progress in the work of destroying, by knife and cautery, the hydra of luxury and effeminacy. Of the other candidates he said that he saw that each one was eager to get the office and fill it badly, because he was afraid of those who could fill it well. The Roman people on this occasion showed itself so truly great and worthy to be courted by great men, as not to be alarmed at the earnest severity of Cato; but, setting aside all those plausible candidates who promised merely to consult their pleasure, elected Cato and Valerius censors. It seemed, indeed, as if Cato, inatead of being a candidate for election, was already in office and issuing his commands to the people, which were at once obeyed.

XVII

As soon as he was elected, Cato appointed his friend and colleague, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, chief of the Senate. He expelled several senators, amongst whom was Lucius Quintius, who had been consul seven years before, and, which was even a greater distinction than the consulship, was the brother of Titus Quintius Flamininus, the conqueror of Philip. He was expelled from the Senate for the following reason. Lucius had a favourite boy who never left his person, and followed him even on his campaigns. This boy had more power and received greater attention than the most trusty of his friends and relatives. Now, when Lucius was governor of a province as proconsul, this boy once, at a drinking party, was flattering him over his wine, saying that “Although there was going to be a show of gladiators at Rome, yet I did not stay to see it, but came out here to you, although I longed to see a man killed.” Lucius, to please him, answered in the same tone, “If that be all, do not lie there and fret, for I will soon gratify your wish.” He at once ordered a condemned criminal to be brought into the banqueting hall, and one of his servants to stand by him with an axe, and then again asked his favourite whether he wished to see a man struck dead. When the boy said that he did, he bade the servant cut off the man’s head. This is the account which most writers give of the transaction, and [Pg 116]it is that which Cicero introduces Cato as relating in his dialogue “On Old Age;” but Livy says that the man who was put to death was a Gaulish deserter, and that Lucius did not employ a servant, but slew him with his own hand, and this is the version which Cato has followed in his written account of the matter. When Cato discussed what took place at this wine party, Lucius endeavoured to deny it, but on being challenged to state exactly what happened he refused to answer. He was most justly condemned to lose his right as a senator; but afterwards, when some spectacle was being witnessed in the theatre, he walked past the place reserved for men of consular rank, and sat down in the humblest seat of all, which so moved the people to compassion, that they forced him by their clamour to resume his former seat, thus as far as they were able reversing the sentence upon him and condoning his offence.

Cato expelled another senator, who was thought likely to be soon elected consul, named Manilius, because he had kissed his wife in the daytime in the presence of his daughter. He himself said that his own wife never embraced him except when it thundered loudly, and added by way of joke, that he was happy when Jupiter was pleased to thunder.

XVIII

His conduct in depriving of his horse Lucius Scipio, the brother of Scipio Africanus, a man who had been decreed a triumph, was censured, as being merely prompted by private spite; as he seemed merely to do it in order to insult Scipio Africanus after his death. But what caused the greatest dissatisfaction were his restrictions on luxury. This he could not attack openly, because it had taken such deep root among the people, but he caused all clothes, carriages, women’s ornaments, and furniture, which exceeded fifteen hundred drachmas in value to be rated at ten times their value and taxed accordingly, as he thought that those who possessed the most valuable property ought to contribute most largely to the revenues of the state. In addition to this he imposed a tax on all citizens of three copper ases for every thousand, in order that those who were burdened with an excessive taxation on objects of luxury, when they saw [Pg 117]persons of frugal and simple habits paying so small a tax on the same income, might cease from their extravagance. This measure gained him the hatred of those who were taxed so heavily for their luxuries, and of those who, to avoid excessive taxation, were obliged to give up their luxuries. Most persons are as much irritated at losing the means of displaying their wealth as at losing their wealth itself, and it is in superfluities, not in necessaries, that wealth can be displayed. This is what is said to have so much surprised Ariston the Philosopher, that men should consider those persons fortunate who possess what is superfluous, rather than those who possess what is necessary and useful. Skopas the Thessalian also, when one of his friends asked him for something which was not particularly useful to him, and added, that he did not ask for anything necessary or useful, answered, “Indeed, it is in these useless and superfluous things that my wealth chiefly consists.” For the desire of wealth is not connected with any of our physical necessities, and is an artificial want arising from too much regard for the opinion of the vulgar.

XIX

Cato paid no attention to those who blamed his conduct, and proceeded to measures of still greater severity. He cut off the water-pipes, by which water was conveyed from the public fountains into private houses and gardens, destroyed all houses that encroached upon the public streets, lowered the price of contracts for public works, and farmed out the public revenues for the highest possible rents. All this made him still more unpopular. Titus Flamininus and his friends attacked him, and prevailed upon the Senate to annul the contracts which he had made for the building of temples and the construction of public works, on the ground that they were disadvantageous to the state. They also encouraged the boldest of the tribunes to prosecute him before the people, and to fine him two talents. He likewise received violent opposition in the matter of the basilica, or public hall, which he built at the public expense in the forum below the senate house, and which was called the Basilica Porcia.

In spite of all this, his censorship seems to have been [Pg 118]wonderfully popular with the Roman people. When they placed his statue in the Temple of Hygieia, they did not enumerate his campaigns or triumphs in the inscription on the base, but wrote what we may translate as follows: “This statue was erected to Cato because, when Censor, finding the state of Rome corrupt and degenerate, he, by introducing wise regulations and virtuous discipline, restored it.”

At one time Cato affected to despise those who took pleasure in receiving honours of this kind, and used to say that while they plumed themselves on being represented in brass or marble, they forgot that the fairest image was that of himself which every citizen bore in his heart. When any one expressed surprise at his not having a statue, when so many obscure men had obtained that honour, he answered, “I had rather that men should ask why I have no statue, than that they should ask why I have one.” A good citizen, he said, ought not even to allow himself to be praised, unless the state were benefited thereby. He has glorified himself by recording that when men were detected in any fault, they would excuse themselves by saying that they must be pardoned if they did anything amiss, for they were not Catos: and that those who endeavoured clumsily to imitate his proceedings were called left-handed Catos. Also he states that the Senate looked to him in great emergencies as men in a storm look to the pilot, and that when he was not present, they frequently postponed their more important business. This indeed is confirmed by other writers: for he had great influence in Rome on account of his virtuous life, his eloquence, and his great age.

XX

He was a good father and a good husband, and was in his private life an economist of no ordinary kind, as he did not despise money-making or regard it as unworthy of his abilities. For this reason I think I ought to relate how well he managed his private affairs. He married a wife who was well born, though not rich; for he thought that though all classes might possess equally good sense, yet that a woman of noble birth would be more ashamed of doing wrong, and therefore more likely to encourage her husband to do right. He used to say [Pg 119]that a man who beat his wife or his children laid sacrilegious hands on the holiest of things. He also said that he had rather be a good husband than a great statesman, and that what he especially admired in Sokrates the Philosopher was his patience and kindness in bearing with his ill-tempered wife and his stupid children. When his son was born, he thought that nothing except the most important business of state ought to prevent his being present while his wife washed the child and wrapped it in swaddling clothes. His wife suckled the child herself; nay, she often gave her breast to the children of her slaves, and so taught them to have a brotherly regard for her own son.

As soon as he was able to learn, Cato himself taught him his letters, although he had a clever slave named Chilon, who taught many children to read. He himself declares that he did not wish a slave to reprove his son or pull his ears because he was slow at learning. He taught the boy to read, and instructed him also in the Roman law and in bodily exercises; not confining himself to teaching him to hurl the javelin, to fight in complete armour, and to ride, but also to use his fists in boxing, to endure the extremes of heat and cold, and to swim through swiftly-flowing and eddying rivers. He tells us that he himself wrote books on history with his own hands in large letters, that the boy might start in life with a useful knowledge of what his forefathers had done, and he was as careful not to use an indecenr expression before his son as he would have been before the vestal virgins. He never bathed with him; which indeed seems to have been customary at Rome, as even fathers-in-law scrupled to bathe naked before their sons-in-law. In later times, however, the Romans learned from the Greeks the habit of bathing naked, and have taught the Greeks to do so even in the presence of women.

While Cato was engaged in this great work of forming his son’s character and completing his education he found him eager to learn, and able to make great progress from his natural ability: but he appeared so weak and delicate that his father was obliged to relax the stern simplicity of his own life in his favour, and allow him some indul[Pg 120]gences in diet. The young man, although so weakly, yet proved himself a good soldier in the wars, and distinfuished himself greatly in the battle in which Æmilius Paulus defeated King Perseus. Afterwards, upon the same day, he either had his sword struck from his hand or let it fall from weakness, and in his grief at the loss got together some of his friends and prevailed upon them again to charge the enemy. With great exertions they succeeded in clearing a space, and at length discovered his sword under a great heap of arms and corpses of friends and foes alike which were piled upon it. Paulus, the commander-in-chief, was much pleased with the youth’s eagerness to regain his sword, and sent a letter to Cato in which he spoke in the highest terms of the courage and honourable feeling which he had shown. He afterwards married Tertia, the sister of Scipio, and had the gratification of pleasing his father as much as himself by thus allying himself with one of the noblest families in Rome. Thus was Cato rewarded for the care which he had bestowed upon his son’s education.

XXI

He possessed a large number of slaves, and when captives were for sale he always purchased those who were young, and who, like colts or puppies, could be taught and trained to their duties. None of them ever entered any house but his own, unless sent thither by Cato or by his wife: and if they were asked what Cato was doing, they always answered that they did not know. His rule was, that a slave ought either to be doing his business or to be asleep; and he greatly preferred good sleepers, as he thought that they were more easy tempered than wakeful persons, and also that men who had slept well were better able to work than those who had lain awake. Knowing that love affairs lead slaves into mischief more than anything else, he permitted them to consort with his own female slaves at a fixed price, but forbade them to have anything to do with other women.

Cato in his earlier days, being a poor man, and always employed in service in the field, never complained of any thing that he ate, and thought it most disgraceful to quarrel with his servant for not having pleased his palate. Subsequently, however, as he became richer, he used to [Pg 121]invite his friends and colleagues to dinner, and after the repast was wont to punish with the scourge those servants who had made mistakes or cooked the food badly. He always endeavoured to establish some quarrel amongst his slaves, so that they might plot against one another, instead of combining against himself; and when any of them appeared to have committed any crime deserving to be punished by death, the offender was formally tried, and if found guilty, was put to death in the presence of all his fellow-servants.

As Cato grew more eager to make money, he declared that farming was more an amusement than a source of income, and preferred investing his money in remunerative undertakings, such as marshes that required draining, hot springs, establishments for washing and cleaning clothes, land which would produce an income by pasturage or by the sale of wood, and the like, which afforded him a considerable revenue, and one which, as he said, not Jupiter himself could injure, meaning that he was not dependent upon the weather for his income, as farmers are. He also used to deal in marine assurance, which is thought to be a most dangerous form of investment, which he managed in the following manner. For the sake of security he made those who wished to borrow money form themselves into an association of fifty persons, representing as many ships, and held one share in the undertaking himself, which was managed by his freedman Quintio, who himself used to sail in the ships of the association and transact their mercantile business.

He used to lend money to his slaves, if they desired it. They used with the money to buy young slaves, teach them a trade at Cato’s expense for a year, and then dispose of them. Many of these Cato retained in his own service, paying the price offered by the highest bidder, and deducting from it the original cost of the slave. When endeavouring to encourage his son to act in a similar manner, he used to say that it was not the part of a man, but of a lone woman, to diminish one’s capital; and once, with an excessive exaggeration, he said that the most glorious and godlike man was he who on his death was found to have earned more than he inherited.

XXII

[Pg 122]When he was an old man, Karneades the academic, and Diogenes the stoic philosopher, came as ambassadors to Rome on the part of the Athenians, to beg that they might not be forced to pay a fine of five hundred talents which had been imposed upon them in consequence of an action at law, brought against the Athenians by the people of Oropus, before the people of Sikyon as judges, having been allowed to go against them by default. Such of the Roman youths as had any taste for literature frequented the society of these men, and took great interest in hearing their discussions. They were especially delighted with Karneades, a man of great and recognised ability, who obtained large and enthusiastic audiences at his lectures, and filled the whole city with his fame. Nothing was talked of except how a single Greek with wonderful powers of eloquence and persuasion had so bewitched the youth of Rome that they forsook all other pleasures, and plunged wildly into philosophic speculations. The greater part of the citizens were well pleased with this, and looked on with great satisfaction at their sons’ study of Greek literature, and their intimacy with such celebrated men; but Cato, when the taste for philosophy first sprang up in Rome, was vexed at it, and feared that the young men might become more eager to gain distinction by fluent speaking than by warlike exploits. However, when the fame of the philosophers increased, and a distinguished man, Caius Acilius, at the general request, translated their first lectures to the Senate, Cato decided that the philosophers must at once be conducted with all due honours out of the city. He came to the Senate and made a speech, in which he blamed them for having allowed an embassy to remain so long at Rome without accomplishing its purpose, although nothing was easier than for it to gain its point. He called upon them therefore, to decide as soon as possible and come to a vote upon the matter about which this embassy was come, in order that these philosophers might return to their schools and instruct the young men of Greece, while those of Rome might, as before, give their attention to the laws and the magistrates.

XXIII

Cato acted thus, not as some writers imagine, [Pg 123]from any private quarrel with Karneades, but because he disliked the philosophy altogether, and from a feeling of patriotism, regarded all Greek literature and methods of education with hatred and contempt. He used to say that Sokrates was a wordy and dangerous man, who endeavoured in his own way to make himself supreme in Athens, by destroying the best of the national customs and teaching the citizens to hold opinions at variance with the laws. He ridiculed Isokrates as a teacher of rhetoric, saying that his disciples stayed with him so long learning their profession, that they were only able to practice what they had learned in the court where Minos sat as judge in the next world. In his endeavours to dissuade his son from the study of Greek literature, he abused the privileges of old age so far as to utter a prophecy that the Romans would ruin their empire by too intimate an acquaintance with the arts of Greece. Time, however, has proved this to be a mere empty slander, seeing that since then Rome has risen to a wonderful height of power and glory, and yet is thoroughly familiar with Greek writings and studies. Cato not only disliked the Greek philosophers, but also looked with suspicion on the Greek physicians who then practised at Rome. He had heard some story about Hippokrates, who, when the king of Persia offered him a large sum of money if he would come to Persia, answered that he never would give his services to barbarians who were the enemies of Greece. Cato used to say that all Greek physicians had sworn an oath to act like Hippokrates, and warned his son never to have any dealings with any of them. He himself had a book full of recipes, according to which he used to physick and regulate the diet of any who fell sick in his house, being careful never to allow the patient to fast, but making him eat salad, with ducks, pigeons, and hares, which he said were light food, and suitable for sick persons, except that it often happened that those who ate of them suffered from nightmares. He used to declare that by following this regimen, he kept both himself and all his household in perfect health.

XXIV

He seems to have been justly rewarded for his quackery, for he lost both his wife and his son by sickness. [Pg 124]He himself, however, being of an iron constitution, made a second marriage, in spite of his advanced age, being led into it by the following circumstances. After the death of his wife he arranged a marriage between his son and the daughter of Æmilius Paulus, who was the sister of Scipio. He himself meanwhile solaced himself by an intrigue with a maid-servant who visited him by stealth. However, in a small house with a daughter-in-law in it this could not be kept secret; and one day when this woman was insolently swaggering into his father’s bedchamber, young Cato was observed by the old man to glance at her with bitter hatred and then turn away in disgust. As soon as Cato perceived that his conduct vexed his children, he said not a word, but went into the forum with his friends, as was his wont. Here one Salonius, who was one of his under-secretaries, met him and began to pay his respects to him, when Cato asked him in a loud voice whether he had provided a husband for his daughter. On the man’s replying that he had not, and would not presume to do so without consulting him, Cato replied, “Well, I, by Jupiter, have found a very suitable person to marry her, unless his age be any objection: for he is very passable in all respects except that he is very old.” As Salonius upon this bade him carry out his intention and marry the girl to whomsoever he pleased, seeing that she was his client6 and he was her patron, Cato without a moment’s delay told him that he wished to marry the girl himself. This proposal at first, as might be expected, astonished the secretary, who had thought that a man at Cato’s time of life was very unlikely to marry, and had never dreamed that his humble family would be allied with a house which could boast of consulates and triumphs; but as he saw that Cato was in earnest he gladly accepted his offer. While the preparations for the marriage were in progress, young Cato, taking his relatives with him, went and inquired of his father whether he had reproached or annoyed him in any way, that he was putting a mother-in-law over him. Cato at this question cried out aloud, “Hush, my son; I approve of all that you have done, and find no fault with you: I only desire to leave behind me more sons of my race, and more citizens [Pg 125]to serve the state.” It is said that this remark was first made by Peisistratus, the despot of Athens, when, although he had sons grown up, he married Timonassa of Argos, by whom we are told that he had two sons, Iophon and Thessalus. Cato also had a son by his second marriage, whom he named Salonius after his mother. His eldest son died during his prætorship. Cato often mentions him in his writings as having been a brave and good man, but is said to have borne his loss with philosophic resignation, and to have taken as keen an interest in politics as before. He did not, as was afterwards done by Lucius Lucullus or Metellus Pius, abandon public life when he grew old, and think that it was a burden to take part in politics; still less did he imitate Scipio Africanus, who some years before had proudly turned his back on the people who grudged him the glory he had won, and spent the rest of his life in ease and retirement. Some one is said to have told Dionysius of Syracuse that an absolute monarchy is the best thing for a man to die in, and so Cato seemed to think that political life was the best for him to grow old in, while he amused himself in his leisure moments by writing and farming.

XXV

He compiled works on various subjects, especially on history. Farming he applied himself to when very young, on account of his poverty, for he himself tells us that he had only two sources of income, farming and frugality. In later life he derived both amusement and instruction from watching the operations of agriculture, and he has written a farmer’s manual, in which there is even an account of how to cook cakes and preserve fruits, so desirous was he to show a thorough knowledge of every subject. His table was never so well served as when he was in the country; for he used to invite all his friends and acquaintances from the neighbourhood, and make himself very agreeable to them, as he was a pleasant companion not only to men of his own age, but also to the young, having in the course of his long life seen and heard from others much that was interesting and curious. He regarded the table as the best means of forming friendships, and when dining used to praise the good without stint, but never would allow the names of worthless men to be [Pg 126]mentioned, either by way of praise or blame, at his entertainments.

XXVI

The last of his political acts is said to have been the destruction of Carthage. This was actually brought to pass by Scipio the Younger, but it was chiefly owing to the counsels of Cato that the war was begun. His reason for insisting on its destruction was this. He was sent on a mission to Africa to investigate the grounds of a quarrel which existed between the Carthaginians and Masinissa, the king of the Numidians. Masinissa had always been the friend of Rome, whereas the Carthaginians, after their defeat by Scipio, had been subjected to hard conditions, having lost their sovereignty over the neighbouring tribes, and having been compelled to pay a large sum as tribute to Rome. Cato, however, found the city, not, as the Romans imagined it to be, crushed by its recent overthrow, but full of young men, overflowing with wealth, well provided with arms and munitions of war, and, as may be expected, full of warlike spirit. He concluded that it was no time for the Romans to arbitrate about the grievances of Masinissa and his Numidians, but that, unless they at once destroyed a city which bore them an undying hatred and which had recovered its strength in an incredibly short space of time, they would have as much to fear from Carthage as ever. He quickly returned home, and pointed out to the Senate that the former defeats and misfortunes suffered by the Carthaginians had not really broken their strength so much as they had dissipated their overweening self-confidence, and that in the late war they had not lost so much in strength as they had gained in experience and skill. Their present difference with the Numidians was, he urged, merely a prelude to an attack upon Rome, with which city they kept up the fiction of a peace which would soon upon a suitable opportunity be exchanged for war.

XXVII

After these words it is said that Cato threw down in the senate house some ripe figs which he had brought on purpose; and when the senators admired their size and beauty, he remarked that “the country which produced this fruit is only three days’ sail distant from Rome.” Another and a more violent method of forcing [Pg 127]the Romans to attack them was his habit, when giving his opinion on any subject whatever, to append the words, “And I also am of opinion that Carthage must he destroyed.” On the other hand, Publius Scipio, called Nasica, used to end all his speeches with the words, “And I further am of opinion that Carthage should be left alone.” Scipio’s reason for this was that he perceived that the lower classes in Rome, elated by success, were becoming difficult for the Senate to manage, and practically forced the State to adopt whatever measures they chose. He thought that to have this fear of Carthage kept constantly hanging over them would be a salutary check upon the insolence of the people, and he thought that although Carthage was too weak to conquer the Romans, yet that it was too strong to be despised by them. Cato, on the other hand, thought it a dangerous thing that, at a time when the Romans were giddy and drunk with power, they should leave in existence a city which always had been important, and which now, sobered by defeat, was biding its time and lying in wait for a favourable opportunity to avenge itself. He argued that it was better to set the Romans free from any fear of foreign states, in order that they might be able to devote themselves uninterruptedly to the task of political reform.

These are said to have been Cato’s reasons for urging his countrymen to begin the third and last Punic war. He died as soon as the war was begun, leaving a prophecy that it would be finished by a young man who was then serving as military tribune, and who had given remarkable proofs of courage and generalship. Cato, on hearing of his exploits is said to have quoted Homer’s line—

“He alone has solid wisdom; all the rest are shadows vain.”

This opinion Scipio soon confirmed by his actions.

Cato left one son by his second wife, who, as has been said, was named Salonius, and one grandson, the child of his eldest son who was dead. Salonius died during his prætorship, but his son Marcus became consul. This man was the grandfather of Cato the Philosopher, who was one of the foremost men of his day in courage and ability.

COMPARISON OF
ARISTEIDES AND CATO.

Now that we have related all the important events of each of these men’s lives, it will be seen that the points in which they differ are very trifling when compared with those in which they agree. If, however, we are to take each of their qualities separately, as one would in comparing two speeches or two pictures, we observe that they both agree in having begun life in a humble station, and having won political distinction and power by sheer ability and force of character. It is true that Aristeides rose to power at a period when Athens was poor, and when the orators and generals whom he attacked were men whose means were little superior to his own; for the men of greatest incomes at that time were assessed as having five hundred bushels of wet or dry produce a year, while the next class, that of the knights, had three hundred, and the lowest, or those who could afford to keep a yoke of oxen, had only two hundred. Cato, on the other hand, came from an obscure village and a rustic mode of life, and boldly launched himself upon the turbid sea of Roman politics, although the days of Curius, Fabricius and Atilius were long past, and Rome was not accustomed to find her magistrates and party leaders in labouring men fresh from the plough or the workshop, but in men of noble birth and great wealth, who canvassed extensively, and bribed heavily; while the populace, insolent with the consciousness of power, were growing ripe for a revolt against the governing class.

It was a very different thing for Aristeides to have only Themistokles for an antagonist, a man of no birth or fortune (for it is said that he only possessed between three and five talents when he first embarked on politics) and [Pg 129]for Cato to contend for the mastery with men like Scipio Africanus, Sergius Galba, and Titus Quintius Flamininus, with nothing to help him but his eloquent voice and his good cause.

II

Furthermore, Aristeides, both at Marathon and at Platæa, acted as general with nine colleagues, while Cato was elected one of the two consuls and afterwards one of the two censors, though there were many other candidates for both offices. Aristeides never conspicuously distinguished himself, as the credit of the victory at Marathon belongs to Miltiades, and that of Salamis to Themistokles, while Herodotus tells us that Pausanias obtained the most glorious success of all at Platæa, and even the second place is disputed with Aristeides by Sophanes, Ameinias, Kallimachus, and Kynægyrus, all of whom won great glory in those battles. On the other hand, Cato not only when consul gained the greatest credit, both by his wise conduct, and his personal prowess in the Spanish war, but, when at Thermopylæ he was acting as tribune under another person’s command as consul, contributed mainly to winning the victory by his flank movement, by which he established himself in the rear of Antiochus while that prince was intent upon the enemy in his front. This victory, which was so manifestly due to Cato, had the important result of driving the Asiatic troops out of Greece back to their own country, and so of preparing the way for Scipio’s subsequent invasion of Asia.

Neither of them were ever defeated in battle, but in political matters Aristeides was overcome by his rival Themistokles, who drove him into exile by ostracism, while Cato held his own against all the greatest and most influential men in Rome to the end of his life without once being overthrown by them. He was often impeached, and always acquitted, while he frequently succeeded in his impeachments of others, using, both as a bulwark to defend himself and as a weapon to attack others, his power of speaking in public, which indeed is a quality more to be relied upon than good fortune to protect a man from suffering wrong. Antipater, in the account which he wrote of the philosopher Aristotle after his death, observes [Pg 130]that besides his other qualities and accomplishments this man had the power of persuasion.

III

It is generally admitted that political virtue is the highest to which a man can aspire, and of this, most think domestic virtue to be a very important part; for as a city is merely a collection of houses, the public virtue of the state must be increased if it contain many well-regulated households. Lykurgus, when he banished silver and gold from Sparta, and gave his countrymen useless iron money, did not wish to discourage good household management among them, but he removed the dangerous seductions of wealth out of their reach, in order that they all might enjoy a sufficiency of what was useful and necessary. He saw, what no other legislator appears to have seen, that the real danger to a commonwealth arises from the poor and desperate rather than from the excessively rich.

Now we have seen that Cato was as well able to manage his household as to govern the state; for he improved his fortune and became a teacher of household management and husbandry to others, by collecting much useful information on these matters. On the other hand, Aristeides made his poverty a reproach to justice, which by his example was made to seem a ruinous virtue which brought men to want, and was totally useless to those who practised it. Yet the poet Hesiod, when encouraging men to act justly and manage their household affairs well, blames idleness as the origin of injustice, and the same idea is well stated in Homer’s lines:—

“Work was never my delight,

Nor household cares, that breed up children bright;

But ever loved I ships with banks of oars,

And arrows keen, and weapons for the wars,”

where we see that the same men neglect their duties at home, and gain their living by injustice and piracy abroad. The physicians tell us that oil is most useful, outwardly used, and most harmful when taken inwardly; but it is not true of the just man that he is most useful to his friends, but useless to himself. It seems to me to be a blot on Aristeides’ fame, if it be true that he could not even provide money for his daughters’ dowry or for [Pg 131]his own funeral expenses. The family of Cato for four generations, supplied Rome with prætors and consuls, for his grandchildren, and their children too, all rose to the highest offices in the state; while the hopeless poverty of Aristeides, though he was the foremost man of his time in Greece, reduced some of his family to the disreputable profession of interpreting dreams, and forced others to live on public charity, putting it quite out of their power to emulate the glorious actions of their ancestor.

IV

Some, indeed, may dispute this; for it is true that poverty is no disgrace in itself, but only when it is a proof of indolence, extravagance, or folly. The poverty of a laborious, upright, temperate statesman combines well with his other virtues, and shows true greatness of mind: for a man whose attention is given to little things, can never succeed in doing great ones; nor can a man help others if he is in need of help himself. A statesman requires, not wealth, but contentment, in order that his attention may not be diverted from public affairs by his own cravings for useless luxuries. God alone is entirely without wants, and we approach nearest to the divine ideal when we can reduce our wants to the fewest possible. Just as a healthy man requires neither excess of clothing or of food, so a man’s life and that of his family, if properly regulated, can be maintained at a trifling cost. His income, however, must exactly tally with his requirements; for we cannot call that man contented who earns much, and spends little. He is a foolish man if he troubles himself to amass what he cannot enjoy; while he must be a miserable man if he is able to enjoy the use of wealth, and yet through meanness of spirit forbids himself its use.

I would willingly put this question to Cato: “If we ought to enjoy our wealth, why do you make a virtue of simplicity of living when you are a rich man? If, on the other hand, it is a noble thing, as no doubt it is, to eat common bread, to drink the same wine as our servants and farm labourers do, and not to want fine clothes or comfortable houses, then Aristeides and Epameinondus, Manius Curius and Caius Fabricius were to be applauded for their neglect of the wealth, whose use they rejected.” [Pg 132]Surely it was not necessary for a man who thought turnips made a delicious meal, and who used to boil them himself while his wife baked the bread, to write so much about how to save a penny, and how a man might most quickly make a fortune. The great advantage of simplicity and contentment is, that it prevents our wishing for superfluities, or even thinking about them. Aristeides, when cited as a witness during the trial of Kallias, is said to have observed that those who were poor against their will, ought to be ashamed of it, but that those who, like himself, were poor from their own choice, gloried in their poverty. It would be absurd to suppose that the poverty of Aristeides was not voluntary, when, without doing any criminal act, he might by stripping the body of one dead Persian, or by plundering one tent, have made himself a rich man. But enough of this.

V

As to their campaigns, those of Cato added but little to the already vast empire of Rome, while Aristeides was present at Marathon, Salamis, and Platæa, the most glorious of all Grecian victories. We cannot compare Antiochus with Xerxes, nor the destruction of the walls of the Spanish cities by Cato, with the tremendous slaughter of the barbarians by the Greeks, both on sea and land. Aristeides was present at every action of importance, although he gave up his share of glory and rewards, even as he did with gold and silver, to those who needed them more than himself. I cannot blame Cato for always glorifying himself and claiming the first place for himself, although he says in one of his books that it is absurd for a man either to praise or to blame himself; still I think that he who does not even wish for the praises of others, is a more perfect character than he who is always exalting himself. An indifference to popular applause does much to soften the bitterness of political controversy, while on the other hand a love of distinction often leads men to be ill-natured and spiteful to others, a fault which Aristeides entirely avoided, and to which Cato was peculiarly liable. Aristeides saved Athens by supporting the authority of Themistokles on several critical occasions, and even acting as his subordinate; while Cato by his opposition, nearly ruined Scipio’s famous expedition to Carthage, in which [Pg 133]he defeated the hitherto invincible Hannibal. Nor did he cease his intrigues against Scipio until by calumnious and false accusations he drove him out of Rome, and stigmatized his brother with the disgraceful charge of embezzling the public money.

VI

Self-denial, upon which Cato has bestowed such lavish praise, was practised in its purest and brightest form by Aristeides, while Cato seems to have forfeited all claim to this virtue by his unsuitable and unseasonable second marriage. It could not be to his honour, when he was of such a great age, to marry the daughter of his own servant, a man who acted as a public clerk, and to bring her into the house to act as mother-in-law to his son, who was now himself grown up and married. Whether he acted thus from natural inclination, or to spite his son for his behaviour about his mistress, the marriage and the motives which led to it are equally discreditable to him. The sarcastic explanation of it which he gave to his son is utterly untrue; for had he wished to beget other children as noble as his son, he ought to have married a well-born lady at once, and not to have been satisfied with a low intrigue until it was detected, and then to have chosen as his father-in-law, the man whom he could most easily influence, rather than some one whose alliance would bring him honour and advantage.

[Pg 134]

LIFE OF
PHILOPŒMEN.

I

In the city of Mantinea there was a citizen named Kleander, of one of the first families, and of great influence. Nevertheless he was so unfortunate as to be forced to leave his native city, and take refuge in Megalopolis, to which he was chiefly attracted by Kraugis, the father of Philopœmen, a man eminent in every respect, and an especial private friend of Kleander. While Kraugis lived, Kleander wanted for nothing, and after his death endeavoured to repay the debt which he owed him by devoting himself to the education of his orphan son, just as Homer tells us that Achilles was nurtured by the exile Phœnix. The child, who always was of a noble and commanding spirit, grew under his care into a youth of great promise. As he came near to manhood Ekdemus and Megalophanes, two citizens of Megalopolis, took charge of his education. These men had studied in the Academy with Arkesilaus, and more than any others brought the lessons of philosophy to bear upon politics and the daily affairs of life. They freed their own country of the despot Aristodemus by secretly contriving his assassination, drove out the despot Nikokles from Sikyon, with the help of Aratus, and, at the request of the people of Kyrene, whose state was a prey to revolution, they went to that country and restored order and respect for the laws. They themselves, however, reckoned their most important work to have been the education of Philopœmen, because by bringing him up in the precepts of true philosophy they made him a benefactor to all Greece. And truly Greece loved him exceedingly, as the last great man born of her old age, after so many great and famous men of former times. A Roman speaking in his praise called [Pg 135]him the last of the Greeks, as though he thought that Greece had never after him produced any son worthy of herself.

II

His appearance was not repulsive, as some think; for we can see the statue of him which exists at Delphi at this day. The mistake of his Megarian hostess seems to have arisen from his good-nature and simplicity. She, when she heard that the commander-in-chief of the Achæans was coming to her house, was in a great state of excitement about the preparation of dinner, her husband happening to be away. Meanwhile, Philopœmen entered, dressed in a coarse cloak, and she, supposing him to be a servant sent on in advance, ordered him to help her to get things ready. He at once threw off his cloak and began to split up firewood. While he was thus engaged his friend the master of the house came in, and seeing him, said, “What is this that you are doing, Philopœmen?” “Why,” answered he in the Doric dialect, “I am suffering for my ugly face.” Titus, also, when jesting upon his bodily shape, said, “Philopœmen, what fine hands and legs you have; but you have no belly,” as indeed he had a very small waist. However, the jest was directed more against his power, for though he had plenty of good infantry and cavalry he was frequently in great distress for money to pay them. These are the common anecdotes which are current about Philopœmen.

III

His love of distinction was not entirely unmixed with feelings of rivalry and passion. He desired to emulate the fame of Epameinondas, but though he imitated that great man in energy, good sense, and contempt of money, yet he was unable in political struggles to maintain his calm unruffled good-nature, but was often betrayed by his fiery temper into sallies more befitting a soldier than a statesman. Indeed, from a child he had always been fond of war, and eagerly devoted himself to soldier-like exercises, such as fighting in complete armour and riding on horseback. He was thought to be a good wrestler, and was invited by his friends to contend with them in that sport, but he asked them whether the practice would not impair his efficiency as a soldier, when they answered truly that the body and the life of [Pg 136]an athlete differs from that of a soldier in every respect, more particularly in diet and exercise. The athlete takes long sleep, frequent meals, regular exercise and intervals of rest, being likely to be put out of condition by the least change of his accustomed routine, while the life of a soldier makes him accustomed to all kinds of change and diversity of life, especially to enduring hunger and want of sleep. On learning this Philopœmen not only himself avoided wrestling and ridiculed it, but when he was in command of an army took every means in his power to bring every kind of athletic exercise into contempt, as likely to unfit the best men’s bodies for the most important struggles in battle.

IV

On leaving his schoolmasters he took part in the incursion made by his fellow citizens into the Laconian territory for the purpose of plunder. In these raids it was his wont always to be first in the attack, and last in the retreat. In time of peace he would exercise his body, and make it both swift and strong, either by hunting or by tilling the ground. He possessed a fine estate about twenty furlongs from the city: to this he would walk after his morning or evening meal, and sleep there on any bed he could find, like one of the farm labourers. Then he would rise early, help the vine-dressers or cattle-herds to do their work, and, returning to town, take part in public business. The profits arising from the plunder gained in the forays he used to spend on horses, arms, and the redeeming of captives, while he endeavoured to increase his income by the skilful cultivation of his farm, considering the most just way of making money, and his strict duty to be, so to manage his fortune as to avoid the temptation of wronging others. He used to listen to conversation and to read treatises upon philosophy, yet not all, but only those which he thought would teach him to be virtuous. He also devoted much time to reading those passages of Homer which stir up and excite manly courage, His other reading consisted chiefly of Evangelus’s treatise on military tactics, and of the history of Alexander the Great; but he always thought that reading, unless it led to action, was a useless waste of time. In his studies of tactics he used to disregard the diagrams in the books [Pg 137]and consider what could be done in the field itself, observing the slopes and inequalities of the ground, the direction of brooks and water-courses, and the effect which they would have upon a body of troops advancing in line or in column. These reflections he was wont to make during his walks, and to exercise the minds of his companions by questions about them; for he devoted his whole mind to the study of military matters, regarding war as the widest arena for the display of virtue, utterly despising those who were not soldiers, as useless members of society.

V

When he was thirty years old Kleomenes, the king of the Lacedæmonians, made a night attack upon Megalopolis, forced his way through the guard on the wall and reached the market-place. Philopœmen came to the rescue, but was not able to dislodge the enemy, although he assaulted them with the greatest spirit. However, he gained time for the citizens to leave the town, while he bore the whole brunt of the attack of Kleomenes, so that at last he had great difficulty in extricating himself, as he had lost his horse and was wounded. The citizens of Megalopolis escaped to Messene, whither Kleomenes sent to offer them their town and territory again. Philopœmen, when he saw his fellow-citizens eager to embrace this offer, restrained them from accepting it by pointing out that Kleomenes did not really offer them their city back again, but meant to get the citizens as well into his power, in order to be able to hold it more securely for the future; because he could not remain there guarding naked walls and empty houses, but would be compelled to leave them and go his way. By these arguments he withheld the Megalopolitans from coming to terms, but gave Kleomenes a pretext for destroying a great part of the city, and carrying away a great booty from it.

VI

When King Antigonus some time after this joined the Achæan forces in a campaign against Kleomenes, they came upon his army advantageously posted so as to command the defiles near Sellasia. Philopœmen was among the cavalry that day with his fellow-citizens, and next to him were posted the Illyrians, numerous and warlike, who covered the flank of the allies. Their orders were to remain in reserve until they saw a red flag raised upon a [Pg 138]pike by king Antigonus on the other wing. The generals of the allies attacked the Lacedæmonians with the Illyrian troops, but Eukleides, the brother of Kleomenes, perceiving that by this movement the foot were completely severed from the horse, sent the swiftest of his light-armed troops to outflank them and cut them off. When this was done, and the Illyrians were thrown into great disorder, Philopœmen saw that the cavalry could charge the Lacedæmonian light troops with great effect, and pointed this out to Antigonus’s generals. Meeting with a scornful refusal, as his reputation was not yet sufficiently great to warrant his suggesting such a manœuvre, he collected his own fellow-countrymen and charged with them alone. At the first onset he threw the light-armed troops into confusion, and presently routed them with great slaughter. Wishing to encourage the allies and to come more quickly to blows with the retreating enemy, he dismounted, and with great difficulty, encumbered by his heavy horseman’s cuirass and accoutrements, pursued over a rough piece of ground full of water-courses and precipitous rocks. While struggling over these obstacles he was struck through both thighs by a javelin with a strap attached to it, a wound which was not dangerous, though the javelin struck him with such force as to drive the iron head quite through. This wound for the time rendered him helpless, as it bound both his legs as if with a chain, while the strap made it hard to pull the javelin out again through the wound. As his friends hesitated, not knowing what to do, while the battle now at its height, excited his courage, and made him long to take part in it, he violently strained one leg forward and the other back, so as to break the javelin in the middle, after which the pieces were pulled out. Being thus set free, he drew his sword, ran through the first of the combatants and attacked the enemy, animating all his men and setting them on fire with emulation. After the victory was won Antigonus enquired of the Macedonians why the cavalry had charged without orders. They answered that they were forced to charge against their will by a young citizen of Megalopolis, who attacked on his own account. Antigonus smiled, and answered, “That young man acted like a veteran commander.”

VII

[Pg 139]Philopœmen, as may be supposed, gained great glory by this action. Antigonus was eager to obtain his services, and offered him a command and high pay, but he excused himself, knowing that his temper would not endure to be under the orders of another man. Still, as he could not be idle, he sailed for Crete to serve a campaign there, in order to gain experience of war. He spent a considerable time there, living amongst warlike, sober, and temperate men, and returned to the Achæans with so great a reputation that they at once put him in command of the knights. These horsemen, he found, were in the habit of using any chance horses they could pick up when required for a campaign, while in many cases they did not serve in person, but sent substitutes. They were entirely without discipline or bravery, while all this was passed over unnoticed by their commanders, because the knights were the most influential men among the Achæans, and were able to promote or degrade whom they pleased. Philopœmen, however, could not allow this state of things to continue. He went round to each of the cities of the Achæan League, and by personally appealing to the young men’s sense of honour, by punishment where it was necessary, and by careful training, exercises, and contests among them before as many spectators as possible, in a short time produced great efficiency and military spirit. He made them quick at manœuvring in squadrons, and in wheeling round and managing their horses, which is so valuable a quality in cavalry soldiers, and taught the whole body to move with ease at the will of one man. Once during a severe battle with the Eleans and Ætolians on the banks of the river Larissa, Damophantus, the commander of the Elean horse, rode furiously to attack Philopœmen. He awaited Damophantus’s onset, and with his spear thrust him from his saddle. When he fell the Eleans at once turned and fled, to the great glory of Philopœmen, who had proved himself as brave as the youngest and as skilful as the oldest soldier, equally able to fight or to command.

VIII

The Achæan League was first organised by Aratus, who formed its scattered and despicable cities into a noble and truly Greek commonwealth; then, as in [Pg 140]running streams, when first a few small stones resist the flow of the water, soon much more is brought down by the stream and lodged against them until a firm ground is formed; so did the Achæans, by assisting some of the neighbouring cities and freeing them from despots, and by uniting and incorporating others with themselves, endeavour to combine the whole of Peloponnesus into one single state, at a time when Greece was especially weak, having lost all cohesion, each city relying solely on itself. While Aratus lived they depended much on the Macedonians, courting first Ptolemy, then Antigonus and Philip, who all were constantly interfering in the affairs of Greece. But when Philopœmen came to command they already felt themselves a match for the most powerful states, and no longer paid their court to foreign patrons. Aratus, who was no soldier, had effected most of his successes by suave diplomacy and personal friendship with foreign princes, as we have written in his Life: but Philopœmen, a brave and vigorous, and, what is more, an eminently successful commander in his first essays, greatly raised the spirit and the strength of the Achæans, by making them confident of victory under his leadership.

IX

His first task was to alter the military equipment and arms of the Achæans. They had hitherto used light shields, too narrow to protect the body, and spears much smaller than the long Macedonian pike. This light armament rendered them effective as skirmishers, but unable to hold their own in close fighting. Their order of battle, too, was loose and without cohesion, having neither the projecting pikes nor the serried shields of the Macedonian phalanx, in consequence of which they were easily thrust aside and routed. Philopœmen pointed this out to them, and persuaded them to adopt the heavy shield and pike in place of their light arms, to accoutre themselves with helmet, corslet, and greaves, and to endeavour to move in a steady unbroken mass instead of in a loose irregular skirmishing order. When he had induced them to put on complete armour he raised their spirit by telling them that they would be unconquerable, while he also effected a most wholesome change in their luxurious habits of life. It was impossible entirely [Pg 141]to do away with their long-standing passion for fine purple robes and tapestry, rich banquets, and furniture: but he directed this love of finery to useful purposes, and soon brought them all to retrench their private expenditure, and to take a pride in the splendour of their military equipments. Their plate was sent to the crucible, and employed to gild corslets, shields, and caparisons; their public places were full of young men training chargers or exercising themselves in arms, while the women were busy fitting plumes to helmets, and ornamenting buff coats and military cloaks. The sight of all this activity roused up their courage, and made them eager for battle. In all other cases too much care for outward show and display leads to effeminacy and luxury, because the pleasure which our senses receive from these things blunt our better judgment, but in military matters this is not so, for a splendid appearance under arms increases men’s courage; as Homer tells us that Achilles, when his new arms were brought to him, was at once excited by a vehement desire to make use of them. The youth, thus equipped, were incessantly exercised and practised in their new manœuvres, which they performed with zealous goodwill, being delighted with the close formation of the phalanx, which seemed as though it could never be broken. They soon began to move with ease in their heavy armour, priding themselves upon its splendour, and longing to prove its value in battle against their enemies. The Achæans at this time were at war with Machanidas the despot of Lacedæmon, who had immense resources at his disposal, and menaced the whole of Peloponnesus. As soon as news came that he had invaded Arcadia and had reached Mantinea, Philopœmen with his army marched rapidly to attack him. Both sides drew up their forces near the city of Mantinea, and both brought into the field not only nearly all their own countrymen, but also large bodies of foreign mercenary troops. Machanidas began the battle by a charge of his mercenaries, who routed the Tarentines and other light troops of the Achæans, but then instead of moving at once to attack and overwhelm their main body, hurried away in pursuit, leaving the Achæan phalanx standing untouched. Philopœmen made light of the [Pg 142]disaster which had happened to the light troops, and, perceiving the fault which the enemy had committed in leaving their heavy infantry unprotected, so that he had an open plain over which to march against them, disregarded those Lacedæmonians who were pursuing his own auxiliaries, and bore straight down upon their main body, which he took in flank, without any cavalry to protect it, or any general to give it orders, as the men did not expect to be attacked, and imagined that the victory was already won when they saw Machanidas so eager in the pursuit. Philopœmen broke and routed them with great slaughter, four thousand men being said to have perished, and then turned to encounter Machanidas, who was returning with his mercenaries, and found his retreat cut off. A deep and wide watercourse here divided the two leaders, the one of whom endeavoured to pass it and escape, while the other tried to prevent this. They looked no longer like two generals, but the despot seemed more like some savage beast driven to bay by Philopœmen, that mighty hunter. At length the despot spurred his horse, a fiery animal, to attempt the leap. The horse gained the other bank with its fore feet, and was struggling up it, when Simias and Polyænus, the constant companions and aides-de-camp of Philopœmen, rode to attack him with levelled lances. Philopœmen, however, came up with Machanidas before them. Seeing that the despot’s horse was rearing its head so as to protect its master’s body, he turned his own horse a little to one side, and, seizing his lance firmly with both hands, drove it through his body and cast him from his horse. It is in this posture that Philopœmen is represented in the statue at Delphi, which was placed there by the Achæans in token of their admiration of his courage and conduct on that day.

XI

It is said that when the Greeks were assembled at the Nemean Games, Philopœmen, who had been elected commander-in-chief for the second time, and not long before had won his victory at Mantinea, being at leisure during the festival displayed his phalanx to the Greeks, with the troops drawn up in their serried array, and manœuvring with quickness and precision. Afterwards, while the musicians were contending for the prize in the theatre [Pg 143]he entered it accompanied by his young soldiers in their military cloaks and purple uniform, all of them strong men in the prime of life, showing a modest respect for their general, combined with a martial bearing due to their many brave feats of arms. Just as they came into the theatre Pylades the musician began to recite the ‘Persians’ of Timotheus

“He wrought for Greece a noble work of freedom”

in a loud voice and with suitable solemnity. At this, all the spectators turned their eyes upon Philopœmen and broke into joyous applause, remembering the ancient glories of Greece, and feeling such confidence in him as almost to recover the ancient spirit of their nation.

XII

But just as horses like their accustomed rider, and if another mounts them are scared and unmanageable, so the power of the Achæans become feeble under any other general than Philopœmen. When they saw him, the whole army rejoiced, and were filled with cheerful confidence, well knowing that he was the only one of their generals before whom the enemy always fled, terrified by his name, as, indeed, appeared by their acts. For Philip king of Macedon, thinking that if Philopœmen were put out of the way, the Achæans would become subject to himself as they were before, sent men privately to Argos to assassinate him: but his plot was disclosed, and he became an object of universal hatred to the Greeks. The Bœotians too, when they were besieging Megara and were expecting shortly to take it, retreated in such hot haste that they actually left their scaling ladders planted against the walls, in consequence of a rumour, which proved a false one, that Philopœmen was coming to raise the siege and was close at hand. When Nabis, who became despot over the Lacedæmonians after Machanidas, by a sudden attack captured the town of Messene, Philopœmen was not holding any office, but was a mere private citizen. He could not prevail upon Lysippus, who was commander-in-chief of the Achæans, to go to assist the Messenians, because the latter said that the city must be lost if the enemy were inside the walls. Hereupon Philopœmen went himself to the rescue with the men of his [Pg 144]own city, who did not delay for any formal vote to empower him to do so, but followed him because he was born to command. When Nabis heard of his approach he would not await his coming, but although he was in possession of the city he marched out by the opposite gate with all speed, thinking that he would be fortunate if he reached home safe, as indeed he did. Thus was Messene delivered.

XIII

All these exploits of Philopœmen are without doubt glorious to him; but he was much blamed for going a second time to Crete at the request of the people of Gortyna, to act as their general, leaving his own country to be attacked by Nabis, because he avoided the war at home to gather unseasonable laurels abroad. Indeed, the citizens of Megalopolis were so hard pressed at that period as to be forced to live entirely within their walls, and grow corn in the very streets, as they were quite cut off from their fields by the enemy, who was encamped before the gates. Philopœmen, by his remaining beyond seas at this time acting as general for the Cretans, gave his enemies an opportunity of charging him with dishonourably shirking the war at home. Some, however, said that since the Achæans had chosen other men generals, Philopœmen, who had no office to fill, had a right to use his leisure in acting as general to the people of Gortyna when they begged him to do so. Indeed, his nature abhorred rest, and he desired his courage and generalship to be in constant action, like everything else belonging to him. This is clearly shown by his saying about king Ptolemy. When some one praised that prince for carefully training his army and exercising himself under arms every day, Philopœmen answered, “Who can admire a king of Ptolemy’s age who is still practising and not performing.” However, the citizens of Megalopolis were much vexed by his conduct, which they considered to be that of a traitor, and would have banished him had they not been restrained by the whole body of the Achæans. They sent the general Aristænetus to Megalopolis, who, although he was politically opposed to Philopœmen, would not allow sentence of banishment to be passed against him. After this Philopœmen, being treated with neglect and indifference by his fellow-citizens, induced [Pg 145]many of the outlying villages to rebel against the city, telling them to say that they were not originally made subject to it, and he himself openly took their part against his own city when the matter was referred to the general council of the Achæan league. But these things happened afterwards. At the time of which we speak he carried on war in Crete with the Gortynians, not in a simple straightforward manner, as one would expect a Peloponnesian, and especially an Arcadian would do, but he adopted the Cretan character, and by using all their subtle devices and ambushes against themselves, proved that such contrivances are but child’s play when tried against a truly experienced general.

XIV

Returning to Peloponnesus with a great reputation from his Cretan successes, he found Philip beaten by Titus Quintius, and Nabis at war both with the Romans and the Achæans. He was at once elected general to attack Nabis, and in a sea fight suffered the same misfortune as Epameinondas, that is to say, he effected much less at sea than was expected of a man of his courage and reputation.

Indeed some writers tell us that Epameinondas was unwilling that his countrymen should taste the advantages of the sea, and fearing that, as Plato says, they might from steady soldiers be transformed into licentious wandering sailors, purposely returned from the coast of Asia Minor and the islands without having effected anything.

Philopœmen, imagining that his knowledge of war on land would enable him to fight equally well at sea, learned by experience how greatly practice assists men’s courage, and how much their strength is increased by being trained to use it. Not only was he worsted in a sea-fight through inexperience, but having selected an old ship, which had once been a famous vessel, but now was forty years old, she leaked so much as to endanger the lives of those on board. After the action, finding that the enemy despised him, as though his ships had been entirely driven from the sea, and that they were ostentatiously besieging Gythium, he sailed straightway thither and found them quite unprepared, and with their discipline relaxed in consequence of their victory. He landed his men at night, burned the enemy’s tents, and slew many of them. A few [Pg 146]days afterwards, being surprised by Nabis in a mountainous spot, while all the Achæans gave themselves up for lost, despairing of extricating themselves from such a difficult position, Philopœmen, after a short survey of the country, proved that strategy is the greatest of military qualities. He quietly and steadily changed his front, manœuvred his army out of its disadvantageous position, attacked the enemy, and completely routed them. Perceiving that the fugitives did not make for the city, but scattered themselves all over the country, which was hilly and wooded, full of torrents and precipices, and impassable for cavalry, he made no pursuit, but encamped before dark. As he conjectured that the enemy after their rout would straggle back into the city by twos and threes under cover of the darkness, he concealed many of the Achæans, armed with daggers, in the rough ground near the city. By this stratagem Nabis’s force suffered great losses, for as they did not retreat in a body, but each man as best he could, they fell into their foemen’s hands at the city gate like birds into a snare.

XV

Philopœmen gained so much glory by these exploits, and was so much honoured by the Greeks wherever he appeared in public, that he roused the jealousy of Flamininus, who thought that he, a consul of Rome, was worthier of respect than a mere Arcadian, while he had moreover done much more for Greece, having by one proclamation restored those liberties of which Philip and his Macedonians had deprived it. Flamininus put an end to the war with Nabis, who was shortly afterwards assassinated by the Ætolians. As this event threw Sparta into disorder, Philopœmen seized the opportunity, marched thither with an army, and partly by persuasion, partly by force, prevailed upon the city to join the Achæan league. This wonderfully raised his fame throughout Greece, that he should have won over so famous and powerful a city, for Sparta formed a most important member of the league. He also gained the good will of the Lacedæmonian nobles, who hoped that he would protect their newly-won liberty. They sold the house and property of Nabis, and decreed that the money, amounting to a hundred and twenty talents, should be presented to him by a deputation. On this [Pg 147]occasion Philopœmen showed himself to be a man of real virtue. At the interview none of the Spartans liked to propose to him to receive the money, but they excused themselves, and made his own especial friend Timolaus undertake to do this. Timolaus, however, when he reached Megalopolis, and living in the house of Philopœmen had an opportunity of observing the noble simplicity of his character and his lofty integrity, in the familiar intercourse of private life, dared not mention the bribe, but gave some other excuse for his visit and returned home. He was sent a second time, with the same result. On a third visit he with great hesitation broached the subject. Philopœmen listened to him without anger, and sent him back to the Spartans with the advice that they should not corrupt their friends, whose services they could obtain gratis, but keep their money to bribe those who endeavoured to countermine their city in the public assembly of the Achæan league, as, if muzzled in this way, they would cease to oppose them. It was better, he added, to restrain the freedom of speech of their enemies than that of their friends. So uncorrupt was he, and inaccessible to bribes.

XVI

When Diophanes, the commander-in-chief of the Achæans, endeavoured to punish the Lacedæmonians for a change in their policy, and they by their resistance threw the whole of Peloponnesus into confusion, Philopœmen tried to act as mediator, and to soothe the anger of Diophanes, pointing out to him that at a time when the Romans and king Antiochus with enormous forces were about to make Greece their battle ground, a general ought to direct all his thoughts to their movements, and to avoid any internal disturbance, willingly accepting any apologies from those who did wrong. But as Diophanes took no notice of him, but together with Flamininus invaded Laconia, Philopœmen, disregarding the exact letter of the law, performed a most spirited and noble action. He hurried to Sparta, and, though only a private man, shut its gates in the faces of the commander-in-chief of the Achæans and of the Roman consul, put an end to the revolutionary movement there, and prevailed upon the city to rejoin the Achæan league. Some time afterwards [Pg 148]however, we are told by Polybius that Philopœmen, when commander-in-chief, having some quarrel with the Lacedæmonians, restored the exiles to the city, and put to death eighty, or, according to Aristokrates, three hundred and fifty Spartans. He also pulled down the walls of Sparta, and annexed a large portion of its territory to Megalopolis, while he forced all those persons who had been created citizens of Sparta under the rule of the despots to leave the city and proceed to Achæa, except three hundred. These, because they refused to obey him and leave Lacedæmon he sold for slaves, and with the money, as a wanton insult, built a public portico in Megalopolis. Moreover, in his wrath against the Lacedæmonians, he did them a most cruel wrong, for he abolished the Lycurgean system of education and forced them to educate their children like those of the Achæans, because he saw that they never would be humble-minded as long as they lived under the discipline of Lycurgus. Thus was the haughty city of Sparta brought so low by its misfortunes as to permit Philopœmen to cut, as it were, its very sinews, and render it tame and crushed. Afterwards, however, the citizens obtained permission from Rome to retire from the Achæan confederation, upon which they restored their original constitution as far as their great disasters permitted.

XVII

When the Romans were fighting king Antiochus in Greece, Philopœmen was in a private station, but, seeing Antiochus lying idly at Chalkis, wasting his time in unseasonable courtships and weddings, while his Syrian troops, in great disorder and without officers to control them, were scattered through the various Greek cities, living in riotous debauchery, he was vexed at not being elected commander in chief, and said that he envied the Romans their victory. “I,” said he, “if I had been in command, would have cut off the whole of Antiochus’s army in the taverns.”

After the defeat of Antiochus the Romans began to tighten their hold upon Greece, and to absorb the Achæan league. Many of the popular leaders took their side, and the growing power of Rome was fated by the divine blessing before long to become absolute in Greece. Philopœ[Pg 149]men, like a skilful pilot, struggling against a rough sea, was often compelled to yield and give way for a time, yet as he was utterly opposed to the Romans he did his best to induce the most influential men to defend the liberties of Greece. Aristænetus of Megapolis, a man of great influence with the Achæans, who urged them in the public assembly not to oppose or to thwart the Romans in anything, was listened to by Philopœmen for some time in silence, until at length he was moved to exclaim, “My good sir, why be in such a hurry to behold the end of Greece?” When Manius the Roman consul had conquered Antiochus, he begged the Achæans to permit the Lacedæmonian exiles to return. Titus Flamininus seconded this request, but Philopœmen opposed it; not because he had any quarrel with the exiles, but because he wished their restoration to be effected by himself and the Achæans, of their own free will, not as a favour to Flamininus and the Romans. Afterwards, when commander-in-chief, he himself restored them. Thus did his high spirit make him impatient of control and authority.

XVIII

When he was in his seventieth year, and eighth term of office as commander-in-chief, he might reasonably expect to finish not only his year of office, but also the rest of his life in peace; for just as in human bodies as their strength wastes away the violence of their diseases abates, so in the Greek states as their power failed their quarrels gradually ceased. However some Nemesis overtook him, as it does a too successful athlete just at the termination of his course. It is said that when some persons in society were praising a man who was thought to be a good general, Philopœmen said, “How can you think that man worth consideration, who was taken by his enemy alive.”

A few days after this Deinokrates of Messene, a personal enemy of Philopœmen, and one who was generally disliked because of his wicked and licentious life, caused Messene to revolt from the Achæan league, and was announced to be marching upon a village named Kolonis. Philopœmen was at this time lying ill with a fever in the city of Argos, but on hearing this he proceeded at once to Megalopolis, a distance of four hundred furlongs, in one [Pg 150]day. From that city he set out straightway with a body of cavalry, composed of the noblest citizens, but mostly very young men, who were proud to serve as volunteers under Philopœmen. They rode into the Messenian territory, met Deinokrates near the hill of Evander, and put him to flight. However as the Messenian frontier patrol of five hundred men suddenly came up, the defeated body rallied again, and Philopœmen, fearing to be surrounded, and wishing to be careful of the lives of his men, retired into mountainous ground, himself protecting the rear, making frequent charges, and drawing the whole attack of the enemy upon himself. They did not dare to encounter him personally, but clamoured and wheeled about at a distance. In his eagerness to save each one of his young soldiers he ventured forward so often, to cover their retreat, that at last he found himself alone in the midst of his enemies. None of them dared to meet him, but pelted him with stones and darts from a distance, so that he was with difficulty able to guide his horse over the rocky and precipitous ground, and fatigued the animal greatly.

His age was no hindrance to him, because of his habit of constant exercise, but unluckily he was weak from his sickness, and wearied by his long journey, so as to feel faint. His horse at length stumbling threw him to the ground. He fell heavily on his head, and lay speechless for some time, so that his enemies thought that he was dead, and began to turn over his body and strip it. But when he raised his head and opened his eyes they fell upon him in a body, tied his hands behind his back, and led him away, jeering much at a man who never even dreamed that he could have been so triumphed over by Deinokrates.

XIX

The Messenians who were in the city, greatly excited at the news, assembled at the gates. When they saw Philopœmen dragged along and treated in a manner so unworthy of a man who had gained such glorious victories, most of them felt compassion for him, and were moved to tears as they reflected how uncertain a thing is human power. Thus gradually they expressed aloud their kindly feeling towards him, saying that his former [Pg 151]benefits and the liberty which he bestowed upon them by driving out the despot Nabis, ought to be had in remembrance. There were some few, however, who in order to gain favour with Deinokrates, advised him to put Philopœmen to death by torture, pointing out that he was a dangerous enemy, and would be peculiarly exasperated against Deinokrates if he now were to regain his freedom after having been his captive and having been insulted by him. Finally they put him into what was called the Treasury, a subterranean chamber with no window or communication with the outward air, and no door even, but closed by a great stone. There they left him, putting the great stone over the entrance, and placing a guard of armed men round it.

Meanwhile the Achæan horsemen rallied from their flight, and as Philopœmen was nowhere to be seen, they thought that he must have fallen. They remained for a long while, searching for him, and reproaching themselves with having obtained dishonourable safety by abandoning to the enemy their leader, who had laid down his life for them. Afterwards they pushed forward, inquiring everywhere for him, and at length learned that he had been captured. They at once sent the news to the various cities of the Achæan league, who took the matter greatly to heart, determined to demand Philopœmen publicly from the Messenians, and prepared for a campaign on his behalf.

XX

While they were acting thus, Deinokrates feared that delay might save Philopœmen’s life. Wishing therefore to be beforehand with the Achæans, as soon as night came on, and the greater part of the Messenians had retired, he opened the prison and sent into it a public slave with a draught of poison, ordering him to stand by Philopœmen until he had drunk it. Philopœmen was lying down wrapped in his cloak, not asleep, but full of trouble and distress of mind. When he saw the light and the slave with the poison standing beside him, he, with great difficulty on account of his weakness, raised himself into a sitting posture. He then took the cup into his hand, and inquired whether he knew anything about the knights, especially about one Lykortas. When the slave answered [Pg 152]that most of them had escaped, he nodded his head, looked kindly upon him, and answered, “You tell me good news, if we are not all unfortunate.” He uttered no other word, but drank the poison and laid down again. In his weak condition he was unable to offer any resistance to the operations of the drug, and died immediately.

XXI

When the Achæan cities heard of his death, they went into a general mourning for him. The men of military age assembled at Megalopolis without delay, chose Lykortas as their leader, invaded the Messenian territory, and ravaged it until the Messenians came to their senses and made terms with the Achæans. Deinokrates escaped his merited fate by suicide, as did those who had advised that Philopœmen should be put to death, while those who had advised that he should be tortured were themselves reserved for a death of torture by Lykortas. They burned his body and collected the ashes into an urn, not carelessly, but mingling a sort of triumphal pomp with his funeral procession. There one might see men crowned with garlands but weeping at the same time, and leading along his enemies in chains. The urn itself, which was scarcely to be seen for the garlands and ribbons with which it was covered, was carried by Polybius, the son of the Achæan commander-in-chief, accompanied by the noblest of the Achæans. The soldiers followed in complete armour, with caparisoned horses, not cast down, but yet too sad to feel any pride in their victory. As they passed through the towns and villages on their way the inhabitants came out as if to welcome him on his return from a successful campaign, laid their hands on his urn, and joined in the procession to Megalopolis. When here the old men, women, and children joined them, a wail of distress ran through the whole army for the unhappy city which was mourning for its hero, and which thought itself to have lost, by his death, the first place in Greece. He was buried with great honour, as we may well believe, and round his tomb the Messenian captives wore stoned to death. Many statues were made of him, and many honours voted to him by the Greek cities, which afterwards during that unfortunate time for Greece when Corinth was destroyed, a Roman proposed to destroy, accusing Philopœmen, as if he had been yet alive, [Pg 153]of being always an enemy to the Romans. But after Polybius had answered this contemptible fellow, neither the consul Mummius nor his lieutenants would suffer him to deface and take away the honours done in memory of so famous and worthy a man, although he had frequently offered great opposition both to Flamininus and to Manius. They distinguished properly between honour and expediency, rightly thinking that men should reward those who benefit them, but that the brave should always be honoured by all brave men. Thus much have I to tell about Philopœmen.

[Pg 154]

LIFE OF
TITUS FLAMININUS.

Those who wish to know what Titus Quintius Flamininus, whom we have selected as a parallel to Philopœmen, was like, may see his brazen statue in Rome, which stands beside the great statue of Apollo from Carthage, opposite to the Circus, with a Greek inscription upon it. His temper is said to have been warm, both in love and in anger, though he was ever moderate and placable in inflicting punishment, while he was never weary in conferring favours, and was always eager to help those upon whom he had bestowed some benefit, preserving and protecting them as though they were the most precious of his possessions. Being ambitious and eager to distinguish himself, he wished to take the leading part in everything, and consequently preferred those who hoped to receive to those who were able to confer favours, because the former were his assistants and the latter his rivals in the struggle for honour.

He received a military training, being born at a time when Rome was engaged in most important wars, and when young men learned how to act as officers not by theory but by actual service in the field. He first served as military tribune under the consul Marcellus in the war with Hannibal. Marcellus perished in an ambuscade, but Titus was made governor of Tarentum after its recapture, and of the surrounding territory. In this government, he won as great a reputation for justice as for courage, so that when the Romans sent colonists to the two cities of Narnia and Cossa, he was appointed to lead them and act as founder of the colonies.

II

This so elated him that he at once aspired to the consulship, passing over all the usual steps of Ædile, [Pg 155]Tribune, or Prætor, by which young men generally rose to that office. When the day of election arrived, he appeared with a strong following of devoted partisans from those two towns. When the tribunes of the people, Fulvius and Manius, came forward and protested against a young man taking the highest office in the state by storm, contrary to the laws, and being as it were uninitiated in the very elements of the constitution, the Senate referred the matter to the votes of the people, who elected him consul together with Sextus Ælius, although he was not yet thirty years old. In casting lots for provinces the war with Philip of Macedon fell to his share, greatly to the advantage of the Romans, because in that war they needed a general who would deal with the enemy not entirely by main force, but also win them over by persuasion and diplomacy. The kingdom of Macedonia was amply sufficient for Philip, if he only fought once with the Romans; but to maintain the cost of a long war, to supply his troops, and afford him necessary resources, the co-operation of Greece was essential to him. Unless therefore Greece could be detached from his alliance, the war could not be decided by a single battle. Greece at this time had been brought but little into contact with the Romans, who then for the first time interfered in her politics. Unless, therefore, the Roman general had been a man of high character, willing to act by diplomacy rather than by war, and combining affability of address with a strict sense of justice, the Greeks would have been unwilling to throw off their allegiance to their former masters in order to place themselves under the new and untried dominion of Rome. Of these honourable traits in Titus’s character many instances will be found in his acts.

III

He learned that his predecessors, Sulpicius1 and Publius2, had both invaded Macedonia when the season was far advanced, had begun warlike operations too late, and had failed because Philip occupied the strong places in the country and harassed them by constant attacks upon their communications and foraging parties. Flamininus did not wish to follow their example, and, after wasting a [Pg 156]year at home in the enjoyment of the consular dignity, and in taking part in the politics of Rome, to set out late in the year to begin his campaign, although by this means he might have extended his command over two years, by acting as consul in the first, and carrying on the war as proconsul during the second. He preferred to throw the weight of his power as consul into the conduct of the war, cared not to display the insignia of his office at Rome, but obtained from the Senate the appointment of his brother Lucius to the command of the fleet which was to co-operate with him, took as the nucleus of his army three thousand of the strongest of those veterans who under Scipio had beaten Hasdrubal in Spain and Hannibal in Africa, and safely crossed over with them into Epirus. Here he found Publius, with his army, watching that of Philip, which held the passes near the river Apsus, but unable to effect anything on account of the enemy being so strongly posted. After taking over the army from Publius, whom he superseded in its command, he reconnoitred the position. Its strength is as great as that of the vale of Tempe, although it wants the lovely meadows and groves of trees for which the latter is celebrated. The river Apsus runs in a deep ravine between vast and lofty mountains, like the Peneus in appearance and swiftness, and beside it, at the foot of the mountains, runs one narrow and rocky path, along which it is difficult for an army to proceed even if unmolested, and utterly impossible if it be held by an enemy.

IV

Titus was advised by some to turn Philip’s flank, marching through the Dassaretid country along the Lykus, which would offer no such difficulties; but he feared to march far from the coast lest, like his predecessors, he should become entangled in a country which could furnish no supplies, be unable to force Philip to fight, and be obliged to retreat to the sea again from want of the means of subsistence. He determined to force his way through the mountains in front, and as these were held by Philip with his main body, the phalanx, his flanks being secured by archers and light armed troops, skirmishes took place between him and the Romans daily, with considerable loss on both sides, but without any result, until some of the natives of the country informed him of a path, neglected [Pg 157]by the enemy, by which they undertook to lead his army, and on the third day at the latest to place it upon the heights. As a guarantee of their good faith they referred the Romans to Charops, the chief of the Epirot tribes, who was friendly to the Romans, and co-operated with them secretly, being afraid of Philip. Titus trusting in this man’s word sent one of the military tribunes with four thousand infantry and three hundred cavalry. They were guided by these peasants, who were strictly guarded, and marched by night, resting by day in woods and sheltered places: for the moon was full. Titus, after he had despatched this force, rested his army, only skirmishing slightly with the enemy lest they should entertain any suspicion, until the day upon which the turning party was expected to appear on the summit of the mountain range. On that morning he got his whole force under arms, light and heavy armed alike, and dividing it into three parts himself led one body in column up to the attack of the narrowest part of the pass beside the river, while the Macedonians shot at him from above and disputed every inequality of the ground, while on his right and left the other detachments likewise vigorously attacked the position. The sun rose while they were thus engaged, and a light cloud of smoke, not distinct, but like a mountain mist, rose from the captured heights. It was unnoticed by the enemy, being behind their backs, but kept the Romans, while they fought, in a state of hopeful excitement and suspense. When however it grew thicker and blacker, and rising in a cloud proved itself without doubt to be the looked-for signal, they rushed forward with a shout and drove the enemy into their innermost places of refuge, while those on the rocks above echoed their warlike clamour.

V

A headlong flight now took place, but the enemy lost only two thousand men, for the difficulties of the ground made it hard to pursue. The Romans, however, made themselves masters of their baggage, tents, and slaves, and marched through Epirus in such an orderly and well-disciplined fashion that, although the soldiers were far from their ships, had not had their monthly allowance of provisions served out to them, and were not [Pg 158]often near a market, they nevertheless abstained from plundering a country which was abounding in riches. Indeed Titus had learned that Philip passed through Thessaly like a fugitive, driving the inhabitants of the city to fly to the mountains for refuge, burning the cities and giving all the property which could not be carried away to his soldiers as plunder.

As Philip therefore had given up the country to the Romans, Titus besought his soldiers to march through it taking as much care of it as if it were their own. This good discipline was not long in bearing fruit; for as soon as the Romans entered Thessaly the cities surrendered themselves to Titus, while the Greeks beyond Thermopylæ were excited and eager for him to come to them, and in Peloponnesus the Achæan league threw off allegiance to Philip, and agreed to wage war against him in conjunction with the Romans. The Opuntian Lokrians also sent for Titus and delivered themselves up to him, although they had been pressed by the Ætolians, who were allies of the Romans, to allow them to take charge of their city. It is said that king Pyrrhus, when from a mountain watch-tower he first saw the Roman army drawn up in regular order, said:—“These barbarians have nothing barbarous in their military discipline.” And in truth all those who met Titus were compelled to echo these words. They heard from the Macedonians that the leader of a barbarian army was coming to destroy everything and to reduce everyone to slavery: and then meeting a young and pleasant looking man, who was a thorough Greek in language and address, and a man of really noble character, they were marvellously fascinated by him, and on leaving him filled their cities with his praises, saying that at length they had found a champion for the liberties of Greece. After he had proposed to Philip, as terms of peace, that he should withdraw his garrisons and leave Greece independent, which Philip refused to do, then even those who had previously been on the side of Philip admitted that the Romans had not come to fight against the Greeks, but to fight with the Greeks against the Macedonians.

VI

The whole of Greece came to terms with him with[Pg 159]out a struggle, Thebes being the first city to send a deputation to welcome him as he peacefully marched through Bœotia. It was Brachyllus who had kept the Thebans loyal to Philip, but now they desired to show their admiration and esteem for Flamininus, being, as they imagined, on terms of amity with both parties. Titus received them with great courtesy, and walked gently forwards with them, conversing with them and asking them questions, until his soldiers, who were marching some distance behind, came up with him. Then he walked into the city in the company of the Thebans, not altogether to their satisfaction, although they did not like to attempt to keep him out, as he was accompanied by a good many soldiers. Yet, as if the town were not entirely at his mercy, he made them a speech, urging them to side with the Romans, while King Attalus spoke to the same effect, encouraging the Thebans to rally to the Roman cause. Attalus, indeed, over-exerted himself in his speech, considering his great age, and in consequence of a sudden dizziness or faintness fell down in a fit. He was shortly afterwards conveyed by sea to Asia Minor, and died there. However, the Bœotians accepted the Roman alliance.

VII

Philip now sent an embassy to Rome; and Flamininus also sent thither to beg the Senate to allow him to retain his office of consul, in case they should continue the war, or if they decided otherwise, to permit him to have the honour of concluding a peace with Philip; for his ambitious spirit could not endure to be superseded by another commander. His friends succeeded in obtaining the rejection of Philip’s demands, and his own continuance in office. As soon as he received this intelligence, he started, full of hope, to attack Philip in Thessaly, with an army of more than twenty-six thousand men, of which the Ætolians supplied six thousand infantry and four hundred cavalry. The army of Philip was of nearly equal numbers, and they began to march towards one another until they both drew near the city of Skotussa, where they determined to fight a decisive battle. When the two armies found themselves so near each other they felt no fear, as one might have expected, but each was confident of victory. The Romans were eager for the honour of overcoming the [Pg 160]Macedonians, who had gained such glory under Alexander the Great; while the Macedonians, admitting the Romans to be very different soldiers to the Persians, swelled with pride at the thought that if they could conquer them, they would prove their king Philip to be even more invincible than Alexander himself. Titus also encouraged his soldiers to quit them like men, pointing out that they were about to fight in Greece, a noble theatre in which to display deeds of daring, and against worthy antagonists; while Philip, either by chance, or not noticing what he was doing in his haste, mounted upon a large sepulchre outside his camp, and from it began to make the usual speech to his men to encourage them for the coming struggle, but at length observing the evil omen was much disheartened by it, broke off in confusion, and would not fight that day.

VIII

On the following morning about dawn, as the night had been warm and damp, the whole plain was covered with fog, and a thick mist poured down from the neighbouring hills; which rendered it impossible to distinguish any object. The parties which were sent out by each army to reconnoitre fell in with one another and fought near the place called Kynoskephalæ, that is, Dogs’ Heads, which is so named because a number of small hills near together have something of this appearance. In the combat, as usually happens in such rough ground, each side alternately had the advantage, and as each gave way they were reinforced from the respective camps. Now the fog lifted, and the two commanders resolved upon a general engagement. Philip’s right wing, on which the phalanx charged down-hill with all its weight, was victorious, the Romans being unable to stand before that hedge of spears, or break through that closely-locked array of shields. But on the left the Macedonians were unable to maintain their line, because of the inequalities of the ground, and Titus, seeing that his left was hopelessly routed, rode quickly to his own right, and suddenly attacked the enemy, who, because of the uneven nature of the ground, were unable to form their phalanx with its deep ranks, in which lies the peculiar strength of that order of battle, while the soldiers of which it is composed are armed in an unwieldy [Pg 161]fashion which renders them helpless in a hand-to-hand fight. For the Macedonian phalanx3 is like some huge [Pg 162]beast of invincible strength so long as it remains one body, close locked together in serried ranks; but when broken up it loses even the advantage of each individual soldier’s strength, because of the fashion in which they are armed, as they can only act together, not separately. When this body was routed some of the Romans pursued the fugitives, while others charged the victorious Macedonians in flank, soon forcing them to break up their array and fly in confusion, throwing away their arms. There fell no less than eight thousand of them, and five thousand were taken prisoners. The Ætolian cavalry were blamed for letting Philip escape, because they betook themselves to plundering the camp of the Macedonians even before the Romans ceased their pursuit, so that on their return they found that nothing had been left for them.

IX

From this there arose quarrels between the Ætolians and the Romans; and afterwards they exasperated Titus by taking to themselves the credit of the victory, and being the first to spread abroad that report among the Greeks so that they received all the honours due to victors, and were mentioned first in all the poems and ballads [Pg 163]written about the battle. Of these, that which was most in vogue was the following:—

“Unwept, unburied, on this mountain high,

Stranger, Thessalians thirty thousand lie;

They fell before Ætolia’s sons in war.

And Romans, brought by Titus from afar.

Æmathia weeps their loss. Bold Philip too,

Flies like a deer, and knows not what to do.”

This was written by Alkæus to insult Philip, exaggerating the number of the slain; but when it came to be repeated many times and by many men, it vexed Titus more than Philip. The latter indeed parodied it in the following lines.

“Unshaped, unpolished, stands a gibbet strong,

Upon this hill to hang Alkæus on.”

But Titus, who felt that the eyes of Greece were upon him, was wonderfully vexed by these incidents. For this reason he conducted the operations which followed without in the least degree consulting the Ætolians. They were angry at this neglect, and when Titus began negotiations with Philip, and received an embassy from him to treat for peace, they spread it abroad throughout Greece that Titus was being bribed by Philip into making peace, when he had it in his power to utterly cut off and destroy that power which first destroyed the independence of Greece. Philip himself however put an end to this suspicion, by placing himself and all his resources in the hands of Titus and the people of Rome. So now Titus brought the war to a close. He restored Philip to his kingdom of Macedonia, but forbade him to interfere in the affairs of Greece. He also imposed upon him a fine of a thousand talents, took away all but ten of his ships of war, and sent one of his two sons, Demetrius, to Rome as a hostage for the fulfilment of these conditions. In their making terms with Philip Titus showed himself wise and provident: for Hannibal the Carthaginian, who was at that time an exile, was already at the court of King Antiochus, urging him to follow up his good fortune and increase his empire. Antiochus had already been so successful as to have gained the surname of ‘the Great,’ and was now aiming at universal [Pg 164]dominion. He especially intended to attack the Romans, and unless Titus had foreseen this, and granted favourable terms of peace, Philip would have been his ally, the two most powerful kings of the age would have been arrayed against the Romans, and a struggle no less important than that of Rome against Hannibal would have begun. As it was, Titus interposed this peace between the two wars, finishing the one before he began the other; by which means he took from one of the kings his last, and from the other his first hope.

X

The ten commissioners, whom the Senate despatched to assist Titus in settling the affairs of Greece, advised him to leave it free and independent, only keeping garrisons in Corinth, Chalkis, and Demetrias, for safety against Antiochus. Upon this the Ætolians threw off all disguise, openly urged these cities to revolt, and called upon Titus to loose the chains of Greece, as Philip was wont to call these three cities. They asked the Greeks whether they were pleased at their present bonds, which were heavier, though smoother than before; and whether they still thought Titus to be their benefactor because he had removed the fetters from the feet of Greece and fastened them round her throat. Titus was much grieved at these imputations, and at length by his representations induced the Senate to desist from its design of placing garrisons in these three cities, in order that the liberty which he was about to bestow upon Greece might be unclogged by any conditions.

When the Isthmian games were being celebrated, a great number of people were assembled in the arena witnessing the gymnastic contests, as was natural now that wars had ceased throughout Greece, and the people could attend their national festivals in safety. Proclamation was now suddenly made by the sound of a trumpet that every man should keep silence; and a herald coming forward into the midst of the assembly announced that the Senate of Rome, and Titus Quintius their consul and general, having overcome King Philip and the Macedonians, did now henceforth give liberty to the Corinthians, Lokrians, Phokians, Eubœans, Achæans of Phthia, Magnetes, Thessalians, and Perrhæbians, with exemption [Pg 165]from garrisons and tribute, and permission to govern themselves by their hereditary laws. At first all did not clearly hear the proclamation, and there was a disorderly tumult in the assembly, as men wondered at the words, asked one another their meaning, and called upon the herald to repeat them. But when silence had again been obtained, and the herald, exerting his voice to the utmost, repeated the proclamation, such a shout was raised that it was heard as far as the sea coast, and all the spectators rose from their seats, caring nothing more for the games, but rushing with one accord to greet, with transports of delight, the saviour and protector of Greece. On this occasion was observed what is often mentioned as an example of the power of human voices; some crows, which were flying over the racecourse at that moment, fell down among the people. The reason of this is that the air is broken and cut asunder by the vehemence and strength of the voices, so as not to have its natural power to support the birds, which, fell down just as if they were flying through a place where there was no air at all; unless indeed it was the violence of the cry that struck the birds like a shot, and so caused them to fall down dead. It may be also that the air is driven round in whirlpools by such shouts, as we observe happens in violent disturbances of the sea.

XI

As for Titus, unless he had escaped betimes when the assembly broke up and rushed towards him, it is thought that he could not have survived the pressure of so great a multitude. The crowd surrounded his tent, shouting and applauding until nightfall, when they dispersed: but as they went, if they met any of their kin, their friends, or fellow-citizens, they kissed and embraced them for joy, and then supped and made merry together. We may well think that they had no other talk at the table but of the great and terrible wars which Greece had fought for her liberty, and that nevertheless she never had obtained so perfect and delightful a state of freedom as that which had been won for her by other men’s labours, almost without any blood of her own being spilt. It is indeed rare to find bravery and wisdom combined in any man, but it is even rarer to find a perfectly just man. [Pg 166]Agesilaus and Lysander, Nikias and Alkibiades knew well how to wage war and win battles both by land and by sea, but they never could make their victories yield any honourable benefit to others, or true glory to themselves. Indeed with the exception of Marathon and Salamis, Platæa and Thermopylæ, and the campaigns of Kimon on the Eurymedon and in Cyprus, all the other battles of Greece have been fought against herself, to bring about her slavery, and every trophy has been a misfortune, and a monument of shame rather than glory, arising chiefly from the rivalry between the leading cities. Yet a strange nation, from which it was inconceivable that Greece should receive any benefit, with scarcely any glimmering embers, as it were, of a common origin, had nevertheless, with great risk and hard fighting, rescued Greece from her harsh tyrants and oppressors.

XII

These were the thoughts which occupied men’s minds: and the events which took place were all in conformity with the proclamation. Titus had at the same time sent Lentulus to Asia Minor to free the Bargylians, and Stertinius to Thrace to remove the garrisons of Philip from the towns and islands in that quarter, while Publius Villius set sail to treat with Antiochus about the freedom of the Greeks in his dominions. Titus himself proceeded to Chalkis, and thence he took ship for Magnesia, where he removed the foreign garrisons from the cities and re-established a democratic constitution in them. After this he was elected President of the Nemean games at Argos, where he made admirable arrangements for the conduct of the festival, and made a herald repeat his proclamation to the Greeks assembled there. He now made a progress through the cities of Greece, in which he established tranquillity and good laws, encouraged them to regard each other with good will, put an end to faction, and brought back exiles, taking no less pride in acting as counsellor and mediator to the Greeks than he did in having conquered the Macedonians, so that liberty seemed to be the least of the benefits which he had bestowed on the Greeks.

It is said that when at Athens Lykurgus the orator had rescued Xenokratos the philosopher from the tax-gatherers who were taking him to prison for non-payment of the tax [Pg 167]upon resident aliens, and had them punished for their insolent conduct towards him, Xenokrates, afterwards meeting the sons of Lykurgus, said, “My children, I am making your father an honourable return for his kindness, he has the praises of the whole people for what he did for me.” Flamininus and the Romans, however, not only obtained the praise of the Greeks in return for the benefits which they had conferred upon them, but also gained the trust and confidence of all mankind by their noble acts. Not only cities, but even kings who had been wronged by other kings came to them for redress, so that in a short space of time, with the assistance, no doubt, of the divine favour, all the world became subject to them. Flamininus especially prided himself on having liberated the Greeks, and when he dedicated at Delphi silver shields and his own Roman buckler, he wrote upon them the following verses:—

“To you, the Twins, delighting in the chase,

Great Zeus’s sons, of Sparta’s royal race,

This offering gives the Roman Titus, he

Who set the children of fair Hellas free.”

He also dedicated a golden wreath to Apollo, with the inscription—

“To thee, Latona’s child, this chaplet fair

Doth Titus, leader of Rome’s army, send;

The crown will well beseem thy glorious hair;

Do thou the donor from all ill defend.”

Indeed it was in the city of Corinth that this favour has twice been bestowed upon the Greeks, for it was in Corinth that Titus made the proclamation of which we have spoken, and Nero again, in our own time, in nearly the same manner, during the Isthmian games, declared the Greeks free and independent, except that Titus proclaimed it by means of a herald, while Nero mounted upon a platform in the market place and made the announcement himself. However, this took place long afterwards.

XIII

Titus now began a war against that most hateful and lawless of despots, Nabis of Lacedæmon, but betrayed the confidence of the Greeks; for when he had the opportunity of destroying him he would not do so, but made [Pg 168]terms with him, leaving Sparta in a shameful bondage. Either he was afraid that if the war went on for any length of time some new commander would be sent from Rome who would gain the credit of it, or else he was jealous of the honours which were paid to Philopœmen, who was by far the greatest warrior in Greece at that period, and who surpassed himself in acts of bravery and strategy during the campaign against Nabis. The homage which was paid Philopœmen in all public assemblies by the Achæans vexed Flamininus, who felt angry that a mere Arcadian, who had gained some credit as a leader in obscure border warfare, should be treated with as much respect as the Roman consul, who was acting as the protector of all the peoples of Greece. The excuse which Titus himself made for terminating the war was that he saw that the despot could not be dethroned without causing great suffering to the other Spartans. Though the Achæans passed many decrees in his honour he cared for none of them except one gift which they bestowed upon him, which was as follows. Many of the Romans who had been taken prisoners in the war with Hannibal had been sold for slaves, and were in servitude in different countries. In Greece there were twelve hundred of them, men who were in any case much to be pitied for their misfortune, but especially now, when as may be supposed, they met their sons, brothers, and relations, who were free Roman soldiers, while they themselves were slaves. Titus, though grieved at their lot, did not take them forcibly from their owners, but the Achæans paid a ransom of five minæ for each man, collected them into one body, and just as Titus was about to set sail for home, presented them to him, so that he left the scene of his glorious labours having received an honourable reward, and one which well befitted so great and patriotic a man, besides being the most glorious ornament of his triumph: for these men of their own accord, like ordinary slaves who have been emancipated, shaved their heads, put on felt skull caps,4 and followed in the train at his triumph.

XIV

A more splendid spectacle was afforded by the [Pg 169]spoils of war, the Greek helmets, Macedonian shields, and long sarissæ, or pikes used by the phalanx, which were carried along in the procession. There was also no inconsiderable sum of money, for Tuditanus tells us that in this triumph there were displayed three thousand seven hundred and thirteen pounds of gold coin, forty-three thousand two hundred and seventy pounds of silver coin, and fourteen thousand five hundred and fourteen gold coins of King Philip, besides the thousand talents which he owed. These, however, the Romans, at the instance of Flamininus, forgave him, and released his son who had been kept as a hostage for their payment.

XV

When Antiochus entered Greece with a large naval and military force, many of the Greek states joined him, especially the Ætolians, who eagerly espoused his cause because of their old quarrel with Rome. They gave out as a pretext for beginning the war, that they intended to restore freedom to the Greeks, who required nothing of the sort, being free already. This, however, was merely said because it was the most plausible excuse for their conduct, for which they could not assign any creditable reason. The Romans were much alarmed at the importance of this insurrection. They sent Manius Acilius as consul and commander-in-chief to conduct the war, and dispatched Titus Flamininus on a diplomatic mission to the cities of Greece. The mere sight of him confirmed the wavering loyalty of some of these states, while his personal influence induced many which had taken the first steps towards revolt, to return to their allegiance. Some few, however, were hopelessly lost to the Roman cause, having been previously won over by the Ætolians; yet, vexed and exasperated as he was by their conduct, he took care, after the victory had been won, that even these should not be destroyed. Antiochus, it is well known, was defeated at Thermopylæ, and at once set sail for Asia Minor, while the consul Manius besieged some of the Ætolian strongholds himself, and arranged for others to be taken by King Philip of Macedon. But when the towns in Dolopia, Magnesia, and Aperantia were being despoiled by Philip, and the consul Manius had taken Heraklea and was besieging Naupaktus, an Ætolian fortress, Flamininus, [Pg 170]pitying the Greeks, left Peloponnesus and sailed to the consul at Naupaktus. At first he reproached him with conquering Antiochus, and then allowing Philip to reap all the advantages of his victory, and with wasting time in besieging one city out of pique, while the Macedonians were adding tribes and kingdoms to their empire. After this, as the besieged, when they saw him, called upon him by name from the walls, and stretched out their hands to him with tears and entreaties, he made no answer to them but turned away and wept. Afterwards, however, he reasoned with Manius, and persuaded him to put aside his resentment, and to grant the Ætolians a truce, and time to send an embassy to Rome to arrange reasonable terms of peace.

XVI

He was given most trouble of all by the petitions of the Chalkidians to Manius for peace. These people were especially obnoxious to the Romans because Antiochus, at the commencement of the war, had married the daughter of a citizen of Chalkis. The match was both unseasonable in point of time, and unequal in respect of age, as he was an elderly man when he fell in love with the girl, who was the daughter of one Kleoptolemus, and is said to have been of exceeding beauty. This marriage caused the Chalkidians to become eager partizans of King Antiochus, and even to offer him their city for his headquarters during the war. After his defeat he retreated at once to Chalkis, and then, taking his bride, his treasure, and his friends with him, set sail for Asia. Manius at once marched upon Chalkis in a rage, but Flaminius accompanied him, and by his entreaties at length calmed and pacified him. The people of Chalkis, after this narrow escape, dedicated the largest and most magnificent of all their public buildings to Titus, the inscriptions on which may be read even at the present day. “The people dedicate this gymnasium to Herakles and to Titus.” And on the other side of the road we read “The people dedicate the Delphinium to Apollo and to Titus.” Moreover even in our own times a priest of Titus is chosen by show of hands, who offers sacrifice to him. After the libations they sing a specially-written poem, too long for quotation from which we extract the following verses:—

“Sing, maidens, sing,

Of Rome’s good faith that keeps its oath,

And gentle Titus full of truth,

Our city’s saviour, Titus and Apollo sing.”

XVII

He also received honours from the Greeks at large, and that which gives reality to honours, great goodwill from all for his kindly disposition. For though indeed he had some slight differences with Philopœmen, and again with Diophanes when chief of the Achæan league, he was not rancorous, and never acted under the impulse of anger, but soon laid aside his displeasure. He was harsh to no one, but was thought by most men to be clever and witty, and the pleasantest of companions. When the Achæans were endeavouring to gain for themselves the island of Zakynthus, he discouraged their enterprise by saying that if they proceeded so far from Peloponnesus they would be in the same danger as the tortoise when he stretches his head out beyond his shell.

When Philip first met him to discuss terms of peace, and observed that Titus had come with a large suite, while he was alone, Titus answered, “You by your own act have made yourself lonely, by having killed all your friends and relations.” Once at Rome Deinokrates the Messenian got drunk and danced in women’s clothes, and on the next day begged Titus to assist him in his design of detaching Messenia from the Achæan league. Titus answered that he would consider the matter, but that he wondered that a man engaged in such important designs should sing and dance over his wine. When the ambassadors of Antiochus were telling the Achæans the number of the king’s army and were enumerating the various forces of which it was composed under various designations, Titus remarked that when dining with his host he had been surprised at the variety of meats, and had expressed his wonder as to how he had been able to obtain so many different kinds; but his host informed him that it was all nothing more than pork disguised by various sauces and cooked in various ways. “So now,” continued he, “men of Achæa, do not be alarmed at the power of Antiochus when you hear these catalogues of spearmen and lance-bearers and foot-guards; for they are all [Pg 172]nothing more than Syrians disguised with different kind of arms.”

XVIII

After the pacification of Greece and the end of the war with Antiochus, Flamininus was elected censor, which is the highest office at Rome, and is as it were the goal of political life. His colleague was Marcellus, the son of him that was five times consul. They ejected from the Senate four men of no reputation, and admitted into it all the candidates who were of free birth, being forced to do so by the tribune of the people Terentius Culeo, who by his invectives against the patricians had induced the people to pass a decree to that effect.

The two most prominent men in Rome at this time were Scipio Africanus and Marcus Cato. Of these Titus appointed Scipio to be President of the Senate, as being the first man in the state, but he quarrelled with Cato for the following reason. Titus had a brother, Lucius Flamininus, who was very unlike himself in disposition, being licentious in his pleasures and careless of his reputation. He had a favourite whom he always took with him even when he was in command of an army or governor of a province. This boy once at a wine party said that he was so greatly attached to Lucius, that he left a show of gladiators before he had seen a man killed, to please him. Lucius, delighted at this proof of affection, said, “That is easily remedied; I will gratify your wish.” He ordered a condemned criminal to be brought, sent for the executioner, and bade him strike off the man’s head in the banquetting chamber. Valerius of Antium says that Lucius did this to please a female, not a male favourite. But Livy says that in Cato’s own speech on the subject we are told that Lucius, to gratify his favourite, slew with his own hand a Gaulish deserter who came with his wife and children to the door, and whom he had himself invited into the banquetting chamber. It is probable that Cato added these particulars to exaggerate the horror of the story, for Cicero the Orator, who gives the story in his book ‘On Old Age,’ and many other writers, say that the man was not a deserter, but a criminal, and condemned to death.

XIX

In consequence of this, Cato, when censor, removed [Pg 173]Lucius from the Senate, although he was of consular rank, and although his degradation affected his brother as well as himself. Both of them now presented themselves before the people poorly clad and in tears, and appeared to be making a very reasonable demand in begging Cato to state the grounds upon which he had cast such ignominy upon an honourable family. Cato, however, not in the least affected by this, came forward with his colleague and publicly demanded of Titus whether he was acquainted with what happened at the banquet. When Titus answered that he knew nothing of it, Cato related the circumstances, challenging Lucius to contradict him if he spoke untruly. As Lucius remained silent, the people saw that his degradation had been deserved, and Cato retired in triumph. Titus, vexed at what had befallen his brother, now joined the party of Cato’s enemies, objected to all purchases, lettings, and sales by the Senate of public property which had been made by Cato, and carried his point so far as to have them all declared void. Thus he, I cannot say justly, became the violent opponent of a legally constituted official and an excellent citizen, for the sake of a man who, though his brother, was a worthless character and had only met with his deserts. Nevertheless, on one occasion, when the Roman people were witnessing some spectacle in the theatre, the Senate, as is customary, sitting in the best place in great state, they were filled with compassion on seeing Lucius Flamininus sitting on the back benches in a mean dress, and the people became so excited that they could not restrain their cries to him to resume his former seat, until at length he did so, and was welcomed by the other consulars.

XX

The ambitious character of Titus gained him much glory, while he was in the prime of life, in the wars of which we have made mention: for after his consulship he again served in the army as military tribune; but when he retired from public life, being an elderly man, he often incurred the blame of his countrymen from his desire to distinguish himself. For instance, his conduct in regard to Hannibal made him much disliked at Rome. Hannibal after his escape from Carthage, joined king Antiochus, but when Antiochus, after his defeat in Phrygia, was glad to [Pg 174]accept terms of peace from the Romans, he again became an exile, and after many wanderings, at length settled at the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia. Every one at Rome knew that he was there, but no one wished to meddle with him because of his age and weakness, as he appeared to be deserted by fortune. However, Titus was sent to Prusias on an embassy about certain other matters, and seeing Hannibal there took offence at his being alive, and would not accede to the prayers and entreaties of Prusias on behalf of his suppliant. There was, it seems, a certain oracle which ends with this verse:—

“Libyssa’s earth shall cover Hannibal.”

Now Hannibal himself took this to mean Libya, and that he should be buried at Carthage; but in Bithynia there is a shingly tract by the seashore near which is a large village named Libyssa, in which Hannibal was living. As he mistrusted the weakness of Prusias and feared the Romans, he had previously to this arranged seven ways of escape leading from his own room into different subterranean passages, all of which led into the open air by concealed apertures. When then he heard that Titus insisted upon his death he endeavoured to escape by one of those passages, but finding every outlet watched by the soldiers of Prusias he determined to die by his own hand. Some say that he destroyed himself by winding his cloak round his neck, and ordered a slave to place his knee in the small of his back and pull the cloak violently until he choked; while some tell us that he imitated Themistokles and Midas, by drinking bull’s blood. Livy5 says that he prepared some poison which he kept by him ready for such an emergency, and that as he was about to drink it he said:—“Let us set the Roman people free from their terrible anxiety, since they think it long to wait for the death of the old man whom they hate. However, Titus will not gain a glorious victory, or one worthy of his ancestors, who sent to bid Pyrrhus beware of poison, although he was their enemy and actually at war with them.”

XXI

Thus is Hannibal said to have perished. When [Pg 175]the news was brought to the Senate many thought that Titus had acted officiously and cruelly in putting Hannibal to death, when he was living unharmed and helpless, merely in order to obtain the credit of having killed him. When they reflected upon the mildness and magnanimity of Scipio Africanus they wondered yet more, for Scipio, after vanquishing the terrible and unconquered Hannibal in Libya, did not drive him into exile, or insist upon his countrymen delivering him up. He actually met him on friendly terms before the battle, and when he made a treaty with him after his victory he did not bear himself unseemly or insult his rival’s misfortune. It is related that they met again in Ephesus, and that as they walked together Hannibal took the place of honour, while Africanus walked contentedly beside him. Their conversation turned upon great generals, and when Hannibal stated his opinion that the best of generals was Alexander, next to him Pyrrhus, and next himself, Scipio, with a quiet smile, asked him: “What would you have said, if I had not conquered you?” “In that case, Scipio,” answered Hannibal, “I should not have reckoned myself third but first of generals.” The people remembering this cried shame upon Titus, for having laid hands upon a man whom another had slain.6 Some few, however, praised the deed, thinking that Hannibal, as long as he lived, was a fire which might easily be fanned into a destructive conflagration. They pointed out that even when he was in the prime of life it was not his bodily strength or personal prowess that made him so terrible to the Romans, but his intellect and skill, together with his inveterate hatred of Rome, none of which had been diminished by age, but that his natural gifts remained the same, while also fortune was wont to change, and so those who had any permanent cause of enmity with another nation were ever encouraged by hopes of success to make new attacks. Indeed subsequent events seemed to prove Titus right, as Aristonikus, the son of the harp-player, in his admiration [Pg 176]for Eumenes, filled the whole of Asia with revolt and revolution, while Mithridates, after his tremendous losses at the hands of Sulla and Fimbria, again gathered together such great forces both by land and sea to oppose Lucullus. Yet Hannibal did not fall so low as Caius Marius. The former was to the last the friend of a king, and spent his time in sailing in ships, riding on horseback, and in the study of how to keep a military force efficient; whereas the Romans, who had laughed Marius to scorn as he wandered a beggar in Africa, soon licked the dust before him while he flogged and slaughtered them in Rome. Thus no one of our present circumstances can be said to be either important or trifling, great or small, in comparison with what is to come, but we only cease to change when we cease to exist.

For this reason some say that Titus did not effect this of his own free will, but that he was sent with Lucius Scipio as a colleague on an embassy whose sole object was the death of Hannibal. Now, as after these events we know of no other acts of Titus either as a warrior or statesman, and as he died a peaceful death, it is time to begin our comparison.

COMPARISON OF
PHILOPŒMEN AND TITUS.

I

It would be impossible to compare Philopœmen, or many better men than Philopœmen, with Titus, in respect of the benefits which each conferred upon the Greeks. Philopœmen and the others were all Greeks, who fought with other Greeks, while Titus was not a Greek, and yet fought on behalf of the Greeks. When Philopœmen despaired of helping his hard-pressed follow citizens and sailed to Crete, Titus was gaining a victory in the centre of Greece, in consequence of which he bestowed freedom on Philip himself, and on all the nations and cities which had been subject to him. If one carefully examines the battles fought by each commander, it will appear that Philopœmen killed more Greeks when he was general of the Achæans than Titus killed Macedonians when he was fighting for Greece. The faults of the one arose from ambition, those of the other from party spirit; the latter was easily moved to anger, the former hard to appease. Titus preserved for Philip the semblance of royal power, and treated even the Ætolians with indulgence, while Philopœmen in his anger detached the confederation of villages from his native city. Moreover, Titus was always a friend to those whom he had once befriended, while Philopœmen’s kindly feelings were easily overruled by passion. Indeed he appears to have sacrificed his life to rage and bitter personal rancour, by invading Messenia before anything was ready, without showing any of the prudent caution of Titus in military matters.

II

The fame of Philopœmen’s skill as a general, however, rests on a more secure basis, the number of his battles and trophies of victory. Flamininus decided his campaign against Philip by two battles, but Philopœmen fought in[Pg 178]numerable battles, and never let it be supposed that he owed more to fortune than to skill. Moreover, Titus had at his disposal the resources of Rome, then in the zenith of her strength, while Philopœmen had the glory of performing his greatest exploits at a time when Greece was in her decadence, so that his work was all his own, while the glory of the Roman must be shared with his countrymen. The one was the leader of good soldiers, but the other by his leadership made good soldiers. That his conflicts were all against Greeks was unfortunate, but gives a strong proof of his powers; for among men who are alike in other respects, victory must be won by sheer courage. He fought the most warlike of the Greeks, the Cretans and the Lacedæmonians, the first of whom are the most deeply versed in stratagem, while the latter are most renowned for bravery, and overcame them both. In addition to this it must be remembered that Titus found his materials ready for use, as he received the arms and disciplined troops of his predecessor, while Philopœmen himself introduced a new method of armament and discipline; so that the one was obliged to discover the means of obtaining victory, while the other had only to use them. Philopœmen too did many great feats in hand to hand fight, whereas Titus did nothing, for which one of the Ætolians, Archedemus, jeered at him, saying that while he himself was running sword in hand to attack the Macedonian phalanx, Titus was standing still and raising his hands to heaven in prayer to the gods.

III

Nevertheless Titus both as a general and an ambassador always met with complete success, while Philopœmen acted as vigorously and successfully on behalf of the Achæans when in a private station as when he was their general. It was as a private citizen that he drove Nabis out of Messene and liberated the Messenians, and as a private citizen he shut the gates of Sparta against Diophanes the Achæan general and Titus himself when they were on their march against it, and so saved the Lacedæmonians from destruction. Thus, having the true spirit of a commander, he knew when to obey and when to override the laws, acting according to them when it was fitting to do so, but holding him to be the true general who up[Pg 179]held the spirit of the laws without being fettered by them. The kindly treatment of the Greeks by Titus was honourable to him, but the sturdy spirit of independence which Philopœmen showed towards the Romans was still more honourable, because it is much easier to grant a request to suppliants, than to irritate those who are more powerful by opposing them. Since, then, it is difficult to distinguish their respective merits by comparison, let us see whether we shall not decide best between them by assigning the palm for military and soldier-like qualities to Greek, and to the Roman that for justice and goodness of heart.

[Pg 180]

LIFE OF
PYRRHUS.

I

Historians tell us that after the flood the first king of the Thesprotians and Molossians was Phæthon, who was one of those who came into Epirus under Pelasgus; while some say that Deukalion and Pyrrha after founding the temple at Dodona lived there in the country of the Molossians. In later times Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, brought an army thither, obtained possession of the country, and founded a dynasty of kings, who were named after him the sons of Pyrrhus: for Pyrrhus was his own nickname as a child, and he also gave the name of Pyrrhus to one of his children by his wife Lanassa, the daughter of Kleodæus, who was the son of Hyllus. From this period Achilles has been honoured like a god in Epirus and is called Aspetus in the dialect of the country. After the earliest kings, the dynasty sunk into barbarism, and ceased to attract attention from its weakness and obscurity. Of those of later days, Tharrhypas was the first of those who made himself famous. He adopted the customs and letters of Greece, and gave just laws to his country. Tharrhypas was the father of Alketas, who was the father of Arybas, who married Troas and by her became the father of Æakides. This man married Phthia the daughter of Menon of Thessaly, who had gained great distinction in the Lamian war, and who yielded in reputation to no one except to Leosthenes himself. By Phthia Æakides had two daughters, Deidameia and Troas, and one son, Pyrrhus.

II

When the Molossians revolted, drove out their king Æakides, and invited back the children of Neoptolemus to the kingdom, the friends of Æakides were seized and put to death, but Androkleides and Angelus stole away Pyrrhus, who was still an infant and was being searched for by his [Pg 181]enemies. They took with them some wet nurses for the child and some few other servants, but finding their flight impeded by them, they entrusted the child to Androkleion, Hippias, and Neander, strong and trusty young men, bidding them hurry on with what speed they might, and get to Megara, a fort belonging to the Macedonians, while they themselves, partly by entreaties and partly by fighting, managed to delay the pursuers till late in the evening. The enemy, after making their way through these men with some difficulty, pursued those who were carrying off Pyrrhus. The sun had now set, and the fugitives had begun to hope that they would soon be safe, when they were filled with despair by meeting with the river which runs past the fort, a wild torrent which they found it impossible to cross, as the stream was swollen with recent rains, and appeared all the more terrible because of the darkness. They decided that they never could convey the child and his nurses across by their own exertions, but observing several of the inhabitants standing upon the further bank they besought them to assist their passage, and they showed Pyrrhus to them, crying aloud and holding out their hands to entreat for help. The men could not hear what they said because of the roaring of the water, and much time was wasted in vain clamouring until one of the fugitives, perceiving this, wrote with the tongue of a brooch upon a piece of oak bark a few words explaining who the child was, and in what danger, wrapped the piece of bark round a stone to steady its flight, and threw it across. Some say that they fastened the bark to a javelin and so hurled it across. When the men on the further bank read the letter, and perceived in what imminent peril the fugitives were, they cut down some trees, formed a raft, and so crossed over. It chanced that the first man who crossed and received Pyrrhus into his arms was named Achilles: the rest of the fugitives were ferried over by his companions.

III

Having thus escaped from their pursuers they proceeded to Glaukias, the king of the Illyrians. They found him sitting at home with his wife, and they laid the child on the ground between them. The king was full of thought, for he feared Kassander, the mortal enemy of Æakides, and [Pg 182]he remained silent for a long time. Meanwhile Pyrrhus of his own accord crawled up to Glaukias, took hold of his cloak and then stood up at his knees, causing the king first to smile and then to feel pity for him, as he stood like a suppliant holding his knees and weeping. Some say that he did not embrace Glaukias, but that he laid hold of an altar and stood, putting his hands round it, so that Glaukias thought that he must be acting under some divine impulse. In consequence of this he at once gave Pyrrhus in charge to his wife, bidding her bring him up with her own children. Shortly after, when his enemies demanded that he should be given up, and Kassander even offered two hundred talents, Glaukias refused to betray him, and when he was twelve years of age he marched into Epirus with an army and restored him to the throne.

The appearance of Pyrrhus was more calculated to strike terror into the beholder than to impress him with an idea of the dignity which becomes a king. He had not a number of separate teeth, but one continuous bone in his upper jaw, with only slight lines showing the divisions between the teeth. He was thought to be able to cure diseases of the spleen by sacrificing a white cock, and then gently pressing with his right foot in the region of the spleen of the sufferer, who lay upon his back meanwhile. No man was so poor or despised that Pyrrhus would not touch him for this disorder if requested to do so. He also received, as a reward, the cock which was sacrificed, and was much pleased with this present. It is said that the great toe of that foot had some divine virtue, so that when the rest of his body was burned after his death, it was found unhurt and untouched by the fire. But of this hereafter.

IV

When he was about seventeen years of age, and appeared to be firmly established upon his throne, he chanced to leave the country to attend the wedding of one of the sons of Glaukias, with whom he had been brought up. The Molossians now again rose in revolt, drove out his friends, sacked the treasury, and made Neoptolemus their king. Pyrrhus having thus lost his kingdom, and being entirely destitute, fled for refuge to Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, who had married his sister [Pg 183]Deidameia. When a young girl Deidameia had been nominally the wife of Alexander, the son of Roxana, but after the misfortunes of that family Demetrius had married her when she came of age. In the great battle of Ipsus, in which all the successors of Alexander the Great took part, Pyrrhus, while yet a youth, served with the forces of Demetrius, routed those who opposed him, and gained great distinction. He did not desert Demetrius after his defeat, but was entrusted with the care of those cities which Demetrius possessed in Greece, and kept them faithful to his cause. When he made a treaty with Ptolemy, Pyrrhus was sent to Egypt as a hostage, where he hunted and practised gymnastics with Ptolemy, showing great bodily strength and endurance. Observing that Berenike was the most powerful and intelligent of Ptolemy’s wives, he paid especial court to her, and, as he knew well how to gain the favour of the powerful, though he was inclined to domineer over his inferiors, and was temperate and well-behaved, he was chosen out of many other noble youths to be the husband of Antigone, one of the daughters of Berenike, whom she bore to Philip before she married Ptolemy.

V

His influence was greatly increased by this match, and, as Antigone proved a good wife to him and furthered his designs, he prevailed upon his friends to supply him with money and troops, and send him upon an expedition to recover his throne in Epirus. When he landed, many of the people of the country were willing to accept him as their king, because of their dislike to the ferocious and arbitrary rule of Neoptolemus; but he, fearing that if he drove out his rival he would apply to some of the kings,1 made terms and friendship with him, and agreed to share the kingdom. As time went on, however, many encouraged him to attack Neoptolemus, and fomented suspicion between them. Pyrrhus, however, was especially exasperated by the following incidents. It was customary for the kings of Epirus to sacrifice to Zeus Areios in Passaron, a place in the Molossian country, and to take an oath to their subjects that they would govern according [Pg 184]to the laws, while the people on their part swore to be faithful to the throne. These ceremonies were performed by both the kings, who, with their friends, afterwards conversed together, giving and receiving presents. Now Gelon, a trusty friend of Neoptolemus, after giving Pyrrhus a friendly welcome, presented to him two yoke of oxen for the plough. Myrtilus, the cupbearer, who was present, asked Pyrrhus for these oxen, and as Pyrrhus did not give them to him but to some one else, he did not conceal his annoyance, which was observed by Gelon. He at once invited Myrtilus to dinner and proposed to him that he should join the party of Neoptolemus and remove Pyrrhus by poison. Myrtilus apparently acquiesced, and accepted the offer, but told the whole intrigue to Pyrrhus, who bade him put Alexikrates, his chief cupbearer, also in communication with Gelon, on the pretence that he too wished to take part in the plot; for he wished as many persons as possible to know of the attempt which was about to be made. Thus Gelon was deceived, and in turn deceived Neoptolemus, who, imagining his plot to be on the point of success, could not restrain his delight, but let out the secret to his friends. On one occasion, when in his cups, he talked freely about this matter to his sister Kadmeia, not imagining that any one else heard him; for there was no one present except Phænarete, the wife of Samon the king’s neatherd, and she lay upon a couch with her face towards the wall, apparently asleep. However she heard all that passed, unsuspected, and next day went to Antigone, the wife of Pyrrhus, and told her all that she had heard Neoptolemus say to his sister. When Pyrrhus heard this he did not act at once; but when next he offered sacrifice he invited Neoptolemus to dinner and killed him, as he knew that the strongest party in Epirus was on his side, and had often urged him to rid himself of Neoptolemus and not be satisfied with a mere share of the crown, but to engage in the great designs which his genius prompted. These considerations, together with the suspicions which he had of Neoptolemus’s treachery, induced him to be beforehand with him by putting him to death.

VI

In memory of Berenike and Ptolemy he named a boy [Pg 185]who was now born to him Ptolemy, and gave the name of Berenike to a city which he founded on the peninsula of Epirus. He now began to revolve great designs, casting his eyes especially upon the territory of his neighbours; and he was soon enabled to interfere in the affairs of Macedonia on the following grounds. The elder of the sons of Kassander put his mother, Thessalonika, to death, and drove his younger brother Alexander into exile. This prince now applied both to Demetrius and to Pyrrhus for aid. Demetrius was engaged in other matters and was slow to render him any assistance, but Pyrrhus offered his services, demanding as the price of his assistance the districts called Stymphæa and Paranæa in Macedon itself, and of the Macedonian conquests Ambrakia, Akarnania, and Amphilochia. The youth agreed to these terms, and Pyrrhus at once occupied those countries, which he secured by garrisoning their fortresses, while he began to press Antipater hard in his endeavours to gain the remainder of Macedonia for his brother. At this time king Lysimachus, an eager partisan of Antipater, was too much occupied with other matters to send him any material help, but, knowing that Pyrrhus would never disoblige or thwart Ptolemy in anything, sent a forged letter to him, in which it was stated to be Ptolemy’s desire that he should withdraw his forces on the receipt of three hundred talents from Antipater. Pyrrhus, however, as soon as he opened the letter saw the deceit; for it did not begin with Ptolemy’s usual greeting to him, “The father to the son wishes health” but “King Ptolemy to king Pyrrhus wishes health.” He reproached Lysimachus for his conduct, but nevertheless made a peace, which they all met to ratify by a solemn oath upon a sacrifice. A bull, a boar, and a ram were brought to the altar, when suddenly the ram fell down dead. The others laughed at this, but the soothsayer Theodotus, who was conducting the sacrifice forbad Pyrrhus to swear, saying that Heaven by this portended the death of one of the three kings who were there met together. Pyrrhus therefore refused to ratify the peace.

VII

Alexander now was in a fair way to succeed, when he was joined by Demetrius, who was evidently unwelcome, and a dangerous ally. Before many days had passed the [Pg 186]two princes, from mutual distrust, began to plot against each other. Demetrius, seizing his opportunity, assassinated the youthful Alexander, and proclaimed himself king of Macedonia. He had before this been on bad terms with Pyrrhus, who had made incursions into Thessaly, and the usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbours, especially since the death of Deidameia. Now, however, as they both claimed Macedonia, they were brought into direct collision, and Demetrius, after mating a campaign in Ætolia and leaving Pantauchus with a large force to guard his conquests there, himself marched against Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus, as soon as he heard of this, proceeded to meet him, but by a mistake in the road they passed by one another, so that Demetrius invaded Epirus and ravaged the country there, and Pyrrhus, falling in with Pantauchus, fought a battle with him. The struggle was a long and severe one, especially near where the generals fought, for Pantauchus, who was admitted to be the strongest and bravest of the generals of Demetrius, in the pride of his heart challenged Pyrrhus to a single combat, while Pyrrhus, who yielded to none of the kings of the age in strength and courage, and who wished to be thought a true son of Achilles by valour as well as by descent, rushed forward beyond the front ranks to meet Pantauchus. They fought with spears at first, and then, drawing their swords, contended hand to hand with equal skill and courage. Pyrrhus received one hurt, but he wounded Pantauchus in the thigh and in the throat, and overthrew him. Pyrrhus did not slay him, however, as he was rescued by his friends. The Epirots, elated at their king’s victory, and filled with enthusiasm by his courage, bore everything before them, routed the phalanx of the Macedonians, and pursued the fugitives, of whom they slew many and took five thousand prisoners.

VIII

The Macedonians who had witnessed the exploits of Pyrrhus were struck with admiration, and perhaps found some solace for their defeat in the praises they bestowed on the conqueror. He was, they said, indeed a soldier, worthy to command soldiers; the only king of the age in whom there could be traced any likeness to the great Alexander. Pyrrhus revived this image by the fire [Pg 187]and vigour of his movements in the field of battle; the rest only mimicked the hero, whose title they assumed, in their demeanour, and in the trappings and state of royalty.2 We can form an opinion about his knowledge and skill in military matters from the writings which he has left on these subjects. It is related, moreover, that Antigonus, when asked who was the greatest of generals, answered “Pyrrhus, if he lives to be old,” speaking only of the generals of his own time. Hannibal, however, considered Pyrrhus to have been the first general that ever lived for skill and resource, placing Scipio next, and himself third, as is written in the Life of Scipio. Indeed Pyrrhus devoted the whole of his intellect to the art of war, regarding it as the only study fit for a king, and holding all other occupations to be frivolous. At a wine party he was once asked whether he thought Python or Kaphisias the better flute player, to which he answered that Polysperchon was the best general, as though that were the only subject on which a king should form or express an opinion. Yet he was mild-tempered and gentle towards his friends, full of gratitude for kindness, and eager to repay it. He grieved greatly over the death of Æropus; not so much because he was dead, for that, he said, was the common lot of mankind, but because he himself had delayed repaying him a kindness until it was too late. Debts of money, he said, can be paid to the heirs of a creditor, but men of honour are grieved at not being able to return a kindness during the lifetime of their benefactor. In Ambrakia once Pyrrhus was advised to banish a man who abused him in scurrilous terms. He answered, “I had rather he remained where he is and abused me there, than that he should wander through all the world doing so.” Once some youths spoke ill of him over their wine, and being detected were asked by him whether they had used such words of him. “We did, O king,” answered one of the young men, “and we should have said more evil of you if we had had more wine.” At this answer Pyrrhus laughed, and acquitted them.

IX

After the death of Antigone he married several wives, for the sake of advantageous political alliances. [Pg 188]One was the daughter of Autoleon, king of the Pæonians; another was Birkenna, daughter of Bardyllis, king of the Illyrians, while the third, Lanassa, daughter of Agathokles, despot of Syracuse, brought him as a dowry the city and island of Korkyra, which had been captured by Agathokles. By Antigone he had already one son, Ptolemy; by Lanassa he had another son, Alexander, and Helenus, the youngest of his sons, by Birkenna. They were all brought up to be good soldiers, being trained in arms by Pyrrhus himself. It is said that when one of his sons, while yet a child, asked him to which of them he would leave his kingdom, he answered “To him whose sword is the sharpest.” This saying differs but little from that celebrated tragic curse upon the brothers who were to “divide their heritage with whetted steel.” So savage and unsocial a quality is ambition.

X

After this battle Pyrrhus returned home, delighted at the glory which he had acquired. When the Epirotes gave him the title of the Eagle, he answered “I owe it to you that I am an eagle, for it is your arms that enable me to take so high a flight.” Shortly afterwards, learning that Demetrius was dangerously ill, he suddenly invaded Macedonia, meaning merely to make a short incursion, but he very nearly obtained possession of the entire kingdom, as he overran the country without opposition and marched as far as Edessa, while many of the natives assisted him and joined his army. The danger roused Demetrius from his sick bed, and his partisans hastily collected a considerable force and marched to attack Pyrrhus. As he had only come with the intention of plundering he avoided giving battle and retreated, but on his way lost a part of his army by an attack of the Macedonians.

Demetrius, though he had thus easily driven Pyrrhus out of his kingdom, did not despise him. He had determined to go to war on a great scale to recover his father’s throne, with a force of a hundred thousand men and five hundred ships of war; and he did not wish to be thwarted in this design by Pyrrhus, or to leave him as a fierce and dangerous neighbour for Macedonia. Consequently, as he had no leisure to go to war with him, he wished to come [Pg 189]to terms with him and make peace, so that he might be at liberty to attack the other kings. These considerations led him to conclude a truce with Pyrrhus. However, the greatness of the force at Demetrius’s disposal now led him to assume such an arrogant tone that the other kings were alarmed and sent letters to Pyrrhus in which they expressed their surprise that he should overlook the magnificent opportunity which Demetrius would offer him by engaging in a foreign war, and asked him whether, when he was able to drive that restless intriguer out of Macedonia, he intended not to do so, but to sit idle at home while Demetrius gained wealth and power, until at length he would have to fight for his hearth and home in Molossia, and that too when Demetrius had just deprived him of Korkyra by means of his wife. For Lanassa had quarrelled with Pyrrhus because he paid too much attention to his barbarian wives, had retired to Korkyra, and, as she still wished to be a queen, invited Demetrius to take possession of her person and of the island. He at once proceeded thither, married Lanassa, and placed a garrison in the city.

XI

Besides writing to Pyrrhus in this strain the kings themselves contrived to find work for Demetrius, who was still engaged in preparations for his campaign. Ptolemy sailed to Greece with a large force and induced many of the Greek cities to revolt from Demetrius, while Lysimachus, starting from Thrace, invaded and plundered Upper Macedonia. At the same time Pyrrhus marched upon the city of Berœa, truly conjecturing that Demetrius, in his haste to repel the invasion of Upper Macedonia, would leave the lower part of the country unprotected. That night he dreamed that he was called by Alexander the Great, and that he at once went to him, and found him reclining on a couch. The hero received him kindly, and promised him that he would aid him. When Pyrrhus mustered courage to ask, “How, O king, being yourself ill, can you assist me?” Alexander answered, “With my name,” and mounting a Nisæan horse appeared to lead the way. This dream gave Pyrrhus great confidence: he quickly marched over the intervening country and took Berœa, where he fixed his headquarters, and sent out detachments to reduce other places. Demetrius, when he [Pg 190]heard this news, and heard also the tumult of grief and indignation which it excited in his camp, feared to march any closer to Lysimachus, lest if his army came near to a king who was a Macedonian, and so distinguished a man, the troops might transfer their allegiance to him. He therefore resolved to retrace his steps, and attack Pyrrhus, as being a foreigner, and an enemy of the Macedonians. However, when he pitched his camp near Berœa, many came out from that city loudly praising Pyrrhus, as an invincible warrior and a great man, who had treated the vanquished with kindness and magnanimity. Some of these were emissaries of Pyrrhus himself, disguised as Macedonians, who said that now was the time for them to relieve themselves from the harsh tyranny of Demetrius by adopting Pyrrhus, a popular man and a true friend of the soldier, as their king. The greater part of Demetrius’s troops was much excited by this means, and when the two armies met face to face, all eyes were turned in search of the hero. For a time they could not find him, for he had taken off his helmet; but when he had put it on again, and enabled them to recognise him by the lofty crest, and the goat’s horns at the sides, the Macedonian soldiers quitted their ranks, and came running up to ask him, as their chief, for the pass-word. Others, seeing that his attendants wore garlands of oak-leaves, crowned themselves in like manner. Some already ventured to tell Demetrius that his best course would be to give up all as lost: and he, observing, that this advice seemed to be borne out by the temper of his army, withdrew in terror, disguised in a mean dress, and a broad-brimmed Macedonian hat. Pyrrhus, advancing without striking a blow, obtained possession of his enemy’s camp, and was saluted king of the Macedonians.

XII

Lysimachus soon appeared upon the scene, pointed out that the fall of Demetrius was as much due to his own exertions as to those of Pyrrhus, and demanded a partition of Macedonia. To this Pyrrhus, not yet certain of the loyalty of his new subjects, was obliged to consent. This measure was beneficial for the moment, as it prevented their going to war; but soon it became apparent that the partition was a source of endless quarrels and recriminations. For when men are ambitious to such a degree [Pg 191]that no seas, mountains, or wildernesses, nay not even the boundaries of Europe and Asia, will serve as barriers to their frantic desire for more territory, it is not to be expected that they will remain quiet when their frontiers touch one another, but they always are at war, from the natural jealousy of their disposition. The names of peace and war they use as mere symbols, as it suits their convenience, and they are really better men when they are openly at war than when they give the name of peace and friendship to a cessation of active wickedness. The truth of this was proved by Pyrrhus, who in order to prevent Demetrius from recovering from the great disaster which he had sustained, espoused the cause of Greece, and marched to Athens. Here he went up to the Acropolis and sacrificed to the goddess Athena. On descending he thanked the Athenians for their confidence in him, but advised them if they consulted their own interest never to admit any king within their walls.3 After this he made peace with Demetrius, but shortly after he was gone to Asia, Pyrrhus, at the instigation of Lysimachus, induced the Thessalians to revolt and join him, and began to besiege the fortresses on the Greek border, both because he found the Macedonians easier to manage when they were at war than when they were idle, and also because he himself was of a nature which could not endure inaction. Finally however Demetrius was irretrievably ruined in Syria, and now Lysimachus, having nothing further to fear from him, at once attacked Pyrrhus. He fell upon him suddenly near Edessa, defeated him, and reduced the troops under him to great distress for provisions. Next he began to corrupt the leading Macedonians, reproaching them with having rejected a Macedonian who had been the friend and companion of Alexander, and chosen in his stead as their master a foreigner, and one, too, of a race that had always been subject to the Macedonians. As many listened to these treacherous insinuations, Pyrrhus became alarmed, and withdrew with his Epirotes and the allied troops, thus losing [Pg 192]Macedonia in the same way that he had gained it. So that kings have but little reason for reproaching the common people for changing sides in an emergency, for in doing so they do but imitate the kings themselves, their teachers in the art of treachery and faithlessness, who think that those men gain the greatest advantages who take least account of justice and honour.

XIII

Pyrrhus, now that he had lost Macedonia, might have spent his days peacefully ruling his own subjects in Epirus; but he could not endure repose, thinking that not to trouble others and be troubled by them was a life of unbearable ennui, and, like Achilles in the Iliad,

“he could not rest in indolence at home,

He longed for battle, and the joys of war.”

As he desired some new adventures he embraced the following opportunity. The Romans were at war with the Tarentines; and as that people were not sufficiently powerful to carry on the war, and yet were not allowed by the audacious folly of their mob orators to make peace, they proposed to make Pyrrhus their leader and to invite him to be their ally in the war, because he was more at leisure than any of the other kings, and also was the best general of them all. Of the older and more sensible citizens some endeavoured to oppose this fatal decision, but were overwhelmed by the clamour of the war party, while the rest, observing this, ceased to attend the public assembly. There was one citizen of good repute, named Meton, who, on the day when the final decision was to be made, when the people were all assembled, took a withered garland and a torch, like a drunkard, and reeled into the assembly with a girl playing the flute before him. At this, as one may expect in a disorderly popular meeting, some applauded, and some laughed, but no one stopped him. They next bade the girl play, and Meton come forward and dance to the music; and he made as though he would do so. When he had obtained silence he said “Men of Tarentum, you do well in encouraging those who wish to be merry and amuse themselves while they may. If you are wise you will all enjoy your freedom now, for when Pyrrhus is come to our city you will have very [Pg 193]different things to think of, and will live very differently.” By these words he made an impression on the mass of the Tarentine people, and a murmur ran through the crowd that he had spoken well. But those politicians who feared that if peace were made they should be delivered up to the Romans, reproached the people for allowing any one to insult them by such a disgraceful exhibition, and prevailed on them to turn Meton out of the assembly. Thus the vote for war was passed, and ambassadors were sent to Epirus, not from Tarentum alone, but from the other Greek cities in Italy, carrying with them presents for Pyrrhus, with instructions to tell him that they required a leader of skill and renown, and that they possessed a force of Lucanians, Messapians, Samnites and Tarentines, which amounted to twenty thousand cavalry, and three hundred and fifty thousand infantry. This not only excited Pyrrhus, but also made all the Epirotes eager to take part in the campaign.

XIV

There was one Kineas, a Thessalian, who was thought to be a man of good sense, and who, having heard Demosthenes the orator speak, was better able than any of the speakers of his age to delight his hearers with an imitation of the eloquence of that great master of rhetoric. He was now in the service of Pyrrhus, and being sent about to various cities, proved the truth of the Euripidean saw, that

“All can be done by words

Which foemen wish to do with conquering swords.”

Pyrrhus at any rate used to say that more cities were won for him by Kineas with words, than be himself won by force of arms. This man, observing that Pyrrhus was eagerly preparing for his Italian expedition, once when he was at leisure conversed with him in the following manner. “Pyrrhus,” said he, “the Romans are said to be good soldiers, and to rule over many warlike nations. Now, if heaven grants us the victory over them, what use shall we make of it?”

“You ask what is self-evident,” answered Pyrrhus. “If we can conquer the Romans, there is no city, Greek or barbarian, that can resist us, and we shall gain possession [Pg 194]of the whole of Italy, a country whose size, richness, and power no one knows better than yourself.” Kineas then, after waiting for a short time, said, “O king, when we have taken Italy, what shall we do then?” Pyrrhus, not yet seeing his drift, answered, “Close to it Sicily invites us, a noble and populous island, and one which is very easy to conquer; for, my Kineas, now that Agathokles is dead, there is nothing there but revolution and faction, and the violence of party spirit.” “What you say,” answered Kineas, “is very probably true. But is this conquest of Sicily to be the extreme limit of our campaign?” “Heaven,” answered Pyrrhus, “alone can give us victory and success; but these conquests would merely prove to us the stepping-stones to greater things. Who could refrain from making an attempt upon Carthage and Libya when he was so close to them, countries which were all but conquered by Agathokles when he ran away from Syracuse with only a few ships? and if we were masters of these countries, none of the enemies who now give themselves such airs at our expense will dare to resist us.” “Certainly not,” answered Kineas; “With such a force at our disposal we clearly could recover Macedonia, and have the whole of Greece at our feet. And after we have made all these conquests, what shall we do then?” Pyrrhus laughing answered, “We will take our ease and carouse every day, and enjoy pleasant conversation with one another.” Having brought Pyrrhus to say this, Kineas asked in reply, “But what prevents our carousing and taking our ease now, since we have already at hand all those things which we propose to obtain with much blood-shed, and great toils and perils, and after suffering much ourselves and causing much suffering to others?” By talking in this manner Kineas vexed Pyrrhus, because he made him reflect on the pleasant home which he was leaving, but his reasoning had no effect in turning him from his purpose.

XV

He first despatched Kineas to Tarentum with three thousand men; next he collected from Tarentum many horse-transports, decked vessels, and boats of all sorts, and embarked upon them twenty elephants, twenty-three thousand cavalry, twenty-two thousand infantry, and five [Pg 195]hundred slingers. When all was ready he put to sea; and when half way across a storm burst upon him from the north, which was unusual at that season of the year. He himself, though his ship was carried away by the tempest, yet, by the great pains and skill of the sailors and pilots, resisted it and reached the land, with great toil to the rowers, and beyond everyone’s expectation; for the rest of the fleet was overpowered by the gale and scattered. Some ships were driven off the Italian coast altogether, and forced into the Libyan and Sicilian seas, and some which could not weather the Iapygian Cape were overtaken by night, and being dashed by a violent and boisterous sea against that harbourless coast were utterly lost, except only the king’s ship. She was so large and strongly built as to resist the waves as long as they broke upon her from the seaward; but when the wind changed and blew directly off the shore, the ship, which now met the waves directly with her head, was in great danger of going to pieces, while to let her drive out to sea again now that it was so rough, and the wind changed so frequently, seemed more terrible than to remain where they were. Pyrrhus rose and leapt into the water, and at once was eagerly followed by his friends and his body-guard. The darkness of night and the violent recoil of the roaring waves made it hard for them to help him, and it was not until daybreak, when the wind abated, that he reached the land, faint and helpless in body, but with his spirit invincible in misfortune. The Messapians, upon whose coast he had been thrown, now assembled from the neighbouring villages and offered their help, while some of the ships which had outlived the storm appeared, bringing a few horsemen, about two thousand foot, and two elephants.

XVI

With these Pyrrhus marched to Tarentum; Kineas, as soon as he heard of his arrival, bringing out the Tarentine army to meet him. When he reached the city he did nothing to displease the Tarentines until his fleet returned to the coast and he had assembled the greater part of his army. But then, as he saw that the populace, unless ruled by a strong hand, could neither help him nor help themselves, but intended to stay idling about their baths and entertainments at home, while he fought their [Pg 196]battles in the field, he closed the gymnasia and public walks, in which the people were wont to waste their time in empty talk about the war. He forbade all drinking, feasting, and unseasonable revels, and forced the people to take up arms, proving himself inexorable to every one who was on the muster-roll of able-bodied citizens. This conduct made him much disliked, and many of the Tarentines left the city in disgust; for they were so unused to discipline, that they considered that not to be able to pass their lives as they chose was no better than slavery.

When news came that Lævinus, the Roman consul, was marching to attack him with a large force, and was plundering the country of Lucania as he advanced, while Pyrrhus’s allies had not yet arrived, he thought it a shameful thing to allow the enemy to proceed any farther, and marched out with his army. He sent before him a herald to the Roman general, informing him that he was willing to act as arbitrator in the dispute between the Romans and the Greek cities of Italy, if they chose to terminate it peacefully. On receiving for an answer that the Romans neither wished for Pyrrhus as an arbitrator, nor feared him as an enemy, he marched forward, and encamped in the plain, between the city of Pandosia and Heraklea. Learning that the Romans were close by, and were encamping on the farther side of the river Siris4 he rode up to the river to view them; and when he observed their even ranks, their orderly movements, and their well-arranged camp, he was surprised, and said to the nearest of his friends: “These barbarians, Megakles, have nothing barbarous in their military discipline; but we shall soon learn what they can do.” He began indeed already to feel some uncertainty as to the issue of the campaign, and determined to wait until his allies came up, and till then to observe the movements of the Romans, and prevent their crossing the river. They however, perceiving his object, at once crossed the river, the infantry at a ford, the cavalry at many points at once, so that the Greeks feared they might be surrounded, and drew back. Pyrrhus, perceiving this, ordered his officers instantly to form the [Pg 197]troops in order of battle and wait under arms while he himself charged with the cavalry, three thousand strong, hoping to catch the Romans in the act of crossing the river and consequently in disorder. When he saw many shields of the Roman infantry appearing over the river bank, and their horsemen all ranged in order, he closed up his own ranks and charged them first himself, a conspicuous figure in his beautiful glittering armour, and proving by his exploits that he deserved his high reputation; especially as, although he fought personally, and engaged in combat with the enemy, yet he continually watched the whole battle, and handled his troops with as much facility as though he were not in the thick of the fight, appearing always wherever his presence was required, and reinforcing those who seemed likely to give way. In this battle Leonnatus the Macedonian observing one of the Italians watching Pyrrhus and constantly following him about the field, said to him, “My king, do you see that barbarian on the black horse with white feet? He seems to be meditating some desperate deed. He is a man of spirit and courage, and he never takes his eyes off you, and takes no notice of any one else. Beware of that man.” Pyrrhus answered, “Leonnatus, no man can avoid his fate; but neither that Italian nor any one else who attacks me will do so with impunity.” While they were yet talking the Italian levelled his lance, and urged his horse in full career against Pyrrhus. He struck the king’s horse with his spear, and at the same instant his own horse was struck a sidelong blow by Leonnatus. Both horses fell; Pyrrhus was saved by his friends, and the Italian perished fighting. He was of the nation of the Frentani, Hoplacus by name, and was the captain of a troop of horse.

XVII

This incident taught Pyrrhus to be more cautious. He observed that his cavalry were inclined to give way, and therefore sent for his phalanx, and arrayed it against the enemy. Then he gave his cloak and armour to one of his companions, Megakles, and after partially disguising himself in those of his friend, led his main body to attack the Roman army. The Romans stoutly resisted him, and an obstinate battle took place, for it is said that the combatants alternately yielded and again pressed [Pg 198]forward no less than seven distinct times. The king’s exchange of armour too, though it saved his life, yet very nearly lost him the victory: for many attacked Megakles, and the man who first struck him down, who was named Decius, snatched up his cloak and helmet, and rode with them to Lævinus, displaying them and shouting aloud that he had slain Pyrrhus. The Romans, when they saw these spoils carried in triumph along their ranks, raised a joyful cry, while the Greeks were correspondingly disheartened until Pyrrhus, learning what had taken place, rode along the line with his head bare, stretching out his hands to his soldiers and telling them that he was safe. At length he was victorious, chiefly by means of a sudden charge of his Thessalian horse on the Romans after they had been thrown into disorder by the advance of the elephants. The Roman horses were terrified at these animals, and long before they came near, ran away with their riders in panic. The slaughter was very great: Dionysius says that of the Romans there fell but little short of fifteen thousand, but Hieronymus reduces this to seven thousand, while on Pyrrhus’s side there fell, according to Dionysius, thirteen thousand, but according to Hieronymus less than four thousand. These however, were the very flower of Pyrrhus’s army; for he lost all his most trusty officers, and his most intimate personal friends. Still, he captured the Roman camp, which was abandoned by the enemy, induced several of their allied cities to join him, plundered a vast extent of country, and advanced within three hundred stades (less than forty English miles) of Rome itself. After the battle many of the Lucanians and Samnites came up; these allies he reproached for their dilatory movements, but was evidently well pleased at having conquered the great Roman army with no other forces but his own Epirotes and the Tarentines.

XVIII

The Romans did not remove Lævinus from his office of consul, although Caius Fabricius is reported to have said that it was not the Epirotes who had conquered the Romans, but Pyrrhus who had conquered Lævinus; meaning that he thought that the defeat was owing not to the greater force but the superior generalship of the enemy. They astonished Pyrrhus by quickly filling up [Pg 199]their ranks with fresh levies, and talking about the war in a spirit of fearless confidence. He decided to try whether they were disposed to make terms with him, as he perceived that to capture Rome and utterly subdue the Roman people would be a work of no small difficulty, and that it would be vain to attempt it with the force at his disposal, while after his victory he could make peace on terms which would reflect great lustre on himself. Kineas was sent as ambassador to conduct this negotiation. He conversed with the leading men of Rome, and offered their wives and children presents from the king. No one, however, would accept them, but they all, men and women alike, replied that, if peace were publicly concluded with the king, they would then have no objection to regard him as a friend. And when Kineas spoke before the Senate in a winning and persuasive manner he could not make any impression upon his audience, although he announced to them that Pyrrhus would restore the prisoners he had taken without any ransom, and would assist them in subduing all Italy, while all that he asked in return was that he should be regarded as a friend, and that the people of Tarentum should not be molested. The common people, however, were evidently eager for peace, in consequence of their having been defeated in one great battle, and expecting that they would have to fight another against a larger force, because the Italian states would join Pyrrhus. At this crisis Appius Claudius, an illustrious man, but who had long since been prevented by old age and blindness from taking any active part in politics, when he heard of the proposals of Pyrrhus, and that the question of peace or war was about to be voted upon by the Senate, could no longer endure to remain at home, but caused his slaves to carry him through the Forum to the Senate House in a litter. When he reached the doors of the Senate House his sons and sons-in-law supported him and guided him into the house, while all the assembly observed a respectful silence.

XIX

Speaking from where he stood, he addressed them as follows:—“My countrymen, I used to grieve at the loss of my sight, but now I am sorry not to be deaf also, when [Pg 200]I hear the disgraceful propositions with which you are tarnishing the glory of Rome. What has become of that boast which we were so fond of making before all mankind, that if Alexander the Great had invaded Italy, and had met us when we were young, and our fathers when they were in the prime of life, he would not have been reputed invincible, but would either have fled or perhaps even have fallen, and added to the glory of Rome? You now prove that this was mere empty vapouring, by your terror of these Chaonians and Molossians, nations who have always been a prey and a spoil to the Macedonians, and by your fear of this Pyrrhus, who used formerly to dance attendance on one of Alexander’s bodyguards,5 and who has now wandered hither not so much in order to assist the Greeks in Italy as to escape from his enemies at home, and promises to be our friend and protector forsooth, when the army he commands did not suffice to keep for him the least portion of that Macedonia which he once acquired. Do not imagine that you will get rid of this man by making a treaty with him. Rather you will encourage other Greek princes to invade you, for they will despise you and think you an easy prey to all men, if you let Pyrrhus go home again without paying the penalty of his outrages upon you, nay, with the power to boast that he has made Rome a laughing-stock for Tarentines and Samnites.”

By these words Appius roused a warlike spirit in the Romans, and they dismissed Kineas with the answer that if Pyrrhus would leave Italy they would, if he wished, discuss the question of an alliance with him, but that while he remained in arms in their country the Romans would fight him to the death, however many Lævinuses he might defeat. It is related that Kineas, during his mission to Rome, took great interest in observing the national life of the Romans, and fully appreciated the excellence of their political constitution, which he learned by conversing with many of the leading men of the state. On his return he told Pyrrhus that the Senate seemed to him like an assembly of kings, and that as to the populace, he feared that the Greeks might find in them a new [Pg 201]Lernæan hydra; for twice as many troops had been enrolled in the consul’s army as he had before, and yet there remained many more Romans capable of bearing arms.

XX

After this Caius Fabricius came to arrange terms for the exchange of prisoners; a man whom Kineas said the Romans especially valued for his virtue and bravery, but who was excessively poor. Pyrrhus, in consequence of this, entertained Fabricius privately, and made him an offer of money, not as a bribe for any act of baseness, but speaking of it as a pledge of friendship and sincerity. As Fabricius refused this, Pyrrhus waited till the next day, when, desirous of making an impression on him, as he had never seen an elephant, he had his largest elephant placed behind Fabricius during their conference, concealed by a curtain. At a given signal, the curtain was withdrawn, and the creature reached out his trunk over the head of Fabricius with a harsh and terrible cry. Fabricius, however, quietly turned round, and then said to Pyrrhus with a smile, “You could not move me by your gold yesterday, nor can you with your beast to-day.” At table that day they conversed upon all subjects, but chiefly about Greece and Greek philosophy. Kineas repeated the opinion of Epikurus and his school, about the gods, and the practice of political life, and the objects at which we should aim, how they considered pleasure to be the highest good, and held aloof from taking any active part in politics, because it spoiled and destroyed perfect happiness; and about how they thought that the gods lived far removed from hopes and fears, and interest in human affairs, in a placid state of eternal fruition.6 While he was speaking in this strain Fabricius burst out: “Hercules!” cried he, “May Pyrrhus and the Samnites continue to waste their time on these speculations, as long as they remain at war with us!” Pyrrhus, at this, was struck by the spirit and noble [Pg 202]disposition of Fabricius, and longed more than ever to make Rome his friend instead of his enemy. He begged him to arrange terms of peace, and after they were concluded to come and live with him as the first of his friends and officers. Fabricius is said to have quietly answered, “That, O King, will not be to your advantage; for those who now obey you, and look up to you, if they had any experience of me, would prefer me to you for their king.” Pyrrhus was not angry at this speech, but spoke to all his friends about the magnanimous conduct of Fabricius, and entrusted the prisoners to him alone, on the condition that, if the Senate refused to make peace, they should be allowed to embrace their friends, and spend the festival of the Saturnalia with them, and then be sent back to him. And they were sent back after the Saturnalia, for the Senate decreed that any of them who remained behind should be put to death.

XXI

After this, when C. Fabricius was consul, a man came into his camp bringing a letter from King Pyrrhus’s physician, in which he offered to poison the king, if he could be assured of a suitable reward for his services in thus bringing the war to an end without a blow. Fabricius, disgusted at the man’s treachery, brought his colleague to share his views, and in haste sent off a letter to Pyrrhus, bidding him be on his guard. The letter ran as follows: “Caius Fabricius and Quintus Æmilius, the Roman consuls, greet King Pyrrhus. You appear to be a bad judge both of your friends and of your enemies. You will perceive, by reading the enclosed letter which has been sent to us, that you are fighting against good and virtuous men, and trusting to wicked and treacherous ones. We do not give you this information out of any love we bear you, but for fear that we might be charged with having assassinated you and be thought to have brought the war to a close by treachery because we could not do so by manhood.”

Pyrrhus on receiving this letter, and discovering the plot against his life, punished his physician, and, in return for the kindness of Fabricius and the Romans, delivered up their prisoners without ransom, and sent Kineas a second time to arrange terms of peace. However, the Romans refused to receive their prisoners back [Pg 203]without ransom, being unwilling either to receive a favour from their enemy, or to be rewarded for having abstained from treachery towards him, but set free an equal number of Tarentines and Samnites, and sent them to him. As to terms of peace, they refused to entertain the question unless Pyrrhus first placed his entire armament on board the ships in which it came, and sailed back to Epirus with it.

As it was now necessary that Pyrrhus should fight another battle, he advanced with his army to the city of Asculum, and attacked the Romans. Here he was forced to fight on rough ground, near the swampy banks of a river, where his elephants and cavalry were of no service, and he was forced to attack with his phalanx. After a drawn battle, in which many fell, night parted the combatants. Next day Pyrrhus manœuvred so as to bring the Romans fairly into the plain, where his elephants could act upon the enemy’s line. He occupied the rough ground on either side, placed many archers and slingers among his elephants, and advanced with his phalanx in close order and irresistible strength. The Romans, who were unable on the level ground to practise the bush-fighting and skirmishing of the previous day, were compelled to attack the phalanx in front. They endeavoured to force their way through that hedge of spears before the elephants could come up, and showed marvellous courage in hacking at the spears with their swords, exposing themselves recklessly, careless of wounds or death. After a long struggle, it is said that they first gave way at the point where Pyrrhus was urging on his soldiers in person, though the defeat was chiefly due to the weight and crushing charge of the elephants. The Romans could not find any opportunity in this sort of battle for the display of their courage, but thought it their duty to stand aside and save themselves from a useless death, just as they would have done in the case of a wave of the sea or an earthquake coming upon them. In the flight to their camp, which was not far off, Hieronymus says that six thousand Romans perished, and that in Pyrrhus’s commentaries his loss is stated at three thousand five hundred and five. Dionysius, on the other hand, does not admit that there were two battles at Asculum, or that the [Pg 204]Romans suffered a defeat, but tells us that they fought the whole of one day until sunset, and then separated, Pyrrhus being wounded in the arm by a javelin, and the Samnites having plundered his baggage. He also states the total loss on both sides to be above fifteen thousand.7

The armies separated after the battle, and it is said that Pyrrhus, when congratulated on his victory by his friends, said in reply: “If we win one more such victory over the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined.” For a large part of the force which he had brought with him had perished, and very nearly all his friends and officers, and there were no more to send for at home. He saw, too, that his allies were becoming lukewarm, while the Romans, on the other hand, filled up the gaps with a never-ceasing stream of fresh recruits, and did not lose confidence by their defeats, but seemed to gather fresh strength and determination to go on with the war.

XXII

While in these difficulties he conceived fresh hopes of success, and engaged in an enterprise in another quarter, which was likely to interfere with the prosecution of his original design. An embassy arrived from Sicily, offering to place the cities of Agrigentum, Syracuse, and Leontini in his hands, and begging him to aid them in driving out the Carthaginians from the island, and freeing it from despots, while at the same time messengers came from Greece with the news that Ptolemy, surnamed Keraunus, or “the thunderbolt,” had perished, with all his army, in an engagement with the Gauls, and that now was his opportunity to offer himself to the Macedonians, who were in great need of a king. Pyrrhus upbraided Fortune for placing so many opportunities within his reach at the same time, and, reflecting that he could only manage one with success, for some time remained plunged in thought. At last, thinking that the Sicilian offer was likely to lead to greater things, as Africa was close to that island, he decided to accept it, and at once sent Kineas to prepare the cities for his arrival, as was his wont in such cases. He himself, meanwhile, placed a strong garrison in the city of Tarentum, much to the disgust of its citizens, [Pg 205]who asked him either to perform what he had come thither to do, namely, to assist them in fighting against the Romans, or else to evacuate their territory, and leave their city as he found it. In answer to this demand he harshly bade them keep quiet, and wait till he was at leisure to attend to their affairs, and at once set sail for Sicily. On his arrival there he found all his hopes realised, as the cities gladly delivered themselves into his hands. At first he willingly acceded to their request, that he should wage war on their behalf, and with an army of thirty thousand foot, two thousand horse, and two hundred ships, he attacked the Carthaginians, totally defeated them, and overran the part of Sicily which was subject to them. Eryx was the strongest of their fortresses, and was strongly garrisoned. Pyrrhus, learning this, determined to assault it. When his army was ready, he came forward, in complete armour, and vowed that he would hold public games and sacrifices in honour of Herakles, if he should prove himself that day, before all the Sikeliot Greeks, to be a worthy descendant of Achilles, and to deserve to command so great a force. The trumpet then sounded the charge, the barbarians were driven from the walls by a shower of missiles, and the scaling ladders planted against them. Pyrrhus was the first man to mount the wall, and there fought singly against a host, dashing some of them over the inner, and some over the outer edge of the wall, and wielding his sword with such terrible power that he soon stood on a pile of corpses. He himself was quite unhurt, and terrified the enemy by his mere appearance, proving how truly Homer has told us that of all virtues courage alone is wont to display itself in divine transports and frenzies. After the city was taken he made a magnificent sacrifice to the gods, and held gymnastic contests of all kinds.

XXIII

He now turned his arms against the so-called Mamertines8 of Messina, who troubled the Greek cities much, and had even made some of them tributary to themselves. They were numerous and warlike; indeed, [Pg 206]in Latin, their name means the “children of Mars.” Pyrrhus seized and put to death any of them whom he found exacting tribute from the Greeks, and after defeating them in a pitched battle, took many of their outlying forts. The Carthaginians now were inclined to come to terms with him. They offered, if peace were concluded, to pay him tribute, and to supply a fleet for his use. To these proposals Pyrrhus, dissatisfied with obtaining so little, answered that he would only make peace and friendship with them on one condition, which was that they would evacuate Sicily altogether, and regard the African sea as their frontier towards Greece. Elated by the greatness of the force at his disposal, and the success which attended his enterprises, he now aimed at the realisation of the large hopes of conquest with which he left Greece, and meditated an attack on Libya. He had a large fleet, but required many rowers to man it, and these he proceeded to obtain from the allied cities, not by gentle means, but by harsh, arbitrary, and despotic commands. Not that he was originally of a tyrannical disposition, but his character, which at first was open, trustful, and sociable, gradually altered for the worse, as he became less dependent upon public opinion and more firmly fixed upon his throne, until at length he gained the reputation of an ungrateful and suspicious despot. The Greek cities, though with much murmuring, submitted to this arbitrary impressment, having no other alternative; but Pyrrhus soon proceeded to even harsher measures. Thoinon and Sosistratus were the leading men in Syracuse. It was they who had first invited him into Sicily, and who, when he arrived there, had placed their own city in his hands and induced most of the other Greek communities to join him. Pyrrhus now regarded these men with suspicion, and knew not whether to take them with him or leave them behind. Sosistratus, terrified at the king’s evident ill-will, made his escape, upon which Pyrrhus charged Thoinon with plotting against him with the other, and put him to death. This caused a sudden revulsion of feeling from him. The Greek cities began to regard him with mortal hatred, and some of them joined the Carthaginians, whilst others invited the Mamer[Pg 207]tines to assist them. And while Pyrrhus saw nothing in Sicily but disaffection and insurrection against his power, he received despatches from the Tarentines and Samnites, informing him that they were confined to the walls of their cities, and even so could barely defend themselves against the Romans, while their lands were all being laid waste, and they urgently needed help. This intelligence prevented his withdrawal from Sicily being regarded as a flight, but in reality he had failed in his attempt to conquer that island, and was as eager to return to Italy as a shipwrecked sailor is to reach the shore. It is said that as he was sailing away he looked back at Sicily and said to his friends, “What a fair field we are leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians to fight in.” This prophecy, as he expected, was soon afterwards fulfilled.

XXIV

The barbarians9 combined to attack him as he retreated. He fought a battle at sea with the Carthaginian fleet during his passage to Italy, in which he lost many ships, while the Mamertines, ten thousand strong, had crossed into Italy before he could reach it, and although they did not dare to fight a pitched battle, yet harassed him by attacking him when entangled in some rough ground, and threw his entire army into confusion. Two elephants and many of his rear-guard perished. Pyrrhus himself was at the head of the column of march, but at once rode to the rear and restored the fight, but was in great danger from the brave and warlike Mamertines. He received a blow upon his head from a sword, which forced him to retire a little way from the battle, and greatly elated the enemy. One of them, a powerful man, splendidly armed, ran forward far beyond the rest, and boastfully challenged him to come forward and fight, if he were alive. At this Pyrrhus was so exasperated that he broke forcibly away from the officers who tried to restrain him, and, with his face covered with blood, and a savage expression of fury on his countenance, rushed upon the barbarian, and struck him a blow on the head which showed both the strength of his arm and the admirable temper of his sword, for it clave him completely [Pg 208]asunder, so that his body fell down in two pieces. This checked the ardour of the barbarians, who admired and feared Pyrrhus as a superior being. He was able to march unopposed for the rest of the way to Tarentum, to which city he brought a force of twenty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry. Taking with him the best troops of the Tarentines he now marched at once to attack the Romans, who were encamped in the territory of the Samnites.

XXV

The Samnites at this period were entirely ruined and broken in spirit from the numerous defeats which they had sustained at the hands of the Romans. Some dissatisfaction also was felt with Pyrrhus for having neglected them while he was campaigning in Sicily; so that not many of that nation joined him. Pyrrhus now divided his forces, sending one portion into Lucania to harass the other consul and prevent his coming to the assistance of his colleague, while he himself led the remainder to attack Manius Curius, who was quietly encamped near the city of Beneventum, awaiting the arrival of the Lucanian forces. It is also said that his soothsayers told him, that the omens were not in favour of his moving from where he was. Pyrrhus, eager to attack him before the other consul’s army joined him, made a hurried night march with his best troops and elephants, hoping to surprise the Roman camp. But during the march, which was long, and through a densely-wooded country, their torches went out, the soldiers lost their way in the darkness, and got into confusion. Day at length appeared, and showed to the Romans Pyrrhus with his army, advancing from the heights near their camp. The sight caused some disorder and excitement, but as the omens were now favourable, and the emergency required prompt action, Manius Curius led out his men, attacked the first troops of Pyrrhus’s army whom he met, routed them, and dismayed the whole force, so that many were slain and several elephants captured. This success emboldened Manius to begin a general action on the more level ground, where he defeated the enemy with one wing of his army, but on the other his troops were overpowered by the charge of the elephants and driven back [Pg 209]to their camp. Curius now called to his aid the soldiers left to guard the camp, who were standing under arms along the ramparts, and were quite fresh and unwearied. They assailed the elephants with a shower of darts, which caused them to turn and fly, trampling down their own men in their flight. The Romans thus gained the victory, and at the same time the reputation of being the first military nation in the world. For their display of valour on this occasion led to their being thought invincible, and to their at once gaining possession of the whole of Italy, and shortly afterwards of Sicily also.

XXVI

Thus did Pyrrhus fail in his Italian and Sicilian expeditions, after spending six years of constant fighting in those countries, during which he lost a great part of his force, but always, even in his defeats, preserved his reputation for invincible bravery, being thought, in warlike skill and personal strength and daring, to be by far the first prince of his age. Yet he always threw away the advantages which he gained, in following some chimerical scheme of further conquest, being unable to take proper measures for the present because of his eagerness for the future. On this account Antigonus likened him to a player who made many good throws with the dice, but who did not know how to use them. He carried back to Epirus with him eight thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry, and, having no money, began to look out for a war, by which he might support his army. Some of the Gauls now joined him, and he at once invaded Macedonia, where Antigonus, the son of Demetrius, was now king, with the intention of plundering the country. Soon, however, as he took several cities, and two thousand Macedonian soldiers deserted their colours and joined him, he began to entertain more ambitious designs, marched against Antigonus himself, and was able to surprise his army, near the issue of a defile, by a sudden attack in the rear. Notwithstanding the general confusion, however, a strong body of Gauls, who formed the rear-guard, withstood him manfully, but, after a vigorous resistance, were nearly all cut to pieces, while the elephants, whose retreat was cut off, were surrendered by their leaders. After gaining such an advantage as this, Pyrrhus, trusting to [Pg 210]his good fortune, and without calculating the numbers opposed to him, advanced to attack the Macedonian phalanx, which was full of disorder and consternation at the defeat of the rear-guard. No attempt was made by them to strike a blow. Pyrrhus stretched out his hand and called the Macedonian officers by their names, and they at once went over to him, and were followed by all their men. Antigonus escaped to the sea-coast, where he still retained some cities in their obedience.

Pyrrhus, considering that his victory over the Gauls was the most glorious part of his recent success, hung the finest of their arms and spoils in the temple of Athene Itonis, with the following epigram.

“These spoils doth Pyrrhus the Molossian king,

From the brave Gauls to thee, bright goddess, bring;

He beat Antigonus, with all his men:

Achilles’ sons are warriors now as then.”

After the battle he at once recovered the cities on the seaboard. He took Ægæ, treated the inhabitants very harshly, and left a garrison of Celtic mercenary troops in the town. These Gauls, with the insatiate greed for money for which that nation is noted, proceeded to break open the sepulchres of the Macedonian kings who were buried there, in search of plunder, and wantonly scattered their bones. Pyrrhus seemed but little disturbed at this outrage, either because his affairs gave him no leisure to think about it, or because he thought it dangerous to punish his barbarian allies: but the Macedonians were deeply grieved by it. And yet, although he was far from being firmly established in his new kingdom, he was already forming new schemes of conquest. In raillery he called Antigonus a shameless man because he had not yet laid aside the royal purple for the dress of a private man, and he eagerly accepted the invitation of Kleonymus the Spartan to go and attack Lacedæmon. This Kleonymus was by birth the rightful heir to the throne, but being thought to be a violent and tyrannical person he was hated and distrusted by the Spartans, who had chosen his nephew Areus to be their king. This was the reason of his having long borne a grudge against his countrymen, but besides [Pg 211]this his feelings had been recently wounded by a family quarrel.

Kleonymus, now an elderly man, had married a beautiful wife of the royal blood, Chilonis, the daughter of Leotychides. She fell madly in love with Akrotatus, the son of Areus, a youth in the flower of his age, and the dishonour of Kleonymus became notorious all over Sparta. This private wrong, added to his previous exclusion from the throne, so enraged him, that he invited Pyrrhus to attack Sparta, which he did with an army of twenty-five thousand foot, two thousand horse, and twenty-four elephants, so that it was obvious that he did not mean to gain Sparta for Kleonymus, but to conquer the whole of Peloponnesus for himself, although he answered some Spartan envoys who waited on him at Megalopolis in specious language, stating that he had come with the intention of restoring to freedom the cities which were held in subjection by Antigonus, and actually going so far as to tell them that, if possible, he intended to send his younger sons to Sparta to be trained in the Laconian discipline, by which they would be able to surpass all the other kings of their age. He put off the envoys with these stories, and made them accompany his army, but on reaching the Lacedæmonian territory he at once began to plunder and lay it waste. When the envoys remonstrated with him for having invaded their country without a declaration of war, he answered—“We know well that neither do you Spartans tell any one beforehand what you mean to do.” One of the envoys, by name Mandrokleides, said in his broad Laconian speech, “If you are a god, we shall not be harmed by you, for we have done no wrong; but if you are a man, you may meet with a stronger man than yourself.”

XXVII

After this he marched upon Lacedæmon itself. Kleonymus urged him to make an assault immediately on the evening of his arrival, but Pyrrhus is said to have refused to do so, for fear that his soldiers might sack and destroy the city if they took it at night, while they might easily take it in the daytime. Indeed the Spartans were taken by surprise, and very few were in the city, the king Areus himself being absent in Crete on an expedi[Pg 212]tion to assist the people of Gortyna. And it was this weakness and absence of defenders that really proved the salvation of the city, for Pyrrhus, not expecting any resistance, pitched his camp outside the walls, while the friends and helots of Kleonymus made ready his house and decorated it, expecting that Pyrrhus would sup there with him. At nightfall the Lacedæmonians at first proposed to send away the women to Crete, but they refused to leave the city. Archidamia10 even went to the senate-house with a drawn sword in her hands, and on behalf of the women of Sparta reproached the men for insulting them by supposing that they would survive the capture of their city. After this, they determined to dig a ditch along the side of the city nearest to Pyrrhus’s camp, and to barricade the ends of it with waggons buried up to the axles in the ground, to resist the charge of the elephants. When this work was begun the women and girls appeared with their tunics girt up for work,11 and laboured at digging the ditch together with the older men. They bade those who were to fight on the morrow take rest, and they themselves alone dug one-third of the entire ditch. The width of the ditch was six cubits, its depth four cubits, and its length eight hundred feet, as we are told by Phylarchus, though Hieronymus makes its dimensions more moderate. At daybreak, when the enemy began to bestir themselves, the women armed the younger men, and handed over the ditch to them, bidding them defend it, as it would be pleasant for them to con[Pg 213]quer in sight of their country, and glorious to die in the arms of their mothers and wives after having fought worthily of Sparta. Chilonis herself had retired to her own house, and had a halter ready about her neck, in order that if the city were taken she might not fall into the hands of Kleonymus.

XXVIII

Pyrrhus himself led a direct attack of his infantry against the Spartans, who were drawn up in deep order, and endeavoured to force his way through them, and to pass the ditch, which was difficult, because the newly dug earth afforded no secure footing to his soldiers. Meanwhile his son Ptolemy led a chosen body of two thousand Gauls and Chaonians round the end of the ditch, and endeavoured to break through the barricade of waggons. These stood so thick and so close together that they made it hard, not only for the assailants to cross them, but even for the Lacedæmonians to reach the point where they were menaced. However, as the Gauls began to pull the wheels out of the earth and to drag the waggons down towards the river, the young Akrotatus perceiving the danger, sallied out from the city at another point with three hundred men, and got round behind Ptolemy’s force, from whom he was concealed by some hilly ground. Then he vigorously assailed the Gauls in the rear, and forced them to face about and defend themselves, which caused great confusion, as they were driven among the waggons and into the ditch by the Spartans until at last they were forced to retreat. This glorious exploit of Akrotatus was witnessed from the city walls by the old men and all the women. As he returned through the city to his appointed post, covered with blood and rejoicing in his victory, the Spartan women thought that he had grown taller and more handsome than before, and they envied Chilonis her lover. Some of the old men even followed him, shouting, “Go home, Akrotatus, and enjoy yourself with Chilonis: only beget brave sons for Sparta.” Where Pyrrhus fought a terrible battle took place, and many valiant deeds were wrought. A Spartan named Phyllius, after greatly distinguishing himself and slaying many of the assailants, when he felt himself mortally wounded, made way for his rear rank-man to take his [Pg 214]place, and died inside the line of shields, in order that his corpse might not fall into the hands of the enemy.

XXIX

The battle ceased at night, and during his sleep Pyrrhus dreamed a dream, that he cast thunderbolts upon Lacedæmon, set it all on fire, and rejoiced at the sight. Being awakened by his delight at this vision, he ordered his officers to hold the troops in readiness and related the dream to his friends, auguring from it that he should take the city by assault. They were all of them delighted at the vision, and certain that it portended success, except one Lysimachus, who said that he feared that, as places struck by thunderbolts may not be walked over, Heaven might mean to signify to Pyrrhus by this that he never should set foot in the city. Pyrrhus however answered that this was mere empty gossip, and that they had better take their arms in their hands and remember that

“The best of omens is King Pyrrhus’s cause.”12

He rose, and at daybreak led his troops again to the assault. The Lacedæmonians defended themselves with a spirit and courage beyond what could be expected from their small numbers. The women mingled in the thick of the fight, supplying food, drink, and missile weapons wherever they were needed, and carrying away the wounded. The Macedonians endeavoured to fill up the ditch by flinging large quantities of wood into it, covering the arms and dead bodies which lay at the bottom. As the Lacedæmonians were resisting this attempt, they saw Pyrrhus on horseback trying to cross the line of waggons and the ditch, and force his way into the city. A shout was raised by the garrison at the spot, and the women began to scream and run wildly about. Pyrrhus had made his way through all obstacles and was about to attack the nearest of those who disputed his passage, when his horse, struck in the body by a Cretan javelin, reared in the death-agony, and threw Pyrrhus to the ground. He fell on a steep bank, [Pg 215]and his fall caused such consternation among his followers that a timely charge of the Spartans drove them back. Upon this he gave orders to put a stop to the assault, for he imagined that the Lacedæmonians would soon offer terms of surrender, as they were nearly all wounded, and had lost many men. However, the good fortune of the city, which may have wished to test the Spartan courage to the utmost, or to prove its own power to save the city when all hope seemed lost, brought Ameinias the Phokian, one of the generals of Antigonus, with a body of mercenary troops to help the Spartans in this their darkest hour. Shortly after they had received this reinforcement, their king, Areus, arrived from Crete with two thousand men. The women now returned to their homes, not thinking it to be necessary any longer for them to take an active part in the war, while those old men too who had been forced by necessity to take up arms, were relieved by the new comers, who took their places in the line of battle against the enemy.

XXX

These reinforcements piqued Pyrrhus into making several more attempts to take the city, in which however he was repulsed and wounded. He now retired, and began to plunder the country, professing his intention to winter there. But no man can resist his destiny. There were in Argos two parties, one headed by Aristeas, and the other by Aristippus. The latter was favoured by Antigonus, which induced Aristeas to invite Pyrrhus to Argos. He was ever willing to embark on a new enterprise, because he regarded his successes merely as stepping-stones to greater things, and hoped to retrieve his failures by new and more daring exploits; so that he was rendered equally restless by victory or defeat. Accordingly he set off at once for Argos. Areus occupied the most difficult of the passes on the road with an ambuscade, and attacked the Gauls and Molossians who formed the rear-guard. Pyrrhus had been warned by his soothsayers that the livers of the victims wanted one lobe, which portended the loss of one of his relatives, but at this crisis the disorder and confusion into which his army was thrown by the ambush made him forget the omen, and order his son Ptolemy to take his guards and go to the help of the rear-guard, while he him[Pg 216]self hurried his main body on through the defile. When Ptolemy came up a fierce battle took place. The flower of the Lacedæmonian army, led by Eualkus, engaged with the troops immediately around Ptolemy, and while they fought, a Cretan named Oryssus, a native of Aptera, running forward on the flank, struck the young man, who was fighting bravely, with a javelin, and killed him. His fall caused his troops to retreat, and they were hard pressed by the Lacedæmonians, who were so excited by their victory that they were carried by their ardour far into the plain, where their retreat was cut off by Pyrrhus’s infantry. Pyrrhus himself, who had just heard of the death of his son, in an agony of grief now ordered the Molossian cavalry to charge them. He was the first to ride among the Lacedæmonians, and terribly avenged his son by cutting them down. Pyrrhus in battle was always a terrific figure, whom none dared to resist, but on this occasion he surpassed himself in courage and fury. At length he rode up to Eualkus, who avoided his charge, and aimed a blow at him with his sword which just missed Pyrrhus’s bridle hand, but cut through his reins. Pyrrhus ran him through with his spear at the same moment, but fell from his horse, and, fighting henceforth on foot, slew all the chosen band commanded by Eualkus. This was a severe loss to Sparta, incurred as it was unnecessarily, after the war was really over, from the desire of their generals to distinguish themselves.

XXXI

Pyrrhus celebrated his son’s obsequies with splendid games.13 His grief was partly satiated by the revenge which he had taken upon the enemy, and he now marched towards Argos. Hearing that Antigonus was encamped upon one of the heights near the city, he himself pitched his camp at Nauplia. On the next day he sent a herald to Antigonus with an insulting message, challenging him to come down upon the level ground and fight. Antigonus answered that he should fight only when he chose, but that if Pyrrhus was weary of his life, he could find many other ways to die. Ambassadors from Argos also came to each of them, begging them to with[Pg 217]draw their forces, and allow the city to remain independent and friendly to both, Antigonus accepted this offer, and handed over his son to the Argives as a hostage, while Pyrrhus agreed to retire, but, as he gave no pledge, was viewed with greater suspicion than before. A strange portent also happened to Pyrrhus, for the heads of the oxen which had been sacrificed, when lying apart from their bodies, were observed to put out their tongues and lap their own gore; and in the city the priestess of Apollo Lykius rushed about in frenzy, crying out that she saw the whole city full of slaughtered corpses, and an eagle coming to the fight and then disappearing.

XXXII

During the following night, which was very dark, Pyrrhus marched his troops up to the walls, found the gate called Diamperes opened to him by Aristeas, and was able to march his Gaulish troops into the city and seize the market-place unobserved: but the elephants could not pass through the gate until their towers were taken off their backs. The removal of these towers, in the darkness, and the replacing them when the elephants had passed through the gate, caused an amount of delay and confusion which at length roused the slumbering inhabitants; they ran together to the place called “the Shield,” and the other places of strength in the city, and sent messengers to call Antigonus to their aid. He at once marched up close to the city, and remained there with a reserve, but sent his son and several of his officers with a large part of his forces to assist the Argives within their city walls. Areus the king of Sparta also arrived, with a thousand Cretans and the swiftest footed of the Spartans. All these troops now at once attacked the Gauls and threw them into great disorder. As Pyrrhus, however, marched in by the street called Kylarabis, his soldiers raised a warlike shout: and he, noticing that the shout was echoed by the Gauls in the market-place in an undecided, faint-hearted fashion, at once guessed that they were being hard pressed. He instantly pressed the horsemen with him to charge, which they did with great difficulty, as the horses kept falling into the water-courses with which the whole city is intersected. The night was spent in wild tumult and skirmishing in the narrow [Pg 218]lanes, both parties being unable to recognize or obey their leaders, and eagerly awaiting the dawn. The first rays of light showed Pyrrhus the whole open square called “the Shield” full of enemies, while he was even more disturbed by the sight of a brazen statue in the market-place, representing a wolf and a bull about to attack one another; for he remembered an oracle which had long before foretold that he must die when he should see a wolf fighting with a bull. The Argives say that this statue commemorates the legend that Danaus when he first landed in the country at Pyramia, near Thyrea, was marching towards Argos when he saw a wolf fighting with a bull. Danaus decided that the wolf must represent himself, because he was a stranger, and was come to attack the people of the country, like it; and he stopped and watched the fight. When the wolf gained the day, he offered prayer to Apollo Lykius, made his attempt upon the throne of Argos, and was successful, as Gelanor, who was then king, was forced into exile by a revolution. This is the account which the Argives give of these statues.

XXXIII

This sight, and the failure of his plans, disheartened Pyrrhus, and he began to think of retreating. As the gates were narrow, he sent to his son Helenus, who had been left with a large force without the city, ordering him to break down a part of the wall, and protect the fugitives, if they were pressed by the enemy. But in the hurry and confusion the messenger did not clearly explain his orders, and by some mistake the young Helenus took all the remaining elephants and the best troops, and marched through the gate with them to help his father. Pyrrhus was already beginning to retire. As long as he fought in the market-place, where there was ample room, he effected his retreat in good order, and kept off the assailants by occasional movements in advance. But when his troops began to march down the narrow street leading to the gate, they were met face to face by the reinforcement coming to their assistance. At this crisis some of the soldiers refused to obey Pyrrhus’s order to retreat, while others who were willing enough to do so could not stem the tide of men marching in from the gate. At the gate itself too the largest of the elephants [Pg 219]had fallen sideways and lay there bellowing, blocking up the way for those who were trying to pass out, while one of the elephants of the reinforcing party, called “the Conqueror,” was looking for his master, who had fallen off his back mortally wounded. Charging violently back against the surging tide of fugitives, the faithful beast trampled down friends and foes alike until he found his master’s body, when he seized it with his trunk and carried it upon his tusks; and then, turning round in a frenzy of grief, overturned and crushed every one whom he met. As the men were thus crowded together, no one could do anything to help himself, but the whole mass surged backwards and forwards in one solid body. The enemy who attacked them behind did them but little hurt; they suffered chiefly from one another, because when a man had once drawn his sword or couched his lance he could not put it up again, and it pierced whoever might happen to be forced against it.

XXXIV

Pyrrhus, seeing the danger with which he was menaced on every side, took off the royal diadem from his helmet, and gave it to one of his companions. He himself, trusting to the fact of his being on horseback, now charged into the mass of assailants, and was struck through his cuirass by one of them with a spear. The wound was not a dangerous or important one, and Pyrrhus at once turned to attack the man from whom he had received it. He was an Argive, not of noble birth, but the son of a poor old woman, who, like the rest, was looking on at the battle from the roof of her house. As soon as she saw Pyrrhus attacking her son, in an ecstasy of fear and rage she took up a tile and hurled it at Pyrrhus. It struck him on the helmet, bruising the spine at the back of his neck, and he fell from his horse, blinded by the stroke, at the side of the sacred enclosure of Likymnius. Few recognized him, but one Zopyrus, who was in the service of Antigonus, and two or three others, seized him just as he was beginning to recover his senses, and dragged him into an archway near at hand. When Zopyrus drew an Illyrian sword to cut off his head Pyrrhus looked so fiercely at him that he was terrified, and bungled in his work, but at length managed to sever [Pg 220]his head from his body. By this time most men had learned what had happened, and Halkyoneus, running up, asked to see the head, that he might identify it. When he obtained this he rode off with it to his father, and finding him sitting amongst his friends, he threw it down at his feet. Antigonus when he recognized it chased his son out of his presence, striking him with his staff, and calling him accursed and barbarous, and then covered his own face with his mantle and wept, remembering how in his own family his grandfather Antigonus and his father Demetrius had experienced similar reverses of fortune. He had the body and head of Pyrrhus decently arranged on a funeral pyre and burned. Halkyoneus, meeting Helenus in poor and threadbare clothes, embraced him kindly, and led him to Antigonus, who said to him, “This meeting, my boy, is better than the other; but still you do not do right in not removing these clothes, which rather seem to disgrace us who are, as it appears, the victors.” He treated Helenus with great kindness, and sent him back to his kingdom of Epirus loaded with presents, and also showed great favour towards the friends of Pyrrhus, who, together with all his army and war material, had fallen into his hands.

LIFE OF
CAIUS MARIUS.

I

I cannot mention any third name1 of Caius Marius, any more than of Quintus Sertorius, who held Spain, or of Lucius Mummius, who took Corinth; for the name [Pg 222]Achaicus was given to Mummius in commemoration of this event, just as the name Africanus was given to Scipio, and Macedonicus to Metellus. This seems to Poseidonius to be the strongest refutation of the opinion of those who suppose that the third name was the proper individual name among the Romans, such as Camillus, and Marcellus, and Cato; for he argues, if this were so, those who had only the two names would be really without a name. But Poseidonius does not perceive that by this argument he on his side makes the women to be without names: for no woman ever has the first of the three names, which first, however, Poseidonius supposes to be the name which marked individuals among the Romans; and of the other two names, he supposes the one to be common and to belong to all of one kin, such as the Pompeii and the Manlii and the Cornelii, just as the Greeks might speak of the Herakleidæ and the Pelopidæ; but the other name he supposes to be an appellation given as a distinctive name, either with reference to a man’s disposition or his actions, or some character and peculiarity of his person, such as Macrinus and Torquatus and Sulla, which may be compared with the Greek Mnemon or Grypus or Kallinikus. However, in such matters as these the diversity in usage allows a variety of conjectures.

II

With respect to the personal appearance of Marius, I saw a stone statue2 of him at Ravenna in Gaul, which was perfectly in accordance with what is said of the roughness and harshness of his character. He was naturally of a courageous and warlike turn, and had more of the discipline of the camp than of the state, and accordingly his temper was ungovernable when he was in the possession of power. It is stated that he never studied Greek literature, and never availed himself of the Greek language for any serious purpose, for he said it was ridiculous to study a literature the teachers of which [Pg 223]were the slaves of others; and after his second triumph, when he exhibited Greek plays3 on the occasion of the dedication of a certain temple, though he came to the theatre, he only sat down for a moment and then went away. Xenokrates the philosopher was considered to be rather of a morose temper, and Plato was in the habit of frequently saying to him, “My good Xenokrates, sacrifice to the Graces;” in like manner, if Marius could have been persuaded to sacrifice to the Grecian Muses and Graces, he would never have brought a most illustrious military and civil career to a most unseemly conclusion; through passion and unreasonable love of power and insatiable desire of self-aggrandizement driven to terminate his course in an old age of cruelty and ferocity. Let this, however, be judged of by the facts as they will presently appear.

III

Marius was the son of obscure parents, who gained their living by the labour of their hands, and were poor. His father’s name was Marius; his mother’s name was Fulcinia. It was late before he saw Rome and became acquainted with the habits of the city, up to which time he lived at Cirrhæato,4 a village in the territory of Arpinum, where his mode of life was rude, when contrasted with the polite and artificial fashions of a city, but temperate and in accordance with the old Roman discipline. He first served against the Celtiberians when Scipio Africanus was besieging Numantia, and he attracted the notice of his commander by his superiority in courage over all the other young soldiers, and by the readiness with which he adapted himself to the change in living which Scipio introduced among the troops, who had been corrupted by luxurious habits and extravagance. He is said also to have killed one of the enemy in single combat in the presence of the general. Accordingly Marius received from Scipio various honourable distinctions; and [Pg 224]on one occasion, after supper, when the conversation was about generals, and one of the company, either because he really felt a difficulty or merely wished to flatter Scipio, asked him where the Roman people would find such another leader and protector when he was gone, Scipio with his hand gently touched the shoulder of Marius, who was reclining next to him, and said, “Perhaps here.” So full of promise was the youth of Marius, and so discerning was the judgment of Scipio.

IV

Now it is said that Marius, mainly encouraged by these words, which he viewed as a divine intimation, entered on a political career, and obtained the tribuneship, in which he was assisted by Cæcilius Metellus,5 of whose house the family of Marius had long been an adherent. During his tribuneship Marius proposed a law on the mode of voting, which apparently tended to deprive the nobles of their power in the Judicia: the measure was opposed by Cotta, the consul, who persuaded the Senate to resist the proposed law, and to summon Marius to account for his conduct. The decree proposed by Cotta was drawn up, and Marius appeared before the Senate; but so far from being disconcerted, as a young man might naturally be, who without any advantages had just stepped into public life, he already assumed the tone which his subsequent exploits authorized, and threatened to carry off Cotta to prison if he did not rescind the decree. Upon Cotta turning to Metellus and asking his opinion, Metellus arose and supported the consul; but Marius, sending for the officer who was outside of the house, ordered him [Pg 225]to carry off Metellus himself to prison. Metellus appealed to the rest of the tribunes without effect, and the Senate yielded and abandoned the decree. Marius now triumphantly came before the popular assembly and got his law ratified, having proved himself to be a man unassailable by fear, not to be diverted from his purpose by any motive of personal respect, and a formidable opponent to the Senate by his measures which were adapted to win the public favour. But he soon gave people reason to change their opinion; for he most resolutely opposed a measure for the distribution of corn among the citizens, and succeeding in his opposition, he established himself in equal credit with both parties, as a man who would do nothing to please either, if it were contrary to the public interest.

V

After the tribuneship he was a candidate for the greater ædileship. Now there are two classes of ædileships: one, which derives its name (curule6) from the seats with curved feet on which the ædiles sit when [Pg 226]they discharge their functions; the other, the inferior, is called the plebeian ædileship. When they have chosen the higher ædiles, they then take the vote again for the election of the others. Now as Marius was manifestly losing in the votes for the curule ædileship, he forthwith changed about and became a candidate for the other ædileship. But this was viewed as an audacious and arrogant attempt, and he failed in his election; but though he thus met with two repulses in one day, which never happened to any man before, he did not abate one tittle of his pretensions, for no long time after he was a candidate for a prætorship,7 in which he narrowly missed a failure, being the last of all who were declared to be elected, and he was prosecuted for bribery.8 What gave rise to most suspicion was the fact that a slave of Cassius Sabaco9 was seen within the septa mingled with the voters; for Sabaco was one of the most intimate friends of Marius. Accordingly Sabaco was cited before the [Pg 227]judices; he explained the circumstance by saying that the heat had made him very thirsty, and he called for a cup of cold water, which his slave brought to him within the septa, and left it as soon as he had drunk the water. Sabaco was ejected from the Senate by the next censors, and people were of opinion that he deserved it, either because he had given false testimony or for his intemperance. Caius Herennius also was summoned as a witness against Marius, but he declared that it was contrary to established usage to give testimony against a client10 and that patrons (for this is the name that the [Pg 228]Romans give to protectors) were legally excused from this duty, and that the parents of Marius, and Marius himself, originally were clients of his house. Though the judices accepted the excuse as valid, Marius himself contradicted Herennius, and maintained that for the moment when he was declared to be elected to a magistracy, he became divested of the relation of client; which was not exactly true, for it is not every magistracy which releases a man who has obtained it, and his family, from the necessity of having a patron, but only those magistracies to which the law assigns the curule seat. However, on the first days of the trial it went hard with Marius, and the judices were strongly against him; yet on the last day, contrary to all expectation, he was acquitted, the votes being equal.

VI

During his prætorship Marius got only a moderate degree of credit. But on the expiration of his office he obtained by lot the further province of Iberia (Spain), and it is said that during his command he cleared all the robber11 establishments out of his government, which was still an uncivilised country in its habits and in a savage state, as the Iberians had not yet ceased to consider robbery as no dishonourable occupation. Though Marius had now embarked in a public career, he had neither wealth nor eloquence, by means of which those who then held the chief power were used to manage the people. But the resoluteness of his character, and his enduring perseverance in toil, and his plain manner of living, got him the popular favour, and he increased in estimation [Pg 229]and influence, so as to form a matrimonial alliance with the illustrious house of the Cæsars,12 with Julia, whose nephew Cæsar afterwards became the greatest of the Romans and in some degree imitated his relation Marius, as I have told in the Life of Cæsar. There is evidence both of the temperance of Marius and also of his endurance, which was proved by his behaviour about a surgical operation. Both his legs, it is said, had become varicose,13 and as he disliked this deformity, he resolved to put himself in the surgeon’s hands. Accordingly he presented to the surgeon one of his legs without allowing himself to be bound; and without making a single movement or uttering a single groan, with steady countenance and in silence he endured excessive pain during the operation. But when the surgeon was going to take the other leg, Marius refused to present it, saying that he perceived the cure was not worth the pain.

VII

When Cæcilius Metellus14 was appointed consul with the command of the war against Jugurtha, he took Marius with him to Libya in the capacity of legatus.15 Here Marius signalised himself by great exploits and brilliant success in battle, but he did not, like the rest, seek to increase the glory of Metellus and to direct all his efforts for the advantage of his general, but disdaining to be called a legatus of Metellus, and considering that fortune had offered him a most favourable opportunity and a wide theatre for action, he displayed his courage on every [Pg 230]occasion. Though the war was accompanied with many hardships, he shrunk not from danger however great, and he thought nothing too mean to be neglected, but in prudent measures and careful foresight he surpassed all the officers of his own rank, and he vied with the soldiers in hard living and endurance, and thus gained their affections. For certainly there is nothing which reconciles a man so readily to toil as to see another voluntarily sharing it with him, for thus the compulsion seems to be taken away; and the most agreeable sight to a Roman soldier is to see his general in his presence eating common bread or sleeping on a coarse mat, or taking a hand in any trench-work and fortification. Soldiers do not so much admire a general who shares with them the honour and the spoil, as one who participates in their toils and dangers; and they love a general who will take a part in their labours more than one who indulges their licence. By such conduct as this, and by gaining the affection of the soldiers, Marius soon filled Libya and Rome with his fame and his glory, for the soldiers wrote to their friends at home and told them there would be no end to the war with the barbarian, no deliverance from it, if they did not elect Marius consul.

VIII

These proceedings evidently caused great annoyance to Metellus; but the affair of Turpillius16 vexed him most of all. The family of Turpillius for several generations had been connected with that of Metellus by friendly relations, and Turpillius was then serving in the army at the head of a body of engineers. It happened that he was commissioned to take charge of Vaga, which was a large city. Trusting for his security to the forbearance with which he treated the inhabitants, and his kind and friendly intercourse with them, he was thrown off his guard and fell into the hands of his enemies, who admitted Jugurtha into the city. Turpillius, however, was not injured, and [Pg 231]the citizens obtained his release and sent him away. He was accordingly charged with treason, and Marius, who was present at the trial as an assessor, was violent against him and excited most of the rest, so that Metellus was unwillingly compelled to pronounce sentence of death against the man. Shortly after it appeared that the charge was false, and everybody except Marius sympathised with Metellus, who was grieved at what had taken place; but Marius exultingly claimed the merit of the condemnation, and was shameless enough to go about saying that he had fixed on Metellus a dæmon which would avenge the death of the man whom it was his duty to protect. This brought Metellus and Marius to open enmity; and it is reported that on one occasion when Marius was present, Metellus said in an insulting way, “You, forsooth, my good fellow, intend to leave us and make the voyage to Rome, to offer yourself for the consulship; and you won’t be content to be the colleague of this son of mine.” Now the son of Metellus17 was at that time a very young man. Marius however was still importunate to obtain leave of absence; and Metellus, after devising various pretexts for delay, at last allowed him to go, when there were only twelve days left before the consuls would be declared. Marius accomplished the long journey from the camp to Utica, on the coast, in two days and one night, and offered sacrifice before he set sail. It is said that the priest told him that the deity gave prognostications of success beyond all measure and all expectation, and accordingly Marius set sail with high hopes. In four days he crossed the sea with a favourable wind, and was most joyfully received by the people, and being introduced to the popular assembly by one of the tribunes, he began by violent abuse of Metellus, and ended with asking for the consulship and promising that he would either kill Jugurtha or take him alive.

IX

[Pg 232]Being declared consul by a great majority, he immediately set about levying soldiers in a way contrary to law and usage, by enrolling a great number of the poorer sort and of slaves, though former generals had never admitted men of this kind into the army, but had given arms, as they would anything else that was a badge of honour, only to those who had the due qualification, inasmuch as every soldier was thus considered to pledge his property to the State. It was not this however which made Marius most odious, but his insolent and arrogant expressions, which gave offence to the nobles, for he publicly said that he considered his acquisition of the consulship a trophy gained over the effeminacy of the noble and the rich, and that what he could proudly show to the people was his own wounds, not the monuments of the dead or the likenesses18 of others. And he would often speak of the generals who had been defeated in Libya, mentioning by name Bestia19 and Albinus, men of illustrious descent indeed, but unskilled in military matters, and for want of experience unsuccessful; and he would ask his hearers whether they did not think that the ancestors of Bestia and Albinus would rather have left descendants like himself, for they also had gained an honourable fame; not by noble birth, but by their virtues and their illustrious deeds. This was not said as a mere empty boast, nor simply because he wished to make himself odious to the nobles; but the people, who were delighted to hear the Senate abused, and always measured the greatness of a man’s designs by the bigness of his words, encouraged [Pg 233]him and urged him on not to spare the nobles if he wished to please the many.

X

When Marius had crossed over to Libya, Metellus, giving way to his jealousy, and vexed to see the crown and the triumph, when he had already completed the war and it only remained to seize the person of Jugurtha, taken from him by another, a man too who had raised himself to power by ingratitude to his benefactor, would not stay to meet Marius, but privately left the country, and Rutilius, one of his legati, gave up the army to the new consul. But at last retribution for his conduct overtook Marius; for he was deprived of the glory of his victories by Sulla, just in the same way as he had deprived Metellus of his credit: and how this happened I will state briefly, since the particular circumstances are told more at length in the Life of Sulla. Bocchus, who was king of the barbarians in the interior, and the father-in-law of Jugurtha, showed no great disposition to help him in his wars, because of the faithlessness of Jugurtha, and also because he feared the increase of his power. But when Jugurtha, who was now a fugitive from place to place, made Bocchus his last resource and took refuge with him, Bocchus received his son-in-law more from a regard to decency, as he was a suppliant, than from any goodwill, and kept him in his hands; and while he openly interceded with Marius on behalf of Jugurtha, and wrote to say that he would not surrender him and assumed a high tone, he secretly entertained treacherous designs against Jugurtha, and sent for Lucius Sulla, who was the Quæstor of Marius, and had done some service to Bocchus during the campaign. Sulla confidently went to Bocchus, but the barbarian, who had changed his intentions and repented of his design, for several days wavered in his plan, hesitating whether he should deliver up Jugurtha or keep Sulla a prisoner: at last, however, he determined to carry into effect his original design, and surrendered Jugurtha into the hands of Sulla. Thus was sown the seed of that irreconcilable and violent animosity between Marius and Sulla which nearly destroyed Rome: many claimed the credit of this transaction for Sulla on account of their dislike of Marius, and Sulla himself had a seal-ring made, which he used to [Pg 234]on which there was a representation of the surrender of Jugurtha by Bocchus. By constantly wearing this ring Sulla irritated Marius, who was an ambitious and quarrelsome man, and could endure no partner in his glory. But the enemies of Marius gave Sulla most encouragement by attributing to Metellus the credit of the first and best part of the war, and that of the latter part and the conclusion to Sulla, their object being to lower Marius in public estimation and to withdraw the people from their exclusive attachment to him.

XI

But this envy and hatred and these calumnies against Marius were dissipated and removed by the danger which threatened Italy from the west, as soon as the State saw that she needed a great commander and had to look about for a pilot whose skill should save her from such a torrent of foes; for no one would allow any of the men of noble birth or wealthy families to offer themselves at the Comitia, and Marius, in his absence from Rome, was declared consul. It happened that the Romans had just received intelligence of the capture of Jugurtha when the reports about the Cimbri20 and Teutones surprised them, and though the rumours as to the numbers and strength of the invaders were at first disbelieved, it afterwards appeared that they fell short of the truth. Three hundred thousand armed fighting men were advancing, bringing with them a much larger number of women and children, in quest of land to support so mighty a multitude and of cities to dwell in, after the example of the Celtæ21 before them, who took the best part of Italy from the Tyrrheni and kept it. As these invaders had no intercourse with other nations, and had traversed an extensive tract of country, it could not be ascertained who they were or where they issued from to descend upon Gaul and Italy like a cloud. The most probable conjecture was that they were Germanic nations [Pg 235]belonging to those who extended as far as the northern ocean; and this opinion was founded on their great stature, their blue eyes, and on the fact that the Germans designate robbers by the name of Cimbri. Others thought that Celtica extended in a wide and extensive tract from the external sea and the subarctic regions to the rising sun and the Lake Mæotis,22 where it bordered on Pontic Scythia; and it was from this region, as they supposed, where the tribes are mingled, that these invaders came, and that they did not advance in one expedition nor yet uninterruptedly, but that every spring they moved forwards, fighting their way, till in the course of time they traversed the whole continent. Accordingly while the barbarians had several names according to their respective tribes, they designated the whole body by the name of Celtoscythians. But others say that the Cimmerians, with whom the ancient Greeks were first acquainted, were no large portion of the whole nation, but merely a tribe23 or faction that was driven out by the Scythians and passed into Asia from the Lake Mæotis, under the command of Lygdamis: they further say that the chief part of the Scythian nation and the most warlike part lived at the very verge of the continent, on the coast of the external sea, in a tract shaded, woody, and totally sunless, owing to the extent and closeness of the forests, which reach into the interior as far as the Hercynii24; and with respect to the heavens, their position was in that region where the pole25, having a great eleva[Pg 236]tion owing to the inclination of the parallels, appears to be only a short distance from the spectator’s zenith, and the days and nights are of equal length and share the year between them, which furnished Homer26 with the occasion for his story of Ulysses visiting the ghosts. From these parts then some supposed that these barbarians came against Italy, who were originally Cimmerii, but then not inappropriately called Cimbri. But all this is rather founded on conjecture than on sure historical evidence. As to the numbers of the invaders, they are stated by many authorities as above rather than below the amount that has been mentioned. But their courage and daring made them irresistible, and in battle they rushed forward with the rapidity and violence of fire, so that no nations could stand their attack, but all the people that came in their way became their prey and booty, and many powerful Roman armies27 with their commanders, which were stationed to protect Gaul north of the Alps, perished ingloriously; and indeed these armies by their unsuccessful resistance mainly contributed to direct the course of the enemy against Rome. For when they had defeated those who opposed them and got abundance of booty, they determined not to settle themselves permanently anywhere till they had destroyed Rome and ravaged Italy.

XII

Hearing this news from many quarters, the Romans [Pg 237]called Marius to the command; and he was elected consul the second time, though it was contrary to a positive law for a man in his absence, and without a certain interval of time, to be elected again, but the people would not listen to those who made any opposition to the election. For they considered that this would not be the first time that the law had given way to convenience, and that the present was as good an occasion for such an irregularity as the election of Scipio28 as consul at a time when they were under no apprehension about the ruin of Rome, but merely wished to destroy Carthage. Accordingly these reasons prevailed, and Marius, after crossing the sea with his army to Rome, received the consulship, and celebrated his triumph on the calends of January, which with the Romans is the beginning of the year, and exhibited to them a sight they never expected to see, Jugurtha in chains; for no one had ever ventured to hope that the Romans could conquer their enemies while he was alive; so dexterous was Jugurtha in turning all events to the best advantage, and so much courage did he combine with great cunning. But it is said that being led in the triumph made him lose his senses. After the triumph he was thrown into prison, and while some were tearing his clothes from his body, others who were anxious to secure his golden ear-rings pulled them off and the lobe of the ear with them; in this plight being thrust down naked into a deep hole, in his frenzy, with a grinning laugh, he cried out, O Hercules, how cold your bath is! After struggling with famine for six days and to the last moment clinging to the wish to preserve his life, he paid the penalty due to his monstrous crimes. It is said that there were carried in the triumphal procession three thousand and seven pounds of gold, of silver uncoined five thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, and in coined [Pg 238]money two hundred and eighty-seven thousand drachmæ. After the procession Marius assembled the Senate in the Capitol, and either through inadvertence or vulgar exultation at his good fortune he entered the place of meeting in his triumphal dress. But observing that the Senate took offence at this, he went out, and putting on the ordinary robe with the purple border, he returned to the assembly.

XIII

On his expedition to meet the Cimbri, Marius continually exercised his forces in various ways in running and in forced marches; he also compelled every man to carry all his baggage and to prepare his own food, in consequence of which men who were fond of toil, and promptly and silently did what they were ordered, were called Marian mules. Some, however, think that this name had a different origin; as follows:—When Scipio was blockading Numantia, he wished to inspect not only the arms and the horses, but also the mules and waggons, in order to see in what kind of order and condition the soldiers kept them. Marius accordingly produced his horse, which he had kept in excellent condition with his own hand, and also a mule, which for good appearance, docility, and strength far surpassed all the rest. The general was much pleased with the beasts of Marius and often spoke about them, which gave rise to the scoffing epithet of Marian mule, when the subject of commendation was a persevering, enduring, and labour-loving man.

XIV

Marius was favoured by a singular piece of good fortune; for there was a reflux in the course of the barbarians, and the torrent flowed towards Iberia before it turned to Italy, which gave Marius time to discipline the bodies of his men and to confirm their courage; and what was most of all, it gave the soldiers an opportunity of knowing what kind of a man their general was. For the first impression created by his sternness and by his inexorable severity in punishing, was changed into an opinion of the justice and utility of his discipline when they had been trained to avoid all cause of offence and all breach of order; and the violence of his temper, the harshness of his voice, and ferocious expression of his [Pg 239]countenance, when the soldiers became familiarised with them, appeared no longer formidable to them, but only terrific to their enemies. But his strict justice in all matters that came before him for judgment pleased the soldiers most of all; and of this the following instance is mentioned, Caius Lusius, who was a nephew of Marius, and was an officer in the army, was in other respects a man of no bad character, but fond of beautiful youths. This Caius conceived a passion for one of the young men who served under him, by name Trebonius, and had often ineffectually attempted to seduce him. At last Caius one night sent a servant with orders to bring Trebonius; the young man came, for he could not refuse to obey the summons, and was introduced into the tent; but when Caius attempted to use violence towards him, he drew his sword and killed him. Marius was not present when this happened, but on his arrival he brought Trebonius to trial. There were many to join in supporting the accusation, and not one to speak in his favour, but Trebouius boldly came forward and told the whole story; and he produced witnesses who proved that he had often resisted the importunities of Lusius, and that though great offers had been made, he had never prostituted himself; on which Marius, admiring his conduct, ordered a crown to be brought, such as was conferred for noble deeds according to an old Roman fashion, and he took it and put it on the head of Trebonius as a fit reward for so noble an act at a time when good examples were much needed. The news of this, reaching Rome, contributed in no small degree to the consulship being conferred on Marius for the third time; the barbarians also were expected about the spring of the year, and the Romans did not wish to try the issue of a battle with them under any other commander. However, the barbarians did not come so soon as they were expected, and the period of the consulship of Marius again expired. As the Comitia were at hand, and his colleague had died, Marius came to Rome, leaving Manius Aquilius in the command of the army. There were many candidates of great merit for the consulship, but Lucius Saturninus, one of the tribunes, who had most influence with the people, was gained over by Marius; and in his harangues [Pg 240]he advised them to elect Marius consul. Marius indeed affected to decline the honour, and begged to be excused; he said he did not wish for it; on which Saturninus called him a traitor to his country for refusing the command at so critical a time. Now though it was apparent that Saturninus was playing a part at the bidding of Marius, and in such a way that nobody was deceived, still the many seeing that the circumstances required a man of his energy and good fortune, voted for the fourth consulship of Marius, and gave him for colleague Catulus Lutatius, a man who was esteemed by the nobility and not disliked by the people.

XV

Marius, hearing that the enemy was near, quickly crossed the Alps, and established a fortified camp near the river Rhodanus29 (Rhône), which he supplied with abundance of stores, that he might not be compelled against his judgment to fight a battle for want of provisions. The conveyance of the necessary stores for the army, which hitherto was tedious and expensive on the side of the sea, he rendered easy and expeditious. The mouths of the Rhodanus, owing to the action of the waves, received a great quantity of mud and sand, mixed with large masses of clay, which were formed into banks by the force of the water, and the entrance of the river was thus made difficult and laborious and shallow for the vessels that brought supplies. As the army had nothing to do, Marius brought the soldiers here and commenced a great cut, into which he diverted a large part of the river, and, by making the new channel terminate at a convenient point on the coast, he gave it a deep outlet which had water enough for large vessels, and was smooth and safe against wind and wave. This cut still bears the name of Marius. The barbarians had now divided themselves into two bodies, and it fell to the [Pg 241]lot of the Cimbri to march through the country of the Norici,30 over the high land against Catulus, and to force that passage: the Teutones and Ambrones were to march through the Ligurian country along the sea to meet Marius. Now on the part of the Cimbri there was some loss of time and delay; but the Teutones and Ambrones set out forthwith, and speedily traversing the space which separated them from the Romans, they made their appearance in numbers countless, hideous in aspect, and in language and the cries they uttered unlike any other people. They covered a large part of the plain, where they pitched their tents and challenged Marius to battle.

XVI

Marius cared not for all this, but he kept his soldiers within their entrenchments and severely rebuked those who made a display of their courage, calling such as through passion were eager to break out and fight, traitors to their country; he said it was not triumphs or trophies which should now be the object of their ambition, but how they should ward off so great a cloud and tempest of war, and secure the safety of Italy. This was the way in which he addressed the commanders in particular and the officers. The soldiers he used to station on the rampart in turns, and bid them look at the enemy, and thus he accustomed them to the aspect of the barbarians and their strange and savage shouts, and to make themselves acquainted with their armour and movements, so that in course of time what appeared formidable to their imagination would become familiar by being often seen. For it was the opinion of Marius that mere strangeness adds many imaginary dangers to real danger; but that through familiarity even real dangers lose their terrors. Now the daily sight of the enemy not only took away somewhat of the first alarm, but the threats of the barbarians and their intolerable arrogance roused the courage of the Roman soldiers and inflamed their passions, for the enemy plundered and devastated all [Pg 242]the country around, and often attacked the ramparts with much insolence and temerity, so that the words and indignant expressions of the soldiers were repeated to Marius. The soldiers asked, “If Marius had discovered any cowardice in them, that he kept them from battle, like women under lock and key? Why should we not, like free men, ask him whether he is waiting for others to fight for Italy, and intends to employ us always as labourers when there may be occasion to dig canals, to clear out mud, and to divert the course of rivers? It was for this, as it seems, that he disciplined us in so many toils; and these are the exploits of his consulship, which he will exhibit to the citizens when he returns to Rome. Does he fear the fate of Carbo and Cæpio, who were defeated by the enemy? But they were far inferior to Marius in reputation and merit, and they were at the head of much inferior armies. And it is better to do something, even if we perish like them, than to sit here and see the lands of our allies plundered.”

XVII

Marius, who was pleased to hear such expressions as these, pacified the soldiers by saying that he did not distrust them, but was waiting for the time and the place of victory pursuant to certain oracles. And in fact he carried about with him in a litter, with great tokens of respect, a Syrian woman named Martha,31 who was said to possess the gift of divination, and he sacrificed pursuant to her directions. This woman had formerly applied to the Senate, and offered to foretell future events, but her proposal was rejected. Having got access to the women, she allowed them to make trial of her skill; and especially on one occasion, when she sat at the feet of the wife of [Pg 243]Marius, she was successful in foretelling what gladiators would win, and this led to her being sent to Marius, who was much struck with her skill. She generally accompanied the army in a litter, and assisted at the sacrifices in a double purple robe fastened with a clasp, and carrying a spear wreathed with ribands and chaplets. This exhibition made many doubt whether Marius produced the woman in public because he really believed in her, or whether he merely pretended to do so, and played a part in the matter. But the affair of the vultures, which Alexander32 of Myndus has related, is certainly wonderful. Two vultures were always seen hovering about the army before a victory, and accompanying it; they were known by brass rings round their necks, for the soldiers had caught the birds, and after putting on the rings had let them go. Ever after this time as the soldiers recognised the birds, they saluted them; and whenever the birds appeared on the occasion of the army moving, the soldiers rejoiced, as they were confident of success. Though there were many signs about this time, all of them were of an ordinary kind, except what was reported from Ameria and Tuder, two towns of Italy, where at night there was the appearance in the heavens of fiery spears and shields, which at first moved about in various directions, and then closed together, exhibiting the attitudes and movements of men in battle; at last part gave way, and the rest pressed on in pursuit, and all moved away to the west. It happened that about the same time Batakes, the priest of the Great Mother, came from Pessinus,33 and reported that [Pg 244]the goddess from her shrine had declared to him that victory and the advantage in war would be on the side of the Romans. The Senate accepted the announcement and voted a temple to be built to the goddess in commemoration of the anticipated victory; but when Batakes presented himself to the popular assembly with the intention of making the same report there, Aulus Pompeius, one of the tribunes, stopped him, calling him an impostor, and contumeliously driving him from the Rostra; which however contributed to gain most credit for the man’s assertions. For on the separation of the assembly, Aulus had no sooner returned to his house than he was seized with so violent a fever that he died within seven days; and the matter was notorious all through Rome and the subject of much talk.

XVIII

Now Marius keeping quiet, the Teutones attempted to storm his camp, but as many of them were struck by the missiles from the rampart and some lost their lives, they resolved to march forward with the expectation of safely crossing the Alps. Accordingly taking their baggage, they passed by the Roman camp. Then indeed some notion could be formed of their numbers by the length of their line and the time which they took to march by; for it is said that they continued to move [Pg 245]past the encampment of Marius for six days without interruption. As they passed along, they asked the Romans with a laugh, if they had any message to send to their wives, for they should soon be with them. When the barbarians had marched by and advanced some distance, Marius also broke up his camp and followed close after them, always halting near the enemy, but carefully fortifying his camp and making his position strong in front, so that he could pass the night in safety. Thus advancing, the two armies came to the Aquæ Sextiæ,34 from which a short march would bring them into the region of the Alps. Accordingly Marius prepared for battle here, and he selected a position which was strong enough, but ill-supplied with water, with a view, as it is said, of thereby exciting his soldiers to come to an engagement. However this may be, when some of them were complaining and saying they should suffer from thirst, he pointed to a stream which ran near the barbarian camp, and said they might get drink from there, but the price was blood. Why then, they replied, don’t you forthwith lead us against the enemy, while our blood is still moist? Marius calmly replied, “We must first secure our camp.”

XIX

The soldiers obeyed unwillingly. In the meantime the camp servants, having no water for themselves or their beasts, went down in a body to the river, some with axes and hatchets, and others taking swords and spears, together with their pitchers, resolving to have [Pg 246]water, even if they fought for it. At first a few only of the enemy engaged with them, for the main body of the army were eating after bathing, and some were still bathing. For a spring of warm water bursts from the ground here, and the Romans surprised some of the barbarians who were enjoying themselves and making merry in this pleasant place. The shouts brought more of the barbarians to the spot, and Marius had great difficulty in checking his men any longer, as they were afraid they should lose their slaves, and the bravest part of the enemy, who had formerly defeated the Romans under Manlius and Cæpio (these were the Ambrones, who were above thirty thousand in number), had sprung up and were running to their arms. Though full of food and excited and inflamed with wine, they did not advance in disorderly or frantic haste, nor utter confused shouts, but striking their arms to a certain measure, and advancing all in regular line, they often called out their name Ambrones, either to encourage one another or to terrify the Romans by this announcement. The Ligurians,35 who were the first of the Italic people to go down to battle with them, hearing their shouts, and understanding what they said, responded by calling out their old national name, which was the same, for the Ligurians also call themselves Ambrones when they refer to their origin. Thus the shouts were continual on both sides before they came to close quarters, and as the respective commanders joined in the shouts, and at first vied with one another which should call out loudest, the cries stimulated and roused the courage of the men. Now the Ambrones were separated by the stream, for they could not all cross and get into order of battle before the Ligurians, who advanced at a run, fell on the first ranks and began the battle; and the Romans coming up to support the Ligurians, and rush[Pg 247]ing on the barbarians from higher ground, broke their ranks and put them to flight. Most of the Ambrones were cut down in the stream, where they were crowded upon one another, and the river36 was filled with blood and dead bodies; and those who made their way across, not venturing to face about, were smitten by the Romans till they reached their camp and the waggons in their flight. There the women meeting them with swords and axes, with horrid furious yells, attempted to drive back both the fugitives and their pursuers, the fugitives as traitors and the pursuers as their enemies, mingling among the combatants, and with their bare hands tearing from the Romans their shields, laying hold of their swords, and enduring wounds and gashes till they fell, in spirit unvanquished. In this manner, it is said that the battle on the river was brought about rather from accident than any design on the part of the commander.

XX

After destroying many of the Ambrones, the Romans retreated and night came on; yet this great success was not followed, as is usual on such occasions, by pæans of victory, and drinking in the tents, and merriment over supper, and what is sweetest of all to men who have won a victory, gentle sleep, but the Romans spent that night of all others in fear and alarm. For their camp had neither palisade nor rampart, and there were still left many thousands of the enemy, and all night long they heard the lamentation of the Ambrones who had escaped and joined the rest of the barbarians, and it was not like the weeping and groaning of men, but a howl resembling that of wild beasts; and a bellowing mingled with threats and cries of sorrow proceeding from such mighty numbers, re-echoed from the surrounding mountains and the banks of the river. A frightful noise filled the whole plain, and the Romans were alarmed, and even Marius himself was disturbed, expecting a disorderly and confused battle in the night. However, the enemy made no attack either on that night or the following day, but they were occupied in arranging their forces and making preparations. In the meantime, as the position of the enemy was backed by sloping hills and deep ravines shaded with trees, Marius [Pg 248]sent there Claudius Marcellus, with three thousand heavy-armed soldiers, with instructions to lie concealed in ambush, and to appear on the rear of the barbarians when the battle was begun. The rest of the army, who supped in good time and got a night’s rest, he drew up at daybreak in front of the camp, and ordered the cavalry to advance into the plain. The Teutones, observing this, would not wait for the Romans to come down and fight with them on fair ground, but with all speed and in passion they took to their arms and advanced up the hill. Marius sent his officers to every part of the army, with orders to the soldiers to stand firm in their ranks till the enemy came within the reach of their spears, which they were to discharge, and then to draw their swords, and drive against the barbarians with their shields; for as the ground was unfavourable to the enemy, their blows would have no force, and their line no strength, owing to the unevenness of the surface, which would render their footing unstable and wavering. The advice which he gave to his soldiers he showed that he was the first to put in practice; for in all martial training Marius was inferior to none, and in courage he left all far behind him.

XXI

The Romans accordingly awaiting the enemy’s attack, and coming to close quarters with them, checked their advance up the hill, and the barbarians, being hard pressed, gradually retreated to the plain, and while those in the van were rallying on the level ground, there was a shout and confusion in the rear. For Marcellus had not let the critical moment pass by, but when the shouts rose above the hills, bidding his men spring from their ambush at a rapid pace and with loud shouts he fell on the enemy’s rear and began to cut them down. Those in the rear communicating the alarm to those in front of them, put the whole army into confusion, and after sustaining this double attack for no long time, they broke their ranks and fled. In the pursuit the Romans took prisoners and killed to the number of above one hundred thousand:37 they also took their tents, waggons, and property, all which, with [Pg 249]the exception of what was pilfered, was given to Marius, by the unanimous voice of the soldiers. But though he received so magnificent a present, it was thought that he got nothing at all proportioned to his services, considering the magnitude of the danger. Some authorities do not agree with the statement as to the gift of the spoil, nor yet about the number of the slain. However, they say that the people of Massalia38 made fences round their vineyards with the bones, and that the soil, after the bodies had rotted and the winter rains had fallen, was so fertilised and saturated with the putrefied matter which sank down into it, that it produced a most unusual crop in the next season, and so confirmed the opinion of Archilochus39 that the land is fattened by human bodies. They say that extraordinary rains generally follow great battles, whether it is that some divine power purifies the ground, and drenches it with waters from heaven, or that the blood and putrefaction send up a moist and heavy vapour which condenses the atmosphere, which is lightly moved and readily changed to the greatest degree from the smallest cause.

XXII

After the battle, Marius caused to be collected the arms and spoils of the barbarians which were conspicuous for ornament, and unbroken, and suited to make a show in his triumphal procession: all the rest he piled up in a great heap, for the celebration of a splendid religious festival. The soldiers were already standing by in their armour, with chaplets on their heads, and Marius having put on the robe with the purple border, and fastened it up about him in the Roman fashion, had taken a burning torch, and holding it up to heaven with both his hands, was going to set fire40 to the heap, when some friends were seen riding quickly towards him, which caused a deep silence and general expectation. When [Pg 250]the horsemen were near, they leaped down and greeted Marius with the news that he was elected consul for the fifth time, and they delivered him letters to this effect. This cause of great rejoicing being added to the celebration of the victory, the army transported with delight sent forth one universal shout, accompanied with the noise and clatter of their arms, and the officers crowned Marius afresh with a wreath of bay, on which he set fire to the heap, and completed the ceremony.

XXIII

But that power which permits no great good fortune to give a pleasure untempered and pure, and diversifies human life with a mixture of evil and of good—be it Fortune41 or Nemesis, or the necessary nature of things—in a few days brought to Marius intelligence about his companion in command, Catulus, involving Rome again in alarm and tempest, like a cloud which overcasts a clear and serene sky. For Catulus, whose commission was to oppose the Cimbri, determined to give up the defence of the passes of the Alps, for fear that he might weaken his force if he were obliged to divide it too much. Accordingly he forthwith descended into the plains of Italy, and placing the river Atiso42 (Adige) in his front, strongly fortified a position on each side of the river, to hinder the enemy from crossing it; and he also threw a bridge over the river, in order that he might be enabled to support those on the farther side, if the barbarians should make their way through the passes and attack the forts. The enemy had so much contempt for the Romans and such confidence, that, with the view rather of displaying their strength and courage than because it was necessary, they endured the snow-storms without any covering, and made their way through the [Pg 251]snow and ice to the summits of the mountains, when, placing their broad shields under them, they slid down the slippery precipices over the huge rocks. When they had encamped near the river, and examined the ford, they began to dam up the stream, and tearing up the neighbouring hills, like the giants of old, they carried whole trees with their roots, fragments of rock, and mounds of earth into the river, and stopped its course; they also let heavy weights float down the stream, which drove against the piles that supported the bridge and shook it by the violence of the blows; all which so terrified the Romans, that most of them deserted the large encampment and took to flight. Then Catulus, like a good and perfect general, showed that he valued the reputation of his countrymen more than his own. Not being able to induce his soldiers to stand, and seeing that they were making off in alarm, he ordered the eagle43 to be moved, and running to those who were first in the retreat, he put himself at their head, wishing the disgrace to fall on himself and not on his country, and that the army should not appear to be flying, but to be following their general in his retreat. The barbarians attacked and took the fort on the farther side of the Atiso, though the Roman soldiers defended it with the utmost bravery and in a manner worthy of their country. Admiring their courage, the barbarians let them go on conditions which were sworn to upon the brazen bull, which was taken after the battle, and, it is said, was conveyed to the house of Catulus as the first spoils of the victory. The country being now undefended, the barbarians scoured it in every direction and laid it waste.

XXIV

After this Marius was called to Rome. On his arrival it was generally expected that he would celebrate his triumph, and the Senate had without any hesitation voted him one; but he refused it, either because he did not wish to deprive his soldiers and his companions in [Pg 252]arms of the honour that was due to them, or because he wished to give the people confidence in the present emergency by intrusting to the Fortune of the State the glory of his first victory, with the confident hope that she would return it to him ennobled by a second. Having said what was suitable to the occasion, he set out to join Catulus, whom he encouraged, and at the same time he summoned his soldiers from Gaul. On the arrival of the troops, Marius crossed the Eridanus (Po), and endeavoured to keep the barbarians from that part of Italy which lay south of the river. The Cimbri declined a battle, because, as they said, they were waiting for the Teutones, and wondered they were so long in coming; but it is doubtful whether they were still really ignorant of their destruction or merely pretended not to believe it. However, they handled most cruelly those who brought the report of the defeat; and they sent to Marius to demand land for themselves and their brethren, and a sufficient number of cities for their abode. On Marius asking the ambassadors of the Cimbri whom they meant by their brethren, and being told they were the Teutones, all the Romans who were present burst out in a laugh, but Marius, with a sneer, replied, “Don’t trouble yourself about your brethren: they have land, and they shall have it for ever, for we have given it to them.” The ambassadors, who understood his irony, fell to abusing him, and threatened that the Cimbri would forthwith have their revenge, and the Teutones too, as soon as they should arrive. “They are here already,” said Marius; “and it won’t be right for you to go before you have embraced your brethren.” Saying this he ordered the kings of the Teutones to be produced in their chains; for they were taken in the Alps in their flight by the Sequani44.

XXV

On this being reported to the Cimbri, they forthwith advanced against Marius, who however kept [Pg 253]quiet and remained in his camp. It is said that it was on the occasion of this engagement that Marius introduced the alteration in the spears.45 Before this time that part of the wooden shaft which was let into the iron was fastened with two iron nails; Marius kept one of the nails as it was, but he had the other taken out and a wooden peg, which would be easily broken, put in its place; the design being that the spear when it had struck the enemy’s shield should not remain straight, for when the wooden nail broke, the iron head would bend, and the spear, owing to the twist in the metal part, would still hold to the shield, and so drag along the ground. Now Boeorix, the king of the Cimbri, with a very few men about him, riding up to the camp, challenged Marius to fix a day and place, and to come out and settle the claim to the country by a battle. Marius replied, that the Romans never took advice of their enemies as to fighting; however, he would gratify the Cimbri in this matter, and accordingly they agreed on the third day from the present, and the battle-field was to be the plain of Vercellæ46, which was suited for the Roman cavalry, and would give the Cimbri full room for their numbers. When the appointed day came, the Romans prepared for battle with the enemy. Catulus47 had twenty-two thousand three hundred men, and Marius thirty-two thousand, which were distributed on each flank of Catulus, who occupied the centre, as Sulla48 has recorded, who was [Pg 254]in the battle. Sulla also says, that Marius expected that the line would be engaged chiefly at the extremities and on the wings, and with the view of appropriating the victory to his own soldiers, and that Catulus might have no part in the contest, and not come to close quarters with the enemy, he took advantage of the hollow front of the centre, which usually results when the line is extended, and accordingly divided and placed his forces as already stated. Some writers say that Catulus himself also made a statement to the like effect, in his apology about the battle, and accused Marius of want of good faith to him. The infantry of the Cimbri marched slowly from their fortified posts in a square, each side of which was thirty stadia: the cavalry, fifteen thousand in number, advanced in splendid style, wearing helmets which resembled in form the open mouths of frightful beasts and strange-shaped heads, surmounted by lofty crests of feathers, which made them appear taller; they had also breastplates of iron and white glittering shields. Their practice was to discharge two darts,49 and then closing with the enemy, to use their large heavy swords.

XXVI

On this occasion the enemy’s cavalry did not advance straight against the Romans, but deviating to the right they attempted to draw the Romans little by little in that direction, with the view of attacking them when they had got them between themselves and their infantry, which was on the left. The Roman generals perceived the manoeuvre, but they could not stop their soldiers, for there was a cry from some one that the enemy was flying, and immediately the whole army rushed to the pursuit. In the meantime the barbarian infantry advanced like a huge sea in motion. Then Marius, washing his hands and raising them to heaven, vowed a hecatomb to the gods; and Catulus also in like manner raising his hands, vowed to consecrate50 the fortune of that day. It is said that when [Pg 255]Marius had sacrificed and had inspected the victims, he cried out with a loud voice, “Mine is the Victory.” When the attack had commenced, an incident happened to Marius which may be considered as a divine retribution, as Sulla says. An immense cloud of dust being raised, as was natural, and having covered the two armies, it happened that Marius, rushing to the pursuit with his men after him, missed the enemy, and being carried beyond their line, was for some time in the plain without knowing where he was; but it happened that the barbarians closed with Catulus, and the struggle was with him and his soldiers chiefly, among whom Sulla says that he himself fought: he adds, that the heat aided the Romans, and the sun, which shone full in the face of the Cimbri. For the barbarians were well inured to cold, having been brought up in forests, as already observed, and a cool country, but they were unnerved with the heat, which made them sweat violently and breathe hard, and put their shields before their faces, for the battle took place after the summer solstice, and, according to the Roman reckoning, three days before the new moon of the month now called Augustus51, but then Sextilis. The dust also which covered their enemies helped to encourage the Romans; for they did not see their number at a distance, but running forward they engaged severally man to man with the enemy, without having been alarmed by the sight of them. And so well were the bodies of the Romans inured to toil and exertion, that not one of them was seen to sweat or pant, though the heat was excessive and they came to the shock of battle running at full speed, as Catulus is said to have reported to the honour of his soldiers.

XXVII

Now the greater part of the enemy and their best soldiers were cut to pieces in their ranks, for in order to prevent the line from being broken the soldiers of the first rank were fastened together by long chains which were passed through their belts. The fugitives were [Pg 256]driven back to their encampments, when a most tragic scene was exhibited. The women standing on the waggons clothed in black massacred the fugitives, some their husbands, and others their brothers and fathers, and then strangling their infants they threw them under the wheels and the feet of the beasts of burden, and killed themselves. It is said that one woman hung herself from the end of the pole of a waggon with her children fastened to her feet by cords; and that the men, not finding any trees near, tied themselves to the horns of the oxen and some to their feet, and then goading the animals to make them plunge about, were dragged and trampled till they died. But though so many perished in this manner, above sixty thousand were taken prisoners, and the number of those who fell was said to be twice as many. Now all the valuable property became the booty of the soldiers of Marius, but the military spoils and standards and trumpets, it is said, were carried to the tent of Catulus; and Catulus relied chiefly on this as a proof that the victory was gained by his men. A dispute having arisen among the soldiers, as might be expected, some ambassadors from Parma52 who were present were chosen to act as arbitrators, and the soldiers of Catulus leading them among the dead bodies of the enemy, pointed out that the barbarians were pierced by their spears, which were recognised by the marks on them, for Catulus had taken care to have his name cut on the shafts. Notwithstanding this, the whole credit was given to Marius, both on account of the previous victory and his superior rank.53 And what was most of all, the people gave him the title of the third founder54 of Rome, considering that the danger which he had averted was not less than that of the Gallic invasion, and in their rejoicings with their wives and children at home they coupled Marius with the gods in the religious ceremonies that preceded the [Pg 257]banquet and in their libations, and they thought that he alone ought to celebrate both triumphs. Marius, however, did not triumph alone, but Catulus shared the honour, for Marius wished to show that he was not elated by his victories: there was another reason also; he was afraid of the soldiers, who were prepared not to let Marius triumph, if Catulus were deprived of the honour.

XXVIII

Though Marius was now discharging his fifth consulship, he was more anxious to obtain a sixth than others are about the first; and he endeavoured to gain favour by courting the people and giving way to the many in order to please them, wherein he went further than was consistent with the state and dignity of the office, and further than suited his own temper, for he wished to show himself very compliant and a man of the people, when in fact his character was altogether different. Now it is said that in all civil matters and amid the noise of the popular assemblies Marius was entirely devoid of courage, which arose from his excessive love of applause; and the undaunted spirit and firmness which he showed in battle failed him before the people, where he was disconcerted by the most ordinary expressions of praise or censure. However, the following story is told of him: Marius had presented with the citizenship a thousand of the people of Camerinum, who had particularly distinguished themselves in the war; this was considered to be an illegal proceeding, and being charged with it by several persons in public, he replied that he could not hear the law for the din of arms. Still it is well known that he was discomposed and alarmed by the shouts in the popular assemblies. In military matters, it is true, he received great deference and had much influence, because his services were wanted; but in civil business he was cut off from attaining the first distinction, and accordingly there was nothing left for him but to gain the affection and favour of the many; and in order to become the first man at Rome, he sacrificed all claim to be considered the best. The consequence was, that he was at variance with all the aristocratical party, but he feared Metellus most, who had experienced his ingratitude, and, as a man of sterling [Pg 258]worth, was the natural enemy of those who attempted to insinuate themselves into the popular favour by dishonourable means, and who had no other object than to flatter the people. Accordingly Marius formed a design to eject Metellus from the city; and for this purpose he allied himself with Glaucia and Saturninus,55 who were daring men, and had at their command a rabble of needy and noisy fellows, and he made them his tools in introducing his measures. He also stirred up the soldiers, and by mixing them with the people in the assemblies he overpowered Metellus with his faction. Rutilius,56 who is a lover of truth and an honest man, though he was a personal enemy of Marius, relates in his history, that by giving large sums of money to the tribes and buying their votes Marius kept Metellus out, and that Valerius Flaccus was rather the servant than the colleague of Marius in his sixth consulship. However, the people, never conferred the office of consul so often on any man except Corvinus Valerius;57 though it is said that forty-five years elapsed between the first and last consulship of Corvinus, while Marius after his first consulship enjoyed the remaining five in uninterrupted succession.

XXIX

It was in his last consulship that Marius got most odium, from his participating in many of the violent measures of Saturninus. One of them was the assassi[Pg 259]nation of Nonius,58 whom Saturninus murdered because he was a rival candidate for the tribuneship. Saturninus, being made a tribune, introduced a measure about the land, to which59 was added a clause that the Senate should come forward and swear that they would abide by whatever the people should vote, and would make no opposition. In the Senate Marius made a show of opposing this clause in the proposed law, and he said that he would not take the oath, nor did he think that any man in his senses would, for if the law was not a bad one, it was an insult for the Senate to be compelled to make such concession, instead of giving their consent voluntarily. What he said, however, was not his real mind, but his object was to involve Metellus in a difficulty which he could not evade. For Marius, who considered falsehood to be a part of virtue and skill, had no intention to observe what he had promised to the Senate; but as he knew that Metellus was a man of his word, and considered truth, as Pindar calls it, the foundation of great virtue, he wished to entrap Metellus into a refusal before the Senate, and as he would consequently decline taking the oath, he designed in this way to make him odious to the people for ever: and it fell out so. Upon Metellus declaring that he would never take the oath, the Senate separated; but a few days after, Saturninus summoned the Senators to the Rostra, and urged them to take the oath. When Marius came forward there was profound silence, and all eyes were turned upon him to see what he would do. Marius, however, forgetting all his bold expressions before the Senate, said his neck was not broad enough for him to be the first to give his opinion on so weighty a matter all at once, and that he would take the oath and obey the law, if it was a law; which condition he cunningly added as a cloak to his shame. The people, [Pg 260]delighted at Marius taking the oath, clapped their hands and applauded, but the nobility were much dejected and hated Marius for his tergiversation. However, all the senators took the oath in order, through fear of the people, till it came to the turn of Metellus, and though his friends urged and entreated him to take the oath and so to avoid the severe penalties which the law of Saturninus enacted against those who refused, he would not swerve from his purpose or take the oath, but adhering firmly to his principles and prepared to submit to any penalty rather than do a mean thing, he left the Forum, saying to those about him, that to do a wrong thing was mean, to act honourably when there was no danger was in any man’s power, but that it was the characteristic of a good man to do what was right, even when it was accompanied with risk. Upon this Saturninus put it to the vote that the consuls should proclaim Metellus to be excluded from fire,60 water, and house; and the most worthless part of the populace was ready to put him to death. Now all the men of honourable feeling, sympathising with Metellus, crowded round him, but Metellus would not allow any commotion to be raised on his account, and he quitted the city like a wise and prudent man, saying, “Either matters will mend and the people will change their minds, when I shall be invited to return, or if things stay as they are, it is best to be out of the way.” What testimonies of affection and respect Metellus received in his exile, and how he spent his time at Rhodes in philosophical studies, will be better told in his Life.

XXX

Now Marius did not perceive what incurable mischief he had done, for in return for the services of Saturninus61 he was obliged to wink at his audacious and [Pg 261]violent measures, and to remain quiet while Saturninus was evidently aiming at the supreme power and the subversion of the constitution by force of arms and blood-shed. Between his fear of the disapprobation of the nobles and his wish to retain the favour of the people, Marius was reduced to an act of extreme meanness and duplicity. The first men in the State came to him by night and urged him to act against Saturninus, whom Marius, however, received by another door without their knowledge; and pretending to both parties that he was troubled with a looseness, he went backwards and forwards in the house between the nobles and Saturninus, running first to one and then to the other, and endeavouring to rouse and irritate them mutually. However, when the Senate and the Equites began to combine and express their indignation, he drew out the soldiers into the Forum, and driving the party of Saturninus to the Capitol, he compelled them to submit for fear of dying of thirst, by cutting off the pipes that supplied them with water. The partisans of Saturninus in despair called out to Marius and surrendered on the Public Faith, as the Romans term it. Marius did all he could to save their lives, but without effect, for as soon as they came down to the Forum they were massacred. These events made him odious both to the nobles and the people, and when the time for electing censors came, contrary to all expectation he did not offer himself as a candidate, but allowed men of inferior rank to be elected, fearing he might be rejected. He, however, alleged as an excuse, though it was not true, that he did not wish to make himself many enemies by a rigid scrutiny into their lives and morals.

XXXI

[Pg 262]A measure being proposed for recalling Metellus62 from exile, Marius did all he could to stop it both by word and deed, but finding his opposition useless, he at last desisted. The people received the proposed measure well, and Marius, who could not endure to see the return of Metellus, set sail for Cappadocia and Galatia, pretending that he wished to make the sacrifices he had vowed to the Great Mother, but in reality having quite a different object in view, which the people never suspected. Marius was naturally ill suited for times of peace and for taking a part in civil affairs, as he had attained his position merely by arms, and now thinking that he was gradually losing his influence and reputation by doing nothing and remaining quiet, he looked out for an opportunity of again being actively employed. He hoped to be able to stir up the kings of Asia and to rouse and stimulate Mithridates,63 who was supposed to be ready to go to war, in which case he expected to be appointed to take the command against him, and so to fill the city with new triumphs, and his house with Pontic spoils and the wealth of the king. Accordingly, though Mithridates paid him all attention and honour, Marius could not be bent from his purpose or induced to give way: his only answer was, “King, either try to conquer the Romans or obey their orders in silence;” an expression which startled the king, who had often heard the language of the Romans, but then for the first time heard their bold speech.

XXXII

On his return to Rome he built a house near the Forum, either, as he gave out, because he did not wish those who paid their respects to him to have the trouble [Pg 263]of coming a great distance, or because he thought the distance was the reason why a greater number of persons did not visit his door than that of other persons. The reason, however, was not this; but as Marius was inferior to others in affability of manners and political usefulness, he was neglected, just like an instrument of war in time of peace. As for others, he cared less for their superior popularity, but he was grievously annoyed at Sulla, who had risen to power through the dislike which the nobles bore to Marius, and who made his quarrels with Marius the foundation of his political conduct. But when Bocchus, the Numidian, on receiving the title of ‘Ally of the Romans,’ erected in the Capitol Victories bearing trophies, and by the side of them placed gilded figures representing Jugurtha surrendered by him to Sulla, Marius was transported with passion and jealousy at Sulla thus appropriating to himself all the credit of this affair, and he was making ready forcibly to throw down the figures. Sulla prepared to oppose him, and a civil commotion was just on the point of breaking out, when it was stopped by the Social64 war, which suddenly burst upon the State. In this war the most warlike and populous of the Italian nations combined against Rome, and came very near to overthrowing her supremacy, for they were not only well provided with munitions of war and hardy soldiers, but they had commanders who displayed admirable [Pg 264]courage and skill, which made them a match for the Romans.

XXXIII

This war, which was diversified by many reverses and a great variety of fortune, took from Marius as much reputation and influence as it gave to Sulla. For Marius appeared slow in his plans, and on all occasions rather over-cautious and tardy; whether it was that age had quenched his wonted vigour and fire, for he was now in his sixty-sixth year, or, as he alleged himself, his nerves were diseased and his body was incapable of supporting fatigue, and yet from a feeling of honour he endured the hardships of the campaign beyond his powers. Notwithstanding this he won a great battle, in which he slaughtered six thousand of the enemy, and he never allowed them the opportunity of getting any advantage, but when he was intrenched in his camp he submitted to be insulted by them and was never irritated by any challenge to give them battle. It is recorded that Publius Silo,65 who had the highest reputation and influence of any man on the side of the enemy, addressed him to this effect: “If you are a great general, Marius, come down and fight;” to which Marius replied, “Nay, do you, if you are a great general, compel me to fight against my will.” And again, on another occasion when the enemy presented a favourable opportunity for attacking them, but the Romans lacked courage, and both sides retired, he summoned his soldiers together, and said, “I don’t know whether to call the enemy or you greater cowards; for they could not see your back, nor you their nape.” At last, however, he gave up the command, on the ground that his weakness rendered him unable to endure the fatigue of the campaign.

XXXIV

The Italians had now given in, and many persons at Rome were intriguing for the command in the Mithridatic war with the assistance of the demagogues; but, contrary to all expectation, the tribune Sulpicius,66 [Pg 265]a most audacious fellow, brought forward Marius and proposed him as proconsul with power to prosecute the war against Mithridates. The people indeed were divided, some being for Marius and others in favour of Sulla; and they bade Marius go to the warm baths of Baiæ67 and look after his health, inasmuch as he was worn out with old age and defluxions, as he admitted himself. Marius had in the neighbourhood of Misenum a sumptuous house, furnished with luxuries and accommodation too delicately for a man who had served in so many wars and campaigns. It is said that Cornelia bought this house for seventy-five thousand;68 and that no long time after it was purchased by Lucius Lucullus for two millions five hundred thousand; so quickly did extravagant expenditure spring up and so great was the increase of luxury. But Marius, moved thereto by boyish emulation, throwing off his old age and his infirmities, went daily to the Campus Martius, where he took his exercises with the young men, and showed that he was still active in arms and sat firm in all the movements of horsemanship, though he was not of a compact form in his old age, but very fat and heavy. Some were pleased at his being thus occupied, and they came down to the Campus to see and admire his emulation and his exercises; but the wiser part lamented to witness his greediness after gain and distinction, and they pitied [Pg 266]a man who, having risen from poverty to enormous wealth, and to the highest station from a low degree, knew not when to put bounds to his good fortune, and was not satisfied with being an object of admiration and quietly enjoying what he had, but as if he was in want of everything, after his triumphs and his honours was setting out to Cappadocia and the Euxine to oppose himself in his old age to Archelaus and Neoptolemus, the satraps of Mithridates. The reasons which Marius alleged against all this in justification of himself appeared ridiculous; he said that he wished to serve in the campaign in order to teach his son military discipline.

XXXV

The disease that had long been rankling in the State at last broke out, when Marius had found in the audacity of Sulpicius69 a most suitable instrument to effect the public ruin; for Sulpicius admired and emulated Saturninus in everything, except that he charged him with timidity and want of promptitude in his measures. But there was no lack of promptitude on the part of Sulpicius, who kept six hundred of the Equestrian class about him as a kind of body-guard and called them an Opposition Senate. He also attacked with a body of armed men the consuls while they were holding a public meeting; one of the consuls made his escape from the Forum, but Sulpicius seized his son and butchered him. Sulla, the other consul, being pursued, made his escape into the house of Marius, where nobody would have expected him [Pg 267]to go, and thus avoided his pursuers who ran past; and it is said that he was let out in safety by Marius by another door and so got to the camp. But Sulla in his Memoirs says that he did not fly for refuge to Marius, but withdrew there to consult with him about the matters which Sulpicius was attempting to make him assent to against his will by surrounding him with bare swords and driving him on towards the house of Marius, and that finally he went from the house of Marius to the Rostra, and removed, as they required him to do, the Justitium. This being accomplished, Sulpicius, who had now gained a victory, got the command conferred on Marius by the votes of the, assembly, and Marius, who was prepared to set out, sent two tribunes to receive the army of Sulla. But Sulla encouraging his soldiers, who were thirty-five thousand men well armed, led them to Rome. The soldiers fell on the tribunes whom Marius had sent, and murdered them. Marius also put to death many of the friends of Sulla in Rome, and proclaimed freedom to the slaves70 if they would join him; but it is said that only three slaves accepted the offer. He made but a feeble resistance to Sulla on his entering the city, and was soon compelled to fly. On quitting Rome he was separated from his partisans, owing to its being dark, and he fled to Solonium,71 one of his farms. He sent his son Marius72 to get provisions from the estates of his father-in-law Mucius, which were not far off, and himself went to Ostia,73 where Numerius, one of [Pg 268]his friends, had provided a vessel for him, and without waiting for his son he set sail with his stepson Granius. The young man arrived at the estates of Mucius, but he was surprised by the approach of day while he was getting something together and packing it up, and thus did not altogether escape the vigilance of his enemies, for some cavalry came to the spot, suspecting that Marius might be there. The overseer of the farm, seeing them approach, hid Marius in a waggon loaded with beans, and yoking the oxen to it, he met the horsemen on his road to the city with the waggon. Marius was thus conveyed to the house of his wife, where he got what he wanted, and by night made his way to the sea, and embarking in a vessel bound for Libya, arrived there in safety.

XXXVI

The elder Marius was carried along the coast of Italy by a favourable wind, but as he was afraid of one Geminius, a powerful man in Terracina, and an enemy of his, he ordered the sailors to keep clear of that place. The sailors were willing to do as he wished, but the wind veering round and blowing from the sea with a great swell, they were afraid that the vessel could not stand the beating of the waves, and as Marius also was much troubled with sickness, they made for land, and with great difficulty got to the coast near Circeii.74 As the storm increased and they wanted provisions, they landed from the vessel and wandered about without any definite object, but as happens in cases of great difficulty, seeking merely to escape from the present evil as worst of all, and putting their hopes on the chances of fortune; for the land was their enemy, and the sea also, and they feared to fall in with men, and feared also not to fall in with men, because they were in want of provisions. After some time they met with a few herdsmen, who had nothing to give them in their need, but they recognised Marius and advised him to get out of the way as quickly as he could, [Pg 269]for a number of horsemen had just been seen there riding about in quest of him. Thus surrounded by every difficulty and his attendants fainting for want of food, he turned from the road, and plunging into a deep forest, passed the night in great suffering. The next day, compelled by hunger and wishing to make use of his remaining strength before he was completely exhausted, he went along the shore, encouraging his followers, and entreating them not to abandon the last hope, for which he reserved himself on the faith of an old prediction. For when he was quite a youth and living in the country, he caught in his garment an eagle’s nest as it was falling down, with seven young ones in it; which his parents wondering at, consulted the soothsayers, who told them that their son would become the most illustrious of men, and that it was the will of fate that he should receive the supreme command and magistracy seven times. Some affirm that this really happened to Marius; but others say that those who were with Marius at this time and in the rest of his flight heard the story from him, and believing it, recorded an event which is altogether fabulous. For an eagle has not more than two young ones at a time, and they say that Musæus75 was mistaken when he wrote of the eagle thus:—

Lays three, two hatches, and one tends with care.

But that Marius frequently during his flight, and when he was in the extremest difficulties, said that he should survive to enjoy a seventh consulship, is universally admitted.

XXXVII

They were now about twenty stadia from Minturnæ,76 an Italian city, when they saw at a distance [Pg 270]a troop of horse riding towards them, and as it chanced two merchant vessels sailing along the coast. Running down to the sea as fast as they could and as their strength would allow, and throwing themselves into the water, they swam to the vessels. Granius having got into one of the vessels, passed over to the island of Ænaria,77 which is off that coast. But Marius, who was heavy and unwieldy, was with difficulty held above the water by two slaves and placed in the other vessel, the horsemen being now close to them and calling from the shore to the sailors either to bring the vessel to land or to throw Marius overboard, and to set sail wherever they pleased. But as Marius entreated them with tears in his eyes, those who had the command of the vessel, after changing their minds as to what they should do as often as was possible in so short a time, at last told the horsemen that they would not surrender Marius. The horsemen rode off in anger, and the sailors again changing their minds, came to land, and casting anchor at the mouth of the Liris, which spreads out like a lake, they advised Marius to disembark and take some food on land and to rest himself from his fatigues till a wind should rise: they added, that it was the usual time for the sea-breeze to decline, and for a fresh breeze to spring up from the marshes. Marius did as they advised, and the sailors carried him out of the vessel and laid him on the grass, little expecting what was to follow. The sailors immediately embarking again and raising the anchor, sailed off as fast as they could, not thinking it honourable to surrender Marius or safe to protect him. In this situation, deserted by everybody, he lay for some time silent on the shore, and at last recovering himself with difficulty, he walked on with much pain on account of there being no path. After passing through deep swamps and ditches full of water and mud, he came to the hut of an old man who worked in the marshes, and falling down at his feet, he entreated him to save and help a man, who, if he escaped from the present dangers, would reward him beyond all his hopes. The man, who either knew Marius of old or [Pg 271]saw something in the expression of his countenance which indicated superior rank, said that his hut was sufficient to shelter him if that was all he wanted, but if he was wandering about to avoid his enemies, he could conceal him in a place which was more retired. Upon Marius entreating him to do so, the old man took him to the marsh, and bidding him lie down in a hole near the river he covered Marius with reeds and other light things of the kind, which were well adapted to hide him without pressing too heavily.

XXXVIII

After a short time a sound and noise from the hut reached the ears of Marius. Geminius of Terracina had sent a number of men in pursuit of him, some of whom, had chanced to come there, and were terrifying the old man and rating him for having harboured and concealed an enemy of the Romans. Marius, rising from his hiding-place and stripping off his clothes, threw himself into the thick and muddy water of the marsh; and this was the cause of his not escaping the search of his pursuers, who dragged him out covered with mud, and leading him naked to Minturnæ, gave him up to the magistrates. Now instructions78 had been already sent to every city, requiring the authorities to search for Marius, and to put him to death when he was taken. However, the magistrates thought it best to deliberate on the matter first, and in the meantime they lodged Marius in the house of a woman named Fannia,79 who was supposed not to be [Pg 272]kindly disposed towards him on account of an old grudge. Fannia had a husband whose name was Tinnius, and on separating from him she claimed her portion, which was considerable. The husband charged her with adultery, and Marius, who was then in his sixth consulship, presided as judge. But on the trial it appeared that Fannia had been a loose woman, and that her husband, though he knew it, took her to wife, and lived with her a long time; accordingly, Marius being disgusted with both of them, decreed that the man should return the woman’s portion, but he imposed on the woman, as a mark of infamy, a penalty of four copper coins.80 Fannia, however, did not on this occasion exhibit the feeling of a woman who had been wronged, but when she saw Marius, far from showing any resentment for the past, she did all that she could for him under the circumstances, and encouraged him. Marius thanked her, and said that he had good hopes, for a favourable omen had occurred to him, which was something of this sort:—When they were leading him along, and he was near the house of Fannia, the doors being opened, an ass ran out to drink from a spring which was flowing hard by: the ass, looking at Marius in the face with a bold and cheerful air, at first stood opposite him, [Pg 273]and then making a loud braying, sprang past him frisking with joy. From this, Marius drew a conclusion, as he said that the deity indicated that his safety would come through the sea rather than through the land, for the ass did not betake himself to dry food, but turned from him to the water. Having said this to Fannia, he went to rest alone, bidding her close the door of the apartment.

XXXIX

The magistrates81 and council of Minturnæ, after deliberating, resolved that there ought to be no delay, and that they should put Marius to death. As none of the citizens would undertake to do it, a Gallic or Cimbrian horse-soldier, for the story is told both ways, took a sword and entered the apartment. Now that part of the room in which Marius happened to be lying was not very well lighted, but was in shade, and it is said that the eyes of Marius appeared to the soldier to dart a strong flame, and a loud voice issued from the gloom, “Man, do you dare to kill Caius Marius?” The barbarian immediately took to flight, and throwing the sword down, rushed through the door, calling out, “I cannot kill Caius Marius.” This caused a general consternation, which was succeeded by compassion and change of opinion, and self-reproach for having come to so illegal and ungrateful a resolution concerning a man who had saved Italy, and whom it would be a disgrace not to assist. “Let him go, then,” it was said, “where he pleases, as an exile, and suffer in some other place whatever fate has reserved for him. And let us pray that the gods visit us not with their anger for ejecting Marius from our city in poverty and rags.” Moved by such considerations, all in a body entered the room where Marius was, and getting round him, began to conduct him to the sea. Though every man was eager to furnish something or other, and all were busying themselves, there was a loss of time. The grove of Marica, as it is called, obstructed the passage to the sea, for it was an object of great veneration, and it was a strict rule to carry nothing out of it that had ever been carried [Pg 274]in; and now, if they went all round it, there would of necessity be delay: but this difficulty was settled by one of the older men at last calling out, that no road was inaccessible or impassable by which Marius was saved; and he was the first to take some of the things that they were conveying to the ship and to pass through the place.

XL

Everything was soon got ready through these zealous exertions, and a ship was supplied for Marius by one Belæus, who afterwards caused a painting to be made representing these events, and dedicated it in the temple. Marius embarking, was carried along by the wind, and by chance was taken to the island Ænaria, where he found Granius and the rest of his friends, and set sail with them for Libya. As their water failed, they were compelled to touch at Erycina in Sicily. Now the Roman quæstor, who happened to be about these parts on the look-out, was very nearly taking Marius when he landed; and he killed about sixteen of the men who were sent to get water. Marius, hastily embarking and crossing the sea to the island of Meninx,82 there learnt for the first time that his son had escaped with Cethegus, and that they were going to Iampsas (Hiempsal), king of the Numidians, to ask aid of him. This news encouraged him a little, and he was emboldened to move from the island to the neighbourhood of Carthage. At this time the governor of Libya was Sextilius, a Roman, who had neither received injury nor favour from Marius, and it was expected that he would help him, at least as far as feelings of compassion move a man. But no sooner had Marius landed with a few of his party, than an officer met him, and standing right in front of him said, “The Governor Sextilius forbids you, Marius, to set foot on Libya, and he says that if you do, he will support the decree of the Senate [Pg 275]by treating you as an enemy.” On hearing this, grief and indignation deprived Marius of utterance, and he was a long time silent, looking fixedly at the officer. Upon the officer asking Marius what he had to say, what reply he had for the governor, he answered with a deep groan, “Tell him you have seen Caius Marius a fugitive sitting on the ruins of Carthage”: a reply in which he not unaptly compared the fate of that city and his own changed fortunes. In the meantime, Iampsas, the king of the Numidians, being unresolved which way to act, treated young Marius and his companions with respect, but still detained them on some new pretext whenever they wished to leave; and it was evident that he had no fair object in view in thus deferring their departure. However, an incident happened of no uncommon kind, which brought about their deliverance. The younger Marius was handsome, and one of the king’s concubines was grieved to see him in a condition unbefitting his station; and this feeling of compassion was a beginning and motive towards love. At first, however, Marius rejected the woman’s proposals, but seeing that there were no other means of escape, and that her conduct proceeded from more serious motives than mere passion, he accepted her proffered favours, and with her aid stole away with his friends and made his escape to his father. After embracing one another, they went along the shore, where they saw some scorpions fighting, which Marius considered to be a bad omen. Accordingly they forthwith embarked in a fishing boat, and passed over to the island Cercina, which was no great distance from the mainland; and it happened that they had only just set sail, when some horsemen despatched by the king were seen riding to the spot where they embarked. Marius thus escaped a danger equal to any that ever threatened him.

XLI

News reached Rome that Sulla was encountering the generals of Mithridates in Bœotia, while the consuls were quarrelling and taking up arms. A battle was fought, in which Octavius83 got the victory and ejected [Pg 276]Cinna, who was attempting to govern by violent means, and he put in Cinna’s place as consul Cornelius Merula; but Cinna collected troops in Italy and made war against Octavius. On hearing this, Marius determined to set sail immediately, which he did with some Moorish cavalry that he took from Africa, and some few Italians who had fled there, but the number of both together did not exceed a thousand. Coming to shore at Telamo84 in Tyrrhenia, and landing there, Marius proclaimed freedom to the slaves; and as the freemen who were employed in agriculture there, and in pasturing cattle, flocked to the sea, attracted by his fame, Marius persuaded the most vigorous of them to join him, and in a few days he had collected a considerable force and manned forty ships. Knowing that Octavius was an honourable man and wished to direct the administration in the justest way, but that Cinna was disliked by Sulla and opposed to the existing constitution, he determined to join him with his force. Accordingly he sent to Cinna and proffered to obey him as consul in everything. Cinna accepted the proposal, and naming Marius proconsul, sent him fasces and the other insigna of the office. Marius, however, observing that such things were not suited to his fortunes, clad in a mean dress, with his hair uncut from the day that he had been an exile, and now above seventy years of age, advanced with slow steps, wishing to make himself an object of compassion; but there was mingled with his abject mien more than his usual terrific expression of countenance, and through [Pg 277]his downcast looks he showed that his passion, so far from being humbled, was infuriated by his reverses of fortune.

XLII

As soon as he had embraced Cinna and greeted the soldiers, Marius commenced active operations and gave a great turn to affairs. First of all, by attacking the corn-vessels85 with his ships and plundering the merchants, he made himself master of the supplies. He next sailed to the maritime cities, which he took; and, finally, Ostia being treacherously surrendered to him, he made plunder of the property that he found there and put to death many of the people, and by blocking up the river he completely cut off his enemies from all supplies by sea. He now moved on with his army towards Rome and occupied the Janiculus. Octavius damaged his own cause, not so much from want of skill as through his scrupulous observance of the law, to which he unwisely sacrificed the public interests; for though many persons advised him to invite the slaves to join him by promising their freedom, he refused to make them members of the State from which he was endeavouring to exclude Marius in obedience to the law. On the arrival at Rome of Metellus,86 the son of Metellus who had commanded in Libya, and had been banished from the city through the intrigues of Marius, the soldiers deserted Octavius and came to Metellus, entreating him to take the command and save the city; they said, if they had an experienced and active commander, they would fight well and get the victory. But Metellus expressed great dissatisfaction at their conduct, and bade them go to the consul, upon which they passed over to the enemy. Metellus also in despair left the city. [Pg 278]But Octavius was persuaded by Chaldæans87 and certain diviners and interpreters of the Sibylline books to stay in Rome by the assurance that all would turn out well. Octavius, who in all other matters had as solid a judgment as any Roman, and most carefully maintained the consular dignity free from all undue influence according to the usage of his country and the laws, as if they were unchangeable rules, nevertheless showed great weakness in keeping company with impostors and diviners, rather than with men versed in political and military matters. Now Octavius was dragged down from the Rostra before Marius entered the city, by some persons who where sent forward, and murdered; and it is said that a Chaldæan writing was found in his bosom after he was killed. It seemed to be a very inexplicable circumstance, that of two illustrious commanders, Marius owed his success to not disregarding divination, and Octavius thereby lost his life.

XLIII

Matters being in this state, the Senate met and sent a deputation to Cinna and Marius to invite them into the city and to entreat them to spare the citizens. Cinna, as consul, sitting on his chair of office, gave audience to the commissioners and returned a kind answer: Marius stood by the consul’s chair without speaking a word, but indicating by the unchanging heaviness of his brow and his gloomy look that he intended to fill Rome with slaughter. After the audience was over, they marched to the city. Cinna entered accompanied by his guards, but Marius halting at the gates angrily affected to have some scruples about entering. He said he was an exile and was excluded from his country by a law, and if anybody [Pg 279]wanted to have him in the city, they must go to the vote again and undo the vote by which he was banished, just as if he were a man who respected the laws and were returning from exile to a free state. Accordingly he summoned the people to the Forum, but before three or four of the tribes had voted, throwing off the mask and setting aside all the talk about being legally recalled, he entered with some guards selected from the slaves who had flocked to him, and who were called Bardiæi. These fellows killed many persons by his express orders and many on the mere signal of his nod; and at last meeting with Ancharius, a senator who had filled the office of prætor, they struck him down with their daggers in the presence of Marius, when they saw that Marius did not salute him. After this whenever he did not salute a man or return his salute, this was a signal for them to massacre him forthwith in the streets, in consequence of which even the friends of Marius were filled with consternation and horror when they approached him. The slaughter was now great, and Cinna’s appetite was dulled and he was satisfied with blood; but Marius daily went on with his passion at the highest pitch and thirsting for vengeance, through the whole list of those whom suspected in any degree. And every road and every city was filled with the pursuers, hunting out those who attempted to escape and conceal themselves, and the ties of hospitality and friendship were proved to be no security in misfortune, for they were very few who did not betray those who sought refuge with them. This rendered the conduct of the slaves of Cornutus the more worthy of praise and admiration, for they concealed their master at home, and hanging up by the neck the dead body of some obscure person, and putting a gold ring on his finger, they showed him to the guards of Marius, and then wrapping up the body as if it were their master’s, they interred it. The device went unsuspected, and Cornutus being thus secreted by his slaves, made his escape to Gaul.

XLIV

The orator Marcus Antonius88 found a faithful [Pg 280]friend, but still he did not escape. This man, though poor, and of the lower class, received in his house one of the most illustrious of the Romans, and wishing to entertain him as well as he could, he sent a slave to one of the neighbouring wine-shops to get some wine. As the slave was more curious than usual in tasting it, and told the man to give him some better wine, the merchant asked what could he the reason that he did not buy the new wine, as usual, and the ordinary wine, but wanted some of good quality and high price. The slave replied in his simplicity, as he was speaking to an old acquaintance, that his master was entertaining Marcus Antonius, who was concealed at his house. The wine-dealer, a faithless and unprincipled wretch, as soon as the slave left him, hurried off to Marius, who was at supper, and having gained admission, told him that he would betray Marcus Antonius to him. On hearing this, Marius is said to have uttered a loud shout and to have clapped his hands with delight; and he was near getting up and going to the place himself, but his friends stopped him, and he despatched Annius with some soldiers, with orders to bring him the head of Antonius immediately. On reaching the house, Annius waited at the door, and the soldiers mounting the stairs entered the room, but on seeing Antonius, every man began to urge some of his companions and push him forward to do the deed instead of himself. And so powerful were the charm and persuasion of his eloquence, when Antonius began to speak and pray for his life, that not a man of them could venture to lay hands on him or look him in the face, but they all bent their heads down and shed tears. As this caused some delay, Annius went upstairs, where he saw Antonius speaking and the soldiers [Pg 281]awed and completely softened by his eloquence; on which he abused them, and running up to Antonius, cut off his head with his own hand. The friends of Catulus Lutatius, who had been joint consul with Marius and with him had triumphed over the Cimbri, interceded for him with Marius, and begged for his life; but the only answer they got was, “He must die!” and accordingly Catulus shut himself up in a room, and lighting a quantity of charcoal, suffocated himself. Headless trunks thrown into the streets and trampled underfoot excited no feeling of compassion, but only a universal shudder and alarm. But the people were most provoked by the licence of the Bardiæi, who murdered fathers of families in their houses, defiled their children, and violated their wives; and they went on plundering and committing violence, till Cinna and Sertorius combining, attacked them when they were asleep in the camp, and transfixed them with spears.

XLV

In the meantime, as if the wind was beginning to turn, reports reached Rome from all quarters that Sulla had finished the war with Mithridates, and recovered the provinces, and was sailing against the city with a large force. This intelligence caused a brief cessation and pause to unspeakable calamities, for Marius and his faction were in expectation of the immediate arrival of their enemies. Now being elected consul89 for the seventh time, on the very Calends of January, which is the beginning of the year, Marius caused one Sextus Lucinus90 to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, which appeared to be a presage of the great misfortunes that were again to befal the partisans of Marius and the State. But Marius was now worn out with labour, and, as it were, drowned with cares, and cowed in his spirit; and the experience of past dangers and toil made him tremble at the thoughts of a new war, and fresh struggles and alarms, and he could not sustain himself when he reflected that now he would [Pg 282]have to hazard a contest, not with Octavius or Merula at the head of a tumultuous crowd and seditious rabble, but that Sulla was advancing—Sulla, who had once driven him from Rome, and had now confined Mithridates within the limits of his kingdom of Pontus. With his mind crushed by such reflections, and placing before his eyes his long wanderings and escapes and dangers in his flight by sea and by land, he fell into a state of deep despair, and was troubled with nightly alarms and terrific dreams in which he thought he heard a voice continually calling out,

“Dreadful is the lion’s lair

Though he is no longer there.”

As he greatly dreaded wakeful nights, he gave himself up to drinking and intoxication at unseasonable hours and to a degree unsuited to his age, in order to procure sleep, as if he could thus elude his cares. At last when a man arrived with news from the sea, fresh terrors seized him, partly from fear of the future and partly from feeling the burden and the weariness of the present state of affairs; and while he was in this condition, a slight disturbance sufficed to bring on a kind of pleurisy, as the philosopher Poseidonius91 relates, who also says that he had an interview and talked with him on the subject of his embassy, while Marius was sick. But one Caius Piso,92 an historian, says that Marius, while walking about with some friends after supper, fell to talking of the incidents of his life, beginning with his boyhood, and after enumerating his many vicissitudes of fortune, he said that no man of sense ought to trust fortune after such reverses; upon which he took leave of his friends, and keeping his bed for seven successive days, thus died. Some say that his ambitious character [Pg 283]was most completely disclosed during his illness by his falling into the extravagant delusion that he was conducting the war against Mithridates, and he would then put his body into all kinds of attitudes and movements, as he used to do in battle, and accompany them with loud shouts and frequent cheers. So strong and unconquerable a desire to be engaged in that war had his ambitious and jealous character instilled into him; and therefore, though he had lived to be seventy years of age, and was the first Roman who had been seven times consul and had made himself a family, and wealth enough for several kings, he still bewailed his fortune, and complained of dying before he had attained the fulness and completion of his desires.

XLVI

Now Plato, being at the point of death, felicitated himself on his dæmon93 and his fortune, first that he was born a human being, then that he was a Greek, and neither a barbarian nor an irrational animal; and besides all this, that his birth had fallen on the time when Socrates lived. And indeed it is said that Antipater94 of Tarsus, in like manner, just before his death, when recapitulating the happiness that he had enjoyed, did not forget his prosperous voyage from Rome to Athens, inasmuch as he considered every gift of favourable fortune as a thing to be thankful for, and preserved it to the last in his memory, which is to man the best storehouse of good things. But those who have no memory and no sense, let the things that happen ooze away imperceptibly in the course of time; and consequently, as they hold nothing and keep nothing, being always empty of all goodness, but full of expectation, they look to the future and throw away the present. And yet fortune may hinder the future, but the present cannot be taken from a man; nevertheless, such men reject that which fortune now gives, as something foreign, and dream of that which is uncertain: and it is natural that they should; for before reason and education have enabled them to put a founda[Pg 284]tion and basement under external goods, they get and they heap them together, and are never able to fill the insatiate appetite of their soul. Now Marius95 died, having held for seventeen days his seventh consulship. And immediately there were great rejoicings in Rome, and good hope that there was a release from a cruel tyranny; but in a few days men found that they had exchanged an old master for a young one who was in the fulness of his vigour; such cruelty and severity did the son of Marius exhibit in putting to death the noblest and best citizens. He gained the reputation of a man of courage, and one who loved danger in his wars against his enemies, and was named a son of Mars: but his acts speedily showed his real character, and he received instead the name of a son of Venus. Finally, being shut up in Præneste by Sulla, and having in vain tried all ways of saving his life, he killed himself when he saw that the city was captured and all escape was hopeless.

LIFE OF
LYSANDER

I

The treasury of the Akanthians at Delphi has upon it the following inscription: “The spoils which Brasidas and the Akanthians took from the Athenians.” For this reason many suppose that the stone statue which stands inside the treasure-chamber, just by the door, is that of Brasidas; but it is really a copy of a statue of Lysander, wearing his hair and beard long, in the ancient fashion. For it is not true, as some say, that when the Argives after their great defeat shaved their hair in sign of mourning, the Spartans on the other hand, in pride at their victory let their hair grow long; nor was it because the Bacchiadæ, when they fled from Corinth to Sparta had their hair cut short, and looked mean and despicable that made the Spartans, themselves eager to let their hair grow long; but the fashion was enjoined by Lykurgus. It is recorded that he said of this mode of wearing the hair, that it made handsome men look handsomer, and made ugly men look more ferocious.

II

Aristokleitus, the father of Lysander, is said to have been a descendant of Herakles, though not a member of the royal family. Lysander was brought up in poverty, and, like other Spartans, proved himself obedient to discipline and of a manly spirit, despising all pleasures except that which results from the honour paid to those who are successful in some great action. This was the only enjoyment permitted to young men in Sparta; for they wish their children, from their very birth, to dread reproach and to be eager for praise, and he who is not stirred by these passions is regarded with contempt as a pluggish fellow without ambition.

Lysander retained throughout life the emulous desire for [Pg 286]fame which had been instilled into him by his early training; but, though never wanting in ambition, yet he fell short of the Spartan ideal, in his habit of paying court to the great, and easily enduring the insolence of the powerful, whenever his own interests were concerned. Aristotle, when he observes that the temperaments of great men are prone to melancholy, instances Sokrates, Plato, and Herakles, and observes also that Lysander, when advanced in life, became inclined to melancholy. What is especially to be noted in his character is, that while he himself lived in honourable poverty, and never received a bribe from any one, that he nevertheless brought wealth and the desire for wealth into his native country, and took away from it its old boast of being superior to money; for after the war with Athens he filled the city with gold and silver, although he did not keep a drachma of it for himself. When the despot Dionysius sent him some rich Sicilian dresses for his daughters, he refused them, saying that he feared they would make the girls look uglier than before. However, being shortly afterwards sent as ambassador to this same despot, when he again offered him two dresses, bidding him take whichever he chose for his daughter, he took them both away with him, saying that she would be better able to choose for herself.

III

Towards the end of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians, after their great disaster in Sicily, seemed likely to lose the command of the sea, and even to be compelled to sue for peace from sheer exhaustion. But Alkibiades, after his return from exile, effected a great change in the position of Athens, and raised the Athenian navy to such a pitch that it was able to meet that of the Lacedæmonians on equal terms. At this the Lacedæmonians again began to fear for the result of the war. They determined to prosecute it with greater earnestness than before, and as they required a skilful general, as well as a large force, they gave Lysander the command of their fleet.

When he came to Ephesus, he found the city friendly to him, and willing enough to support the Lacedæmonian cause; but it was in a weak and ill-managed condition, and in danger of falling into the Persian manners and losing its Greek nationality, because it was close to Lydia, [Pg 287]and the Persian generals generally made it their headquarters. But Lysander formed a camp there, ordered all transports to be directed to sail thither, and established a dockyard for the construction of ships of war. By this means he filled the harbour with trading vessels, and the market with merchandise, and brought money and business into every house and workshop; so that, thanks to him, the city then first began to entertain hopes of arriving at that pitch of greatness and splendour which it has since attained.

IV

When he heard that Cyrus, the son of the king of Persia, had arrived at Sardis, he went thither to confer with him, and to complain of the conduct of Tissaphernes, who, although he received orders to assist the Lacedæmonians, and to drive the Athenians from the sea, yet by means of the influence of Alkibiades appeared to be very much wanting in zeal for the Lacedæmonian cause, and to be ruining their fleet by his parsimony. Cyrus gladly listened to anything to the discredit of Tissaphernes, who was a worthless man and also a personal enemy of his own. After this Lysander gained considerable influence with the young prince, and induced him to carry on the war with greater spirit. When Lysander was about to leave the court, Cyrus invited him to a banquet, and begged him not to refuse his courtesies, but to demand whatever boon he pleased, as he would be refused nothing. Lysander replied, “Since, Cyrus, you are so very kind to me, I ask you to add an obolus to the pay of the sailors, so that they may receive four obols a day instead of three.” Cyrus, pleased with his warlike spirit, presented him with ten thousand darics,1 with which money he paid the extra obolus to the sailors, and so improved the equipment of his fleet, that in a short time he all but emptied the enemy’s ships; for their sailors deserted in crowds to the best paymaster, and those who remained behind were so disheartened and mutinous, that they gave their officers continual trouble. Yet even after he had thus weakened his enemy’s forces Lysander dared not venture on a battle, knowing Alkibiades to be a brilliant general, and that his [Pg 288]fleet was still the more numerous, while his many victories by sea and land made him feared at this period as invincible.

V

When, however, Alkibiades sailed from Samos to Phokæa he left his pilot Antiochus in command of the fleet. This man, wishing in a foolhardy spirit to insult Lysander, sailed into the harbour of Ephesus with two triremes, and arrogantly passed along the beach where the Lacedæmonian fleet lay drawn up, with loud laughter and noise. Lysander, enraged at this, at first only launched a few triremes to pursue him, but when he saw the Athenians coming to his assistance he manned his whole fleet, and brought on a general action. Lysander was victorious, took fifteen triremes, and erected a trophy. Upon this the Athenian people were greatly incensed against Alkibiades, and removed him from his command; and he, being insulted and ill-treated by the soldiery at Samos, withdrew from the Athenian camp to the Chersonesus. This battle, though not in itself remarkable, yet became so because of the misfortunes which it brought upon Alkibiades.

Lysander now invited to Ephesus all the bravest and most distinguished Greeks from the cities on the Ionic coast, and thus laid the foundation of all those oligarchies and revolutionary governments which were afterwards established there, by encouraging them to form political clubs, and devote themselves energetically to carrying on the war, because in the event of success they would not only conquer the Athenians, but also would be able to put down all democratic government, and establish themselves as absolute rulers in their respective cities. He proved the truth of his professions to these people by his acts, as he promoted those whom he personally knew, and those with whom he was connected by the ties of hospitality, to important posts and commands, aiding and abetting their most unscrupulous and unjust acts, so that all men began to look up to him and to be eager to win his favour, imagining that if he remained in power, their most extravagant wishes would be gratified. For this reason they were dissatisfied with Kallikratidas, when he took command of the fleet as Lysander’s successor, and even after he had proved himself to be as brave and honest [Pg 289]as a man could be, they still disliked his truthful, straightforward, Dorian manners. Yet they could not but admire his virtue, as men admire some antique heroic statue, although they regretted Lysander’s ready zeal for the interest of his friends so much that some of them actually wept when he sailed away.

VI

Lysander made this class of persons yet more irritated against Kallikratidas by sending back to Sardis the balance of the money which he had received from Cyrus for the fleet, bidding the sailors ask Kallikratidas for pay, and see how he would manage to maintain the men. And when he finally left Ephesus, he endeavoured to force Kallikratidas to admit that he had handed over to him a fleet which was mistress of the seas. Kallikratidas, however, wishing to expose his vainglorious boasts, answered: “If so, sail from hence, passing Samos on your left, and hand over the fleet to me at Miletus; for we need not fear the Athenians at Samos, if our fleet is mistress of the seas.” To this Lysander answered that it was not he, but Kallikratidas who was in command, and at once sailed away to Peloponnesus, leaving Kallikratidas in great perplexity; for he had brought no money with him from his own country, and he could not endure to wring money out of the distressed Greek cities on the coast. There remained only one course open to him: to go to the satraps of the king of Persia, and ask them for money, as Lysander had done. Kallikratidas was the worst man in the world for such a task, being high-spirited and generous, and thinking it less dishonourable for Greeks to be defeated by other Greeks than for them to court and flatter barbarians who had nothing to recommend them but their riches. Forced by want of money, however, he made a journey into Lydia, and at once went to the house of Cyrus, where he ordered the servants to say that the admiral Kallikratidas was come, and wished to confer with him. They answered, “Stranger, Cyrus is not at leisure; he is drinking.” To this Kallikratidas with the greatest coolness replied: “Very well; I will wait until he has finished his draught.” At this answer the Persians took him for a boor, and laughed at him, so that he went away; and, after presenting himself a second time and [Pg 290]being again denied admittance, returned to Ephesus in a rage, invoking curses upon those who had first been corrupted by the barbarians, and who had taught them to behave so insolently because of their riches, and vowing in the presence of his friends that as soon as he reached Sparta, he would do all in his power to make peace between the Greek states, in order that they might be feared by the barbarians, and might no longer be obliged to beg the Persians to help them to destroy one another.

VII

But Kallikratidas, whose ideas were so noble and worthy of a Spartan, being as brave, honourable, and just a man as ever lived, perished shortly afterwards in the sea-fight at Arginusæ. Upon this, as the Lacedæmonian cause was going to ruin, the allied cities sent an embassy to Sparta, begging for Lysander to be again given the chief command, and promising that they would carry on the war with much greater vigour if he were their leader. Cyrus also sent letters to the same effect. Now as the Spartan law forbids the same man being twice appointed admiral, the Lacedæmonians, wishing to please their allies, gave the chief command nominally to one Arakus, but sent Lysander with him, with the title of secretary, but really with full power and authority. He was very welcome to the chief men in the various cities, who imagined that by his means they would be able to obtain much greater power, and to put down democracy throughout Asia; but those who loved plain and honourable dealing in a general thought that Lysander, when compared with Kallikratidas, appeared to be a crafty, deceitful man, conducting the war chiefly by subtilty and stratagem, using honourable means when it was his interest to do so, at other times acting simply on the rules of expediency, and not holding truth to be in itself superior to falsehood, but measuring the value of the one and the other by the profit which was to be obtained from them. He indeed laughed at those who said that the race of Herakles ought not to make wars by stratagem, saying, “Where the lion’s skin will not protect us, we must sew the fox’s skin to it.”

VIII

All this is borne out by what he is said to have done at Miletus. Here his friends and connections, to whom he had promised that he would put down the demo[Pg 291]cratic constitution and drive their enemies out of the city, changed their minds, and made up their quarrel with their political opponents. At this reconciliation Lysander publicly expressed great satisfaction and even seemed anxious to promote a good understanding, but in private he railed at them and urged them to attack the popular party. But as soon as he heard of an outbreak having taken place, he at once marched into the city, addressed the insurgents roughly, and sent them away in custody, harshly treated, as if he meant to inflict some signal punishment upon them, while he bade those of the popular faction take courage, and not to expect any ill-treatment while he was present. By this artifice he prevailed upon the chief men of the democratic party not to leave the city, but to remain and perish in it; as indeed they did, for every one who trusted to his word was put to death. Moreover, Androkleides relates a story which shows Lysander’s extreme laxity with regard to oaths. He is said to have remarked, that “We cheat boys with dice, and men with oaths!” In this he imitated Polykrates, the despot of Samos—an unworthy model for a Spartan general. Nor was it like a Spartan to treat the gods as badly as he treated his enemies, or even worse—for the man who overreaches his enemy by breaking his oath admits that he fears his enemy, but despises his god.

IX

Cyrus now sent for Lysander to Sardis, and gave him a supply of money, with promise of more. Nay, he was so zealous to show his attachment to Lysander that he declared, if his father would not furnish him with funds, that he would expend all his own property, and if other resources failed, that he would break up the gold and silver throne on which he was sitting. Finally, when he went away to Media to see his father, he empowered Lysander to receive the tribute from the subject cities, and placed the whole of his government in his hands. He embraced Lysander, begged him not to fight the Athenians by sea until he returned from court, promised that he would return with many ships from Phœnicia and Cilicia, and so departed.

Lysander was not able to fight the Athenians on equal terms, but yet he could not remain quiet with so large a [Pg 292]number of ships. He accordingly put out to sea, induced several of the islands to revolt from Athens, and overran Ægina and Salamis. At length he landed in Attica, where he met Agis, who came down from Dekeleia to see him, and showed the land army what his naval force was, boasting that he could sail whither he pleased, and was master of the seas. However, when he discovered that the Athenians were in pursuit he fled precipitately back to Asia Minor. Finding the Hellespont unguarded, he attacked the city of Lampsakus by sea, while Thorax, who had arrived at the same place with the land forces, attacked it on that side. He took the city by storm, and, gave it up to his soldiers to plunder. Meanwhile, the Athenian fleet of a hundred and eighty triremes had just touched at Elaius in the Chersonese, but, hearing that Lampsakus was lost, proceeded to Sestos. Having taken in provisions at that place, they sailed to the “Goat’s Rivers,” opposite to Lampsakus, where the enemy’s fleet still lay. One of the Athenian generals on this occasion was that Philokles who once induced the people to pass a decree that all prisoners of war should have their right thumbs cut off, so that they might not be able to hold a spear, but yet might work at the oar.

X

Hereupon both parties rested, expecting a sea-fight on the morrow. Lysander, however, had other intentions, but notwithstanding ordered the sailors to man their ships at daybreak, as if he intended to fight, and to remain quietly at their posts waiting for orders; and the land force was similarly drawn up by the sea-side. When the sun rose, the Athenian fleet rowed straight up to the Lacedæmonians, and offered battle, but Lysander, although his ships were fully manned, and had their prows pointing towards the enemy, would not let them engage, but sent small boats to the first line of his ships with orders not to move, but remain quietly in their places without any noise or attempt to attack. Though the Athenians retired towards evening, he would not let his men land before two or three triremes which he had sent to reconnoitre, returned with the intelligence that the enemy had disembarked. The same manœuvres took place on the next day, and also on the third and fourth days, so that the [Pg 293]Athenians began to be very bold, and to despise their enemy, who seemed not to dare to attack them. At this time Alkibiades, who was living in his own forts in the Chersonese, rode over to the Athenian camp and blamed the generals for having in the first place encamped in a bad position, on an exposed sea-beach without any harbour, and pointed out their mistake in having to fetch all their provisions from Sestos, which was so far off, whereas they ought to have proceeded to the harbour and city of Sestos, where they would also be farther away from a watchful enemy, commanded by one general only, and so well disciplined as to be able to carry out his orders with great rapidity. These representations of Alkibiades were not listened to by the Athenian generals, one of whom, Tydeus, insolently replied that it was they, not he, who were in command.

XI

As besides this Alkibiades had some suspicions of treachery among them, he rode away. On the fifth day however, when the Athenians, after their customary offer of battle, had returned as usual, in a careless and negligent manner, Lysander sent out some ships to reconnoitre, with orders to row back again with all speed as soon as they saw the Athenians disembark, and when they reached the middle of the straits to hoist a brazen shield over their bows as a signal for advance. He himself sailed from ship to ship, addressing the steersmen and captains of each, urging them to be in their place with their full complement both of rowers and fighting-men on deck, and at the signal to row strongly and cheerfully against the enemy.

When the shield was raised, and the signal given by trumpet from the flag-ship, the fleet put to sea, while the land force marched rapidly along the shore towards the promontory. The straits here are only fifteen furlongs wide, a distance which was soon passed by the zeal of the Lacedæmonian rowers. Konon was the first of the Athenian generals who perceived the fleet approaching. He at once called out to the men to embark, and in his agony of distress at the disaster, ordered, implored, and forced them into their ships. But all his zeal was useless, scattered as the crews were; for as soon as they disem[Pg 294]barked they at once, not expecting any attack, began some to purchase food in the market, some to stroll about, while some went to sleep in their tents, and some began to cook, without the least mistrust of that which befel them, through the ignorance and inexperience of their leaders. As by this time the enemy were close upon them, with loud cries and noise of oars, Konon with eight ships made his way safely through the enemy, and escaped to the court of Evagoras, king of Cyprus. As to the rest of the ships, the Peloponnesians took some of them empty, and sank the others as the sailors endeavoured to get on board of them. Of these men, many perished near their ships, as they ran to them in disorderly crowds, without arms, while others who fled away on land were killed by the enemy, who landed and went in pursuit of them. Besides these, three thousand men, including the generals, were taken prisoners. Lysander also captured the entire fleet, with the exception of the sacred trireme called the Paralus, and the eight ships which escaped with Konon. After plundering the camp, and taking all the captured ships in tow, he sailed back to Lampsakus with triumphal music of flutes and pæans of victory, having won a great victory with little labour, and in a short time brought to a close the longest and most uncertain war ever known in his times. There had been innumerable battles, and frequent changes of fortune, in which more generals had perished than in all the previous wars in Greece, and yet all was brought to a close by the wisdom and conduct of one man: which thing caused some to attribute this victory to the interposition of the gods.

XII

Some affirmed, that when Lysander’s ship sailed out of the harbour of Lampsakus to attack the enemy, they saw the Dioskuri, like two stars, shining over the rudders2. Some also say that the fall of the great stone was an omen of this disaster: for the common belief is that a vast stone fell down from Heaven into the Goat’s Rivers, which stone is even now to be seen, and is worshipped by the people of the Chersonese. We are told that Anaxagoras foretold that in case of any slip or dis[Pg 295]turbance of the bodies which are fixed in the heavens, they would all fall down. The stars also, he said, are not in their original position, but being heavy bodies formed of stone, they shine by the resistance and friction of the atmosphere, while they are driven along by the violence of the circular motion by which they were originally prevented from falling, when cold and heavy bodies were separated from the general universe. There is a more credible theory on this subject, that shooting-stars are not a rush of ærial fire which is put out as soon as it is kindled, nor yet a blaze caused by a quantity of air being suddenly allowed to rush upwards, but that they are heavenly bodies, which from some failure in their rotatory power, fall from their orbit and descend, not often into inhabited portions of the earth, but for the most part into the sea, whereby they escape notice. This theory of Anaxagoras is confirmed by Daimachus in his treatise on Piety, where he states that for seventy-five days before the stone fell a fiery body of great size like a burning cloud, was observed in the heavens. It did not remain at rest, but moved in various directions by short jerks, so that by its violent swaying about many fiery particles were broken off, and flashed like shooting-stars. When, however, it sank to the earth, the inhabitants, after their first feeling of terror and astonishment were passed, collected together, and found no traces of fire, but merely a stone lying on the ground, which although a large one, bore no comparison to that fiery mass. It is evident that this tale of Daimachus can only find credit with indulgent readers: but if it be true, it signally confutes those who argue that the stone was wrenched by the force of a whirlwind from some high cliff, carried up high into the air, and then let fall whenever the violence of the tempest abated. Unless, indeed, that which was seen for so many days was really fire, which, when quenched, produced such a violent rushing and motion in the air as tore the stone from its place. A more exact enquiry into these matters, however, belongs to another subject.

XIII

Now Lysander, after the three thousand Athenians whom he had taken prisoners had been condemned to death [Pg 296]by the council, called for Philokles their general, and asked him what punishment he thought that he deserved for having advised his fellow-countrymen to treat Greeks in such a cruel manner.3 Philokles, not in the least cast down by his misfortunes, bade him not to raise questions which no one could decide, but, since he was victor, to do what he would himself have suffered if vanquished. He then bathed, put on a splendid dress, and led his countrymen to execution, according to the account given by Theophrastus. After this Lysander sailed to the various cities in the neighbourhood, and compelled all the Athenians whom he met to betake themselves to Athens, giving out that he would spare no one, but put to death all whom he found without the city. His object in acting thus was to produce famine in Athens as speedily as possible, that the city might not give him the trouble of a long siege. He now destroyed the democratic and popular constitutions in all the Greek cities which had been subject to Athens, placing a Lacedæmonian in each as harmost or governor, with a council of ten archons under him, composed of men selected from the political clubs which he had established. He proceeded leisurely along, effecting these changes alike in the cities which had been hostile to him and in those which had fought on his side, as though he were preparing for himself a Greece in which he would take the first place. He did not choose his archons by their birth, or their wealth, but favoured his own friends and political adherents, to whom he gave irresponsible power; while by being present at several executions, and driving the opponents of his friends into exile, he gave the Greeks a very unpleasant idea of what they were to expect from the empire of Lacedæmon. The comic poet Theopompus therefore appears to talk at random when he compares the Lacedæmonians to tavern-keepers, because they at first poured out for the Greeks a most sweet draught of liberty and afterwards made it bitter; whereas in truth the taste of their rule was bitter from the beginning, as Lysander would not allow the people to have any voice in the [Pg 297]government, and placed all the power in each city in the hands of the most daring and ambitious men of the oligarchical party.

XIV

After spending a short time in arranging these matters and having sent messengers to Laconia to announce that he was coming thither with a fleet of two hundred ships, he joined the Spartan kings, Agis and Pausanias, in Attica, and expected that the city of Athens would soon fall into his hands. Finding, however, that the Athenians made an obstinate defence, he crossed over to Asia again with the fleet. Here he overthrew the existing constitutions and established governments of ten in all the cities alike, putting many citizens to death, and driving many into exile. He drove out all the inhabitants from the island of Samos in a body, and handed over the cities in that island to those who had previously been banished. He also took Sestos from the Athenians, and would not allow the people of Sestos to live there, but gave the city and territory over to those who had acted as steersmen and masters on board of his ships. This indeed was the first of his acts which was cancelled by the Lacedæmonians, who restored Sestos to its inhabitants. Yet his proceedings were viewed with satisfaction by the Greeks, when he restored the Æginetans, who had for a long time been banished from their island, and also refounded Melos and Skione, the Athenians being driven away and forced to give up the cities.

By this time he learned that the people of Athens were nearly starved out, and consequently sailed to Peiræus and received the submission of the city, which was obliged to accept whatever terms of capitulation he chose to offer. I have indeed heard Lacedæmonians say that Lysander wrote to the Ephors, saying “Athens is taken;” and that they wrote to Lysander in answer, “To have taken it is enough.” But this tale is merely invented for effect. The real decree of the Ephors ran as follows:—“This is the decision of the Lacedæmonian government. Throw down the walls of Peiræus and the Long Walls. Withdraw from all other cities and occupy your own land, and then you may have peace, if you wish for it, allowing likewise your exiles to return. With regard to the number of the [Pg 298]ships, whatever be judged necessary by those on the spot, that do.”

The Athenians accepted these terms, by the advice of Theramenes the son of Hagnon: and on this occasion it is said that when he was asked by Kleomenes, one of the younger orators, how he dared to act and speak against what Themistokles had done, by giving up to the Lacedæmonians those walls which Themistokles had built in spite of them, he answered, “My boy, I am doing nothing contrary to Themistokles; for these same walls he built up to save his countrymen, and we will throw them down to save them. Indeed, if walls made a city prosperous, then ought Sparta, which has none, to be the most miserable of all.”

XV

Now Lysander, after taking all the fleet of the Athenians except twelve ships, and having taken possession of their walls, began to take measures for the subversion of their political constitution, on the sixteenth day of the month Munychion, the same day on which they had defeated the Persians in the sea-fight at Salamis. As they were greatly grieved at this, and were loth to obey him, he sent word to the people that the city had broken the terms of its capitulation, because their walls were standing although the time within which they ought to have been destroyed had elapsed. He therefore would make an entirely new decision about their fate, because they had broken the treaty. Some writers say that he actually consulted the allies about the advisability of selling the whole population for slaves, in which debate the Theban Erianthus proposed to destroy the city and make the site of it a sheep walk. Afterwards, however, when the generals were drinking together a Phokian sang the first song in the Elektra of Euripides, which begins with the words—

“Elektra, Agamemnon’s child,

I reach thy habitation wild.”

At this their hearts were touched, and it appeared to them to be a shameful deed to destroy so famous a city, and one which had produced such great men. After this, as the Athenians agreed to everything that Lysander proposed, he sent for a number of flute-players out of the [Pg 299]city, collected all those in his camp, and destroyed the walls and burned the ships to the sound of music, while the allies crowned themselves with flowers and danced around, as though on that day their freedom began. Lysander now at once subverted the constitution, establishing thirty archons in the city, and ten in Peiræus, placing also a garrison in the Acropolis under the command of Kallibius, who acted as harmost, or governor. This man once was about to strike Autolykus the athlete, in whose house Xenophon has laid the scene of his “Symposium,” with his staff, when Autolykus tripped him and threw him down. Lysander did not sympathise with his fall, but even reproached him, saying that he did not know how to govern free men. However, the Thirty, to please Kallibius, shortly afterwards put Autolykus to death.

XVI

After these transactions Lysander set sail for Thrace, but sent home to Sparta all the money for which he had no immediate occasion, and all the presents and crowns4 which he had received, in charge of Gylippus, who had held a command in Sicily during the war there. His wealth was very great, as many naturally had bestowed rich presents on one who had such great power as to be in some sort dictator of Greece. Gylippus is said to have cut open the seam at the bottom of each bag of money, taken a great deal of it out, and then to have sewn it up again, not knowing that there was a written note in each bag stating the amount which it contained. When he reached Sparta he hid the money which he had stolen under the tiles of his roof, and handed the bags over to the Ephors with the seals unbroken. When the bags were opened and the money counted, the amount was found not to agree with the written notes, and the Ephors were much perplexed at this until a servant of Gylippus explained the cause of it in a riddle, telling them that under his tiles roosted many owls. For, it seems, most of the money current at that period bore the Athenian device of the owl, in consequence of the extent of the Athenian empire.

[Pg 300]Gylippus, having sullied the glory of his great achievements by this mean and sordid action, left Sparta in disgrace. Yet the wisest Spartans, fearing the power of the money for this very reason, that it was the chief men in the state who would be tempted by it, reproached Lysander for bringing it, and implored the Ephors to convey solemnly all the gold and silver coin away out of the country, as being so much “imported ruin.” On this the Ephors invited discussion upon the subject. Theopompus tells us that it was Skiraphidas, but Ephorus says that it was Phlogidas who advised the Spartans not to receive the gold and silver coinage into their country, but to continue to use that which their fathers had used. This was iron money, which had first been dipped in vinegar when red hot, so that it could not be worked, as its being quenched in this manner rendered it brittle and useless, while it was also heavy, difficult to transport from place to place, and a great quantity of it represented but a small value. It appears probable that all money was originally of this kind, and that men used instead of coin small spits5 of iron or copper. For this reason we still call small coins obols, and we call six obols a drachma, meaning that this is the number of them which can be grasped by the hand.

XVII

The motion for sending away the money was opposed by Lysander’s friends, who were eager to keep it in the state; so that it was at last decided that for public purposes this money might be used, but that if any private person were found in possession of it, he should be put to death: as if Lykurgus had been afraid of money itself, and not of the covetousness produced by it, which they did not repress by forbidding private men to own money so much as they encouraged it by permitting the state to own it, conferring thereby a certain dignity upon it over and above its real value. It was not possible for men who saw that the state valued silver and gold to despise it as useless, or to think that what was thus prized by the whole body of the citizens could be of no concern to individuals. On the contrary, it is plain that national customs much sooner impress themselves on the lives and [Pg 301]manners of individuals, than do the faults and vices of individuals affect the national character. When the whole becomes corrupt the parts necessarily become corrupt with it; but the corruption of some of the parts does not necessarily extend to the whole, being checked and overpowered by those parts which remain healthy. Thus the Spartans made the law and the fear of death guard the houses of their citizens so that money could not enter them, but they did not guard their minds against the seductions of money, nay, even encouraged them to admire it, by proclaiming that it was a great and important matter that the commonwealth should be rich. However, I have discussed the conduct of the Lacedæmonians in this respect in another book.

XVIII

From the proceeds of the plunder which he had taken Lysander set up a brazen statue of himself and of each of the admirals6 at Delphi, and also offered up golden stars to the Dioskuri, which stars disappeared just before the battle of Leuktra. Besides this, in the treasury of Brasidas and the Akanthians there used to be a trireme made of gold and ivory, two cubits long, which was sent to him by Cyrus as a present on the occasion of his victory. Anaxandrides of Delphi also tells us that Lysander deposited there a talent of silver, fifty-two minæ, and eleven of the coins called staters, which does not agree with the accounts given by other writers of his poverty.

At this time Lysander was more powerful than any Greek had ever been before, and displayed an amount of pride and arrogance beyond even what his power warranted. He was the first Greek, we are told by Douris in his history, to whom cities erected altars and offered sacrifice as though he were a god, and he was the first in whose honour pæans were sung, one of which is recorded as having begun as follows:

“The praise of our fair Græcia’s king

That comes from Sparta, let us sing,

Io pæan.”

Nay, the Samians decreed that their festival, called Heræa [Pg 302]in honour of Hera, should be called Lysandreia. He always kept the poet Chœrilus in his train, that he might celebrate his actions in verse, and when Antilochus wrote some stanzas in his praise he was so pleased that he filled his hat with silver and gave it to him. Antimachus of Kolophon and one Nikeratus of Heraklea each wrote a poem on his deeds, and competed before him for a prize, at the Lysandreia. He gave the crown of victory to Nikeratus, which so enraged Antimachus that he suppressed his poem. Plato, who was a young man at that time, and admired the poetry of Antimachus, consoled him for his defeat by pointing out to him that the illiterate are as much to be pitied for their ignorance as the blind are for their loss of sight. When, however, the harper Aristonous, who had six times won the victory at the Pythian games, to show his regard to Lysander, told him that if he won the prize again he intended to have his name proclaimed by the herald as Lysander’s servant, Lysander said, “Does he mean to proclaim himself my slave?”

XIX

This ambition of Lysander was only a burden to the great, and to those of equal rank with himself. But as none dared to thwart him, his pride and insolence of temper became intolerable. He proceeded to extravagant lengths both when he rewarded and when he punished, bestowing absolute government over important cities upon his friends, while he was satisfied with nothing short of the death of an enemy, and regarded banishment as too mild a sentence. Indeed, when subsequently to this he feared lest the chiefs of the popular party at Miletus might escape, and also wished to tempt those who had concealed themselves to leave their hiding-place, he swore that he would not harm them; and when they, trusting to his word, came forward and gave themselves up, he delivered them over to the aristocratical party to be put to death, to the number of not less than eight hundred men. In all the other cities, too, an indiscriminate massacre of the popular party took place, as Lysander not only put to death his own personal enemies, but also those persons against whom any of his friends in each city might happen to have a grudge. Wherefore Æteokles the Lacedæmonian was thought to have spoken [Pg 303]well, when he said that “Greece could not have borne two Lysanders.” We are told by Theophrastus that Archestratus made the same remark about Alkibiades: although in his case it was insolence, luxury and self-will which gave so much offence, whereas Lysander’s harsh, merciless disposition was what made his power so hateful and terrible.

At first the Lacedæmonians paid no attention to complaints brought against him; but when Pharnabazus, who had been wronged by Lysander’s depredations on his country, sent an embassy to Sparta to demand justice, the Ephors were much enraged. They put to death Thorax, one of his friends, whom they found in possession of silver coin, and they sent a skytale to him bidding him appear before them. I will now explain what a skytale was. When the Ephors sent out any one as general or admiral of their forces, they used to prepare two round sticks of wood of exactly the same length and thickness, corresponding with one another at the ends. One of these they kept themselves, and the other they gave to the person sent out. These sticks they call skytales. Now when they desire to transmit some secret of importance to him, they wrap a long narrow strip of paper7 like a strap round the skytale which is in their possession, leaving no intervals, but completely covering the stick along its whole length with the paper. When this has been done they write upon the paper while it is upon the stick, and after writing they unwind the paper and send it to the general without the stick. When he receives it, it is entirely illegible, as the letters have no connection, but he winds it round the stick in his possession so that the folds correspond to one another, and then the whole message can be read. The paper is called skytale as well as the stick, as a thing measured is called by the name of the measure.

XX

Lysander, when this skytale reached him at the Hellespont, was much troubled, and as he especially feared the accusations of Pharnabazus, he hastened to confer with him, with a view to settling their dispute. When they [Pg 304]met, Lysander begged him to write a second letter to the Spartan government, stating that he had not received any wrong, and that he had no charge to bring against him. It was, however, a case of “diamond cut diamond,” as the proverb has it, for Pharnabazus, while he ostensibly promised to do everything that Lysander wished, and to send publicly a letter dictated by him, had by him another privately-written despatch, and when the seals were about to be affixed, as the two letters looked exactly alike, he substituted the privately-written one for that which Lysander had seen. When then Lysander reached Lacedæmon, and proceeded, as it customary, to the senate-house, he handed over to the Ephors this letter of Pharnabazus, with the conviction that thereby he was quashing the most important of all the charges against himself; for Pharnabazus was much loved by the Lacedæmonians, because he had taken their part in the war more zealously than any other Persian satrap. When, however, the Ephors showed him the letter, and he perceived that “Others besides Odysseus8 can contrive,” he retired in great confusion, and a few days afterwards, on meeting with the Ephors, informed them that he must go and pay a sacrifice to Ammon9; which he had vowed before winning his victories. Some historians tell us that this was true, and that when he was besieging Aphytæ, a city in Thrace, the god Ammon appeared to him in a dream; in consequence of which he raised the siege, imagining this to be the will of the god, ordered the inhabitants to sacrifice to Ammon, and himself made preparations for proceeding at once to Libya to propitiate the god. Most persons, however, imagined that this was a mere pretence, but that really he feared the Ephors, and was unable to endure the harsh discipline of life at Sparta, and therefore wished to travel abroad, just as a horse longs for liberty when he has been brought back out of wide pastures to his stable and his accustomed work. As to the cause [Pg 305]which Ephorus gives for these travels of his, I will mention that presently.

XXI

After having with great difficulty obtained permission from the Ephors, he set sail. Now as soon as he left the country, the two kings, perceiving that by means of his device of governing the cities of Greece by aristocratic clubs devoted to his interest he was virtually master of the whole country, determined to restore the popular party to power and to turn out Lysander’s friends. When however this movement was set on foot, and when first of all the Athenians starting from Phyle attacked the Thirty and overpowered them, Lysander returned in haste, and prevailed upon the Lacedæmonians to assist the cause of oligarchy and put down these popular risings. They decided that the first government which they would aid should be that of the Thirty, at Athens; and they proposed to send them a hundred talents for the expenses of the war, and Lysander himself as their general. But the two kings, envying his power, and fearing that he would take Athens a second time, determined that one of themselves should proceed thither in his stead. Pausanias accordingly went to Athens, nominally to assist the Thirty against the people, but really to put an end to the war, for fear that Lysander by means of his friends might a second time become master of Athens. This he easily effected; and by reconciling all classes of Athenians to one another and putting an end to the revolution, he made it impossible for Lysander to win fresh laurels. But when shortly afterwards the Athenians again revolted he was much blamed for having allowed the popular party to gather strength and break out of bounds, after it had once been securely bridled by an oligarchy, while Lysander on the contrary gained the credit of having, in every city, arranged matters not with a view to theatrical effect, but to the solid advantage of Sparta.

XXII

He was bold in his speech, and overbearing to those who opposed him. When the Argives had a dispute with the Lacedæmonians about their frontier, and seemed to have justice on their side, Lysander drew his sword, saying, “He that is master of this is in possession of the best argument about frontier lines.” When some [Pg 306]Megarian in a public meeting used considerable freedom of speech towards him, he answered, “My friend, your words require a city10 to back them.” He asked the Bœotians, who wished to remain neutral, whether he should pass through their country with spears held upright or levelled. On the occasion of the revolt of Corinth, when he brought up the Lacedæmonians to assault their walls, he observed that they seemed unwilling to attack. At this moment a hare was seen to leap across the ditch, upon which he said, “Are you not ashamed to fear such enemies as these, who are so lazy as to allow hares to sleep upon their walls?” When king Agis died, leaving a brother, Agesilaus, and a son Leotychides who was supposed to be his, Lysander, who was attached to Agesilaus, prevailed upon him to lay claim to the crown as being a genuine descendant of Herakles. For Leotychides laboured under the imputation of being the son of Alkibiades, who carried on an intrigue with Timæa the wife of Agis, when he was living in Sparta as an exile. It is said that Agis, after making a calculation about the time of his wife’s pregnancy treated Leotychides with neglect and openly denied that he was his father. When however he was brought to Heræa during his last illness, and was at the point of death, he was induced by the entreaties of the youth and his friends to declare in the presence of many witnesses that Leotychides was his legitimate son, and died begging them to testify this fact to the Lacedæmonians. They did indeed so testify in favour of Leotychides; and although Agesilaus was a man of great distinction, and had the powerful assistance of Lysander, yet his claims to the crown were seriously damaged by one Diopeithes, a man deep read in oracular lore, who quoted the following prophecy in reference to the lameness of Agesilaus:

“Proud Sparta, resting on two equal feet,

Beware lest lameness on thy kings alight;

Lest wars unnumbered toss thee to and fro,

And thou thyself be ruined in the fight.”

But when many were persuaded by this oracle and [Pg 307]looked to Leotychides as the true heir, Lysander said that they did not rightly understand it; for what it meant was, he argued, not that the god forbade a lame man to reign, but that the kingdom would be lame of one foot if base-born men should share the crown with those who were of the true race of Herakles. By this argument and his own great personal influence he prevailed, and Agesilaus became king of Sparta.

XXIII

Lysander now at once began to urge him to make a campaign in Asia, holding out to him hopes of conquering the Persians and making himself the greatest man in the world. He also wrote to his friends in Asia, bidding them ask the Lacedæmonians to send them Agesilaus to act as their commander in chief in the war with the Persians. They obeyed, and sent an embassy to demand him: which was as great an honour to Agesilaus as his being made king, and which, like the other, he owed to Lysander alone. However, ambitious natures, though in other respects fit for great commands, often fail in important enterprises through jealousy of their rivals; for they make those men their opponents who would otherwise have been their assistants in obtaining success. On this occasion Agesilaus took Lysander with him, as the chief of his board of thirty counsellors, and treated him as his greatest friend; but when they reached Asia, the people there would not pay their court to Agesilaus, whom they did not know, while all Lysander’s friends flocked round him to renew their former intimacy, and all those who feared him assiduously courted his favour. Thus, as in a play we often see that a messenger or servant engrosses all the interest of the spectators and really acts the leading part, while he who wears the crown and bears the sceptre is hardly heard to speak, so now it was the counsellor who obtained all the honours due to a commander in chief, while the king had merely the title without any influence whatever. It was necessary, no doubt, that this excessive power of Lysander should be curtailed, and he himself forced to take the second place: but yet to disgrace and ruin a friend and one from whom he had received great benefits, would have been unworthy of Agesilaus. Consequently at first he did not entrust [Pg 308]him with the conduct of matters of importance, and did not give him any separate command. In the next place, he invariably disobliged, and refused the applications, of any persons on whose behalf he understood Lysander to be interested, and thus gradually undermined his power. When however after many failures Lysander perceived that his interest on his friends’ behalf was a drawback rather than an advantage to them, he ceased from urging their claims, and moreover begged them not to pay their court to him, but to attach themselves to the king, and to those who were able to promote and reward their followers. Most of them on hearing this no longer troubled him on matters of business, but continued on the most friendly terms with him, and angered Agesilaus more than ever by the manner in which they flocked round him in public places and walks, showing thereby their dislike to the king. Agesilaus now bestowed the government of cities and the conduct of important expeditions upon various obscure soldiers, but appointed Lysander his carver, and then in an insulting manner told the Ionians to go and pay their court to his carver. At this Lysander determined to have an interview with him, and there took place a short and truly Laconian dialogue between them. Lysander said, “You know well, Agesilaus, how to humble your friends.” “Yes,” answered he, “if they desire to be greater than I am: but those who increase my power have a right to share it.” “Perhaps,” said Lysander, “you have spoken better than I have acted; however, if it be only on account of the multitude whose eyes are upon us, I beg you to appoint me to some post in which I may be of more use to you, and cause you less annoyance than at present.”

XXIV

Upon this he was sent on a special mission to the Hellespont, where although he was at enmity with Agesilaus, he did not neglect his duty, but, finding that the Persian Spithridates, a man of noble birth and commanding a considerable force, was on bad terms with Pharnabazus, he induced him to revolt, and brought him back with him to Agesilaus. After this Lysander was given no further share in the conduct of the war, and after some time sailed back to Sparta in disgrace, full of [Pg 309]rage against Agesilaus, and hating the whole Spartan constitution more than ever. He now determined without any further delay to put in practice the revolutionary plans which he had so long meditated. These were as follows:—When the descendants of Herakles, after associating with the Dorians, returned to Peloponnesus, their race grew and flourished at Sparta. Yet it was not every family of the descendants of Herakles, but only the children of Eurypon and Agis who had a right to the throne, while the others gained no advantage from their noble birth, as all honours in the state were given according to merit. Now Lysander, being a descendant of Herakles, after he had gained great glory by his achievements and obtained many friends and immense influence, could not endure that the state should reap such great advantages from his success, and yet continue to be ruled by men of no better family than himself. He meditated, therefore, the abolition of the exclusive right to the throne possessed by these two families, and throwing it open to all the descendants of Herakles, or even, according to some historians, to all Spartans alike, in order that the crown might not belong to the descendants of Herakles, but to those who were judged to be like Herakles in glory, which had raised Herakles himself to a place among the gods themselves. If the throne were disposed of in this manner he imagined that no Spartan would be chosen king before himself.

XXV

First then he proposed to endeavour to win over his countrymen to his views by his own powers of persuasion, and with this object studied an oration written for him by Kleon of Halikarnassus. Soon, however, he perceived that so new and important a scheme of reform would require more violent means to carry it into effect, and, just as in plays supernatural machinery is resorted to where ordinary human means would fail to produce the wished-for termination, even so did Lysander invent oracular responses and prophecies and bring them to bear on the minds of his countrymen, feeling that he would gain but little by pronouncing Kleon’s oration, unless the Spartans had previously, by superstition and religious terrors, been brought into a state of feeling suitable for [Pg 310]its reception. Ephorus relates in his history that Lysander endeavoured by means of one Pherekles to bribe the priestess at Delphi, and afterwards those of Dodona; and that, as this attempt failed, he himself went to the oracle of Ammon and had an interview with the priests there, to whom he offered a large sum of money. They also indignantly refused to aid his schemes, and sent an embassy to Sparta to charge him with having attempted to corrupt them. He was tried and acquitted, upon which the Libyans, as they were leaving the country, said:—“We at any rate, O Spartans, will give more righteous judgments when you come to dwell amongst us”—for there is an ancient oracle which says that the Lacedæmonians shall some day settle in Libya. Now as to the whole framework of Lysander’s plot, which was of no ordinary kind, and did not take its rise from accidental circumstances, but consisted, like a mathematical demonstration, of many complicated intrigues all tending to one fixed point, I will give a short abstract of it extracted from the works of Ephorus, who was both an historian and a philosopher.

XXVI

There was a woman in Pontus who gave out that she was pregnant by Apollo. As might be expected, many disbelieved in her pretensions, but many more believed in them, so that when a male child was born of her, it was cared for and educated at the charge of many eminent persons. The child, for some reason or other, was given the name of Silenus. Lysander, starting with these materials, constructed the rest of the story out of his own imagination. He was assisted in his scheme by many persons of the highest respectability, who unsuspiciously propagated the fable about the birth of the child: and who also procured another mysterious story from Delphi, which they carefully spread abroad at Sparta, to the effect that some oracles of vast antiquity are guarded by the priests at Delphi, in writings which it is not lawful to read; nor may any one examine them or look upon them, until in the fulness of time one born of Apollo shall come, and after clearly proving his birth to the guardians of these writings, shall take the tablets which contain them. This having been previously arranged, Silenus’s part [Pg 311]was to go and demand the oracles as Apollo’s child, while those of the priests who were in the plot were to make inquiries and examine carefully into his birth, and at length were to appear convinced of the truth of the story, and show the writings to him, as being really the child of Apollo. He was to read aloud in the presence of many persons all the oracles contained in the tablets, especially one which said that it would be better for the Spartans to choose their kings from the best of the citizens. Silenus was nearly grown up, and the time to make the attempt had almost arrived, when the whole plot was ruined by the cowardice of one of the principal conspirators, whose heart failed him when the moment for action arrived. None of these particulars, however, were discovered till after Lysander’s death.

XXVII

Before Agesilaus returned from Asia Lysander perished in a Bœotian war in which he had become involved, or rather had involved Greece; for various accounts are given of it, some laying the blame upon him, some upon the Thebans, and some upon both. It was urged against the Thebans that they overturned the altar at Aulis and scattered the sacrifice,11 and also that Androkleides and Amphitheus, having been bribed by Persia to induce all the Greek states to attack the Lacedæmonians, had invaded the Phokian territory and laid it waste. On the other hand Lysander is said to have been angry that the Thebans alone should claim their right to a tenth part of the plunder obtained in the war, though the other allies made no such demand, and that they should have expressed indignation at Lysander’s sending such large sums of money to Sparta. He was especially wroth with them for having afforded the Athenians the means of freeing themselves from the domination of the Thirty, which he had himself established, and which the Lacedæmonians had endeavoured to support by decreeing that all exiled Athenians of the popular party might be brought back [Pg 312]to Athens from whatever place they might be found in, and that those who protected them against being forcibly brought back should be treated as outlaws. In answer to this the Thebans passed a decree worthy of themselves, and deserving of comparison with the great acts of Herakles and Dionysus, the benefactors of mankind. Its provisions were, that every city and every house in Bœotia should be open to those Athenians who required shelter, that whoever did not assist an Athenian exile against any one who tried to force him away should be fined a talent, and that if any marched under arms through Bœotia to attack the despots at Athens, no Theban should either see or hear them. Not only did they make this kindly and truly Hellenic decree, but they also acted up to the spirit of it; for when Thrasybulus and his party seized Phyle, they started from Thebes, supplied with arms and necessaries by the Thebans, who also assisted them to keep their enterprise secret and to begin it successfully. These were the charges brought against the Thebans by Lysander.

XXVIII

His naturally harsh temper was now soured by age, and he urged on the Ephors into declaring war against the Thebans, and appointing him their general to carry it on. Subsequently, however, they sent the king, Pausanias, with an army, to co-operate with him. Pausanias marched in a circuitous course over Mount Kithæron, meaning to invade Bœotia on that side, while Lysander with a large force came to meet him through Phokis. He took the city of Orchomenus, which voluntarily came over to his side, and he took Lebadeia by storm and plundered it. He now sent a letter to Pausanias bidding him march through the territory of Platæa and join him at Haliartus, promising that at daybreak he would be before the walls of Haliartus. The messenger who carried this letter fell into the hands of the enemy, and the letter was taken to Thebes. Hereupon the Thebans entrusted their city to the care of the Athenians, who had come to their aid, and themselves started early in the evening, reached Haliartus a little before Lysander, and threw a body of troops into the town. Lysander, on discovering this, at first determined to halt his army on a hill in the neighbourhood and await the arrival of Pausanias: but as the day went on he could [Pg 313]remain quiet no longer, but got his men under arms, harangued the allied troops, and led them in a close column down the road directly towards the city. Upon this those of the Thebans who had remained outside the walls, leaving the city on their left hand, marched to attack the extreme rear of the Lacedæmonians, near the fountain which is called Kissousa,12 in which there is a legend that Dionysus was washed by his nurses after his birth; for the water is wine-coloured and clear, and very sweet-tasted. Round the fountain is a grove of the Cretan Storax-trees,13 which the people of Haliartus point to as a proof of Rhadamanthus having lived there. They also show his tomb, which they call Alea. The sepulchre of Alkmena too is close by: for the story goes that she married Rhadamanthus here after the death of Amphitryon. Meanwhile the Thebans in the city, together with the citizens of Haliartus themselves, remained quiet until Lysander and the first ranks of the enemy came close to the walls, and then suddenly opening the gates they charged and slew him together with his soothsayer and some few more: for most of them fled quickly back to the main body. However as the Thebans did not desist but pressed on, the whole mass took to flight, and escaped to the neighbouring hills with a loss of about one thousand men. Three hundred of the Thebans also fell in an attack which they made on the enemy in rough and difficult ground. These men had been accused of favouring the Lacedæmonians, and it was to wipe out this unjust imputation before the eyes of their fellow citizens that they showed themselves so reckless of their lives.

XXIX

When Pausanias heard of this disaster, he was marching from Platæa towards Thespiæ. He at once put his troops in array and proceeded to Haliartus. Here likewise arrived Thrasybulus from Thebes, with an Athenian force. On his arrival, Pausanias proposed to apply for permission [Pg 314]to carry away the dead. This proposal greatly shocked the older Spartans, who could not refrain from going to the king and imploring him not to receive back Lysander’s corpse by a truce14 which was in itself a confession of defeat, but to let them fight for his body and either bury it as victors, or else to share their general’s fate as became them. However, in spite of these representations, Pausanias, perceiving that it would be no easy task to overcome the Thebans, flushed as they were with the victory of the day before, and that, as Lysander’s body lay close under the walls of the town, it would be almost impossible, even if they were victorious, to recover it otherwise than by treaty, sent a herald, obtained the necessary truce, and led away his forces. As soon as the Spartans crossed the Bœotian frontier they buried the body of Lysander in the territory of the friendly and allied city of Panope, in Phokis, where at the present day his monument stands by the side of the road from Chæronea to Delphi.15 It is said that while the army was encamped there one of the Phokians, while describing the battle to another who had not been present, said that the enemy fell upon them just after Lysander had crossed the Hoplites.16 A Spartan who was present was surprised at this word, and enquired of Lysander’s friend, what he meant by the Hoplites, for he did not understand it. “It was where,” answered he, “the enemy overthrew our front ranks; for they call the stream which runs past the city the Hoplites.” On hearing these words the Spartan burst into tears, and exclaimed, “How impossible is it for a man to escape his fate:”—for it seems Lysander had received an oracular warning in these words:

“I warn thee, shun Hoplites roaring track.

And th’ earth-born snake that stings behind thy back.”

[Pg 315]Some say that the Hoplites does not run by Haliartus, but that it is the name of a torrent which joins the river Philarus near Koronea, which used to be called the Hoplias, and is now called Isomantus. The man who killed Lysander was a citizen of Haliartus named Neochorus, who bore a snake as the device upon his shield, which it is supposed was alluded to by the oracle.

We are also told that during the Peloponnesian war the Thebans received an oracle from Apollo Ismenius, referring immediately to the battle of Delium, and also to this battle at Haliartus, which took place thirty years afterwards. It ran as follows:

“Beware the boundary, when you hunt

The wolf with spears;

And shun the Orchalian hill, the fox’s haunt,

For endless years.”

The boundary alludes to the country near Delium, which is on the borders of Attica and Bœotia, and the Orchalian hill, which is now called Fox-hill, lies in the territory of Haliartus, on the side nearest Mount Helikon.

XXX

The death of Lysander, as related above, grieved the Spartans so much that they impeached their king on a capital charge, and he, fearing the result of the trial, fled to Tegea, where he spent the remainder of his life in the sanctuary of Athena as a suppliant of the goddess. Moreover the poverty of Lysandor, which was discovered after his death, made his virtue more splendid, for although he had handled great sums of money, and possessed immense power; though his favour had been courted by wealthy cities, and even by the great king of Persia himself, yet Theopompus tells us that he did not in the least degree improve his family estate: an account which we may the more readily believe, as it is told us by a historian who is more prone to censure than to admiration. In later times we learn from the historian Ephorus that some dispute arose between the allied cities which rendered it necessary to examine Lysander’s papers, and that Agesilaus went to his house for this purpose. Here he found the scroll upon which was written the speech about altering the constitution; advising the Spartans to abolish [Pg 316]the hereditary right to the throne enjoyed by the old royal families of Eurypon and Agis, and to throw it open to the best of the citizens without restriction. Agesilaus was eager to publish this speech abroad, and show his fellow-countrymen what sort of a man Lysander had really been; but Lakratides, a wise man, who was at that time chief of the board of Ephors, restrained him, pointing out that it would be wrong to disturb Lysander in his grave, and that it would be better that so clever and insidious a composition should be buried with him. Among other honours which were paid to Lysander after death, the Spartans fined the suitors of his daughters, because when after his death his poverty was discovered, they refused to marry them, thus showing that they had paid their court to him when they believed him to be rich, and neglected him when his poverty proved him to have been just and honourable. It appears that in Sparta there were actions at law against men who did not marry, or who married too late in life or unbecomingly: under which last head came those who tried to marry into rich families, instead of marrying persons of good birth and their own friends. This is what we have found to tell about the life of Lysander.

LIFE OF
SULLA.

I

Lucius Cornelius Sulla,1 by birth, belonged to the Patricians, whom we may consider as corresponding to the Eupatridæ. Among his ancestors is enumerated Rufinus,2 [Pg 318]who became consul; but is less noted for attaining this honour than for the infamy which befell him. He was detected in possessing above ten pounds’ weight of silver plate, which amount the law did not permit, and he was ejected from the Senate. His immediate descendants continued in a mean condition, and Sulla himself was brought up with no great paternal property. When he was a young man he lived in lodgings, for which he paid some moderate sum, which he was afterwards reproached with, when he was prospering beyond his deserts, as some thought. It was after the Libyan expedition, when he was assuming airs of importance and a haughty tone, that a man of high rank and character said to him, How can you be an honest man who are now so rich, and yet your father left you nothing? For though the Romans no longer remained true to their former integrity and purity of morals, but had declined from the old standard, and let in luxury and expense among them, they still considered it equally a matter of reproach for a man to have wasted the property that he once had, and not to remain as poor as his ancestors. Subsequently when Sulla was in the possession of power and was putting many to death, a man of the class of Libertini, who was suspected of concealing a proscribed person, and for this offence was going to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, reproached Sulla with the fact that they had lived together for some time in one house; that he had paid two thousand sestertii for his lodgings, which were in the upper part of the house, and Sulla three thousand for the lower rooms; and, consequently, that between their fortunes there was only the difference of a thousand sestertii, which is equivalent to two hundred and fifty Attic drachmæ. This is what is recorded of Sulla’s early condition.

II

As for his person, we may judge of it by his statues, except his eyes and complexion. His eyes were an uncommonly pure and piercing blue, which the colour of [Pg 319]his face rendered still more terrific, being spotted with rough red blotches, interspersed with the white; from which circumstance, it is said, he got his name Sulla, which had reference to his complexion; and one of the Athenian satirists3 in derision made the following verse in allusion to it:

“Sulla is a mulberry besprinkled with meal.”

It is not out of place to avail ourselves of such traits of a man who is said to have had so strong a natural love of buffoonery, that when he was still young and of no repute, he spent his time and indulged himself among mimi4 and jesters; and when he was at the head of the state, he daily got together from the scena and the theatre the lewdest persons, with whom he would drink and enter into a contest of coarse witticisms, in which he had no regard to his age, and, besides degrading the dignity of his office, he neglected many matters that required attention. It was not Sulla’s habit when he was at table to trouble himself about anything serious, but though he was energetic and rather morose at other times, he underwent a complete change as soon as he went into company and was seated at an entertainment, for he was then exceedingly complaisant to singers of mimi and dancers, and easy of access and affable. This habit of relaxation seems to have produced in him the vice of being exceedingly addicted to women and that passion for enjoyment which stuck to him to his old age. In his youth he was for a [Pg 320]long time attached to one Metrobius,5 an actor. The following incident also happened to him:—He formed an attachment to a woman named Nicopolis, who was of mean condition, but rich, and from long familiarity and the favour which he found on account of his youth, he came to be considered as a lover, and when the woman died she left him her heir. He also succeeded to the inheritance of his step-mother, who loved him as her own son; and in this way he acquired a moderate fortune.

III

On being appointed Quæstor to Marius in his first consulship, he sailed with him to Libya, to prosecute the war against Jugurtha.6 In this campaign he showed himself a man of merit, and by availing himself of a favourable opportunity he made a friend of Bocchus, king of the Numidians. Some ambassadors of Bocchus who had escaped from Numidian robbers were hospitably received by Sulla, and sent back with presents and a safe conduct. Now Bocchus happened for some time to have disliked his son-in-law Jugurtha, whom he was also afraid of; and as Jugurtha had been defeated by the Romans and had fled to Bocchus, he formed a design to make him his prisoner and deliver him to his enemies; but as he wished Sulla to be the agent rather than himself, he invited Sulla to come and see him. Sulla communicated the message to Marius, and, taking a few soldiers with him, ventured on the hazardous enterprise of putting himself in the hands of a barbarian who never kept his faith even with his friends, and this for the purpose of having another man betrayed to him. Bocchus, having got both of them in his power, was under the necessity of being treacherous to one of them, and after great fluctuations in his resolution, he finally carried into effect his original perfidious design, and surrendered Jugurtha to Sulla. Marius enjoyed the triumph for the capture of Jugurtha, but the honour of the success was given to Sulla through dislike of Marius, which caused Marius some uneasiness; for Sulla was naturally of an arrogant disposition, and as this was the first occasion, on which [Pg 321]he had been raised from a mean condition and obscurity to be of some note among his fellow-citizens, and had tasted the sweets of distinction, he carried his pride so far as to have a seal-ring cut, on which the occurrence was represented, and he wore it constantly. The subject represented was Bocchus surrendering and Sulla receiving the surrender of Jugurtha.

IV

Though Marius was annoyed at this, yet as he still thought Sulla beneath his jealousy, he employed him in his campaigns—in his second consulship in the capacity of legate, and in his third consulship as tribune;7 and by his instrumentality Marius effected many important objects. In his capacity of legate Sulla took Copillius, king of the Tectosages;8 and when he was a tribune he persuaded the powerful and populous nation of the Marsi9 to become friends and allies to Rome. But now perceiving that Marius was jealous of him, and was no longer willing to give him the opportunity of distinguishing himself, but opposed his further rise, Sulla attached himself to Catulus, the colleague of Marius, who was an honest man, but inactive as a soldier. Sulla being entrusted by Catulus with all matters of the greatest moment, thus attained both influence and reputation. In his military operations he reduced a large part of the Alpine barbarians; and on one occasion, when there was a scarcity of provisions in the camp, he undertook to supply the want, which he did so effectually that the soldiers of Catulus had not only abundance for themselves, but were enabled to relieve the army of Marius. This, as Sulla himself says, greatly annoyed Marius. Now this enmity, so slight and childish in its foundation and [Pg 322]origin, was continued through civil war and the inveterate animosity of faction, till it resulted in the establishment of a tyranny and the complete overthrow of the constitution; which shows that Euripides10 was a wise man and well acquainted with the diseases incident to states, when he warned against ambition, as the most dangerous and the worst of dæmons to those who are governed by her.

V

Sulla now thought that his military reputation entitled him to aspire to a political career, and accordingly as soon as the campaign was ended he began to seek the favour of the people, and became a candidate for the prætorship; but he was disappointed in his expectations. He attributed his failure to the populace, for he says that they knew he was a friend of Bocchus, and if he filled the office of ædile before that of prætor, they expected to have brilliant hunting exhibitions and fights of Libyan11 wild beasts, and that therefore they elected others to the prætorship, with the view of forcing him to serve as ædile. But that Sulla does not state the real cause of his failure appears evident from what followed. In the next year he obtained the prætorship, having gained the votes of the people, partly by solicitation and partly by bribery. It was in allusion to this, and during his prætorship when he was [Pg 323]threatening Cæsar12 to use his own authority against him, that Cæsar replied with a laugh, You are right in considering your authority as your own, for you bought it. After the expiration of his prætorship he was sent to Cappadocia, for the purpose, as it was given out, of restoring Ariobarzanes13 to his power, but in reality to check Mithridates,14 who was very active and was acquiring new territory and dominion as extensive as what he already had. Sulla took with him no large force of his own, but meeting with zealous co-operation on the part of the allies, he slaughtered a great number of the Cappadocians, and on another occasion a still greater number of Armenians who had come to the relief of the Cappadocians, drove out Gordius, and declared Ariobarzanes king. While he was staying near the Euphrates, the Parthian general Orobazus, a commander of King Arsaces,15 had an inter[Pg 324]view with him, which was the first occasion on which the two nations met; and this also may be considered as one of the very fortunate events in Sulla’s successful career, that he was the first Roman to whom the Parthians addressed themselves in their request for an alliance and friendship with Rome. Sulla is said to have had three chairs placed, one for Ariobarzanes, another for Orobazus, and a third for himself, on which he took his seat between the two, while the business was transacted. The king of the Parthians is said to have put Orobazus to death for submitting to this indignity; as to Sulla, some commended him for his haughty treatment of the barbarians, while others blamed him for his arrogance and ill-timed pride. It is said there was a man among the attendants of Orobazus, a Chaldæan,16 who examined the countenance of Sulla and observed the movements of his mind and body, not as an idle spectator, but studying his character according to the principles of his art, and he declared that of necessity that man must become the first of men, and he wondered that he could endure not to be the first already. On his return to Rome Censorinus17 instituted proceedings against Sulla on the charge of having received large sums of money, contrary to express law, from a king who was a friend and ally of the Romans. Censorinus did not bring the matter to a trial, but gave up the prosecution.

VI

His quarrel with Marius was kindled anew by fresh matter supplied by the ostentation of King Bocchus, who, with the view of flattering the Roman people and pleasing Sulla, dedicated in the Capitol some figures bearing [Pg 325]trophies, and by the side of them placed a gilded figure of Jugurtha being surrendered by himself to Sulla. Marius was highly incensed and attempted to take the figures down, while others were ready to support Sulla, and the city was all but in a flame through the two factions, when the Social War which had long smouldered burst forth in a blaze upon Rome and stopped the civil discord. In this most serious war, which was attended with many variations of fortune, and brought on the Romans the greatest misery and the most formidable dangers, Marius by his inability to accomplish anything of importance showed that military excellence requires bodily vigour and strength: but Sulla by his great exploits obtained among his own citizens the reputation of a great commander, among his friends the reputation of the very greatest, and among his enemies too the reputation of the most fortunate of generals. Sulla did not behave like Timotheus18 the son of Konon, whose success was attributed by his enemies to fortune, and they had paintings made in which he was represented asleep while Fortune was throwing a net over the cities, all which he took in a very boorish way, and got into a passion with his enemies, as if they were thus attempting to deprive him of the honour due to his exploits; and on one occasion, returning from a successful expedition, he said to the people, “Well, Fortune has had no share in this campaign, at least, Athenians.” Now, as the story goes, Fortune19 showed her spite to Timotheus [Pg 326]in return for his arrogance, and he never did anything great afterwards, but failing in all his undertakings and becoming odious to the people, he was at last banished from the city. But Sulla by gladly accepting such felicitations on his prosperity and such admiration, and even contributing to strengthen these notions and to invest them with somewhat of a sacred character, made all his exploits depend on Fortune; whether it was that he did this for the sake of display, or because he really had such opinions of the deity. Indeed he has recorded in his memoirs, that the actions which he resolved upon without deliberation, and on the spur of the moment, turned out more successfully than those which appeared to have been best considered. And again, from the passage in which he says that he was made more for fortune than for war, he appears to attribute more to fortune than to his merit, and to consider himself completely as the creature of the dæmon;20 nay, he cites as a [Pg 327]proof of good fortune due to the favour of the gods his harmony with Metellus, a man of the same rank [Pg 328]with himself, and his father-in-law, for he expected that Metellus would cause him a good deal of trouble, whereas [Pg 329]he was a most accommodating colleague.21 Further, in his memoirs which he dedicated to Lucullus, he advises him to think nothing so safe as what the dæmon enjoins during the night. When he was leaving the city with his troops for the Social War, as he tells us in his memoirs, a great chasm opened in the earth near Laverna,22 from which a quantity of fire burst forth, and a bright flame rose like a column to the skies. The diviners said that a brave man, of an appearance different from and superior to ordinary men, would obtain the command and relieve the city from its present troubles, Sulla says this man [Pg 330]was himself, for the golden colour of his hair was a peculiarity in his personal appearance, and that he had no diffidence about bearing testimony to his own merits after so many illustrious exploits. So much as to his religious opinions. As to the other parts of his character, he was irregular and inconsistent: he would take away much, and give more; he would confer honours without any good reason, and do a grievous wrong with just as little reason; he courted those whose assistance he wanted, and behaved with arrogance to those who wanted his aid; so that one could not tell whether he had naturally more haughtiness or subserviency. For as to his inconsistency in punishing, sometimes inflicting death for the slightest matters, and at others quietly bearing the greatest wrongs, his ready reconciliations with his deadly enemies, and his prosecution of slight and trifling offences with death and confiscation of property—all this may be explained on the supposition that he was naturally of a violent and vindictive temper, but sometimes moderated his passion upon calculations of interest. During this Social War his soldiers killed with sticks and stones a man of Prætorian rank, who was his legatus, Albinus23 by name, an outrage which Sulla overlooked, and made no inquiry about: he went so far as to say, with apparent seriousness, that the soldiers would bestir themselves the more in the war and make amends for their fault by their courage. As to any blame that was imputed to him, he cared not for it; but having already formed the design of overthrowing the power of Marius and of getting himself appointed to the command against Mithridates, as the Social War was now considered at an end, he endeavoured to ingratiate himself with his army. On coming to Rome he was elected consul with Quintus Pompeius24 for his colleague, being now fifty years of age, and he formed a [Pg 331]distinguished matrimonial alliance with Cæcilia,25 the daughter of Metellus,26 the chief Pontifex. This gave occasion to the populace to assail him with satirical songs; and many of the highest class were displeased at the marriage, as if they did not think him worthy of such a wife, whom they had judged to be worthy of the consulship, as Titus Livius27 remarks. Cæcilia was not the only wife that Sulla had. When he was a very young man he married Ilia, who bore him a daughter; his second wife was Ælia; and his third wife was Clœlia, whom he divorced on the ground of barrenness, yet in a manner honourable to the lady, with an ample testimony to her virtues and with presents. But as he married Metella a few days after, it was believed that his alleged ground of divorce was merely a pretext. However, he always paid great respect to Metella, which induced the Romans, when they wished to recall from exile the partisans of Marius, and Sulla refused his assent, to apply to Metella to intercede for them. After the capture of Athens also, it was supposed that he treated the citizens with more severity, because they had cast aspersions upon Metella from their walls. But of this hereafter.

VII

Sulla looked on the consulship as only a small matter compared with what he expected to attain: the great object of his desires was the command in the war against Mithridates. But he had a rival in Marius, who was moved by an insane love of distinction and by ambition, passions which never grow old in a man, for though he was now unwieldy and had done no service in the late campaigns by reason of his age, he still longed for the [Pg 332]command in a distant war beyond the seas. While Sulla was with the army completing some matters that still remained to be finished, Marius kept at home and hatched that most pestilent faction which did more mischief to Rome than all her wars; and indeed the deity28 showed by signs what was coming. Fire spontaneously blazed from the wooden shafts which supported the military standards, and was quenched with difficulty; and three crows brought their young into the public road, and after devouring them, carried the fragments back to their nest. The mice in a temple gnawed the gold which was kept there, and the keeper of the temple caught one of the mice, a female, in a trap, which produced in the trap five young ones, and devoured three of them. But what was chief of all, from a cloudless and clear sky there came the sound of a trumpet, so shrill and mournful, that by reason of the greatness thereof men were beside themselves and crouched for fear. The Tuscan seers interpreted this to portend the commencement of a new period, and a general change. They say that there are in all eight periods, which differ in mode of life and habits altogether from one another, and to each period is assigned by the deity a certain number of years determined by the revolution of a great year. When a period is completed, the commencement of another is indicated by some wondrous sign on the earth or from the heavens, so as to make it immediately evident to those who attend to such matters and have studied them, that men are now adopting other habits and modes of life, and are less or more an object of care to the gods than the men of former periods. They say, in the change from one period to another there are great alterations, and that the art of the seer at one time is held in high repute, and is successful in its predictions, when the deity gives clear and manifest signs, but that in the course of another period the art falls into a low condition, being for the most part conjectural, and attempting to know the future by equivocal and misty signs. Now this is what the Tuscan wise men said, who are supposed to know more of such [Pg 333]things than anybody else. While the senate was communicating on these omens with the seers, in the temple of Bellona,29 a sparrow flew in before the whole body with a grasshopper in his mouth, part of which he dropped, and the rest he carried off with him out of the place. From this the interpreters of omens apprehended faction and divisions between the landholders on the one side and the city folk and the merchant class on the other, for the latter were loud and noisy like a grasshopper, but the owners of land kept quiet on their estates.

VIII

Now Marius contrived to gain over the tribune Sulpicius,30 a man without rival in any kind of villainy, and so one need not inquire whom he surpassed in wickedness, but only wherein he surpassed himself. For in him were combined cruelty, audacity, and rapaciousness, without any consideration of shame or of any crime, inasmuch as he sold the Roman citizenship to libertini31 and resident aliens, and publicly received the money at a table in the Forum. He maintained three thousand men armed with daggers, and also a number of young men of the equestrian class always about him, and ready for anything, whom he called the Opposition Senate. He caused a law to be passed that no Senator should contract debt32 to the amount of more than two thousand drachmæ, and yet at his death he left behind him a debt of three millions. This man being let loose upon the people by Marius, and putting everything into a state of confusion by violence and force of arms, framed various pernicious laws, and among them that which gave to Marius the command in the Mithridatic war. The consuls accordingly [Pg 334]declared a cessation33 of all public business; but while they were holding a meeting of the people near the temple of Castor and Pollux, Sulpicius with his rabble attacked them, and among many others massacred the youthful son of Pompeius in the Forum; Pompeius only escaped by hiding himself. Sulla was pursued into the house of Marius, from which he was compelled to come out and repeal the edict for the cessation of public business; and it was for this reason that Sulpicius, though he deprived Pompeius of his office, did not take the consulship from Sulla, but, merely transferred the command of the Mithridatic war to Marius, and sent some tribunes forthwith to Nola to take the army and lead it to Marius.

IX

But Sulla made his escape to the camp before the tribunes arrived, and the soldiers hearing of what had passed, stoned them to death; upon which the partisans of Marius murdered the friends of Sulla who were in the city, and seized their property. This caused many persons to betake themselves to flight, some going to the city from the camp, and others from the camp to the city. The Senate was not its own master, but was compelled to obey the orders of Marius and Sulpicius; and on hearing that Sulla was marching upon Rome, they sent to him two of the prætors, Brutus and Servilius, to forbid him to advance any further. The prætors, who assumed a bold tone before Sulla, narrowly escaped being murdered; as it was, the soldiers broke their fasces, stripped them of their senatorial dress, and sent them back with every insult. It caused dejection in the city to see the prætors return without their insignia of office, and to hear them report that the commotion could not be checked, and was past all remedy. Now the partisans of Marius were making their preparations, while Sulla with his colleague and six complete legions was moving from Nola; he saw that the army was ready to march right to the city, but he had some hesitation himself, and feared the risk.34 However upon [Pg 335]Sulla making a sacrifice, the seer Postumius, after inspecting the signs, stretched out his hands to Sulla and urged him to put him in chains and keep him a prisoner till the battle took place, declaring that if everything did not speedily turn out well, he was ready to be put to death. It is said also that Sulla in his sleep had a vision of the goddess, whose worship the Romans had learned from the Cappadocians, whatever her name may be, Selene,35 Athena, or Enyo. Sulla dreamed that the goddess stood by him and put a thunderbolt into his hand, and as she named each of his enemies bade him dart the bolt at them, which he did, and his enemies were struck to the ground and destroyed. Being encouraged by the dream, which he communicated to his colleague, at daybreak Sulla led his forces against Rome. When he was near Picinæ36 he was met by a deputation which entreated him not to march forthwith against the city, for all justice would be done pursuant to a resolution of the Senate. Sulla consented to encamp there, and ordered the officers to measure out the ground for the encampment, according to the usual practice, and the deputation went away trusting to his promise. But as soon as they were gone, Sulla sent Lucius Bacillus and Caius Mummius, who seized the gate and that part of the walls which surrounds the Esquiline hill, and Sulla set out to join them with all speed. Bacillus and his soldiers broke into the city and attempted to gain possession of it, but the people in large numbers, being unarmed, mounted the house-tops, and by pelting the soldiers with tiles and stones stopped their further progress, and drove them back to the wall. In the mean time Sulla had come up, and seeing how matters stood, he called out that the houses must be fired, and taking a flaming torch, he was the first to advance: he also ordered the bowmen to shoot firebrands, and to aim [Pg 336]at the roofs; in which he acted without any rational consideration, giving way to passion, and surrendering the direction of his enterprize to revenge, for he saw before him only his enemies, and without thought or pity for his friends and kinsmen, would force his way into Rome with the help of flames, which know no distinction between the guilty and the innocent. While this was going on, Marius, who had been driven as far as the temple of Earth,37 invited the slaves to join him by offering them their freedom, but being overpowered by his enemies who pressed on him, he left the city.

X

Sulla assembled the Senate, who condemned38 to death Marius and a few others, among whom was the tribune Sulpicius. Sulpicius was put to death, being betrayed by a slave, to whom Sulla gave his freedom, and then ordered him to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock: he set a price on the head of Marius, which was neither a generous nor a politic measure, as Marius had shortly before let Sulla off safe when Sulla put himself into his power by going to the house of Marius. Now if Marius had not let Sulla go, but had given him up to Sulpicius to be put to death, he might have secured the supreme power; but he spared Sulla; and yet a few days after, when Sulla had the same opportunity, Marius did not obtain from him a like return. The conduct of Sulla offended the Senate, though they durst not show it; but the dislike of the people and their dissatisfaction were made apparent to him by their acts. They contemptuously rejected Nonius, the son of Sulla’s sister, and Servius, who were candidates for offices, and elected those whose elevation they thought would be most disagreeable to Sulla. But Sulla pretended to be pleased at this, and to view it as a proof that the people, by doing what they liked, were really indebted to him for their liberty; and for the purpose of diminishing his general unpopularity [Pg 337]he managed the election of Lucius Cinna,39 who was of the opposite faction, to the consulship, having first bound him by solemn imprecations and oaths to favour his measures. Cinna ascended the Capitol with a stone in his hand and took the oath; then pronouncing an imprecation on himself, that, if he did not keep faithful to Sulla, he might be cast out of the city as the stone from his hand, he hurled it to the ground in the presence of a large number of persons. But as soon as Cinna had received the consulship, he attempted to disturb the present settlement of affairs, and prepared to institute a process against Sulla, and induced Virginius, one of the tribunes, to be the accuser; but Sulla,40 without caring for him or the court, set out with his army against Mithridates.

XI

It is said that about the time when Sulla was conducting his armament from Italy, many omens occurred to Mithridates, who was staying in Pergamum, and that a Victory, bearing a crown, which the people of Pergamum were letting down upon him by some machinery from above, was broken in pieces just as it was touching his head, and the crown falling upon the theatre, came to the ground and was destroyed, which made the spectators shudder and greatly dispirited Mithridates, though his affairs were then going on favourably beyond all expectation. For he had taken Asia41 from the Romans, and [Pg 338]Bithynia and Cappadocia from their kings, and had fixed himself at Pergamum, where he was distributing wealth and provinces and kingdoms among his friends; one of his sons also held without any opposition the ancient dominions in Pontus, and the Bosporus42 as far as the uninhabited regions beyond the Mæotis; Ariarathes43 occupied Thrace and Macedonia with a large army; and his generals with their forces were subduing other places. Archelaus,44 the greatest of his generals, was master of all the sea with his navy, and was subjugating the Cyclades45 and all the other islands east of Malea, and had already [Pg 339]taken Eubœa, while with his army, advancing from Athens as his starting-point, he was gaining over all the nations of Greece as far north as Thessaly, and had only sustained a slight check near Chæroneia. For there he was met by Bruttius Sura,46 a legatus of Sentius, prætor of Macedonia, and a man of signal courage and prudence. Archelaus was sweeping through Bœotia like a torrent, when he was vigorously opposed by Sura, who, after fighting three battles near Chæroneia, repulsed him and drove him back to the coast. On receiving orders from Lucius Lucullus47 to make room for Sulla, who was coming, and to allow him to carry on the war, for which he had received his commission, Sura immediately left Bœotia and went back to Sentius, though he had succeeded beyond his expectations, and Greece was well disposed to change sides on account of his great merit. However, these exploits of Bruttius were very brilliant.

XII

Now all the rest of the Grecian cities immediately sent deputations to Sulla and invited him to enter; but against Athens, which was compelled by the tyrant Aristion48 to be on the king’s side, he directed all his [Pg 340]energies; he also hemmed in and blockaded the Peiræus,49 employing every variety of engine and every mode of attack. If he had waited a short time, he might have taken the Upper City without danger, for through want of provisions it was reduced by famine to extreme necessity; but anxious to return to Rome, and fearing a new revolution there, at great risk fighting many battles and at great cost he urged on the war, wherein, besides the rest of the expenditure, the labour about the military engines required ten thousand pair of mules to be daily employed on this service. As wood began to fail, owing to many of the works being destroyed by their own weight, and burnt by the incessant fires thrown by the enemy, Sulla laid his hands on the several groves and levelled the trees in the Academia,50 which was the best wooded of the suburbs, and those in the Lycæum. And as he wanted money also for the war, he violated the sacred depositaries of Greece, sending for the finest and most costly of the offerings dedicated in Epidaurus51 and [Pg 341]Olympia. He wrote also to the Amphiktyons52 to Delphi, saying that it would be better for the treasures of the god to be brought to him, for he would either have them in safer keeping, or, if he used them, he would replace them; and he sent one of his friends, Kaphis, a Phokian, to receive all the things after they were first weighed. Kaphis went to Delphi, but he was afraid to touch the sacred things, and in the presence of the Amphiktyons he deeply lamented the task that was imposed on him. Upon some of them saying that they heard the lute in the shrine send forth a sound, Kaphis either believing what they said or wishing to inspire Sulla with some religious fear, sent him this information. But Sulla replied in a scoffing tone, he wondered Kaphis did not understand that such music was a sign of pleasure and not of anger, and [Pg 342]he bade him take courage and seize the property, as the deity was quite willing, and in fact offered it. Now all the things were secretly sent off unobserved by most of the Greeks; but the silver jar, one of the royal presents which still remained, could not be carried away by the beasts of burden owing to its weight and size, and the Amphiktyons were accordingly obliged to cut it in pieces; and this led them to reflect that Titus Flamininus,53 and Manius Acilius, and also Æmilius Paulus—Acilius, who drove Antiochus out of Greece; and the two others, who totally defeated the kings of Macedonia—not only refrained from touching the Greek temples, but even gave them presents and showed them great honour and respect. These generals, however, were legally appointed to command troops consisting of well-disciplined soldiers, who had been taught to obey their leaders without a murmur: and the commanders themselves were men of kingly souls, and moderate in their living and satisfied with a small fixed expenditure, and they thought it baser to attempt to win the soldiers’ favour than to fear their enemies. But the generals at this time, as they acquired their rank by violence and not by merit, and had more occasion to employ arms against one another than against the enemies of Rome, were compelled to act the demagogue while they were in command; and by purchasing the services of the soldiers by the money which they expended to gratify them, they made the Roman state a thing for bargain and sale, and themselves the slaves of the vilest wretches in order that they might domineer over honest men. This is what drove Marius into exile, and then brought him back to oppose Sulla; this made Cinna the murderer of Octavius,54 and Fimbria55 the murderer of [Pg 343]Flaccus. And Sulla mainly laid the foundation of all this by his profusion and expenditure upon his own soldiers, the object of which was to corrupt and gain over to his side the soldiers of other commanders; so that his attempts to seduce the troops of others and the extravagance by which his own soldiers were corrupted, made money always necessary to him; and most particularly during the siege of Athens.

XIII

Now Sulla was seized with a violent and irresistible desire to take Athens, whether it was that he was ambitious to contend against a city which retained only the shadow of its former glory, or that he was moved by passion to revenge the scoffs and jeers with which the tyrant Aristion irritated him and his wife Metella, by continually taunting them from the wall and insulting them. This Aristion was a compound of lewdness and cruelty, who combined in himself all the worst of the vices and passions of Mithridates, and now had brought as it were a mortal disease in its last extremities upon a city which had come safe out of so many wars and escaped from so many tyrannies and civil commotions. For now when a medimnus56 of wheat was selling for a thousand drachmæ in the Upper City, and men were obliged to eat the parthenium57 that grew about the Acropolis, and shoes and oil-flasks, he was drinking all day long and amusing himself with revels and pyrrhic dances, and making jokes at the enemy: he let the sacred light of the goddess go out for want of oil; when the hierophant sent to ask for the twelfth part of a medimnus of wheat, he sent her as much pepper; and when the members of the Senate and the priests entreated him to have pity on the city and [Pg 344]come to terms with Sulla, he dispersed them by ordering the archers to fire on them. At last being persuaded with great difficulty, he sent two or three of his boon companions to treat of peace; but instead of making any reasonable proposals, the men began to make a pompous harangue about Theseus and Eumolpus, and the Persian wars, on which Sulla said, “Be gone, my good fellows, with your fine talk. I was not sent to Athens by the Romans to learn a lesson, but to compel rebels to submit.”

XIV

In the mean time, as the story goes, some soldiers in the Keramicus58 overheard certain old men talking to one another, and abusing the tyrant for not guarding the approach to the wall about the Heptachalkum, which was the only part, they said, where it was practicable and easy for the enemy to get over; and the soldiers reported to Sulla what they heard. Sulla did not neglect the intelligence, but he went to the spot by night, and seeing that it was practicable, he set about the thing forthwith. He says in his Memoirs that the first man who mounted the wall was Marcus Teius,59 who, finding a soldier in his way, struck him a violent blow on the helmet, which broke his sword; still Marcus did not retreat, but kept his ground. The city then was taken from this quarter, as the old Athenians said it might be. Sulla having destroyed and levelled that part of the wall which lies between the Peiræic and the Sacred60 Gate, about midnight entered the city, striking terror with the sound of trumpets and horns, and the shouts and cries of the soldiers, who had his full licence to plunder and kill, and made their way through the streets with naked swords. The slain were not counted, but the number is even now measured by the [Pg 345]space over which the blood flowed. For besides those who were slaughtered in the other parts of the city, the blood of those who fell about the Agora61 covered all the Keramicus within Dipylum: many say that it even flowed through the gates and deluged the suburbs. But though the number of those who perished by the sword was so great, as many killed themselves for sorrow and regret at the overthrow of their native city. For all the most honest citizens were driven to despair, expecting in Sulla neither humanity nor moderation. But, however, when Meidias and Kalliphon, who were exiles, fell down at his knees with entreaties, and the Senators who were in his army urged him to save the city, being now sated with vengeance and passing some encomiums upon the ancient Athenians, he said he would pardon the many for the sake of the few, and the living for the sake of the dead. Sulla states in his Memoirs, that he took Athens on the Calends of March,62 which day nearly coincides with the new moon of Anthesterion, in which month it happens that the Athenians perform many ceremonies in commemoration of the great damage and loss occasioned by the heavy rain, for they suppose that the deluge happened pretty nearly about that time. When the city was taken the tyrant retreated to the Acropolis, where he was besieged by Curio, who was commissioned for this purpose: after he had held out for some time, Aristion was compelled to surrender for want of water; his surrender was immediately followed by a token from the deity, for on the very day and hour on which Curio took the tyrant from the Acropolis, the clouds gathered in the clear sky, and a violent shower descended which filled the Acropolis with water. Sulla soon took the Peiræus also, and burnt [Pg 346]the greater part of it, including the arsenal of Philo,63 which was a wonderful work.

XV

In the mean time Taxiles, the general of Mithridates, coming down from Thrace and Macedonia with one hundred thousand foot, ten thousand horse, and ninety scythe-bearing four-horse chariots, summoned Archelaus, who was still lying with his ships near Munychia,64 and was neither inclined to give up the sea nor ready to engage with the Romans: his plan was to protract the war and to cut off the supplies of the enemy. But Sulla was as quick as Archelaus, and moved into Bœotia from a niggardly region, which even in time of peace could not have maintained his troops. Most people thought that he had made a false calculation in leaving Attica, which is a rough country and ill adapted for the movements of cavalry, to throw himself into the champaign and open tracts of Bœotia, when he knew that the strength of the barbarians lay in their chariots and cavalry. But in his flight from famine and scarcity, as I have already observed, he was compelled to seek the hazard of a battle. Besides, he was alarmed for Hortensius,65 a skilful general and a man ambitious of distinction, who [Pg 347]was conducting a force from Thessaly to Sulla, and had to pass through the straits where the enemy was waiting for him. For all these reasons Sulla moved into Bœotia. But Kaphis, who was from my town, evading the barbarians by taking a different route from what they expected, led Hortensius over Parnassus, close by Tithora, which was not at that time so large a city as it is now, but only a fort on a steep rock scarped all round, to which place in time of old the Phokians who fled from Xerxes escaped with their property and were there in safety. Hortensius having encamped there during the day repelled the attacks of the enemy, and at night descending to Patronis, through a difficult path joined Sulla, who met him with his forces.

XVI

Having united their forces, Sulla and Hortensius occupied an elevation rising out of the midst of the plains of Elateia,66 which was fertile and extensive, and had water at its base: it is called Philobœotus, and its natural qualities and position are most highly commended by Sulla. When they were encamped, the weakness of the Roman force was apparent to the enemy; for the cavalry did not exceed fifteen hundred, and the infantry was below fifteen thousand. Accordingly the rest of the generals, against the wish of Archelaus, drew out their forces in order of battle, and filled the plain with horses, chariots, shields, and bucklers; and the heavens could not contain the shouts and cries of so many nations putting themselves in battle array. At the same time the pomp and costly splendour of the troops were not without effect nor their use in causing alarm; but the glittering of the arms, which were curiously ornamented with gold and silver, and the colour of the Median and Scythian dresses mingled with the brightness of the brass and steel, pro[Pg 348]duced a firelike and formidable appearance as the masses moved like waves and changed their places, so that the Romans hid themselves behind their ramparts, and Sulla, being unable by any words to remove their fear, and not choosing to urge men to a battle who were disposed to run away, kept quiet and had to endure the insulting boasts and ridicule of the barbarians. But this turned out most favourable to the Romans; for the enemy despising them, neglected to preserve discipline, and indeed, owing to the number of commanders, the army was not generally inclined to obey orders; a few kept to their post within their ramparts, but the greater part, tempted by the hope of booty and plunder, were dispersed many days’ journey from the camp. It is said that they destroyed the city of Panopeus, and plundered Lebadeia, and robbed the oracular shrine without any order from a general. Sulla, who could not endure to see the cities destroyed before his eyes and was greatly irritated, no longer allowed his soldiers to be inactive, but leading them to the Kephisus, he compelled them to divert the stream from its course and to dig ditches, allowing no man any cessation and punishing most severely all who gave in, his object being to tire his soldiers with labour and to induce them to seek danger as a release from it. And it happened as he wished. For on the third day of this labour, as Sulla was passing by, they entreated him with loud shouts to lead them against the enemy. He replied, that they said this not because they wished to fight, but because they disliked labour; but if they really were disposed to fight, he bade them move forthwith with their arms to yonder place, pointing out to them what was formerly the Acropolis of the Parapotamii,67 but the city was then destroyed and there remained only a rocky precipitous hill, separated from Mount Hedylium by the space occupied by the river Assus, which falling into the Kephisus at the base of the Hedylium and thus becoming [Pg 349]a more rapid stream, makes the Acropolis a safe place for encampment. Sulla also wished to seize the height, as he saw the Chalkaspides68 of the enemy pressing on towards it, and as his soldiers exerted themselves vigorously, he succeeded in occupying the place. Archelaus, being repelled from this point, advanced towards Chæroneia, upon which the men of Chæroneia who were in Sulla’s army entreating him not to let their city fall into the hands of the enemy, he sent Gabinius69 a tribune, with one legion, and permitted the men of Chæroneia to go also, who, though they had the best intention, could not reach the place before Gabinius: so brave a man he was, and more active in bringing aid than even those who prayed for it. Juba70 says it was not Gabinius who was sent, but Ericius. However this may be, our city71 had a narrow escape.

XVII

From Lebadeia72 and the oracle of Trophonius favourable omens and predictions of victory were sent to the Romans, about which the people of the country have a good deal to say. But Sulla, in the tenth book of his Memoirs, writes, that Quintus Titius, a man of some note among those who had mercantile affairs in Greece, came to him immediately after the victory in Chæroneia, to report that Trophonius foretold a second battle and victory there in a short time. After Titius, a soldier in his army, named Salvenius, brought an answer from the god, as to what would be the result of affairs in Italy. Both reported the same as to the vision73 of the god: they said, [Pg 350]that in beauty and stature he was like the Olympian Jupiter. After crossing the Assus and advancing to the foot of Hedylium, Sulla encamped near Archelaus, who had thrown up a strong intrenchment between Mounts Akontium and Hedylium, at a place called the Assia. The spot on which he encamped is called Archelaus from his name up to the present day. After the interval of one day Sulla left Murena74 with one legion and two cohorts, to annoy the enemy if he should attempt to form in order of battle; he himself sacrificed on the banks of the Kephisus, and the victims being favourable, he advanced towards Chæroneia with the object of again effecting a junction with the forces there, and examining the place called Thurium, which was occupied by the enemy. This is a rough summit and a conical-shaped hill, named Orthopagus; and under it is the stream of the Morius and a temple of the Thurian Apollo. The deity has this name from Thuro, the mother of Chæron, who is said to have been the founder of Chæroneia. Some say that the cow which was given by the Pythian Apollo as a guide to Kadmus75 appeared there, and that the place was so called from her; for the Phœnicians call the cow Thor. As Sulla was approaching Chæroneia, the tribune who was stationed in the city led out the soldiers under arms, and met him with a chaplet of bay. No sooner had Sulla received the chaplet, and after saluting the soldiers, encouraged them to the approaching battle, than two Chæroneians (Homoloichus and Anaxidamos) presented themselves to him and undertook to drive the enemy from Thurium if he would give them a few soldiers. They said there was a path unknown to the barbarians, leading from the place called Petrachus by the Museum76 to the highest point of Thurium, and that by taking this direction they could, without difficulty, fall on the enemy and either roll stones down upon them from above or drive them into the plain. As Gabinius bore testimony to the courage and fidelity of the men, Sulla bade them [Pg 351]make the attempt; and in the mean time he formed his line and distributed his cavalry on each flank, himself taking the right and giving Murena the command on the left. The legati Galba77 and Hortensius, with some reserved cohorts in the rear, occupied the neighbouring heights, to prevent the army from being attacked on the flank, for it was observed that the enemy were placing a strong body of cavalry and light infantry on their wings, with the view of adapting that part of their battle to ready and easy manœuvres, their design being to extend their line and to surround the Romans.

XVIII

In the mean time the Chæroneians, whom Sulla had placed under the command of Ericius, went round Thurium without being perceived, and all at once showed themselves to the enemy, who immediately falling into great confusion, took to flight and sustained considerable loss, but chiefly from themselves; for as they did not stand their ground, but ran down the hill, they got entangled among their own spears and shoved one another down the rocks, while the Chæroneians pressing upon them from above, wounded them in the parts which were unprotected; and there fell of the enemy to the number of three thousand. Part of those who got safe to the foot of the hill, being met by Murena, whose troops were already in order of battle, had their retreat cut off and were destroyed: the rest forced their way to the army of Archelaus, and, falling upon the line in disorder, caused a general alarm and confusion, and some loss of time to the generals; and this did them no small harm, for Sulla promptly led his forces against the enemy while they were still in disorder, and by quickly traversing the interval between the two lines, deprived the scythe-bearing chariots78 of all opportunity of being effective. [Pg 352]The efficacy of the chariots depends mainly on the space they traverse, by which they acquire velocity and momentum; but when the space is small their attack is ineffectual and feeble, just like missiles that have not been propelled with due force. Now this happened to the barbarians. The first chariots were driven on without any vigour, and came feebly against the ranks of the Romans, who easily pushed them aside, and, clapping their hands and laughing, called for more, as the people do in the horse-races of the Circus.79 Upon this the infantry joined battle; the barbarians pushed forward their long spears and endeavoured by locking their shields to maintain their ranks in line: the Romans hurled their javelins, and then drawing their swords, endeavoured to beat aside the spears, that they might forthwith close with the enemy; for they were irritated at seeing drawn up in front of the enemy fifteen thousand slaves, whom the king’s generals had invited from the cities by a proclamation of freedom, and enrolled among the hoplitæ.80 A Roman centurion is said to have remarked, that slaves had only freedom of speech at the Saturnalia,81 so far as he knew. Now, owing to the depth of the ranks of these slaves and their close order, it was some time before they could be made to give way before the heavy-armed Roman soldiers, and they also fought with more courage than one expects from a slave; but the missiles from the slings and the light javelins which were showered upon them unsparingly by the Romans in the rear, at last made them turn and put them into complete confusion.

XIX

While Archelaus was extending his right [Pg 353]wing, in order to surround the Romans, Hortensius made his cohorts advance at a run, with the intention of taking the enemy in the flank; but as Archelaus suddenly wheeled round with his two thousand horsemen, Hortensius was overpowered by numbers and retreated towards the mountain region, being gradually separated from the main body of the army and in danger of being completely hemmed in by the barbarians. Sulla, who was on the right wing, which was not yet engaged in the action, hearing of the danger of Hortensius, hastened to relieve him. Archelaus conjecturing from the dust raised by Sulla’s troops how the matter was, left Hortensius, and wheeling round moved towards the position which Sulla had quitted (the right), expecting to find the soldiers there without their general, and to defeat them. At the same time Taxiles led the Chalkaspides against Murena; and now the shouts being raised from both armies and re-echoed by the mountains, Sulla halted and hesitated to which quarter he should move. Having determined to maintain his own original position, he sent Hortensius with four cohorts to support Murena, and ordering the fifth to follow him, he hurried to the right wing, which unaided was bravely resisting Archelaus; but as soon as Sulla appeared, the Romans completely broke the line of Archelaus, and pursued the barbarians in disorderly flight to the river and Mount Akontium. However, Sulla did not leave Murena alone in his dangerous position, but hastened to help him. Seeing, however, that the Romans were victorious here also, he joined in the pursuit. Now many of the barbarians were cut down in the plain, but the greatest number were destroyed in the attempt to regain their entrenchments, and only ten thousand out of so large a host made their escape to Chalkis.82 Sulla says in his Memoirs, that he missed only fourteen of his own soldiers, and that ten of them showed themselves in the evening; in commemoration of which [Pg 354]he inscribed on the trophies, Mars and Victory, and Venus, to signify that he had gained the victory no less through good fortune than skill and courage. One of these trophies, which commemorates the victory in the plain, stands where the soldiers of Archelaus first gave ground in the flight to the Molus:83 the other is placed on the summit of Thurium, to commemorate the surprise of the barbarians, with a Greek inscription in honour of the courage of Homoloichus and Anaxidamus. Sulla celebrated the festival for the victory in Thebes at the fountain of Oedipus, where he erected a stage. The judges were Greeks invited from the other cities of Greece; for Sulla could not be reconciled to the Thebans; and he took from them half of their lands, which he dedicated to the Pythian Apollo and Olympian Jupiter; and from the revenue of these lands he ordered the sums of money which he had taken from them to be repaid to the deities.

XX

After the battle Sulla received intelligence that Flaccus,84 who belonged to the opposite faction, was chosen consul, and was crossing the Ionian85 sea with a force which was said to be designed against Mithridates, but was in fact directed against himself; and accordingly he advanced towards Thessalia to meet Flaccus. He had advanced to the neighbourhood of Meliteia,86 when reports from all sides reached him that the country in his rear was ravaged by another army of Mithridates as numerous as that which he had dispersed. Dorylaus had landed at Chalkis with a large navy, on board of which he brought [Pg 355]eighty thousand men of the best trained and disciplined troops of Mithridates, and he immediately advanced into Bœotia and occupied the country, being eager to draw Sulla to an engagement, and paying no regard to Archelaus, who dissuaded him from fighting: he even said publicly that so many thousands could never have been destroyed if there had not been treachery. However, Sulla, who quickly returned to Bœotia, showed Dorylaus that Archelaus was a prudent man and had formed a very just estimate of the courage of the Romans; for after a slight skirmish with Sulla near Tilphossium,87 Dorylaus was himself the first among those who were not for deciding the matter by a battle, but thought it best to prolong the war till the Romans should be exhausted by want of supplies. However, Archelaus was somewhat encouraged by the position of their encampment near Orchomenus, which was very favourable for battle to an army which had the superiority in cavalry; for of all the plains in Bœotia noted for their beauty and extent, this, which commences at the city of Orchomenus, is the only one which spreads without interruption and without any trees, and it reaches to the marshes in which the river Melas88 is lost. The Melas rises close to Orchomenus, and is the only river of Greece that is a copious and navigable stream at its source; it also increases like the Nile about the summer solstice, and the same plants grow on its banks; but they produce no fruit and do not attain any large size. Its course however is short, for the larger part of the water is soon lost in obscure marshes overgrown with shrubs: a small part joins the Kephisus somewhere about the point where the lake is said to produce the reed that is adapted for making musical pipes.

XXI

The two armies being encamped near one another, Archelaus kept quiet, but Sulla began to dig trenches on [Pg 356]both sides with the view, if possible, of cutting off the enemy from the hard ground and those parts which were favourable to cavalry and driving them into the marshes. However, the barbarians would not endure this, and as soon as their generals allowed them to attack the Romans, they rushed forward with so much vigour and force, that not only were the men dispersed who were working at the trenches, but the greater part of the Roman troops that were drawn up for their protection were involved in the fight. Upon this Sulla leapt down from his horse, and snatching up a standard, made his way through the fugitives towards the enemy, crying out, “For my part, Romans, it is fit I should die here; as for you, when you are asked where you deserted your Imperator, remember to say it was in Orchomenus.” These words made the soldiers rally, and two cohorts came to their support from the right wing, which Sulla led against the enemy and put them to flight. He then led his soldiers back a short distance, and after allowing them to take some food, he began again to work at the trenches which were designed to enclose the enemy’s camp. The barbarians made another attack in better order than before; in which Diogenes, the son of the wife of Archelaus, fell fighting bravely on the right wing; and the bowmen being hard pressed by the Romans and having no means of retreat, took their arrows altogether in their hands, and using them like swords, struck at the Romans, but, at last they were driven back to their camp, where they spent a wretched night owing to their wounds and great losses. As soon as day dawned Sulla again led his soldiers up to the enemy’s encampment and again commenced working at the ditches. The enemy came out in a great force, but Sulla put them to flight, and as no one stood his ground after they were thrown into disorder, Sulla stormed the camp. The swamps and the lake were filled with the blood and bodies of those who fell, and even to the present day many barbarian bows, helmets, and pieces of iron cuirasses and swords are found buried in the marshes, though it is near two hundred89 years since the battle. Such, according to the [Pg 357]historians, was the battle about Chæroneia and near Orchomenus.

XXII

Cinna and Carbo90 were now conducting themselves towards the chief men at Rome in an illegal and violent manner, and many flying from their tyranny resorted to the camp of Sulla as a harbour of refuge, so that in a short time a kind of Senate was formed about him. Metella also, who had with difficulty escaped with her children, came and reported that his house and farms were burnt by his enemies, and she entreated him to go to the assistance of his friends at Rome. Sulla was perplexed what to do: he could not endure the thoughts of neglecting his country in her present oppressed condition, nor did he see how he could leave so great an undertaking as the Mithridatic war imperfect. In the meantime there came to him a merchant of Delos,91 named Archelaus, who secretly brought from Archelaus, the king’s general, hopes of peace and certain proposals. Sulla was so well pleased that he was eager for an interview with Archelaus, and they met at Delium on the sea-coast, where the temple of Apollo is. Archelaus, who began the conference, urged Sulla to give up Asia and the Pontus, and to sail to Rome to prosecute the war against his enemies, and he offered him money, ships, and troops on behalf of the king. Sulla in reply advised Archelaus not to trouble himself any further about Mithridates, but to assume the kingly title himself and to become an ally of Rome, and to give up the ships of Mithridates. As Archelaus professed his detestation of such treachery, Sulla said, “You then, Archelaus, who are a Cappadocian, and the slave of a barbarian king, or, if you please, his friend—you refuse to do a base deed for so splendid a reward, and yet venture to talk about treachery to me who am a Roman general, and am Sulla, as if you were not that Archelaus who fled from Chæroneia with a few men out of your one [Pg 358]hundred and twenty thousand, and were hid for two days in the marshes92 of Orchomenus, and left Bœotia with all the roads made impassable by the heaps of dead?” Upon this Archelaus changed his tone, and humbling himself, entreated Sulla to give up the war and to come to terms with Mithridates. Sulla accepted the proposal, and peace was made on the following terms:—Mithridates was to give up Asia93 and Paphlagonia, and to surrender Bithynia to Nikomedes, and Cappadocia to Ariobarzanes, to pay down to the Romans two thousand talents, and to give them seventy ships fitted with brass and completely equipped; Sulla was to confirm Mithridates in the rest of his possessions and to recognise him as an ally of the Romans.

XXIII

These terms being settled, Sulla retraced his steps and marched through Thessaly and Macedonia to the Hellespont in company with Archelaus, whom he treated with great respect. Archelaus fell dangerously ill at Larissa, on which Sulla stopped his march and paid as much attention to him as if he had been one of his own officers and fellow-generals. This gave rise to some suspicion that the battle of Chæroneia was not fairly fought, which was strengthened by the fact that Sulla restored all the friends of Mithridates whom he had taken prisoners, except Aristion94 the tyrant, who was an enemy of Archelaus, and whom he caused to be poisoned: but the most convincing proof of all was Sulla’s giving the Cappadocian ten thousand plethra of land in Eubœa, and the title of friend and ally of the Romans. However, Sulla makes his apology about these matters in his Memoirs. Ambassadors from Mithridates now arrived, and were ready to accede to all the terms agreed on, except that the king would not consent to give up Paphlagonia, and as to [Pg 359]the ships he dissented altogether; on which Sulla in a passion exclaimed, “What say ye? Mithridates claims to keep Paphlagonia, and refuses to abide by the agreement about the ships; I thought he would have been thankful if I left him his right hand, which has destroyed so many Romans. However, he will soon speak another language when I have crossed over to Asia. At present let him stay in Pergamum and there direct the conduct of a campaign which he has not seen.” The ambassadors were so much alarmed that they said nothing, but Archelaus implored Sulla and tried to soften his anger, clinging to his hands with tears in his eyes. At last he prevailed on Sulla to let him go to Mithridates, and he promised to effect a peace on Sulla’s own terms, or to kill himself. Sulla accordingly sent Archelaus to Mithridates, and in the mean time he invaded Mædike,95 and having ravaged the greater part of it, returned to Macedonia and found Archelaus at Philippi,96 who reported that all was favourable, but that Mithridates much wished to have an interview with him. Mithridates was minly induced to this by the circumstance that Fimbria, after murdering the consul Flaccus, who belonged to the opposite faction, and defeating the generals of Mithridates, was advancing against the king himself. It was fear of Fimbria that made Mithridates more inclined to make a friend of Sulla.

XXIV

Accordingly they met at Dardanus97 in the [Pg 360]Troad: Mithridates had there two hundred rowing-ships, twenty thousand heavy-armed soldiers, six thousand horsemen, and many of his scythe-bearing chariots: Sulla had four cohorts and two hundred horsemen. Mithridates advanced to meet Sulla and held out his hand, on which Sulla asked him if he would put an end to the war on the terms agreed to by Archelaus. As the king made no reply, Sulla said, “Well, those who sue must speak first; conquerors may remain silent.” Mithridates began an apology, in which he partly imputed the origin of the war to the deities, and partly threw the blame on the Romans; but Sulla cut him short by saying, that he had long ago been told, and now he knew by his own experience, that Mithridates was a most skilful speaker, inasmuch as he had no difficulty in finding words to justify acts which were so base and so contrary to all right. Sulla went on to recapitulate all that Mithridates had done, reproaching him in bitter terms, and he then asked him again, if he would abide by the agreement of Archelaus. Mithridates said that he would; on which Sulla embraced him, threw his arms round him and kissed him; he then brought forward the kings Ariobarzanes and Nikomedes, and reconciled Mithridates to them. After surrendering to Sulla seventy ships and five hundred bowmen, Mithridates sailed off to the Pontus. Sulla perceived that his soldiers were dissatisfied at the settlement of the war: they thought it a shame that the greatest enemy of the Romans, who had contrived the massacre of one hundred and fifty thousand Romans in Asia in one day, should be seen sailing off with the wealth and the spoils of Asia, which he had been plundering and levying contributions on for four years; Sulla apologised to the soldiers by saying that he should not be able to oppose both Fimbria and Mithridates, if they were united against him.

XXV

From Dardanus Sulla marched against Fimbria, who was encamped near Thyateira,98 and halting there, [Pg 361]began to throw up his intrenchments. Fimbria’s men coming out of their camp in their jackets embraced the [Pg 362]soldiers of Sulla, and began to assist them zealously in their works. Fimbria seeing that his soldiers had deserted him, and fearing Sulla’s unforgiving temper, committed suicide in the camp. Sulla now levied a contribution on Asia to the amount of twenty thousand talents: and he reduced individuals to beggary by the violence and exactions which he permitted to the soldiers who were quartered in their houses. He issued an order that the master of a house should daily supply the soldier who was quartered on him with four tetradrachmæ, and with dinner for himself and as many of his friends as he chose to invite; a centurion was to receive fifty drachmæ daily, and to be supplied with two garments, one to wear in the house and the other when he went abroad.

XXVI

Sulla set sail from Ephesus with all his ships, and on the third day anchored in the Peiræus. After being initiated into the Eleusinian99 mysteries, he appropriated to himself the library of Apellikon100 of Teos, [Pg 363]which contained most of the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus. The works of these two philosophers were not then well known to people in general. It is said that when the library was brought to Rome, Tyrannio the grammarian arranged most of the books, and that Andronikus of Rhodes having procured copies from Tyrannio, published them, and made the tables which are now in use. It appears that the older Peripatetics were indeed well-instructed men, and devoted to letters, but they did not possess many of the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus, nor yet correct copies, owing to the circumstances that the books came into the hands of the heirs of Neleus of Skepsis, to whom Theophrastus bequeathed them, and that they were ignorant persons, who never troubled themselves about such matters. While Sulla was staying at Athens, he was seized with a numbness in his feet, accompanied with a feeling of heaviness, which Strabo101 calls “a stammering of gout.” Accordingly he crossed the sea to Ædepsus102; where he used the warm springs, at the same time indulging in relaxation [Pg 364]and spending all his time in the company of actors. As he was walking about on the seashore, some fishermen presented him with some very fine fish; Sulla was much pleased with the present, but on hearing that the men belonged to Halæae,103 he said, What, is there an Halæan still alive? For it happened, that while pursuing his enemies after the victory at Orchomenus, he destroyed at once three Bœotian cities, Anthedon, Larymna, and Halæae. The men were struck speechless with fear, but Sulla with a smile bade them go away in good heart, for the intercessors they had brought were no mean ones, and not to be despised. Upon this the Halæans say they took courage and again occupied their city.

XXVlI. Sulla went through Thessaly and Macedonia to the sea-coast, where he made preparations to cross from Dyrrachium104 to Brundisium with twelve hundred ships. Near to Dyrrachium is Apollonia, and near to Apollonia is the Nymphæum,105 a sacred spot, where perpetual streams of fire rise in various places out of a green grassy valley. It is said that a sleeping satyr was caught there, such a one as sculptors and painters represent, and was brought to Sulla and questioned by many interpreters as to who he was; but he spoke with difficulty, and what he did [Pg 365]utter was unintelligible, and something like a compound of the neighing of a horse and the bleating of a goat; upon which Sulla, who was startled at the monster, ordered him to be removed. Sulla was now about to take his soldiers over the sea, but he feared that when they landed in Italy they would disperse to their several cities; however, the soldiers voluntarily took an oath to abide by him, and not to do any damage in Italy from set design; seeing also that he required much money, they all contributed something from what they had, each according to his means. However, Sulla would not receive the contribution, but after commending their zeal and encouraging them he proceeded to cross the sea, as he expresses it in his Memoirs, to oppose fifteen hostile commanders at the head of four hundred and fifty cohorts.106 The deity gave him sure prognostics of success; for upon his sacrificing immediately on landing in Italy near Tarentum, the liver of the animal was found to have on it the figure of a crown107 of bay with two ribands attached to it. A short time also before he crossed the sea, two large he-goats were seen in Campania near Mount Hephæus, in the daytime, fighting, and in all respects acting like men engaged in a contest. But it was only a vision, and it gradually rose up from the ground and dispersed in the air in various directions like dark phantoms, and finally disappeared. No long time after, in this very spot, when the younger Marius and the consul Norbanus108 came upon him at the head of a large force, Sulla, without having time to form his battle or to dispose his companies, but merely availing himself of the spirit that animated all his men, and their impetuous courage, put to flight his [Pg 366]opponents, and shut Norbanus up in Capua with the loss of seven thousand of his soldiers. It was this success, as some say, which prevented his soldiers from dispersing to their several cities, and encouraged them to stay with Sulla and to despise their opponents, though many times more numerous than themselves. At Silvium,109 as Sulla says, a slave of one Pontius, moved by a divine impulse, met him and declared that he brought from Bellona assurance of superiority in war and victory, but that if he did not make haste the Capitol would be burnt; and this is said to have happened on the very day which the man foretold, being the day before the Nones of Quintilis, which we now call July. Further, Marcus Lucullus, one of Sulla’s commanders, was opposed at Fidentia110 with sixteen cohorts to fifty of the enemy, and though he had confidence in the spirit of his men, he was discouraged because a greater part of them were unarmed. While he was considering and hesitating what to do, a gentle breeze blowing from the adjoining plain, which was covered with grass, carried many of the flowers to the army of Lucullus, and spontaneously strewed them about, so that they rested and fell on the men’s shields and helmets, which seemed to their opponents to be crowned with chaplets. Thus encouraged, the soldiers of Lucullus engaged, and gained a victory, with the loss to the opposite party of eighteen thousand men and their camp. This Lucullus was the brother of the Lucullus who afterwards defeated Mithridates and Tigranes.

XXVIII

Sulla, perceiving that he was still surrounded by many hostile camps and large forces, treacherously invited Scipio111 one of the consuls, to come to terms. [Pg 367]Scipio accepted the proposal, which was followed by many meetings and conferences, but Sulla continually threw impediments and pretexts in the way of a final agreement, and in the mean time he corrupted Scipio’s soldiers by means of his own men, who were as practised in all kinds of deceit and fraud as their commander. Going within the intrenchments of Scipio and mingling with his soldiers, they gained over some by giving them, money, others by promises, and the rest by flattery and persuasion. At last Sulla with twenty cohorts approached the camp of Scipio, and his soldiers saluted those of Scipio, who returned the salute and came over to them. Scipio, thus deserted, was taken prisoner in his tent, but set at liberty; and Sulla with the twenty cohorts, like so many tame birds, having entrapped forty of the enemy, led them all back to his camp. On this occasion, it is said, Carbo observed that he had to contend in Sulla both with a lion and a fox, but the fox gave him most trouble. After this, in the neighbourhood of Signia,112 Marius at the head of eighty-four cohorts challenged Sulla to battle; and Sulla was very ready for the contest on that day, for he happened to have had a vision in his sleep of this sort:—He dreamed that the elder Marius, who had long been dead, was advising his son to beware of the following day, as it would bring him heavy misfortune. This was the reason that Sulla was eager to fight, and he sent for Dolabella,113 who was encamped at some distance. But as the enemy occupied the roads and cut off the communications, the soldiers of Sulla were wearied with fighting and working at the [Pg 368]roads at the same time; and it happened that much rain also fell, and added to the fatigue of their labour. Upon this, the centurions coming up to Sulla, begged him to defer the battle, and pointed out to him that the soldiers were exhausted by fatigue and were lying on the ground with their shields under them. Sulla consented unwillingly, and gave orders for the army to halt there; but while they were beginning to throw up their rampart and dig their trenches, Marius advanced against them confidently at the head of his troops, expecting to disperse them in their state of disorder and confusion. Now the dæmon made good the words that Sulla heard in his dream; for his soldiers, transported with indignation and stopping their work, fixed their spears in the ground close to the trenches, and drawing their swords with a loud shout, were forthwith at close quarters with the enemy. The soldiers of Marius did not stand their ground long, and there was a great slaughter of them in their flight. Marius, who fled to Præneste,114 found the gates closed, but a rope being let down from the walls, he fastened himself to it, and was drawn up into the city. Some historians say, and Fenestella115 among them, that Marius saw nothing of the battle, but that being exhausted by want of sleep and fatigue he lay down on the ground in the shade, and as soon as the signal was given for battle, fell asleep, and that he was roused with difficulty when the flight began. Sulla says that he lost only twenty-three men in this battle, and that he killed of the enemy twenty thousand, and took eight thousand alive. He was equally successful everywhere else through his generals Pompeius,116 Crassus, Metellus, Servilius; for without sustaining any [Pg 369]but the most trifling loss, they destroyed the great armies of their opponents, and at last Carbo,117 who was the main support of the opposite party, stole away from his troops by night and sailed to Libya.

XXIX

In the last struggle, however, like a fresh combatant attacking an exhausted athlete, Telesinus the Samnite was very near tripping up Sulla and laying him prostrate at the gates of Rome. Telesinus was hastening with Lamponius the Lucanian and a strong force to Præneste, in order to rescue Marius, who was besieged; but finding that Sulla in his front and Pompeius in his rear were coming against him, and that he could neither advance nor retreat, like a brave and experienced man he broke up his encampment by night and marched with all his force against Rome. And indeed he was very near surprising the city, which was unguarded; however, halting about ten stadia from the Colline gate, he passed the night there, full of confidence and elated with hope, as he had got the advantage over so many great generals. At daybreak the most distinguished young men came out on horseback to oppose him, but many of them fell, and among them Claudius Appius,118 a man of noble rank and good character. This naturally caused confusion in the city, and there were women shrieking and people hurrying in all directions, in expectation that the city was going to be stormed, when Balbus appeared first, coming at full [Pg 370]speed from Sulla with seven hundred horsemen. Balbus just halted long enough to allow his men to dry the sweat from their horses: then bridling them again, they advanced quickly and engaged with the enemy. In the mean time Sulla also appeared, and ordering the advanced ranks to take some refreshment, he began to put them in order of battle. Dolabella and Torquatus earnestly entreated him to pause, and not to put all to the hazard with his exhausted soldiers; they said, the contest was not with Carbo and Marius, but with Samnites and Lucanians, the most deadly and warlike enemies of Rome: but Sulla, without paying any regard to them, ordered the trumpets to sound the charge, though it was now about the tenth hour. The battle began, and was fiercer than any that was fought in this campaign. The right wing, where Crassus commanded, was completely successful; but the left was hard pressed, and in a dangerous plight, when Sulla came to its support mounted on a very spirited and fleet white horse, by which he was easily distinguished from the rest, and two of the enemy’s soldiers, fixing their javelins, prepared to aim at him, Sulla did not see them, but his groom whipped the horse, which just carried his rider so far out of the reach of the spears that they passed close to the horse’s tail, and stuck in the ground. It is said that Sulla always carried about with him in his bosom, in battle, a small golden figure of Apollo, which he got from Delphi, and that he then kissed it, and said, “O Pythian Apollo, after raising the fortunate Sulla Cornelius in so many contests to glory and renown, wilt thou throw him prostrate here, at the gates of his native city, and so bring him to perish most ignobly with his fellow-citizens?” After this address to the god it is said that Sulla entreated some, and threatened and laid hold of others; but at last, the left wing being completely broken, he was mingled with the fugitives and made his escape to the camp with the loss of many of his friends and men of note. Not a few of the citizens also, who had come to see the fight, were killed and trampled down, so that it was thought all was over with the city, and the blockade of Marius was all but raised, for many of the fugitives made their way to Præneste, and urged Ofella [Pg 371]Lucretius,119 who had been appointed to conduct the siege, to break up his quarters with speed, as Sulla was killed, and Rome in the possession of the enemy.

XXX

It was now far on in the night when men came to Sulla’s camp from Crassus to get something to eat for him and his soldiers, for after putting the enemy to flight they had pursued them to Antemnæ,120 and there encamped. Upon this intelligence, and that most of the enemy were killed, Sulla came to Antemnæ at daybreak. Here three thousand soldiers sent to him to propose to surrender, and Sulla promised them their lives if they would punish the rest of his enemies before they joined him. Trusting to his promise, these men attacked their comrades, and a great number on both sides were cut to pieces. However, Sulla got together the soldiers who had offered to surrender and those who had survived the massacre, to the number of six thousand, in the Circus,121 and at the same time he summoned the Senate to the temple of Bellona. As [Pg 372]soon as he began to speak, the men who were appointed to do the work began to cut down the six thousand men. A cry naturally arose from so many men being butchered in a narrow space, and the Senators were startled; but Sulla preserving the same unmoved expression of countenance, bade them attend to what he was saying, and not trouble themselves about what was going on outside; it was only some villains who were being punished by his orders. This made even the dullest Roman see that there was merely an exchange of tyrants, not a total change. Now Marius was always cruel, and he grew more so, and the possession of power did not change his disposition. But Sulla at first used his fortune with moderation and like a citizen of a free state, and he got the reputation of being a leader who, though attached to the aristocratical party, still regarded the interests of the people; besides this, he was from his youth fond of mirth, and so soft to pity as to be easily moved to tears. It was not without reason, then, that his subsequent conduct fixed on the possession of great power the imputation that it does not let men’s tempers abide by their original habits, but makes them violent, vain, and inhuman. Now whether [Pg 373]fortune really produces an alteration and change in a man’s natural disposition, or whether, when he gets to power, his bad qualities hitherto concealed are merely unveiled, is a matter that belongs to another subject than the present.

XXXI

Sulla now began to make blood flow, and he filled the city with deaths without number or limit; many persons were murdered on grounds of private enmity, who had never had anything to do with Sulla, but he consented to their death to please his adherents. At last a young man, Caius Metellus, had the boldness to ask Sulla in the Senate-house, when there would be an end to these miseries, and how far he would proceed before they could hope to see them stop. “We are not deprecating,” he said, “your vengeance against those whom you have determined to put out of the way, but we entreat you to relieve from uncertainty those whom you have determined to spare.” Sulla replied, that he had not yet determined whom he would spare. “Tell us then,” said Metellus, “whom you intend to punish.” Sulla said that he would. Some say that it was not Metellus, but Afidius,122 one of Sulla’s flatterers, who made use of the last expression. Sulla immediately proscribed eighty persons without communicating with any magistrate. As this caused a general murmur, he let one day pass, and then proscribed two hundred and twenty more, and again on the third day as many. In an harangue to the people, he said, with reference to these measures, that he had proscribed all he could think of, and as to those who now escaped his memory, he would proscribe them at some future time. It was part of the proscription123 [Pg 374]that every man who received and protected a proscribed person should be put to death for his humanity; and there was no exception for brothers, children, or parents. The reward for killing a proscribed person was two talents, whether it was a slave who killed his master or a son who killed his father. But what was considered most unjust of all, he affixed infamy on the sons and grandsons of the proscribed and confiscated their property. The proscriptions were not confined to Rome; they extended to every city of Italy: neither temple nor hospitable hearth nor father’s house was free from murder, but husbands were butchered in the arms of their wives, and children in the embrace of their mothers. The number of those who were massacred through revenge and hatred was nothing compared with those who were murdered for their property. It occurred even to the assassins to observe that the ruin of such a one was due to his large house, another man owed his death to his orchard, and another again to his warm baths. Quintus Aurelius, a [Pg 375]man who never meddled with public affairs, and though he was no further concerned about all these calamities except so far as he sympathised with the sufferings of others, happened to come to the Forum and there he read the names of the proscribed. Finding his own name among them, he exclaimed, Alas! wretch that I am; ’tis my farm at Alba that is my persecutor. He had not gone far before he was murdered by some one who was in search of him.

XXXII

In the mean time Marius killed himself to avoid being taken. Sulla now went to Præneste,124 and he began by examining the case of each individual before he punished him; but having no time for this inquiry, he had all the people brought to one spot, to the number of twelve thousand, and ordered them to be massacred, with the exception of one man, an old friend of his, whom he offered to pardon. But the man nobly declared he would never owe his safety to the destroyer of his country, and mingling with the rest of the citizens he was cut down together with them. The affair of Lucius Catilina125 was perhaps the most monstrous of all. Lucius had murdered his brother before the termination of the war, and he asked Sulla to proscribe him among the rest as if he were still alive; which was done. To show his gratitude, Catilina killed one Marcus Marius,126 who belonged to the opposite faction, and after bringing his head to Sulla, who was then sitting in the Forum, he went to the temple of Apollo, which was close by, and washed his hands in the sacred font.127

XXXIII

[Pg 376]Besides the massacres, there were other things to cause dissatisfaction. Sulla had himself proclaimed Dictator,128 and thus revived this office after an interval of one hundred and twenty years. An act of indemnity was also passed for all that he had done; for the future it was enacted that he should have power of life and death, and should confiscate property, distribute lands, found colonies, destroy them, take away kingdoms and give them to whom he pleased. The sales of confiscated property were conducted by him from his tribunal in such an arrogant and tyrannical manner, that his mode of dealing with the produce of the sales was more intolerable than the seizure of the property: he gave away to handsome women, players on the lyre, mimi and worthless libertini, the lands of whole nations and the revenues of cities; to some men he gave wives, who were compelled to marry against their will. Wishing to form an alliance with Pompeius Magnus, he made him put away his wife; and he took Æmilia, who was the daughter of Scaurus and of his own wife Metella, from her husband Manius Glabrio.129 though she was then with child, and married her to Pompeius. Æmilia died in the house of Pompeius in childbirth. Lucretius Ofella,130 who had taken Præneste, became a [Pg 377]candidate for the consulship, and canvassed for it. Sulla at first attempted to stop him; but on Lucretius entering the Forum supported by a large party, Sulla sent one of his centurions to kill Lucretius, himself the while sitting on his tribunal in the temple of Castor and Pollux, and looking down upon the murder. The bystanders seized the centurion and brought him before the tribunal; but Sulla bidding them stop their noise, declared that he had ordered the centurion to kill Lucretius, and they must let him go.

XXXIV

The triumph131 of Sulla was magnificent for the splendour and rarity of the regal spoils; but the exiles formed a greater ornament to it and a noble spectacle. The most illustrious and wealthy of the citizens followed in the procession with chaplets on their heads, calling Sulla their saviour and father, inasmuch as through him they were restored to their country, their children, and their wives. When the triumph was over, Sulla before the assembled people gave an account of all the events of his life, mentioning with equal particularity his good fortune and his great deeds, and in conclusion he bade them salute him by the name of Eutyches,132 for this is the nearest word to express the Latin Felix: and when he wrote to Greeks or had any business to transact with them, he called himself Epaphroditus. In our country also, on the trophies of Sulla, there is the inscription: Lucius Cornelius Sulla Epaphroditus. As Metella bore him twins, Sulla named [Pg 378]the male Faustus, and the female Fausta: for the Romans apply the name Faustus to what is fortunate and gladsome. Sulla indeed trusted so far to his good fortune rather than to his acts, that, though he had put many persons to death, and had made so many innovations and changes in the state, he laid down the dictatorship,133 and allowed the people to have the full control of the consular elections, without going near them, and all the while walking about in the Forum, and exposing himself to any one who might choose to call him to account, just like a private person. Contrary to Sulla’s wish, a bold man, and an enemy of his, was likely to be elected consul, Marcus [Pg 379]Lepidus,134 not for his own merits, but because the people wished to please Pompeius, who was earnest in his support and canvassed for him. Sulla seeing Pompeius going home well pleased with his victory, called him to him and said: “What a fine piece of policy is this of yours, young man, for Lepidus to be proclaimed consul before Catulus, the most violent in preference to the most honourable of men! It is, however, time for you not to be asleep, as you have strengthened your rival against yourself.” Sulla said this in a kind of prophetic tone, for Lepidus soon broke out in great excesses, and was at war with Pompeius.

XXXV

Sulla made an offering of the tenth part of his substance to Hercules, and feasted the people magnificently: so much greater indeed was the preparation than what was required, that a great quantity of provisions was daily thrown into the river, and wine was drunk forty years old, and even older. In the midst of the entertainment, which lasted several days, Metella died. As the priests would not allow Sulla to go to her, or his house to be polluted by a dead body, Sulla sent Metella a writing of divorce, and ordered her, while still alive, to be removed from his house to another. So far he observed the custom strictly through superstition; but the law which limited the cost of funerals, though he had proposed it himself, he violated by sparing no expense. He also violated his own laws for diminishing the cost of entertainments, endeavouring to forget his grief in extravagant drinking and [Pg 380]feasting, and in the company of buffoons. A few months after his wife’s death there was a show of gladiators. As there was yet no distinction of places,135 but men and women sat promiscuously in the theatre, it chanced that a woman seated herself near Sulla who was very handsome and of good family; she was a daughter of Messala, and sister of the orator Hortensius: her name was Valeria,136 and she had lately separated from her husband. This woman, going behind Sulla, placed her hand upon him, and pulling a thread out of his dress, returned to her place. As Sulla looked on her with some surprise, she said, No mischief, Imperator;137 I also wish to have a bit of your good fortune. Sulla was not displeased at her words, and it was soon plain that he had conceived a passion for the woman; for he privately sent to ask her name, and made himself acquainted with her family and her mode of life. After this there were interchanges of glances, and frequent side-looks, and giving and returning of smiles, and, finally, treaties and arrangements about marriage, all which on her part perhaps deserved no censure; but as to Sulla, however chaste and reputable the woman might be that he married, it was no reputable or decent matter that induced him to it, for he was caught like a young man by mere looks and wanton airs, the nature of which is to excite the most depraved and impure feelings.

XXXVI

Though Sulla married Valeria he still associated with actresses and female lute-players and dancers, [Pg 381]spending his time with them on beds, and drinking from an early hour of the day. These were the names of the persons who at this time enjoyed most of his favour:—Roscius138 the comedian, Sorix the chief mimus, and Metrobius who played women’s parts139 in men’s dress, and to whom, though Metrobius was now growing old, Sulla all along continued strongly attached, and never attempted to conceal it. By this mode of life he aggravated his disease, which was slight in its origin, and for some time he was not aware that all his viscera were full of diseased matter. The flesh, being corrupted by the disease, was changed into vermin,140 and though many persons were [Pg 382]engaged day and night in taking the vermin away, what was got rid of was nothing compared with what came, for all his clothes, and the bath and the water, and his food, were filled with the matter that flowed from him, and with the vermin; such was the violence of the disorder. Though he went into the water several times a day and drenched his body and cleansed it from filth, it was of no avail, for the disease went on too quickly, and the quantity of vermin defied all attempts to clear it away. Among those in very remote times who are said to have died of the lousy disease was Akastus the son of Pelias; and in more recent times, Alkman the lyric poet, Pherekydes the theologian, Kallisthenes of Olynthus, while he was in prison, and Mucius the lawyer. And if one may mention those who have got a name, not for any good that they did, but in other ways, Eunus the runaway slave, who began the Servile war in Sicily, is said to have died of this disease, after he was captured and carried to Rome.

XXXVII

Sulla foresaw his end, and even in a manner wrote about it, for he finished the twenty-second book of his Memoirs only two days before his death. He there says, that the Chaldæans foretold him that it was his fate to die, after a happy life, at the very height of his prosperity; he says also that his son, who had died a short time before Metella, appeared to him in a dream, in a mean dress, and standing by him, entreated his father to rest from his troubles and to go with him to join his mother Metella, and live with her in ease and quiet. Yet he did not give up attending to public matters. Ten days before his death he restored tranquillity among the people of Dicæarchia,141 who were in a state of civil commotion, and [Pg 383]he drew up for them a constitution; and only one day before his death, hearing that the chief magistrate Granius was a public defaulter and refused to pay the debt, waiting for Sulla’s death, Sulla sent for the man to his chamber, and surrounding him with his slaves ordered him to be strangled; but with his shouting and efforts he burst an imposthume and vomited a quantity of blood. Upon this his strength failed him and he got through the night with difficulty. He left two infant children by Metella; Valeria, after his death, brought forth a daughter, whom they called Postuma,142 for this is the name that the Romans give to children who are born after their father’s death.

XXXVIII

Now many flocked to Lepidus and combined with him to prevent the body of Sulla from receiving the [Pg 384]usual interment. But Pompeius, though he had ground of complaint against Sulla, for he was the only friend whom Sulla had passed over in his will,143 turning some from their purpose by his influence and entreaties, and others by threats, had the body conveyed to Rome, and secured it a safe and honourable interment. It is said that the women contributed so great a quantity of aromatics for Sulla’s funeral,144 that without including what was con[Pg 385]veyed in two hundred and ten litters, there was enough to make a large figure of Sulla, and also to make a lictor out of costly frankincense and cinnamon. The day was cloudy in the morning, and as rain was expected they did not bring the body out till the ninth hour. However, a strong wind came down on the funeral pile and raised a great flame, and they had just time to collect the ashes as the pile was sinking and the fire going out, when a heavy rain poured down and lasted till night; so Sulla’s good fortune seemed to follow him to his funeral, and to stay with him to the last. His monument is in the Campus Martius. The inscription, which they say he wrote and left behind him, says in substance, that none of his friends ever did him a kindness, and none of his enemies ever did him a wrong, without being fully repaid.

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 [Pg 387]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,”

[Pg 388]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 [Pg 389]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

[Pg 390]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.

[Pg 391]

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. [Pg 392]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 [Pg 393]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 [Pg 394]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,1 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 [Pg 395]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 [Pg 396]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 [Pg 397]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.2 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 [Pg 398]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 [Pg 399]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.

The original inhabitants were Dolopes,3 who were bad farmers, and lived chiefly by piracy. Emboldened by success they even began to plunder the strangers who came into their ports, and at last robbed and imprisoned some Thessalian merchants whose ships were anchored at Ktesium. The merchants escaped from prison, and laid a complaint against the people of Skyros before the Amphiktyonic council. The people refused to pay the fine imposed by the council, and said that it ought to be paid by those alone who had shared the plunder. These men, in terror for their ill-gotten gains, at once opened a correspondence with Kimon, and offered to betray the island into his hands if he would appear before it with an Athenian fleet. Thus Kimon was enabled to make himself master of Skyros, where he expelled the Dolopes and put an end to their piracies; after which, as he learned that in ancient times the hero Theseus, the son of Ægeus, after he had been driven out of Athens, took refuge at Skyros, and was murdered there by Lykomedes, who feared him, he endeavoured to discover where he was buried. Indeed there was an oracle which commanded the Athenians to bring back the bones of Theseus to their city and pay them fitting honours, but they knew not where they lay, as the people of Skyros did not admit that they possessed them, and refused to allow the Athenians to search for them. Great interest was now manifested in the search, and after his sepulchre4 had with great difficulty been discovered, Kimon placed the remains of the hero on board of his own ship and brought them back to Athens, from which they had been absent four hundred years. This act made him very popular with the people of Athens, one mark of which is to be found in his decision in the case of the rival tragic poets. When Sophokles produced his first play, being then very young, [Pg 400]Aphepsion,5 the archon, seeing that party feeling ran high among the spectators, would not cast lots to decide who were to be the judges, but when Kimon with the other nine generals, his colleagues, entered to make the usual libation to the god, he refused to allow them to depart, but put them on their oath, and forced them to sit as judges, they being ten in number, one from each of the ten tribes. The excitement of the contest was much increased by the high position of the judges. The prize was adjudged to Sophokles, and it is said that Æschylus was so grieved and enraged at his failure that he shortly afterwards left Athens and retired to Sicily, where he died, and was buried near the city of Gela.

IX

Ion tells us that when quite a boy he came from Chios to Athens, and met Kimon at supper in the house of Laomedon. After supper he was asked to sing, and he sang well. The guests all praised him, and said that he was a cleverer man than Themistokles; for Themistokles was wont to say that he did not know how to sing or to play the harp, but that he knew how to make a state rich and great. Afterwards the conversation turned upon Kimon’s exploits, and each mentioned what he thought the most important. Hereupon Kimon himself described what he considered to be the cleverest thing he had ever done. After the capture of Sestos and Byzantium by the Athenians and their allies, there were a great number of Persians taken prisoners, whom the allies desired Kimon to divide amongst them. He placed the prisoners on one side, and all their clothes and jewellery on the other, and offered the allies their choice between the two. They complained that he had made an unequal division, but he bade them take whichever they pleased, assuring them that the Athenians would willingly take whichever part they rejected. By the advice of Herophytus of Samos, who urged them to take the property of the Persians, rather than the Persians themselves, the allies took the clothes and jewels. At this Kimon was thought to have [Pg 401]made a most ridiculous division of the spoil, as the allies went swaggering about with gold bracelets, armlets, and necklaces, dressed in Median robes of rich purple, while the Athenians possessed only the naked bodies of men who were very unfit for labour. Shortly afterwards, however, the friends and relations of the captives came down to the Athenian camp from Phrygia and Lydia, and ransomed each of them for great sums of money, so that Kimon was able to give his fleet four months’ pay, and also to remit a large sum to Athens, out of the money paid for their ransom.

X

The money which Kimon had honourably gained in the war he spent yet more honourably upon his countrymen. He took down the fences round his fields, that both strangers and needy Athenians might help themselves to his crops and fruit. He provided daily a plain but plentiful table, at which any poor Athenian was welcome to dine, so that he might live at his ease, and be able to devote all his attention to public matters. Aristotle tells us that it was not for all the Athenians, but only for the Lakiadæ, or members of his own township, that he kept this public table. He used to be attended by young men dressed in rich cloaks, who, if he met any elderly citizen poorly clothed, would exchange cloaks with the old man; and this was thought to be a very noble act. The same young men carried pockets full of small change and would silently put money into the hands of the better class of poor in the market-place. All this is alluded to by Kratinus, the comic poet, in the following passage from his play of the Archilochi:

“I too, Metrobius, hoped to end

My days with him, my noblest friend,

Kimon, of all the Greeks the best,

And, richly feasting, sink to rest.

But now he’s gone, and I remain unblest.”

Moreover, Gorgias of Leontini says that Kimon acquired wealth in order to use it, and used it so as to gain honour: while Kritias, who was one of the Thirty, in his poems wishes to be

“Rich as the Skopads, and as Kimon great,

And like Agesilaus fortunate.”

[Pg 402]Indeed, Lichas the Spartan became renowned throughout Greece for nothing except having entertained all the strangers who were present at the festival of the Gymnopædia: while the profuse hospitality of Kimon, both to strangers and his own countrymen, far surpassed even the old Athenian traditions of the heroes of olden days; for though the city justly boasts that they taught the rest of the Greeks to sow corn, to discover springs of water, and to kindle fire, yet Kimon, by keeping open house for all his countrymen, and allowing them to share his crops in the country, and permitting his friends to partake of all the fruits of the earth with him in their season, seemed really to have brought back the golden age. If any scurrilous tongues hinted that it was merely to gain popularity and to curry favour with the people that he did these things, their slanders were silenced at once by Kimon’s personal tastes and habits, which were entirely aristocratic and Spartan. He joined Aristeides in opposing Themistokles when the latter courted the mob to an unseemly extent, opposed Ephialtes when, to please the populace, he dissolved the senate of the Areopagus, and, at a time when all other men except Aristeides and Ephialtes were gorged with the plunder of the public treasury, kept his own hands clean, and always maintained the reputation of an incorruptible and impartial statesman. It is related that one Rhœsakes, a Persian, who had revolted from the king, came to Athens with a large sum of money, and being much pestered by the mercenary politicians there, took refuge in the house of Kimon, where he placed two bowls beside the door-posts, one of which he filled with gold, and the other with silver darics.6 Kimon smiled at this, and inquired whether he wished him to be his friend, or his hired agent; and when the Persian answered that he wished him to be a friend, he said, “Then take this money away; for if I am your friend I shall be able to ask you for it when I want it.”

XI

When the allies of Athens, though they continued to pay their contribution towards the war against Persia, refused to furnish men and ships for it, and would not go on military expeditions any longer, because they were [Pg 403]tired of war and wished to cultivate their fields and live in peace, now that the Persians no longer threatened them, the other Athenian generals endeavoured to force them into performing their duties, and by taking legal proceedings against the defaulters and imposing fines upon them, made the Athenian empire very much disliked. Kimon, on the other hand, never forced any one to serve, but took an equivalent in money from those who were unwilling to serve in person, and took their ships without crews, permitting them to stay at home and enjoy repose, and by their luxury and folly convert themselves into farmers and merchants, losing all their ancient warlike spirit and skill, while by exercising many of the Athenians in turn in campaigns and military expeditions, he rendered them the masters of the allies by means of the very money which they themselves supplied. The allies very naturally began to fear and to look up to men who were always at sea, and accustomed to the use of arms, living as soldiers on the profits of their own unwarlike leisure, and thus by degrees, instead of independent allies, they sank into the position of tributaries and subjects.

XII

Moreover, no one contributed so powerfully as Kimon to the humbling of the king of Persia; for Kimon would not relax his pursuit of him when he retreated from Greece, but hung on the rear of the barbarian army and would not allow them any breathing-time for rallying their forces. He sacked several cities and laid waste their territory, and induced many others to join the Greeks, so that he drove the Persians entirely out of Asia Minor, from Ionia to Pamphylia. Learning that the Persian leaders with a large army and fleet were lying in wait for him in Pamphylia, and wishing to rid the seas of them as far as the Chelidoniæ, or Swallow Islands, he set sail from Knidus and the Triopian Cape with a fleet of two hundred triremes, whose crews had been excellently trained to speed and swiftness of manœuvring by Themistokles, while he had himself improved their build by giving them a greater width and extent of upper deck, so that they might afford standing-room for a greater number of fighting men. On reaching the city of Phaselis, as the inhabitants, although of Greek origin, refused him admittance, and preferred to [Pg 404]remain faithful to Persia, he ravaged their territory and assaulted the fortifications. However, the Chians who were serving in Kimon’s army, as their city had always been on friendly terms with the people of Phaselis, contrived to pacify his anger, and by shooting arrows into the town with letters wrapped round them, conveyed intelligence of this to the inhabitants. Finally, they agreed to pay the sum of ten talents, and to join the campaign against the Persians. We are told by the historian Ephorus that the Persian fleet was commanded by Tithraustes, and the land army by Pherendates. Kallisthenes, however, says that the supreme command was entrusted to Ariomandes, the son of Gobryas, who kept the fleet idle near the river Eurymedon, not wishing to risk an engagement with the Greeks, but waiting for the arrival of a reinforcement of eighty Phœnician ships from Cyprus. Kimon, wishing to anticipate this accession of strength, put to sea, determined to force the enemy to fight. The Persian fleet at first, to avoid an engagement, retired into the river Eurymedon, but as the Athenians advanced they came out again and ranged themselves in order of battle. Their fleet, according to the historian Phanodemus, consisted of six hundred ships, but, according to Ephorus, of three hundred and fifty. Yet this great armament offered no effective resistance, but turned and fled almost as soon as the Athenians attacked. Such as were able ran their ships ashore and took refuge with the land army, which was drawn up in battle array close by, while the rest were destroyed, crews and all, by the Athenians. The number of the Persian ships is proved to have been very great, by the fact that, although many escaped, and many were sunk, yet the Athenians captured two hundred prizes.

XIII

The land forces now moved down to the beach, and it appeared to Kimon that it would be a hazardous undertaking to effect a landing, and to lead his tired men to attack fresh troops, who also had an immense superiority over them in numbers. Yet as he saw that the Greeks were excited by their victory, and were eager to join battle with the Persian army, he disembarked his heavy-armed troops, who, warm as they were from the sea-fight, raised a loud shout, and charged the enemy at a run. The [Pg 405]Persian array met them front to front, and an obstinate battle took place, in which many distinguished Athenians fell. At length the Persians were defeated with great slaughter, and the Athenians gained an immense booty from the plunder of the tents and the bodies of the slain.

Kimon, having thus, like a well-trained athlete at the games, carried off two victories in one day, surpassing that of Salamis by sea, and that of Platæa by land, proceeded to improve his success by attacking the Phœnician ships also. Hearing that they were at Hydrum, he sailed thither in haste, before any news had reached the Phœnicians about the defeat of their main body, so that they were in anxious suspense, and on the approach of the Athenians were seized with a sudden panic. All their ships were destroyed, and nearly all their crews perished with them. This blow so humbled the pride of the king of Persia, that he afterwards signed that famous treaty in which he engaged not to approach nearer to the Greek seas than a horseman could ride in one day, and not to allow a single one of his ships of war to appear between the Kyanean7 and Chelidonian Islands. Yet the historian Kallisthenes tells us that the Persians never made a treaty to this effect, but that they acted thus in consequence of the terror which Kimon had inspired by his victory; and that they removed so far from Greece, that Perikles with fifty ships, and Ephialtes with only thirty, sailed far beyond the Chelidonian Islands and never met with any Persian vessels. However, in the collection of Athenian decrees made by Kraterus, there is a copy of the articles of this treaty, which he mentions as though it really existed. It is said that on this occasion the Athenians erected an altar to Peace, and paid great honours to Kallias, who negotiated the treaty. So much money was raised by the sale of the captives and spoils taken in the war, that besides what was reserved for other occasions, the Athenians were able to build the wall on the south side of the Acropolis from the treasure gained in this campaign. We are also told that at this time the founda[Pg 406]tions of the Long Walls were laid. These walls, which were also called the Legs, were finished afterwards, but the foundations, which had to be carried over marshy places, were securely laid, the marsh being filled up with chalk and large stones, entirely at Kimon’s expense. He also was the first to adorn the city with those shady public walks which shortly afterwards became so popular with the Athenians, for he planted rows of plane-trees in the market-place, and transformed the Academy from a dry and barren wilderness into a well-watered grove, full of tastefully-kept paths and pleasant walks under the shade of fine trees.

XIV

As some of the Persians, despising Kimon, who had set out from Athens with a very small fleet, refused to leave the Chersonese, and invited the Thracian tribes of the interior to assist them in maintaining their position, he attacked them with four ships only, took thirteen of the enemy’s, drove out the Persians, defeated the Thracians, and reconquered the Chersonese for Athens. After this he defeated in a sea-fight the people of Thasos, who had revolted from Athens, captured thirty-three of their ships, took their city by storm, and annexed to Athens the district of the mainland containing the gold mines, which had belonged to the Thasians. From Thasos he might easily have invaded Macedonia and inflicted great damage upon that country, but he refrained from doing so. In consequence of this he was accused of having been bribed by Alexander, the king of Macedonia, and his enemies at home impeached him on that charge. In his speech in his own defence he reminded the court that he was the proxenus,8 or resident agent at Athens, not of the rich Ionians or Thessalians, as some other Athenians were, with a view to their own profit and influence, but of the Lacedæmonians, a people whoso frugal habits he had always been eager and proud to imitate; so that he himself cared nothing for wealth, but loved to enrich the state with money taken from its enemies. During this trial, [Pg 407]Stesimbrotus informs us that Elpinike, Kimon’s sister, came to plead her brother’s cause with Perikles, the bitterest of his opponents, and that Perikles answered with a smile, “Elpinike, you are too old to meddle in affairs of this sort.” But for all that, in the trial he treated Kimon far more gently than any of his other accusers, and spoke only once, for form’s sake.

XV

Thus was Kimon acquitted; and during the remainder of his stay in Athens he continued to oppose the encroachments of the people, who were endeavouring to make themselves the source of all political power. When, however, he started again on foreign service, the populace finally succeeded in overthrowing the old Athenian constitution, and under the guidance of Ephialtes greatly curtailed the jurisdiction of the Senate of the Areopagus, and turned Athens into a pure democracy. At this time also Perikles was rising to power as a liberal politician. Kimon, on his return, was disgusted at the degradation of the ancient Senate of the Areopagus, and began to intrigue with a view of restoring the aristocratic constitution of Kleisthenes. This called down upon him a storm of abuse from the popular party, who brought up again the old scandals about his sister, and charged him with partiality for the Lacedæmonians. These imputations are alluded to in the hackneyed lines of Eupolis:

“Not a villain beyond measure,

Only fond of drink and pleasure;

Oft he slept in Sparta’s town,

And left his sister here alone.”

If, however, he really was a careless drunkard, and yet took so many cities and won so many battles, it is clear that if he had been sober and diligent he would have surpassed the most glorious achievements of any Greek, either before or since.

XVI

He was always fond of the Lacedæmonians, and named one of his twin sons Lacedæmonius, and the other Eleius. These children were borne to him by his wife Kleitoria, according to the historian Stesimbrotus; and consequently Perikles frequently reproached them with [Pg 408]the low birth of their mother. But Diodorus the geographer says that these two and the third, Thessalus, were all the children of Kimon by Isodike, the daughter of Euryptolemus the son of Megakles. Much of Kimon’s political influence was due to the fact that the Lacedæmonians were bitterly hostile to Themistokles, and wished to make him, young as he was, into a powerful leader of the opposite party at Athens. The Athenians at first viewed his Spartan partialities without dissatisfaction, especially as they gained considerable advantages by them; for during the early days of their empire when they first began to extend and consolidate their power, they were enabled to do so without rousing the jealousy of Sparta, in consequence of the popularity of Kimon with the Lacedæmonians. Most international questions were settled by his means, as he dealt generously with the subject states, and was viewed with especial favour by the Lacedæmonians.

Afterwards, when the Athenians became more powerful, they viewed with dislike Kimon’s excessive love for Sparta. He was never weary of singing the praises of Lacedæmon to the Athenians, and especially, we are told by Stesimbrotus, when he wished to reproach them, or to encourage them to do bettor, he used to say, “That is not how the Lacedæmonians do it.” This habit caused many Athenians to regard him with jealousy and dislike: but the most important ground of accusation against him was the following. In the fourth year of the reign of king Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, at Sparta, the Lacedæmonian territory was visited by the greatest earthquake ever known there. The earth opened in many places, some of the crags of Taygetus fell down, and the whole city was destroyed, with the exception of five houses. It is related that while the boys and young men were practising gymnastics in the palæstra, a hare ran into the building, and that the boys, naked and anointed as they were, immediately ran out in pursuit of it, while the gymnasium shortly afterwards fell upon the young men who remained and killed them all. Their tomb is at this day called Seismatia, that is, the tomb of those who perished in the earthquake.

[Pg 409]Archidamus, perceiving the great dangers with which this disaster menaced the state, and observing that the citizens thought of nothing but saving their most valuable property from the wreck, ordered the trumpet to sound, as though the enemy were about to attack, and made every Spartan get under arms and rally round him as quickly as possible. This measure saved Sparta; for the helots had gathered together from the country round about, and were upon the point of falling upon the survivors. Finding them armed and drawn up in order, they retreated to the neighbouring cities, and openly made war against the Spartans, having won over no small number of the Periœki to their side, while the Messenians also joined them in attacking their own old enemies. At this crisis the Spartans sent Perikleides as an ambassador to Athens to demand assistance. This is the man whom Aristophanes ridiculed in his play as sitting by the altars as a suppliant, with a pale face and a scarlet cloak, begging for an army.

We are told by Kritias that Ephialtes vigorously opposed his mission, and besought the Athenians not to assist in restoring a state which was the rival of Athens, but to let the pride of Sparta be crushed and trampled in the dust. Kimon, on the other hand, postponing the interests of his own country to those of the Lacedæmonians, persuaded the people of Athens to march a numerous body of men to assist them. The historian Ion has preserved the argument which had most effect upon the Athenians, and says that Kimon besought them not to endure to see Greece lame of one foot and Athens pulling without her yoke-fellow.

XVII

When Kimon with his relieving force marched to help the Lacedæmonians, he passed through the territory of Corinth. Lachartus objected to this, saying that he had marched in before he had asked leave of the Corinthians, and reminded him that when men knock at a door, they do not enter before the master of the house invites them to come in. Kimon answered, “Lachartus, you Corinthians do not knock at the doors of the cities of Megara or of Kleonæ, but break down the door and force your way in by the right of the stronger, just as we are doing now.” By this timely show of spirit he silenced [Pg 410]the Corinthians, and passed through the territory of Corinth with his army.

The Lacedæmonians invited the aid of the Athenians a second time, to assist in the reduction of the fortress of Ithomé, which was held by the Messenians and revolted helots; but when they arrived the Lacedæmonians feared so brilliant and courageous a force, and sent them back, accusing them of revolutionary ideas, although they did not treat any other of their allies in this manner. The Athenians retired, in great anger at the treatment they had received, and no longer restrained their hatred of all who favoured the Lacedæmonians. On some trifling pretext they ostracised Kimon, condemning him to exile for ten years, which is the appointed time for those suffering from ostracism. During this time the Lacedæmonians, after setting Delphi free from the Phokians, encamped at Tanagra, and fought a battle there with the Athenians, who came out to meet them. On this occasion Kimon appeared, fully armed, and took his place in the ranks among his fellow-tribesmen. However, the senate of the five hundred hearing of this, became alarmed, and, as his enemies declared that his only object was to create confusion during the battle and so to betray his countrymen to the Lacedæmonians, they sent orders to the generals, forbidding them to receive him. Upon this he went away, after having begged Euthippus the Anaphlystian and those of his friends who were especially suspected of Laconian leanings, to fight bravely, and by their deeds to efface this suspicion from the minds of their fellow-citizens. They took Kimon’s armour, and set it up in their ranks; and then, fighting in one body round it with desperate courage, they all fell, one hundred in number, causing great grief to the Athenians for their loss, and for the unmerited accusation which had been brought against them. This event caused a revulsion of popular feeling in favour of Kimon, when the Athenians remembered how much they owed him, and reflected upon the straits to which they were now reduced, as they had been defeated in a great battle at Tanagra, and expected that during the summer Attica would be invaded by the Lacedæmonians. They now recalled Kimon from exile; and Perikles himself [Pg 411]brought forward the decree for his restoration. So moderate were the party-leaders of that time, and willing to subordinate their own differences to the common welfare of their country.

XVIII

On his return Kimon at once put an end to the war, and reconciled the two states. After the peace had been concluded, however, he saw that the Athenians were unable to remain quiet, but were eager to increase their empire by foreign conquest. In order, therefore, to prevent their quarrelling with any other Greek state, or cruising with a large fleet among the islands and the Peloponnesian coast, and so becoming entangled in some petty war, he manned a fleet of two hundred triremes with the intention of sailing a second time to Cyprus and Egypt, wishing both to train the Athenians to fight against barbarians, and also to gain legitimate advantages for Athens by the plunder of her natural enemies. When all was ready, and the men were about to embark, Kimon dreamed that he saw an angry dog barking at him, and that in the midst of its barking it spoke with a human voice, saying,

“Go, for thou shalt ever be

Loved both by my whelps and me.”

This vision was very hard to interpret. Astyphilus of Poseidonia, a soothsayer and an intimate friend of Kimon’s, told him that it portended his death, on the following grounds. The dog is the enemy of the man at whom he barks: now a man is never so much loved by his enemies as when he is dead; and the mixture of the voice, being partly that of a dog and partly that of a man, signifies the Persians, as their army was composed partly of Greeks and partly of barbarians. After this dream Kimon sacrificed to Dionysus. The prophet cut up the victim, and the blood as it congealed was carried by numbers of ants towards Kimon, so that his great toe was covered with it before he noticed them. At the moment when Kimon observed this, the priest came up to him to tell him that the liver of the victim was defective. However, he could not avoid going on the expedition, and sailed forthwith. He despatched sixty of his ships to Egypt, but kept the rest with him. He conquered the Phœnician fleet in a sea-fight, recovered [Pg 412]the cities of Cilicia, and began to meditate an attack upon those of Egypt, as his object was nothing less than the utter destruction of the Persian empire, especially when he learned that Themistokles had risen to great eminence among the Persians, and had undertaken to command their army in a campaign against Greece. It is said that one of the chief reasons which caused Themistokles to despair of success was his conviction that he could not surpass the courage and good fortune of Kimon. He therefore committed suicide, while Kimon, who was now revolving immense schemes of conquest as he lay at Cyprus with his fleet, sent an embassy to the shrine of Ammon to ask something secret. What it was no one ever knew, for the god made no response, but as soon as the messengers arrived bade them return, as Kimon was already with him. On hearing this, they retraced their steps to the sea, and when they reached the headquarters of the Greek force, which was then in Egypt, they heard that Kimon was dead. On counting back the days to that on which they received the response, they perceived that the god had alluded to Kimon’s death when he said that he was with him, meaning that he was among the gods.

XIX

According to most authorities Kimon died of sickness during a siege; but some writers say that he died of a wound which he received in a battle with the Persians. When dying he ordered his friends to conceal his death, but at once to embark the army and sail home. This was effected, and we are told by Phanodemus that no one, either of the enemy or of the Athenian allies conceived any suspicion that Kimon had ceased to command the forces until after he had been dead for thirty days. After his death no great success was won by any Greek general over the Persians, but they were all incited by their popular orators and the war-party to fight with one another, which led to the great Peloponnesian war. This afforded a long breathing-time to the Persians, and wrought terrible havoc with the resources of Greece. Many years afterwards Agesilaus invaded Asia, and carried on war for a short time against the Persian commanders who were nearest the coast. Yet he also effected nothing of any importance, and being recalled to Greece by the internal troubles of [Pg 413]that country, left Persia drawing tribute from all the Greek cities and friendly districts of the sea-coast, although in the time of Kimon no Persian tax-gatherer or Persian horseman was ever seen within a distance of four hundred stades (fifty miles) from the sea.

His remains were brought back to Attica, as is proved by the monument which to this day is known as the “Tomb of Kimon.” The people of Kitium,9 also, however, pay respect to a tomb, said to be that of Kimon, according to the tale of the orator Nausikrates, who informs us that once during a season of pestilence and scarcity the people of Kitium were ordered by an oracle not to neglect Kimon, but to pay him honour and respect him as a superior being. Such a man as this was the Greek general.

LIFE OF
LUCULLUS.

I

The grandfather of Lucullus1 was a man of consular rank, and his uncle on the mother’s side was Metellus,2 surnamed Numidicus. His father was convicted of peculation, and his mother, Cæcilia, had a bad name as a woman of loose habits. Lucullus, while he was still a youth, before he was a candidate for a magistracy and engaged in public life, made it his first business to bring to trial his father’s accuser, Servilius the augur, as a public offender; and the matter appeared to the Romans to be creditable to Lucullus, and they used to speak of that trial as a memorable thing. It was, indeed, the popular notion, that to prefer an accusation was a reputable measure, even when there was no foundation for it, and they were glad to see the young men fastening on offenders, like well-bred whelps laying hold of wild beasts. However, there was much party spirit about that trial, [Pg 415]and some persons were even wounded and killed; but Servilius was acquitted. Lucullus had been trained to speak both Latin and Greek competently, so that Sulla, when he was writing his memoirs,3 dedicated them to Lucullus as a person who would put them together and arrange his history better than himself; for the style of the oratory of Lucullus was not merely suited to business and prompt, like that of the other orators which disturbed the Forum—

“As a struck tunny throws about the sea,”4

but when it is out of the Forum is

“Dry, and for want of true discipline half dead”—

but he cultivated the appropriate and so-called liberal sciences, with a view to self-improvement, from his early youth. When he was more advanced in years he let his mind, as it were, after so many troubles, find tranquillity and repose in philosophy, rousing to activity the contemplative portion of his nature, and seasonably terminating and cutting short his ambitious aspirations after his difference with Pompeius. Now, as to his love of learning, this also is reported, in addition to what has been mentioned: when he was a young man, in a conversation with Hortensius,5 the orator, and Sisenna,6 the historian, which [Pg 416]began in jest, but ended in a serious proposition, he agreed that if they would propose a poem and a history, Greek and Roman, he would treat the subject of the Marsic war in whichsoever of these two languages the lot should decide; and it seems that the lot resulted in a Greek history, for there is still extant a Greek history of the Marsic war by Lucullus.7 Of his affection to his brother Marcus8 there were many proofs, but the Romans speak most of the first; being older than his brother, he did not choose to hold a magistracy by himself, but he waited till his brother was of the proper age, and so far gained the public favour that his brother in his absence was elected ædile jointly with him.

II

Though he was a young man during the Marsic war, he gave many proofs of courage and prudence; but it was rather on account of the solidity of his character and the mildness of his temper that Sulla attached Lucullus to himself, and from the beginning he constantly employed him in affairs of the greatest importance; one of which was the matter relating to the coinage. It was Lucullus who superintended the coining of most of the money in the Peloponnesus during the Mithridatic war, and it was named Lucullean after him, and continued for a long time to have a ready circulation, in consequence of the demands of the war. Afterwards, Sulla, who was in possession of the country about Athens,9 but was shut out from supplies by sea by the enemy, who had the command of it, sent Lucullus to Egypt and Libya to get ships there. It was now the depth of winter, but still he set sail with three Greek piratical ships, and the same number of Rhodian biremes, exposing himself to a wide sea and to [Pg 417]hostile vessels, which, owing to their having the superiority, were cruising about in great numbers and in all directions. However, he landed at Crete, and made the people friendly to his cause; and, finding the Cyrenæans in a state of confusion, owing to continual tyrannies and wars, he tranquillised and settled the state, by reminding the citizens of a certain expression of Plato, which the philosopher had addressed to them in a prophetic spirit. They asked him, as it appears, to draw up laws for them, and to settle their democracy after the model of a well-ordered polity; but he replied that it was difficult to legislate for the Cyrenæans while they were so prosperous. Nothing, indeed, is more difficult to govern than a man who considers himself prosperous; and, on the other hand, there is nothing more obedient to command than a man when he is humbled by fortune. And it was this that made the Cyrenæans tractable to Lucullus in his legislation for them. Sailing from Cyrene10 to Egypt, he lost most of his vessels by an attack of pirates; but he escaped himself, and entered Alexandria in splendid style; for the whole fleet came out to meet him, as it was used to do when a king entered the port, equipped magnificently. The young king, Ptolemæus,11 showed him other surprising marks of attention, and gave him a lodging and table in the palace, though no foreign general had ever before been lodged there. He also offered him an allowance for [Pg 418]his expenditure, not such as he used to offer to others, but four times as much; Lucullus, however, would not receive anything more than his necessities required, nor yet any present, though the king sent presents to the value of eighty talents. It is said that Lucullus did not go up to Memphis,12 nor make inquiry about any other of the wondrous and far-famed things in Egypt; he said that such things befitted an idle spectator, and one who had only to enjoy himself: not a man like himself, who had left the Imperator encamped under the bare sky, and close to the enemy’s battlements.

Plutarch begins his Treatise which is intitled To an Uninstructed Prince with the same story about Plato and the Cyrenæans (Moralia, ed. Wyttenbach, vol. iv.).]

III

Ptolemæus declined the alliance, being afraid of the war; but he gave Lucullus ships to convoy him as far as Cyprus, and when he was setting sail he embraced him and paid him great attention, and presented him with an emerald set in gold, of great price. Lucullus at first begged to be excused from taking the present; but when the king showed him that the engraving contained his royal likeness, Lucullus was afraid to refuse the present, lest, if he should be supposed to sail away at complete enmity with the king, he might be plotted against on the sea. In his voyage along the coast Lucullus got together a number of vessels from the maritime towns except such as participated in piratical iniquities, and passed over to Cyprus, where, hearing that his enemies were lying in wait for him with their ships at the headlands, he drew up all his vessels, and wrote to the cities about winter quarters and supplies, as if he intended to stay there till the fine season. As soon as a favourable opportunity offered for his voyage, he launched his ships and got out to sea, and by sailing during the day with his sails down and low, and putting them up at night, he got safe to Rhodes. The Rhodians supplied him with some more ships, and he persuaded the people of Kos and Knidus to quit the king’s side, and join him in an attack on the Samians. He drove the king’s party also out of Chios, and he gave the people of Kolophon freedom by seizing Epigonus, their tyrant. It happened about this time that Mithridates had left [Pg 419]Pergamum, and was shut up in Pitane.13 While Fimbria14 was keeping the king blockaded there on the land side and pressing the siege, Mithridates, looking to the sea, got together and summoned to him ships from every quarter, having given up all design of engaging and fighting with Fimbria, who was a bold man and had defeated him. Fimbria observing this, and being deficient in naval force, sent to Lucullus, and prayed him to come with his fleet and help him to take the most detested and the most hostile of kings, in order that Mithridates, the great prize, which had been followed through many contests and labours, might not escape the Romans, now that he had given them a chance of seizing him, and was caught within the nets. He said, if Mithridates was taken, no one would have more of the glory than he who stopped his flight and laid hold of him when he was trying to steal away; that if Mithridates were shut out from the land by him, and excluded from the sea by Lucullus, there would be a victory for both of them, and that as to the vaunted exploits of Sulla at Orchomenus and Chæronea,15 the Romans would think nothing of them in comparison with this. There was nothing unreasonable in all that Fimbria said; and it was plain to every man that if Lucullus, who was at no great distance, had then accepted the proposal of Fimbria, and led his ships there and blockaded the port with his fleet, the war would have been at an end, and all would have been delivered from innumerable calamities. But whether it was that Lucullus regarded his duty to Sulla above all private and public interests, or that he detested Fimbria, who was an abandoned man, and had lately murdered his own friend and general,16 merely from ambition to command, or whether it was through chance, as the Deity would have it, that he spared Mithridates, and reserved him for his own antagonist—he would not listen to [Pg 420]Fimbria, but allowed Mithridates to escape by sea, and to mock the force of Fimbria. Lucullus himself, in the first place, defeated off Lektum in the Troad,17 the king’s ships, which showed themselves there, and again observing that Neoptolemus was stationed at Tenedos with a larger force, he sailed against him ahead of all the rest, in a Rhodian galley of five banks which was commanded by Demagoras, a man well affected to the Romans, and exceedingly skilful in naval battles. Neoptolemus came against him at a great rate, and ordered the helmsman to steer the ship right against the vessel of Lucullus; but Demagoras, fearing the weight of the king’s vessel and the rough brass that she was fitted with, did not venture to engage head to head, but he quickly turned his ship round and ordered them to row her stern foremost,18 and the vessel being thus depressed at the stern received the blow, which was rendered harmless by falling on those parts of the ship which were in the water. In the meantime his friends coming to his aid, Lucullus commanded them to turn his ship’s head to the enemy; and, after performing many praiseworthy feats, he put the enemy to flight, and pursued Neoptolemus.

IV

After this, Lucullus joined Sulla in the Chersonesus, as he was going to cross the Hellespont, and he made the passage safe for him, and assisted his army in getting over. When the treaty was made, and Mithridates had sailed off to the Euxine, and Sulla had imposed a contribution19 of twenty thousand talents on Asia, and Lucullus had been appointed to collect the money, and to strike coin, it appeared some small consolation to the cities of Asia for the harshness of Sulla that Lucullus not only behaved with honesty and justice, but conducted himself mildly in the discharge of so oppressive and disagreeable a duty. Though the [Pg 421]Mitylenæans had openly revolted, Lucullus wished them to come to their senses, and to submit to some reasonable penalty for their ill-conduct in the matter of Marius;20 but perceiving that they were under the influence of some evil dæmon, he sailed against them, and defeated them in a battle, and, after shutting them up in their walls, and establishing a blockade, he sailed out in open day to Elæa,21 but he returned by stealth, and laying an ambuscade near the city, kept quiet. The Mitylenæans approached in disorder, and with confidence in the expectation of plundering a deserted camp; but Lucullus falling on them took a great number alive, and killed five hundred of them who made resistance. He also took six thousand slaves, and the rest of the booty was past count. But in the miseries which Sulla and Marius were at that time bringing on the people of Italy, without limit and of every kind, he had no share, being detained by his business in Asia by some happy fortune. Nevertheless, he had not less favour with Sulla than the rest of his friends; for, as I have said Sulla dedicated his memoirs to Lucullus, as a token of his affection, and finally he appointed him the guardian of his son, and passed by Pompeius. And this was probably the origin of the difference and the jealousy between Lucullus and Pompeius; for they were both young, and burning for distinction.

V

Shortly after Sulla’s death, Lucullus was consul22 with Marcus Cotta, about the hundred and seventy-sixth Olympiad. Many persons were again attempting to stir up the Mithridatic war, and Marcus said that the war was not ended, but only stopped for a time. It was for this reason that Lucullus was annoyed at the lot giving him for his province Gaul within (south of) the Alps, which offered no opportunity for great exploits. But the reputation of Pompeius, who was now in Iberia, stung him most, as it was expected that Pompeius, in preference to any one [Pg 422]else, would be forthwith chosen to the command of the war against Mithridates, if it should happen that the Iberian war should be brought to a close. Accordingly, when Pompeius asked for money,23 and wrote to say that if they did not send it he would leave Iberia and Sertorius, and lead his troops hack to Italy, Lucullus did all he could to get money sent, and to prevent Pompeius returning from Iberia on any pretence whatever while he was consul; for he considered that the whole State would be at the disposal of Pompeius if he were at Rome with so large an army. Cethegus,24 also, who had then the power in his hands by always speaking and acting with a view to popularity, was at enmity with Lucullus, who detested his habits of life, which were nothing but a course of unnatural lusts, insolence, and violence. With Cethegus then Lucullus was at open war. There was, indeed another demagogue, Lucius Quintius,25 who had set himself against Sulla’s measures, and attempted to disturb the present settlement of affairs; but Lucullus, by much persuasion in private and reproof in public, drew him from his designs, and quieted his ambition, in as politic and wholesome a way as a man could do, by taking in hand so great a disease at its commencement.

VI

In the meantime news arrived of the death of Octavius,26 the Governor of Cilicia. Now there were many eager competitors for the province, who courted Cethegus as the person who was best able to help them to it. As to Cilicia itself, Lucullus made no great account of that province; but, inasmuch as he thought, if he should get [Pg 423]Cilicia, which bordered on Cappadocia, no one else would be sent to conduct the war against Mithridates, he left no means untried to prevent the province falling into other hands; and, at last, contrary to his natural disposition, he submitted from necessity to do an act which was not creditable, or commendable, though it was useful towards the end he had in view. There was a woman named Præcia, who was famed through Rome for her beauty and gallantry, and though in other respects she was no better than a common prostitute, yet, as she availed herself of her influence with those who visited her and talked to her, for the purpose of forwarding the interests and political views of her friends, she added to her other attractions the reputation of being a woman who was much attached to her friends, and very active in accomplishing anything, and she obtained great influence. Cethegus, who was then at the height of his popularity, and directed the administration, was captivated by Præcia, and began to cohabit with her, and thus the whole power of the State fell into her hands; for no public measure was transacted if Cethegus was not for it, and if Præcia did not recommend it to Cethegus. Now Lucullus gained over Præcia by presents and flattery; and, indeed, it was in itself a great boon to a proud woman, fond of public display, to be seen using her influence on behalf of Lucullus; and thus he soon had Cethegus speaking in his favour, and trying to get Cilicia for him. When Lucullus had once gained the province of Cilicia, it was no longer necessary for him to call in the aid of Præcia or Cethegus, but all alike readily put into his hands the conduct of the Mithridatic war, believing that it could not be managed better by any other person; for Pompeius was still fighting against Sertorius, and Metellus27 had withdrawn from service by reason of his age, and these were the only persons who could be considered as rivals to Lucullus in any dispute about the command in the war. However, Cotta, the colleague of Lucullus, after making earnest application to the Senate, was sent with some ships to watch the Propontis,28 and to defend Bithynia.

VII

[Pg 424]Lucullus, with one legion which he had raised at home, crossed over into Asia, where he took the command of the rest of the forces, all of whom had long been spoiled by luxurious habits and living at free quarters; and the soldiers of Fimbria were said to have become difficult to manage, from being accustomed to obey no commander. They were the men who joined Fimbria in putting to death Flaccus, who was a consul and their general, and who gave up Fimbria himself to Sulla29—self-willed and lawless men, but brave and full of endurance, and experienced soldiers. However, in a short time, Lucullus took down the insolence of these soldiers, and changed the character of the rest, who then, for the first time, as it seems, knew what it was to have a genuine commander and leader; for under other generals, they were used to be courted, and spirited on to military service in such wise as was agreeable to them. As to the enemy, matters were thus: Mithridates, like most of the sophists,30 full of boasting at first, and rising up against the Romans arrogantly, with an army unsubstantial in fact, but in appearance brilliant and pompous, had failed in his undertaking, and exposed himself to ridicule: but now, when he was going to commence the war a second time, taught by experience he concentrated his powers in a real and effectual preparation. Rejecting those motley numbers and many-tongued threats of the barbarians, and arms ornamented with gold and precious stones, which he considered to be the spoils of the victors, and to give no strength to those who possess them, he set about having Roman swords [Pg 425]made, and heavy shields manufactured; and he got together horses which were well trained, instead of horses which were well caparisoned; and one hundred and twenty thousand foot-soldiers who were disciplined to the Roman order of battle, and sixteen thousand horse-soldiers, without reckoning the scythe-bearing four-horse chariots, and these were a hundred; besides, his ships were not filled with tents embroidered with gold, nor with baths for concubines, nor apartments for the women luxuriously furnished; but fitting them out fully with arms, missiles, and stores, he invaded Bithynia, where he was again gladly received by the cities, and not by these cities only, for a return of their former calamities had visited all Asia, which was suffering past endurance from the Roman money-lenders31 and farmers of the taxes.32 These men, who, like so many harpies, were plundering the people of their substance, Lucullus afterwards drove out; but, for the time, he endeavoured by reproof to make them more moderate in their conduct, and he stopped the insurrection of the towns, when, so to speak, not a single man in them was quiet.

VIII

While Lucullus was busied about these matters, Cotta, thinking it a good opportunity for himself, was preparing to fight with Mithridates; and, though many persons brought him intelligence that Lucullus was encamped in Phrygia on his advanced march, Cotta, thinking that he had the triumph all but in his hands, hastened to engage, that Lucullus might have no share in it. But he was defeated by land and by sea at the same time; and he lost sixty vessels with all the men in them, and four [Pg 426]thousand foot-soldiers, and he was shut up in Chalkedon33 and besieged there, and obliged to look for help at the hands of Lucullus. Now there were some who urged Lucullus not to care for Cotta, but to advance forward, as he would be able to seize the kingdom of Mithridates, which was unprotected; and this was the language of the soldiers especially, who were indignant that Cotta, not satisfied with ruining himself and those with him by his imprudent measures, should be a hindrance to their getting a victory without a contest when it was in their power; but Lucullus said in reply to all this in an harangue, that he would rather save one Roman from the enemy than get all that the enemy had. And when Archelaus,34 who had commanded [Pg 427]for Mithridates in Bœotia, and afterwards had left him, and was now in the Roman army, maintained that if Lucullus would only show himself in Pontus, he might make himself master of everything at once, Lucullus replied that he was not a greater coward than huntsmen, which he should be if he passed by the wild beasts and went to their empty dens. Saying this he advanced against Mithridates, with thirty thousand foot-soldiers and two thousand five hundred cavalry. On arriving in sight of the enemy, he was startled at their numbers, and wished to avoid a battle and to protract the time. Marius, however, whom Sertorius had sent from Iberia to Mithridates in command of a force, came out to meet Lucullus, and challenged him to the contest, on which Lucullus put his army in order of battle; and they were just on the point of commencing the engagement, when, without any evident change, but all at once, the sky opened, and there appeared a huge flame-like body, which came down between the two armies, in form most like a cask, and in colour resembling molten silver, so that both armies were alarmed at the sight and separated. This, it is said, took place in Phrygia, at a place called Otryæ. Lucullus, considering that it was not possible for any human resources or wealth to maintain for any length of time, and in the presence of an enemy, so many thousands as Mithridates had, ordered one of the prisoners to be brought to him, and asked him first how many messmates he had, and then how much provision he had left in his tent. When the man had given his answer, he ordered him to be removed, and he put the same question to a second, and to a third. Then comparing the amount of provisions that the enemy had with the number of those who were to be fed, he concluded that the enemy’s provisions would fail them in three or four days. He now stuck still more closely to his plan of protracting the time, and he employed himself in getting into his camp a great store of [Pg 428]provision, that he might have abundance himself, and so wait till the enemy was reduced to want.

IX

In the meantime Mithridates resolved to attack the Kyzikeni,35 who had received a blow in the battle at Chalkedon, for they had lost three thousand men and ten ships. Accordingly, wishing to give Lucullus the slip, he put himself in motion immediately after supper, taking advantage of a dark and rainy night; and he succeeded in planting his force at daybreak right opposite to the city, at the base of the mountain tract of the Adrasteia.36 Lucullus, who perceived his movements and followed him, was well satisfied that he had not come up with the enemy while his own troops were out of battle order; and he posted his army near the village named Thrakia, in a position excellently adapted to command the roads and the places from which and through which the soldiers of Mithridates must bring their supplies. Now, as he had in his own mind a clear comprehension of the issue, he did not conceal it from his men; but as soon as he had chosen his ground, and the men had finished the entrenchments, he summoned them together, and confidently told them that he would, in a few days, give them a victory which would cost no blood. Mithridates had hemmed in the Kyzikeni with ten camps on the land side, and towards the sea with his ships, by blocking up the narrow channel which separates the city from the mainland, and thus he [Pg 429]was besieging them on both sides. Though the citizens were disposed to resist the enemy boldly, and had determined to sustain all hardships for the sake of the Romans, they were troubled at not knowing where Lucullus was, and at having heard nothing of him. Yet the army of Lucullus was visible and in sight of the city; but the citizens were deceived by the soldiers of Mithridates, who pointed to the Romans in their entrenchments on the higher ground, and said, “Do you see them? That is the army of the Armenians and Medes, which Tigranes has sent to support Mithridates.”

The Kyzikeni were alarmed to see such a host of enemies around them, and they had no hopes that they could be released, even if Lucullus should come. However, Demonax, who was sent to them by Archelaus, was the first to inform them of Lucullus being there. While they were distrusting his intelligence, and thinking that he had merely invented this story to comfort them in their difficulties, there came a youth, who had been captured by the enemy and made his escape. On their asking him where he supposed Lucullus to be, he laughed outright, for he thought they were making sport of him; but, seeing that they were in earnest, he pointed with his hand to the Roman camp, and the citizens again took courage. Now the lake Daskylitis37 is navigable for boats of a considerable size, and Lucullus, drawing up the largest of them, and conveying it on a waggon to the sea-coast, put into it as many soldiers as it would hold. The soldiers crossed over by night unobserved, and got into the city.

X

It appears that the deity, also, admiring the bravery of the Kyzikeni, encouraged them by other manifest signs, and especially by this: the festival called Persephassia38 was at hand, and as they had not a black cow to sacrifice, they made one of dough, and placed it at the altar. The [Pg 430]cow which was intended to be the victim, and was fattening for the goddess, was pasturing, like the other animals of the Kyzikeni, on the opposite mainland; but on that day, leaving the rest of the herd by itself, it swam over the channel to the city and presented itself to be sacrificed. The goddess also appeared in a dream to Aristagoras, the town-clerk,39 and said: “For my part, I am come, and I bring the Libyan fifer against the Pontic trumpeter. Bid the citizens, then, be of good cheer.” The Kyzikeni were wondering at these words, when at daybreak the sea began to be disturbed by an unsteady, changing wind that descended upon it, and the engines of the king, which were placed near the walls—admirable contrivances of Nikonides the Thessalian—by their creaking and rattling showed what was going to happen: then a south-west wind, bursting forth with incredible fury, broke to pieces the other engines in a very short time, and shook and threw down the wooden tower, which was a hundred cubits high. It is told that Athena appeared to many of the people in Ilium in their sleep, streaming with copious sweat, showing part of her peplus rent, and saying that she had just returned from helping the Kyzikeni. And the people of Ilium used to show a stele40 which contained certain decrees and an inscription about these matters.

XI

[Pg 431]Mithridates, so long as he was deceived by his generals and kept in ignorance of the famine in his army, was annoyed at the Kyzikeni holding out against the blockade. But his ambition and his haughtiness quickly oozed away when he had discovered the straits in which his army was held, and that they were eating one another; for Lucullus was not carrying on the war in a theatrical way, nor with mere show; but, as the proverb says, was kicking against the belly, and contriving every means how he should cut off the food. Accordingly, while Lucullus was engaged in besieging a certain garrisoned post, Mithridates, seizing the opportunity, sent off into Bithynia nearly all his cavalry, with the beasts of burden, and all his superfluous infantry. Lucullus hearing of this, returned to his camp during the night, and early in the following morning, it being winter time, getting ready ten cohorts and the cavalry, he followed the troops of Mithridates, though it was snowing, and his soldiers suffered so much that many of them gave in by reason of the cold, and were left behind: however, with the rest he came up with the enemy at the river Rhyndakus,41 and gave them such a defeat that the women came from the town of Apollonia and carried off the baggage and stripped the dead. Many fell in the battle, as might be supposed, but there were taken six thousand horses, with a countless number of baggage-beasts, and fifteen thousand men, all whom he led back past the camp of the enemy. I wonder at Sallustius saying that this was the first time that the Romans saw the camel;42 for he must have supposed that the soldiers of Scipio, who some time before had defeated Antiochus, and those who had also fought with Archelaus [Pg 432]at Orchomenus and Chæronea, were unacquainted with the camel. Now Mithridates had determined to fly as soon as he could; but, with the view of contriving something which should draw Lucullus in the other direction, and detain him in his rear, he sent his admiral, Aristonikus, to the Grecian sea, and Aristonikus was just on the point of setting sail when he was betrayed to Lucullus, who got him into his power, together with ten thousand pieces of gold which he was carrying to bribe a part of the Roman army with. Upon this Mithridates fled to the sea, and his generals led the land forces off. But Lucullus falling upon them at the river Granikus,43 took many prisoners, and slew twenty thousand of them. It is said that near three hundred thousand persons were destroyed out of the whole number of camp-followers and fighting-men.

XII

Upon entering Kyzikus, Lucullus took his pleasure, and enjoyed a friendly reception suitably to the occasion; he next visited the Hellespont, and got his navy equipped. Arriving at the Troad,44 he placed his tent within the sacred precincts of Aphrodite, and as he was sleeping there he thought that he saw the goddess in the night standing by him, saying:

“Why slumber, lion of the mighty heart?

The fawns are near at hand.”

Waking from sleep, Lucullus called his friends and told them his dream, while it was still night; and there came persons from Ilium, who reported that thirteen of the king’s quinqueremes had been seen near the Achæan harbour, moving in the direction of Lemnos. Immediately [Pg 433]setting sail, Lucullus captured these vessels and killed their commander, Isidorus, and he then advanced against the other captains. Now, as they happened to be at anchor, they drew all their vessels together up to the land, and, fighting from the decks, dealt blows on the men of Lucullus; for the ground rendered it impossible to sail round to the enemy’s rear, and, as the ships of Lucullus were afloat, they could make no attack on those of the enemy, which were planted close to the land and securely situated. However, with some difficulty, Lucullus landed the bravest of his soldiers in a part of the island which was accessible, who, falling on the rear of the enemy, killed some and compelled the rest to cut their cables and make their escape from the land, and so to drive their vessels foul of one another, and to be exposed to the blows of the vessels of Lucullus. Many of the enemy perished; but among the captives there was Marius,45 he who was sent from Sertorius. Marius had only one eye, and the soldiers had received orders from Lucullus, as they were setting out on the expedition, to kill no one-eyed man; for Lucullus designed to make Marius die a shameful and dishonourable death.

XIII

As soon as he had accomplished this, Lucullus hastened in pursuit of Mithridates; for he expected still to find him about Bithynia, and watched by Voconius, whom he had sent with ships to Nikomedia46 to follow up the pursuit. But Voconius lingered in Samothrakia,47 where he was getting initiated into mysteries and celebrating festivals. Mithridates, who had set sail with his armament, and was in a hurry to reach Pontus before Lucullus returned, was overtaken by a violent storm, by [Pg 434]which some of his ships were shattered and others were sunk; and all the coast for many days was filled with the wrecks that were cast up by the waves. The merchant-vessel in which Mithridates was embarked could not easily be brought to land by those who had the management of it, by reason of its magnitude, in the agitated state of the water, and the great swell, and it was already too heavy to hold out against the sea, and was water-logged; accordingly the king got out of the vessel into a piratical ship, and, intrusting his person to pirates, contrary to expectation and after great hazard he arrived at Heraklea48 in Pontus. Now it happened that the proud boast of Lucullus to the Senate brought on him no divine retribution.49 The Senate was voting a sum of three thousand talents to equip a navy for the war, but Lucullus stopped the measure by sending a letter, couched in vaunting terms, in which he said, that without cost and so much preparation, he would with the ships of the allies drive Mithridates from the sea. And he did this with the aid of the deity; for it is said that it was owing to the anger of Artemis Priapine50 that the storm fell on the Pontic soldiers, who had plundered her temple and carried off the wooden statue.

XIV

[Pg 435]Though many advised Lucullus to suspend the war, he paid no heed to them: but, passing through Bithynia and Galatia, he invaded the country of the king. At first he wanted provisions, so that thirty thousand Galatians followed him, each carrying on his shoulders a medimnus of wheat; but as he advanced and reduced all into his power, he got into such abundance of everything that an ox was sold in the camp for a drachma, and a slave for four drachmæ; and, as to the rest of the booty, it was valued so little that some left it behind, and others destroyed it; for there were no means of disposing of anything to anybody when all had abundance. The Roman army had advanced with their cavalry and carried their incursions as far as Themiskyra and the plains on the Thermodon,51 without doing more than wasting and ravaging the country, when the men began to blame Lucullus for peaceably gaining over all the cities, and they complained that he had not taken a single city by storm, nor given them an opportunity of enriching themselves by plunder. “Nay, even now,” they said, “we are quitting Amisus,52 a prosperous and wealthy city, which it would be no great matter to take, if any one would press the siege, and the general is leading us to fight with Mithridates in the wilds of the Tibareni and Chaldæans.”53 Now, if [Pg 436]Lucullus had supposed that these notions would have led the soldiers to such madness as they afterwards showed he would not have overlooked or neglected these matters, nor have apologised instead to those men who were blaming his tardiness for thus lingering in the neighbourhood of insignificant villages for a long time, and allowing Mithridates to increase his strength. “This is the very thing,” he said, “that I wish, and I am sitting here with the design of allowing the man again to become powerful, and to get together a sufficient force to meet us, that he may stay, and not fly from us when we advance. Do you not see that a huge and boundless wilderness is in his rear, and the Caucasus54 is near, and many mountains which are full of deep valleys, sufficient to hide ten thousand kings who decline a battle, and to protect them? and it is only a few days’ march from Kabeira55 into Armenia, and above the plains of Armenia Tigranes56 the King of Kings has his residence, with a force which enables him to cut the Parthian off from Asia, and he removes the inhabitants of the Greek cities up into Media, and he is master of Syria and Palestine, and the kings, the descendants of Seleucus, he puts to death, and carries off their daughters and wives captives. Tigranes is the kinsman and son-in-law of Mithridates. Indeed, he will not quietly submit to receive Mithridates as a suppliant; but he will war against us, and, if we strive to eject Mithridates from his kingdom we shall run the risk of drawing upon us Tigranes, who has long been seeking for a pretext against us, and he could [Pg 437]not have a more specious pretext than to be compelled to aid a man who is his kinsman and a king. Why, then, should we bring this about, and show Mithridates, who does not know it, with whose aid he ought to carry on the war against us? and why should we drive him against his wish, and ingloriously, into the arms of Tigranes, instead of giving him time to collect a force out of his own resources and to recover his courage, and so fight with the Kolchi, and Tibareni, and Cappadocians, whom we have often defeated, rather than fight with the Medes and Armenians?”

XV

Upon such considerations as these, Lucullus protracted the time before Amisus without pushing the siege; and, when the winter was over, leaving Murena to blockade the city, he advanced against Mithridates, who was posted at Kabeira, and intending to oppose the Romans, as he had got together a force of forty thousand infantry and four thousand horse on whom he relied most. Crossing the river Lykus into the plain, Mithridates offered the Romans battle. A contest between the cavalry ensued, in which the Romans fled, and Pomponius, a man of some note, being wounded, was taken prisoner, and brought to Mithridates while he was suffering from his wounds. The king asked him if he would become his friend if his life were spared, to which Pomponius replied, “Yes, if you come to terms with the Romans; if not, I shall be your enemy.” Mithridates admired the answer, and did him no harm. Now, Lucullus was afraid to keep the plain country, as the enemy were masters of it with their cavalry, and he was unwilling to advance into the hilly region, which was of great extent and wooded and difficult of access; but it happened that some Greeks were taken prisoners, who had fled into a cave, and the eldest of them, Artemidorus, promised Lucullus to be his guide, and to put him in a position which would be secure for his army, and also contained a fort that commanded Kabeira. Lucullus, trusting the man, set out at nightfall after lighting numerous fires, and getting through the defiles in safety; he gained possession of the position; and, when the day dawned, he was seen above the enemy, posting his soldiers in a place which gave him the opportunity of making an attack if [Pg 438]he chose to fight, and secured him against any assault if he chose to remain quiet. At present neither general had any intention of hazarding a battle; but it is said, that while some of the king’s men were pursuing a deer, the Romans met them and attempted to cut off their retreat, and this led to a skirmish, in which fresh men kept continually coming up on both sides. At last the king’s men had the better, and the Romans, who from the ramparts saw their comrades falling, were in a rage, and crowded about Lucullus, praying him to lead them on, and calling for the signal for battle. But Lucullus, wishing them to learn the value of the presence and sight of a prudent general in a struggle with an enemy and in the midst of danger, told them to keep quiet; and, going down into the plain and meeting the first of the fugitives, he ordered them to stand, and to turn round and face the enemy with him. The men obeyed, and the rest also facing about and forming in order of battle, easily put the enemy to flight, and pursued them to their camp. Lucullus, after retiring to his position, imposed on the fugitives the usual mark of disgrace, by ordering them to dig a trench of twelve feet in their loose jackets, while the rest of the soldiers were standing by and looking on.

XVI

Now there was in the army of Mithridates a prince of the Dandarii,57 named Olthakus (the Dandarii are one of the tribes of barbarians that live about the Mæotis), a man distinguished in all military matters where strength and daring are required, and also in ability equal to the best, and moreover a man who knew how to ingratiate himself with persons, and of insinuating address. Olthakus, who was always engaged in a kind of rivalry for distinction with one of the princes of the kindred tribes, and was jealous of him, undertook a great exploit for Mithridates, which was to kill Lucullus. The king approved of his design, and purposely showed him some indignities, at which, pretending to be in a rage, Olthakus rode off to [Pg 439]Lucullus, who gladly received him, for there was a great report of him in the Roman army; and Lucullus, after some acquaintance with him, was soon pleased with his acuteness and his zeal, and at last admitted him to his table and made him a member of his council. Now when the Dandarian thought he had a fit opportunity, he ordered the slaves to take his horse without the ramparts, and, as it was noontide and the soldiers were lying in the open air and taking their rest, he went to the general’s tent, expecting that nobody would prevent him from entering, as he was on terms of intimacy with Lucullus, and said that he was the bearer of some important news. And he would have entered the tent without any suspicion, if sleep, that has been the cause of the death of many generals, had not saved Lucullus; for he happened to be asleep, and Menedemus, one of his chamber-attendants, who was standing by the door, said that Olthakus had not come at a fit time, for Lucullus had just gone to rest himself after long wakefulness and many toils. As Olthakus did not go away when he was told, but said that he would go in, even should Menedemus attempt to prevent him, because he wished to communicate with Lucullus about a matter of emergency and importance, Menedemus began to get in a passion, and, saying that nothing was more urgent than the health of Lucullus, he shoved the man away with both his hands. Olthakus being alarmed stole out of the camp, and, mounting his horse, rode off to the army of Mithridates, without effecting his purpose. Thus, it appears, it is with actions just as it is with medicines—time and circumstance give to the scales that slight turn which saves alive, as well as that which kills.

XVII

After this Sornatius, with ten cohorts, was sent to get supplies of corn. Being pursued by Menander, one of the generals of Mithridates, Sornatius faced about and engaged the enemy, of whom he killed great numbers and put the rest to flight. Again, upon Adrianus being sent with a force, for the purpose of getting an abundant supply of corn for the army, Mithridates did not neglect the opportunity, but sent Menemachus and Myron at the head of a large body of cavalry and infantry. All this force, as it is said, was cut to pieces by the Romans, with the [Pg 440]exception of two men. Mithridates concealed the loss, and pretended it was not so great as it really was, but a trifling loss owing to the unskilfulness of the commanders. However, Adrianus triumphantly passed by the camp of the enemy with many waggons loaded with corn and booty, which dispirited Mithridates, and caused irremediable confusion and alarm among his soldiers. Accordingly it was resolved not to stay there any longer. But, while the king’s servants were quietly sending away their own property first, and endeavouring to hinder the rest, the soldiers, growing infuriated, pushed towards the passages that led out of the camp, and, attacking the king’s servants, began to seize the luggage and massacre the men. In this confusion Dorylaus the general, who had nothing else about him but his purple dress, lost his life by reason of it, and Hermæus, the sacrificing priest, was trampled to death at the gates. The king himself,58 without attendant or groom to accompany him, fled from the camp mingled with the rest, and was not able to get even one of the royal horses, till at last the eunuch Ptolemæus, who was mounted, spied him as he was hurried along in the stream of fugitives, and leaping down from his horse gave it to the king. The Romans, who were following in pursuit, were now close upon the king, and so far as it was a matter of speed they were under no difficulty about taking him, and they came very near it; but greediness and mercenary motives snatched from the Romans the prey which they had so long followed up in many battles and great dangers, and robbed Lucullus of the crowning triumph to his victory; for the horse which was carrying Mithridates was just within reach of his pursuers, when it happened that one of the mules which was conveying the king’s gold either fell into the hands of the enemy accidentally, or was purposely thrown in their way by the king’s orders, and while the soldiers were plundering it and getting together the gold, and fighting with one another, they were left behind. And this was not the only loss that Lucullus sustained from [Pg 441]their greediness; he had given his men orders to bring to him Kallistratus, who had the charge of all the king’s secrets; but those who were taking him to Lucullus, finding that he had five hundred gold pieces in his girdle, put him to death. However, Lucullus allowed his men to plunder the camp.

XVIII

After taking Kabeira and most of the other forts Lucullus found in them great treasures, and also places of confinement, in which many Greeks and many kinsmen of the king were shut up; and, as they had long considered themselves as dead, they were indebted to the kindness of Lucullus, not for their rescue, but for restoration to life and a kind of second birth. A sister also of Mithridates, Nyssa, was captured, and so saved her life; but the women who were supposed to be the farthest from danger, and to be securely lodged at Phernakia,59 the sisters and wives of Mithridates, came to a sad end, pursuant to the order of Mithridates, which he sent Bacchides,60 a eunuch, to execute, when he was compelled [Pg 442]to take to flight. Among many other women there were two sisters of the king, Roxana and Statira, each about forty years of age and unmarried; and two of his wives, Ionian women, one of them named Berenike from Chios, and the other Monime a Milesian. Monime was much talked of among the Greeks, and there was a story to this effect, that though the king tempted her with an offer of fifteen thousand gold pieces, she held out until a marriage contract was made, and he sent her a diadem61 with the title of queen. Now Monime hitherto was very unhappy, and bewailed that beauty which had given her a master instead of a husband, and a set of barbarians to watch over her instead of marriage and a family; and she lamented that she was removed from her native country, enjoying her anticipated happiness only in imagination, while she was deprived of all those real pleasures which she might have had at home. When Bacchides arrived, and told the women to die in such manner as they might judge easiest and least painful, Monime pulled the diadem from her head, and, fastening it round her neck, hung herself. As the diadem soon broke, “Cursed rag!” she exclaimed, “you won’t even do me this service;” and, spitting on it, she tossed it from her, and presented her throat to Bacchides. Berenike took a cup of poison, and gave a part of it to her mother, who was present, at her own request. Together they drank it up; and the strength of the poison was sufficient for the weaker of the two, but it did not carry off Berenike, who had not drunk enough, and, as she was long in dying, she was strangled with the assistance of Bacchides. Of the two unmarried sisters of Mithridates it is said, that one of them, after uttering many imprecations on her brother and much [Pg 443]abuse, drank up the poison. Statira did not utter a word of complaint, or anything unworthy of her noble birth; but she commended her brother for that he had not neglected them at a time when his own life was in danger, and had provided that they should die free and be secure against insult. All this gave pain to Lucullus, who was naturally of a mild and humane temper.

XIX

Lucullus advanced as far as Talaura,62 whence four days before Mithridates had fled into Armenia to Tigranes. From Talaura Lucullus took a different direction, and after subduing the Chaldæi and Tibareni, and taking possession of the Less Armenia, and reducing forts and cities, he sent Appius to Tigranes to demand Mithridates; but he went himself to Amisus, which was still holding out against the siege. This was owing to Kallimachus the commander, who by his skill in mechanical contrivances, and his ingenuity in devising every resource which is available in a siege, gave the Romans great annoyance, for which he afterwards paid the penalty. Now, however, he was out-generailed by Lucullus, who, by making a sudden attack, just at that time of the day when he was used to lead his soldiers off and to give them rest, got possession of a small part of the wall, upon which Kallimachus quitted the city, having first set fire to it, either because he was unwilling that the Romans should get any advantage from their conquest, or with the view of facilitating his own escape. For no one paid any attention to those who were sailing out; but when the flames had sprung up with violence, and got hold of the walls, the soldiers were making ready to plunder. Lucullus, lamenting the danger in which the city was of being destroyed, attempted from the outside to help the citizens against the fire, and ordered it to be put out; yet nobody attended to him, and the soldiers called out for booty, and shouted and struck their armour, till at last Lucullus was compelled to let them have their way, expecting that he should thus save the city at least from the fire. But the soldiers did just the contrary; for, as they rummaged every place by the aid of torches, and carried about lights in all [Pg 444]directions, they destroyed most of the houses themselves, so that Lucullus, who entered the city at daybreak, said to his friends with tears in his eyes, that he had often considered Sulla a fortunate man, but on this day of all others he admired the man’s good fortune, in that when he chose to save Athens he had also the power; “but upon me,” he said, “who have been emulous to imitate his example, the dæmon has instead brought the reputation of Mummius.”63 However, as far as present circumstances allowed, he endeavoured to restore the city. The fire indeed was quenched by the rains that chanced to fall, as the deity would have it, at the time of the capture, and the greatest part of what had been destroyed Lucullus rebuilt while he stayed at Amisus; and he received into the city such of the Amisenes as had fled, and settled there any other Greeks who were willing to settle, and added to the limits of the territory a tract of one hundred and twenty stadia. Amisus was a colony64 of the Athenians, planted, as one might suppose, at that period in which their power was at its height and had the command of the sea. And this was the reason why many who wished to escape from the tyranny of Aristion65 sailed to the Euxine and settled at Amisus, where they became citizens; but it happened that by flying from misfortune at home they came in for a share of the misfortunes of others. Lucullus, however, clothed all of them who survived the capture of the city, and, after giving each two hundred drachmæ besides, he sent them back to their home. On this occasion, Tyrannio66 the grammarian was taken prisoner. Murena [Pg 445]asked him for himself, and on getting Tyrannio set him free, wherein he made an illiberal use of the favour that he had received; for Lucullus did not think it fitting that a man who was esteemed for his learning should be made a slave first and then a freedman; for the giving him an apparent freedom was equivalent to the depriving him of his real freedom. But it was not in this instance only that Murena showed himself far inferior to his general in honourable feeling and conduct.

XX

Lucullus now turned to the cities of Asia, in order that while he had leisure from military operations he might pay some attention to justice and the law, which the province had now felt the want of for a long time, and the people had endured unspeakable and incredible calamities, being plundered and reduced to slavery by the Publicani and the money-lenders, so that individuals were compelled to sell their handsome sons and virgin daughters, and the cities to sell their sacred offerings, pictures and statues. The lot of the citizens was at last to be condemned to slavery themselves, but the sufferings which preceded were still worse—the fixing of ropes and barriers,67 and horses, and standing under the open sky, during the heat in the sun, and during the cold when they were forced into the mud or the ice; so that slavery was considered a relief from the burden of debt, and a blessing. Such evils as these Lucullus discovered in the cities, and in a short time he relieved the sufferers from all of them. In the first place, he declared that the rate of interest should be reckoned at the hundredth part,68 and no more; in the second, he cut off all the interest which exceeded the capital; thirdly, what [Pg 446]was most important of all, he declared that the lender should receive the fourth part of the income of the debtor; but any lender who had tacked the interest to the principal was deprived of the whole: thus, in less than four years all the debts were paid, and their property was given back to them free from all encumbrance. Now the common debt originated in the twenty thousand talents which Sulla had laid on Asia as a contribution, and twice this amount was repaid to the lenders, though they had indeed now brought the debt up to the amount of one hundred and twenty thousand talents by means of the interest. The lenders, however, considered themselves very ill used, and they raised a great outcry against Lucullus at Rome, and they endeavoured to bribe some of the demagogues to attack him; for the lenders had great influence, and had among their debtors many of the men who were engaged in public life. But Lucullus gained the affection of the cities which had been favoured by him, and the other provinces also longed to see such a man over them, and felicitated those who had the good luck to have such a governor.

XXI

Appius Clodius,69 who was sent to Tigranes (now Clodius was the brother of the then wife of Lucullus), was at first conducted by the king’s guides through the upper part of the country, by a route unnecessarily circuitous and roundabout, and one that required many days’ journeying; but, as soon as the straight road was indicated to him by a freedman, a Syrian by nation, he quitted that tedious and tricky road, and, bidding his barbarian guides farewell, he crossed the Euphrates in a few days, and arrived at Antiocheia,70 near Daphne. There he [Pg 447]waited for Tigranes, pursuant to the king’s orders (for Tigranes was absent, and still engaged in reducing some of the Phœnician cities), and in the meantime he gained over many of the princes who paid the Armenian a hollow obedience, among whom was Zarbienus, King of Gordyene,71 and he promised aid from Lucullus to many of the enslaved cities, which secretly sent to him—bidding them, however, keep quiet for the present. Now the rule of the Armenians was not tolerable to the Greeks, but was harsh; and what was worse, the king’s temper had become violent and exceedingly haughty in his great prosperity; for he had not only everything about him which the many covet and admire, but he seemed to think that everything was made for him. Beginning with expectations which were slight and contemptible, he had subdued many nations, and humbled the power of the Parthians as no man before him had done; and he filled Mesopotamia with Greeks, many from Cilicia and many from Cappadocia, whom he removed and settled. He also removed from their abodes the Skenite Arabians,72 and settled them near him, that he might with their aid have the benefit of commerce. Many were the kings who were in attendance on him; but there were four who were always about him, like attendants or guards, and when he mounted his horse they ran by his side in jackets; and when he was seated and transacting business, they stood by with their hands clasped together, which was considered to be of all attitudes the most expressive of servitude, as if they had sold their freedom, and were presenting their bodies to their master in a posture indicating readiness to suffer rather than to act. Appius, however, was not alarmed or startled at the tragedy show; but, as soon as he had an opportunity of addressing the king, he told him plainly that he was come to take back Mithridates, as one who [Pg 448]belonged to the triumphs of Lucullus, or to denounce war against Tigranes. Though the king made an effort to preserve a tranquil mien, and affected a smile while he was listening to the address, he could not conceal from the bystanders that he was disconcerted by the bold speech of the youth, he who had not for near five-and-twenty years73 heard the voice of a free man; for so many years had he been king, or rather tyrant. However, he replied to Appius that he would not give up Mithridates, and that he would resist the Romans if they attacked him. He was angry with Lucullus because he addressed him in his letter by the title of King only, and not King of Kings, and, accordingly in his reply, Tigranes did not address Lucullus by the title of Imperator. But he sent splendid presents to Appius, and when they were refused he sent still more. Appius, not wishing to appear to reject the king’s presents from any hostile feeling, selected from among them a goblet, and sent the rest back; and then with all speed set off to join the Imperator.

XXII

Now, up to this time, Tigranes had not deigned to see Mithridates,74 nor to speak to him, though Mithridates was allied to him by marriage, and had been ejected from so great a kingdom; but, in a degrading and insulting manner, he had allowed Mithridates to be far removed from him, and, in a manner, kept a prisoner in his abode, which was a marshy and unhealthy place. However, he now sent for him with demonstrations of respect and friendship. In a secret conference which took place in the palace, they endeavoured to allay their mutual suspicions, by turning the blame on their friends, to their ruin. One of them was Metrodorus75 of Skepsis, an agreeable speaker, and a man of great acquirements, who enjoyed so high a degree of favour with Mithridates that he got the name of the king’s father. Metrodorus, as it seems, had once been sent on an embassy from Mithridates to [Pg 449]Tigranes, to pray for aid against the Romans, on which occasion Tigranes asked him, “But you, Metrodorus, what do you advise me in this matter?” Metrodorus, either consulting the interests of Tigranes, or not wishing Mithridates to be maintained in his kingdom, replied, that, as ambassador, he requested him to send aid, but, in the capacity of adviser, he told him not to send any. Tigranes reported this to Mithridates, to whom he gave the information, not expecting that he would inflict any extreme punishment on Metrodorus. But Metrodorus was forthwith put to death, and Tigranes was sorry for what he had done, though he was not altogether the cause of the misfortune of Metrodorus: indeed what he had said merely served to turn the balance in the dislike of Mithridates towards Metrodorus; for Mithridates had for a long time disliked Metrodorus, and this was discovered from his private papers, that fell into the hands of the Romans, in which there were orders to put Metrodorus to death. Now, Tigranes interred the body with great pomp, sparing no expense on the man, when dead, whom he had betrayed when living. Amphikrates the rhetorician also lost his life at the court of Tigranes, if he too deserves mention for the sake of Athens. It is said that he fled to Seleukeia,76 on the Tigris, and that when the citizens there asked him to give lectures on his art, he treated them with contempt, saying, in an arrogant way, that a dish would not hold a dolphin. Removing himself from Seleukeia, he betook himself to Kleopatra, who was the daughter of Mithridates, and the wife of Tigranes; but he soon fell under suspicion, and, being excluded from all communion with the Greeks, he starved himself to death. Amphikrates also received an honourable interment from Kleopatra, and his body lies at Sapha, a place in those parts so called.

XXIII

After conferring on Asia, the fulness of good [Pg 450]administration and of peace, Lucullus did not neglect such things as would gratify the people and gain their favour; but during his stay at Ephesus he gained popularity in the Asiatic cities by processions and public festivals in commemoration of his victories, and by contests of athletes and gladiators. The cities on their side made a return by celebrating festivals, called after the name of Lucullus, to do honour to the man; and they manifested towards him what is more pleasing than demonstrations of respect, real affection. Now, when Appius had returned, and it appeared that there was to be war with Tigranes, Lucullus again advanced into Pontus, and, getting his troops together, he besieged Sinope,77 or rather the Cilicians of the king’s party, who were in possession of the city; but the Cilicians made their escape by night, after massacring many of the Sinopians, and firing the city. Lucullus, who saw what was going on, made his way into the city, and slaughtered eight thousand of the Cilicians, who were left there; but he restored to the rest of the inhabitants their property, and provided for the interests of Sinope, mainly by reason of a vision of this sort: he dreamed that a man stood by him in his sleep, and said, “Advance a little, Lucullus; for Autolykus is come, and wishes to meet with you.” On waking, Lucullus could not conjecture what was the meaning of the vision; but he took the city on that day, and, while pursuing the Cilicians, who were escaping in their ships, he saw a statue lying on [Pg 451]the beach, which the Cilicians had not had time to put on board; and the statue was the work of Sthenis,78 one of his good performances. Now, somebody told Lucullus that it was the statue of Autolykus, the founder of Sinope. Autolykus is said to have been one of those who joined Herakles from Thessalia, in his expedition against the Amazons, and a son of Deimachus. In his voyage home, in company with Demoleon and Phlogius, he lost his ship, which was wrecked at the place called Pedalium, in the Chersonesus:79 but he escaped with his arms and companions to Sinope, which he took from the Syrians: for Sinope was in possession of the Syrians, who were descended from Syrus, the son of Apollo, according to the story, and Sinope, the daughter of Asopus. On hearing this, Lucullus called to mind the advice of Sulla, who in his ‘Memoirs’ advised to consider nothing so trustworthy and safe as that which is signified in dreams. Lucullus was now apprised that Mithridates and Tigranes were on the point of entering Lycaonia and Cilicia, with the intention of anticipating hostilities by an invasion of Asia, and he was surprised that the Armenian, if he really intended to attack the Romans, did not avail himself of the aid of Mithridates, in the war when he was at the height of his power, nor join his forces to those of Mithridates when he was strong but allowed him to be undone and crushed; and now began a war that offered only cold hopes, and throw himself on the ground to join those who were already there and unable to rise.

XXIV

Now, when Machares also, the son of Mithridates, who held the Bosporus, sent to Lucullus a crown worth one thousand gold pieces, and prayed to be acknowledged [Pg 452]a friend and ally80 of the Romans, Lucullus, considering that the former war was at an end, left Sornatius in those parts to watch over the affairs of Pontus with six thousand soldiers. He set out himself with twelve thousand foot soldiers, and not quite three thousand horse, to commence a second campaign, wherein he seemed to be making a hazardous move, and one not resting on any safe calculation; for he was going to throw himself among warlike nations and many thousands of horsemen, and to enter a boundless tract, surrounded by deep rivers and by mountains covered with perpetual snow; so that his soldiers, who were generally not very obedient to discipline, followed unwillingly and made opposition: and at Rome the popular leaders raised a cry against him, and accused him of seeking one war after another, though the State required no wars, that he might never lay down his arms so long as he had command, and never stop making his private profit out of the public danger; and in course of time the demagogues at Rome accomplished their purpose. Lucullus, advancing by hard marches to the Euphrates, found the stream swollen and muddy, owing to the winter season, and he was vexed on considering that it would cause loss of time and some trouble if he had to get together boats to take his army across and to build rafts. However, in the evening the water began to subside, and it went on falling all through the night, and at daybreak the bed of the river was empty. The natives observing that some small islands in the river had become visible, and that the stream near them was still, made their obeisance to Lucullus; for this had very seldom happened before, and they considered it a token that the river had purposely made itself tame and gentle for Lucullus, and was offering him an easy and ready passage. Accordingly, Lucullus took advantage of the opportunity, and carried his troops over: and a favourable sign accompanied the passage of the army. Cows feed in that neighbourhood, which are sacred to Artemis Persia, a deity whom the barbarians on the farther side of the Euphrates [Pg 453]venerate above all others; they use the cows only for sacrifice, which at other times ramble at liberty about the country, with a brand upon them, in the form of the torch of the goddess, and it is not very easy, nor without much trouble, that they can catch the cows when they want them. After the army had crossed the Euphrates one of these cows came to a rock, which is considered sacred to the goddess, and stood upon it, and there laying down its head, just as a cow does when it is held down tight by a rope, it offered itself to Lucullus to be sacrificed. Lucullus also sacrificed a bull to the Euphrates, as an acknowledgment for his passage over the river. He encamped there for that day, and on the next and the following days he advanced through Sophene81 without doing any harm to the people, who joined him and gladly received the soldiers; and when the soldiers were expressing a wish to take possession of a fortress, which was supposed to contain much wealth, “That is the fortress,” said Lucullus, “which we must take first,” pointing to the Taurus82 in the distance; “but this is reserved for the victors.” He now continued his route by hard marches, and, crossing the Tigris, entered Armenia.

XXV

Now, as the first person who reported to Tigranes that Lucullus was in the country got nothing for his pains, but had his head cut off, nobody else would tell him, and Tigranes was sitting in ignorance while the fires of war were burning round him, and listening to flattering words, That Lucullus would be a great general if he should venture to stand against Tigranes at Ephesus, and should not flee forthwith from Asia, at the sight of so many tens [Pg 454]of thousands. So true it is, that it is not every man who can bear much wine, nor is it any ordinary understanding that in great prosperity does not lose all sound judgment. The first of his friends who ventured to tell him the truth was Mithrobarzanes; and he, too, got no reward for his boldness in speaking; for he was sent forthwith against Lucullus, with three thousand horsemen and a very large body of infantry, with orders to bring the general alive, and to trample down his men. Now, part of the army of Lucullus was preparing to halt, and the rest was still advancing. When the scouts reported that the barbarian was coming upon them, Lucullus was afraid that the enemy would fall upon his troops while they were divided and not in battle order, and so put them into confusion. Lucullus himself set to work to superintend the encampment, and he sent Sextilius, one of his legati, with sixteen hundred horsemen, and hoplitæ83 and light-armed troops, a few more in number, with orders to approach close to the enemy, and wait till he should hear that the soldiers who were with him had made their encampment. Sextilius wished to follow his orders; but he was compelled to engage by Mithrobarzanes, who was confidently advancing against him. A battle ensued, in which Mithrobarzanes fell fighting; and the rest, taking to flight, were all cut to pieces with the exception of a few. Upon this Tigranes left Tigranocerta,84 a large city which he had founded, and retreated to the Taurus, and there began to get together his forces from all parts: but Lucullus, allowing him no time for preparation, sent Murena to harass and cut off those who were collecting to join Tigranes, and Sextilius on the other side to check a large body of Arabs, who were [Pg 455]approaching to the king. It happened just at the same time that Sextilius fell on the Arabs as they were encamping and killed most of them, and Murena, following Tigranes, took the opportunity of attacking him as he was passing through a rough and narrow defile with his army in a long line. Tigranes fled, and left behind him all his baggage; and many of the Armenians were killed and still more taken prisoners.

XXVI

After this success Lucullus broke up his camp and marched against Tigranocerta, which he surrounded with his lines, and began to besiege. There were in the city many Greeks, a part of those who had been removed from Cilicia, and many barbarians who had fared the same way with the Greeks, Adiabeni,85 and Assyrians, and Gordyeni and Cappadocians, whose native cities Tigranes had digged down, and had removed the inhabitants and settled them there. The city was also filled with wealth and sacred offerings, for every private individual and prince, in order to please the king, contributed to the increase and ornament of the city. For this reason Lucullus pressed the siege, thinking that Tigranes would not endure this, but even contrary to his judgment, would come down in passion and fight a battle; and he was not mistaken. Now, Mithridates, both by messengers and letters, strongly advised Tigranes not to fight a battle, but to cut off the enemy’s supplies by means of his cavalry; and Taxiles86 also, who had come from Mithridates to join Tigranes, earnestly entreated the king to keep on the defensive, and to avoid the arms of the Romans, as being invincible. Tigranes at first readily listened to this advice: but when the Armenians and Gordyeni had joined him with all their forces, and the kings were come, bringing with them all the power of the Medes and Adiabeni, and many Arabs had arrived from the sea that borders on Babylonia, and many Albanians from the Caspian, and Iberians, who are neighbours of the Albanians; and not a few of the tribes about [Pg 456]the Araxes,87 who are not governed by kings, had come to join him, induced by solicitations and presents, and the banquets of the king were filled with hopes and confidence and barbaric threats, and his councils also,—Taxiles narrowly escaped death for opposing the design of fighting, and it was believed that Mithridates wished to divert Tigranes from obtaining a great victory, merely from envy. Accordingly, Tigranes would not even wait for Mithridates, for fear he should share in the glory; but he advanced with all his force, and greatly complained to his friends, it is said, that he would have to encounter Lucullus alone, and not all the Roman generals at once. And his confidence was not altogether madness nor without good grounds, when he looked upon so many nations and kings following him, and bodies of hoplitæ, and tens of thousands of horsemen; for he was at the head of twenty thousand bowmen and slingers and fifty-five thousand horsemen, of whom seventeen thousand were clothed in armour of mail, as Lucullus said in his letter to the Senate, and one hundred and fifty thousand hoplitæ, some of whom were drawn up in cohorts and others in phalanx; and of road-makers, bridge-makers, clearers of rivers, timber-cutters, and labourers for other necessary purposes, there were thirty-five thousand, who, being placed behind the fighting men, added to the imposing appearance and the strength of the army.

XXVII

When Tigranes had crossed the Taurus, and, showing himself with all his forces, looked down on the Roman army, which was encamped before Tigranocerta, the barbarians in the city hailed his appearance with shouts and clapping of hands, and from their walls with threats pointed to the Armenians. As Lucullus was considering about the battle, some advised him to give up the siege, and march against Tigranes; others urged him not to leave so many enemies in his rear, nor to give up the siege. Lucullus replied, that singly they did not advise well, but that taken both together the counsel was good; on which he divided his army. He left Murena with six [Pg 457]thousand foot to maintain the siege; and himself taking twenty-four cohorts, among which there were not above ten thousand hoplitæ, with all his cavalry and slingers and bowmen, to the number of about one thousand, advanced against the enemy. Lucullus, encamping in a large plain by the bank of the river, appeared contemptible to Tigranes, and furnished matter for amusement to the king’s flatterers. Some scoffed at him, and others, by way of amusement, cast lots for the spoil, and all the generals and kings severally applied to the king, and begged the matter might be intrusted to each of them singly, and that Tigranes would sit as a spectator. Tigranes also attempted to be witty, and, in a scoffing manner, he uttered the well-known saying, “If they have come as ambassadors, there are too many of them; if as soldiers, too few.” Thus they amused themselves with sarcastic sayings and jokes. At daybreak Lucullus led out his troops under arms. Now the barbarian army was on the east side of the river; but, as the river makes a bend towards the west, at a part where it was easiest to ford, Lucullus led his troops out, and hurried in that direction, which led Tigranes to think that he was retreating; and calling Taxiles to him he said, with a laugh, “Don’t you see that these invincible Roman warriors are flying?” Taxiles replied: “I should be pleased, O king, at any strange thing happening which should be lucky to you; but the Roman soldiers do not put on their splendid attire when they are on a march; nor have they then their shields cleaned, and their helmets bare, as they now have, by reason of having taken off the leathern coverings; but this brightness of their armour is a sign they are going to fight, and are now marching against their enemies.” While Taxiles was still speaking the first eagle came in sight; for Lucullus had now faced about, and the cohorts were seen taking their position in manipuli for the purpose of crossing the river: on which Tigranes, as if he were hardly recovering from a drunken bout, called out two or three times, “What, are they coming against us?” and so, with much confusion, the enemy’s soldiers set about getting into order, the king taking his position in the centre, and giving the left wing to the King of the Adiabeni, and the [Pg 458]right to the Mede, on which wing also were the greater part of the soldiers, clad in mail, occupying the first ranks. As Lucullus was going to cross the river, some of the officers bade him beware of the day, which was one of the unlucky days which the Romans call black days; for on that day Cæpio88 and his army were destroyed in a battle with the Cimbri. Lucullus replied in these memorable words: “Well, I will make it a lucky day for the Romans.” The day was the sixth of October.

XXVIII

Saying this, and bidding his men be of good cheer, Lucullus began to cross the river, and advanced against the enemy, at the head of his soldiers, with a breastplate of glittering scaly steel, and a cloak with a fringed border, and he just let it be seen that his sword was already bare, thereby indicating that they must forthwith come to close quarters with the enemy, who fought with missiles, and by the rapidity of the attack cut off the intervening space, within which the barbarians could use their bows. Observing that the mailed cavalry, which had a great reputation, were stationed under an eminence, crowned by a broad level space, and that the approach to it was only a distance of four stadia, and neither difficult nor rough, he ordered the Thracian cavalry and the Gauls who were in the army, to fall on them in the flank, and to beat aside their long spears with their swords. Now the mailed horsemen rely solely on their long spears, and they can do nothing else, either in their own defence or against the enemy, owing to the weight and rigidity of their armour, and they look like men who are walled up in it. Lucullus himself, with two cohorts, pushed on vigorously to the hill, followed by his men, who were encouraged by seeing him in his armour, enduring all the fatigue on foot, and pressing forwards. On reaching the summit, Lucullus stood on a conspicuous spot, and called [Pg 459]out aloud: “We have got the victory! Fellow soldiers, we have got the victory!” With these words he led his men against the mailed horsemen, and ordered them not to use their javelins yet, but every man to hold them in both hands, and to thrust against the enemy’s legs and thighs, which are the only parts of these mailed men that are bare. However, there was no occasion for this mode of fighting; for the enemy did not stand the attack of the Romans, but, setting up a shout and flying most disgracefully, they threw themselves and their horses, with all their weight, upon their own infantry, before the infantry had begun the battle, so that so many tens of thousands were defeated before a wound was felt or blood was drawn. Now the great slaughter began when the army turned to flight, or rather attempted to fly, for they could not really fly, owing to the closeness and depth of their ranks, which made them in the way of one another. Tigranes, riding off at the front, fled with a few attendants, and, seeing that his son was a partner in his misfortune, he took off the diadem from his head, and, with tears, presented it to him, at the same time telling him to save himself, as he best could, by taking some other direction. The youth would not venture to put the diadem on his head, but gave it to the most faithful of his slaves to keep. This slave, happening to be taken, was carried to Lucullus, and thus the diadem of Tigranes, with other booty, fell into the hands of the Romans. It is said that above one hundred thousand of the infantry perished, and very few of the cavalry escaped. On the side of the Romans, a hundred were wounded, and five killed. Antiochus89 the philosopher, who mentions this battle in his ‘Treatise on the Gods,’ says that the sun never saw a battle like it. Strabo, another philosopher,90 in his ‘Historical Memoirs,’ says that the Romans were ashamed, and laughed at one another, for requiring arms against such a set of slaves. And Livius91 observed that the Romans never engaged with an enemy with such inferiority of numbers on their side, for the victors [Pg 460]were hardly the twentieth part of the defeated enemy, but somewhat less. The most skilful of the Roman generals, and those who had most military experience, commended Lucullus chiefly for this, that he had out-generalled the two most distinguished and powerful kings by two most opposite manœuvres, speed and slowness; for he wore out Mithridates, at the height of his power, by time and protracting the war; but he crushed Tigranes by his activity: and he was one of the very few commanders who ever employed delay when he was engaged in active operations, and bold measures when his safety was at stake.

XXIX

Mithridates made no haste to be present at the battle, because he supposed that Lucullus would carry on the campaign with his usual caution and delay; but he was advancing leisurely to join Tigranes. At first he fell in with a few Armenians on the road, who were retreating in great alarm and consternation, and he conjectured what had happened, but as he soon heard of the defeat from a large number whom he met, who had lost their arms and were wounded, he set out to seek Tigranes. Though he found Tigranes destitute of everything, and humbled, Mithridates did not retaliate for his former haughty behaviour, but he got down from his horse, and lamented with Tigranes their common misfortunes; he also gave Tigranes a royal train that was attending on him, and encouraged him to hope for the future. Accordingly, the two kings began to collect fresh forces. Now, in the city of Tigranocerta92 the Greeks had fallen to quarrelling with the barbarians, and were preparing to surrender the place to Lucullus, on which he assaulted and took it. Lucullus appropriated to himself the treasures in the city, but he gave up the city to be plundered by the soldiers, which contained eight thousand talents of coined money, with other valuable booty. Besides this, Lucullus gave to each man eight hundred drachmæ out of the produce of the spoils. Hearing that many actors had been taken in the city, whom Tigranes had collected from all quarters, with the view of opening the theatre which he had constructed, [Pg 461]Lucullus employed them for the games and shows in celebration of the victory. The Greeks he sent to their homes, and supplied them with means for the journey, and in like manner those barbarians who had been compelled to settle there; the result of which was that the dissolution of one city was followed by the restoration of many others, which thus recovered their citizens, by whom Lucullus was beloved as a benefactor and a founder. Everything else also went on successfully and conformably to the merits of the general, who sought for the praise that is due to justice and humanity, and not the praise that follows success in war: for the success in war was due in no small degree, to the army and to fortune, but his justice and humanity proved that he had a mild and well-regulated temper; and it was by these means that Lucullus now subdued the barbarians without resorting to arms; for the kings of the Arabs came to him to surrender all that they had, and the Sopheni also came over to him. He also gained the affection of the Gordyeni so completely that they were ready to leave their cities, and to follow him, as volunteers, with their children and wives, the reason of which was as follows: Zarbienus, the King of the Gordyeni, as it has been already told, secretly communicated, through Appius, with Lucullus about an alliance, being oppressed by the tyranny of Tigranes; but his design was reported to Tigranes, and he was put to death, and his children and wife perished with him, before the Romans invaded Armenia. Lucullus did not forget all this; and, on entering Gordyene, he made a funeral for Zarbienus, and, ornamenting the pile with vests, and the king’s gold, and the spoils got from Tigranes, he set fire to it himself, and poured libations on the pile, with the friends and kinsmen of the king, and gave him the name of friend and ally of the Roman people. He also ordered a monument to be erected to him at great cost; for a large quantity of gold and silver was found in the palace of Zarbienus, and there were stored up three million medimni of wheat, so that the soldiers were well supplied, and Lucullus was admired, that without receiving a drachma from the treasury, he made the war support itself.

XXX

While Lucullus was here, there came an embassy [Pg 462]from the King of the Parthians93 also, who invited him to friendship and an alliance. This proposal was agreeable to Lucullus, and in return he sent ambassadors to the Parthian, who discovered that he was playing double and secretly asking Mesopotamia from Tigranes as the price of his alliance. On hearing this Lucullus determined to pass by Tigranes and Mithridates as exhausted antagonists, and to try the strength of the Parthians, and to march against them, thinking it a glorious thing, in one uninterrupted campaign, like an athlete, to give three kings in succession the throw, and to have made his way through three empires, the most powerful under the sun, unvanquished and victorious. Accordingly he sent orders to Sornatius and the other commanders in Pontus to conduct the army there to him, as he was intending to advance from Gordyene farther into Asia. These generals had already found that the soldiers were difficult to manage and mutinous; but now they made the ungovernable temper of the soldiers quite apparent, being unable by any means of persuasion or compulsion to move the soldiers, who, with solemn asseverations, declared aloud that they would not stay even where they were, but would go and leave Pontus undefended. Report of this being carried to the army of Lucullus effected the corruption of his soldiers also, who had been made inert towards military service by the wealth they had acquired and their luxurious living, and they wanted rest; and, when they heard of the bold words of the soldiers in Pontus, they said they were men, and their example ought to be followed, for they had done enough to entitle them to be released from military service, and to enjoy repose.

XXXI

Lucullus, becoming acquainted with these and other still more mutinous expressions, gave up the expedition against the Parthians, and marched a second time against Tigranes. It was now the height of summer; and Lucullus was dispirited after crossing the Taurus, to see [Pg 463]that the fields were still green,94 so much later are the seasons, owing to the coldness of the air. However, he descended from the Taurus, and, after defeating the Armenians, who twice or thrice ventured to attack him, he plundered the villages without any fear; and, by seizing the corn which had been stored up by Tigranes, he reduced the enemy to the straits which he was apprehending himself. Lucullus challenged the Armenians to battle by surrounding their camp with his lines and ravaging the country before their eyes; but, as this did not make them move after their various defeats, he broke up and advanced against Artaxata, the royal residence of Tigranes, where his young children and wives were, thinking that Tigranes would not give them up without a battle. It is said that Hannibal the Carthaginian, after the defeat of Antiochus by the Romans, went to Artaxas the Armenian, to whose notice he introduced many useful things; and, observing a position which possessed great natural advan[Pg 464]tages and was very pleasant, though at that time unoccupied and neglected, he made the plan of a city on the ground, and, taking Artaxas there, showed it to him, and urged him to build up the place. The king, it is said, was pleased, and asked Hannibal to superintend the work; and thereupon a large and beautiful city sprung up, and, being named after the king, was declared to be the capital of Armenia. Tigranes did not let Lucullus quietly march against Artaxata, but, moving with his forces on the fourth day, he encamped opposite to the Romans, placing the river Arsanias between him and the enemy, which river the Romans must of necessity cross on their route to Artaxata. After sacrificing to the gods, Lucullus, considering that he had the victory in his hands, began to lead his army across the river, with twelve cohorts in the van, and the rest placed as a reserve to prevent the enemy from attacking his flank. There was a large body of picked cavalry opposed to the Romans, and in front of them Mardi mounted archers, and Iberians95 armed with spears, on whom Tigranes relied more than any of his mercenaries, as being the most warlike of all. However, they showed no gallant spirit; but, after a slight skirmish with the Roman cavalry, they did not venture to stand the attack of the infantry, and separating and taking to flight on both sides they drew after them the cavalry in the pursuit. At the moment when this part of the enemy was dispersed, the cavalry, which was about Tigranes, rode forward, and Lucullus was alarmed when he saw their brave appearance and numbers. He recalled the cavalry from the pursuit, and himself was the first to meet the Satrapeni,96 who were posted opposite to him with the king’s chief officers; but before they came to close quarters, the enemy was panic-struck and turned to flight. Of three kings at the same time opposed to the Romans, Mithridates of Pontus appears to have fled most disgrace[Pg 465]fully; for he did not stay to hear even the shouts of the Romans. The pursuit was continued for a great distance and all night long, and the Romans were wearied with killing and taking prisoners, and getting valuables and booty. Livius97 says that in the former battle a greater number of the enemy, but in this more men of rank fell and were taken prisoners.

XXXII

Elated and encouraged by this victory, Lucullus was intending to advance farther into the country, and to subdue the barbarian; but contrary to what one would have expected at the season of the autumnal equinox, they were assailed by heavy storms, generally snow-storms, and, when the sky was clear, there was hoar-frost and ice, owing to which the horses could not well drink of the rivers, by reason of the excessive cold; and they were difficult to ford, because the ice broke, and the rough edges cut the horses’ sinews. And as the greater part of the country was shaded and full of defiles and wooded, the soldiers were kept continually wet, being loaded with snow while they were marching, and spending the night uncomfortably in damp places. Accordingly, they had not followed Lucullus for many days after the battle when they began to offer resistance, at first making entreaties and also sending the tribunes to him, and then collecting in a tumultuous manner, with loud shouts in their tents by night, which is considered to be an indication that an army is in a state of mutiny. Yet Lucullus urged them strongly, and called on them to put endurance in their souls till they had taken and destroyed the Armenian Carthage, the work of their greatest enemy, meaning Hannibal. Not being able to prevail on them, he led them back by a different pass over the Taurus, and descended into the country called Mygdonike, which is fertile and warm, and contains a large and populous city, which the barbarians called Nisibis,98 [Pg 466]but the Greeks Antiocha Mygdonike. The city was defended in name by Gouras, a brother of Tigranes, but in fact by the experience and mechanical skill of Kallimachus, who had given Lucullus great trouble in the siege of Amisus also. Lucullus seated himself before the city, and, by availing himself of every mode of pressing a siege, in a short time he took the city by storm. Gouras, who surrendered himself to Lucullus, was treated kindly; but he would not listen to Kallimachus, though he promised to discover concealed treasures of great value; and he ordered him to be brought in chains to be punished for the conflagration by which he destroyed Amisus and deprived Lucullus of the object of his ambition and an opportunity of displaying his friendly disposition to the Greeks.

XXXIII

So far one may say that fortune accompanied Lucullus and shared his campaigns: but from this time, just as if a wind had failed him, trying to force everything and always meeting with obstacles, he displayed indeed the courage and endurance of a good commander, but his undertakings produced him neither fame nor good opinion, and even the reputation that he had he came very near losing by his want of success and his fruitless disputes. Lucullus himself was in no small degree the cause of all this; for he was not a man who tried to gain the affection of the soldiery, and he considered everything that was done to please the men as a disparagement to the general’s power, and as tending to destroy it. But, what was worst of all, he was not affable to the chief officers and those of the same rank as himself; he despised everybody, and thought no man had any merit compared with his own.99 [Pg 467]These bad qualities, it is said, that Lucullus had, though he possessed many merits. He was tall and handsome, a powerful speaker, and equally prudent in the Forum and the camp. Now, Sallustius says that the soldiers were ill-disposed towards him at the very commencement of the war before Kyzikus, and again at Amisus, because they were compelled to spend two winters in succession in camp. They were also vexed about the other winters, for they either spent them in a hostile country, or encamped among the allies under the bare sky; for Lucullus never once entered a Greek and friendly city with his army. While the soldiers were in this humour, they received encouragement from the demagogues at Rome, who envied Lucullus, and charged him with protracting the war through love of power and avarice. They said that he all but held at once Cilicia, Asia, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Galatia, Pontus, Armenia, and the parts as far as the Phasis, and that at last he had plundered even the palace of Tigranes, as if he had been sent to strip kings and not to conquer them. This, it is said, was urged by one of the prætors, Lucius Quintus,100 by whom they were mainly persuaded to pass a decree to send persons to supersede Lucullus in his province. They also decreed that many of the soldiers under Lucullus should be released from service.

XXXIV

To these causes, in themselves so weighty, there was added another that, most of all, ruined the measures of Lucullus; and this was Publius Clodius, a violent man, and full of arrogance and audacity. He was the brother of the wife of Lucullus, a woman of most dissolute habits, whom he was also accused of debauching. At this time he was serving with Lucullus, and he did not get all the distinction to which he thought himself entitled. In fact, he aspired to the first rank, and, as there were many preferred before him, in consequence of his [Pg 468]character, he secretly endeavoured to win the favour of Fimbria’s army, and to excite the soldiers against Lucullus, by circulating among them words well suited to those who were ready to hear them, and were not unaccustomed to be courted. These were the men whom Fimbria had persuaded to kill the consul Flaccus, and to choose himself for their general. Accordingly, they gladly listened to Clodius, and called him the soldier’s friend, for he pretended to feel indignant at their treatment. “Was there never to be an end,” he would say, “to so many wars and dangers, and were they to wear out their lives in fighting with every nation, and wandering over every country, and getting no equivalent for so much service, but, instead thereof, were they to convoy waggons and camels of Lucullus, loaded with cups of gold, set with precious stones, while the soldiers of Pompeius were now living as citizens,101 and with their wives and children were sitting quiet in the enjoyment of fertile lands and cities, though they had not driven Mithridates and Tigranes into uninhabited wildernesses, nor pulled down the palaces of Asia, but had fought with exiles in Iberia, and runaway slaves in Italy? Why, then, if there is never to be an end of our service, do we not reserve what remains of our bodies and our lives for a general who considers the wealth of the soldiers his chief glory?” By such causes as these the army of Lucullus was corrupted, and his soldiers refused to follow him either against Tigranes or against Mithridates, who immediately made an irruption from Armenia into Pontus, and endeavoured to recover his power; but alleging the winter as an excuse, the soldiers lingered in Gordyene, expecting every moment that Pompeius, or some other commander,102 would arrive to supersede Lucullus.

XXXV

[Pg 469]But when news came that Mithridates had defeated Fabius,103 and was marching against Sornatius and Triarius, through very shame the soldiers followed Lucullus. Triarius, being ambitious to snatch the victory which he thought was in his grasp, before Lucullus, who was near, should arrive, was defeated in a great battle. It is said that above seven thousand Romans fell, among whom were a hundred and fifty centurions, and twenty-four tribunes; and Mithridates took the camp. Lucullus arrived a few days after, and secreted from the soldiers Triarius, whom in their passion, they wore looking for; and, as Mithridates was not willing to fight, but was waiting for Tigranes, who was already coming down with a large force, Lucullus determined to march back, and to fight with Tigranes before he and Mithridates could unite. As he was on his march the soldiers of Fimbria mutinied, and left their ranks, considering that they were released from service by the decree of the Senate, and that Lucullus had no longer any right to the command, now that the provinces were assigned to others. Upon this there was nothing, however inconsistent with his dignity, which Lucullus did not submit to do—supplicating the soldiers individually, and going about from tent to tent in humble manner, and with tears in his eyes, and sometimes even taking the soldiers by the hand. But they rejected his proffered hand, and threw down before him their empty purses, and told him to fight with the enemy himself, for he was the only person who knew how to get rich from them. However, at the request of the rest of the army, the soldiers of Fimbria were constrained, and agreed to stay to the end of summer, and if, in the meantime, no enemy should come down to fight them, they were then to be released. Lucullus was of necessity obliged to acquiesce in this, or else to be left alone, and give up the country to the barbarians. He therefore kept the soldiers together, without making any further attempt to force them, or lead them out to battle, for he was well content if they would stay with him, and he allowed Cappadocia to be ravaged by Tigranes, and Mithridates to resume his [Pg 470]arrogance, as to whom he had written to the Senate, to inform them that he was completely subdued; and the commissioners104 were now with him who had been sent to settle the affairs of Pontus, on the supposition that the country was completely in the power of the Romans. Indeed, the commissioners were now witnesses that Lucullus was not his own master, but was treated with contumely and insult by the soldiers, who carried their audacity towards their commander so far, that, at the close of the summer, they put on their armour, and drawing their swords, challenged to battle the enemy who were no longer there, but had already moved off. After uttering the war shout, and flourishing their swords in the air, they left the camp, declaring that the time was up which they had agreed to stay with Lucullus. The rest of the soldiers were summoned by Pompeius by letter, for he had been appointed to the command105 in the war against Mithridates and Tigranes, by the favour of the people, and through the influence of the demagogues; though the Senate and the nobles thought that Lucullus was wronged, inasmuch as he was not superseded in a war, but in a triumph; and it was not the command, but the honours of the command that he was compelled to divest himself of, and to surrender to others.

XXXVI

But it appeared a still greater wrong to those who were with Lucullus in Asia, that Lucullus had not the power either to reward or punish for anything that was done in the war; nor did Pompeius allow any person to go to him, nor to pay any attention to the orders and regulations that he was making in concert with the ten commissioners, but he obstructed him by publishing counter edicts, and by the fear which he inspired from having a larger force. However, their friends agreed to bring them together, and they met in a village of Galatia, where they [Pg 471]saluted one another in a friendly manner, and each congratulated the other on his victories. Lucullus was the elder, but Pompeius had the greater reputation, because he had oftener had the command, and enjoyed two triumphs. Fasces, wreathed with bay,106 were carried before both generals in token of their victories. But, as Pompeius had made a long march through a country without water and arid, the bays upon his fasces were withered, which the lictors of Lucullus observing, in a friendly manner gave them bays out of their own, which were fresh and green. And this the friends of Pompeius interpreted as a good omen; for, in fact, the exploits of Lucullus served to set off the command of Pompeius. But the conference107 resulted in no amicable arrangement, and they separated with increased aversion towards each other. Pompeius also annulled the regulations of Lucullus, and he took off with him all the soldiers with the exception of sixteen hundred, whom he left to Lucullus for his triumph; and even these did not follow him very willingly: so ill suited was the temper of Lucullus, or so unlucky was he in securing that which, of all things, is the chief and greatest in a general; for, if he had possessed this quality, with the other many and great virtues that he had, courage, activity, judgment, and justice, the Roman empire would not have had the Euphrates for its limit, but the remotest parts of Asia, and the Hyrkanian Sea;108 for all the other nations had already been defeated by Tigranes, and the Parthian power was not such as it afterwards showed itself to be in the campaign of Crassus,109 nor so well combined, but owing to intestine and neighbouring wars, was not even strong enough to repel the attacks of the Armenians. But it seems to me that the services of Lucullus to his country were less than the harm he did it in other things; for his trophies in [Pg 472]Armenia, which were erected on the borders of Parthia, and Tigranocerta, and Nisibis, and the great wealth that was brought from these cities to Rome, and the display of the diadem of Tigranes in his triumph, urged Crassus to attack Asia, and to think that the barbarians were only spoil and booty, and nothing else. But Crassus soon felt the Parthian arrows, and so proved that Lucullus had got the advantage over the enemy, not through their want of skill or cowardice, but by his own courage and ability. This, however, happened afterwards.

XXXVII

When Lucullus returned to Rome, first of all he found that his brother Marcus was under prosecution by Caius Memmius,110 for what he had done in his quæstorship at the command of Sulla. Upon Marcus being acquitted, Memmius transferred his attack to Lucullus himself, and endeavoured to excite the people against him, and persuaded them not to give him a triumph, on the ground that he had appropriated to himself much of the spoils, and had prolonged the war. Now that Lucullus was involved in a great struggle, the first and most powerful men, mingling themselves among the tribes, by much entreaty and exertion with difficulty persuaded the people to allow Lucullus to have a triumph;111 not, however, like some, a triumph which was striking and bustling, from [Pg 473]the length of the procession, and the quantity of things that were displayed, but he decorated the circus of Flaminius with the arms of the enemy, of which he had a great quantity, and with the royal engines of war; and it was a spectacle in itself far from being contemptible. In the procession a few of the mailed horsemen, and ten of the scythe-bearing chariots moved along, with sixty of the king’s friends and generals, and a hundred and ten brazen-beaked ships of war also were carried in the procession, and a gold statue of Mithridates six feet high, and a shield ornamented with precious stones, and twenty litters loaded with silver vessels, and two-and-thirty loaded with golden cups, armour, and money. All this was carried on men’s shoulders; but there were eight mules that bore golden couches, and fifty-six carried silver in bars, and a hundred and seven others carried silver coin to the amount of near two million seven hundred thousand pieces. There were also tablets, on which was written the amount of money that Lucullus had supplied Pompeius with for the pirates’ war, and the amount that he had paid to those who had the care of the ærarium; and besides this, it was added that every soldier received nine hundred and fifty drachmæ. After this Lucullus feasted all the city in a splendid style, and the surrounding villages which the Romans call Vici.

XXXVIII

After Lucullus had divorced Clodia, who was a loose and unprincipled woman, he married Servilia,112 the sister of Cato, but neither was this a happy marriage; for he thus escaped only one of the misfortunes that resulted from his union with Clodia, the scandal about her brothers: in every other respect Servilia was as abominable [Pg 474]as Clodia and a licentious woman, and yet Lucullus was obliged to bear with her from regard to Cato; but at last he put her away. Lucullus had raised the highest expectations in the Senate, who hoped to find in him a counterpoise to the overbearing conduct of Pompeius and a defender of the aristocracy,113 inasmuch as he had the advantage of great reputation and influence; but he disappointed these hopes and gave up political affairs, either because he saw that they were already in a difficult position and not in a healthy state, or, as some say, because he was satisfied with glory, and wished to fall back to an easy and luxurious life, after his many contests and dangers, which had not been followed by the most fortunate of results. Some commend him for making such a change, whereby he avoided what had befallen Marius, who, after his Cimbrian victories and that great and glorious success, did not choose to dedicate himself to honour so great and to be an object of admiration, but through insatiate desire of glory and power, though an old man, entered into political warfare with young men, and so ended his career in dreadful acts, and in sufferings more dreadful than acts; and they say that Cicero also would have had a better old age if he had withdrawn from public life after the affair of Catiline, and Scipio after he had added the conquest of Numantia to that of Carthage, if he had then stopped; for there is a close to a political period also, and political contests as well as those of athletes are censured when a man’s vigour and prime have failed him. But Crassus and Pompeius sneered114 at Lucullus for giving himself up to pleasure and extravagant living, as if a luxurious life was not more unsuitable to persons of his age than affairs of state and military command.

XXXIX

[Pg 475]Now in the life of Lucullus, as in an ancient comedy, we may read, in the first part, of political measures and military command, and, in the last part, of drinking and feasts, and hardly anything but revels, and torches, and all kinds of amusement; for I reckon among amusements, expensive buildings, and construction of ambulatories and baths, and still more paintings and statues, and eagerness about works of this kind, all which he got together at great cost, and to this end spent profusely the wealth which he had accumulated to a large and splendid amount in his military command; for, even now, when luxury of this kind has increased, the gardens of Lucullus are reckoned among the most sumptuous of the imperial gardens.115 But with respect to his works on the sea-coast and in the neighbourhood of Neapolis, where he suspended as it were hills by digging great tunnels,116 and threw around his dwelling-places circular pieces of sea-water and channels for the breeding of fish, and built houses in the sea, Tubero the Stoic,117 on seeing them, called him Xerxes in a toga. He had also country residences in the neighbourhood of Tusculum, and towers commanding prospects,118 and open apartments and ambu[Pg 476]latories, which Pompeius on visiting found fault with Lucullus, that he had arranged his house in the best way for summer, but had made it unfit to live in during the winter. On which Lucullus said, with a smile, “You think, then, I have less sense than the cranes and storks, and do not change my residence according to the seasons.” On one occasion, when a prætor was ambitious to signalize himself in the matter of a public spectacle, and asked of Lucullus some purple cloaks for the dress of a chorus, Lucullus replied, that he would see if he had any and would give them to him; and the day after he asked the prætor how many he wanted. The prætor said that a hundred would be enough, on which Lucullus told him to take twice as many; in allusion to which the poet Flaccus119 has remarked, that he does not consider a man to be rich, if the property that he cares not for and knows nothing about is not more than that which he sees.

XL

The daily meals of Lucullus were accompanied with all the extravagance of newly-acquired wealth; for it was not only by dyed coverlets for his couches, and cups set with precious stones, and choruses and dramatic entertainments, but by abundance of all kinds of food and dainty dishes, curiously prepared, that he made himself an object of admiration to the uninstructed. Now Pompeius gained a good reputation in an illness that he had; for the physician had ordered him to eat a thrush, and, on his domestics telling him that a thrush could not be found in the summer season except at the house of Lucullus, where they were fed, Pompeius would not consent to have one got from there; but remarking to his physician, “What, if Lucullus were not so luxurious, could not Pompeius live?” bade them get for him something else that could be easily procured. Cato, who was his friend and connected with him by marriage, was so much annoyed at his life and habits that, on one occasion, when a young man had delivered in the senate a tedious and lengthy discourse, quite out of season, on frugality and temperance, Cato got up and said, “Won’t you stop, you who are as rich as Crassus, and live like Lucullus, and speak [Pg 477]like Cato?” Some say that a remark to this effect was made, but that it was not by Cato.

XLI

That Lucullus was not merely pleased with this mode of living, but prided himself upon it, appears from the anecdotes that are recorded. It is said, that he feasted for many days some Greeks who visited Rome, and that they, feeling as Greeks would do120 on the occasion, began to be ashamed and to decline the invitation, on the ground that he was daily incurring so much expense on their account; but Lucullus said to them with a smile, “It is true, Greeks, that this is partly done on your account, but mainly on the account of Lucullus.” One day, when he was supping alone, a single course and a moderate repast had been prepared for him, at which he was angry, and called for the slave whose business it was to look after such matters. The slave said, that he did not suppose that he would want anything costly, as no guest was invited. “What sayest thou?” said Lucullus, “didst thou not know that to-day Lucullus sups with Lucullus?” Now, this matter being much talked of in the city, as one might expect, there came up to Lucullus, as he was idling in the Forum, Cicero and Pompeius, of whom Cicero was among his most intimate friends; but between Lucullus and Pompeius there was some difference, arising out of the affair of the command in the Mithridatic war, and yet they were accustomed to associate and talk together frequently in a friendly manner. Accordingly, Cicero saluted him, and asked him how he was disposed to receive visitors, to which Lucullus replied, “Exceedingly well,” and invited them to pay him a visit. “We wish,” said Cicero, “to sup with you to-day, just in the same way as if preparation were made for yourself only.” Lucullus began to make some difficulty, and to ask them to allow him to name another day; but they said they would not, nor would they let him speak to his servants, that he might not have the opportunity of ordering anything more than what was preparing for himself. However, at his request, they allowed him just to tell one of his slaves in their presence, [Pg 478]that he would sup on that day in the Apollo; for this was the name of one of his costly apartments. This trick of Lucullus was not understood by his guests; for it is said that to every banqueting-room there was assigned the cost of the feast there, and every room had its peculiar style of preparation and entertainment, so that when the slaves heard in which room their master intended to sup, they also knew what was to be the cost of the supper and the kind of decoration and arrangement. Now, Lucullus was accustomed to sup in the Apollo at the cost of fifty thousand drachmas, and this being the cost of the entertainment on the present occasion, Pompeius and Cicero were surprised at the rapidity with which the banquet had been got ready and the costliness of the entertainment. In this way, then, Lucullus used his wealth, capriciously, just as if it were a captive slave and a barbarian.

XLII

What he did as to his collection of books is worth notice and mention. He got together a great number of books which were well transcribed, and the mode in which they were used was more honourable to him than the acquisition of them; for the libraries were open to all, and the walking-places which surrounded them, and the reading rooms were accessible to the Greeks without any restriction, and they went there as to an abode of the Muses, and spent the day there in company with one another, gladly betaking themselves to the libraries from their other occupations. Lucullus himself often spent some time there with the visitors, walking about in the ambulatories, and he used to talk there with men engaged in public affairs on such matters as they might choose; and altogether his house was a home and a Greek prytaneum121 to those who came to Rome. He was fond of philosophy [Pg 479]generally, and well disposed to every sect, and friendly to them all; but from the first he particularly admired and loved the Academy,122 not that which is called the New Academy, though the sect was then flourishing by the propagation of the doctrines of Karneades by Philo, but Old Academy, which at that time had for its head a persuasive man and a powerful speaker, Antiochus of Askalon, whom Lucullus eagerly sought for his friend and companion, and opposed to the followers of Philo, of whom Cicero also was one. Cicero wrote an excellent treatise upon the doctrines of this sect, in which he made Lucullus123 the speaker in favour of the doctrine of comprehension124 and himself the speaker on the opposite side. [Pg 480]The book is entitled ‘Lucullus.’ Lucullus and Cicero were, as I have said, great friends, and associated in their political views, for Lucullus had not entirely withdrawn from public affairs, though he had immediately on his return to Rome surrendered to Crassus and Cato the ambition and the struggle to be the first man in the state and have the greatest power, considering that the struggle was not free from danger and great mortification; for those who looked with jealousy on the power of Pompeius put Crassus and Cato at the head of their party in the Senate, when Lucullus declined to take the lead, but Lucullus used to go to the Forum to support his friends, and to the Senate whenever it was necessary to put a check on any attempt or ambitious design of Pompeius. The arrangements which Pompeius made after his conquest of the kings, Lucullus contrived to nullify, and when Pompeius proposed a distribution of lands125 Lucullus with the assist[Pg 481]ance of Cato prevented it from being made, which drew Pompeius to seek the friendship of Crassus and Cæsar, or rather to enter into a combination with them, and by filling the city with arms and soldiers he got his measures ratified after driving out of the Forum the partisans of Cato and Lucullus. The nobles being indignant at these proceedings, the party of Pompeius produced one Vettius,126 whom, as they said, they had detected in a design on the life of Pompeius. When Vettius was examined before the Senate, he accused others, and before the popular assembly he named Lucullus as the person by whom he had been suborned to murder Pompeius. But nobody believed him, and it soon became clear that the man had been brought forward by the partisans of Pompeius to fabricate a false charge, and to criminate others, and the fraud was made still more apparent, when a few days after the dead body of Vettius was thrown out of the prison; for, though it was given out that he died a natural death127 there were marks of strangulation and violence on the body, and it was the opinion that he had been put to death by those who suborned him.

XLIII

This induced Lucullus still more to withdraw from public affairs; and when Cicero was banished from Rome, and Cato128 was sent to Cyprus, he retired [Pg 482]altogether. Before he died, it is said that his understanding was disordered and gradually failed. Cornelius Nepos says that Lucullus did not die of old age nor of disease, but that his health was destroyed by potions given him by Callisthenes, one of his freedmen, and that the potions were given him by Callisthenes with the view of increasing his master’s affection for him, a power which the potions were supposed to have, but they so far disturbed and destroyed his reason, that during his lifetime his brother managed his affairs. However, when Lucullus died, the people grieved just as much as if he had died at the height of his military distinction and his political career, and they flocked together and had his body carried to the Forum by the young men of the highest rank and were proceeding forcibly to have it interred in the Campus Martius where Sulla was interred; but, as nobody had expected this, and it was not easy to make the requisite preparations, the brother of Lucullus prayed and prevailed on the people to allow the funeral ceremony to take place on the estate at Tusculum, where preparations for it had been made. Nor did he long survive; but as in age and reputation he came a little after Lucullus, so he died shortly after him, a most affectionate brother.

COMPARISON OF
KIMON AND LUCULLUS.

Lucullus may be accounted especially fortunate in having died when he did, so that he did not witness the ruin of his country by the civil wars, but departed this life while Rome, though corrupt, was yet a free state. And in this he resembles Kimon more than in any other point; for Kimon also died while the Greeks were at the height of their prosperity, and before they had begun to fight against one another. Indeed, Kimon died in his camp, while acting as commander-in-chief of his country’s forces, at the siege of Kitium in Cyprus; not retired home, as if worn out with hard service, nor yet indulging in feasting and wine-drinking, as though that were the end and reward of his military achievements; like that life of eternal drunkenness which Plato sneers at the Orphic school for promising to their disciples as their reward hereafter.

A peaceful retirement, and a life of literary leisure, is no doubt a great comfort to a man who has withdrawn himself from taking any active part in politics; but to perform notable exploits with no object in view except to obtain the means of enjoyment, and to pass from the command of armies and the conduct of great wars to a life of voluptuous indolence and luxury seems unworthy of a philosopher of the Academy, or of any who profess to follow the doctrine of Xenokrates, and to be rather fit for a disciple of Epikurus. It is a remarkable circumstance that the youth of Kimon seems to have been licentious and extravagant, while that of Lucullus was spent in a sober and virtuous fashion. Clearly he is the better man that changes for the better; for that nature must be the more [Pg 484]excellent in which vice decays, and virtue gains strength. Moreover, both Kimon and Lucullus were wealthy; but they made a very different use of their wealth. We cannot compare the building of the south wall of the Acropolis of Athens, which was completed with the money won by Kimon in the wars, with the luxurious pavilions and villas washed by the sea which Lucullus erected in Neapolis with the spoils he had taken from the barbarian enemies of Rome. Still less can we compare the generous and popular hospitality of Kimon with the Eastern profusion and extravagance of Lucullus’s table; for Kimon, at a small expense, fed many of his countrymen daily, while the other spent enormous sums to provide luxuries for a small circle of friends. Yet this difference in their habits may have been caused by the times in which they lived; and no one can tell whether Kimon, if he had returned home and spent an old age of indolence and unwarlike repose, might not have even exceeded Lucullus in riotous luxury; for he was fond of wine and of society, and, as has been told in his life, was greatly addicted to women. But success in war or in politics so delights ambitious natures that they have no time for pursuing minor pleasures. Had Lucullus died at the head of his army, I suppose that the most captious critic could scarcely have found anything to blame in his life. So much, then, for their mode of living.

II

Now with regard to their warlike operations, there can be no doubt that both proved themselves to be consummate commanders, both by land and by sea; yet, as we are accustomed to call those athletes who have in one day been successful both in wrestling and in the pankratium by the name of notable victors, so Kimon, who in one day won a victory both by sea and by land, thus gaining a double triumph for Greece, deserves to be given some place above all other generals. Moreover, Lucullus was given the chief command by his country, but Kimon won for his country the honour of commanding the other Greek states. Lucullus found his country in command of allies, and by their aid overthrew the enemy, but Kimon found his country acting under the command of others, [Pg 485]and by his own force of character both made Athens the leading state in Greece and overcame the enemy, for he drove the Persians from the sea, and persuaded the Lacedæmonians to resign their claims to supremacy. If we are to believe it to be the greatest proof of ability in a general to be loved and willingly obeyed by his soldiers, then we see that Lucullus was despised by his soldiers, while Kimon was esteemed and looked up to by his allies, for the soldiers of Lucullus revolted from him, while the Greek states revolted from Sparta in order to join Kimon. Thus the former was sent out in chief command, and returned home deserted by his men, while the other, though sent out to act as a subordinate under the command of others, ended by returning as commander-in-chief of them all, having succeeded, in spite of the greatest difficulties, in obtaining three great advantages for his countrymen, namely, having delivered them from the fear of their enemies, having given them authority over their confederates, and established a lasting friendship between them and the Lacedæmonians. Both commanders attempted an enormous task, the conquest of Asia; and both were forced to leave their work unfinished. Kimon was prevented by death, for he died at the head of an army and in the full tide of success; while one cannot altogether think that Lucullus was not to blame for not having tried to satisfy the complaints of his soldiers, which caused them to hate him so bitterly. In this point Lucullus and Kimon are alike; for Kimon was often impeached by his countrymen, who at last banished him by ostracism, in order that, as Plato said, they might not hear his voice for ten years. It seldom happens that men born to command can please the people, or have anything in common with them; because they cause pain by their attempts to rule and reform them, just as the bandages of a surgeon cause pain to the patient, when by their means he is endeavouring to force back dislocated limbs into their proper position. For this reason, methinks, neither Kimon nor Lucullus deserve blame.

III

Lucullus accomplished by far the greater exploits of the two, as he marched beyond the Mount Taurus with [Pg 486]an army, being the first Roman who ever did so, and also crossed the river Tigris, and took and burned the royal cities of Asia, Tigranocerta, Kabeira, Sinope, and Nisibis, in the sight of their kings. Towards the north, he went as far as the river Phasis; towards the east as far as Media; and southwards as far as the Red Sea and the kingdom of Arabia, subduing it all to the Roman Empire. He destroyed the power of two mighty kings, and left them in possession of nothing but their lives, forcing them to hide themselves like hunted beasts, in trackless wastes and impassable forests. A great proof of the completeness of Lucullus’s success is to be found in the fact that the Persians soon after Kimon’s death, attacked the Greeks as vigorously as if they had never been defeated by Kimon at all, and defeated a large Greek army in Egypt; while Tigranes and Mithridates never recovered from the overthrow they sustained from Lucullus. Mithridates was so crushed and broken in strength that he never dared to march out of his entrenchments and fight with Pompeius, but retired to Bosporus and died there; while Tigranes of his own accord came into the presence of Pompeius naked and unarmed, and cast down his royal diadem at his feet, not flattering him for the victories which he had won, but for those for which Lucullus had triumphed. He was well pleased to be allowed to resume the ensigns of royalty, and thereby admitted that he had before been deprived of them. He, therefore, is to be held the better general, as he is the better wrestler, who leaves his enemy weakest for his successor to deal with. Moreover, Kimon found the power of the Persians impaired, and their spirit broken by the series of defeats which they had sustained from Themistokles, Pausanias, and Leotychides, and was easily able to conquer men whose hearts were already vanquished: whereas Lucullus met Tigranes when he was full of courage, and in the midst of an unbroken career of victory. As for numbers, one cannot compare the multitudes who were opposed to Lucullus with the troops who were defeated by Kimon. Thus it appears that from whatever point of view we regard them, it is hard to [Pg 487]say which was the better man, especially as heaven seems to have dealt so kindly with them both, in telling the one what to do, and the other what to avoid: so that it seems to appear by the testimony of the gods themselves, that they were both men of a noble and godlike nature.

LIFE OF
NIKIAS.

As it appears to me that the life of Nikias forms a good parallel to that of Crassus, and that the misfortunes of the former in Sicily may be well compared with those of the latter in Parthia, I must beg of my readers to believe that in writing upon a subject which has been described by Thucydides with inimitable grace, clearness, and pathos, I have no ambition to imitate Timæus, who, when writing his history, hoped to surpass Thucydides himself in eloquence, and to show that Philistius was but an ignorant bungler, and so plunges into an account of the speeches and battles of his heroes, proving himself not merely one

“Who toils on foot afar

Behind the Lydian car,”

as Pindar has it, but altogether unfit for the office of historian, and, in the words of Diphilus,

“Dull-witted, with Sicilian fat for brains.”

He often seeks to shelter himself behind the opinions of Xenarchus, as when he tells us that the Athenians thought it a bad omen that the general whose name was Victory refused to command the expedition to Sicily; and when he says that by the mutilation of the Hennas the gods signified that the Athenians would suffer their chief disasters at the hands of Hermokrates the son of Hermon; or, again, when he observes that Herakles might be expected to take the side of the Syracusans because of Proserpine, the daughter of Demeter, who gave him the dog Kerberus, and to be angry with the [Pg 2]Athenians because they protected the people of Egesta, who were descended from the Trojans, whereas he had been wronged by Laomedon, king of Troy, and had destroyed that city. Timæus was probably led to write this sort of nonsense by the same critical literary spirit which led him to correct the style of Philistius, and to find fault with that of Aristotle and Plato. My own opinion is that to pay too much attention to mere style and to endeavour to surpass that of other writers, is both trifling and pedantic, while any attempt to reproduce that of the unapproachable masterpieces of antiquity springs from a want of power to appreciate their real value. With regard, then, to the actions of Nikias described by Thucydides and Philistius, more especially those which illustrate his true character, having been performed under the stress of terrible disasters, I shall briefly recapitulate them, lest I be thought a careless biographer, adding to them whatever scattered notices I have been able to collect from the writings of other historians and from public documents and inscriptions; and of these latter I shall quote only those which enable us to judge what manner of man he was.

II

The first thing to be noted in describing Nikias is the saying of Aristotle, that there had been in Athens three citizens of great ability and patriotism, namely, Nikias, the son of Nikeratus, Thucydides, the son of Melesias, and Theramenes, the son of Hagnon; though the latter was not equal to the two former, but was reproached with being a foreigner from the island of Keos; and, also, because he was not a stable politician but always inclined to change sides, he was nicknamed Kothornos, which means a large boot which will fit either leg. Of these three statesmen the eldest was Thucydides, who was the leader of the conservative opposition to Perikles; while Nikias, who was a younger man, rose to a certain eminence during the life of Perikles, as he acted as his colleague in the command of a military force, and also filled the office of archon. On the death of Perikles, Nikias at once became the foremost man in Athens, chiefly by the favour of the rich and noble, who wished to make use of him to check the plebeian insolence [Pg 3]of Kleon; yet Nikias had the good-will of the common people, and they were eager to further his interests. Kleon, indeed, became very powerful by caressing the people and giving them opportunities for earning money from the State, but in spite of this, many of the lower classes whose favour he especially strove to obtain, became disgusted with, his greed and insolence, and preferred to attach themselves to Nikias. Indeed, there was nothing harsh or overbearing in the pride of Nikias, which arose chiefly from his fear of being thought to be currying favour with the people. By nature he was downhearted and prone to despair, but in war these qualities were concealed by his invariable success in whatever enterprise he undertook; while in political life his retiring manner and his dread of the vulgar demagogues, by whom he was easily put out of countenance, added to his popularity; for the people fear those who treat them with haughtiness, and favour those who respect and fear them. The reason of this is that the greatest honour which the populace can receive from a great man is not to be treated with contempt by him.

III

Perikles, indeed, used to govern Athens by sheer force of character and eloquence, and required no tricks of manner or plausible speeches to gain him credit with the populace; but Nikias had no natural gifts of this sort, and owed his position merely to his wealth. As he could not vie with Kleon in the versatile and humorous power of speech by which the latter swayed the Athenian masses, he endeavoured to gain the favour of the people by supplying choruses for the public dramatic performances and instituting athletic sports on a scale of lavish expenditure which never before had been equalled by any citizen. The statue of Pallas, erected by him in the Acropolis, is standing at this day, although it has lost the gold with which it was formerly adorned, and also the building which supports the choragic tripods in the temple of Dionysus, for he often gained a victory when choragus, and never was vanquished.

It is said that once during the performance of a play at his expense, a slave of his appeared upon the stage habited as Dionysus; a tall and handsome youth, and still beardless. The Athenians were charmed with his appearance, [Pg 4]and applauded for a long time, at the end of which Nikias rose and said that he did not think it right that one whose body was thus consecrated to a god should be a slave; and consequently he gave him his freedom. Tradition also tells us how magnificently and decorously he arranged the procession at Delos. In former times the choruses sent by the cities of Ionia to sing to the glory of the god used to sail up to the island in a disorderly fashion, and were at once met by a rude mob, who called upon, them to sing, so that they disembarked in a hurry, huddling on their garlands and robes with unseemly haste and confusion. Nikias disembarked with his chorus upon the little island of Rhenea close by, with all their vestments and holy things, and then during the night bridged the strait—which is very narrow—with a bridge of boats which he had had made at Athens expressly, which was beautifully ornamented with gilding and rich tapestry. Next morning at daybreak, he led the procession to the god over this bridge, with his chorus very richly dressed, and singing as they passed over the strait. After the sacrifice, the public games, and the banquet, he set up the brazen palm-tree as an offering to the god, and also set apart an estate which he had bought for ten thousand drachmas, as sacred to the god. With the revenues of this land the people of Delos were to offer sacrifice and to provide themselves with a feast, and were to pray the gods to bestow blessings on Nikias. All these injunctions to the people of Delos were inscribed upon a pillar which he left there to guard his bequest. The palm-tree was afterwards overturned by a high wind, and in its fall destroyed the great statue which had been set up by the people of Naxos.

IV

These acts of Nikias may have been prompted by ambition and desire for display, but when viewed in connection with his superstitious character they seem more probably to have been the outcome of his devotional feelings; for we are told by Thucydides that he was one who stood greatly in awe of the gods, and was wholly devoted to religion. In one of the dialogues of Pasiphon, we read that he offered sacrifice daily, and that he kept a soothsayer in his house, whom he pretended to consult [Pg 5]upon affairs of state, but really sought his advice about his own private concerns, especially about his silver mines. He had extensive mines at Laurium, the working of which afforded him very large profits, but yet was attended with great risks. He maintained a large body of slaves at the works; and most of his property consisted of the silver produced by them. For this reason he was surrounded by hangers-on, and persons who endeavoured to obtain a share of his wealth, and he gave money to all alike, both to those who might do him harm, and to those who really deserved his liberality, for he gave to bad men through fear, and to good men through good nature. We may find proof of this in the writings of the comic poets. Telekleides, speaking of some informer, says:

“Charikles a mina gave him, fearing he might say

Charikles himself was born in a suspicious way;

And Nikias five minas gave. Now, what his reasons were

I know full well, but will not tell, for he’s a trusty fere.”

Eupolis, too, in his comedy of Marikas has a scene where an informer meets with a poor man who is no politician, and says:

“A. Say where you last with Nikias did meet.

B. Never. Save once I saw him in the street.

A. He owns he saw him. Wherefore should he say

He saw him, if he meant not to betray

His crimes?

C. My friends, you all perceive the fact,

That Nikias is taken in the act.

B. Think you, O fools, that such a man as he

In any wicked act would taken be.”

Just so does Kleon threaten him in Aristophanes’s play:

“The orators I’ll silence, and make Nikias afraid.”

Phrynichus, too, sneers at his cowardice and fear of the popular demagogues, when he says:

“An honest citizen indeed he was,

And not a coward like to Nikias.”

V

Nikias feared so much to give the mob orators grounds for accusation against him, that he dared not so much as dine with his follow citizens, and pass his time in their society. Nor did he have any leisure at all for such amusements, but when general, he used to spend [Pg 6]the whole day in the War office, and when the Senate met he would be the first to come to the house and the last to leave it. When there was no public business to be transacted, he was hard to meet with, as he shut himself up in his house and seldom stirred abroad. His friends used to tell those who came to his door that they must pardon him for not receiving them, as he was not at leisure, being engaged on public business of great importance. One Hieron, whom he had brought up in his house and educated, assisted him greatly in throwing this air of mystery and haughty exclusiveness over his life. This man gave out that he was the son of Dionysius, called Chalkus, whose poems are still extant, and who was the leader of the expedition to Italy to found the city of Thurii. Hiero used to keep Nikias supplied with prophetic responses from the soothsayers, and gave out to the Athenians that Nikias was toiling night and day on their behalf, saying that when he was in his bath or at his dinner he was constantly being interrupted by some important public business or other, so that, said he, “His night’s rest is broken by his labours, and his private affairs are neglected through his devotion to those of the public. He has injured his health, and besides losing his fortune, has been deserted by many of his friends on account of his not being able to entertain them and make himself agreeable to them; while other men find in politics a means of obtaining both friends and fortune, at the expense of the state.” In very truth the life of Nikias was such that he might well apply to himself the words of Agamemnon.

“In outward show and stately pomp all others I exceed,

And yet the people’s underling I am in very deed.”

VI

Perceiving that the Athenian people were willing enough to make use of the talents of men of ability, and yet ever viewed them with suspicion and checked them when in full career, as we may learn from their condemnation of Perikles, their banishment of Damon by ostracism, and their mistrust of Antiphon the Rhamnusian, and especially in their treatment of Paches the conqueror of Lesbos, who while his conduct as general was being [Pg 7]enquired into, stabbed himself in the open court—perceiving this, Nikias always avoided, as far as he could, taking the command in any important military expedition. Whenever he was employed as general, he acted with extreme caution, and was usually successful. He was careful to attribute his success, not to any skill or courage of his own, but to fortune, being willing to lessen his glory to avoid the ill-will of mankind. His good fortune was indeed shown in many remarkable instances: for example, he never was present at any of the great defeats sustained by the Athenians at that time, as in Thrace they were defeated by the Greeks of Chalkidike, but on that occasion Kalliades and Xenophon were acting as generals, while the defeat in Ætolia took place when Demosthenes was in command, and at Delium, where a thousand men were slain, they were led by Hippokrates. For the pestilence Perikles was chiefly blamed, because he shut up the country people in the city, where the change of habits and unusual diet produced disease among them. In all these disasters Nikias alone escaped censure: while he achieved several military successes, such as the capture of Kythera, an island conveniently situated off the coast of Laconia, and inhabited by settlers from that country. He also captured several of the revolted cities in Thrace, and induced others to return to their allegiance. He shut up the people of Megara in their city, and thereby at once made himself master of the island of Minoa, by means of which he shortly afterwards captured the port of Nisæa, while he also landed his troops in the Corinthian territory, and beat a Corinthian army which marched against him, killing many of them, and amongst others Lykophron their general. On this occasion he accidentally neglected to bury the corpses of two of his own men who had fallen. As soon as he discovered this omission, he at once halted his army, and sent a herald to the enemy to demand the bodies for burial, notwithstanding that by Greek custom the party which after a battle demand a truce for the burial of the dead, are understood thereby to admit that they have been defeated, and it is not thought light for them to erect a trophy in commemoration of their victory; for [Pg 8]the victors remain in possession of the field of battle, and of the bodies of the dead, and the vanquished ask for their dead because they are not able to come and take them. Nevertheless, Nikias thought it right to forego all the credit of his victory rather than leave two of his countrymen unburied. He also laid waste the seaboard of Laconia, defeated a Lacedæmonian force which opposed him,and took Thyrea, which was garrisoned by Æginetans, whom he brought prisoners to Athens.

VII

Now when Demosthenes threw up a fortification at Pylos, and after the Peloponnesians had attacked him by sea and by land, some four hundred Spartans wore left on the island of Sphakteria, the Athenians thought that it was a matter of great importance, as indeed it was, to take them prisoners. Yet, as it proved laborious and difficult to blockade them on the island, because the place was desert and waterless, so that provisions had to be brought from a great distance by sea, which was troublesome enough in summer, and would be quite impossible in winter, they began to be weary of the enterprise, and were sorry that they had rejected the proposals for peace which had shortly before been made by the Tasmanians. These proposals were rejected chiefly because Kleon opposed them. Kleon’s opposition was due to his personal dislike to Nikias; and when he saw him enthusiastically exerting himself on behalf of the Lacedæmonians, he at once took the other side, and persuaded the people to reject the proffered peace. Now as the blockade dragged on for a long time, and the Athenians learned to what straits their army was reduced, they became angry with Kleon. He threw the blame upon Nikias, asserting that it was through his remissness and want of enterprise that the Spartans still held out, and declaring that, were he himself in chief command they would soon be captured. Upon this the Athenians turned round upon him and said, “Why, then, do not you yourself proceed thither and capture them?” Nikias at once offered to transfer his command to Kleon, and bade him take what troops he thought necessary, and, instead of swaggering at home where there was no danger, go and perform some notable service to the state. At first [Pg 9]Kleon was confused by this unexpected turn of the debate, and declined the command; but as the Athenians insisted upon it, and Nikias urged him to do so, he plucked up spirit, accepted the office of general, and even went so far as to pledge himself within twenty days either to kill the Spartans on the island or to bring them prisoners to Athens. The Athenians were more inclined to laugh at this boast than to believe it; for they were well acquainted with the vainglorious character of the man, and had often amused themselves at his expense. It is said that once the public assembly met early and sat for a long time waiting for Kleon, who came at last very late with a garland on his head, and begged them to put off their debate till the next day. “To-day,” said he, “I am not at leisure, as I have just offered a sacrifice, and am about to entertain some strangers at dinner.” The Athenians laughed at his assurance, and broke up the assembly.

VIII

However, on this occasion, by good fortune and good generalship, with the help of Demosthenes, he brought home prisoners all those Spartans who had not fallen in the battle, within the time which he had appointed. This was a great reproach to Nikias. It seemed worse even than losing his shield in battle that he should through sheer cowardice and fear of failure give up his office of general, and give his personal enemy such an opportunity of exalting himself at his expense, depriving himself voluntarily of his honourable charge. Aristophanes sneers at him in his play of the ‘Birds,’ where he says:

“We must not now, like Nikias, delay,

And see the time for action pass away.”

And again in the play of the ‘Farmers,’ where this dialogue occurs:

“A. I want to till my farm.

B.                              And wherefore no?

A. ’Tis you Athenians will not let me go;

A thousand drachmas I would give, to be

From office in the state for ever free.

B. Your offer we accept. The state will have

Two thousand, with what Nikias just gave.”

[Pg 10]Moreover, Nikias did Athens much harm by permitting Kleon to attain to such a height of power and reputation, which gave him such exaggerated confidence in himself that he grew quite unmanageable, and caused many terrible disasters, by which Nikias suffered as much as any man. Kleon also was the first to break through the decorum observed by former public speakers, by shouting, throwing back his cloak, slapping his thigh, and walking up and down while speaking, which led to the total disregard of decency and good manners among public speakers, and eventually was the ruin of the state.

IX

About this time Alkibiades began to gain credit in Athens as a public speaker, less licentious than Kleon, and like the soil of Egypt described by Homer, which bears

“A mingled crop of good and bad alike.”

Thus Alkibiades, with immense powers both for good and evil, produced great changes in the affairs of Athens. Nikias, even if he had been freed from the opposition of Kleon, could not now have quietly consolidated the power of the state, for as soon as he had arranged matters in a fair way to produce peace and quiet, Alkibiades, to satisfy his own furious ambition, threw them again into confusion and war. This was brought about by the following circumstances. The two chief hindrances to peace were Kleon and Brasidas; as war concealed the baseness of the former, and added to the glory of the latter. Kleon was able to commit many crimes undetected, and Brasidas performed many great exploits while the war lasted; wherefore, when both of these men fell before the walls of Amphipolis, Nikias, perceiving that the Spartans had long been desirous of peace, and that the Athenians no longer hoped to gain anything by continuing the war, and that both parties were weary of it, began to consider how he might reconcile them, and also pacify all the other states of Greece, so as to establish peace upon a durable and prosperous basis. At Athens, the richer classes, the older men, and the country farmers all wished for peace. By constantly arguing with the others he [Pg 11]gradually made them less eager for war, and at length was able to intimate to the Spartans that there were good hopes of coming to terms. They willingly believed him because of his high character for probity, and more especially because he had shown great kindness to the Spartan prisoners taken at Pylos. A truce for one year had already been arranged between them, and during this they conversed freely with one another, and, enjoying a life of leisure and freedom from the restraints and alarms of war, began to long for an unbroken period of peace, and to sing:

“My spear the spider’s home shall be,”

remembering with pleasure the proverb that in time of peace men are awakened, not by trumpets, but by crowing cocks. They railed at those who said that it was fated that the war should last thrice nine years, and, having thus accustomed themselves to discuss the whole question, they proceeded to make peace, and thought that now they were indeed free from all their troubles. The name of Nikias was now in every man’s mouth, and he was called the favourite of heaven, and the man chosen by the gods for his piety to confer the greatest of blessings upon the Greeks. For they regarded the peace as the work of Nikias, just as the war had been the work of Perikles. The latter, they thought, for no adequate reasons, had involved the Greeks in the greatest miseries, while the former had relieved them of their troubles by persuading them to become friends. For this reason this peace is to this day called the peace of Nikias.

X

The terms of the peace were that each party should restore the cities and territory which it had taken, and that it should be determined by lot which side should restore its conquests first. We are told by Theophrastus that Nikias, by means of bribery, arranged that the lot should fall upon the Lacedæmonians to make restitution first. When, however, the Corinthians and Bœotians, dissatisfied with the whole transaction, seemed likely by their complaints and menaces to rekindle the war, Nikias induced Athens and Sparta to confirm the peace by entering upon an alliance, which enabled them to deal with [Pg 12]the malcontents with more authority, and give them more confidence in one another.

All these transactions greatly displeased Alkibiades, who was naturally disinclined to peace, and who hated the Lacedæmonians because they paid their court to Nikias and disregarded him. For this reason, Alkibiades from the very outset opposed the peace, but ineffectually at first. When, however, he observed that the Lacedæmonians were no longer regarded with favour by the Athenians, and were thought to have wronged them by forming an alliance with the Bœotians, and not restoring to Athens up the cities of Panaktus and Amphipolis, he seized the opportunity of exciting the people by exaggerated accounts of the misdeeds of the Lacedæmonians. Moreover he prevailed upon the people of Argos to send ambassadors to Athens to conclude an alliance. As, however, at the same time ambassadors, with full powers to settle all matters in dispute, came from Lacedæmon, and in a preliminary conference with the Senate were thought to have made very reasonable and just proposals, Alkibiades, fearing that they might create an equally favourable impression when they spoke before the popular assembly, deceived them by solemnly declaring with an oath that he would assist them in every way that he could, provided that they would deny that they came with full powers to decide, saying that by this means alone they would effect their purpose. The ambassadors were deceived by his protestations, and, forsaking Nikias, relied entirely upon him. Upon this Alkibiades brought them into the public assembly, and there asked them if they came with full powers to treat. When they said that they did not, he unexpectedly turned round upon them, and calling both the Senate and the people to witness their words, urged them to pay no attention to men who were such evident liars, and who said one thing in one+ assembly and the opposite in another. The ambassadors, as Alkibiades expected, were thunderstruck, and Nikias could say nothing on their behalf. The people at once called for the ambassadors from Argos to be brought before them, in order to contract an alliance with that city, but an earthquake which was felt at this moment [Pg 13]greatly served Nikias’s purpose by causing the assembly to break up. With great difficulty, when the debate was resumed on the following day, he prevailed upon the people to break off the negotiations with Argos, and to send him as ambassador to Sparta, promising that he would bring matters to a prosperous issue. Accordingly he proceeded to Sparta, where he was treated with great respect as a man of eminence and a friend of the Lacedæmonians, but could effect nothing because of the preponderance of the party which inclined to the Bœotian alliance. He was therefore forced to return ingloriously, in great fear of the anger of the Athenians, who had been persuaded by him to deliver up so many and such important prisoners to the Lacedæmonians without receiving any equivalent. For the prisoners taken at Pylos were men of the first families in Sparta, and related to the most powerful statesmen there. The Athenians, however, did not show their dissatisfaction with Nikias by any harsh measures, but they elected Alkibiades general, and they entered into a treaty of alliance with the Argives, and also with the states of Elis and Mantinea, which had revolted from the Lacedæmonians, while they sent out privateers to Pylos to plunder the Lacedæmonian coasts in the neighbourhood of that fortress. These measures soon produced a renewal of the war.

XI

As the quarrel between Nikias and Alkibiades had now reached such a pitch, it was decided that the remedy of ostracism must be applied to them. By this from time to time the people of Athens were wont to banish for ten years any citizen whose renown or wealth rendered him dangerous to the state. Great excitement was caused by this measure, as one or the other must be utterly ruined by its application. The Athenians were disgusted by the licentiousness of Alkibiades, and feared his reckless daring, as has been explained at greater length in his Life, while Nikias was disliked because of his great wealth and his reserved and unpopular mode of life. Moreover he had frequently offended the people by acting in direct opposition to their wishes, forcing them in spite of themselves to do what was best for them. On the one side were arrayed the young men and those who wished for [Pg 14]war, and on the other the older men and the party of peace, who would be sure to vote respectively, one for the banishment of Nikias, the other for that of Alkibiades. Now

“In revolutions bad men rise to fame,”

and it appears that the violence of these factions at Athens gave an opportunity for the lowest and basest citizens to gain reputation. Amongst these was one Hyperbolus, of the township of Peirithois, a man of no ability or power, but who owed his elevation to sheer audacity, and whose influence was felt to be a disgrace to Athens. This man, who never dreamed that ostracism would be applied to him, as the pillory would have been more suitable to his deserts, openly showed his delight at the discord between Nikias and Alkibiades, and excited the people to deal severely with them, because he hoped that if one of them were to be banished, he might succeed to his place, and become a match for the one who was left behind. But the parties which supported Nikias and Alkibiades respectively made a secret compact with one another to suppress this villain, and so arranged matters that neither of their leaders, but Hyperbolus himself was banished by ostracism for ten years. This transaction delighted and amused the people for the moment, but they were afterwards grieved that they had abused this safeguard of their constitution by applying it to an unworthy object, as there was a kind of dignity about the punishment which they had inflicted. Ostracism in the case of men like Thucydides and Aristeides, was a punishment, but when applied to men like Hyperbolus, it became an honour and mark of distinction, as though his crimes had put him on a par with the leading spirits of the age. Plato, the comic poet, wrote of him

“Full worthy to be punished though he be,

Yet ostracism’s not for such as he.”

The result was that no one was ever again ostracised at Athens, but Hyperbolus was the last, as Hipparchus of Cholargus, who was some relation to the despot of that name, was the first. Thus the ways of fortune are inscrutable, and beyond our finding out. If Nikias had [Pg 15]undergone the trial of ostracism with Alkibiades, he would either have driven him into banishment, and governed Athens well and wisely during his absence, or he would himself have left the city, and avoided the terrible disaster which ended his life, and would have continued to enjoy the reputation of being an excellent general. I am well aware that Theophrastus says that Hyperbolus was ostracised in consequence of a quarrel of Alkibiades with Phæax and not with Nikias; but my account agrees with that given by the best historians.

XII

When ambassadors came to Athens from Egesta and Leontini, inviting the Athenians to commence a campaign in Sicily, Nikias opposed the project, but was overruled by Alkibiades and the war party. Before the assembly met to discuss the matter, men’s heads were completely turned with vague hopes of conquest, so that the youths in the gymnasia, and the older men in their places of business or of recreation, did nothing but sketch the outline of the island of Sicily and of the adjacent seas and continents. They regarded Sicily not so much as a prize to be won, but as a stepping-stone to greater conquests, meaning from it to attack Carthage, and make themselves masters of the Mediterranean sea as far as the Columns of Herakles. Public opinion being thus biassed, Nikias could find few to help him in opposing the scheme. The rich feared lest they should be thought to wish to avoid the burden of fitting out ships and the other expensive duties which they would be called upon to fulfil, and disappointed him by remaining silent. Yet Nikias did not relax his exertions, but even after the Athenian people had given their vote for the war, and had elected him to the chief command, with Alkibiades and Lamachus for his colleagues—even then, on the next meeting of the assembly, he made a solemn appeal to them to desist, and at last accused Alkibiades of involving the city in a terrible war in a remote country merely to serve his own ambition and rapacity. However, he gained nothing by this speech, for the Athenians thought that he would be the best man to command the expedition because of his experience in war, and that his caution would serve as a salutary check upon the rashness of Alkibiades and the [Pg 16]easy temper of Lamachus; so that, instead of dissuading them his words rather confirmed them in their intention. For Demostratus, who of all the popular orators was the most eager promoter of the expedition, rose, and said that he would put an end to these excuses of Nikias: and he prevailed upon the people to pass a decree that the generals, both at home and in the field, should be invested with absolute irresponsible power.

XIII

Yet it is said that the expedition met with great opposition from the priests; but Alkibiades found certain soothsayers devoted to his own interests, and quoted an ancient oracle which foretold that the Athenians should one day win great glory in Sicily. Special messengers also came from the shrine of Ammon,1 bringing an oracular response to the effect that the Athenians would take all the Syracusans. Those oracles which made against the project, people dared not mention, for fear of saying words of ill-omen. Yet even the most obvious portents would not turn them from their purpose, such as the mutilation of all the Hermæ, or statues of Hermes, in Athens, in a single night, except only one, which is called the Hermes of Andokides, which was erected by the tribe Ægeis, and stands before the house in which Andokides lived at that time. A man likewise leaped upon the altar of the Twelve Gods, sat astride upon it, and in that posture mutilated himself with a sharp stone. At Delphi too there is a golden statue of Pallas Athene standing upon a brazen palm tree, an offering made by the city of Athens from the spoils taken in the Persian war. This was for many days pecked at by crows, who at last pecked off and cast upon the ground the golden fruit of the palm tree. This was said to be merely a fable invented by the people of Delphi, who were bribed by the Syracusans. Another oracle bade the Athenians bring to Athens the priestess of Athena at Klazomenae, and accordingly they sent for her. Her name happened to be Hesychia, signifying Repose; and this is probably what the oracle meant that the Athenians had better remain quiet. The astronomer, Meton, who was appointed to some office in the army, either because of these adverse omens and prophecies, or [Pg 17]because he was convinced that the expedition would miscarry, pretended to be mad and to set fire to his house. Some historians relate that he did not feign madness, but that he burned down his house one night, and next morning appeared in the market-place in a miserable plight, and besought his countrymen that, in consideration of the misfortune which had befallen him, they would allow his son, who was about to sail for Sicily in command of a trireme, to remain at home. We are told that Sokrates the philosopher was warned by one of the signs from heaven which he so often received that the expedition would be the ruin of the city. And many were filled with consternation at the time fixed for the departure of the armament. It was during the celebration of the Adonia, or mourning for the death of Adonis, and in all parts of the city were to be seen images of Adonis carried along with funeral rites, and women beating their breasts, so that those who were superstitious enough to notice such matters became alarmed for the fate of the armament, and foretold that it would start forth gloriously, but would wither untimely away.

XIV

The conduct of Nikias in opposing the war when it was being deliberated upon, and his steadfastness of mind in not being dazzled by the hopes which were entertained of its success, or by the splendid position which it offered himself, deserves the utmost praise; but when, in spite of his exertions, he could not persuade the people to desist from the war, or to remove him from the office of general, into which he was as it were driven by main force, his excessive caution and slowness became very much out of place. His childish regrets, his looking back towards Athens, and his unreasonable delays disheartened his colleagues, and spoiled the effect of the expedition, which ought at once to have proceeded to act with vigour, and put its fortune to the test. But although Lamachus begged him to sail at once to Syracuse and fight a battle as near as possible to the city walls, while Alkibiades urged him to detach the other Sicilian states from their alliance with Syracuse, and then attack that place, he dispirited his men by refusing to adopt either plan, and proposed to sail quietly along the coast, displaying the [Pg 18]fleet and army to the Sicilians, and then, after affording some slight assistance to the people of Egesta, to return home to Athens. Shortly after this, the Athenians sent for Alkibiades to return home for his trial on a charge of treason, and Nikias, who was nominally Lamachus’s colleague, but really absolute, proceeded to waste time in idle negotiations and languid manœuvres, until his troops had quite lost the high spirits and hopes with which they had arrived at Sicily; while the enemy, who were at first terrified, began to recover their spirits, and despise the Athenians. While Alkibiades was still with them they had sailed to Syracuse with sixty ships, and while the rest remained in line of battle outside, ten of these had entered the harbour to reconnoitre. These ships, approaching the city, made a proclamation by a herald that they were come to restore the people of Leontini to their city, and they also captured a Syracusan vessel, in which they found tables on which were written the names of all the inhabitants of Syracuse, according to their tribes and houses. These tables were kept far away from the city, in the temple of the Olympian Zeus, but at that time the Syracusans had sent for them in order to discover the number of men able to bear arms. These tables were now taken by the Athenians, and carried to their general. When the soothsayers saw this roll of names, they were much alarmed, fearing that this was the fulfilment of the prophecy that the Athenians should capture all the Syracusans. However, some declare that the prophecy was really fulfilled when the Athenian Kallippus slew Dion, and captured Syracuse.

XV

Shortly after this, Alkibiades left Sicily, and the supreme command devolved upon Nikias. For Lamachus, though a brave and honest man, and one who always freely risked his life in battle, was but a plain simple man, and was so excessively poor, that whenever he was appointed general he was forced to ask the Athenians to advance him a small sum of money to provide him with clothes and shoes. Now Nikias was excessively haughty, both on account of his great wealth, and his military renown. It is said that once when the generals were debating some question together, Nikias bade Sophokles [Pg 19]the poet give his opinion first, because he was the eldest man present, to which Sophokles answered, “I am the eldest, but you are the chief.” Thus when in Sicily he domineered over Lamachus, although the latter was a far abler soldier, and by sailing about the coast at the point furthest removed from the enemy, gave them confidence, which was turned into contempt, when he was repulsed from Hybla, a little fort in the interior. At last he returned to Katana, without having effected anything, except the reduction of Hykkara, a town of the aborigines, not of the Greeks, from which it is said the celebrated courtezan Lais, then a very young girl, was carried away captive and sent to Peloponnesus.

XVI

As the summer advanced, and Nikias remained inactive, the Syracusans gained so much confidence that they called upon their generals to lead them to the attack of the Athenian position at Katana, since the Athenians did not dare approach Syracuse; while Syracusan horsemen even went so far as to insult the Athenians in their camp, riding up to ask if they were come to settle as peaceful citizens in Katana, instead of restoring the Leontines. This unexpected humiliation at length forced Nikias to proceed to Syracuse, and he devised a stratagem by which he was able to approach that city and pitch his camp before it unmolested.

He despatched to Syracuse a citizen of Katana, who informed the Syracusans that if they desired to seize the camp and arms of the Athenians, they would only have to appoint a day and to march in force to Katana. Many of the Athenians, he said, spent all their time within the walls of Katana, and it would be easy for the Syracusan party there to close the gates, assail the Athenians within, and set fire to their ships. A numerous body of Kataneans, he added, were eager to co-operate in the plan now proposed.

This was by far the ablest piece of strategy accomplished by Nikias during all the time that he remained in Sicily. The Syracusans were induced to march out their entire force, leaving their city with scarcely any defenders. Meanwhile, Nikias sailed round from Katana, took possession of the harbour, and encamped his forces on the mainland in a position where he could not be attacked by the [Pg 20]enemy’s cavalry. When the Syracusan army returned from Katana, he marched out the Athenians and defeated them, but with little loss on their side, as their cavalry covered their retreat. Nikias now broke down the bridges over the river Anapus, which gave occasion to Hermokrates to say, when he was making a speech to encourage the Syracusans, that it was a ridiculous thing for Nikias to try to avoid fighting, as though it were not for the express purpose of fighting that he had been sent thither. But in spite of all that Hermokrates could say, the Syracusans were very much cast down and disheartened. Instead of the fifteen generals who usually commanded their troops they chose three, upon whom they conferred absolute powers, and swore a solemn oath that they would leave them unfettered in the exercise of those powers.

The Athenians were very anxious to occupy the temple of Olympian Zeus, which was near their camp, and full of offerings of gold and silver. Nikias, however, purposely delayed the attack until a force was sent from Syracuse to defend the temple. He thought that if the soldiers did succeed in plundering it, the state would be none the better for it, and he himself would have to bear all the blame of sacrilege.

Nikias made no use of his boasted victory, and after a short time drew off his forces to Naxos, where he passed the winter, expending an enormous sum of money for the maintenance of so large a force, and effecting little or nothing except the reduction of a few disorderly tribes in the interior. The Syracusans now took heart again, marched into the Katanean territory and laid it waste, and attempted to burn the camp of the Athenians. Upon this all men blamed Nikias for deliberating and taking precautions until the time for action was gone by. No one could find any fault with him when he was actually fighting; but though a bold and energetic man in action, he was slow to form plans and begin an enterprise.

XVII

Thus when he did at length return to Syracuse, he managed the operation so swiftly and so skilfully that he disembarked his troops at Thapsus before the enemy were aware of his approach, took Epipolæ by surprise, took prisoners three hundred of the force of picked men [Pg 21]who endeavoured to recapture that fort, and routed the Syracusan cavalry, which had hitherto been supposed to be invincible. Moreover, what chiefly terrified the Sicilians, and seemed wonderful to all Greeks, was the speed with which he built a wall round Syracuse, a city quite as large as Athens itself, but one which is much more difficult to invest completely, because of the sea being so near to it, and the rough ground and marshes by which it is surrounded on the land side. Yet he all but succeeded in accomplishing this feat, although he was not in a condition of body to superintend such works personally, for he suffered greatly from a disease of the kidneys, to which we must attribute whatever was left undone by his army. For my own part I feel great admiration for the diligence and skill of the general, and for the bravery of the soldiers, which enabled them to gain such successes. The poet Euripides, after their defeat and utter overthrow wrote this elegy upon them:

“Eight times they beat the Syracusan host,

Before the gods themselves declared them lost.”

Indeed, they beat the Syracusans far more than eight times, before the gods turned against the Athenians and dashed them to the ground when at the height of their pride.

XVIII

Nikias was present, in spite of his sufferings, at most of these actions; but when his disease grew worse, he was forced to stay in the camp with a small guard, while Lamachus took the command of the army, and fought a battle with the Syracusans, who were endeavouring to build a counter-wall which would obstruct the Athenians in building their wall of circumvallation. The Athenians were victorious, but followed up their success in such a disorderly manner that Lamachus was left alone and exposed to the attacks of the Syracusan cavalry. He at once challenged their leader, a brave man named Kallimachus, to single combat, and both received and inflicted a mortal wound. His dead body and arms fell into the hands of the Syracusans, who at once charged up to the Athenian walls, where Nikias lay helpless. The extremity of the danger roused him, and he ordered his attendants to set fire to a quantity of timber which had been brought thither [Pg 22]to construct military engines, and to some of the engines themselves. This desperate expedient checked the Syracusans, and saved Nikias and the Athenians; for the rest of the Syracusan forces on perceiving so great a body of flame returned in haste to their city.

This affair left Nikias in sole command, and he had great hopes of taking the place; for many cities in Sicily had formed alliances with him, ships laden with corn kept arriving to supply his camp, and all began to be eager to be on his side, and to share in the fruits of his success. The Syracusans themselves sent to propose terms of peace, for they despaired of being able to defend their city any longer against him. At this time Gylippus too, a Lacedæmonian who was sent to assist them, heard during his voyage that they were completely enclosed and reduced to great straits, but held on his voyage notwithstanding, in order that even if, as he imagined, all Sicily had fallen into the hands of the Athenians, he might at any rate defend the Greek cities in Italy from sharing its fate. The air indeed was full of rumours that the Athenians were carrying all before them, and that the good fortune and skill of their general rendered him invincible. Even Nikias himself was so elated by his apparent good fortune, that he forgot his wonted prudence, and imagining from the secret intelligence which he had from his friends within Syracuse that it was on the point of surrender, neglected Gylippus altogether, and kept so bad a watch at the straits of Messina with his fleet, that Gylippus managed to cross there and land in Sicily. Here he at once proceeded to gather an army together, but in a quarter of the island far away from Syracuse, so that the people of Syracuse knew nothing of his arrival. They even appointed a day for the public assembly to meet and discuss terms of surrender with Nikias, and were about to attend it, as they thought that it would be best for them to come to terms before the city was quite surrounded by the wall of the Athenians. There was now only a very small portion of this left to be finished, and all the materials for building it were collected on the spot.

XIX

At this crisis there arrived at Syracuse Gongylus, a Corinthian, in one trireme. All crowded round him, to [Pg 23]hear what news he brought. He informed them that Gylippus would soon come to their aid by land, and that other triremes besides his own were on their way by sea. This intelligence was scarcely believed, until it was confirmed by a message from Gylippus himself, bidding them march out and meet him. They now took courage and prepared for battle. Gylippus marched into the town, and at once led the Syracusans out to attack the Athenians. When Nikias had likewise brought his army out of their camp, Gylippus halted his men, and sent a herald to offer them an armistice for five days, on condition that they would collect their effects and withdraw from Sicily. Nikias disdained to answer this insulting message; but some of his soldiers jeeringly enquired whether the presence of one Spartan cloak and staff had all at once made the Syracusans so strong that they could despise the Athenians, who used to keep three hundred such men, stronger than Gylippus and with longer hair, locked up in prison, and feared them so little that they delivered them up to the Lacedæmonians again. Timæus says that the Sicilian Greeks despised Gylippus for his avaricious and contemptible character, and that when they first saw him, they ridiculed his long hair and Spartan cloak. Afterwards, however, he tells us that as soon as Gylippus appeared they flocked round him as small birds flock round an owl, and were eager to take service under him. This indeed is the more probable story; for they rallied round him, regarding his cloak and staff to be the symbols of the authority of Sparta. And not only Thucydides, but Philistus, a Syracusan citizen by birth, who was an eye-witness of the whole campaign, tells us that nothing could have been done without Gylippus. In the first battle after his arrival, the Athenians were victorious, and slew some few Syracusans, amongst whom was the Corinthian Gongylus, but on the following day Gylippus displayed the qualities of a true general. He used the same arms, horses, and ground as before, but he dealt with them so differently that he defeated the Athenians. Checking the Syracusans, who wished to chase them back to their camp, he ordered them to use the stones and timber which had been collected by the Athenians, to build a counter-wall, reaching beyond [Pg 24]the line of circumvallation, so that the Athenians could no longer hope to surround the city. And now the Syracusans, taking fresh courage, began to man their ships of war, and to cut off the stragglers with their cavalry. Gylippus personally visited many of the Greek cities in Sicily, all of whom eagerly promised their aid, and furnished him with troops; so that Nikias, perceiving that he was losing ground, relapsed into his former desponding condition, and wrote a despatch to Athens, bidding the people either send out another armament, or let the one now in Sicily return to Athens, and especially beseeching them to relieve him from his command, for which he was incapacitated by disease.

XX

The Athenians had long before proposed to send out a reinforcement to the army in Sicily, but as all had gone on prosperously, the enemies of Nikias had contrived to put it off. Now, however, they were eager to send him assistance. It was arranged that Demosthenes should employ himself actively in getting ready a large force, to go to reinforce Nikias in the early spring, while Eurymedon, although it was winter, started immediately with a supply of money, and with a decree naming Euthydemus and Menander, officers already serving in his army, to be joint commanders along with him. Meanwhile, Nikias was suddenly attacked by the Syracusans both by sea and land. His ships were at first thrown into confusion, but rallied and sank many of the enemy, or forced them to run on shore; but on land Gylippus managed at the same time to surprise the fort of Plemmyrium, where there was a magazine of naval stores and war material of all kinds. A considerable number of the garrison, also, were either slain or taken prisoners; but the most serious result was the stoppage of Nikias’s supplies, which heretofore had been easily and quickly brought through the Great Harbour, while it remained in the hands of the Athenians, but which now could not reach his camp by sea without a convoy and a battle.2 Moreover, the Syracusan fleet had not been defeated by any superiority of force of the [Pg 25]Athenians, but by the disorder into which it had been thrown by pursuing the enemy. They therefore determined to renew the conflict with better success.

Nikias, on his part, was unwilling to fight a second time, thinking it was folly to fight with a diminished and disheartened force when he knew that Demosthenes was hurrying to his aid with a large and unbroken armament. However, Menander and Euthydemus, the newly-elected generals, were eager to distinguish themselves by performing some brilliant action before the arrival of Demosthenes, and to eclipse the fame of Nikias himself. The pretext they used was the glory of Athens, which they said would be dishonoured for ever if they should now appear afraid to accept the Syracusans’ offer of battle. The battle was fought: and the Athenian left wing, we are told by Thucydides, was utterly defeated by the skilful tactics of the Corinthian steersman Aristion. Many Athenians perished, and Nikias was greatly disheartened, for he had now proved unfortunate both when sole commander and when acting with colleagues.

XXI

Matters were in this posture when Demosthenes was descried in the offing, approaching with a splendid armament which struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. His fleet consisted of seventy-three ships, on board of which were five thousand heavy-armed troops, and three thousand javelin men, archers, and slingers. The glittering arms of the troops, the flaunting banners of the ships of war, and the music of the flutes to which the rowers kept time with their oars, made a gallant display, which delighted the Athenians as much as it depressed the Syracusans. These latter, indeed, were struck with dismay, and thought that their last victory had been won in vain, and that they were labouring to no purpose against a foe whose ranks were continually reinforced.

Nikias was not long allowed to feast his eyes on this welcome spectacle undisturbed. Demosthenes, as soon as he landed, insisted on the necessity of instantly attacking Syracuse, and putting an end to the siege, either by capturing the place, or by returning at once to Athens in case of failure. Against this Nikias, who was alarmed at the idea of such vigorous action, urged that it would be [Pg 26]unwise to run such a risk. Delay, he argued, favoured the besiegers more than the besieged, as their resources must soon fail, in which case their allies would desert them and they would again be brought to the necessity of capitulating. Nikias adopted this view because of what he heard from his secret correspondents within the city, who urged him to continue the siege, telling him that already the Syracusans began to feel the war too great a burden for them to support, and that Gylippus was very unpopular among them, so that in a short time they would utterly refuse to hold out any longer, and would come to terms with the Athenians. Nikias could only hint at these secret sources of information, and so his counsels were thought by his colleagues to be mere cowardice. They declared loudly that the original mistake was about to be repeated, and the first terror-stricken impression of the armament frittered away, until familiarity with the sight of it had bred contempt in the breasts of their enemies. They therefore eagerly seconded the proposal of Demosthenes, and forced Nikias, though sorely against his will, to yield to their representations. Accordingly, Demosthenes with the land force assaulted the outlying fort on the high ground of Epipolæ by night, and took it by surprise, killing part of its garrison and putting the remainder to flight. He did not halt there, but followed up his success by marching further on towards the city, until he was met by some Bœotian heavy-armed troops, who had been the first to rally, and now in a compact mass met the Athenians with their spears levelled, and with loud shouts forced them to give way with severe loss. The whole Athenian army was by this thrown into confusion and panic, as the fugitives broke the formation of those troops who were still marching to the front, so that in some cases they actually fought with one another, each believing the others to be enemies. Thus the Athenians fell into sad disorder and ruin; for they were unable to distinguish friends from foes in the uncertain light, as the moon, now nearly setting, glanced upon spear-points and armour without showing them clearly enough to enable men to see with whom they had to deal. The moon was behind the backs of the Athenians: and this circumstance was greatly [Pg 27]against them, for it made it hard for them to see the numbers of their own friends, but shone plainly on the glittering shields of their antagonists, making them look taller and more terrible than they were. Finally, attacked as they were on every side, they gave way and fled. Some were slain by the enemy, some by their own countrymen, and some were dashed to pieces by falling down the precipices; while the rest, as they straggled about the country, were cut off by the Syracusan cavalry. Two thousand men perished, and of the survivors few brought back their arms.

XXII

Nikias, who had expected this reverse, now cast the blame of it upon Demosthenes; and he, admitting his error, besought Nikias to embark his army and sail away as quickly as possible, pointing out that no further reinforcement could be hoped for, and that they could not hope for success with the force now at their disposal. Even had they been victorious, he argued, they had intended to leave their present camp, which was unhealthy at all times, and was now in the hot season becoming pestilential. The time was the beginning of autumn, and many of the Athenians were sick, while all were disheartened. Nikias, however, opposed the idea of retreat, not because he did not fear the Syracusans, but because he feared the Athenians more, and the treatment which as an unsuccessful general he would probably meet with. He declared that he saw no reason for alarm, and that even if there was, that he would rather perish by the hands of the enemy than those of his countrymen. A very different sentiment to that which was afterwards uttered by Leon the Byzantine, who said, “My countrymen, I had rather be put to death by you than to be put to death together with you.”

With regard to the place to which it would be best for them to remove their camp, that, Nikias said, was a question which they might take time to discuss.

Demosthenes, seeing that Nikias was thus obstinate, and conscious that his own project, when adopted, had led to a frightful disaster, ceased pressing him to raise the siege, and gave the other generals to understand that Nikias must have secret reasons, from his correspondents [Pg 28]within the city, which led him to persevere thus obstinately in remaining where he was. This caused them also to withdraw their objections to remaining; but when another army came to assist the Syracusans, and the Athenians began to perish from malaria, even Nikias himself agreed that it was time to retreat, and issued orders to his men to hold themselves in readiness to embark.

XXIII

When all was ready, and the enemy off their guard, as they did not expect the Athenians to retreat, an eclipse of the moon took place, which greatly terrified Nikias and some others who, from ignorance or superstition, were in the habit of taking account of such phenomena. That the sun should be sometimes eclipsed even the vulgar understood to be in some way due to the moon intercepting its light: but what body could intercept the moon’s light, so that suddenly the full moon should pale its light and alter its colour, they could not explain, but thought that it was a sinister omen and portended some great calamity.

The treatise of Anaxagoras, the first writer who has clearly and boldly explained the phases and eclipses of the moon, was then known only to a few, and had not the credit of antiquity, while even those who understood it were afraid to mention it to their most trusted friends. Men at that time could not endure natural philosophers and those whom they called in derision stargazers, but accused them of degrading the movements of the heavenly bodies by attributing them to necessary physical causes. They drove Protagoras into exile, and cast Anaxagoras into prison, from whence he was with difficulty rescued by Perikles; while Sokrates, who never took any part in these speculations, was nevertheless put to death because he was a philosopher. It was not until after the period of which I am writing that the glorious works of Plato shed their light upon mankind, proving that Nature obeys a higher and divine law, and removing the reproach of impiety which used to attach to those who study these matters, so that all men might thereafter investigate natural phenomena unreproved. Indeed, Plato’s companion Dion, although the moon was eclipsed when he was starting from the island of Zakynthus to attack the despot Dionysius, was not in the least disturbed by the omen, but sailed to [Pg 29]Syracuse and drove out the despot. Nikias at this time was without a competent soothsayer, for his intimate friend, Stilbides, who used to check a great deal of his superstition, died shortly before this. Indeed, the omen, if rightly explained, as Philochorus points out, is not a bad one but a very good one for men who are meditating a retreat; for what men are forced to do by fear, requires darkness to conceal it, and light is inimical to them. Moreover men were only wont to wait three days after an eclipse of the moon, or of the sun, as we learn from Autokleides in his book on divination; but Nikias persuaded them to wait for another complete circuit of the moon, because its face would not shine upon them propitiously before that time after its defilement with the gross earthy particles which had intercepted its rays.3

XXIV

Nikias now put all business aside, and kept offering sacrifices and taking omens, until the enemy attacked him. Their infantry assailed the camp and siege works, while their fleet surrounded the harbour, not in ships of war; but the very boys and children embarked in what boats they could find and jeered at the Athenians, challenging them to come out and fight. One of these boys, named Herakleides, the son of noble parents, ventured too far, and was captured by an Athenian ship. His uncle Pollichus, fearing for his safety, at once advanced with ten triremes which were under his command; and this movement brought forward the rest of the Syracusan fleet to support him. An obstinate battle now took place, in which the Syracusans were victorious, and many of the Athenians perished, amongst whom was their admiral Eurymedon. And now the Athenians refused to remain before Syracuse any longer, and called upon their generals to lead them away by land, for the Syracusans after their victory had at once blockaded the entrance to the harbour, so that no passage was left. Nikias and the other generals refused to agree to this proposal, as they thought it would be a pity to abandon a fleet of so many transports, and nearly two hundred ships of war. They placed the flower of the land force on board the ships, with the best of the slingers and darters, and manned one hundred and ten triremes, for they had not sufficient oars for a larger [Pg 30]number. Nikias now abandoned the great camp and walls of investment, which reached as far as the temple of Herakles, and drew the army up on the beach as spectators of the battle. Thus the Syracusan priests and generals were able for the first time since the siege began to sacrifice to Herakles, as they were wont to do, while the people were manning their fleet.

XXV

The Syracusan soothsayers promised them the victory if they awaited attack and did not begin the attack: for Herakles himself never struck the first blow, but always waited for his enemies to attack him. The sea-fight which now took place was the fiercest and most obstinately contested of all those which took place throughout the war, and its varying fortunes were shared with agonizing interest by the Athenian army and the citizens on the walls of Syracuse, who were able from their respective positions to overlook the whole battle and watch the manœuvres of each ship. The Athenians were placed at a great disadvantage by having all their ships collected into one mass, where they were attacked from all sides by the lighter and more manageable vessels of the enemy. The Syracusans also used stones as missiles, which strike with equal effect, however they are thrown, while the Athenians replied with volleys of arrows and javelins, whose aim was often spoiled by the motion of the vessels, and which are useless unless they fly with the point foremost. All these details had been foreseen and taught to the Syracusans by Aristion the Corinthian steersman, who fell in the moment of victory. The Athenians were finally routed and driven ashore with great slaughter, and their retreat by sea completely cut off. Knowing how difficult it would be to make their way to any place of safety by land, they allowed themselves to be so paralyzed by despair, that they let the Syracusans tow away their ships as prizes, without making an effort to save them, and actually neglected to ask for a truce for the burial of their dead. They seemed to think that the case of the sick and wounded whom they saw amongst them, and whom they must perforce abandon when they left their camp, was even more pitiable than that of the floating corpses, and they actually envied the lot of the slain, knowing well that after a few more days [Pg 31]of suffering they themselves were all destined to share their fate.

XXVI

They were all eager to depart during the night which followed this disastrous day; but Gylippus, perceiving that the people of Syracuse were so given up to feasting and merry-making, celebrating both their victory and the festival of their national hero Herakles, to whom the day was sacred, that they could not be either forced or persuaded into attempting to harass the enemy’s retreat, sent some of those men who had formerly been in correspondence with Nikias to tell him not to attempt to retreat that night, as all the roads were occupied by Syracusans lying in wait to attack him. Deceived by this intelligence, Nikias waited to find what he feared in the night turned into a reality on the following day. At daybreak the passes were occupied by the Syracusans, who also threw up entrenchments at all the places where rivers had to be forded, and broke all the bridges, stationing their cavalry upon the level ground, so that the Athenians could not advance a step without fighting. The Athenians remained for all that day and the following night in their camp, and then set out, with such weeping and lamentation that it seemed rather as if they were leaving their native country than a hostile one, so distressed were they to see the miseries of their friends and relatives, and of the sick and wounded who were unable to accompany their march and had to be left to their fate, while they themselves had a presentiment that their present sufferings were nothing in comparison with those which awaited them. Among all these piteous sights, Nikias himself offered a glorious example. Worn out by disease, compelled by the exigencies of the retreat to forego the medicines and treatment which his condition required, he nevertheless, weak as he was, did more than many strong men could do, while all his men knew well that he made those efforts, not from any wish or hope to save his own life, but that it was solely on their behalf that he did not give way to despair. The tears and lamentations of the rest were prompted by their own private sorrows and fears, but the only grief shown by Nikias was that so splendid an expedition should have ended in such miserable failure. Those who watched his noble bearing [Pg 32]and remembered how earnestly he had opposed the whole scheme, were filled with compassion for his undeserved sufferings. They began to despair of the favour of Heaven being shown to themselves, when they reflected that this man, careful as he had always been to perform every religious duty, was now no better off than the humblest or the most wicked soldier in his army.

XXVII

Nikias made heroic efforts by cheerful looks, encouraging speeches, and personal appeals to his followers, to show himself superior to fortune. Throughout the retreat, although for eight days in succession he was constantly harassed by the attacks of the enemy, he nevertheless kept the division under his command unbroken and undefeated, until the other part of the army under Demosthenes was forced to surrender, being completely surrounded in an enclosed olive-ground, the property of Polyzelus, brother of the despot Gelon. Demosthenes himself drew his sword and stabbed himself, but not mortally, for the Syracusans quickly interposed and forced him to desist. When the Syracusans told Nikias of this disaster, and allowed him to send horsemen to convince him of its truth, he proposed terms to Gylippus, which were that the Athenians should be allowed to leave Sicily, on condition of the repayment of the whole expenses of the war, for which he offered to give hostages. These terms were refused, and the enemy with insulting cries and threats proceeded to shoot with missiles of all kinds at the Athenians, who were now completely without food or drink. Yet Nikias prevailed upon them to hold out during that night, and on the following day he led them, still under fire from the enemy, across the plain leading to the river Asinarus. There some were forced into the stream by the enemy, while others cast themselves in to quench their thirst. A most dreadful slaughter now took place, the Athenians being wild with thirst, and the Syracusans killing them as they drank, until Nikias surrendered himself to Gylippus, saying, “I beseech you, now that you are victorious, to show some mercy, not to me, but to the Athenian troops. Consider how changeful is the fortune of war, and how gently the Athenians dealt with your men in their hour of victory.”

Gylippus was visibly affected by the words, and by the [Pg 33]sight of Nikias; for he knew how well the Spartan prisoners had been treated by him, when the peace was made with Athens; moreover, he thought that it would be a great honour to him if he could carry home the enemy’s commander-in-chief as a prisoner. He received Nikias with kindness, and gave orders to take the rest of the Athenians alive. It was long, however, before these orders were understood and obeyed, so that more Athenians were slain than survived, although many were spared by the Syracusans in order that they might be sold for slaves.

The prisoners were now assembled together, and their arms and armour hung upon the trees by the river side, as a trophy of the victory. The victors next crowned themselves with garlands, decorated their horses, cut off the manes and tails of the captured horses, and marched back into their own city, having by their courage and skill won the most complete victory ever gained by one Greek state over another.

XXVIII

At a public assembly of the Syracusans and their allies which was shortly afterwards held, the orator Eurykles proposed that the day on which Nikias was taken should be kept as a festival for ever, upon which no work should be done, and sacrifice should be offered to the gods, and that the feast should be called the Asinaria, from the name of the river where the victory was won. The day was the twenty-sixth of the Dorian month Karneius, which the Athenians call Metageitnion (September 21st). Furthermore, he proposed that the Athenian slaves and allies should be sold, that the Athenians themselves, with what native Sicilians had joined them, should be confined in the stone quarries within the city of Syracuse, and that their generals should be put to death.

These propositions wore accepted by the Syracusans, who treated Hermokrates with contempt when he urged that to be merciful in victory would be more honourable to them than the victory itself. Gylippus too, when he begged that he might carry the Athenian generals alive to Sparta, was shamefully insulted by the excited Syracusans, who had long disliked the irritating Spartan airs of superiority natural to Gylippus, and now, flushed with victory, no longer cared to conceal their feelings. Timæus [Pg 34]tells us that they accused him of avarice and peculation, a hereditary vice, it appears, in his family since his father Kleandrides was banished from Sparta for taking bribes, while he himself afterwards stole thirty of the hundred talents which Lysander sent home to Sparta, and hid them under the roof of his house, but was informed against, and exiled in disgrace. This will be found described at greater length in the Life of Lysander.

In his account of the death of Nikias and Demosthenes, Timæus does not exactly follow the narrative of Thucydides and Philistus, as he informs us that while the assembly was still sitting, Hermokrates sent to their prison to inform them that they were condemned to death, and to afford them the means of dying by their own hands, while the other historians state that the Syracusans put them to death.4 Be this as it may, their dead bodies were exposed before the gates of Syracuse as a spectacle for the citizens. I have heard also that at the present day a shield is shown in one of the temples at Syracuse, which is said to be that of Nikias, and which is beautifully adorned with woven coverings of purple and gold.

XXIX

Of the Athenians, the most part perished in the stone quarries of disease and insufficient food, for they received only a pint of barley-meal and half-a-pint of water each day. Not a few, however, were sold into slavery, being stolen for that purpose by Syracusans, or having escaped disguised as slaves. The rest were at length branded upon their foreheads with the figure of a horse, and sold into slavery. Yet even in this extremity their well-bred and dignified behaviour came to their aid; for they soon either obtained their freedom, or gained the confidence and respect of their masters. Some gained their freedom by their knowledge of Euripides. It appears that the dramas of Euripides were especially popular in Sicily, but that only a few fragments of his works had hitherto reached the Greek cities in that island. We are told that many of these captives on their return to Athens affec[Pg 35]tionately embraced Euripides, and told him how some of them had been sold into slavery, but had been set free after they had taught their masters as much of his poetry as they could remember, while others, when wandering about the country as fugitives after the battle, had obtained food and drink by reciting passages from his plays. We need not then wonder at the tale of the people of Kaunus, who, when a ship pursued by pirates was making for their harbour at first refused to admit it, but afterwards enquired whether any on board knew the plays of Euripides; and on hearing that they did, allowed them to enter the harbour and save themselves.

XXX

At Athens the news of the catastrophe was at first disbelieved, because of the unsatisfactory way in which it reached the city. A stranger, it is said, disembarked at Peiræus, went into a barber’s shop, and began to converse about what had happened as upon a theme which must be uppermost in every man’s mind. The astonished barber, hearing for the first time such fearful tidings, ran up to Athens to communicate it to the archons, and to the public in the market-place. All were shocked and astonished at hearing this, and the archons immediately convoked the public assembly, and brought the barber before it. When he was asked to explain from whom he had heard this intelligence, as he could give no satisfactory account, he was regarded as a disturber of the public tranquillity by fabricating idle tales, and was even put to the torture. Soon, however, men arrived who confirmed his tale, and described all the details of the catastrophe as far as they had witnessed them. Then at last the countrymen of Nikias believed, after his death, what he had so often foretold to them during his life.

LIFE OF
CRASSUS.

I

Marcus Crassus1 was the son of a father who had been censor, and enjoyed a triumph; but he was brought up with his two brothers in a small house. His brothers were married in the lifetime of their parents, and all had a common table, which seems to have been the chief reason that Crassus was a temperate and moderate man in his way of living. Upon the death of one of his brothers, Crassus married the widow,2 and she became the mother of his children; for in these matters also he lived as regular a life as any Roman. However, as he grew older, he was charged with criminal intercourse with Licinia,3 one of the [Pg 37]Vestal Virgins, who was brought to trial; the prosecutor was one Plotinus. Licinia had a pleasant estate in the suburbs, which Crassus wished to get at a small price, and with this view he was continually about the woman and paying his court to her, which brought on him the suspicion of a criminal intercourse; but he was acquitted by the judices, being indebted in some degree to his love of money for his acquittal from the charge of debauching the vestal. But he never remitted his attentions to Licinia till he got possession of the property.

II

Now, the Romans say that the many good qualities of Crassus were obscured by one vice, avarice; but the fact appears to be that one vice, which was more predominant in his character than all the rest hid his other vices. They allege, as the chief proof of his avarice, the mode in which he got his money and the amount of his property. Though he did not at first possess above three hundred talents, and during his first consulship he dedicated the tenth part of his property to Hercules,4 and feasted the people, and gave every Roman out of his own means enough to maintain him for three months; yet, before the Parthian expedition, upon making an estimate of his property, he found it amount to seven thousand one hundred talents. The greatest part of this, if one must tell the truth, though it be a scandalous story, he got together out of the fire and the war, making the public misfortunes the source of his wealth; for, when Sulla took the city, and sold the property of those whom he put to death, considering it and calling it spoil, and wishing to attach the infamy of the deed to as many of the most powerful men as he could, Crassus was never tired of receiving or buying. Besides this, observing the accidents that were indigenous and familiar at Rome, conflagrations, and tumbling down of houses owing to their [Pg 38]weight and crowded state, he bought slaves, who were architects and builders. Having got these slaves to the number of more than five hundred, it was his practice to buy up houses on fire, and the houses which were adjoining to those on fire; for the owners, owing to fear and uncertainty, would sell them at a low price; and thus the greatest part of Rome fell into the hands of Crassus: but, though he had so many artizans, he built no house except his own; for he used to say that those who were fond of building were ruined by themselves, without the aid of any opponent. Though he had many silver mines, and much valuable land, and many labourers on it, still one would suppose that all this was of little value, compared with the value of his slaves: so many excellent slaves he possessed,—readers, clerks, assayers of silver,5 house-managers, and table-servants; and he himself superintended their education, and paid attention to it and taught them, and, in short, he considered that a master was mainly concerned in looking after his slaves, who were the living implements of domestic economy. And here Crassus was right, if, as he used to say, it was his opinion that he ought to effect everything by the instrumentality of slaves, and that he himself should direct the slaves; for, we observe, that what is economical with respect to things lifeless is political with respect to men. But he was not right in thinking and saying that nobody was rich who could not maintain an army out of his substance; for war feeds not by a fixed allowance, according to Archidamus;6 and, consequently, the wealth that is required for war is unlimited; and this opinion of Crassus was very different from the opinion of Marius; for when Marius, after giving to each man fourteen jugera of land, found that they wanted more, he said, “May there never be a Roman who thinks that too little which is enough to maintain him.”

III

[Pg 39]Besides this, Crassus was hospitable to strangers, for his house was open to all, and he used to lend money to his friends without interest; but he would demand it back immediately on the expiration of the time of the borrower, which made the gratuitous loan more burdensome than heavy interest. In his entertainments the invitation was usually to persons of the plebeian class, and general: and the frugality of the banquet, which was accompanied with neatness and a friendly welcome, made it more agreeable than a sumptuous feast. In his literary pursuits he mainly studied oratory,7 and that kind which was of practical use; and, having attained an ability in speaking equal to the first among the Romans, he surpassed in care and labour those who had the greatest talents; for they say, there was no case, however mean and contemptible, which he approached without preparation; and often, when Pompeius, and Cæsar, and Cicero, were unwilling to get up to speak, he would perform all the duties of an advocate: and for this reason he became more popular, being considered a careful man, and always ready to give his help. He pleased people, also, by his friendly and affable manner in taking them by the hand, and addressing them; for Crassus never met a Roman, however low and humble his condition might be, without returning his salute,8 and addressing him by his name. He is also said to have been well versed in history, and to [Pg 40]have paid some attention to philosophy by studying the writings of Aristoteles, in which he had for his teacher Alexander, a man who gave a proof of his moderation and easy temper in his intercourse with Crassus; for it was not easy to say whether he was poorer when he became acquainted with Crassus, or after the acquaintance was made. He was, indeed, the only friend of Crassus, who always accompanied him when he travelled abroad; and he used to wear a cloak,9 lent him for the purpose, which on his return he was asked to give back. Oh, the submission10 of the man! for the poor fellow did not consider poverty among the things that are indifferent. But this belongs to a later period.

IV

When Marius and Cinna had got the upper hand, and it was soon apparent that they would reinstate themselves in Rome, not for the benefit of their country, but plainly for the destruction and ruin of the nobles, those who were caught in the city were put to death: among whom were the father and brother of Crassus. Crassus, being very young, escaped immediate danger; but, seeing that he was hemmed in on all sides, and hunted by the tyrants, he took with him three friends and ten slaves; and, using wonderful expedition, made his escape to Iberia, having been there before, when his father was Prætor,11 and having made himself friends. Finding all in [Pg 41]great alarm and trembling at the cruelty of Marius, as if he were close at hand, he did not venture to make himself known, but sought refuge in a tract bordering on the sea, belonging to Vibius Pacianus,12 where he hid himself in a large cave. He sent a slave to Vibius to sound his disposition; for the provisions that Crassus brought with him were now exhausted. On hearing the news, Vibius was pleased that Crassus had escaped; and inquiring about the number of persons with him, and where the place was, he did not go himself to see them, but he took his villicus near the spot, and ordered him to have food daily prepared, and to carry it and place it near the rock, and to go away without speaking a word, and not to be curious about the matter, or make any inquiries; and he gave him notice, that if he did meddle at all he should be put to death, but if he faithfully helped in the matter he should have his freedom. The cave is not far from the sea, and the precipices which shut it in leave a small and hardly perceptible path13 which leads into the cave; but when you have entered, it opens to a wonderful height, and spreads out wide, with recesses which open into one another, and are of a large circuit. It is also neither without water nor light: for a spring of the purest water oozes out at the base of the precipice; and there are [Pg 42]natural clefts about that part where the rock closes, by which the external light is admitted, and in the daytime the spot is fully illuminated. The air within is free from all moisture caused by dropping, and is quite pure, owing to the compactness of the rock, which diverts all the wet and droppings to the spring.

V

While Crassus stayed in the cave, the slave came daily to bring provisions; but he did not see the persons who were concealed, or know who they were; though he was seen by them, inasmuch as they knew, and watched the times of his coming. Now, the provision that was made for their meals was ample enough even for luxury, and not merely sufficient for their necessities. But Vibius determined to show Crassus every kind of friendly attention; and it occurred to him to consider the youth of Crassus, that he was a very young man, and that provision should be made in some degree also for the pleasures suitable to his age, and that merely to supply his wants would argue that he was serving Crassus as little as he could, rather than with hearty zeal; accordingly, he took with him two handsome female slaves, and went down to the sea-coast. When he came to the place, he pointed to the road that led up to it, and told them to go in boldly. Crassus, seeing them approach, was afraid that the spot was known, and had been discovered; and, accordingly, he asked them what they wanted, and who they were. The women replied, as they had been instructed, that they were looking for their master, who was concealed there; on which Crassus perceived the joke which Vibius was playing off upon him, and his kind attentions, and received the women; and they stayed with him for the rest of the time, telling and reporting to Vibius what he requested them. Fenestella14 says, that he saw one of these slaves when she was an old woman, and that he had often heard her mention this, and tell the story with pleasure.

VI

In this way Crassus spent eight months in conceal[Pg 43]ment; but as soon as he heard of Cinna’s end, he showed himself, and out of the numbers that flocked to him he selected two thousand five hundred, with whom he went round to the cities; and one city, Malaca,15 he plundered, according to the testimony of many authors, though they say that he denied the fact, and contradicted those who affirmed it. After this he got together some vessels, and crossed over to Libya, to Metellus Pius,16 a man of reputation who had collected a force by no means contemptible. But he stayed no long time there; for he quarrelled with Metellus, and then set out to join Sulla, by whom he was treated with particular respect. When Sulla had passed over the sea to Italy, he wished all the young men who were with him to aid him actively, and he appointed them to different duties. Crassus, on being sent into the country of the Marsi to raise troops, asked for a guard, because the road lay through a tract which was occupied by the enemy; Sulla replied to him in passion and with vehemence, “I give thee as guards thy father, thy brother, thy friends, thy kinsmen, who were cut off illegally and wrongfully, and whose murderers I am now pursuing.” Stung by these words, and pricked on to the undertaking, Crassus immediately set out, and, vigorously making his way through the enemy, he got together a strong force, and showed himself active in the battles of Sulla. The events of that war, it is said, first excited him to rivalry and competition with Pompeius for distinction. Pompeius was younger than Crassus, and his father had a bad repute at Rome, and had been bitterly hated by the citizens; but still Pompeius shone conspicuous in the events of that period and proved himself to be a great man, so that Sulla showed him marks of respect which he did not very often show to others of more advanced years [Pg 44]and of his own rank, by rising from his seat when Pompeius approached, and uncovering his head, and addressing him by the title of Imperator. All this set Crassus in a flame, and goaded him, inasmuch as he was thus slighted in comparison with Pompeius; and with good reason; Crassus was deficient in experience, and the credit that he got by his military exploits was lost by his innate vices,—love of gain and meanness; for, upon taking Tudertia,17 a city of the Umbri, it was suspected that he appropriated to himself most of the spoil, and this was made a matter of charge against him to Sulla. However, in the battle near Rome,18 which was the greatest in all the war, and the last, Sulla was defeated, the soldiers under his command being put to flight, and some of them trampled down in the pursuit: Crassus, who commanded the right wing, was victorious, and, after continuing the pursuit till nightfall, he sent to Sulla to ask for something for his soldiers to eat, and to report his success. But, during the proscriptions and confiscations, on the other hand, he got a bad name, by buying at low prices large properties, and asking for grants. It is said that, in the country of the Bruttii, he also proscribed a person, not pursuant to Sulla’s orders, but merely to enrich himself thereby, and that, on this account, Sulla, who disapproved of his conduct, never employed him again in any public business. However, Crassus was most expert in gaining over everybody by flattery; and, on the other hand, he was easily taken in by flattery from any person. It is further mentioned as a peculiarity in his character, that, though very greedy of gain,19 he hated and abused those most who were like himself.

VII

But Crassus was most annoyed at the military success of Pompeius, and his enjoying a triumph before he became a senator, and being called by the citizens Magnus, which means Great. On one occasion, when somebody observed that Pompeius the Great was approach[Pg 45]ing, Crassus smiled, and asked, How great he was? But, as Crassus despaired of equalling Pompeius in military reputation, he entered upon a political career, and, by his activity, by pleading in the courts, and lending money, and by canvassing for candidates, and subjecting himself to all kinds of scrutiny in conjunction with those who wanted anything of the people, he acquired a power and reputation equal to what Pompeius had got by his many and great military services. And the result to each of them was something unusual; for, when Pompeius was absent from Rome, his name and his influence in the State, by reason of his military exploits, was superior to that of Crassus; but when Pompeius was at Rome, he often fell short of Crassus in influence, for his haughty temper and habitual pride made him avoid crowds and retire from the Forum, and seldom give his aid to those who sought it, and then not readily; his object being to keep his power at a higher pitch, by exercising it only on his own behalf. But Crassus was always ready to make himself useful, and he did not keep himself retired, nor was he difficult of access, but he was always busy in everything that was going on, and by the general kindness of his behaviour he got the advantage over the proud bearing of Pompeius. In personal dignity, in persuasive speech, and attractive expression of countenance it is said they were both equally fortunate. However, this rivalry did not hurry Crassus into any personal enmity or ill-will, and though, he was annoyed at Pompeius and Cæsar receiving greater honour than himself, he never allowed this jealous feeling to be associated with any hostility or ill disposition. It is true that when Cæsar was taken and detained by the pirates, he cried out, “What pleasure you will have, Crassus, when you hear of my capture!” But afterwards, at least, they were on friendly terms, and, when Cæsar was going to Iberia, as prætor,20 and had no money in consequence of his creditors having come upon him and seizing all his outfit, Crassus did not leave him in this difficulty, but got him released, by becoming security for him to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents. When all Rome became [Pg 46]divided into three parties,—that of Pompeius, Cæsar and Crassus,—(for Cato21 had more reputation than power, and was more admired than followed), the sober and conservative part of the citizens adhered to Pompeius; the violent and those who were lightly moved, were led by the hopes that they had from Cæsar; Crassus, by keeping a middle position, used both parties for his purposes, and, as he very often changed in his political views, he was neither a firm friend nor an irreconcilable enemy, but he would readily give up either his friendship or his enmity on calculation of interest; so that within a short interval, he often came forward to speak both for and against the same men and the same measures. He had also great influence, both because he was liked and feared, but mainly because he was feared. Accordingly Sicinius,22 who was the most violent in his attacks on the magistrates and popular leaders of the day, in reply to one who asked, “Why Crassus was the only person whom he did not worry, and why he let him alone?” said, “That he had hay on his horn:” now, the Romans were accustomed to tie some hay round the horn of an ox that butted, as a warning to those who might meet it.

VIII

The insurrection of the gladiators and their devastation of Italy, which is generally called the war of Spartacus,23 originated as follows:—One Lentulus Batiates kept gladiators in Capua, of whom the majority, who were Gauls and Thracians, had been closely confined, not for [Pg 47]any misbehaviour on their part, but through the villainy of their purchaser, for the purpose of fighting in the games. Two hundred of these resolved to make their escape; but their design being betrayed, those who had notice of the discovery, and succeeded in getting away, to the number of seventy-eight, took knives and spits out of a cook’s shop, and sallied out. Meeting on the way with some waggons that were conveying gladiators’ arms to another city, they plundered the waggons, and armed themselves. Seizing on a strong position, they chose three leaders, of whom the first was Spartacus, a Thracian of nomadic race, a man not only of great courage and strength, but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition, and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation. They say that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this was a sign of a great and formidable power which would attend him to a happy termination. This woman was at that time cohabiting with Spartacus, and she made her escape with him.

IX

The gladiators began by repelling those who came against them from Capua and getting a stock of military weapons, for which they gladly exchanged their gladiators’ arms, which they threw away as a badge of dishonour, and as barbaric. Clodius24 the prætor was next sent against them from Rome, with three thousand men, and he blockaded them on a mountain which had only one ascent, and that was difficult and narrow, and Clodius had possession of it; on all other sides there were steep smooth-faced precipices. On the top of the hill there grew a great quantity of wild vines, and the men of Spartacus cutting off all the shoots that were adapted to their purpose, and, intertwining them, made strong and long ladders, so [Pg 48]that when fastened above, they reached along the face of the precipice to the level ground, and they all safely descended by them except one man, who stayed to take care of the arms; and, when all the rest had descended, he let the arms down, and, having done this, he got down safe himself. The Romans did not know what was going on; and accordingly, when the gladiators surrounded them, they were put in alarm by the surprise, and fled, on which the enemy took their camp. Many of the herdsmen and shepherds in those parts also joined the gladiators, men ever ready for a quarrel, and light of foot, some of whom the gladiators armed, and others they employed as scouts and light troops. Publius Barinus25 the prætor was next sent against them, whose legatus, one Furius, at the head of two thousand soldiers, the gladiators engaged and put to flight. Cossinus was then despatched, with a large force, to advise with Barinus, and to be associated in the command; but Spartacus, watching his opportunity, while Cossinus was bathing at Salenæ,26 was very near seizing him. Cossinus made his escape with great difficulty, and Spartacus, seizing the baggage, closely followed up the pursuit, with great slaughter of the Romans, and he took the camp. Cossinus also fell. Spartacus, after defeating the prætor himself in many other battles, and at last seizing his lictors and his horse, now became great and formidable: but still he formed a just judgment of the state of affairs and, not expecting to get the advantage over the power of the Romans, he designed to lead his forces to the Alps; thinking that it was advisable for them to cross the mountains and to go to their several homes, some to Thrace and some to Gaul. But the gladiators being strong in numbers, and confident, would not listen to him, and they went about ravaging Italy. The Senate were now no longer troubled merely at the humiliation and disgrace that they suffered by the revolt; but, moved by [Pg 49]fear and the danger, they sent out both the consuls27 as to a war of the utmost difficulty and importance. Gellius, suddenly falling on the Germans, who, by reason of their arrogance and self-confidence, had separated from the troops of Spartacus, destroyed the whole body; and after Lentulus had hemmed in Spartacus with large armies, Spartacus, rushing upon them and joining battle, defeated the legates and got all the baggage. Spartacus now attempted to force his way towards the Alps; and Cassius28 who “was the governor of Gaul upon the Padus, met him with ten thousand men, and a battle was fought, in which Cassius was defeated with great lose, and with difficulty made his escape.

X

The Senate, on receiving this news, angrily bade the consuls keep quiet, and they appointed Crassus to the command of the war, whose reputation and popularity induced many of the nobles to serve under him. Crassus took his station on the frontiers of Picenum, with the view of waiting for Spartacus, who was moving in that direction; and he sent Mummius, his legatus, at the head of two legions, to make a circuit, and with orders to follow the enemy, but not to engage with them, nor come to close quarters. But Mummius, as soon as he got what he thought a favourable opportunity, fought a battle, and was defeated; many of his men fell, and many, flying without their arms, made their escape. Crassus received Mummius himself roughly, and arming the soldiers again, he required of them security for their arms, that they would keep them; and five hundred, who had been the first to run, and had shown most cowardice, he distributed into [Pg 50]fifty decades,29 and out of each decade he took one man, by lot, and put him to death; thus inflicting on the soldiers this ancient mode of punishment which had long fallen into disuse; for disgrace also is added to the manner of death, and many things horrible and dreadful to see accompany the punishment, in the presence of all the spectators. After inflicting this punishment, he made his men again face about and march against the enemy. Spartacus, however, avoided Crassus, and made his way through Lucania to the sea, and, falling in with some Cilician piratical vessels, in the Straits, he formed a design to seize Sicily, and by throwing two thousand men into the island, to kindle again the servile war there, the flames of which had not long since been quenched, and required only a few sparks to set it again in a blaze. The Cilicians30 came to terms with Spartacus, and received his presents; but they deceived him, and sailed off. Under these circumstances, he marched back from the coast, and fixed his army in the peninsula of the Rhegine territory. Crassus now came up, and observing that the nature of the ground suggested what was to be done, he resolved to build a wall across the isthmus, for the purpose of keeping his soldiers employed, and cutting off the supplies of the enemy. Though the undertaking was great and difficult, he accomplished it, and completed the work, contrary to all expectation, in a short time, by digging a ditch31 from sea to sea, through the neck of land, three hundred stadia in length, fifteen feet deep, and as many wide; and above the ditch he raised a rampart of surprising height and [Pg 51]strength. At first Spartacus paid no attention to what was going on, and treated it with contempt; but when forage began to fail, and he wanted to advance further into the interior, he discovered the lines of Crassus; and as there was nothing to be got in the peninsula, taking advantage of a night when there was a fall of snow and a wintry storm, he filled up a small part of the ditch with earth, and wood, and the branches of trees, and so carried over a third part of his army.

XI

Now Crassus was afraid that Spartacus might form a design to march against Rome; but he was encouraged by many of the followers of Spartacus quitting their leader, in consequence of some disputes, and encamping by themselves upon the banks of the lake Lucanis,32 which they say is subject to changes, at certain intervals becoming sweet, and then again salt, and not potable. Crassus coming upon this band, drove them from the lake; but he was prevented from cutting them to pieces and pursuing them, by the sudden appearance of Spartacus, who checked the flight. Crassus had, before this, written to the Senate, to say that they ought to summon Lucullus33 from Thrace, and Pompeius from Iberia; but he now changed his mind, and made every effort to put an end to the war before they [Pg 52]arrived, knowing that the success would be attributed to him who came last, and brought help, and not to himself. Accordingly, he determined to attack first those who had separated from the main body, and were carrying on the campaign by themselves, under the command of Caius Cannicius and Castus; and he dispatched six thousand men, with orders to occupy a certain hill, and keep themselves concealed. The men of Crassus endeavoured to escape notice by covering their helmets; but, being seen by two women, who were sacrificing for the enemy, they would have been in danger, if Crassus had not quickly appeared, and fought a battle, the most severely contested of all in this war, in which he destroyed twelve thousand three hundred men, of whom he found only two wounded in the back: all the rest died in the ranks, fighting against the Romans. After the defeat of this body, Spartacus retired to the mountains of Petilia,34 followed by Quintius,35 one of the generals of Crassus, and Scrofas, his quæstor, who hung close on his rear. But, upon Spartacus facing about, the Romans were thrown into disorderly flight, and made their escape, after having with difficulty rescued their quæstor, who was wounded. This success was the ruin of Spartacus, in consequence of the self-confidence which it infused into the slaves: they would not now consent to avoid a battle, nor yet would they obey their commanders, whom they surrounded, with arms in their hands, on the march, and compelled to lead them back through Lucania against the Romans, wherein they did the very thing that Crassus desired; for it was reported that Pompeius was now approaching, and there were not a few who openly said that the victory in this war belonged to him; for he would fight as soon as he arrived, and put an end to the campaign. While Crassus, therefore, who was eager to decide the affair by a battle, and to fix his camp near the enemy, was engaged in digging his trenches, [Pg 53]the slaves came up to them and attacked the men who were at work. As fresh men from both sides kept coming up to help their comrades, Spartacus, seeing that he must fight, arranged all his army in order of battle. When his horse was brought to him, he drew his sword and said, that if he won the battle he should have plenty of fine horses from the enemy, and if he was defeated he should not want one; upon which he killed his horse, and then he made his way towards Crassus himself, through many men, and inflicting many wounds; but he did not succeed in reaching Crassus, though he engaged with and killed two centurions. At last, after those about him had fled, he kept his ground, and, being surrounded by a great number, he fought till he was cut down. But, though Crassus had been successful, and had displayed the skill of a great general, and had exposed his person to danger, yet the credit of the victory did not escape being appropriated to Pompeius; for those who fled from the battle were destroyed by him, and Pompeius wrote to the Senate that Crassus had defeated the slaves in the open field, but he had cut up the war by the roots.36 Now Pompeius had a splendid triumph for his victory over Sertorius and his exploits in Iberia; but Crassus did not venture to ask for the greater triumph; and even as to the foot triumph called the ovation, which he did enjoy, it was considered but a mean thing, and below his dignity that he had a triumph for a servile war. But how the ovation differs from the other triumph, and about the name, I have spoken in the ‘Life of Marcellus.’37

XII

After these events, Pompeius was forthwith in[Pg 54]vited to the consulship,38 and, though Crassus had hopes of becoming his colleague, still he did not hesitate to solicit the assistance of Pompeius. Pompeius gladly listened to his proposal, for he was desirous in any way always to have Crassus his debtor for some obligation, and he actively exerted himself on behalf of Crassus; and finally he said, in his address to the public assembly, that he should feel no less grateful for the return of Crassus as his colleague than for his own election. They did not, however, continue in this harmony after entering on their office, but they differed on almost every subject, and quarrelled about everything, and by their disputes rendered their consulship unfruitful in all political measures, and ineffectual: however, Crassus made a great festival in honour of Hercules, and feasted the people at ten thousand tables, and gave them an allowance of corn for three months. It was at the close of their consulship, when Pompeius and Crassus happened to be addressing the public assembly, that a man, not of any distinction, a Roman eques, a rustic in his mode of life, and one who did not meddle with public affairs, Onatius Aurelius,39 got up on the rostra, and, coming forward, told a dream which he had had. “Jupiter,” he said, “appeared to me, and bade me tell the citizens not to let the consuls lay down their office before they have become friends.” Upon the man saying this, and the assembly bidding the consuls be reconciled, Pompeius stood silent; but Crassus offering his right hand first, said, “Citizens, I do not consider that I am humbling myself or doing anything unworthy of me when I make the advance towards good-will and friendship to Pompeius, to whom you gave the name of Magnus before he had a beard, and voted a triumph before he was a senator.”

XIII

These were the things worthy of commemoration in the consulship of Crassus. But his censorship40 passed [Pg 55]over altogether without results, and without any active measures; for he neither revised the senate, nor inspected the equites, nor made a census of the citizens, though he had for his colleague Lutatius Catulus, the mildest of the Romans. But it is said that Crassus designed a shameful and violent measure, to make Egypt tributary to the Romans, and that Catulus opposed him vigorously, on which a difference arising between them, they voluntarily laid down their office. In the affair of Catiline,41 which was a serious matter, and one that came near overthrowing Rome, some suspicion, it is true, attached to Crassus, and a man came forward to name him as implicated in the conspiracy, but nobody believed him. However, Cicero, in one of his orations, evidently imputed to Crassus and Cæsar participation in the plot; but this oration was not published till after the death of both of them. But in the oration on his consulship, Cicero says that Crassus came to him by night and brought a letter42 which contained information on the affair of Catiline, as if his object was to establish the truth of the conspiracy. Now Crassus always hated Cicero for this, but his son stood in the way [Pg 56]of his doing Cicero any open injury. For Publius,43 who was fond of oratory and of improving himself, was much attached to Cicero, and went so far as to change his dress when Cicero did at the time of his trial, and he induced the other young men to do the same. At last he prevailed upon his father, and reconciled him to Cicero.

XIV

When Cæsar returned from his province,44 he made preparations to be a candidate for the consulship; but, observing that Crassus and Pompeius were again at enmity, he did not choose by applying to one of them for his help to have the other for his enemy, and he did not think that he could succeed if neither of them assisted him. Accordingly, he set about reconciling them, by continually urging upon them, and showing that by their attempts to ruin one another they would increase the power of the Ciceros, and Catuli, and Catos, who would lose all their influence if they would unite their friends and adherents, and so direct the administration with combined strength, and one purpose. By persuasion and effecting a reconciliation, he brought them together, and he formed out of the union of all three an irresistible power by which he put down the Roman senate and the people, though he did not make Pompeius and Crassus more powerful, one through the other, but by means of the two he made himself most powerful; for immediately on being supported by Pompeius and Crassus, he was elected consul by a great majority. While Cæsar was ably discharging the business of the consulship, Crassus and Pompeius, by procuring for him the command of armies, and by delivering Gaul into his hands, fixed him in a kind of acropolis, thinking that they should administer the rest of the State as they mutually agreed, after securing to Cæsar the authority which the lot had [Pg 57]given him. Now Pompeius did all this through unbounded love of power; but to the old vice of Crassus, his avarice, there was now added a new passion, ambition for trophies and triumphs excited by the great exploits of Cæsar, since it was in this alone that he was Cæsar’s inferior; for he had the superiority in everything else; and his passion remitted not nor diminished till it resulted in an inglorious death and public misfortunes. Cæsar had come down from Gaul to the city of Luca, and many of the Romans went to him there, and Pompeius and Crassus had private conferences with him, in which they agreed to take affairs in hand more vigorously, and to hold the whole power of the State at their disposal, to which end Cæsar was to remain in his military command, and Pompeius and Crassus were to have other provinces and armies. To this object there was only one road, which was to ask for a second consulship, and Cæsar was to assist them in their canvass by writing to his friends and sending many of his soldiers to support them at the comitia.

XV

As soon as Crassus and Pompeius45 returned to Rome, suspicion was excited, and there was much talk through the whole city that their meeting had been held for no good. In the Senate Marcellinus and Domitius asked Pompeius if he intended to be a candidate for the consulship, to which Pompeius replied that perhaps he should, and perhaps he should not; being asked again, he said that he was a candidate for the votes of the good citizens, but not a candidate for the votes of the bad. It was considered that Pompeius had made a haughty and arrogant answer; but Crassus said, in a more modest tone, that he would be a candidate, if it was for the interest of the State; if it was not, he would decline. This encouraged certain persons to become candidates, among [Pg 58]whom was Domitius. However, when Pompeius and Crassus had openly declared themselves candidates, the rest were afraid and withdrew; but Domitius was encouraged by Cato, who was his kinsman and friend, and stimulated and urged him to stick to his hopes, with the view of defending the common liberties; he said “it was not the consulship that Pompeius and Crassus wanted, but a tyranny; that their conduct showed they were not asking for the consulship, but aiming to seize on the provinces and the armies.” By such arguments, which were also his real opinions, Cato, all but by force, brought Domitius to the Forum, and many sided with them. And those who were surprised at the canvassing of Pompeius and Crassus were no small number. “Why then do they want a second consulship? And why do they wish to be colleagues again? And why will they not have the consulship with other colleagues? There are many men among us who are surely not unworthy to be colleagues with Crassus and Pompeius.” This alarmed the partizans of Pompeius, who now abstained from no proceeding, however disorderly and violent; but, in addition to all the rest, they placed a body of men to lie in wait and attack Domitius as he was going down to the Forum, while it was still dark, with his partizans, and they killed the man that held the light, and wounded many, among whom was Cato. After putting the party of Domitius to flight, and driving them back to the house,46 Pompeius and Crassus were proclaimed consuls. Shortly after, they again surrounded the Senate-house with armed men, and, after driving Cato out of the Forum, and killing some persons who opposed them, they procured another five years47 of [Pg 59]administration to be added to Cæsar’s term, and the two provinces of Syria and Iberia to be given to them. When the lots were cast, Crassus got Syria, and Pompeius had Iberia.

XVI

The result of the lot was not universally disliked; for the majority wished Pompeius not to be far from the city, and Pompeius, who was much attached to his wife,48 intended to spend his time chiefly in Rome. Crassus showed by his joy, immediately on the falling out of the lot, that he considered no greater good fortune had ever befallen him, and he could scarcely keep quiet before strangers and in public; to his friends he uttered many foolish and puerile expressions quite inconsistent with his years and temper, for he had never before shown himself in the least degree a braggart or arrogant. But now, being mightily elated, and his head completely turned, he was not for making Syria or Palestine the limit of his victories; but, designing to make the exploits of Lucullus against Tigranes, and those of Pompeius against Mithridates appear mere child’s play, he extended his hopes as far as to the Bactrians, and the Indians, and the external sea. And yet there was no mention of a Parthian war in the law49 that was drawn up on this occasion. But every[Pg 60]body knew that Crassus was passionately bent on a Parthian war, and Cæsar wrote to him from Gaul, approving of his design, and urging him to it. When it was known that Ateius,50 the tribune, intended to offer some opposition to his leaving the city, and many persons joined him who complained that Crassus was going to make war upon a people who were doing the Romans no wrong, and had a treaty with them, Crassus in alarm prayed Pompeius to accompany him, and escort him out of the city. Now, the reputation of Pompeius with the multitude was great, and, by showing himself in front of Crassus, with cheerful looks and countenance, he tranquillized a numerous body of people who were prepared to obstruct Crassus, and to raise a shout against him, so that they made way and let him pass through them quietly. But Ateius met Crassus, and, first of all, endeavoured to stop him by words, and he protested against his marching out: in the next place, he ordered his attendant to lay hold of Crassus, and to detain him; but, as the rest of the tribunes would not allow this, the attendant quitted his hold of Crassus, and Ateius running to the gate, placed there a burning brazier, and, as soon as Crassus arrived, he threw incense and poured libations upon it, and, at the same time, he denounced against Crassus curses, in themselves dreadful and terrific, and, in addition thereto, he uttered the names of certain awful and inauspicious deities. The Romans say that these mysterious and ancient curses have great efficacy, that no man can escape upon whom they are laid, and that he who utters them also has an unlucky end, and, accordingly, they are not denounced either on ordinary occasions, or by many persons. Ateius was blamed for letting loose such imprecations and religious fears upon a State, on behalf of which he was hostile to Crassus.

XVII

When Crassus arrived at Brundisium, though [Pg 61]the sea was still rough owing to the wintry weather, he would not wait, but he set sail, and so lost many of his vessels. After getting together the remnant of his forces, he marched through Galatia.51 Finding King Deiotarus, who was now a very old man, founding a new city, Crassus said sarcastically, “King, you are beginning to build at the twelfth hour.” The Galatian, with a smile, replied, “You, too, Imperator, I observe, are not very early with your Parthian expedition.” Now Crassus was past sixty, and he looked older than he was. On his arrival, matters at first turned out fully equal to his expectation; for he easily threw a bridge over the Euphrates, and got his army across safely, and he also obtained possession of many cities in Mesopotamia which surrendered. Before one of them, of which Apollonius was tyrant, he lost a hundred men, upon which he brought his force against the place, and, having got possession of it, he made plunder of all the property, and sold the people: the Greeks called the city Zenodotia.52 On the capture of the city, Crassus allowed his soldiers to proclaim him Imperator, wherein he greatly disgraced himself, and showed the meanness of his spirit, and that he had no good hopes of greater things, as he was content with so slight a success. Having put garrisons in the cities that had surrendered, to the amount of seven thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry, he retired to winter in Syria, and there to await his son,53 who was coming from Cæsar in Gaul, with the decorations that he had gained by his valour, and with a thousand picked [Pg 62]horsemen. This seemed to be the first blunder of Crassus, or at least, it was the greatest blunder that he committed next to the expedition itself; for he ought to have advanced and to have secured Babylon and Seleukeia,54 two cities which were always hostile to the Parthians; instead of which, he gave his enemies time to make preparation. The next thing the people blamed was his waste of time in Syria, which was employed more for purposes of money profit than for military purposes; for he did not occupy himself in reviewing the numbers of his troops, nor establishing games to keep the soldiers in exercise, but he busied himself about estimating the revenues of cities, and he was for many days with weights and scales in his hands among the treasures of the goddess in Hierapolis,55 and, after requiring from the towns and princes contingents of men, he would remit his requisitions for a sum of money; by all which he lost his reputation, and fell into contempt. The first sign that happened to him proceeded from this goddess herself, whom some consider to be Aphrodite (Venus); and others Hera (Juno); others again believe her to be the cause that has supplied from moisture the seeds for all things, and nature, and the power that has pointed out the source of all good things for men; for, as they were going out of the temple, young Crassus first stumbled at the gate, and then his father fell upon him.

XVIII

While Crassus was getting together his forces out of the winter quarter, there came ambassadors from Arsakes56 with a short message. They said, if the army [Pg 63]was sent by the Romans, there was nothing but war without truce, and without any terms; but if Crassus, contrary to the wish of his country, as they heard, had brought arms against the Parthians and occupied territory for his private profit, Arsakes would act with moderation, and would take pity on the old age of Crassus, and give up to the Romans the men whom he had in his power, and who were rather under guard themselves than keeping guard over others. Crassus haughtily replied, that he would give an answer in Seleukeia; on which Vagises, the oldest of the ambassadors, smiled, and, showing the palm of his hand, said, “From here, Crassus, hair will grow before you see Seleukeia.” The ambassadors now returned to Hyrodes, to inform him that he must be ready for war. From the cities of Mesopotamia, in which there were Roman garrisons, some soldiers, who made their escape at great hazard, brought reports that caused much anxiety, having been eye-witnesses of the numbers of the enemy, and of their mode of attacking the cities; and, as is usual, they magnified everything which they reported. “When the enemy pursued,” they said, “no man could escape from them, and when they fled, they could not be overtaken; that strange missiles preceded the appearance of the enemy, and before one could see who sent them, they pierced [Pg 64]through everything that they struck; and as to the arms of the mailed57 soldiers, some were made to push through every obstacle, and others to give way to nothing.” When the soldiers heard this their courage sank; for they had been led to believe that the Parthians did not differ at all from the Armenians and Cappadocians, whom Lucullus plundered and robbed till he was weary, and they thought that the hardest part of the war would be a long march, and the pursuit of men who would not come to close quarters; but now, contrary to their hopes, they were in expectation of a contest and great danger, so that some of the officers thought that Crassus ought to stop, and again submit to their deliberation the general state of affairs. Among these was Cassius58 the quæstor. The seers, also, in gentle terms showed that bad and unfavourable signs were always prognosticated to Crassus by the victims. But Crassus paid no attention to them, nor to those who advised anything else except to move on.

XIX

But Crassus was in no small degree encouraged by Artabazes59 the king of the Armenians, who came to the camp with six thousand horsemen. These were said to be the guards and attendants of the king; and he promised ten thousand men clothed in mail and thirty thousand infantry, who were to be maintained at his own cost. He attempted to persuade Crassus to invade Parthia through Armenia; for, he said, the army would not only have abundance of provision in its march through the country by reason of him supplying them, but would also advance safely, having in their front many mountains and continuous hills, and ground unfavourable for cavalry, in which alone lay the strength of the Parthians. Crassus was well enough satisfied with the zeal of the king and the splendour of the proffered aid; but he said he would march through Mesopotamia, where he had left many brave Romans; upon this the Armenian went away. As [Pg 65]Crassus was taking his army over at the Zeugma,60 many extraordinary claps of thunder broke around, and many flashes of lightning came right in front of the army; and a wind, mingled with cloud and hurricane,61 falling on the raft, broke up and crushed to pieces a large part of it. The spot also, on which Crassus intended to encamp, was [Pg 66]struck with two thunderbolts.62 A horse, belonging to the general, which was caparisoned in splendid style, violently dragged along the man who held the reins, and plunging into the stream, disappeared. It is said also, that the first eagle which was raised, turned round spontaneously. Added to this, it happened that, as they were giving out the rations to the soldiers after crossing the river, lentils and salt were given first, which the Romans consider to be symbols of lamentation, and are accustomed to place before the dead; and, as Crassus was haranguing the soldiers, an expression escaped him which greatly alarmed the army. He said he would destroy the raft over the river, that no one among them might return; and though he ought, upon seeing the imprudence of his words, to have recalled what he had said and explained it to the soldiers, he neglected to do so, through his arrogant temper. Finally, when he was offering the usual expiatory sacrifice, and the priest had put the viscera into his hands, he threw them away, on which, observing that the standers-by were greatly disturbed, he said with a smile, “Such is old age; but no arms at least shall drop from its hands.”

XX

After this he advanced along the river, with seven legions and nearly four thousand horsemen, and almost as many light-armed troops as horsemen. Some of the scouts now returned from their exploration and reported that the country was clear of men, and that they had fallen in with the tracks of many horses, which indicated that [Pg 67]they had turned about and were retreating. This gave Crassus still better hopes, and made the soldiers completely despise the Parthians, who, as they supposed, would not come to close quarters. However, Cassius again had some conversation with Crassus, and advised him at least to give his troops rest in some of the garrisoned cities, till he should get some certain information about the enemy; but if he would not do this, to advance towards Seleukeia along the river. He urged that the boats which carried the provisions would furnish them with supplies by stopping at the places of encampment, and that, by having the river as a protection against being hemmed in by the enemy, they would always be able to fight them on fair terms.

XXI

While Crassus was considering and reflecting on these matters, there comes an Arab chieftain, Ariamnes63 by name, a cunning and faithless man, and of all the misfortunes that were by chance combined to ruin the Romans the chief and crowning mischief. Some of them who had served with Pompeius knew him as one who had received favours from Pompeius, and was supposed to be a friend to the Romans; but he now came to Crassus with a treacherous intent, and with the privity of the royal generals, to try if he could draw him far away from the river and the foot of the hills, into a boundless plain, where he might be surrounded by the enemy; for nothing was further from the intentions of the Parthians than to attack the Romans right in front. Accordingly, the barbarian coming to Crassus (and he was a plausible talker), spake in high terms of Pompeius as his benefactor, and praised the force of Crassus; but he blamed him for his tardiness, inasmuch as he was delaying and making preparation, as if he would have occasion to employ arms instead of hands and the most active feet, against an enemy who had long been trying to get together, as quick as they could, their most valuable property and their best slaves, and to move off to the Scythians or Hyrkanians. “And yet,” he said, “if you intend to fight, you ought to press on before the king recovers his courage and all his forces are [Pg 68]concentrated; for now Surena and Sillakes have been thrown in your way to stand the attack, and the king is no where to be seen.” But all this was false. For Hyrodes had at first divided his forces into two parts, and he was himself ravaging Armenia to take vengeance on Artavasdes; but he sent Surena against the Romans, not because he despised them, as some say, for it was not consistent for him to disdain Crassus as an antagonist, the first of the Romans, and to war against Artavasdes and take the villages of Armenia; but it seems that he really feared the danger, and that he was on the watch to await the result, and that he put Surena in the front to try the fortune of a battle, and so to divert the enemy. For Surena was no person of mean estate: in wealth, birth, and consideration, he was next to the king; but, in courage and ability, the first of the Parthians of his time; and, besides all this, in stature and beauty of person he had no equal. He used always to travel, when he was on his own business, with a thousand camels to carry his baggage, and he had following him two hundred carriages for concubines; and a thousand mailed horsemen, with a larger number of light cavalry, escorted him; and he had in all, horsemen, clients,64 and slaves, no less than ten thousand. Now by hereditary right he had the privilege of first placing the diadem on the head of him who became king of the Parthians;65 and this very Hyrodes, who had been driven out, he restored to the Parthian empire, and took for him Seleukeia the Great, being the first to mount the wall and to put to flight with his own hand those [Pg 69]who opposed him. Though he was not yet thirty years of age at that time, he had the first reputation for prudent counsel and judgment, by which qualities particularly he caused the ruin of Crassus, who through his confidence and pride in the first place, and next through his fears and his misfortunes, became a most easy victim to fraud.

XXII

The barbarian, after persuading Crassus, drew him away from the river, and led him through the plains by a track at first convenient and easy, but which soon became toilsome; for it was succeeded by deep sand, and plains treeless and waterless, not bounded in any direction by any object that the eye could reach, so that, not only through thirst and the difficulty of the march, was the army exhausted, but even the aspect of all around caused the soldiers to despond past all comfort, seeing neither plant, nor stream, nor top of sloping hill, nor blade of grass sprouting or rising through the earth, but a bare sea-like wave of desert heaps of sand environing the army. Now this of itself made the Romans suspect treachery. Messengers also came from Artavasdes the Armenian, with a message that he was engaged in a heavy struggle since Hyrodes had fallen upon him, and that he could not send Crassus aid; but he advised Crassus above all things to change his route immediately, and, by joining the Armenians, to bring the contest with Hyrodes to a close: but, if he would not do this, he recommended him to advance, and always to avoid encamping in such places as were adapted for the movements of cavalry, and to keep close to the mountainous parts: to all which Crassus sent no written answer, but, under the influence of passion and perverse disposition, he answered, that he had no leisure at present to deal with the Armenians, but he would come at another time to punish Artavasdes for his treachery. Cassius was again much dissatisfied: but he gave over advising Crassus, who was out of humour with him, though Cassius himself abused the barbarian. “What evil dæmon,” he said, “vilest of men, brought you to us, and by what drugs and witchcraft have you persuaded Crassus to plunge his army into a boundless wilderness and an abyss, and to pursue a path more fit for a nomadic chief of robbers than for a Roman Imperator?” But the [Pg 70]barbarian, who was a cunning follow, with abject servility, prayed him to endure a little longer; and, while running along with the soldiers and giving them his help, he would jeer at them in a laughing mood, and say, “I suppose you think that you are marching through Campania, and you long for the fountains, and streams, and shades, and baths, and taverns? Have you forgotten that you are crossing the confines of the Arabs and Assyrians?” Thus the barbarian amused the Romans, and before his treachery was discovered he rode off, not, however, without the knowledge of Crassus, after making him believe that he would serve the Roman army, and put the affairs of the enemy in confusion.

XXIII

It is said that on that day Crassus did not appear, as is the custom of Roman generals, in a purple dress, but in black, which he immediately changed on observing what he had done: and it is also said that the men who carried the standards had much difficulty in raising some of them up, for they stuck in the ground as if they were firmly rooted there. Crassus ridiculed all these omens, and quickened his march, urging the infantry to follow after the cavalry, till at last a few of those who had been sent forward as scouts came up, and reported that the rest of them had been cut off by the enemy, and they had escaped with difficulty, and that the Parthians were advancing with a large force, and full of confidence. This threw all the army into confusion, and Crassus was completely confounded, and began to put his men in order hastily, and with no great presence of mind: at first, as Cassius recommended, he extended the line of the legionary soldiers as far as possible in the plain, and making it of small depth, in order to prevent the enemy from attacking them on the flank, he distributed the cavalry on the wings; but he changed his plan and, drawing his men together, formed them into a deep square of four fronts, with twelve cohorts on each side. By the side of each cohort he placed a body of horse, in order that no part of the army might be without the aid of the cavalry, but might make the attack equally protected on all sides. He gave one of the wings to Cassius, and the other to young Crassus; he himself took his station in the centre. Thus [Pg 71]advancing, they came to a stream called Balissus,66 which was neither large nor copious; but it was a joyful sight to the soldiers in the midst of the drought and heat, and by comparison with the rest of their laborious march through a country without water. Now most of the commanders thought that they ought to encamp and spend the night there, and learn what was the number of the enemy, and the nature and disposition of their force, and so advance against them at daybreak; but Crassus, being prevailed upon by the importunity of his son, and the cavalry with him, to advance immediately, and engage with the enemy, gave orders for the men who required it to eat and drink in their ranks. And before this could be well accomplished all through the ranks, he led on his men, not slowly, nor halting at intervals, as is usual when men are marching to battle, but he kept them up to a quick, unbroken pace, until the enemy were in sight, who, contrary to expectation, did not appear to the Romans to be either numerous or formidable; for Surena disguised his numbers by placing the mass of his force behind the front ranks, and he prevented their bright armour from being seen by ordering his men to cover themselves with cloaks and skins. But when they were near the Romans, and the standard was raised by the general, first of all they filled the plain with a deep sound and a terrific noise; for the Parthians do not excite themselves to battle with horns or trumpets, but they have hollow instruments,67 made of skin, and furnished with brass bells, on which they strike at the same time in various parts; and these instruments produce a kind of deep and dismal sound, compounded of the roaring of wild beasts and the harsh crash [Pg 72]of thunder; for the Parthians rightly judge that of all the senses the hearing is that which causes the greatest alarm in the mind, and that, when this sense is affected, there is the speediest and greatest disturbance in the judgment.

XXIV

The Romans were startled at the noise, when all of a sudden throwing off the covering of their armour the Parthians appeared, with their helmets and breastplates flashing like flame, the Margian steel68 glittering sharp and bright, and the horses equipped in mail of brass and iron; but Surena was most conspicuous of all, being the tallest and handsomest man among them, though his personal appearance, owing to his feminine beauty, did not correspond to his reputation for courage, for he was dressed more in the Median fashion, with his face painted69 and his hair parted, while the rest of the Parthians, still keeping to the Scythian fashion, wore their hair long and bushy to make themselves more formidable. At first the Parthians intended to fall upon them with their long spears, and to drive the front ranks from their ground; but when they saw the depth of their close-locked ranks, and the firmness and stability of the men, they drew back; and while they seemed to be at the same time dispersing themselves and breaking their ranks, they threw themselves around the square before the Romans were aware of it. Crassus ordered the light-armed troops to spring forward; but they had not advanced far before they were met by a shower of arrows, which galled them, and they ran back for shelter among the legionary soldiers, and caused the beginning of disorder and alarm among the Romans, who saw the vigour with which the arrows were discharged and their strength, for they tore the armour and made their way through everything alike, whether hard or [Pg 73]soft defence. The Parthians, dispersing themselves at considerable distances from one another, began to discharge their arrows from all points at once, not taking any very exact aim (for the close and compact ranks of the Romans did not give a man the opportunity of missing if he wished it), but sending their arrows with vigorous and forcible effect from bows which were strong and large, and, owing to their great degree of bending, discharged the missiles with violence. Now the condition of the Romans was pitiable from the beginning: for, if they kept their position, they were exposed to be wounded, and if they attempted to close with the enemy, they were just as far from doing the enemy any harm, and they suffered just as much; for the Parthians while retreating70 still discharged their arrows, and they do this most effectually next to the Scythians: and it is a most subtle device to make their escape from danger while they are still fighting, and to take away the disgrace of flight.

XXV

71 The Romans endured so long as they had hopes that the Parthians would withdraw from the contest when they had discharged their arrows, or would come to close quarters; but when they perceived that there were many camels standing there, loaded with arrows, and that the Parthians who had first shot all their arrows, turned round to the camels for a fresh supply, Crassus, seeing no end to this, began to lose heart, and he sent messengers to his son with orders to force the enemy to engage before he was surrounded, for the Parthians were mainly attacking and surrounding with their cavalry the wing commanded by young Crassus, with the view of getting in his rear. Accordingly, the young man taking thirteen hundred horsemen,—a thou[Pg 74]sand of whom he had brought from Cæsar,—and five hundred archers, and eight cohorts of the legionary soldiers, who were nearest to him, wheeled about to attack the Parthians. But the Parthians, who were manœuvring about Crassus, either because they fell in with some marshes,72 as some say, or because it was their design to attack Crassus when they had drawn him as far as they could from his father, turned round and fled. On this Crassus, calling out that the Parthians did not stand their ground, advanced with Censorinus and Megabacchus,73 of whom Megabacchus was distinguished for courage and strength, and Censorinus74 was a senator and a powerful speaker, both of them companions of Crassus, and about the same age. The cavalry pursued the enemy, nor did the infantry allow themselves to be left behind, being full of alacrity and hope of victory; for they thought that they were victorious and in pursuit: but they had not gone far before they perceived the stratagem; for the Parthians, who were supposed to be flying, began to face about, and others, in greater numbers, joined them. Upon this the Romans halted, thinking that the enemy would come to close quarters with them, as they were only few in number. But the Parthians placing their mailed horsemen in the front, to oppose the Romans, rode about them with the rest of the cavalry dispersed, and, by trampling the ground, they raised from the bottom heaps of sand, which threw up such an immense cloud of dust that the Romans could neither see clearly nor speak; and, being driven into a narrow compass, and falling one on another, they were wounded and died no easy nor yet a speedy death, for tortured with violent [Pg 75]convulsions and pain, and writhing with the arrows in them, they broke them in the wounds, and, by trying to pull out by force the barbed points, which had pierced through their veins and nerves, they increased the evil by breaking the arrows, and thus injured themselves. Many thus fell, and the survivors also were unable to fight; for, when Publius encouraged them to attack the mailed horsemen, they showed him that their hands were nailed to their shields, and their feet fastened right through to the ground, so that they were unable either to fly or to defend themselves. However, Publius cheering the cavalry, made a vigorous attack with them, and closed with the enemy; but the Romans were under a disadvantage, both as to attack and defence, striking with small and feeble spears against breastplates of raw hide and iron, and receiving the blows of long spears on the lightly-equipped and bare bodies of the Gauls, for Crassus trusted most to them, and with them indeed he did wonderful feats; for the Gauls, laying hold of the long spears, and closing with the Parthians, pushed them from their horses, the men, owing to the weight of their armour, being unable to stir themselves; and many of the Gauls, quitting their own horses, and slipping under those of the enemy, wounded them in the belly, and the horses springing up through pain, and, at the same time, trampling on their riders and the enemy, fell dead. The Gauls were most oppressed by the heat and thirst, being unaccustomed to both, and they had lost most of their horses by driving them against the long spears. They were, therefore, compelled to retreat to the legionary soldiers, taking with them Publius, who was badly wounded. Seeing a sandy eminence near, they retreated to it, and fastened their horses in the middle, and closing in their front by close-locking their shields, they thought they could thus more easily repel the enemy: but it turned out just the other way; for, while they were on the level ground, the front ranks did, in some sort, give relief to those who were behind; but on this spot, which raised the men one above another, by reason of the inequality of the ground, and placed every one who was in the rear above the man in front of him, there was no one who could escape, and they [Pg 76]were all alike exposed to the missiles, lamenting their inglorious and unresisting death. There were with Publius two Greeks, who belonged to the dwellers in those parts in Carrhæ,75 Hieronymus and Nikomachus, both of whom attempted to persuade Publius to retire with them, and to make his escape to Ichnæ76 a city which had taken the side of the Romans, and was not far off. But he replied that no death was so dreadful as to make Publius, through fear of it, desert those who were losing their lives for his sake, and bade them save themselves, and taking leave of them, he allowed them to go: himself being unable to use his hand effectually, for it was pierced by an arrow, presented his side to his shield-bearer77 and ordered him to despatch him with his sword. They say that Censorinus perished in the same way, and that Megabacchus killed himself, and all the rest of the most distinguished men. The Parthians, ascending the hill, transfixed with their spears the survivors; and it is said that not more than five hundred were taken prisoners. The Parthians, cutting off the head of Publius, immediately rode off to attack Crassus.

XXVI

With Crassus matters were thus. After ordering his son to make an attack on the Parthians, and receiving intelligence that they were routed to a great distance, and were hotly pursued; seeing also that the enemy in front were no longer pressing on him so much as before, for most of them had crowded to the place where young Crassus was, he recovered his courage a little, and drawing his forces together, posted them on a sloping ground, being in immediate expectation that his son would return from the pursuit. Of those who were sent by Publius to his father, when he began to be in danger, the first fell [Pg 77]into the hands of the enemy and were killed; and the next, after escaping with great difficulty, reported that Publius was lost, if he did not receive speedy and sufficient aid from his father. Now, Crassus was affected by many contending feelings at once, and he no longer viewed anything with sober judgment. Distracted by alarm for the whole army, and love of his son at the same time, he was urged by one motive to go to his aid, and by the other not to go: but finally he began to move in advance. In the mean time the enemy came up, making themselves more formidable by their shouts and pæans, and many of the drums again bellowed around the Romans, who were in expectation of a second attack. The Parthians, carrying the head of Publius fixed on a spear, rode close up to the Romans, and, displaying it insultingly, asked who were his parents and family, for it was not decent to suppose that so noble and brave a youth was the son of so cowardly and mean a man as Crassus. The sight of this broke and unstrung the spirit of the Romans more than all the rest of their dangers; and it did not fill them with a spirit for revenge, as one might have supposed, but with shuddering and trembling. Yet they say that the courage of Crassus on that dreadful occasion shone forth more brightly than ever before; for he went along the ranks, crying out, “Mine alone, Romans, is this misfortune: but the great fortune and glory of Rome abide in you, if your lives are saved, unbroken and unvanquishcd: and, if you have any pity on me, who have been deprived of the noblest of sons, show this in your fury against the enemy. Take from them their rejoicing, avenge their cruelty: be not cast down at what has happened, for it is the law that those who aim at great things must also endure. Neither did Lucullus vanquish Tigranes without loss of blood, nor Scipio Antiochus; and our ancestors of old lost a thousand ships on the coast of Sicily, and in Italy many Imperatores and generals, not one of whom, by being first vanquished, prevented them from vanquishing the victors; for it is not by good fortune that the Roman state has advanced to such a height of power, but by the endurance and courage of those who meet danger.”

XXVII

[Pg 78]Though Crassus used such words to encourage them, he did not see many eager to follow his exhortations: but, by ordering them to shout the battle cry, he discovered the dispirited condition of his men, so weak, and feeble, and irregular a shout they made; while the cries on the side of the enemy were clear and bold. When the Parthians began the attack, their slaves and clients, riding about on the flanks of the Romans, galled them with their arrows: and the horsemen in front, using their long spears, kept driving the Romans into a narrow compass, except those who, to avoid death from the arrows, made a desperate attempt to rush upon the Parthians; wherein they did the enemy little damage, but met with a speedy death by great and mortal wounds; for the Parthians drove their spears, heavy with iron, against the horsemen; and, from the force of the blow, they often went even through two men. After thus fighting, as dark came on the Parthians retired, saying, that they allowed Crassus a single night to lament his son, unless he should take better counsel for himself, and choose rather to come to King Arsakes than to be taken. The Parthians encamped near the Romans, in high hopes. A painful night followed to the Romans, who neither paid any attention to the interment of the dead, nor care to the wounded, and those who were in the agonies of death; but every man was severally lamenting his own fate; for it appeared that they could not escape, either if they waited there till daybreak, or if they plunged by night into a boundless plain. And the wounded caused a great difficulty; for they would be an obstacle to the quickness of their flight if they attempted to carry them off: and, if they should leave them, their shouts would betray the attempt to escape unobserved. Though they considered Crassus to be the cause of all their sufferings, the soldiers still wished to see him and hear his voice. But Crassus, wrapping himself up in his cloak, lay concealed in the dark, an example to the many of fortune’s reverses, and to the wise of want of judgment and of ambition, which made him dissatisfied unless he was the first and greatest among so many thousands, and think that he lacked everything because he was judged to be inferior [Pg 79]to two men only. However, Octavius the legate, and Cassius, endeavoured to rouse and comfort him; but, finding that he had entirely given himself up to despair, they called together the centurions and tribunes, and, after deliberating, they resolved not to stay on the ground, and they made an attempt at first to put the army in motion without the sound of the trumpet, and in silence. But when the soldiers who were disabled, perceived that they were going to be deserted, terrible disorder and confusion, mingled with groans and shouts, filled the camp; and this was followed by disorder and panic as they began to advance, for they thought that the enemy was coming upon them. After frequently turning from their route, and frequently putting themselves in order of battle, and taking up the wounded who followed, and then laying them down again, they lost much time on the march, with the exception of three hundred horsemen, with Ignatius78 at their head, who reached Carrhæ about midnight. Ignatius, calling out in the Roman language to the watch upon the walls, and making them hear, told them to tell Coponius, the commander, that there had been a great battle between Crassus and the Parthians; and, without saying more or who he was, he rode off to the Zeugma, and saved all his men; but he got a bad name for deserting his general. However, the information thus conveyed to Coponius was some advantage to Crassus; for Coponius concluded that this hasty and confused message indicated that he who brought it had no good news to report: and, accordingly, he immediately ordered the soldiers to arm; and, as soon as he learned that Crassus was on his march, he went out to meet him, and, taking charge of him and his army, conducted them into the city.

XXVIII

Though the Parthians during the night discovered that the Romans were making their escape, they did not pursue, but at daybreak they came upon those who were left in the camp, to the number of four thousand, and massacred them; and they rode about the plain and overtook many who were there rambling about. Four complete cohorts, while it was still dark, under the command of Varguntinus the legate, got separated from the rest [Pg 80]and lost their way, and, being surrounded by the Parthians on an eminence, they fought till they were all killed, with the exception of twenty men. The Parthians, admiring the courage of these twenty men, who were endeavouring to push through them with their bare swords, made way and allowed them a passage through their ranks, and to march slowly to Carrhæ. A false report reached Surena, that Crassus and all the men of rank had made their escape, and that those who had fled to Carrhæ were a mingled rabble not worth notice. Thinking, then, that he had lost the end of his victory, but being still doubtful and wishing to know the truth, in order that he might either stay there and besiege the town, or leave the people of Carrhæ behind and pursue Crassus, he sends one of the men with him, who could speak both languages, with instructions to approach the walls, and in the Roman language to call out for Crassus himself or Cassius, and to say that Surena wished to have a conference with them. The man did as he was ordered; and when it was reported to Crassus, he accepted the invitation, and soon after there came from the barbarians some Arabs who well knew Crassus and Cassius by sight, having been in the camp before the battle. The Arabs, observing Cassius on the wall, said that Surena proposed a truce, and offered, if they would become friends to the king, to let them go safe, if they would leave Mesopotamia; for he considered this proposal advantageous to both sides, rather than to let matters come to extremities. Cassius accepted the proposal, and asked for a place and time to be fixed where Surena and Crassus should meet: the men replied that this should be done, and rode off.

XXIX

Now Surena was delighted at the Romans being besieged, and at daybreak he led the Parthians against the city, who, with many insulting expressions, bade the Romans, if they wished to have a truce, deliver up to them Crassus and Cassius79 in chains. The Romans were [Pg 81]vexed at being deceived; and, telling Crassus to give up all hopes of aid from the Armenians as too remote and groundless, they prepared to make their escape by stealth; and none of the people of Carrhæ were to know this before the time came. But Andromachus, that most faithless wretch, heard of it from Crassus, who confided to him the secret, and also the guidance on the route. Accordingly, all was known to the Parthians; for Andromachus reported to them every particular. But as it is not the custom of the Parthians to fight in the dark, and indeed they cannot easily do it, and Crassus had left the city by night, Andromachus contrived that the Parthians should not be far behind in the pursuit, by leading the Romans first by one route and then by another, till at last he brought them out of their course into deep marshes and ground full of ditches, and thus made the march difficult and circuitous to all who followed him; for there were some who suspected that Andromachus had no honest object in turning and twisting about, and therefore did not follow. Cassius, indeed, returned to Carrhæ; and when the guides, who were Arabs, advised him to wait till the moon had passed the Scorpion, he replied, “I fear the Archer more than the Scorpion,” and, saying this, he rode off to Syria, with five hundred horsemen. Others, who had faithful guides, got into a mountainous country, called Sinnaca,80 and were in a safe position before daybreak: they were about five thousand in number, and were commanded by a brave man, Octavius. But daybreak found Crassus exposed to the treachery of Andromachus in the unfavourable ground and the marshes. Crassus had with him four cohorts of the legionary soldiers, and a very few horsemen, and five lictors, with whom he got upon the road with great difficulty just as the enemy was falling upon him; and now being about twelve stadia short of joining Octavius, he fled to another hill not so difficult for cavalry nor yet so strong, [Pg 82]but one that lay below Sinnaca, and was connected with it by a long ridge, which stretched through the middle of the plain. His danger was apparent to Octavius, who ran before any one else with a few men, from the higher ground to aid Crassus, upon which the rest of the men, abusing themselves for cowards, rushed forward, and, falling on the enemy, and repulsing them from the hill, put Crassus in the midst of them, and threw their shields before him, proudly exclaiming that there was no Parthian missile which should strike the Imperator until all of them had fallen in defence of him.

XXX

Surena observing that the spirit of the Parthians was somewhat dulled towards the contest, and, if the night should come on and the Romans get among the mountains, they could not by any means be overtaken, employed the following stratagem against Crassus. Some of the captives were let loose, who, in the Parthian camp, had heard the barbarians saying to one another, in pursuance of a concerted plan, that the king did not wish the war with the Romans to be carried to extremities, but desired to have their friendship again, by doing them the favour of treating Crassus kindly. Accordingly the barbarians stopped fighting; and Surena, with his chief officers, riding gently up to the hill, unstrung his bow, and holding out his right hand, invited Crassus to come to terms, saying, that Crassus had put the king’s courage and power to the test, though the king did not wish it, and yet the king of his own free will made the Romans an offer of mercy and friendship by being ready to make a truce with them if they would retire, and by giving them the opportunity of a safe retreat. Upon Surena saying this the Romans eagerly accepted his proposal, and were overjoyed; though Crassus, having been always over-reached by their fraud, and considering the suddenness of the change to be inexplicable, would not listen to them and hesitated. But the soldiers began to call out and urge him to accept the terms, and they fell to abusing and reproaching him, for wishing to expose them to the risk of fighting with those whom he did not venture to go to a conference with, even when they laid aside their arms. Crassus at first attempted to prevail on them by entreaty, [Pg 83]and he said that, if they would hold out for the rest of the day, they would be able to march by night through the rough and mountain country, and he pointed out to them the route, and entreated them not to throw away their hopes when safety was so near; but, as the soldiers began to be exasperated and to clatter their arms and threaten him, he was alarmed, and advanced towards Surena, after first turning round and merely saying, “Octavius and Petronius, and you Roman officers who are here, you see that I go under compulsion, and you are witnesses that I am treated in a shameful way and am under constraint; but, if you get safe home, tell all the world, that Crassus lost his life through the treachery of the enemy, and was not surrendered by his fellow-citizens.”

XXXI

Yet Octavius and those about him did not stay behind, but descended the hill with Crassus. However, Crassus made the lictors who were following him turn back. The first who met them, on the part of the barbarians, were two Greeks of half-breed, who, leaping down from their horses, made their obeisance to Crassus, and, addressing him in the Greek language, urged him to send forward some persons, who, as they said, would see that Surena himself and those about him were advancing without armour and without their weapons. Crassus replied, that if he had the least concern about his life, he should not have put himself into their hands; however, he sent two Roscii, brothers, to inquire upon what terms they should meet, and how many of them. Surena immediately seized and detained the two brothers, and he himself advanced on horseback with the chief officers, and said, “What is this? the Roman Imperator on foot while we are riding!” and he ordered them to bring a horse to Crassus. Crassus observed that neither himself nor Surena was acting wrong in coming to the conference according to the fashion of their respective countries; on which Surena said that from that moment there was a truce and peace between king Hyrodes and the Romans; but that it was requisite to advance to the river,81 and there have the agreement put in writing; “for you Romans,” he said, “have not a very good memory about contracts;” [Pg 84]and he held out his right hand to Crassus. When Crassus was going to send for a horse, Surena said there was no occasion; “for the king gives you this.” At the same time a horse with golden bits stood close by Crassus, and the grooms raised him up and mounted him, and then followed, quickening the horse’s pace with blows. Octavius first laid hold of the bridle of the horse, and, after him, Petronius, one of the tribunes, and then the rest got round the horse of Crassus, endeavouring to stop it, and dragging away those who pressed close upon Crassus on each side. This led to a struggle and tumult, and finally to blows; Octavius drew his sword and killed the groom of one of the barbarians, and another struck Octavius from behind and killed him. Petronius had no weapon, and, being struck on the breastplate, he leapt down from the horse unwounded; and a Parthian, named Pomaxathres, killed Crassus.82 Some say that it was not Pomaxathres, but another, who killed Crassus, and that Pomaxathres cut off the head and right hand when Crassus was lying on the ground. But these are rather matters of conjecture than of certain knowledge; for of those who were present some fell there fighting about Crassus, and the rest immediately fled back to the hill. Upon this the Parthians came and said, that Crassus had been punished as he deserved, but Surena invited the rest to come down and fear nothing: whereupon, some of the Romans came down and surrendered, and the rest dispersed themselves under cover of night, of whom a very few escaped; the rest the Arabs hunted out, and put to death when they caught them. It is said that twenty thousand perished in all, and ten thousand were taken alive.

XXXII

Surena sent the head83 and hand of Crassus to [Pg 85]Hyrodes in Armenia; and, causing a report to be carried by messengers to Seleukeia that he was bringing Crassus alive, he got ready a kind of ridiculous procession which, in mockery, he called a triumph. One of the Roman prisoners who bore the greatest resemblance to Crassus, Caius Paccianus, putting on a barbarian female dress, and being instructed to answer as Crassus and Imperator to those who addressed him, was conducted, seated on a horse, and in front of him trumpeters, and some lictors rode upon camels; and there were purses84 suspended from the fasces, and, by the side of the axes, heads of Romans newly cut off. Behind these followed courtesans of Seleukeia, singing girls, who chanted many obscene and ridiculous things about the effeminacy and cowardice of Crassus. All this was public. But Surena assembling the Senate of Seleukeia,85 laid before them certain licentious books of the Milesiaca of Aristeides,86 and, in this matter, at least, there was no invention on his part; for they were found among the baggage of Rustius,87 and they gave Surena the opportunity of greatly insulting and ridiculing the Romans, because they could not, even when going to war, abstain from such things and such books. To the Senate of Seleukeia, however, Æsopus88 ap[Pg 86]peared to be a wise man, when they saw Surena with the wallet of Milesian obscenities in front of him, and dragging behind him a Parthian Sybaris in so many waggons full of concubines, in a manner forming a counterpart to those vipers and skytalæ89 so much talked of, by presenting the visible and the front parts formidable and terrific, with spears, and bows, and horses, but in the rear of the phalanx, terminating in harlots, and rattling cymbals, and lute-playing, and nocturnal revels with women. Rustius, indeed, merits blame, but the Parthians were shameless in finding fault with the Milesian stories; for many of the kings who have reigned over them, as Arsakidæ, have been the sons of Milesian and Ionian concubines.

XXXIII

While this was going on, Hyrodes happened to have been reconciled to Artavasdes the Armenian, and had agreed to receive the sister of Artavasdes as wife to his son Pacorus: and there were banquets and drinking-parties between them, and representations of many Greek plays; for Hyrodes was not a stranger either to the Greek language or the literature of the Greeks: and Artavasdes used to write tragedies, and speeches, and histories, some of which are preserved. When the head of Crassus was brought to the door, the tables were taken away, and a tragedy actor Jason,90 by name, a native of Tralles, chanted that part of the Bacchæ91 of Euripides which relates to [Pg 87]Agave. While he was receiving applause. Sillakes, standing by the door of the apartment, and making a reverence, threw the head of Crassus before the company. The Parthians clapped their hands with shouts of joy and the attendants, at the command of the king, seated Sillakes, while Jason handed over to one of the members of the chorus the dress of Pentheus, and, laying hold of the head of Crassus, and, putting on the air of a bacchant, he sung these verses with great enthusiasm:—

We bring from a mountain

A young one new killed to the house,

A fortunate prey.

This delighted all the company; and, while the following verses were being chanted, which are a dialogue with the chorus,

A. Who killed him?

B. Mine is the honour,

Pomaxathres, springing up (for he happened to be at the banquet), laid hold of the head, as if it was more appropriate for him to say this than for Jason. The king was pleased, and made Pomaxathres a present, according to the fashion of the country, and he gave Jason a talent. In such a farce92 as this, it is said, that the expedition of Crassus terminated just like a tragedy. However, just punishment overtook Hyrodes for his cruelty, and Surena for his treachery. Not long after, Hyrodes put Surena to death, being jealous of his reputation. Hyrodes also lost his son [Pg 88]Pacorus,93 who was defeated by the Romans in a battle; and having fallen into an illness which turned out to be dropsy, his son, Phraates,94 who had a design on his life, gave him aconite.95 But the poison only operated on the disease, which was thrown off together with it, and Hyrodes thereby relieved; whereupon Phraates took the shortest course and strangled his father.

COMPARISON OF
NIKIAS AND CRASSUS.

I

In the first place, the wealth of Nikias was much more honestly and creditably obtained than that of Crassus. Generally speaking, one cannot approve of men who make their money from mines, which are as a rule worked by criminals, or savages, labouring in chains in unhealthy subterranean dungeons; but yet this method of amassing a fortune seems much the more honourable, when compared with Crassus’s purchase of confiscated lands and his habit of bidding for houses that were on fire. Crassus too used to practise these openly, like a trade: while he was also accused of taking bribes for his speeches in the Senate, of defrauding the allies of Rome, of currying favour with great ladies and assisting them to shield offenders from justice. Nothing of this sort was ever laid to the charge of Nikias, who, however, was ridiculed for giving money to common informers because he feared their tongues. Yet this action of his, though it would have been a disgrace to Perikles, or Aristeides, was a necessity for Nikias, who was naturally of a timid disposition. Thus Lykurgus the orator excused himself when accused of having bought off some informers who threatened him. “I am glad,” said he, “that after so long a public life as mine I should have been at last convicted of giving bribes rather than of receiving them.”

The expenditure of Nikias was all calculated to increase his popularity in the state, being devoted to offerings to the gods, gymnastic contests and public dramatic performances. But all the money he spent that way, and all that he possessed was but a small part of what Crassus bestowed upon a public feast at Rome for some tens of thousands of guests, whom he even maintained at his own cost for some [Pg 90]time after. So true it is that wickedness and vice argue a want of due balance and proportion in a man’s mind, which leads him to acquire wealth dishonestly, and then to squander it uselessly.

II

So much for their riches. Now in their political life, Nikias never did anything bold, daring or unjust, for he was outwitted by Alkibiades, and always stood in fear of the popular assembly. Crassus, on the other hand, is accused of great inconsistency, in lightly changing from one party to another, and he himself never denied that he once obtained the consulship by hiring men to assassinate Cato and Domitius. And in the assembly held for the dividing for the provinces, many were wounded and four men slain in the Forum, while Crassus himself (which I have forgotten to mention in his Life) struck one Lucius Annalius, a speaker on the other side, so violent a blow with his fist that his face was covered with blood. But though Crassus was overbearing and tyrannical in his public life, yet we cannot deny that the shrinking timidity and cowardice of Nikias deserve equally severe censure; and it must be remembered that when Crassus was carrying matters with so high a hand, it was no Kleon or Hyperbolus that he had for an antagonist, but the great Julius Cæsar himself, and Pompeius who had triumphed three several times, and that he gave way to neither of them, but became their equal in power, and even excelled Pompeius in dignity by obtaining the office of censor. A great politician should not try to avoid unpopularity, but to gain such power and reputation as will enable him to rise above it.

Yet if it were true that Nikias preferred quiet and security to anything else, and that he stood in fear of Alkibiades in the assembly, of the Spartans at Pylus, and of Perdikkas in Thrace, he had every opportunity to repose himself in Athens and to “weave the garland of a peaceful life,” as some philosopher calls it. He had indeed a true and divine love of peace, and his attempt to bring the Peloponnesian war to an end, was an act of real Hellenic patriotism. In this respect Crassus cannot be compared with Nikias, not though he had carried the frontier of the Roman empire as far as the Caspian and the Indian seas.

III

[Pg 91]Yet a statesman, in a country which appreciates his merits, ought not when at the height of his power to make way for worthless men, and place in office those who have no claim to it, as Nikias did when he laid down his own office of commander-in-chief and gave it to Kleon, a man who possessed no qualification whatever for the post except his brazen effrontery. Neither can I praise Crassus for having so rashly and hurriedly brought the war with Spartacus to a crisis, although he was actuated by an honourable ambition in fearing that Pompeius would arrive and take from him the glory of having completed the war, as Mummius took from Marcellus the glory of winning Corinth. But on the other hand the conduct of Nikias was altogether monstrous and inexcusable. He did not give up his honourable post to his enemy at a time when there was hope of success and little peril. He saw that great danger was likely to be incurred by the general in command at Pylus, and yet he was content to place himself in safety, and let the state run the risk of ruin, by entrusting an incompetent person with the sole management of affairs. Yet Themistokles, rather than allow an ignorant commander to mismanage the war against Persia, bribed him to lay down his office. So also Cato at a most dangerous crisis became a candidate for the office of tribune of the people in order to serve his country. But Nikias, reserving himself to play the general at the expense of the village of Minoa, the island of Kythera, and the miserable inhabitants of Melos,1 when it came to fighting the Lacedæmonians eagerly stripped off his general’s cloak, and entrusted to an inexperienced and reckless man like Kleon, the conduct of an enterprise involving the safety of a large Athenian fleet and army, showing himself no less neglectful of his own honour than he was of the interests of his country. After this he was forced against his will into the war with Syracuse, in which he seems to have imagined that his army would capture the city by remaining before it doing nothing, and not by vigorous attacks. No doubt it is a great testimony to the esteem in which he was held [Pg 92]by his countrymen, that he was always opposed to war and unwilling to act as general, and was nevertheless always forced by them to undertake that office: whereas Crassus, who always wished for an independent command, never obtained one except in the servile war, and then only because all the other generals, Pompeius, Metellus, and Lucullus, were absent. Yet at that time Crassus was at the height of his power and reputation: but his friends seem to have thought him, as the comic poet has it,

“Most excellent, save in the battle-field.”

And in his case also, the Romans gained no advantage from his ambitious desire of command. The Athenians sent Nikias to Sicily against his will, and Crassus led the Romans to Parthia against their will. Nikias suffered by the actions of the Athenians, while Rome suffered by the actions of Crassus.

IV

However, in their last moments we incline rather to praise Nikias than to blame Crassus. Nikias, a skilful and experienced commander, did not share the rash hopes of his countrymen, but never thought that Sicily could be conquered, and dissuaded them from making the attempt. Crassus, on the other hand, urged the Romans to undertake the war with Parthia, representing the conquest of that country as an easy operation, which he nevertheless failed to effect. His ambition was vast. Cæsar had conquered the Gauls, Germans, Britons, and all the west of Europe, and Crassus wished in his turn to march eastward as far as the Indian Ocean, and to conquer all those regions of Asia which Pompeius and Lucullus, two great men and actuated by a like desire for conquest, had previously aspired to subdue. Yet they also met with a like opposition. When Pompeius was given an unlimited command in the East, the appointment was opposed by the Senate, and when Cæsar routed thirty thousand Germans, Cato proposed that he should be delivered up to the vanquished, and that thus the anger of the gods should be turned away from the city upon the author of so great a crime as he had committed by breaking his word. Yet the Romans slighted Cato’s [Pg 93]proposals and held a solemn thanksgiving for fifteen days to show their joy at the news. How many days then must we imagine they would have spent in rejoicing if Crassus had sent despatches announcing the capture of Babylon, and then had reduced Media, Persia, Hyrkania, Susa, and Bactria to the condition of Roman provinces. “If a man must do wrong,” as Euripides says of those who cannot live in peace, and be contented when they are well off, they should do it on a grand scale like this, not capture contemptible places like Skandeia or Mende, or chase the people of Ægina, like birds who have been turned out of their nests. If we are to do an injustice, let us not do it in a miserable pettifogging way, but imitate such great examples as Crassus and Alexander the Great. Those who praise the one of these great men, and blame the other, do so only because they are unable to see any other distinction between them except that the one failed and the other succeeded.

V

When acting as general, Nikias did many great exploits, for he was many times victorious, all but took Syracuse, and ought not justly to bear the blame of the whole Sicilian disaster, because of his disease, and the ill will which some bore him at Athens. Crassus on the other hand committed so many mistakes as to put it out of the power of fortune to aid him, so that one wonders not so much that his folly was overcome by the Parthians as that it could overcome the good fortune of the Romans. Now as the one never disregarded religious observances and omens, the other despised them all, and yet both alike perished, it is hard to say what inference we ought to draw, as to which acted most wisely, yet we must incline rather to the side of him who followed the established rule in such matters rather than that of him who insolently discarded all such observances. In his death Crassus is more to be commended, because he yielded himself against his will in consequence of the entreaties of his friends, and was most treacherously deceived by the enemy, while Nikias delivered himself up to his enemies through a base and cowardly desire to save his life, and thus made his end more infamous.

LIFE OF
SERTORIUS.

I

It is perhaps not a matter of surprise, if in the lapse of time, which is unlimited, while fortune1 is continually changing her course, spontaneity should often result in the same incidents; for, if the number of elemental things is not limited, fortune has in the abundance of material a bountiful supply of sameness of results; and, if things are implicated in a dependence upon definite numbers, it is of necessity that the same things must often happen, being effected by the same means. Now, as some are pleased to collect, by inquiry and hearsay, from among [Pg 95]the things which accidentally happen, such as bear some likeness to the works of calculation and forethought: such, for instance, as that there were two celebrated Atteis,2 the one a Syrian and the other an Arcadian, and that both were killed by a wild boar; that there were two Actæons, one of whom was torn in pieces by his dogs and the other by his lovers; that there were two Scipios,3 by one of whom the Carthaginians were first conquered, and by the other were cut up root and branch; that Troy was taken by Hercules, on account of the horses of Laomedon, and by Agamemnon by means of the wooden horse, as it is called, and was taken a third time by Charidemus, by reason of the Ilians not being able to close the gates quick enough, owing to a horse having got between them; that there are two cities which have the same name with the most fragrant of plants, Ios4 and Smyrna, and that Homer was born in one of them and died in the other: I may be allowed to add to these instances, that the most warlike of commanders and those who have accomplished most by a union of daring and cunning, have been one-eyed men, Philippus,5 Antigonus, [Pg 96]Annibal, and the subject of this Life—Sertorius; he whom one may affirm to have been more continent as to women than Philip, more true to his friends than Antigonus, more merciful to his enemies than Annibal,6 inferior in understanding to none of them, but in fortune inferior to all; and, though he always found Fortune more hard to deal with than his open enemies, yet he proved himself her equal by opposing the experience of Metellus, the daring of Pompeius, the fortune of Sulla, and the power of the whole Roman state; a fugitive and a stranger putting himself at the head of barbarians. Of all the Greeks, Eumenes7 of Kardia presents the nearest resemblance to him. Both of them were men qualified to command; both were warlike, and yet full of stratagem; both became exiles from their native land and the commanders of foreign troops; and both had the same violent and unjust fortune in their end, for both of them were the objects of conspiracy, and were cut off by the hands of those with whom they were victorious over their enemies.

II

Quintus Sertorius belonged to a family not among the meanest in Nussa,8 a Sabine city. He was carefully brought up by a widowed mother, for he had lost his [Pg 97]father, and he appears to have been exceedingly attached to her. His mother’s name, they say, was Rhea. He had a competent practical education in the courts of justice, and, as a young man, he attained some influence in the city by his eloquence. But his reputation and success in war diverted all his ambition in that direction.

III

Now, first of all, after the Cimbri and Teutones had invaded Gaul, he was serving under Cæpio9 at the time when the Romans were defeated and put to flight; and, though he lost his horse and was wounded in the body, he crossed the Rhone swimming in his cuirass and with his shield against the powerful stream—so strong was his body and disciplined by exercise. On a second occasion, when the same barbarians were advancing with many thousand men and dreadful threats, so that for a Roman to stand to his ranks at such a time, and to obey his general, was a great matter, Marius had the command, and Sertorius undertook to be a spy upon the enemy. Putting on a Celtic dress, and making himself master of the most ordinary expressions of the language, for the purpose of conversation when occasion might offer, he mingled with the barbarians, and, either by his own eyes or by inquiry, learning all that was important to know, he returned to Marius. For this he obtained the prize of merit; and in the rest of the campaign, having given many proofs of his judgment and daring, he was honoured and trusted by his general. After the close of the war with the Cimbri and Teutones, he was sent as tribune by Didius10
[Pg 98]the prætor to Iberia, and he wintered in Castlo,11 a city of the Celtiberi. The soldiers, being in the midst of abundance, lost all discipline, and were generally drunk, which brought them into contempt with the barbarians, who, by night, sent for aid from their neighbours the Gyrisœni, and, coming on the soldiers in their lodgings, began to slaughter them. Sertorius with a few others stole out, and, collecting the soldiers who made their escape, surrounded the city. Finding the gates open through which the barbarians had secretly entered, he did not make the same mistake that they did, but he set a watch there, and, hemming in the city on all sides, he massacred every man who was of age to bear arms. When the massacre was over, he ordered all his soldiers to lay down their own armour and dress, and, putting on those of the barbarians, to follow him to the city from which the men came who had fallen on them in the night. The barbarians were deceived by the armour, and he found the gates open, and a number of men expecting to meet friends and fellow-citizens, returning from a successful expedition. Accordingly, most of them were killed by the Romans near the gates, and the rest surrendered and were sold as slaves.

IV

This made the name of Sertorius known in Iberia; and as soon as he returned to Rome he was appointed quæstor in Gaul upon the Padus at a critical time; for the Marsic12 war was threatening. Being commissioned to levy troops and procure arms, he applied so much zeal and expedition to the work, compared with the tardiness and indolence of the other young men, that he got the reputation of being a man likely to run an active career. Yet he remitted nothing of the daring of a soldier after he was promoted to the rank of commander; but he exhibited wonderful feats of courage, and exposed himself without any reserve to danger, whereby he lost one of his eyes [Pg 99]through a wound. But he always prided himself on this. He used to say that others did not always carry about with them the proofs of their valour, but put them aside, at times, as chains and spears, and crowns, while the proofs of his valour always abided with him, and those who saw what he had lost saw at the same time the evidences of his courage. The people also showed him appropriate marks of respect; for, on his entering the theatre, they received him with clapping of hands and expressions of their good wishes—testimonials which even those who were far advanced in age, and high in rank, could with difficulty obtain. However, when he was a candidate for the tribuneship, Sulla raised a party against him, and he failed; and this was, apparently, the reason why he hated Sulla. But when Marius was overpowered by Sulla and fled from Rome, and Sulla had set out to fight with Mithridates, and the consul Octavius adhered to the party of Sulla, while his colleague Cinna, who aimed at a revolution, revived the drooping faction of Marius, Sertorius attached himself to Cinna, especially as he saw that Octavius was deficient in activity, and he distrusted the friends of Marius. A great battle was fought in the Forum between the consuls, in which Octavius got the victory, and Cinna and Sertorius took to flight, having lost nearly ten thousand men. However, they persuaded most of the troops, which were still scattered about Italy, to come over to their side, and they were soon a match for Octavius.

V

When Marius had returned from Libya, and was proposing to join Cinna, himself in a mere private capacity and Cinna as consul, all the rest thought it politic to receive him; but Sertorius was against it: whether it was because he thought that Cinna would pay less respect to him when a general of higher reputation was present, or because he feared the ferocious temper of Marius, and that he would put all in confusion in his passion, which knew no bounds, transgressing the limits of justice in the midst of victory. However this may be, Sertorius observed that there remained little for them to do, as they were now triumphant; but if they received the proposal of Marius, he would appropriate to himself all the glory and all the troops, being a man who could endure no partner in [Pg 100]power, and who was devoid of good faith. Cinna replied that what Sertorius suggested was true, but he felt ashamed and had a difficulty about refusing to receive Marius, after having invited him to join their party; whereupon Sertorius rejoined: “For my part, I thought that Marius had come to Italy on his own adventure, and I was merely considering what was best; but it was not honourable in you to make the thing a matter of deliberation at all after the arrival of the man whom you had thought proper to invite, but you ought to have employed him and received him; for a promise leaves no room for any further consideration.” Accordingly Cinna sent for Marius, and the forces being distributed among them, the three had the command. The war being finished, Cinna and Marius were filled with violence and bitterness, so that they made the evils of war as precious gold to the Romans, compared with the new state of affairs. Sertorius alone is said to have put no person to death to gratify his vengeance, nor to have abused his power; but he was much annoyed at the conduct of Marius, and he moderated Cinna by private interviews and entreaties. At last, the slaves whom Marius had used as allies in war, and kept as guards to protect his tyranny, becoming formidable and wealthy, partly from the grants of Marius and his direct permission; partly from their violent and outrageous treatment of their masters, whom they butchered, and then lay with their masters’ wives, and violated their children, Sertorius unable to endure any longer, speared the whole of them in their camp, to the number of four thousand.13

VI

But when Marius14 had died, and Cinna shortly after [Pg 101]was cut off, and the younger Marius, contrary to the wish of Sertorius, and by illegal means, obtained the consulship, and the Carbos and the Norbani and Scipios were unsuccessfully contending against Sulla on his march to Rome, and affairs were being ruined, partly through the cowardice and laziness of the commanders, and partly through treachery; and there was no use in his staying to see things still go on badly, owing to the want of judgment in those who had more power than himself; and finally, when Sulla, after encamping near Scipio, and holding out friendly proposals, as if peace was going to be made, had corrupted the army, though Sertorius had warned Scipio of this, and given his advice, but without effect—altogether despairing about the city, Sertorius set out for Iberia, in order that if he should anticipate his enemies in strengthening his power there, he might offer protection to such of his friends as were unfortunate at Rome. Sertorius, having fallen in with bad weather in the mountainous parts, was required by the barbarians to pay them a tribute, and to purchase a free passage. His companions were much incensed at this, and declared it to be a great degradation for a Roman proconsul15 to pay a tribute to wretched barbarians; but Sertorius cared little for what they considered disgrace, and he said that he was buying time, the rarest of things for a man who was aiming at great objects: and so he pacified the barbarians with money, and hurrying into Iberia, got possession of the country. He there found nations strong in numbers and fighting men, but owing to the greediness and tyranny of the governors who had from time to time been sent among them, ill-disposed to the Roman administration in general; however, he regained the good will of the chiefs by his personal intercourse with them, and the favour of the mass by remission of taxes. But he got most popularity by relieving the people from having soldiers quartered on them; for he compelled the soldiers to fix their [Pg 102]winter tents in the suburbs of the towns, and he was the first to set the example. However, Sertorius did not depend altogether on the attachment of the barbarians, but he armed all the Roman settlers in Iberia who were able to bear arms, and by commencing the construction of all kinds of military engines and building ships he kept the cities in check; showing himself mild in all the affairs of civil administration, but formidable by his preparations against the enemy.

VII

Hearing that Sulla was master of Rome,16 and that the party of Marius and Carbo was on the wane, and being in immediate expectation of an army coming to fight against him under some commander, he sent Julius Salinator to occupy the passes of the Pyrenees, with six thousand heavy armed soldiers. Shortly after this, Caius Annius17 was sent from Rome by Sulla; but, seeing that the position of Julius could not be attacked, he was perplexed, and seated himself at the base of the mountains. But one Calpurnius, named Lanarius, assassinated Julius, on which the soldiers left the summits of the Pyrenees, and Annius, crossing the mountains, advanced with a large force and drove all before him. Sertorius, being unable to oppose him, fled with three thousand men to New Carthage,18 and there embarking and crossing the sea, landed in Mauritania, in Libya. His soldiers, while getting water without due precautions, were fallen upon by the barbarians, and many of them were killed, upon which Sertorius sailed again for Iberia. He was, however, driven off the coast, and, being joined by some Cilician [Pg 103]piratical vessels,19 he attacked the island of Pityussa,20 and landing there drove out the garrison of Annius. Annius soon arrived with a large fleet and five thousand heavy armed men, and Sertorius ventured on a naval battle with him, though his vessels were light and built for quick sailing and not for fighting; but the sea was disturbed by a strong west wind, which drove most of the vessels of Sertorius upon the reefs, owing to their lightness, and Sertorius, with a few ships, could not get out to sea by reason of the wind, nor land on account of the enemy, and being tossed about for ten days, with the wind and a violent sea against him, he held out with great difficulty.

VIII

As the wind abated he set sail, and put in at some scattered islands, which had no water. Leaving them, and passing through the Straits of Gades,21 he touched at those parts of Iberia on the right which lie out of the strait, a little beyond the mouths of the Bætis,22 which flows into the Atlantic Sea,23 and has given name to those parts of Iberia which lie about it. There he fell in with some sailors, who had returned from a voyage to the Atlantic24 Islands, which are two in number, separated by [Pg 104]a very narrow channel, and ten thousand stadia from the coast of Libya, and are called the islands of the Happy. These islands have only moderate rains, but generally they enjoy gentle breezes, which bring dews; they have a rich and fertile soil, adapted for arable cultivation and planting; they also produce fruit spontaneously, sufficient in quantity and quality to maintain, without labour and trouble, a population at their ease. The air of the island is agreeable, owing to the temperature of the seasons, and the slightness of the changes; for the winds which blow from our part of the world from the north and east, owing to the great distance, fall upon a boundless space, and are dispersed and fail before they reach these islands; but the winds which blow round them from the ocean, the south and west, bring soft rains at intervals, from the sea, but in general they gently cool the island with moist clear weather, and nourish the plants; so that a firm persuasion has reached the barbarians that here are the Elysian Plains and the abode of the Happy which Homer25 has celebrated in song.

IX

[Pg 105]Sertorius, hearing this description, was seized with a strong desire to dwell in the islands, and to live in quiet, free from tyranny and never-ending wars. The Cilicians, who did not want peace and leisure, but wealth and spoil, observing this inclination, sailed off to Africa, to restore Ascalis, the son of Iphtha, to the Moorish kingdom.26 Sertorius, however, did not despond, but he determined to help those who were fighting against Ascalis, in order that his companions, by getting some renewal of hope and opportunity for other deeds, might not disperse through their difficulties. The Moors were well pleased at his arrival, and Sertorius setting himself to work defeated Ascalis, and besieged him. Sulla sent Paccianus to help Ascalis, but Sertorius engaging him with his forces killed Paccianus, and after his victory brought over the army and took Tigennis, to which Ascalis and his brother had fled. It is here that the Libyans say Antæus27 is buried. Sertorius dug into the mound, as he did not believe what the barbarians said, so enormous was the size. But, finding the body there, sixty cubits in length, as they say, he was confounded, and, after making a sacrifice, he piled up the earth, and added to the repute and fame of the monument. The people of Tigennis have a mythus, that, on the death of Antæus his wife Tinge cohabited with Hercules, that Sophax was the issue of their connexion, and became king of the country, and named a city after his mother; they further say that Sophax had a son, Dio[Pg 106]dorus, whom many of the Libyan nations submitted to, as he had a Greek army of Olbiani and Mycenæi, who were settled in those parts by Hercules. But this may be considered as so much flattery to Juba,28 of all kings the most devoted to historical inquiry; for they say that Juba’s ancestors were the descendants of Diodorus and Sophax. Sertorius, now completely victorious, did no wrong to those who were his suppliants and trusted to him, but he restored to them both property and cities and the administration, receiving only what was fair and just for them to offer.

X

While Sertorius was considering where he should betake himself to, the Lusitani sent ambassadors to invite him to be their leader; for they were much in want of a commander of great reputation and experience, to oppose the formidable power of the Romans, and Sertorius was the only man whom they would trust, as they knew his character from those who had been about him. Now it is said that Sertorius was a man who never yielded either to pleasure or to fear, and while he was naturally unmoved by danger, he could bear prosperity with moderation; in the open field he was equal to any general of his time in enterprise, and as to all military matters that required stealthy manœuvres, the taking advantage of strong positions and rapid movements, and also craft and deception, he was in the moment of need most cunning in device. In rewarding courage he was bountiful, and in punishing for offences he was merciful. And yet, in the last part of his life, his cruel and vindictive treatment of the hostages may be alleged as a proof that his temper was not naturally humane, but that he put on the appearance of mildness through calculation and as a matter of necessity, But it is my opinion that no fortune can ever change to the opposite character a virtue which is genuine and founded on principle; still it is not impossible that good intentions and good natural dispositions, when impaired by great misfortunes29 contrary to desert, may together with [Pg 107]the dæmon change their habit; and this I think was the case with Sertorius when fortune began to fail him; for as his circumstances became unfavourable, he became harsh to those who had done him wrong.

XI

However, he then set sail from Libya, at the invitation of the Lusitanians,30 and got them into fighting condition, being immediately made commander with full powers, and he subjected the neighbouring parts of Iberia, most of which, indeed, voluntarily joined him, chiefly by reason of his mild treatment and his activity; but in some cases he availed himself of cunning to beguile and win over the people, the chief of which was in the affair of the deer, which was after this fashion:

Spanos, a native, and one of those who lived on their lands, fell in with a deer31 which had just brought forth a young one and was flying from the hunters; he missed taking the deer, but he followed the fawn, being struck with its unusual colour (it was completely white), and caught it. It happened that Sertorius was staying in those parts, and when people brought him as presents anything that they had got in hunting, or from their farms, he would readily receive it and make a liberal return to those who showed him such attentions. Accordingly the man brought the fawn and gave it to Sertorius, who accepted the present. At first he took no particular pleasure in the animal, but in course of time, when he had made it so tame and familiar that it would come to him when he called it, accompany him in his walks, and cared not for a crowd and all the noise of the army, by degrees he began to give the thing a supernatural character, saying that the fawn was a gift from Artemis (Diana), and he gave out as a token of this that the fawn showed him many hidden things; for he knew that it is the nature of barbarians to be easily [Pg 108]accessible to superstition. He also resorted to such tricks as these: whenever he had got secret information that the enemy had invaded any part of the country, or were attempting to draw any city away from him, he would pretend that the deer had spoken to him in his sleep, and bid him keep his troops in readiness; and, on the other hand, when he heard that his generals had got a victory, he would keep the messenger concealed, and bring forward the deer crowned with chaplets, as is usual on the occasion of good news, and tell his men to rejoice and sacrifice to the gods, as they would hear of some good luck.

XII

By these means he tamed the people, and had them more manageable for all purposes, as they believed they were led, not by the counsels of a foreigner, but by a deity, and facts also confirmed them in this opinion, inasmuch as the power of Sertorius increased beyond all expectation; for with the two thousand six hundred men whom he called Romans, and four thousand Lusitanian targetiers, and seven hundred horsemen, whom he joined to a motley band of seven hundred Libyans, who crossed over with him to Lusitania, he fought with four Roman generals, who had under them one hundred and twenty thousand foot soldiers, six thousand horsemen, two thousand bowmen and slingers, and cities innumerable, while he had only twenty cities in all under him. But though so feeble and insignificant at first, he not only subdued great nations, and took many cities, but of the generals who were opposed to him he defeated Cotta32 in a naval engagement in the channel near Mellaria;33 he put to flight Fufidius,34 the governor of Bætica, on the banks of the Bætis, with the slaughter of two thousand of his Roman soldiers; Lucius Domitius,35 proconsul of the other [Pg 109]Iberia,36 was defeated by his quæstor; Thoranius, another of the commanders of Metellus, who was sent with a force, he destroyed; and on Metellus37 himself, the greatest man among the Romans in his day, and of the highest repute, he inflicted several discomfitures, and brought him to such straits, that Lucius Manlius38 came from Narbo,39 in Gaul, to his relief, and Pompeius Magnus40 was hastily despatched from Rome with an army; for Metellus was perplexed at having to deal with a daring man, who evaded all fighting in the open field, and could adapt himself to any circumstances by reason of the light and easy equipment and activity of his Iberian army; he who had been disciplined in regular battles fought by men in full armour and commanded a heavy immovable mass of men, who were excellently trained to thrust against their enemies, when they came to close quarters, and to strike them down, but unable to traverse mountains, to be kept always on the alert by the continual pursuing and retreating of light active men, and to endure hunger like them, and to live under the open sky without fire or tent.

XIII

Besides this, Metellus was now growing old, and after so many great battles was somewhat inclined to an easy and luxurious mode of life; and he was opposed to Sertorius, a man full of the vigour of mature age, whose [Pg 110]body was wonderfully furnished with strength, activity, and power of endurance. He was never intoxicated with drink, even in his seasons of relaxation, and he was accustomed to bear great toil, long marches, and continued watchfulness, content with a little food of the meanest quality; and, inasmuch as he was always rambling about and hunting, when he had leisure, he became intimately acquainted with all the spots, both impracticable and practicable, which gave chance of escape if he had to fly, or opportunity of hemming in an enemy if he was in pursuit. Consequently, it happened that Metellus, being prevented from fighting, was damaged as much as men who are beaten in battle, and Sertorius by flying had all the advantage of the pursuer. He used to cut off the supplies of water, and check the foraging; and when Metellus was advancing Sertorius would get out of his way, and when he was encamped he would not let him rest; when Metellus was occupied with a siege, Sertorius would all at once show himself, and put Metellus in his turn in a state of blockade, owing to the want of the necessary supplies, so that the soldiers were quite wearied; and when Sertorius challenged Metellus to a single combat, the men cried out and bid him fight, as it would be a match between a general and a general, and a Roman and a Roman; and when Metellus declined, they jeered him. But he laughed at them, and he did right; for a general, as Theophrastus41 said, should die the death of a general, not that of a common targetier. Metellus perceiving that the Langobritæ42 assisted Sertorius in no small degree, and that their town could easily be taken, as it was ill supplied with water, for they had only one well in the city, and any one who blockaded the place would be master of the streams in the suburbs and near the walls, he advanced against the city, expecting to finish the siege in two days, as there was no water; [Pg 111]and accordingly his soldiers received orders to take provisions with them for five days only. But Sertorius quickly coming to their aid, gave orders to fill two thousand skins with water, and he offered for each skin a considerable sum of money. Many Iberians and Moors volunteered for the service, and, selecting the men who were strong and light-footed, he sent them through the mountain parts, with orders, when they had delivered the skins to the people in the city, to bring out of the town all the useless people, that the water might last the longer for those who defended the place. When the news reached Metellus he was much annoyed, for his soldiers had already consumed their provisions; but he sent Aquinius,43 at the head of six thousand men, to forage. Sertorius got notice of this, and laid an ambush on the road of three thousand men who starting up out of a bushy ravine, fell on Aquinius as he was returning. Sertorius attacked in front and put the Romans to flight, killing some and taking others prisoners. Aquinius returned with the loss of both his armour and horse, and Metellus made a disgraceful retreat amidst the jeers of the Iberians.

XIV

By such acts as these Sertorius gained the admiration and love of the barbarians; and, by introducing among them the Roman armour, and discipline, and signals, he took away the frantic and brutal part of their courage, and transformed them from a huge band of robbers into an efficient regular army. Besides, he employed gold and silver unsparingly for the decoration of their helmets, and he ornamented their shields, and accustomed them to the use of flowered cloaks and tunics, and, by supplying them with money for such purposes, and entering into a kind of honourable rivalry with them, he made himself popular. But they were most gained by what he did for their children. The youths of noblest birth he collected from the several nations at Osca,44 a large [Pg 112]city, and set over them teachers of Greek and Roman learning; and thus he really had them as hostages under the show of educating them, as if he intended to give them a share in the government and the administration when they attained to man’s estate. The fathers were wonderfully pleased at seeing their children dressed in robes with purple borders, and going so orderly to the schools of Sertorius, who paid for their education, and often had examinations into their proficiency, and gave rewards to the deserving, and presented them with golden ornaments for the neck, which the Romans call “bullæ.”45 It was an Iberian usage for those whose station was about the commander to die with him when he fell in battle, which the barbarians in those parts express by a term equivalent to the Greek “devotion.”46 Now only a few shield-bearers and companions followed the rest of the commanders; but many thousands followed Sertorius, and were devoted to die with him. It is said that, when the army of Sertorius was routed near a certain city and the enemy was pressing on them, the Iberians, careless about themselves, saved Sertorius, and, raising him on their shoulders, every one vying with the rest helped him to the walls; and when their general was secure they then betook themselves to flight, each as well as he could.

XV

Sertorius was not beloved by the Iberians only, but also by the soldiers of Italy, who served with him. When Perpenna Vento,47 who belonged to the same party [Pg 113]as Sertorius, had arrived in Iberia with much money and a large force, and had determined to carry on war against Metellus on his own account, his soldiers were dissatisfied, and there was much talk in the camp about Sertorius, to the great annoyance of Perpenna, who was proud of his noble family and his wealth. However, when the soldiers heard that Pompeius was crossing the Pyrenees, taking their arms and pulling up the standards, they assailed Perpenna with loud cries, and bade him lead them to Sertorius; if he did not, they threatened to leave him, and go of themselves to a man who was able to take care of himself and others too. Perpenna yielded, and led them to join the troops of Sertorius, to the number of fifty-three cohorts.

XVI

All the nations within the Iber river48 were now joining Sertorius at once, and he was powerful in numbers; for they were continually flocking and crowding to him from all quarters. But he was troubled by the loose discipline and self-confidence of the barbarians, who called on him to attack the enemy, and were impatient of delay, and he attempted to pacify them with reasons. Seeing, however, that they were discontented, and were unwisely pressing him with their demands, he let them have their way, and winked at their engaging with the enemy, in so far as not to be completely crushed, but to get some hard knocks, which he hoped would render them more tractable for the future. Things turning out as he expected, Sertorius came to their aid when they were flying, and brought them back safe to the camp. However, as he wished also to cheer their spirits, a few days after this adventure he had all the army assembled, and introduced before them two horses,49 one very weak and rather old, the [Pg 114]other of a large size and strong, with a tail remarkable for the thickness and beauty of the hair. There stood by the side of the weak horse a tall strong man, and by the side of the strong horse a little man of mean appearance. On a signal given to them, the strong man began to pull the tail of the horse with all his might towards him, as if he would tear it off; the weak man began to pluck out the hairs from the tail of the strong horse one by one. Now the strong man, after no small labour to himself to no purpose, and causing much mirth to the spectators, at last gave up; but the weak man in a trice, and with no trouble, bared the tail of all its hairs. On which Sertorius getting up, said, “You see, fellow allies, that perseverance will do more than strength, and that many things which cannot be compassed all at once, yield to continued efforts; for endurance is invincible, and it is thus that time in its course assails and vanquishes every power, being a favourable helper to those who with consideration watch the opportunities that it offers, but the greatest of enemies to those who hurry out of season.” By contriving from time to time such means as these for pacifying the barbarians, he managed his opportunities as he chose.

XVII

His adventure with the people called Charicatani50 was not less admired than any of his military exploits. The Charicatani are a people who live beyond the river Tagonius: they do not dwell in cities or villages; but there is a large lofty hill, which contains caves and hollows in the rocks, looking to the north. The whole of the country at the foot of the hill consists of a clayey mud and of light earth, easily broken in pieces, which is not strong enough to bear a man’s tread; and if it is only slightly touched will spread all about, like unslaked lime or ashes. Whenever the barbarians through fear of war hid themselves in their caves, and, collecting all their plunder there kept quiet, they could not be taken by any force; and now, [Pg 115]seeing that Sertorius had retired before Metellus, and had encamped near the hill, they despised him as being beaten, on which Sertorius, whether in passion or not wishing to appear to be flying from the enemy, at daybreak rode up to the place and examined it. But he found the mountain unassailable on all sides; and while he was perplexing himself to no purpose and uttering idle threats, he saw a great quantity of dust from this light earth carried by the wind against the barbarians; for the caves are turned, as I have said, to the north, and the wind which blows from that quarter (some call it “caecias”) prevails most, and is the strongest of all the winds in those parts, being generated in wet plains and snow-covered mountains; and at that time particularly, it being the height of summer, it was strong, and maintained by the melting of the ice in the sub-arctic regions, and it blew most pleasantly both on the barbarians and their flocks, and refreshed them. Now, Sertorius, thinking on all these things, and also getting information from the country people, ordered his soldiers to take up some of the light ashy earth, and bringing it right opposite to the hill to make a heap of it there; which the barbarians thought to be intended as a mound for the purpose of getting at them, and they mocked him. Sertorius kept his soldiers thus employed till nightfall, when he led them away. At daybreak a gentle breeze at first began to blow, which stirred up the lightest part of the earth that had been heaped together, and scattered it about like chaff; but when the caecias began to blow strong, as the sun got higher, and the hills were all covered with dust, the soldiers got on the heap of earth and stirred it up to the bottom, and broke the clods; and some also rode their horses up and down through the earth, kicking up the light particles and raising them so as to be caught by the wind, which receiving all the earth that was broken and stirred up, drove it against the dwellings of the barbarians, whose doors were open to the caecias. The barbarians, having only the single opening to breathe through, upon which the wind fell, had their vision quickly obscured, and they were speedily overpowered by a suffocating difficulty of breathing, by reason of respiring a thick atmosphere filled with dust. Accordingly, after [Pg 116]holding out with difficulty for two days, they surrendered on the third, and thus added not so much to the power as to the reputation of Sertorius, who had taken by stratagem a place that was impregnable to arms.

XVIII

Now, as long as Sertorius had to oppose Metellus, he was generally considered to owe his success to the old age and natural tardiness of Metellus, who was no match for a daring man, at the head of a force more like a band of robbers than a regular army. But when Pompeius had crossed the Pyrenees, and Sertorius had met him in the field, and he and Pompeius had mutually offered one another every opportunity for a display of generalship, and Sertorius had the advantage in stratagem and caution, his fame was noised abroad as far as Rome, and he was considered the most able general of his age in the conduct of a war: for the reputation of Pompeius was no small one; but at that time particularly he was enjoying the highest repute by reason of his distinguished exploits in the cause of Sulla, for which Sulla gave him the name of Magnus, which means Great, and Pompeius obtained triumphal honours before he had a beard. All this made many of the cities which were subject to Sertorius turn their eyes towards Pompeius, and feel inclined to pass over to him; but their intentions were checked by the loss at Lauron,51 which happened contrary to all expectation. Sertorius was besieging this town, when Pompeius came with all his force to relieve it. There was a hill, well situated for enabling an enemy to act against the place, which Sertorius made an effort to seize, and Pompeius to prevent its being occupied. Sertorius succeeded in getting possession of the hill, on which Pompeius made his troops stop, and was well pleased at what had happened, thinking that [Pg 117]Sertorius was hemmed in between the city and his own army; and he sent a message to the people in Lauron, bidding them be of good cheer, and to keep to their walls and look on while Sertorius was blockaded. Sertorius smiled when he heard of this, and said he would teach Sulla’s pupil (for so he contemptuously called Pompeius) that a general should look behind him rather than before. As he said this he pointed out to his men, who were thus blockaded, that there were six thousand heavy armed soldiers, whom he had left in the encampment, which he had quitted before he seized the hill, in order that if Pompeius should turn against them, the soldiers in camp might attack him in the rear. And Pompeius too saw this when it was too late, and he did not venture to attack Sertorius for fear of being surrounded; and though he could not for shame leave the citizens in their danger, he was obliged to sit there and see them ruined before his eyes; for the barbarians in despair surrendered. Sertorius spared their lives, and let them all go; but he burnt the city, not for revenge or because he was cruel, for of all commanders Sertorius appears to have least given way to passion; but he did it to shame and humble the admirers of Pompeius, and that the barbarians might say that Pompeius did not help his allies, though he was close at hand, and all but warmed with the flames of their city.

XIX

However, Sertorius was now sustaining several defeats, though he always saved himself and those with him from defeat; but his losses were occasioned by the other generals. Yet he gained more credit from the means by which he repaired his defeats than the generals on the other side who won the victories; an instance of which occurred in the battle against Pompeius, on the Sucro, and another in the battle near Tuttia,52 against [Pg 118]Pompeius53 and Metellus together. Now the battle on the Sucro is said to have been brought about by the eagerness of Pompeius, who wished Metellus to have no share in the victory. Sertorius, on his part, also wished to engage Pompeius before Metellus arrived; and, drawing out his forces when the evening was coming on, he commenced the battle, thinking that, as the enemy were strangers and unacquainted with the ground, the darkness would be a disadvantage to them, whether they were the pursued or the pursuers. When the battle began, it happened that Sertorius was not engaged with Pompeius, but with Afranius at first, who commanded the left wing of the enemy, while Sertorius commanded his own right. But, hearing that those who were opposed to Pompeius were giving way before his attack and being defeated, Sertorius left the right wing to the care of other generals, and hastened to the support of the wing that was giving way. Bringing together the soldiers who were already flying, and those who were still keeping their ranks, he encouraged them and made a fresh charge upon Pompeius, who was pursuing, and put his men to the rout; on which occasion Pompeius himself nearly lost his life, and had a wonderful escape after being wounded. The Libyans of Sertorius seized the horse of Pompeius, which was decked with golden ornaments and loaded with trappings; but while they were dividing the booty and quarrelling about it, they neglected the pursuit. As soon as Sertorius quitted the right wing to relieve the other part of the army, Afranius54 put to flight his opponents and drove them to their [Pg 119]camp, which, he entered with the captives, it being now dark, and began to plunder, knowing nothing of the defeat of Pompeius, and being unable to stop his soldiers from seizing the booty. In the mean time Sertorius returned, after defeating the enemy who were opposed to him, and falling on the soldiers of Afranius, who were all in disorder and consequently panic-stricken, he slaughtered many of them. In the morning he again armed his troops and came out to fight; but observing that Metellus was near, he broke up his order of battle, and marched off saying, “If that old woman had not come up, I would have given this boy a good drubbing by way of lesson, and have sent him back to Rome.”

XX

About this time Sertorius was much dispirited, because that deer55 of his could nowhere be found; for he was thus deprived of a great means of cheering the barbarians, who then particularly required consolation. It happened that some men, who were rambling about at night for other purposes, fell in with the deer and caught it, for they knew it by the colour. Sertorius hearing of this, promised to give them a large sum of money if they would mention it to nobody; and, concealing the deer for several days, he came forward with a joyful countenance to the tribunal, and told the barbarian chiefs that the deity prognosticated to him in his sleep some great good fortune. He then ascended the tribunal, and transacted business with those who applied to him. The deer being let loose by those who had charge of it close by, and, seeing Sertorius, bounded joyfully up to the tribunal, and, standing by him, placed its head on his knees, and touched his right hand with its mouth, having been accustomed to do this before. Sertorius cordially returned [Pg 120]the caresses of the animal, and even shed tears. The spectators were at first surprised; then clapping their hands and shouting, they conducted Sertorius to his residence, considering him to be a man superior to other mortals and beloved by the gods; and they were full of good hopes.

XXI

Sertorius, who had reduced the enemy to the greatest straits in the plains about Seguntum56 was compelled to fight a battle with them when they came down to plunder and forage. The battle was well contested on both sides. Memmius, one of the most skillful of the commanders under Pompeius, fell in the thick of the fight, and Sertorius, who was victorious, and making a great slaughter of those who opposed him, attempted to get at Metellus, who stood his ground with a resolution above his years, and, while fighting bravely, was struck by a spear. This made the Romans who were on the spot, as well as those who heard of it, ashamed to desert their leader, and inspired them with courage against their enemies. After covering Metellus with their shields and rescuing him from danger, by making a vigorous onset they drove the Iberians from their ground; and, as the victory now changed sides, Sertorius, with a view of securing a safe retreat for his men, and contriving the means of getting together another army without any interruption, retired to a strong city in the mountains, and began to repair the walls and strengthen the gates, [Pg 121]though his object was anything rather than to stand a siege: but his design was to deceive the enemy, in which he succeeded; for they sat down before the place, thinking they should take it without difficulty, and in the mean time they let the defeated barbarians escape, and allowed Sertorius to collect a fresh army. It was got together by Sertorius sending officers to the cities, and giving orders that when they had collected a good body of men, they should dispatch a messenger to him. When the messenger came, he broke through the besiegers without any difficulty and joined his troops; and now he again advanced against the enemy in great force, and began to cut off their land supplies by ambuscades, and hemming them in, and showing himself at every point, inasmuch as his attacks were made with great expedition; and he cut off all their maritime supplies by occupying the coast with his piratical vessels, so that the generals opposed to him were obliged to separate, one to march off into Gaul, and Pompeius to winter among the Vaccæi57 in great distress for want of supplies, and to write to the Senate, that he would lead his army out of Iberia, if they did not send him money, for he had spent all his own in defence of Italy. There was great talk in Rome that Sertorius would come to Italy before Pompeius58 to such difficulties did Sertorius, by his military abilities, reduce the first and ablest of the generals of that age.

XXII

Metellus also showed, that he feared the man and thought he was powerful; for he made proclamation, that if any Roman killed Sertorius he would give him a hundred talents of silver and twenty thousand jugera of land; and, if he was an exile, permission to return, to Rome: thus declaring that he despaired of being able to defeat Sertorius in the field, and therefore would purchase [Pg 122]his life by treachery. Besides this, Metellus was so elated by a victory which on one occasion he gained over Sertorius, and so well pleased with his success, that he was proclaimed Imperator59 and the cities received him in his visits to them with sacrifices and altars. It is also said, that he allowed chaplets to be placed on his head, and accepted invitations to sumptuous feasts, at which he wore a triumphal vest; and Victories60 which were contrived to move by machinery, descended and distributed golden trophies and crowns, and companies of youths and women sang epinician hymns in honour of him. For this he was with good reason ridiculed, for that after calling Sertorius a runaway slave of Sulla, and a remnant of the routed party of Carbo, he was so puffed up and transported with delight because he had gained an advantage over Sertorius, who had been compelled to retire. But it was a proof of the magnanimous character of Sertorius, first, that he gave the name of Senate to the Senators who fled from Rome and joined him, and that he appointed quæstors and generals from among them, and arranged everything of this kind according to Roman usage; and next, that though he availed himself of the arms, the money and the cities of the Iberians, he never yielded to them one *tittle of the Roman supremacy, but he appointed Romans to be their generals and commanders, considering that he was recovering freedom for the Romans, and was not strengthening the Iberians against the Romans; for Sertorius loved his country and had a great desire to return home. Notwithstanding this, in his reverses he behaved like a brave man, and never humbled himself before his enemies; and after his victories he would send to Metellus and to Pompeius, and declare that he was ready to lay down his arms and to live in a private station, if he might be allowed to return home; for, he said, he would rather be the obscurest citizen in Rome than an exile from his country, though he were proclaimed supreme ruler of all other countries in the world. It is said, that he longed to [Pg 123]return home chiefly on account of his mother, who brought him up after his father’s death, and to whom he was completely devoted. At the time when his friends in Iberia invited him to take the command, he heard of the death of his mother, and he was near dying of grief. He lay in his tent for seven days without giving the watchword, or being seen by any of his friends; and it was with difficulty that his fellow-generals and those of like rank with himself, who had assembled about his tent, prevailed on him to come out to the soldiers, and take a share in the administration of affairs, which were going on well. This made many people think that Sertorius was naturally a man of mild temper, and well disposed to a quiet life; but that, owing to uncontrollable causes, and contrary to his wishes, he entered on the career of a commander, and then, when he could not ensure his safety, and was driven to arms by his enemies, he had recourse to war as the only means by which he could protect his life.

XXIII

His negociations with Mithridates also were a proof of his magnanimity; for now that Mithridates, rising from the fall that he had from Sulla, as it were, to a second contest, had again attacked Asia, and the fame of Sertorius was great, and had gone abroad to all parts, and those who sailed from the West had filled the Pontus with the reports about him, as if with so many foreign wares, Mithridates was moved to send an embassy to him, being urged thereto mainly by the fulsome exaggerations of his flatterers, who compared Sertorius to Hannibal and Mithridates to Pyrrhus, and said that if the Romans were attacked on both sides, they could not hold out against such great abilities and powers combined, when the most expert of commanders had joined the greatest of kings. Accordingly, Mithridates sent ambassadors to Iberia, with letters to Sertorius and proposals. On his part he offered to supply money and ships for the war, and he asked from Sertorius a confirmation of his title to the whole of Asia, which he had given up to the Romans pursuant to the treaty made with Sulla. Sertorius assembled a council, which he called a senate, and all the members advised to accept the king’s proposal, and to be well content with it; they said the king only asked of them a name and an empty [Pg 124]answer touching things that were not in their power, in return for which they were to receive what they happened to stand most in need of. But Sertorius would not listen to this; he said he did not grudge Mithridates having Bithynia and Cappadocia; these were nations that were accustomed to a king, and the Romans had nothing to do with them; but the province which belonged to the Romans by the justest of titles, which Mithridates took from them and kept, from which, after a contest, he was driven out by Fimbria, and which he gave up by treaty with Sulla,61 -that province he would never allow to fall again into the power of Mithridates; for it was fit that the Roman state should be extended by his success, not that his success should be owing to her humiliation. To a generous mind, victory by honest means was a thing to desire, but life itself was not worth having with dishonour.

XXIV

When this was reported to Mithridates he was amazed, and it is said that he remarked to his friends—what terms, then, will Sertorius impose when he is seated on the Palatium,62 if now, when he is driven to the shores of the Atlantic, he fixes limits to our kingdom, and threatens us with war if we make any attempt upon Asia? However, a treaty was made, and ratified by oath, on the following terms: Mithridates63 was to have Cappadocia and Bithynia, and Sertorius was to send him a general and soldiers; and Sertorius was to receive from Mithridates three thousand talents, and forty ships. Sertorius sent as general to Asia Marcus Marius, one of the Senators who had fled to him; and Mithridates, after assisting him to take some of the Asiatic cities,64 followed Marius as he [Pg 125]entered them with the fasces and axes, voluntarily taking the second place and the character of an inferior. Marius restored some of the cities to liberty, and he wrote to others to announce to them their freedom from taxation through the power of Sertorius; so that Asia, which was much troubled by the Publicani,65 and oppressed by the rapacity and insolence of the soldiers quartered there, was again raised on the wings of hope, and longed for the expected change of masters.

XXV

In Iberia, the senators and nobles about Sertorius, as soon as they were put into a condition to hope that they were a match for the opposite party, and their fears were over, began to feel envious, and had a foolish jealousy of the power of Sertorius. Perpenna encouraged this feeling, being urged by the empty pride of high birth to aspire to the supreme command, and he secretly held treasonable language to those who were favourable to his designs. “What evil dæmon,” he would say, “has got hold of us, and carried us from bad to worse—us who did not brook to stay at home and do the bidding of Sulla, though in a manner he was lord of all the earth and sea at once, but coming here with ill luck, in order to live free, have voluntarily become slaves by making ourselves the guards of Sertorius in his exile, and while we are called a senate, a name jeered at by all who hear it, we submit to insults, and orders, and sufferings as great as the Iberians and Lusitanians endure.” Their minds filled with such suggestions as these, the majority did not, indeed, openly desert Sertorius, for they feared his power, but they secretly damaged all his measures, and they oppressed the barbarians by severe treatment and exactions, on the pretext that it was by the order of Sertorius. This caused revolts and disturbances in the cities; and those who were sent to settle and pacify these outbreaks returned after causing more wars, and increasing the existing insubordination; so that Sertorius, contrary to his former [Pg 126]moderation and mildness, did a grievous wrong to the sons of the Iberians, who were educating at Osca,66 by putting some to death, and selling others as slaves.

XXVI

Now Perpenna, having got several to join him in his conspiracy, gained over Manlius, one of those who were in command. This Manlius was much attached to a beautiful boy, and to give the youth a proof of his attachment he told him of the design, and urged him not to care for his other lovers; but to give his affections to him alone, as he would be a great man in a few days. The youth reported what Manlius said to Aufidius, another of his lovers, to whom he was more attached. On hearing this, Aufidius was startled, for he was engaged in the conspiracy against Sertorius, but he did not know that Manlius was a party to it. But when the youth named Perpenna and Graecinus,67 and some others whom Aufidius knew to be in the conspiracy, he was confounded, yet he made light of the story to the youth, and told him to despise Manlius for a lying braggart; but he went to Perpenna, and, showing him the critical state of affairs, and the danger, urged him to the deed. The conspirators followed his advice, and having engaged a man to bring letters they introduced him to Sertorius. The letters gave information of a victory gained by one of the generals, and a great slaughter of the enemy. Upon this Sertorius was overjoyed, and offered a sacrifice for the happy tidings; and Perpenna proposed to feast him and his friends (and they were of the number of the conspirators), and after much entreaty he prevailed on Sertorius to come. Now whenever Sertorius was present, an entertainment was conducted with great propriety and decorum; for he would not tolerate any indecent act or expression, but accustomed [Pg 127]his companions to enjoy mirth and merriment with orderly behaviour, and without any excess; but, on this occasion, in the midst of the feast, seeking to begin a quarrel, they openly used obscene language, and, pretending to be drunk, behaved indecently, for the purpose of irritating Sertorius. Whether it was that he was vexed at this disorderly conduct, or had now suspected their design by the flagging of the conversation68 and their unusual contemptuous manner towards him, he changed his posture on the couch by throwing himself on his back, as if he was paying no attention to them, and not listening. On Perpenna taking a cup of wine, and in the middle of the draught throwing it from him and so making a noise, which was the signal agreed on, Antonius, who lay next to Sertorius, struck him with his sword. On receiving the blow, Sertorius turned himself, and at the same time attempted to rise, but Antonius, throwing himself upon his chest, held his hands, and he was despatched by blows from many of the conspirators, without even making any resistance.

XXVII

[Pg 128]69 Now most of the Iberians immediately sent ambassadors to Pompeius and Metellus, to make their submission; those who remained Perpenna took under his command, and attempted to do something. After employing the means that Sertorius had got together, just so far as to disgrace himself, and show that he was not suited either to command or to obey, he engaged with Pompeius. Being quickly crushed by him and taken prisoner, he did not behave himself even in this extremity as a commander should do; but having got possession of the papers of Sertorius, he offered to Pompeius to show him autograph letters from consular men and persons of the highest [Pg 129]influence at Rome, in which Sertorius was invited to Italy, and was assured that there were many who were desirous to change the present settlement of affairs, and to alter the constitution. Now Pompeius, by behaving on this occasion, not like a young man, but one whose understanding was well formed and disciplined, relieved Rome from great dangers and revolutions. He got together all those letters, and all the papers of Sertorius, and burnt them, without either reading them himself or letting any one else read them; and he immediately put Perpenna to death, through fear that there might be defection and disturbance if the names were communicated to others. Of the fellow-conspirators of Perpenna, some were brought to Pompeius, and put to death; and others, who fled to Libya, were pierced by the Moorish spears. Not one escaped, except Aufidius, the rival of Manlius, and this happened, either because he escaped notice, or nobody took any trouble about him, and he lived to old age, in some barbarian village, in poverty and contempt.

LIFE OF
EUMENES.

I

The historian Douris tells us that the father of Eumenes of Kardia was so poor that he was obliged to act as a waggoner; yet he gave his son a liberal education both in mental and bodily exercises. While Eumenes was yet a lad, Philip, King of Macedon, happened to come to the city of Kardia, where he amused his leisure time by witnessing the gymnastic exercises of the young men. Perceiving that Eumenes was one of the most athletic, and that he was a manly and clever boy, Philip took him away and attached him to his own person. A more probable story is that Philip gave the boy this advancement out of regard for his father, whose friend and guest he was. After the death of Philip, Eumenes continued in the service of his son Alexander, and was thought to be as wise and as faithful as any of that prince’s servants. His position was nominally that of chief secretary, but he was treated with as much honour and respect as the king’s most intimate friends, and was entrusted with an independent command during the Indian campaign. On the death of Hephæstion, Perdikkas was appointed to succeed him, and Eumenes was given the post of commander of the cavalry, vacated by Perdikkas. Upon this Neoptolemus, the chief of the men-at-arms, sneered at Eumenes, saying that he himself bore a spear and shield in Alexander’s service, but that Eumenes bore a pen and writing-tablets. However the Macedonian chiefs laughed him to scorn, as they well knew the worth of Eumenes, and that he was so highly esteemed that Alexander himself had done him the honour to make him his kinsman by marriage. He bestowed upon him Barsine, the sister of that daughter of Artabazus by whom he himself had a son named Herakles, and gave [Pg 131]her other sister Apame to Ptolemæus at the time when he distributed the other Persian ladies among his followers.

II

Eumenes however was often in danger of incurring the displeasure of Alexander, because of his favourite Hephæstion. On one occasion a house was assigned to Evion, Hephæstion’s flute-player, which the servants of Eumenes had previously claimed for their master’s lodging. Hearing this, Eumenes went to Alexander in a rage, and complained that it was better to be a flute-player than a soldier. At first Alexander agreed with him, and blamed Hephæstion for his conduct. But afterwards he changed his mind, and attributed what Eumenes had done to a desire to insult himself, rather than to vindicate his rights against Hephæstion. At another time, when Alexander was about to despatch Nearchus with a fleet to explore the Atlantic, he asked his friends to subscribe some money, as he had none in his treasury. The sum for which Eumenes was asked was three hundred talents, of which he only paid one hundred, and said that he had had great difficulty in collecting even that amount. Alexander did not reproach him, nor take the money from him; but he ordered his slaves secretly to set the tent of Eumenes on fire, hoping when his property was brought out of it to prove him to have lied in saying that he possessed so little money. However the tent burned quicker than was expected, and Alexander was sorry that he had destroyed all the papers and writings which it contained. There was found in the ruins more than a thousand talents’ worth of gold and silver, melted by the heat of the fire. Of this Alexander refused to take any, but sent orders to all the officers of his kingdom to replace the accounts and writings which had been destroyed. Once again too he quarrelled with Hephæstion about some present to which each laid claim. They each abused the other roundly, but Eumenes came off the victor. Shortly afterwards, however, Hephæstion died, to the great grief of Alexander, who was enraged with all those who had disliked Hephæstion when alive, and were pleased at his death. He regarded Eumenes with especial hatred, and frequently referred to his quarrels with Hephæstion. Eumenes, however, being a [Pg 132]shrewd man, determined that what seemed likely to become his ruin should prove his salvation. He won Alexander’s favour by inventing new and extravagant modes of showing honour to his friend, and spent money profusely in providing him with a splendid funeral.

III

When Alexander himself died, and the Macedonian army quarrelled with its chiefs, he in reality espoused the cause of the latter, although he declared that he belonged to neither party, modestly observing that it was not for him, a stranger, to interfere in the quarrels of Macedonians with one another. In the general division of Alexander’s conquests which then took place, Eumenes obtained Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, and the coast of the Euxine sea as far as Trapezus.1 This country was not yet conquered by the Macedonians, but was ruled by Ariarathes, and Leonnatus and Antigonus were requested by Perdikkas to come with a large army to put Eumenes in possession of his principality. Antigonus took no heed of this command, as he was already revolving immense schemes of conquest, and beginning to despise his colleagues. Leonnatus, however, did begin to march an army towards Phrygia, intending to help Eumenes, but on the way he was met by Hekatæus the despot of Kardia, who besought him to assist the Macedonians under Antipater, who were being besieged in the city of Lamia. Leonnatus on hearing this became eager to cross his army over the straits into Europe; and consequently he sent for Eumenes and reconciled him with Hekatæus. These two men had always been at enmity with one another on political grounds. Eumenes had often endeavoured to use his influence with Alexander to crush Hekatæus, and restore liberty to the oppressed citizens of Kardia, and never ceased accusing him of tyranny and injustice. On this occasion Eumenes refused to take part in the expedition into Europe, stating that he feared Antipater, who had always been his enemy, and who would be very likely to assassinate him to please Hekatæus. In answer to these objections Leonnatus unfolded to him his secret plans. His march to relieve Antipater was merely intended as a pretence to cover his real object, which was to attempt to make himself master of [Pg 133]Macedonia. He also showed Eumenes several letters which he had received from Pella, in which Kleopatra offered to marry him if he would march thither. However Eumenes, either because he feared Antipater, or because he thought Leonnatus to be embarked upon a rash and crazy enterprise, left him by night, taking with him all his property. He was attended by three hundred horsemen, and two hundred armed slaves, and had with him treasure to the amount of five thousand talents. He fled at once to Perdikkas, and betrayed all Leonnatus’s plans to him, by which treachery he gained great favour with Perdikkas, and soon afterwards was established in his government of Cappadocia by an army led by Perdikkas himself. Ariarathes was taken prisoner, the country subdued and Eumenes proclaimed satrap over it. He distributed the government of the various cities amongst his friends, established garrisons, courts of justice, and receivers of revenue, as an absolute ruler, without any interference from Perdikkas. But when Perdikkas left the country Eumenes followed him, as he did not wish to be away from the court of that prince.

IV

However, Perdikkas considered that he was well able to carry out his own designs abroad, but required an active and faithful lieutenant to guard what he already possessed at home. Consequently when he reached Cilicia he sent Eumenes back, nominally to his own government, but really to observe Armenia where Neoptolemus was endeavouring to raise a revolt. Eumenes had frequent interviews with this man, who was of a flighty and vainglorious character, and tried to restrain him from any act of open rebellion. Perceiving also that the Macedonian phalanx was grown very strong, and gave itself most insolent airs, he determined to raise up some counterpoise to it, in the shape of a force of cavalry.

He set free from all taxes and state payments whatever those men of his province who were able to serve as horse soldiers, and bestowed fine horses, purchased by himself, upon their officers and those whom he especially trusted. He divided them into regiments, frequently bestowed upon them honours and rewards, and constantly exercised them in the performance of military manœuvres. Some of the [Pg 134]Macedonians were alarmed, but others were delighted to see in how short a time he had raised a force of no less than six thousand three hundred cavalry soldiers.

V

When Kraterus and Antipater, having made themselves masters of Greece, crossed over into Asia to destroy the kingdom of Perdikkas, and were about to invade Cappadocia, Eumenes was appointed by Perdikkas, who was absent on a campaign against Ptolemy, to be commander-in-chief of the forces in Cappadocia and Armenia. He also sent letters, ordering Neoptolemus and Alketas to place themselves under the orders of Eumenes. Alketas at once refused to serve under him, alleging that the Macedonian troops which he commanded would be ashamed to fight against Antipater, and were willing to receive Kraterus as their king. Neoptolemus also no longer concealed the treachery which he had so long meditated, and when summoned by Eumenes to join him, answered by drawing up his men in order of battle. Now did Eumenes reap the fruits of his prudence and foresight; for though his infantry was vanquished, yet his cavalry completely overthrew Neoptolemus, and captured all his baggage. He also caught the phalanx of the enemy when disordered by its victory, and forced it to surrender at discretion, and swear allegiance to himself. Neoptolemus fled with a few followers and joined Kraterus and Antipater, by whom an embassy had been sent to Eumenes to offer him the peaceful enjoyment of his government if he would join them, and likewise a large accession of territory and force, on condition that he would cease to regard Antipater with dislike and would not become an enemy to his friend Kraterus. To these overtures Eumenes answered that he had long hated Antipater, and was not likely to begin to love him now, when he saw him making war against his own friends, but that he was willing to act as mediator between Kraterus and Perdikkas, if they wished to arrange a fair and honourable peace. He declared that as long as he had breath in his body he would resist all unjust schemes of spoliation, and would rather lose his life than betray the confidence bestowed upon him by Perdikkas.

VI

When Eumenes returned this answer to Antipater, [Pg 135]he was deliberating what was the next step to take, when suddenly Neoptolemus arrived bringing the news of his defeat, and begging for immediate assistance. He wished one of the chiefs to accompany him, but especially Kraterus, declaring that he was so popular with the Macedonians that if they so much as caught sight of his broad-brimmed Macedonian hat, and heard his voice, they would go over to him in a body. Indeed the name of Kraterus had great influence with the Macedonians, and he was their favourite general now that Alexander was dead, for they remembered how steadfast a friend Kraterus had proved to them, and how he had often incurred the anger of Alexander by opposing his adoption of Persian habits, and standing by his countrymen when they were in danger of being neglected and despised by a corrupt and effeminate court. Kraterus accordingly sent Antipater into Cilicia, and himself with the greater part of the army marched with Neoptolemus to fight Eumenes, whom he imagined he should catch unawares, engaged in feasting and celebrating his late victory. It did not argue any very great skill in Eumenes, that he soon became aware of the march of Kraterus to attack him; but to conceal his own weak points, not only from the enemy, but also from his own troops, and actually to force them to attack Kraterus without knowing against whom they fought, appears to me to have been the act of a consummate general. He gave out that Neoptolemus and Pigres were about to attack him a second time, with some Cappadocian and Paphlagonian cavalry. On the night when he intended to start he fell asleep and dreamed a strange dream. He seemed to see two Alexanders, each at the head of a phalanx, preparing to fight one another. Then Athena came to help the one, and Demeter the other. After a hard fight, that championed by Athena was overcome, and then Demeter gathered ears of corn, and crowned the victorious phalanx with them. He at once conceived that this dream referred to himself because he was about to fight for a most fertile land and one that abounded in corn; for at that time the whole country was sown with wheat, as if it were time of peace, and the fields promised an abundant harvest. He was confirmed [Pg 136]in his idea of the meaning of his dream when he heard that the watchword of the enemy was ‘Athena,’ with the countersign ‘Alexander.’ Hearing this, he himself gave the word ‘Demeter,’ with the countersign ‘Alexander,’ and ordered all his soldiers to crown themselves and adorn their arms with ears of wheat. He was often tempted to explain to his officers who it was against whom they were about to fight; but in spite of the inconvenience of such a secret, he decided finally to keep it to himself.

VII

He was careful not to send any Macedonians to attack Kraterus, but entrusted this duty to two divisions of cavalry, which he placed under the command respectively of Pharnabazus the son of Artabazus and Phœnix of Tenedos. These he ordered, as soon as they saw the enemy, to charge at full speed, and not to give them time for any parley, or to send a herald; for he was grievously afraid that if the Macedonians recognized Kraterus they would desert to him. He himself formed three hundred of the best of his cavalry into a compact mass with which he proceeded towards the right, to engage the detachment under Neoptolemus. The main body, as soon as it had passed a small hill, came in sight of the enemy and at once charged at full gallop. Kraterus at this broke out into violent abuse of Neoptolemus, saying that he had been deceived by him about the Macedonians who were to have deserted. However, he called upon those about him to quit them like men, and advanced to meet the horsemen.

The shock was terrible. Their spears were soon broken, and the fight was continued with swords. Kraterus proved no unworthy successor of Alexander, for he slew many and often rallied his troops, until a Thracian rode at him sideways and struck him from his horse. No one recognized him as he lay on the ground except Gorgias, one of the generals of Eumenes, who at once dismounted and kept guard over him, although he was grievously hurt and almost in the death-agony.

Meanwhile Eumenes encountered Neoptolemus. Each had a long-standing grudge against the other; but it chanced that in the first two charges which took place they did not see one another. The third time they recog[Pg 137]nized one another, and at once drew their daggers and rode together with loud shouts of defiance. With their reins flowing loose they drove their horses against one another like two triremes, and each clutched at the other as he passed, so that each tore the helmet from the other’s head, and burst the fastenings of the corslet upon his shoulder. Both fell from their horses, and wrestled together in deadly strife on the ground. As Neoptolemus strove to rise, Eumenes struck him behind the knee, and leaped upon his own feet, but Neoptolemus rested upon his other knee, and continued the fight until he received a mortal stab in the neck. Eumenes through the mortal hate which he bore him at once fell to stripping him of his armour and abusing him, forgetting that he was still alive. He received a slight stab in the groin, but the wound frightened Eumenes more than it hurt him, as the hand that dealt it was almost powerless. Yet when Eumenes had finished despoiling the corpse he found that he was severely cut about the arms and thighs, in spite of which he remounted his horse, and rode to the other side of the battle-field, where he thought the enemy might still be offering resistance. Here he heard of the death of Kraterus, and rode up to where he lay. Finding that he was still alive and conscious, Eumenes dismounted, and with tears and protestations of friendship cursed Neoptolemus and lamented his hard fate, which had forced him either to kill his old friend and comrade or to perish at his hands.

VIII

This victory was won by Eumenes about ten days after his former one. He gained great glory from this double achievement, as he appeared to have won one battle by courage and the other by generalship. Yet he was bitterly disliked and hated both by his own men and by the enemy, because he, a stranger and a foreigner, had vanquished the most renowned of the Macedonians in fair fight. Now if Perdikkas had lived to hear of the death of Kraterus, he would have been the chief Macedonian of the age; but the news of his death reached the camp of Perdikkas two days after that prince had fallen in a skirmish with the Egyptians, and the enraged Macedonian soldiery vowed vengeance against Eumenes. [Pg 138]Antigonus and Antipater at once declared war against him: and when they heard that Eumenes, passing by Mount Ida where the king2 used to keep a breed of horses, took as many as he required and sent an account of his doing so to the Masters of the Horse, Antipater is said to have laughed and declared that he admired the wariness of Eumenes, who seemed to expect that he would be called upon to give an account of what he had done with the king’s property. Eumenes had intended to fight a battle on the plains of Lydia near Sardis, because his chief strength lay in his cavalry, and also to let Kleopatra3 see how powerful he was; but at her particular request, for she was afraid to give umbrage to Antipater, he marched into Upper Phrygia, and passed the winter in the city of Kelainæ. While here, Alketas, Polemon, and Dokimus caballed against him, claiming the supreme command for themselves. Hereupon Eumenes quoted the proverb, “No one reflects that he who rules must die.”

He now promised his soldiers that in three days he would give them their pay, and accomplished this by selling the various fortified villages and castles in the neighbourhood to them, all of which were full of human beings to sell for slaves, and of cattle. The officers who bought these places from Eumenes were supplied by him with siege-artillery to take them, and the proceeds of the plunder were set off against the arrears of pay due to the soldiers. This proceeding made Eumenes very popular with his army, indeed, when a proclamation was distributed in his camp by contrivance of the enemy, in which a reward of a hundred talents and special honours were offered to the man who would kill Eumenes, the Macedonians were greatly enraged, and determined that a body-guard of one thousand men, of the best families in Macedonia, should watch over his safety day and night. The soldiers obeyed him with alacrity and were proud to receive from his hands the same marks of favour which kings are wont to bestow upon their favourites. Eumenes even took upon himself to give away purple hats and [Pg 139]cloaks, which is accounted the most royal present of all by the Macedonians.

IX

Success exalts even mean minds, and men always appear to have a certain dignity when in high station and power; but the truly great man proves his greatness more by the way in which he bears up against misfortunes and endures evil days, as did Eumenes. He was defeated by Antigonus in Southern Cappadocia by treachery, but when forced to retreat he did not allow the traitor who had betrayed him to make good his escape to Antigonus, but took him and hanged him on the spot. He managed to retreat by a different road to that on which the enemy were pursuing, and then suddenly turning about, encamped on the battle-field of the day before. Here he collected the dead bodies, burned them with the timber of the houses in the neighbouring villages, and raised separate barrows over the remains of the officers and the men—monuments of his hardihood and presence of mind which excited the admiration of Antigonus himself when he again passed that way. The two armies were still sometimes so near each other, that Eumenes once had an opportunity of making himself master of the whole of the enemy’s baggage, which would have enriched his troops with an immense booty. He feared that the possession of such wealth would render them eager to quit his toilsome and perilous service, and sent secret warning under the pretext of private friendship to Menander, the general who had been left in charge of the baggage, and enabled him to withdraw into an unassailable position. This seemingly generous action excited the gratitude of the Macedonians, whose wives and children it had saved from slavery and dishonour, till Antigonus pointed out to them that Eumenes had spared them only that he might not encumber himself.4

X

After this, Eumenes, who was being constantly pursued by a superior force, recommended the greater part of his men to return to their homes. This he did either because he was anxious for their safety, or because he did not wish to drag about with him a force which was too small to fight, and too large to move with swiftness and [Pg 140]secrecy. He himself took refuge in the impregnable fortress of Nora, on the borders of Cappadocia and Lycaonia, with five hundred horse and two hundred foot soldiers, and dismissed from thence with kind speeches and embraces, all of his friends who wished to leave the fortress, dismayed by the prospect of the dreary imprisonment which awaited them during a long siege in such a place. Antigonus when he arrived summoned Eumenes to a conference before beginning the siege, to which he answered, that Antigonus had many friends and officers, while he had none remaining with him, so that unless Antigonus would give him hostages for his safety, he would not trust himself with him. Upon this Antigonus bade him remember that he was speaking to his superior. “While I can hold my sword,” retorted Eumenes, “I acknowledge no man as my superior.” However, after Antigonus had sent his cousin Ptolemæus into the fortress, as Eumenes had demanded, he came down to meet Antigonus, whom he embraced in a friendly manner, as became men who had once been intimate friends and comrades. They talked for a long time, and Eumenes astonished all the assembly by his courage and spirit; for he did not ask for his life, and for peace, as they expected, but demanded to be reinstated in his government, and to have all the grants which he had received from Perdikkas restored to him. The Macedonians meanwhile flocked round him, eager to see what sort of man this Eumenes was, of whom they had heard so much; for since the death of Kraterus no one had been talked of so much as Eumenes in the Macedonian camp. Antigonus began to fear for his safety; he ordered them to keep at a distance, and at last throwing his arms round the waist of Eumenes conducted him back through a passage formed by his guards to the foot of the fortress.

XI

After this Antigonus invested the place with a double wall of circumvallation, left a force sufficient to guard it, and marched away. Eumenes was now closely besieged. There was plenty of water, corn, and salt in the fortress, but nothing else to eat or to drink. Yet he managed to render life cheerful, inviting all the garrison in turn to his own table, and entertaining his guests with [Pg 141]agreeable and lively conversation. He himself was no sturdy warrior, worn with toil and hardships, but a figure of the most delicate symmetry, seemingly in all the freshness of youth, with a gentle and engaging aspect. He was no orator, but yet was fascinating in conversation, as we may partly learn from his letters. During this siege, as he perceived that the men, cooped up in such narrow limits and eating their food without exercise, would lose health, and also that the horses would lose condition if they never used their limbs, while it was most important that, if they were required for a sudden emergency, they should be able to gallop, he arranged the largest room in the fort, fourteen cubits in length, as a place of exercise for the men, and ordered them to walk there, gradually quickening their pace, so as to combine exercise with amusement. For the horses, he caused their necks to be hoisted by pulleys fastened in the roof of their stable, until their fore feet barely touched the ground. In this uneasy position they were excited by their grooms with blows and shouts until the struggle produced the effect of a hard ride, as they sprung about and stood almost erect upon their hind legs till the sweat poured off them, so that this exercise proved no bad training either for strength or speed. They were fed with bruised barley, as being more quickly and easily digested.

XII

After this siege had lasted for some time, Antigonus learned that Antipater had died in Macedonia, and that Kassander and Polysperchon were fighting for his inheritance. He now conceived great hopes of gaining the supreme power for himself, and desired to have Eumenes as his friend and assistant in effecting this great design. He sent Hieronymus of Kardia, a friend of Eumenes, to make terms with him. Hieronymus proffered a written agreement to Eumenes, which Eumenes amended, and thus appealed to the Macedonians who were besieging him to decide between the two forms, as to which was the most just. Antigonus for decency’s sake had mentioned the names of the royal family of Macedonia in the beginning of his agreement, but at the end of it demanded that Eumenes should swear fealty to himself. Eumenes corrected this by inserting the names of Queen Olympias and all the [Pg 142]royal family, and then took a solemn oath of fealty, not to Antigonus alone, but to Olympias and all the royal house of Macedonia. This form was thought more reasonable by the Macedonians, who swore Eumenes according to it, raised the siege, and sent to Antigonus that he also might swear in the same form as Eumenes. After this Eumenes delivered up all the Cappadocian hostages in Nora, soon collected a force of little less than a thousand men, from his old soldiers who were still roaming about that country, and rode off with them, as he very rightly distrusted Antigonus, who as soon as he heard of what had happened, sent orders to the Macedonians to continue the siege, and bitterly reproached them for allowing Eumenes to amend the form of oath tendered to him.

XIII

While Eumenes was retreating he received letters from the party in Macedonia opposed to Antigonus, in which Olympias begged him to come and take the son of Alexander, whose life was threatened, under his protection; while Polysperchon and Philip, the king, bade him take the command of the army in Cappadocia and make war against Antigonus, empowering him out of the treasure at Quinda to take five hundred talents, as compensation for his own losses, and to make what use he pleased of the remainder for the expenses of the war. He was also informed that orders had been sent to Antigenes and Teutamus the commanders of the Argyraspides, the celebrated Macedonian regiment with the silver shields, to put him in possession of the treasure which they had brought from Susa, and to place themselves with their troops under his command.

Antigenes and Teutamus, on receiving these orders, received Eumenes with all outward manifestations of friendship, but were really full of concealed rage at being superseded by him. He, however, judiciously allayed their wrath by refusing to take the money, which he said he did not need, while as they wore both unwilling to obey and unable to command, he called in the aid of superstition, and declared that Alexander himself had appeared to him in a dream, as when alive, arrayed in the ensigns of royalty, seated in his tent, and despatching affairs of state, and he proposed that they should erect a magnificent [Pg 143]tent, should place a golden throne in the centre, on which should be laid a diadem, sceptre and royal apparel, and that there they should transact business as in the presence of the king. Antigenes and Teutamus willingly agreed to this proposal, which flattered their self-love by seeming to place them on an equality with Eumenes.

As they marched up the country they were met by Peukestas, a friend of Eumenes, and by several other satraps, or provincial governors, who came accompanied by considerable bodies of troops, whose numbers and excellent equipment and discipline gave great encouragement to the Macedonian soldiery.

But these satraps, since the death of Alexander, had become dissolute, licentious, and effeminate princes, with all the vices of Eastern despots. They perpetually intrigued and quarrelled with one another, while they courted the Macedonians by profuse liberality, providing them with magnificent banquets and unlimited wine, until they entirely ruined the discipline of their camp, and led them to meditate choosing their leaders by a popular vote, as is done in republican cities. Eumenes, perceiving that the satraps mistrusted one another, but that they all agreed in hating and fearing himself, and only wanted an opportunity for having him assassinated, pretended to be in want of money, and borrowed large sums from those whom he chiefly suspected of designs against his person, so that he secured the safety of his person by taking other men’s money, an object which most people are glad to attain by giving their own.

XIV

While the peace lasted, the Macedonian soldiery willingly listened to the flattering promises of the satraps, each of whom wished to raise a force and make war upon the others; but when Antigonus moved to attack them with a large army, and a real general was imperatively demanded to meet him, then not only the soldiers implicitly obeyed Eumenes, but even those princes who during the peace had affected such airs of independence lowered their tone and each without a murmur proceeded to his appointed duty. When Antigonus was endeavouring to cross the river Pasitigris, none of the confederates except Eumenes perceived his design, but he boldly with[Pg 144]stood him, and in a pitched battle slew many men, filled the stream with corpses, and took four thousand prisoners. And also, when Eumenes fell sick, the Macedonians clearly proved that they knew that the others could give them banquets and fair promises, but that he alone could lead them to victory.

When the army was in Persia, Peukestas magnificently entertained all the soldiers, giving each man a victim for sacrifice, and thought that by this liberality he had quite won their hearts; but a few days afterwards, when they came into the presence of the enemy, Eumenes happened to be ill, and was being carried in a litter apart from the noise of the march in order to obtain rest. As the army gained the crest of some low hills they suddenly saw the enemy’s troops marching down into the plain below. As soon as they saw the head of the column, with its gilded arms flashing in the sun, and the elephants with their towers and purple trappings, ready for instant attack, the Macedonians halted, grounded their arms, and refused to proceed until Eumenes should put himself at their head, plainly telling their officers that they dared not risk a battle without him for their leader. Eumenes at once came to the front at full speed in his litter, of which he caused the curtains on both sides to be drawn back, while he waved his hand to them in delight. They, in return, greeted him in the Macedonian fashion by shouts and the clash of their arms, and at once took up their shields and levelled their lances with a loud cry, challenging the enemy to come and fight them, for they now had a general to lead them on.

XV

Antigonus, who had learned from prisoners that Eumenes was sick and travelling in a litter, imagined that it would not be difficult to overcome the others, and therefore hastened his march, hoping to bring on a battle while Eumenes was still unable to command. When, however, as he rode along the enemy’s line he observed their admirable order and arrangement, he hesitated to attack. At last he perceived the litter proceeding from one wing to the other. Then, with a loud laugh, as was his habit when joking with his friends, he exclaimed, “It is that litter, it seems, that is manœuvring against us.” [Pg 145]Saying this, he at once withdrew his forces and encamped at some little distance. The army of Eumenes, however, soon afterwards, needing refreshment and repose, forced their generals to place them in cantonments for the winter in the district of Gabiene. These were so scattered, that the whole army was spread over a distance of a thousand stades (or a hundred and twenty-five English miles). Antigonus, hearing this, marched suddenly to attack them by a very difficult road, on which no water was to be found, but which nevertheless was very short and direct. He hoped to fall upon the enemy while scattered in their winter quarters, and defeat them before their generals could rally them into a compact mass. But as he marched through a desert region his army met with strong winds and bitter cold, so that the men were forced to light large fires to warm themselves, and these gave notice of their arrival to the enemy; for the natives who inhabited the mountains near the line of Antigonus’s march, when they saw the numerous fires lighted by his troops, sent messengers on swift camels to tell Peukestas what they had observed. He was much alarmed at the news, and, noticing that the rest of the satraps shared his fears, proposed to retreat to the opposite extremity of the province, where they might at least reassemble a part of their force before the enemy came up. Eumenes, however, calmed their fears by promising that he would stop the progress of Antigonus, and prevent his coming to attack them until three days after they expected him. His counsels prevailed, and he at once despatched messengers to call the troops together out of their winter quarters, and collect all the available force, while he himself with the other generals rode to the front, and selecting a spot which was plainly visible to those crossing the desert, ordered fires to be lighted at intervals, as though an army were encamped along the frontier awaiting the attack of Antigonus. The latter, observing the heights covered with watch-fires, was filled with rage and mortification, imagining that the enemy must long ago have known his plans. Fearing to fight with his wearied troops against men who were fresh and had been living in comfort, he turned aside from the desert, and refreshed his army [Pg 146]among some neighbouring villages. When, however, he saw no enemy, or any signs of a hostile army being near, and learned from the natives that no troops had been seen by them, but only a large number of fires, he perceived that he had been out-manœuvred by Eumenes, and marched forward in anger, determined to settle their disputes by a pitched battle.

XVI

Meanwhile the greater part of the army of Eumenes had assembled, and, admiring his stratagem, declared that he alone was fit to be their leader. This so vexed the officers in command of the Argyraspids, Antigenes, and Teutamus, that they determined to make away with him, and they held a council with most of the satraps and officers of the army to determine how best they might rid themselves of him. They all agreed that it would be wisest to make use of his talents in the approaching battle, and immediately after the battle to assassinate him. This result of their deliberations was at once betrayed to Eumenes by Eudamus, the officer in command of the elephants, and Phædimus, not from any love they bore to him, but through fear of losing the money which they had lent him. Eumenes thanked them for their kindness, and afterwards observed to the few friends whom he could trust, that he was living amongst a herd of savage beasts. He withdrew to his tent, made his will, and destroyed all his private papers, not wishing after his death to involve any one in danger. After having made these arrangements, he thought of allowing the enemy to win the victory, or of escaping through Armenia and Media into Cappadocia. He came to no decided resolution while his friends were present, but merely discussed the various chances which presented themselves to his versatile intellect, and then proceeded to array his troops in order of battle, uttering words of encouragement to them all, whether Greek or barbarian, while he himself was received with cheerful and confident shouts by the Argyraspids, who bade him be of good cheer, as the enemy never could abide their onset. These men were the oldest of the soldiers of Philip and Alexander, and had remained unconquered in battle up to that time, although many of them were seventy and none of them were less than sixty [Pg 147]years old. They now called out, as they moved to attack the troops of Antigonus, “Ye are fighting against your fathers, ye unnatural children.” Charging with fury, they broke down all opposition, for no one could stand before them, though most of the enemy died where they stood. On this side Antigonus was utterly defeated, but his cavalry were victorious; and through the base and unsoldierly conduct of Peukestas the whole of the baggage fell into his hands, by his own great presence of mind and the nature of the ground. This was a vast plain, not dusty, and yet not hard, but like a sea-beach, composed of a light loose sand, covered with a salt crust. Upon this the trampling of so many horses and men soon raised a cloud of dust through which no object could be seen, as it whitened the whole air and dazzled the eyes. Through this Antigonus dashed unnoticed, and made himself master of the baggage, together with the wives and children of the army of Eumenes.

XVII

When the battle was over, Teutamus at once sent to offer terms for the recovery of the baggage. As Antigonus promised that he would deliver everything up to the Argyraspids, and that their wives and children should be kindly treated, if Eumenes were placed in his hands, the Macedonians were treacherous and wicked enough to resolve to deliver him alive into the hands of his enemies. With this intent they drew near to him, on various pretexts, some lamenting their loss, some encouraging him because of the victory he had won, and some preferring charges against the other generals. Suddenly they fell upon him, snatched away his sword, and bound his hands. When Nikanor was sent to conduct him to Antigonus, he asked, while he was passing through the ranks of the Macedonians, to be permitted to address them, not with any intention of begging his own life, but that he might clearly point out to them what was to their own advantage. Silence was enforced, and Eumenes, standing on a hillock, held forth his fettered hands, and spoke as follows:—“Basest of Macedonians, could Antigonus ever have erected such a monument of your disgrace as you have set up yourselves by surrendering your general to him? Is it not shameful for you, who have [Pg 148]conquered in the battle, to acknowledge yourselves defeated because of your baggage, as though victory lay more in money than in arms, so that you should ransom your baggage by delivering up your general? I indeed am now being carried off captive, an unconquered man, who has overcome his foes, but has been ruined by his friends; but I beseech you in the name of the Zeus that protects armies, and the gods who watch over the true keeping of oaths, kill me here with your own hands; for I shall be slain by you no less when I am put to death in the enemy’s camp. Antigonus cannot complain of this action of yours, for he wishes to receive Eumenes dead, and not alive. If you are chary of your own hands to do the deed, one of mine will suffice if you will loose it from its bonds. Or if you will not trust me with a sword, then cast me, bound as I am, to be trampled on by the elephants. If you will act thus I will acquit you of all blame, and will declare that you have dealt with your general as became honourable men.”

XVIII

When Eumenes had spoken thus, all the army was grieved and lamented his fate, but the Argyraspids called out that he must be carried away, and no attention paid to his talk; for, they said, it mattered little what fate befel a pestilent fellow from the Chersonese, who had involved the Macedonians in endless wars and troubles, but that it was not to be borne that the bravest of the soldiers of Philip and Alexander, after their unheard-of exploits, should in their old age be deprived of the fruits of their toils and be forced to depend upon charity, or that their wives should pass a third night in the enemy’s camp. They at once hurried him away. When he reached the enemy’s quarters, Antigonus, fearing that he would be crushed to death by the crowd (for not a man remained in the camp), sent ten of the strongest elephants, and many Medes and Parthians, armed with spears, to keep off the press from him. He himself could not bear to see Eumenes, because they had once been friends and comrades; and when he was asked by those who had charge of his person how they were to treat him, answered, “Like an elephant, or a lion!” After a while he felt compassion for his sufferings, and ordered his heavy chains to be [Pg 149]removed, appointed an attendant to anoint his person, and allowed his friends to have free access to him and supply him with provisions. A long debate took place for several days about the fate of Eumenes, in which Nearchus, a Cretan, and the young Demetrius, pleaded earnestly for him, while the other generals all opposed them and pressed for his execution. It is said that Eumenes himself inquired of his jailer, Onomarchus, what the reason was that Antigonus, having got his enemy into his power, did not put him to death quickly or else set him free honourably. When Onomarchus insultingly answered that it was not then, but in the battle-field that he ought to have shown how little he feared death, Eumenes retorted, “I proved it there also; ask those whom I encountered; but I never met a stronger man than myself.” “Since then you have now met with a stronger man than yourself,” said Onomarchus; “why cannot you patiently await his pleasure?”

XIX

When, therefore, Antigonus made up his mind to put Eumenes to death, he ordered him to be kept without food. He lingered thus for two or three days; but as the camp was suddenly broken up, men were sent to despatch him. Antigonus restored his body to his friends, and permitted them to burn it and collect the ashes in a silver urn to be carried to his wife and children. The death of Eumenes was quickly avenged by Heaven, which stirred up Antigonus to regard the Argyraspids with abhorrence, as wicked and faithless villains. He placed them under the command of Sibystius, the governor of Arachosia, and gave him orders to employ them, by small parties at a time, upon services which would ensure their destruction, so that not one of them should ever return to Macedonia, or behold the Grecian sea.

COMPARISON OF
SERTORIUS AND EUMENES.

The above are all the particulars of the lives of Eumenes and Sertorius which have come down to us, and which appear worth recording. When we come to compare them, we find that each was an exile from his native country, and commanded a numerous army of foreign troops, although Sertorius enjoyed the great advantage of an undisputed command, while Eumenes always had to contend with many competitors for the first place, which nevertheless he always obtained by his brilliant exploits. Sertorius was eagerly followed by men who were proud to obey him, but Eumenes was only obeyed out of self-interest, by men who were incompetent to lead. The Roman ruled the tribes of Lusitania and Iberia, who had been long before conquered by the Romans, while the Kardian led the Macedonians, when fresh from the conquest of the world. Yet Sertorius was always looked up to as a wise man and a consummate captain, whereas Eumenes was despised as a mere quill-driver before he fought his way to the rank of general; so that Eumenes not only started with less advantages, but met with much greater difficulties, before he attained to distinction. Moreover, Eumenes throughout his whole career was constantly opposed by open enemies, and constantly had to make head against secret plots and intrigues; whereas Sertorius was at first opposed by none of the officers under his command, and at the very last only by a few. The one had for his object merely to conquer his enemies, while the other, after winning a victory, was obliged to defend himself against the jealousy of his friends.

II

[Pg 151]Their military achievements are pretty equally balanced; although Eumenes was naturally fond of war and tumults, while Sertorius was of a quiet and peaceful disposition. Thus it happened that Eumenes, rather than dwell in comfortable and honourable retirement, passed his whole life in war, because he could not be satisfied with anything short of a throne; while Sertorius, who hated war, was forced to fight for his own safety against foes who would not allow him to live in peace. Antigonus would have made use of Eumenes as an officer with pleasure, if the latter would have laid aside his designs upon the throne of Macedonia; but Pompeius and his party would not so much as allow Sertorius to live, although his only wish was to be at rest.

From this it resulted that the one of his own free will went to war to obtain power, while the other was forced against his will to obtain power in order to repel attacks.

The one died by an unexpected stroke, while the other long looked for death, and at last even wished for it. In the first this shows a noble and generous spirit, not to distrust his friends; while the latter seems rather to argue weakness of purpose, for though Eumenes had long intended to fly, yet he did not, and was taken. The death of Sertorius did not disgrace his life, for he met at the hands of his friends with that fate which none of his enemies could inflict upon him; but Eumenes, who could not escape before he was taken prisoner, and yet was willing to live after his capture, made a discreditable end; for by his entreaties to be spared, he proved that his enemy had conquered not merely his body but also his spirit.

[Pg 152]

LIFE OF
AGESILAUS.

Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, king of Lacedæmon, after a glorious reign, left one son, Agis, by a noble lady named Lampito, and a much younger one, named Agesilaus, by Eupolia, the daughter of Melesippides. As by the Spartan law Agis was the next heir, and succeeded to the throne, Agesilaus was prepared for the life of a private man, in that severe Spartan school by which obedience is instilled into the youth of that country. For that reason it is said that the epithet of ‘man-subduing’ is applied to Sparta by the poet Simonides, because the Spartan customs render the citizens well behaved, and amenable to discipline, like horses who are broken to harness early in life. The direct heirs to the throne are not subjected to this training; but in the case of Agesilaus it happened that when he began to rule he had previously been taught to obey. This rendered him by far the most popular of the kings of Sparta, because, in addition to the haughty spirit that became a king, he had learned to sympathize with the people over whom he ruled.

II

Agesilaus was an early and intimate friend of Lysander, as they were both placed as boys in the same herd or troop for the purposes of discipline. It was then that Lysander learned to admire the moderation and self-restraint of Agesilaus, who, although he was ambitious and high-spirited, with a most vehement and passionate desire to be first in every kind of competition, was yet of a manageable and easily ruled disposition, very sensitive to reproach, and far more afraid of blame than of toils or dangers. The misfortune of his lame leg was almost unnoticed, partly from the robust vigour of his frame, and also from his own cheerful acknowledgment of this defect, being always the first to joke about it. He sought by [Pg 153]these means to remedy his lameness, while his daring spirit never allowed it to prevent his undertaking the most dangerous and laborious adventures. We have no record of his appearance, for he himself never would consent to have his portrait taken, and even when dying begged that no statue or painting of him should be taken. We are, however, told that he was of small and mean stature, but that his lively and cheerful temper, even in the most trying situations, and the absence of anything harsh and overbearing in his manners, made him more popular than many younger and handsomer men even in extreme old age. The historian Theophrastus informs us that the mother of Agesilaus was a very small woman, and that the Ephors had fined Archidamus, on that special ground, for marrying her. “She will not bring forth kings to rule us,” said they, “but kinglets.”

III

During the reign of Agis, Alkibiades arrived in Lacedæmon as an exile, having made his escape from the army in Sicily, and, after a short sojourn, was universally believed to be carrying on an intrigue with the king’s wife, Timaea, insomuch that Agis refused to recognize her child as his own, but declared that Alkibiades was its father. The historian Douris tells us that Timaea was not altogether displeased at this imputation, and that when nursing the child among her attendants she was wont to call it Alkibiades instead of Leotychides. The same authority states that Alkibiades himself declared that he seduced Timaea, not out of wantonness, but with the ambitious design of placing his own family upon the throne of Sparta. In consequence of this, Alkibiades, fearing the wrath of Agis, left Sparta, and the child was always viewed with suspicion by Agis, and never treated as his own son, until in his last illness the boy by tears and entreaties prevailed upon him to bear public witness to his legitimacy. But after the death of Agis, Lysander, the conqueror of Athens, who was the most important man in Sparta, began to urge the claims of Agesilaus to the throne, on the ground that Leotychides was a bastard, and therefore excluded from the succession. Many of the other citizens eagerly espoused the cause of Agesilaus, because they had been brought up in his company, and [Pg 154]had become his intimate friends. There was, however, one Diopeithes, a soothsayer, who was learned in prophetic lore, and enjoyed a great reputation for wisdom and sanctity. This man declared that it was wrong for a lame man to become king of Lacedæmon, and quoted the following oracle:—

“Proud Sparta, resting on two equal feet,

Beware lest lameness on thy kings alight;

Lest wars unnumbered toss thee to and fro,

And thou thyself be ruined in the fight.”

In answer to this, Lysander argued that the oracle really warned the Spartans against making Leotychides king; for the god was not likely to allude to actual lameness, which might not even be congenital, but might arise from some accidental hurt, as disqualifying any one for the office of king, but rather meant by a “lame reign,” the reign of one who was not legitimate, and not truly descended from Herakles. Agesilaus also said that Poseidon bore witness to the illegitimacy of Leotychides; for Agis was said to have been cast out of his bed-chamber by an earthquake, after which he abstained from approaching his wife, on religious grounds, for a period of more than ten months, at the end of which Leotychides was born.

IV

Having been raised to the throne on those grounds, Agesilaus at the same time acquired the large property left by the late king Agis, as Leotychides was declared illegitimate and driven into exile. As his own mother’s family were respectable, but very poor, he distributed half this property among them, thus making sure of their good will and favour, and removing any jealousy which they might feel at his elevation. Moreover, as Xenophon tells us, he gained the greatest influence by always deferring to the wishes of his country, and thus was really enabled to act exactly as he pleased. The whole power of the state was at that time vested in the Ephors and the Senate of Elders, of whom the Ephors are elected every year, while the Elders sit for life. These two bodies were intended as a check upon the power of the kings, who would otherwise have been absolute, as has been explained in the Life of Lykurgus. Between these [Pg 155]magistrates and the kings there was generally a bad understanding; but Agesilaus adopted an opposite line of conduct. He never attempted to oppose or thwart the Ephors or the Senate, and even showed a marked deference to them, referring the initiative of all state affairs to them, hurrying into their presence when summoned, and rising from his royal throne whenever they appeared, while he presented each senator, on his election, with a cloak and an ox, to congratulate him on joining the Senate. Thus he appeared to exalt the power of the Ephors and to court their favour, but he himself was by far the greatest gainer, as his own personal influence was greatly increased, and the power of the crown much strengthened by the general good will which he inspired.

V

In his dealings with his fellow-citizens he is more to be praised as an enemy than as a friend; for he would not act unjustly to injure his enemies, but he sometimes disregarded justice in the interests of his friends. He was of too generous a nature to refrain from applauding even his enemies when they deserved it, but could not bear to reproach his friends for their faults, which he delighted to share with them, and to extricate them from the consequences, for he thought nothing disgraceful if done to serve a friend.1 He was also ever ready to forgive and [Pg 156]assist those with whom he had been at variance, and thus won all hearts, and attained to a true popularity. The Ephors indeed, perceiving this, imposed a fine upon him, alleging as a reason for it that he was attaching the Spartans to his own person instead of to the State. For just as physical philosophers tell us that if the principle of strife and opposition were removed, the heavenly bodies would stand still, and all the productive power of nature would be at an end, so did the Laconian lawgiver endeavour to quicken the virtue of his citizens by constructing a constitution out of opposing elements, deeming that success is barren when there is none to resist, and that the harmonious working of a political system is valueless if purchased by the suppression of any important element. Some have thought that the germ of this idea can be traced in Homer,2 for he would not have represented Agamemnon as rejoicing when Achilles and Odysseus quarrel ‘with savage words,’ had he not thought that some great public benefit would arise from this opposition and rivalry of the bravest. But to this one cannot altogether agree; for party strife, if carried to excess, proves most dangerous and ruinous to all communities.

VI

Shortly after Agesilaus had been raised to the throne he received news from Asia that the Persian king was preparing a large army with which he intended to drive the Lacedæmonians into the sea. Upon hearing this, Lysander was very eager to be sent out again to conduct affairs in Asia, in order that he might be able to assist his own friends and partizans, whom he had appointed as governors to many of the cities in that country, but who had mostly been forcibly expelled by the citizens for their insolent and tyrannical conduct. He therefore urged Agesilaus to undertake a campaign in Asia as the champion of Greece, and advised him to land upon some distant part of the coast, so as to establish himself securely before the arrival of the Persian army. At the same time he despatched instructions to his friends in Asia, to send to Lacedæmon, and demand Agesilaus as their [Pg 157]general. In a public debate upon the subject, Agesilaus agreed to conduct the war if he were furnished with thirty Spartans to act as generals, and to form a council of war. He also demanded a force of ten thousand picked men of the Neodamodes, or enfranchised Helots, and six thousand hoplites, or heavy armed troops, from the allied cities in Greece. By the active co-operation of Lysander all this was quickly agreed upon, and Agesilaus was sent out with a council of thirty Spartans, in which Lysander at once took the lead, not merely by his own great name and influence, but by reason of his intimacy with Agesilaus, through which it was supposed that this campaign would raise him to more than kingly power. While the army was being assembled at Geræstus, Agesilaus himself proceeded to Aulis with his friends, and while sleeping there, he appeared in a dream to hear a voice saying: “O king of the Lacedæmonians, since no one has ever been commander-in-chief of all the Greeks, save you and Agamemnon alone, it is fitting that you, since you command the same troops, start from the same place, and are about to attack the same enemy, should offer sacrifice to the same goddess to whom he sacrificed here before setting out.” Upon this there, at once, occurred to the mind of Agesilaus the legend of the maiden who was put to death on that occasion by her own father, in obedience to the soothsayers; but he did not allow himself to be disturbed by this omen, but arose and told the whole dream to his friends, observing that it was his intention to pay all due honour to the goddess Artemis, but not to imitate the barbarous conduct of Agamemnon. He now proceeded to hang garlands upon a hind, and ordered his own soothsayer to offer it as a sacrifice, disregarding the claims of the local Bœotian priest to do so. The Bœotarchs, however, heard of this, and were greatly incensed at what they considered an insult. They at once despatched a body of armed men to the spot, who forbade Agesilaus to offer sacrifice there, contrary to the ancestral customs of the Bœotians, and cast off the victim from the altar where it lay. After this Agesilaus sailed away in great trouble of mind, both from the anger he felt towards the [Pg 158]Thebans, and from the evil omen which had befallen him, as he feared that it portended the failure of his Asiatic campaign.

VII

On his arrival at Ephesus, he was much offended by the great power and influence possessed by Lysander, whose ante-chamber was always crowded, and who was always surrounded by persons desirous of paying their court to him. They evidently thought that although Agesilaus might be nominally in command of the expedition, yet that all real power and direction of affairs was enjoyed by Lysander, who had made himself feared and respected throughout Asia, beyond any other Greek commander, and had been able to benefit his friends and crush his enemies more effectually than any one had previously done. As all this was still fresh in the memory of all men, and especially as they perceived the extreme simplicity and courteousness of Agesilaus’s manners and conversation, and observed, too, that Lysander was still as harsh, rude, and imperious as before, they all looked up to him alone as the virtual commander.

The other Spartan members of the council were deeply dissatisfied at finding that Lysander treated them rather as though he were king and they were merely there to ratify his decrees, than as their colleague with powers no more extensive than their own; while Agesilaus himself, who though he was above feeling any jealousy of the honours paid to Lysander, yet was ambitious and covetous of honour, began to fear that if any brilliant success should be achieved, the credit of it would be given to Lysander alone. He therefore proceeded to oppose all Lysander’s plans, and if he knew that Lysander was interested in any enterprise, he took care to put it off and neglect it, while he successively rejected the petitions of every person in whom he knew Lysander to take an interest. In judicial decisions also he invariably acquitted those whom Lysander wished to punish, and condemned to pay heavy fines those whom he endeavoured to serve. As this took place so frequently that it could not be attributed to chance, but to a systematic purpose, Lysander was forced to warn his partizans that his intervention was an injury [Pg 159]and not a benefit to them, and that they must desist from their obsequious attentions to him, and address themselves directly to the king.

VIII

As these remarks seemed intended to place the king’s policy in an invidious light, Agesilaus determined to humble him still further, and appointed him his carver. He then said aloud in the hearing of many persons, “Let them now go and pay their court to my carver.” Vexed at this insult, Lysander remonstrated with him, saying, “Truly, Agesilaus, you know how to degrade your friends.” “Ay, to be sure,” answered he, “those among them who want to appear greater than I am.”3 “Perhaps,” replied Lysander, “you have spoken the truth, and I have not acted rightly. Bestow on me, however, some post in which I may be usefully employed without wounding your feelings.”

Upon this, Lysander was despatched on a mission to the Hellespont, where he found means to gain over a Persian noble named Spithridates, who had received some offence from Pharnabazus, the satrap of that province. Lysander induced this man to join Agesilaus with all his property, and with a regiment of two hundred horse; yet he himself did not forget his quarrel, and for the rest of his life assiduously plotted to remove the succession to the throne of Sparta from the two royal families, and to throw it open to all Spartans alike. It is indeed probable that he would have raised an important commotion in Sparta, had he not been slain in an expedition in Bœotia. Thus do ambitious men do more harm than good in a state, unless they have an unusual power of self-restraint. Lysander no doubt acted very offensively, and made a very unreasonable display of his pride; yet Agesilaus might have discovered some better method of correcting the faults of so great a man. Indeed, in my opinion they were both equally blinded by the same passion for personal aggrandizement, so that the one forgot the power of his prince, and the other could not bear with the shortcomings of his friend.

IX

Tissaphernes was at first afraid of Agesilaus, and began to treat with him about setting free the Greek [Pg 160]cities on the Ionian coast from the power of the king of Persia. Afterwards, however, he imagined that the force at his disposal justified him in breaking off these negotiations, and he declared war, to the great delight of Agesilaus. Great expectations had indeed been formed in Greece of the army of Agesilaus, and it was thought a strange thing that ten thousand Greeks under Xenophon should march through Persia to the sea, and defeat the king of Persia’s troops as often as they pleased, while Agesilaus, the commander of the Lacedæmonians, the leading people in Greece, who were all-powerful both by sea and land, should accomplish nothing. He now revenged himself on the faithless Tissaphernes for his perjury by an equal piece of deceit, and gave out that he was about to march into Karia. When, however, the Persian army was assembled there, he proceeded north-wards to Phrygia, where he took many cities, and gained much plunder, pointing out to his friends that although to solemnly plight one’s word and then to break it is wrong, yet that to out-manœuvre one’s enemies is not only lawful, but profitable and glorious. Being, however, deficient in cavalry, and warned by the omen of a victim being found with an imperfect liver, he retired to Ephesus, and there collected a cavalry force, giving rich men the alternative of either serving themselves in his army, or of furnishing a horse soldier instead. Many preferred to do so, and Agesilaus soon possessed a force of warlike cavalry in the place of worthless foot soldiers; for those who did not wish to serve personally hired men who were willing to fight, and those who could not ride hired those who could. Just so did Agamemnon act very wisely in receiving a valuable mare, and thereby allowing a rich man to purchase his discharge from military service. Agesilaus now gave orders that the heralds who conducted the sale of captives by auction, should strip them of their clothes, and put them up for sale in a state of perfect nudity. Their clothes were sold separately, and the Greek soldiers laughed heartily at the white and soft skins, which never had felt the sun or wind, displayed by these Asiatics, and began to feel contempt for such effeminate adversaries. Agesilaus himself, pointing [Pg 161]first to the captives themselves, and then to their clothes and other property, observed, “These are the men with whom you have to fight, and these are the things you fight for.”

X

When the season for active operations returned he announced his intention of marching into Lydia, not meaning thereby to deceive Tissaphernes; but Tissaphernes deceived himself, for he distrusted Agesilaus on account of his former stratagem. He therefore concluded that it was Agesilaus’s real intention to invade Karia, especially as he was weak in cavalry, which could not act in that province. When, however, Agesilaus, as he had announced, marched into the level country near Sardis, Tissaphernes was obliged to hurry thither with all speed; and by means of his cavalry he cut off many stragglers from the Greek army. Agesilaus now perceived that the enemy’s infantry had not come up, while he had all his troops in hand. He at once determined to fight, and having formed his cavalry and light-armed troops into one mixed body he ordered them to advance at once and attack the enemy, while he led on the heavy infantry in person. The Persians were routed, and the Greeks, following up their victory, took the enemy’s camp with great slaughter. This victory not only enabled them to plunder the king’s territories undisturbed, but also gave them the satisfaction of hearing that Tissaphernes, a bad man, and one for whom all the Greeks felt an especial hatred, had at length met with his deserts. Immediately after the battle the king of Persia sent Tithraustes to him, who caused him to be beheaded. Tithraustes now begged Agesilaus to make peace and leave the country, and offered him money if he would do so. Agesilaus answered that he had no power to make peace or war, but that such propositions must be referred to the authorities at home; while as to money he said that he preferred enriching his soldiers to enriching himself, and that among the Greeks it was not considered honourable to receive bribes, but rather to take plunder from their enemies. Nevertheless, wishing to oblige Tithraustes, because he had avenged Greece upon that common enemy of all, Tissaphernes, he removed his army into Phrygia, [Pg 162]receiving a sum of thirty talents from Tithraustes for the maintenance of his soldiery.

During his march he received a despatch from the government of Sparta, appointing him to the command of the naval as well as of the military forces in Asia. He was now at the zenith of his fame and the greatest man of his age, as Theopompus truly observes; yet he had more reason to be proud of his virtue than of his power. He was thought, however, to have committed an error in placing Peisander in command of the fleet, disregarding the claims of older and more experienced men, and preferring the advancement of his wife’s brother to the interests of his country.

XI

Having established his army in the province ruled by Pharnabazus, he not only found abundance of provisions, but also was able to amass much booty. He marched as far as the borders of Paphlagonia, and gained the alliance of Kotys,4 the king of that country.

Spithridatos, ever since he had revolted from Pharnabazus, had constantly accompanied Agesilaus, together with his very handsome son, named Megabates, of whom Agesilaus was greatly enamoured, and a fair daughter. Agesilaus persuaded King Kotys to marry this girl, and received from him a force of one thousand horsemen, and two thousand light troops, called peltasts. With these he returned into Phrygia, and laid waste the country of Pharnabazus, who dared not meet him in the field, and feared to trust himself in any of his fortresses, but hovered about the country, taking his valuable property with him, and keeping his place of encampment as secret as he could. The watchful Spithridates, however, at last found an opportunity to attack him, and, with Herippidas the Spartan, took his camp and all his property. On this occasion Herippidas acted with great harshness in ordering all the plunder to be given up to be sold by auction, according to Greek usage. He forced the barbarian allies [Pg 163]to disgorge their booty, and searched for all that had been captured in so offensive a manner that Spithridates, in disgust at his conduct, at once went off to Sardis, taking with him the entire Paphlagonian force.

We are told that Agesilaus was terribly chagrined at this. He felt vexed at losing a good friend in Spithridates, and losing, too, a large force with him, while he was ashamed of the character for meanness and avarice which this miserable squabble would gain for Sparta, especially as he had always prided himself on showing a contempt for money both in politics and in private life.

XII

After this, Pharnabazus was desirous of conferring with him, and a meeting was arranged between them by a friend of both, Apollophanes of Kyzikus. Agesilaus arrived first, and sitting down upon some thick grass under the shade of a tree, awaited the coming of Pharnabazus. Presently Pharnabazus arrived, with soft rugs and curiously-wrought carpets, but on seeing Agesilaus simply seated on the ground, he felt ashamed to use them, and sat down on the ground beside him, although he was dressed in a magnificent robe of many colours. They now greeted one another, and Pharnabazus stated his case very fairly, pointing out that he had done much good service to the Lacedæmonians during their war with Athens, and yet that his province was now being laid waste by them. Seeing all the Spartans round him hanging down their heads with shame, and not knowing what to answer because they knew that what Pharnabazus said was true, Agesilaus said: “We Spartans, Pharnabazus, were formerly at peace with your king, and then we respected his territory as that of a friend. Now we are at war with him, and regard all his property as that of an enemy. Now as we see that you still wish to belong to the king, we very naturally endeavour by injuring you to injure him. But from the day on which you shall declare that you will be a friend and ally of the Greeks rather than a slave of the king of Persia, you may regard this fleet and army and all of us, as the guardians of your property, of your liberty, and of all that makes life honourable and enjoyable.” In answer to this, Pharnabazus said: “If the king shall send any other general, [Pg 164]and put me under him, I will join you. But if he places me in command, I will cheerfully obey him, and will fight you and do you all the mischief in my power.”

Agesilaus was struck by the high-minded tone of this reply, and at once rose and took him by the hand, saying, “Would to God, Pharnabazus, that such a man as you might become our friend rather than our enemy.”

XIII

As Pharnabazus was retiring with his friends, his son stayed behind, and running up to Agesilaus said with a smile, “Agesilaus, I make you my guest,”5 and gave him a fine javelin which he carried in his hand.

Agesilaus gladly accepted this offer, and, delighted with the engaging manners and evident friendship of the young man, looked round for some suitable present, and seeing that the horse of his secretary Idæus was adorned with fine trappings, took them off and gave them to the boy. Agesilaus never forgot the connection thus formed between them, but in after days, when the son of Pharnabazus was impoverished and driven into exile by his brother, he welcomed him to the Peloponnese, and provided him with protection and a home. He even went so far as to employ his influence in favour of an Athenian youth to whom the son of Pharnabazus was attached. This boy had outgrown the age and size of the boy-runners in the Olympic stadium, and was consequently refused leave to compete in that race. Upon this the Persian made a special application to Agesilaus on his behalf; and Agesilaus, willing to do anything to please his protégé, with great difficulty and management induced the judges to admit the boy as a competitor. This, indeed, was the character of Agesilaus, disinterested and just in all matters except in furthering the interests of his friends, in which case he seems to have hesitated at nothing. A letter of his to Idrilus, the Karian, runs as follows: “If Nikias be innocent, acquit him; if he be guilty, acquit him for my sake; but in any case acquit him.” Such was Agesilaus in most cases where his friends were concerned; although [Pg 165]in some few instances he allowed expediency to prevail over affection, and sacrificed his personal friend to the general advantage, as, for example, once, when owing to a sudden alarm the camp was being hurriedly broken up, he left a sick friend behind in spite of his passionate entreaties, observing as he did so, that it is hard to be wise and compassionate at the same time. This anecdote has been preserved by the philosopher Hieronymus.

XIV

Agesilaus was now in the second year of his command in Asia, and had become one of the foremost men of his time, being greatly admired and esteemed for his remarkable sobriety and frugality of life. When away from his headquarters he used to pitch his tent within the precincts of the most sacred temples, thus making the gods witnesses of the most private details of his life. Among thousands of soldiers, moreover, there was scarcely one that used a worse mattress than Agesilaus. With regard to extremes of heat and cold, he seemed so constituted as to be able to enjoy whatever weather the gods might send. It was a pleasant and enjoyable spectacle for the Greek inhabitants of Asia to see their former tyrants, the deputy governors of cities and generals of provinces, who used to be so offensively proud, insolent, and profusely luxurious, now trembling before a man who walked about in a plain cloak, and altering their whole conduct in obedience to his curt Laconian sayings. Many used to quote the proverb of Timotheus, that “Ares alone is king, and Hellas fears not the power of gold.”

XV

The whole of Asia Minor was now excited, and ripe for revolt. Agesilaus established order6 in the cities on the coast by mild measures, without either banishing or putting to death any of the citizens, and next determined to advance farther, and transfer the theatre of war from the Ionic coast to the interior. He hoped thus to force the Persian king to fight for his very existence, and for his pleasant palaces at Susa and Ecbatana, and at any [Pg 166]rate to keep him fully employed, so that from henceforth he might have no leisure or means to act as arbitrator between the Greek states in their disputes, and to corrupt their statesmen by bribes. At this crisis, however, there arrived the Spartan Epikydides. He announced that Sparta was involved in an important war with Thebes and other Greek states, and brought an imperative summons from the ephors to Agesilaus to return at once and assist his countrymen at home.

“O Greeks, that will upon yourselves impose

Such miserable, more than Persian woes.”

It is pitiable to think of the malevolence and ill-will which produced this war, and arrayed the states of Greece against one another, putting a stop to such a glorious career of conquest at its very outset, exchanging a foreign for a civil war, and recalling the arms which were being used against the Persians to point them at Grecian breasts. I cannot agree with the Corinthian, Demaratus, when he says that those Greeks who did not see Alexander seated upon the throne of Darius lost one of the most delightful spectacles in the world. I think they would have been more likely to weep when they reflected that this conquest was left for Alexander and the Macedonians to effect, by those Greek generals who wasted the resources of their country in the battles of Leuktra and Koronea, Corinth and Mantinea. Still, nothing is more honourable to Agesilaus than the promptitude with which he withdrew from Asia, nor can we easily find another example of straightforward obedience and self-sacrifice in a general. Hannibal was in great difficulties and straits in Italy, and yet yielded a very unwilling obedience when summoned home to protect Carthage, while Alexander merely sneered at the news of the battle between Agis and Antipater, observing, “It appears, my friends, that while we have been conquering Darius here, there has been a battle of mice in Arcadia.”

Well then does Sparta deserve to be congratulated on the love for her and the respect for her laws which Agesilaus showed on this occasion, when, as soon as the despatch reached him, he at once stopped his prosperous [Pg 167]and victorious career, gave up his soaring hopes of conquest, and marched home, leaving his work unfinished, regretted greatly by all his allies, and having signally confuted the saying of Phæax the son of Erasistratus, that the Lacedæmonians act best as a state, and the Athenians as individuals. He proved himself indeed to be a good king and a good general, but those who know him most intimately prized him more as a friend and companion than as either a king or a soldier.

The Persian gold coins bore the device of an archer: and Agesilaus as he broke up his camp observed that he was being driven out of Asia by ten thousand archers, meaning that so many of these coins had been distributed among the statesmen of Athens and Thebes, to bribe them into forcing those countries to go to war with Sparta.

XVI

He now crossed the Hellespont and proceeded through Thrace. Here he did not ask leave of any of the barbarian tribes to traverse their country, but merely inquired whether they would prefer him to treat them as friends or as enemies during his passage. All the tribes received him in a friendly manner and escorted him through their land, except the Trallians,7 to whom it is said that Xerxes himself gave presents, who demanded from Agesilaus a hundred talents of silver and a hundred female slaves for his passage. He answered, “Why did they not come at once and take them;” and immediately marched into their country, where he found them strongly posted, and routed them with great slaughter.

He made the same enquiry, about peace or war, of the King of Macedonia, and on receiving the answer that he would consider the question, “Let him consider,” said he, “but let us march in the meanwhile.” Struck with admiration and fear at his daring, the king bade him pass through as a friend. On reaching the country of Thessaly, he found the Thessalians in alliance with the [Pg 168]enemies of Sparta, and laid waste their lands. He sent however Xenokles and Skythes to Larissa, the chief town in Thessaly, to arrange terms of peace. These men were seized upon by the Thessalians and cast into prison, at which the army was greatly excited, thinking that Agesilaus could do no less than besiege and take Larissa. He, on the other hand, said that he valued the lives of either of these two men more than all Thessaly, and obtained their release by negotiation. This ought not to surprise us in Agesilaus, for when he heard of the great battle at Corinth where so many distinguished men fell, and where though many of the enemy perished the Spartan loss was very small, he showed no signs of exultation, but sighed heavily, and said, “Alas for Greece, that she should by her own fault have lost so many men, who if they were alive could conquer all the barbarians in the world.”

The Thessalian tribe of the Pharsalians8 now attacked his army, upon which he charged them with five hundred horse, and having routed them erected a trophy near Mount Narthakius. Agesilaus took great pride in this victory, because in it he had defeated the Thessalian horsemen, supposed to be the best in Greece, with cavalry disciplined by himself in Asia.

XVII

He was here met by Diphridas the Ephor, who brought him orders to invade Bœotia immediately. Although he had intended to make more extensive preparations, he thought it right at once to obey, and informed his friends that the day for which they had marched all the way from Asia would soon be at hand. He also sent for a reinforcement of two moras9 from the army at Corinth. The Lacedæmonium government at home, also, wishing to do him honour, made proclamation that whosoever would might enrol himself to serve the King. All eagerly gave in their names, and from them the ephors selected fifty of the strongest, whom they sent to Agesilaus as a body-guard. He now marched through [Pg 169]Thermopylæ, crossed the friendly country of Phokis, and entered Bœotia near Chæronea. While encamped there, he observed that the sun was eclipsed and became crescent-shaped, and at the same time came the news of the defeat and death of Peisander in a great sea-fight off Knidus, against Pharnabazus and Konon the Athenian. Agesilaus was naturally grieved both at his brother-in-law’s death and at the disaster which had befallen Sparta, but as he feared to damp the courage of his soldiers on the eve of battle, he ordered the messengers to spread the contrary intelligence, that the Spartans had been victorious in the sea-fight, and he himself appeared with a garland on his head, offered sacrifice as though he had heard good news, and distributed portions of the meat to his friends, as presents of congratulation.

XVIII

Proceeding on his march through Bœotia he reached Koroneia, where he came into the presence of the enemy, and arrayed his forces for battle, placing the men of Orchomenos10 on the left wing, while he led the right in person. In the army of the allies the Thebans formed the right, and the Argives the left wing. Xenophon informs us that this battle was the most furiously contested one that ever was known. He himself was an eye-witness of it, as he had served with Agesilaus during his Asiatic campaign, and had accompanied him on his return to Europe. The first shock was not very severe, as the Thebans easily overthrew the Orchomenians, while Agesilaus with equal ease routed the Argives. When, however, each of these victorious bodies heard that their left was hard pressed and retiring, they at once ceased from following up their success and halted where they stood. Agesilaus might now easily have won a partial victory, by allowing the Thebans to pass back again through his own lines and attacking them as they did so. Instead of this, his fierce spirit led him to form his troops in close order and attack them front to front. The Thebans fought with no less courage, and a terrible battle raged all along the line, but most fiercely at the point where the chosen body-guard of fifty men fought [Pg 170]round the Spartan king. The courage of these men saved the life of Agesilaus, for they recklessly exposed themselves in his defence, and by their exertions, although they could not prevent his being severely wounded, yet by receiving on their bodies through their shields and armour many blows which were intended for him, they succeeded in dragging him from where he had fallen among the enemy, and formed a bulwark around him, slaying many of the enemy, but with great loss to themselves.

The Lacedæmonians, unable to force back the Thebans, were at length compelled to open their ranks, and let them pass through, which at first they had scorned to do. They then assailed them on the flanks and rear as they passed. Yet they could not boast of having conquered the Thebans, who drew off and rejoined their comrades on Mount Helikon, with the proud conviction that in the battle they at any rate had not been defeated.

XIX

Agesilaus, although suffering from many wounds, refused to go to his tent before he had been carried on men’s shoulders round the army, and had seen all the dead brought off the field of battle. He gave orders that some Thebans who had taken refuge in a neighbouring temple should be dismissed unharmed. This was the temple of Athena Itonia, and before it stands a trophy, erected by the Bœotians under Sparton, many years before, in memory of a victory which they had won over the Athenians under Tolmides, who fell in that battle.

Next morning Agesilaus, wishing to discover whether the Thebans would renew the contest, ordered his soldiers to crown themselves with garlands, and the flute-players to play martial music while a trophy was erected in honour of the victory. When the enemy sent to ask for a truce for the burial of their dead, he granted it, and having thus confirmed his victory, caused himself to be carried to Delphi. Here the Pythian games were being celebrated, and Agesilaus not only took part in the procession in honour of the god, but also dedicated to him the tithe of the spoils of his Asiatic campaign, which amounted to one hundred talents.

On his return home, he was loved and admired by all his fellow-countrymen for his simple habits of life; for he did [Pg 171]not, like so many generals, return quite a different man, corrupted by foreign manners, and dissatisfied with those of his own country, but, just like those who had never crossed the Eurotas, he loved and respected the old Spartan fashions, and would not alter his dining at the public table, his bath, his domestic life with his wife, his care of his arms, or the furniture of his house, the doors of which we are told by Xenophon, were so old that it was thought that they must be the original ones put up by Aristodemus. Xenophon also tells us that the kanathrum of his daughter was not at all finer than that of other children.

A kanathrum is a fantastic wooden car, shaped like a griffin or an antelope, in which children are carried in sacred processions. Xenophon does not mention the name of Agesilaus’s daughter, and Dikæarchus is much grieved at this, observing that we do not know the name either of the daughter of Agesilaus or of the mother of Epameinondas; I, however, have discovered, by consulting Lacedæmonium records, that the wife of Agesilaus was named Kleora, and that she had two daughters, named Eupolia and Prolyta. His spear also may be seen at the present day in Sparta, and differs in no respect from that of any other Lacedæmonium.

XX

Perceiving that many of his countrymen bred horses, and gave themselves great airs in consequence, he induced his sister Kyniske to enter a four-horse chariot for the race at Olympia, to prove to them that the winning of this prize depends not upon a man’s courage, but upon his wealth, and the amount of money which he spends upon it. As Xenophon the philosopher was still with him, he advised him to send for his sons and educate them in Lacedæmon, that they might learn the most important of all lessons, to command and to obey.

Lysander was now dead, but Agesilaus found still existing an important conspiracy against himself, which Lysander had set on foot when he returned from Asia. Agesilaus now eagerly undertook to prove what Lysander’s true character had been; and having read amongst the papers of the deceased that speech which Kleon of Halikarnassus wrote for him, treating of reforms [Pg 172]and alterations of the constitution, which Lysander meant some day to address to the people of Sparta, he wished to make it public. However, one of the senators, after reading the speech, was alarmed at the plausible nature of the argument which it contained, and advised Agesilaus not to dig Lysander out of his grave, but rather to bury the speech with him. This advice caused Agesilaus to desist from his project. He never openly attacked his political enemies, but contrived to get them appointed generals and governors of cities. When they displayed their bad qualities in these posts and were recalled to take their trial he used to come forward as their friend and by his exertions on their behalf make them his active partisans instead of his enemies, so that before long he succeeded in breaking up the party which was opposed to him, and reigned alone without any rival; for the other king, Agesipolis, whose father had been an exile, and who was himself very young, and of a mild and unassuming temper, counted for nothing in the state. Agesilaus won over this man also, and made a friend of him; for the two kings dine at the same phiditium, or public table, when they are at Sparta. Knowing Agesipolis, like himself, to be prone to form attachments to young men, he always led the conversation to this subject, and encouraged the young king in doing so; for these love affairs among Lacedæmonians have in them nothing disgraceful, but produce much modest emulation and desire for glory, as has been explained in the Life of Lykurgus.

XXI

Being now the most powerful man in Sparta, Agesilaus obtained the appointment of admiral of the fleet for Teleutias, his half-brother; and thereupon making an expedition against Corinth, he made himself master of the long walls by land, through the assistance of his brother at sea. Coming thus upon the Argives, who then held Corinth, in the midst of their Isthmian festival, he made them fly just as they had finished the customary sacrifice, and leave all their festive provision behind them. Upon this the Corinthian exiles11 who were with [Pg 173]him begged him to preside over the games, but this he refused to do, ordering them to celebrate the festival, while he took care that they did so without interruption. After he was gone the Argives returned, and celebrated the Isthmian games over again. Some of the winners on the former occasion now won the prize again, while others were defeated. Agesilaus observed that the Argives by this act confessed themselves to be cowards, if they set so high a value on presiding at the games, and yet did not dare to fight for it. With regard to such matters he used to think that a middle course was best, and he always was present at the choruses and games at Sparta, taking great interest in their management, and not even neglecting the races for boys and for girls; but of some other matters in which most men were interested he seemed to be entirely ignorant. For instance Kallipides, who was esteemed the finest tragic actor in Greece, once met him and spoke to him, after which he swaggered along amongst his train, but finding that no notice was taken of him, he at length asked, “Do you not know me, O king?” Agesilaus at this looked carefully at him, and enquired, “Are you not Kallipides the player?” for so the Lacedæmonians name actors. Again, when he was invited to hear some one imitate the nightingale he answered, “I have heard the original.”

Menekrates the physician, after having succeeded in curing some cases of sickness which were thought to be desperate, was given the title of Zeus, and used to use this appellation on all occasions in a foolish manner. He even went so far as to write to Agesilaus in the following terms, “Menekrates Zeus wishes King Agesilaus health.” To this he answered, “King Agesilaus wishes Menekrates more sense.”

XXII

While he was encamped in the temple of Hera, near Corinth, watching the soldiers disposing of the captives which they had taken, ambassadors came from Thebes to treat for peace with him. He always had borne a grudge against that city, and thinking that this would be a good opportunity to indulge his hatred, he pretended neither to see nor to hear them [Pg 174]when they addressed him. But he soon paid the penalty of his insolence; for before the Thebans left him news was brought that an entire mora had been cut to pieces by Iphikrates. This was the greatest disaster which had befallen the Spartans for many years; for they lost a large number of brave and well-equipped citizens, all heavy-armed hoplites, and that too at the hands of mere mercenary light troops and peltasts. On hearing this Agesilaus at first leaped up to go to their assistance; but when he heard that they were completely destroyed, he returned to the temple of Hera, and recalling the Bœotian ambassadors, bade them deliver their message. But they now in their turn assumed a haughty demeanour, and made no mention of peace, but merely demanded leave to proceed to Corinth. At this, Agesilaus in a rage answered, “If you wish to go there to see your friends rejoicing over their success, you will be able to do so in safety to-morrow.” On the next day he took the ambassadors with him, and marched, laying waste the country as he went, up to the gates of Corinth, where, having thus proved that the Corinthians dared not come out and resent his conduct, he sent the ambassadors into the city. As for himself, he collected the survivors of the mora, and marched back to Lacedæmon, always starting before daybreak, and encamping after sunset, that he might not be insulted by the Arcadians, who bitterly hated the Lacedæmonians and enjoyed their discomfiture. After this at the instance of the Achæans he crossed over into Akarnania with them, where he obtained much plunder, and defeated the Akarnanians in battle. The Achæans now begged him to remain, and so prevent the enemy from sowing their fields in the winter; but he answered that he should do exactly the reverse, because, if the enemy next year had a good prospect of a harvest, they would be much more inclined to keep the peace than if their fields lay fallow. And this opinion of his was justified by the result; for as soon as the Akarnanians heard that another campaign was threatened, they made peace with the Achæans.

XXIII

Konon and Pharnabazus, after their victory in the sea-fight at Knidus, had obtained command of the [Pg 175]seas and began to plunder the coast of Laconia, while the Athenian walls likewise were restored, with money supplied by Pharnabazus for that purpose.

These circumstances disposed the Lacedæmonians to make peace with the king of Persia. They consequently sent Antalkidas to Tiribazus to arrange terms, and most basely and wickedly gave up to the king those Greek cities in Asia on behalf of which Agesilaus had fought. Antalkidas, indeed, was his enemy, and his great reason for concluding a peace on any terms was, that war was certain to increase the reputation and glory of Agesilaus. Yet when some one reproached Agesilaus, saying that the Lacedæmonians were Medising,12 he answered, “Nay, say, rather, the Medes (Persians) are Laconising.”

By threats of war he compelled those Greek states who were unwilling to do so to accept the terms of the peace, especially the Thebans; for one of the articles of the peace was, that the Thebans should leave the rest of Bœotia independent, by which of course they were greatly weakened. This was proved by subsequent events. When Phœbidas, in defiance of law and decency, seized the Kadmeia, or citadel of Thebes, in time of peace, all Greeks cried shame on him, and the Spartans felt especial annoyance at it. The enemies of Agesilaus now angrily enquired of Phœbidas who ordered him to do so, and as his answers hinted at Agesilaus as having suggested the deed, Agesilaus openly declared himself to be on Phœbidas’s side, and said that the only thing to be considered was, whether it was advantageous to Sparta or not; for it was always lawful to render good service to the state, even impromptu and without previous orders. Yet in his talk Agesilaus always set a high value upon justice, calling it the first of all virtues; for he argued that courage would be useless without justice; while if all men were just, there would be no need of courage. When he was informed, “The pleasure of the [Pg 176]great king is so-and-so,” he was wont to answer, “How can he be greater than I, unless he be juster?”—thus truly pointing out that justice is the real measure of the greatness of kings. When the king of Persia sent him a letter during the peace, offering to become his guest13 and friend, he refused to open it, saying that he was satisfied with the friendship existing between the two states, and that while that lasted he required no private bond of union with the king of Persia. However, in his actions he was far from carrying out these professions, but was frequently led into unjust acts by his ambition. In this instance he not only shielded Phœbidas from punishment for what he had done at Thebes, but persuaded Sparta to adopt his crime as its own, and continue to hold the Kadmeia, appointing as the chiefs of the garrison Archias and Leontidas,14 by whose means Phœbidas made his way into the citadel.

XXIV

This at once gave rise to a suspicion that Phœbidas was merely an agent, and that the whole plot originated with Agesilaus himself, and subsequent events confirmed this view; for as soon as the Thebans drove out the garrison and set free their city, Agesilaus made war upon them to avenge the murder of Archias and Leontidas, who had been nominally polemarchs, but in reality despots of Thebes. At this period Agesipolis was dead, and his successor Kleombrotus was despatched into Bœotia with an army; for Agesilaus excused himself from serving in that campaign on the ground of age, as it was forty years since he had first borne arms, and he was consequently exempt by law. The real reason was that he was ashamed, having so lately been engaged in a war to restore the exiled popular party at Phlius, to be seen now attacking the Thebans in the cause of despotism.

There was a Lacedæmonium named Sphodrias, one of the faction opposed to Agesilaus, who was established as Spartan governor of the town of Thespiæ, a daring and ambitious man, but hot-headed, and prone to act without due calculation. This man, who longed to achieve distinction, and who perceived that Phœbidas had made a [Pg 177]name throughout Greece by his exploit at Thebes, persuaded himself that it would be a much more glorious deed if he were to make himself master of the Peiræus, and so by a sudden attack cut off the Athenians from the sea. It is said that this attempt originated with the Bœotarchs, Pelopidas and Mellon, who sent emissaries to Sphodrias to praise and flatter him, and point out that he alone was capable of conducting so bold an adventure. By this language, and an affectation of sympathy with Lacedæmon, these men at length prevailed on him to attempt a most unrighteous deed, and one which required considerable boldness and good fortune to ensure its success. Daylight, however, overtook Sphodrias before he had crossed the Thriasian plain, near Eleusis. All hope of surprising Peiræus by a night attack was now gone, and it is said, also, that the soldiers were alarmed and terror-stricken by certain lights which gleamed from the temples at Eleusis. Sphodrias himself, now that his enterprise had so manifestly failed, lost heart, and after hurriedly seizing some unimportant plunder, led his men back to Thespiæ. Upon this an embassy was sent from Athens to Sparta to complain of the acts of Sphodrias; but on the arrival of the ambassadors at Sparta they found that the government there were in no need of encouragement from without to proceed against Sphodrias, for they had already summoned him home to be tried for his life. Sphodrias durst not venture to return to Sparta, for he saw that his fellow-countrymen were angry with him and ashamed of his conduct towards the Athenians, and that they wished rather to be thought fellow-sufferers by his crime than accomplices in it.

XXV

Sphodrias had a son, named Kleonymus, who was still quite a youth, and who was beloved by Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus. He now assisted this youth, who was pleading his father’s cause as best he might, but he could not do so openly, because Sphodrias belonged to the party which was opposed to Agesilaus. When, however, Kleonymus came to him, and besought him with tears and piteous entreaties to appease Agesilaus, because the party of Sphodrias dreaded him more than any one else, the young man, after two or three days’ hesitation, [Pg 178]at length, as the day fixed for the trial approached, mustered up courage to speak to his father on the subject, telling him that Kleonymus had begged him to intercede for his father.

Agesilaus was well aware of his son’s intimacy with Kleonymus, which he had never discouraged; for Kleonymus promised to become as distinguished a man as any in Sparta. He did not on this occasion, however, hold out to his son any hopes of a satisfactory termination of the affair, but said that he would consider what would be the most fitting and honourable course to pursue. After this reply, Archidamus had not the heart to meet Kleonymus, although he had before been accustomed to see him several times daily. This conduct of his plunged the friends of Sphodrias into yet deeper despair of his cause, until Etymokles, one of the friends of Agesilaus, in a conference with them, explained that what Agesilaus really thought about the matter was, that the action itself deserved the greatest censure; but yet that Sphodrias was a brave energetic man, whom Sparta could not afford to lose.

Agesilaus used this language out of a desire to gratify his son, and from it Kleonymus soon perceived that Archidamus had been true to him in using his interest with his father; while the friends of Sphodrias became much more forward in his defence. Indeed Agesilaus was remarkably fond of children, and an anecdote is related of him, that when his children were very little he was fond of playing with them, and would bestride a reed as if it were a horse for their amusement. When one of his friends found him at this sport, he bade him mention it to no one before he himself became the father of a family.

XXVI

Sphodrias was acquitted by the court; and the Athenians, as soon as they learned this, prepared for war. Agesilaus was now greatly blamed, and was charged with having obstructed the course of justice, and having made Sparta responsible for an outrage upon a friendly Greek state, merely in order to gratify the childish caprice of his son. As he perceived that Kleombrotus was unwilling to attack the Thebans, he himself invaded Bœotia, disregarding the law under which on a former occasion he had pleaded exemption from military service on account of his [Pg 179]age. Here he fought the Thebans with varying success; for once, when he was being borne out of action wounded, Antalkidas observed to him, “A fine return you are getting from the Thebans for having taught them how to fight against their will.” Indeed, the military power of the Thebans at that time was at its height, having as it were been exercised and practised by the many campaigns undertaken against them by the Lacedæmonians. This was why Lykurgus of old, in his three celebrated rhetras, forbade the Lacedæmonians to fight often with the same people, lest by constant practice they should teach them how to fight. Agesilaus was also disliked by the allies of the Lacedæmonians, because of his hatred of Thebes and his desire to destroy that state, not on any public grounds, but merely on account of his own bitter personal dislike to the Thebans. The allies complained grievously that they, who composed the greater part of the Lacedæmonium force, should every year be led hither and thither, and exposed to great risks and dangers, merely to satisfy one man’s personal pique. Hereupon we are told that Agesilaus, desiring to prove that this argument about their composing so large a part of the army was not founded on fact, made use of the following device:—He ordered all the allies to sit down in one body, and made the Lacedæmonians sit down separately. Next he gave orders, first that all the potters should stand up; and when they had risen, he ordered the smiths, carpenters, masons, and all the other tradesmen successively to do so. When then nearly all the allies had risen to their feet, the Spartans all remained seated, for they were forbidden to learn or to practise any mechanical art. At this Agesilaus smiled, and said, “You see, my men, how many more soldiers we send out than you do.”

XXVII

On his return from his campaign against the Thebans, Agesilaus, while passing through Megara, was seized with violent pain in his sound leg, just as he was entering the town-hall in the Acropolis of that city. After this it became greatly swelled and full of blood, and seemed to be dangerously inflamed. A Syracusan physician opened a vein near the ankle, which relieved the pain, but the flow of blood was excessive, and could [Pg 180]not be checked, so that he fainted away from weakness, and was in a very dangerous condition. At length the bleeding stopped, and he was conveyed home to Lacedæmon, but he remained ill, and unable to serve in the wars for a long time.

During his illness many disasters befel the Spartans both by land and by sea. Of these, the most important was the defeat at Tegyra, where for the first time they wore beaten in a fair fight by the Thebans. The Lacedæmonians were now eager to make peace with all the Greek cities, and ambassadors from all parts of Greece met at Sparta to arrange terms. Among them was Epameinondas, a man who was renowned for his culture and learning, but who had not hitherto given any proof of his great military genius. This man, perceiving that all the other ambassadors were sedulously paying their court to Agesilaus, assumed an independent attitude, and in a speech delivered before the congress declared that nothing kept the war alive except the unjust pretensions of Sparta, who gained strength from the sufferings of the other states, and that no peace could be durable unless such pretensions were laid aside, and Sparta reduced to the equality with the rest of the cities of Greece.

XXVIII

Agesilaus, observing that all the representatives of the Greek states were filled with admiration at this language, and manifested strong sympathy with the speaker, enquired whether he thought it right and just that the cities of Bœotia15 should be left independent.

[Pg 181]Epameinondas quickly and boldly enquired in answer, whether he thought it right to leave each of the towns in Laconia independent. At this Agesilaus leaped to his feet in a rage, and asked him to state clearly whether he meant to leave Bœotia independent. As Epameinondas in reply merely repeated his question, as to whether Agesilaus meant to leave Laconia independent, Agesilaus became furious, eagerly seized the opportunity to strike the name of Thebes out of the roll of cities with whom peace was being made, and declared war against it. He ratified a treaty of peace with the other Greek cities, and bade their representatives begone, with the remark, that such of their disputes as admitted of settlement must be arranged by peaceful negotiation, and such as could not must be decided by war; but that it was too much trouble for him to act as arbitrator between them in their manifold quarrels and disagreements.

Kleombrotus, the other Spartan king, was at this time in the Phokian territory at the head of an army. The Ephors now at once sent orders to him to cross the Theban frontier, while they assembled a force from all the allied cities, who were most reluctant to serve, and objected strongly to the war, yet dared not express their discontent or disobey the Lacedæmonians. Many sinister omens were observed, which we have spoken of in the life of Epameinondas, and Prothous the Laconian openly opposed the whole campaign; yet Agesilaus would not desist, but urged on the war against Thebes, imagining that now, when all the other states were standing aloof, and Thebes was entirely isolated, he had a more favourable [Pg 182]opportunity than might ever occur again for destroying that city. The dates of this war seem to prove that it was begun more out of ill-temper than as a consequent of any definite plan; for the peace was ratified in Lacedæmon with the other cities on the fourteenth of the month Skirophorion; and on the fifth of the next month, Hekatombæon, only twenty days afterwards, the Spartans were defeated at Leuktra. A thousand Lacedæmonians perished, among them Kleombrotus the king, and with him the flower of the best families in Sparta. There fell also the handsome son of Sphodrias, Kleonymus, who fought before the king, and was thrice struck to the ground and rose again before he was slain by the Thebans.

XXIX

In spite of the unparalleled disaster which had befallen the Lacedæmonians, for the Theban victory was the most complete ever won by one Greek state over another, the courage of the vanquished is nevertheless as much to be admired as that of the victors. Xenophon remarks that the conversation of good and brave men, even when jesting or sitting at table, is always worth remembering, and it is much more valuable to observe how nobly all really brave and worthy men bear themselves when in sorrow and misfortune. When the news of the defeat at Leuktra arrived at Sparta, the city was celebrating the festival of the Gymnopædia, and the chorus of grown men was going through its usual solemnity in the theatre. The Ephors, although the news clearly proved that all was lost and the state utterly ruined, yet would not permit the chorus to abridge its performance, and forbade the city to throw off its festal appearance. They privately communicated the names of the slain to their relatives, but they themselves calmly continued to preside over the contest of the choruses in the theatre, and brought the festival to a close as though nothing unusual had occurred. Next morning, when all men knew who had fallen and who had survived, one might see those whose relations had been slain, walking about in public with bright and cheerful countenances: but of those whose relatives survived, scarce one showed himself in public, but they sat at home with the women, as if mourning for the dead; or if any [Pg 183]one of them was forced to come forth, he looked mournful and humbled, and walked with cast-down eyes. Yet more admirable was the conduct of the women, for one might see mothers receiving their sons who had survived the battle with silence and sorrow, while those whose children had fallen proceeded to the temples to return thanks to the gods, and walked about the city with a proud and cheerful demeanour.

XXX

Yet, when their allies deserted them, and when the victorious Epameinondas, excited by his success, was expected to invade Peloponnesus, many Spartans remembered the oracle about the lameness of Agesilaus, and were greatly disheartened and cast down, fearing that they had incurred the anger of Heaven, and that the misfortunes of the city were due to their own conduct in having excluded the sound man from the throne, and chosen the lame one; the very thing which the oracle had bidden them beware of doing. Nevertheless, Agesilaus was so powerful in the state, and so renowned for wisdom and courage, that they gladly made use of him as their leader in the war, and also employed him to settle a certain constitutional difficulty which arose about the political rights of the survivors of the battle. They were unwilling to disfranchise all these men, who were so numerous and powerful, because they feared that if so they would raise a revolution in the city. For the usual rule at Sparta about those who survive a defeat is, that they are incapable of holding any office in the state; nor will any one give them his daughter in marriage; but all who meet them strike them, and treat them with contempt. They hang about the city in a squalid and degraded condition, wearing a cloak patched with pieces of a different colour, and they shave one half of their beards, and let the other half grow. Now, at the present crisis it was thought that to reduce so many citizens to this condition, especially when the state sorely required soldiers, would be an absurd proceeding; and consequently, Agesilaus was appointed lawgiver, to decide upon what was to be done. He neither altered the laws, nor proposed any new ones, but laid down his office of lawgiver at once, with the remark, that the laws must be allowed to sleep for that [Pg 184]one day, and afterwards resume their force. By this means he both preserved the laws, retained the services of the citizens for the state, and saved them from infamy. With the intention of cheering up the young men, and enabling them to shake off their excessive despondency, he led an army into Arcadia. He was careful to avoid a battle, but captured a small fort belonging to the people of Mantinea, and overran their territory; thus greatly raising the spirits of the Spartans, who began to pluck up courage, and regard their city as not altogether ruined.

XXXI

After this, Epameinondas invaded Laconia with the army of the Thebans and their allies, amounting in all to no less than forty thousand heavy-armed soldiers. Many light troops and marauders accompanied this body, so that the whole force which entered Laconia amounted in all to seventy thousand men. This took place not less than six hundred years after the Dorians had settled in Lacedæmon; and through all that time these were the first enemies which the country had seen; for no one before this had dared to invade it. Now, however, the Thebans ravaged the whole district with fire and sword, and no one came out to resist them, for Agesilaus would not allow the Lacedæmonians to fight against what Theopompus calls ‘such a heady torrent of war,’ but contented himself with guarding the most important parts of the city itself, disregarding the boastful threats of the Thebans, who called upon him by name to come out and fight for his country, since he was the cause of all its misfortunes, because he had begun the war.

Agesilaus was also distracted by the disorderly and excited state of the city itself, for the old men were in an agony of grief, resentment, and wounded honour, while the women could not be kept quiet, but were wrought to frenzy, by hearing the cries of the enemy, and seeing the fires which they lighted. He also suffered much at the thought of his own dishonour; for when he had ascended the throne, Sparta was the greatest and most powerful city in Greece, and now he beheld her shorn of all her glories, and his favourite boast, that no Laconian woman had ever seen the smoke of an enemy’s fire [Pg 185]rendered signally untrue. We are told that when some Athenian was disputing with Antalkidas about the bravery of their respective nations, and saying, “We have often chased you away from the Kephissus,” Antalkidas answered, “Yes, but we have never had to chase you away from the Eurotas.” This is like the answer made by some Spartan of less distinction to an Argive, who said, “Many of you Spartans lie buried in Argive soil,” to which he replied, “But none of you are buried in Laconia.”

XXXII

We are told at this time Antalkidas was one of the Ephors, and became so much alarmed that he sent his family away to the island of Kythera. Agesilaus, when the enemy attempted to cross the river and force their way into the city, abandoned most part of it, and drew up his forces on the high hills in the centre. At that time the river Eurotas was in high flood, as much snow had fallen, and the excessive cold of the water, as well as the strength of the stream, rendered it hard for the Thebans to cross. Epameinondas marched first, in the front rank of the phalanx; and some of those who were present pointed him out to Agesilaus, who is said to have gazed long at him, saying merely, “O thou man of great deeds.”

Epameinondas was eager to assault the city itself, and to place a trophy of victory in its streets; but as he could not draw Agesilaus into a battle, he drew off his forces, and again laid waste the country. Meanwhile, in Lacedæmon itself, a body of two hundred men, of doubtful fidelity, seized the Issorium, where the temple of Artemis stands, which is a strong and easily defensible post. The Lacedæmonians at once wished to attack them, but Agesilaus, fearing that some deep-laid conspiracy might break out, ordered them to remain quiet. He himself, dressed simply in his cloak, unarmed, and attended only by one slave, went up to the two hundred, and, in a loud voice, told them that they had mistaken their orders; that they had not been ordered to go thither, nor yet to go all together in a body, but that some were to be posted there, pointing to some other place, and the rest elsewhere in the city. They, hearing his commands, were delighted, [Pg 186]imagining that their treason was undiscovered, and immediately marched to the places which he indicated. Agesilaus at once occupied the Issorium with troops which he could trust, and in the ensuing night seized and put to death fifteen of the leaders of the two hundred. Another more important conspiracy was betrayed to him, whose members, full Spartan citizens, were met together in one house to arrange revolutionary schemes. At such a crisis it was equally impossible to bring these men to a regular trial, and to allow them to carry on their intrigues. Agesilaus therefore, after taking the Ephors into his confidence, put them all to death untried, though before that time no Spartan had ever been executed without a trial.

As many of the Periœki and helots who had been entrusted with arms escaped out of the city and deserted to the enemy, which greatly disheartened the Spartans, he ordered his servants to visit the quarters of these soldiers at daybreak every morning, and wherever any one was gone, to hide his arms, so that the number of deserters might not be known.

We are told by some historians that the Thebans left Laconia because the weather became stormy, and their Arcadian allies began to melt away from them. Others say that they spent three entire months in the country, and laid nearly all of it waste. Theopompus relates that when the Bœotarchs had decided to leave the country, Phrixus, a Spartan, came from Agesilaus and offered them ten talents to be gone, thus paying them for doing what they had long before determined to do of their own accord.

XXXIII

I cannot tell, however, how it was that Theopompus discovered this fact, and that no other historian mentions it. All writers agree, nevertheless, in declaring that at this crisis Sparta was saved by Agesilaus, who proved himself superior to party-spirit and desire of personal distinction, and steadily refused to risk an engagement. Yet he never was able to restore the city to the glorious and powerful condition which it had previously held, for Sparta, like an athlete who has been carefully trained throughout his life, suddenly broke down, and [Pg 187]never recovered her former strength and prosperity. It is very natural that this should have happened, for the Spartan constitution was an excellent one for promoting courage, good order, and peace within the city itself; but when Sparta became the head of a great empire to be maintained by the sword, which Lykurgus would have thought a totally useless appendage to a well-governed and prosperous city, it utterly failed.

Agesilaus was now too old for active service in the field, but his son, Archidamus, with some Sicilian mercenary troops which had been sent to the aid of the Spartans by the despot Dionysius, defeated the Arcadians in what was known as the ‘Tearless Battle,’ where he did not lose one of his own men, but slew many of the enemy. This battle strikingly proved the weakness of the city, for in former times the Spartans used to regard it as such a natural and commonplace event for them to conquer their enemies, that they only sacrificed a cock to the gods, while those who had won a victory never boasted of it, and those who heard of it expressed no extravagant delight at the news. When the Ephors heard of the battle at Mantinea, which is mentioned by Thucydides in his history, they gave the messenger who brought the tidings a piece of meat from the public dining-table, as a present for his good news, and nothing more. But now, when the news of this battle reached Sparta, and Archidamus marched triumphantly into the town, all their accustomed reserve broke down. His father was the first to meet him, weeping for joy. After him came the senate, and the elders and women flocked down to the river side, holding up their hands to heaven and giving thanks to the gods for having put away the undeserved reproach of Sparta, and having once more allowed her to raise her head. It is said, indeed, that the Spartans before this battle were so much ashamed of themselves, that they dared not even look their wives in the face.

XXXIV

The independence of Messenia had been restored by Epameinondas, and its former citizens collected together from all quarters of Greece. The Lacedæmonians dared not openly attack these men, but they felt angry with Agesilaus, because during his reign they [Pg 188]had lost so fine a country, as large as Laconia itself, and as fertile as any part of Greece, after having enjoyed the possession of it for so many years. For this reason Agesilaus refused to accept the terms of peace offered by the Thebans. He was so unwilling to give up his nominal claim to Messenia, although he had practically lost that country, that instead of recovering it he very nearly lost Sparta as well, as he was out-manœuvred by Epameinondas. This happened in the following manner. The people of Mantinea revolted from the Thebans, and solicited aid from the Lacedæmonians. When Epameinondas heard that Agesilaus was marching thither at the head of an army, he eluded the Mantineans by a night march from Tegea, invaded the Lacedæmonium territory, and very nearly succeeded in avoiding the army of Agesilaus and catching Sparta defenceless. However, Euthynus of Thespiæ, according to Kallisthenes, or, according to Xenophon, a certain Cretan warned Agesilaus of his danger, upon which he at once sent a mounted messenger to the city with the news, and shortly afterwards marched thither himself. Soon the Thebans appeared, crossed the Eurotas, and assaulted the city with great fury, while Agesilaus, old as he was, defended it with all the spirit and energy of youth. He did not, as on the former occasion, consider that caution would be of any service, but perceived that reckless daring alone could save Sparta. And by incredible daring he did then snatch the city from the grasp of Epameinondas, and set up a trophy of victory, having afforded to the women and children the glorious spectacle of the men of Lacedæmon doing their duty on behalf of the country which reared them. There, too, might Archidamus be seen in the thick of the fight, displaying the courage of a man, and the swiftness of a youth, as he ran to each point where the Spartans seemed likely to give way, and everywhere with a few followers resisted a multitude of the enemy. I think, however, that Isidas, the son of Phœbidas, must have been most admired both by his own countrymen and even by the enemy. He was remarkably tall and handsome, and was just of the age when boyhood merges into manhood. Naked, without either clothes or armour, [Pg 189]having just been anointing himself at home, he rushed out of his house, with a sword in one hand and a spear in the other, ran through the front ranks, and plunged among the enemy, striking down all who opposed him. He received not a single wound, either because the gods admired his bravery and protected him, or else because he appeared to his foes to be something more than man. After this exploit we are told that the Ephors crowned him for his bravery, and fined him a thousand drachmas for having fought without his shield.

XXXV

A few days afterwards was fought the battle of Mantinea, where, just as Epameinondas was carrying all before him and urging his troops to pursue, Antikrates the Lacedæmonium met him and wounded him, according to Dioskorides with a spear, while the Lacedæmonians to this day call the descendants of Antikrates Machairones, that is, children of the sword, as though he struck him with a sword. Indeed, they regarded Antikrates with such a love and admiration, because of the terror which Epameinondas had struck into their hearts while he was alive, that they decreed especial honours and presents to be bestowed upon him, and granted to his descendants an immunity from taxes and public burdens which is enjoyed at the present day by Kallikrates, one of the descendants of Antikrates.

After this battle and the death of Epameinondas the Greek states made peace between one another. When, however, all the other states were swearing to observe the peace, Agesilaus objected to the Messenians, men, he said, without a city, swearing any such oath. The rest, however, raised no objections to the oath of the Messenians, and the Lacedæmonians upon this refused to take any part in the proceedings, so that they alone remained at war, because they hoped to recover the territory of Messenia. Agesilaus was thought an obstinate and headlong man, and insatiable of war, because he took such pains to undermine the general peace, and to keep Sparta at war at a time when he was in such distress for money to carry it on, that he was obliged to borrow from his personal friends and to get up subscriptions among the citizens, and when he had much better have allowed the state some [Pg 190]repose and watched for a suitable opportunity to regain the country; instead of which, although he had lost so great an empire by sea and land, he yet insisted on continuing his frantic and fruitless efforts to reconquer the paltry territory of Messenia.

XXXVI

He still further tarnished his glory by taking service under the Egyptian Tachos. It was thought unworthy of a man who had proved himself the bravest and best soldier in Greece, and who had filled all the inhabited world with his fame, to hire himself out to a barbarian rebel, and make a profit of his great name and military reputation, just like any vulgar captain of mercenaries. If, when more than eighty years old, and almost crippled by honourable wounds, he had again placed himself at the head of a glorious crusade against the Persian on behalf of the liberties of Greece, all men would have admired his spirit, but even then would not entirely have approved of the undertaking; for to make an action noble, time and place must be fitting, since it is this alone that decides whether an action be good or bad. Agesilaus, however, cared nothing for his reputation, and considered that no service undertaken for the good of his country would be dishonourable or unworthy of him, but thought it much more unworthy and dishonourable to sit uselessly waiting for death at home. He raised a body of mercenary troops with the money furnished by Tachos, and set sail, accompanied, as in his former expedition, by thirty Spartan counsellors.

When he landed in Egypt, the chief generals and ministers of King Tachos at once came to pay their court to him. The other Egyptians also eagerly crowded to see Agesilaus, of whom they had heard so much. When, however, they saw only a little deformed old man, in mean attire, sitting on the grass, they began to ridicule him, and contemptuously to allude to the proverb of the mountain in labour, which brought forth a mouse. They were even more astonished when, of the presents offered to him, he accepted flour, calves, and geese, but refused to receive dried fruits, pastry, and perfumes. When greatly pressed to accept of these things, he ordered them to be given to the helots. Yet we are told [Pg 191]by Theophrastes that he was much pleased with the flowering papyrus, of which garlands are made, because of its neat and clean appearance, and he begged for and received some of this plant from the king when he left Egypt.

XXXVII

When he joined Tachos, who was engaged in preparing his forces for a campaign, he was disappointed in not receiving the chief command, but being merely appointed to lead the mercenary troops, while Chabrias the Athenian was in command of the fleet, Tachos himself acting as commander-in-chief. This was the first vexatious circumstance which occurred to Agesilaus; and soon he began to feel great annoyance at the vainglorious swaggering tone of the Egyptian king, which nevertheless he was obliged to endure throughout the whole of a naval expedition which they undertook against the Phœnicians, during which he suppressed his feelings of disgust as well as he could until at last he had an opportunity of showing them. Nektanebis, the cousin of Tachos, and the commander of a large portion of his force, revolted, and caused himself to be proclaimed King of Egypt. He at once sent to Agesilaus begging for his assistance, and he also made the same proposals to Chabrias, offering them great rewards if they would join him.

Tachos, hearing of this, also began to supplicate them to stand by him, and Chabrias besought Agesilaus to remain in the service of Tachos, and to act as his friend. To this, however, Agesilaus answered, “You, Chabrias, have come here on your own responsibility, and are able to act as you please. I was given by Sparta to the Egyptians as their general. It would not become me, therefore, to make war against those whom I was sent to aid, unless my country orders me to do so.” After expressing himself thus, he sent messengers to Sparta, with instructions to depreciate Tachos, and to praise Nektanebis. Both these princes also sent embassies to the Lacedæmonians, the one begging for aid as their old friend and ally, the other making large promises of future good-will towards them. After hearing both sides, the Spartans publicly answered the Egyptians, that Agesilaus would [Pg 192]decide between them, and they sent him a private despatch, bidding him to do what was best for Sparta. Hereupon Agesilaus and the mercenaries left Tachos, and joined Nektanebis, making the interests of his country the pretext for his extraordinary conduct, which we can hardly call anything better than treachery. However, the Lacedæmonians regard that course as the most honourable which is the most advantageous to their country, and know nothing of right or wrong, but only how to make Sparta great.

XXXVIII

Tachos, deserted by the mercenaries, now fled for his life; but another claimant of the throne arose in the district of Mendes, and made war against Nektanebis with an army of one hundred thousand men. Nektanebis, in his talk with Agesilaus, spoke very confidently about this force, saying that they were indeed very numerous, but a mere mixed multitude of rustic recruits, whom he could afford to despise. To these remarks Agesilaus answered, “It is not their numbers, but their ignorance which I fear, lest we should be unable to deceive them. Stratagems in war consist in unexpectedly falling upon men who are expecting an attack from some other quarter, but a man who expects nothing gives his enemy no opportunity to take him unawares, just as in wrestling one cannot throw one’s adversary if he stands still.”

The Mendesian soon began to intrigue with Agesilaus, and Nektanebis feared much that he might succeed in detaching him from himself. Consequently, when Agesilaus advised him to fight as soon as possible, and not prolong the war against men who were indeed inexperienced in battle, but who were able, from their enormous numbers, to raise vast entrenchments and surround him on every side, he took the exactly opposite course, and retired to a strongly fortified city, of great extent, viewing Agesilaus with suspicion and fear. Agesilaus was grieved at this, but, feeling ashamed to change sides a second time and so completely fail in his mission, he followed Nektanebis into his fortress.

XXXIX

When the enemy advanced and began to build a wall round the city, Nektanebis, fearing the consequences of a siege, was eager to fight, as were also the Greeks, for [Pg 193]they were very short of provisions. Agesilaus, however, opposed this design, for which he was heartily abused by the Egyptians, who called him a traitor and the betrayer of their king. He paid but little attention to their slanders, but watched for an opportunity to effect the project which he had conceived. This was as follows:—The enemy were digging a trench round the city, with the intention of completely isolating the garrison and starving it out. When then the two ends of this trench, which was to surround the city, had nearly met, Agesilaus towards evening ordered the Greeks to get under arms, and, proceeding to Nektanebis, said, “Young man, this is our opportunity. I would not say anything about it before, lest the secret should be divulged. But now the enemy themselves have secured our position by digging this enormous trench; for the part of it which is completed will keep off their superior numbers from us, while upon the ground which still remains unbroken we can fight them on equal terms. Come now, prove yourself a man of courage, charge bravely with us, and save both yourself and your army. Those of the enemy whom we first attack will not be able to resist our onset, and the rest will not be able to reach us because of the trench.”

Nektanebis was surprised at the ingenuity of Agesilaus, placed himself in the midst of the Greeks, and charging with them gained an easy victory. Having once established an ascendancy over the mind of Nektanebis, Agesilaus now proceeded to use the same trick again with the enemy. By alternately retreating and advancing he led them on until he had enticed them into a place between two deep canals. Here he at once formed his troops on a front equal to the space between the canals, and charged the enemy, who were unable to use their numbers to outflank and surround him. After a short resistance they fled. Many were slain, and the rest completely dispersed.

XL

This victory secured the throne of Egypt for Nektanebis. He now showed great esteem for Agesilaus, and begged him to remain in Egypt during the winter. Agesilaus, however, was anxious to return home and assist in the war which was going on there, as he knew that Sparta was in great want of money, and was paying a force of [Pg 194]mercenary troops. Nektanebis escorted him out of the country with great honour, giving him many presents, and the sum of two hundred and thirty talents of silver to be used in meeting the expenses of the war. As it was winter, and stormy weather, Agesilaus did not venture to cross the open sea, but coasted along the shores of Libya, as far as a desert spot known as the Harbour of Menelaus, where he died, in the eighty-fourth year of his age, and having been king of Sparta for forty-one years, during thirty of which he was the greatest and most powerful man in Greece, having been looked upon as all but the king of the whole country, up to the time of the battle of Leuktra.

It was the Spartan custom, in the case of citizens who died in foreign countries, to pay them the last rites wherever they might be, but to take home the remains of their kings. Consequently the Spartan counsellors enveloped the body in melted wax, as they could not obtain honey, and took it home to Lacedæmon.

Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, succeeded him on the throne, and his posterity continued to reign until Agis, the fifth in descent from Agesilaus, was murdered by Leonidas, because he endeavoured to restore the ancient discipline of Sparta.

LIFE OF
POMPEIUS.

I

Towards Pompeius the Roman people seem to have been disposed from the very first, just as the Prometheus of Aeschylus1 was towards his deliverer Hercules, when he says:—

“Though hateful is the sire, most dear to me the son.”

For neither did the Romans ever display hatred so violent and savage towards any commander as towards Strabo2 the father of Pompeius, whom they dreaded, when he was alive, for his military talent, for he was a man most expert in arms; and when he was killed by lightning and his body was carried out to interment they pulled it from the bier on which it was lying and treated it with indignity: nor, on the other hand, did any other Roman besides Pompeius ever receive from the people tokens of affection so strong, or so early, or which grew so rapidly with his good fortune, or abided with him so firmly in his [Pg 196]reverses. The cause of their hatred to the father was his insatiable avarice: the causes of their affection to the son were many; his temperate life, his practice in arms, the persuasiveness of his speech, the integrity of his character, and his affability to every man who came in his way, so that there was no man from whom another could ask a favour with so little pain, and no man whose requests another would more willingly labour to satisfy. For in addition to his other endearing qualities, Pompeius could give without seeming to confer a favour, and he could receive with dignity.

II

At the beginning also his countenance contributed in no small degree to win the good-will of the people and to secure a favourable reception before he opened his mouth. For the sweetness of his expression was mingled with dignity and kindness, and while he was yet in the very bloom of youth his noble and kingly nature clearly showed itself. There was also a slight falling back of the hair and softness in the expression of his eyes, which produced a resemblance to the likenesses of Alexander, though indeed the resemblance was more talked of than real. Accordingly many at first gave him the name, which Pompeius did not object to, whence some in derision called him Alexander. It was in allusion to this that Lucius Philippus,3 a consular man, when he was speaking in favour of Pompeius, said it was nothing strange if he who was Philippus loved Alexander. They used to report that Flora the courtesan, when she was now advanced in years, always spoke with pleasure of her intimacy with Pompeius, and said that she could never leave the embrace of Pompeius without bearing marks4 of the ardour of his passion. Besides this, Flora used to tell that Geminius, one of the [Pg 197]companions of Pompeius, conceived a passion for her, and plagued her much with his solicitations, and when she said that for the sake of Pompeius she could not consent, Geminius applied to Pompeius. Now Pompeius, as she told the story, gave Geminius permission, but he never after touched Flora or had a meeting with her, though it was believed that he was attached to her; and Flora did not take this as most courtesans do, but was ill for a long time through grief and regret for the loss of her lover. And indeed it is said that Flora enjoyed such reputation and was so much talked of, that Cæcilius Metellus, when he was ornamenting the temple of the Dioscuri with statues and paintings, had the portrait of Flora painted and placed in the temple on account of her beauty. The wife of his freedman Demetrius also, who had the greatest influence with Pompeius and left a property of four thousand talents, contrary to his habit he did not treat kindly nor in a manner befitting her free condition: but it was through fear of her beauty, which was irresistible and much talked about, and that he might not appear to be captivated by her. Though he was so exceedingly cautious in such matters and so much on his guard, yet he did not escape the imputations of his enemies on the ground of amours, but he was slanderously accused of commerce with married women and of betraying many of the public interests to gratify them. Of his temperance and simplicity in his way of living the following anecdote is told. On one occasion when he was ill and indisposed to his ordinary food, the physician prescribed a thrush for him. After search had been made and none found, for the season was past, some one observed that one might be found at the house of Lucullus, for he kept them all the year round: “Well then,” said Pompeius, “I suppose if Lucullus were not luxurious, Pompeius could not live;” and without regarding the physician’s advice he took something that was ready at hand. This, however, belongs to a later period.

III

When he was still quite a youth and was serving under his father, who was opposed to Cinna, he had one Lucius Terentius5 for his companion and tent-mate. This [Pg 198]Lucius being bribed by Cinna, designed to kill Pompeius, and others were to fire the general’s tent. Information of this came to Pompeius while he was at supper, at which, nothing disturbed, he went on drinking more gaily, and showing great signs of affection towards Terentius; but when they were turning in to rest he slipped unobserved from under the tent, and after placing a guard about his father, kept quiet. When Terentius thought the time was come, drawing his sword he got up, and approaching the bed of Pompeius, he struck many blows upon the bed-covering, supposing that Pompeius was lying there. Upon this there was a great commotion owing to the soldiers’ hatred of their general, and there was a movement made towards mutiny by the men beginning to pull down the tents and take their arms. The general, fearing the tumult, did not come near; but Pompeius, going about in the midst of the soldiers, implored them with tears in his eyes, and finally throwing himself on his face before the gate of the camp right in their way, he lay there weeping, and told those who were going out to trample on him, so that every man drew back for very shame, and thus the whole army, with the exception of eight hundred men, changed their design and were reconciled to their commander.

IV

Upon the death of Strabo, Pompeius had to defend a prosecution in respect of a charge of peculation against his father. He detected one of his freedmen in having appropriated most of the property, and proved it to the magistrates; but he was himself accused of having in his possession hunting nets and books which were taken among the plunder at Asculum.6 He received these things from his father when he took Asculum, but he lost them after [Pg 199]his return to Rome, when the guards of Cinna broke into his house and plundered it. He had many preliminary contests with the accuser before the trial commenced, in which, by showing himself to possess an acuteness and firmness above his years, he got great reputation and popularity, so that Antistius,7 who was prætor and presided at that trial, conceived a great affection for Pompeius, and offered him his daughter to wife, and spoke about it to his friends. Pompeius accepted the proposal, and an agreement was secretly made between them; but yet the matter did not fail to be generally known by reason of the partizanship of Antistius. When at last Antistius declared the votes of the judices to be for his acquittal, the people, as if a signal had been concerted, called out the name Talasius,8 which, pursuant to an old custom, they are used to utter on the occasion of a marriage. This ancient custom, they say, had the following origin: When the daughters of the Sabines had come to Rome to see the games, and the noblest among the Romans were carrying them off to be their wives, some goatherds and herdsmen of mean condition took upon their shoulders a tall handsome maid and were carrying her off. In order, however, that none of the better sort who might fall in with them should attempt to take the maid from them, they called out as they ran along that she was for Talasius (now Talasius was a man of rank and much beloved), so that those who heard the cry clapped their hands and shouted as being pleased at what the men were doing and commending them for it. From this time forth, as the story goes, inasmuch as the marriage of Talasius turned out to be a happy one, it is usual to utter the same expression by way of merriment at the occasion of a marriage. This is the most probable story among those which are told about the name Talasius. However, a few days after the trial Pompeius married Antistia.

V

Having gone to Cinna9 to the camp, Pompeius be[Pg 200]came alarmed in consequence of some charge and false accusation, and he quickly stole out of the way. On his disappearing, a rumour went through the camp and a report that Cinna had murdered the young man, whereupon the soldiers, who had long been weary of him and hated their general, made an assault upon him. Cinna attempted to escape, but he was overtaken by a centurion, who pursued him with his naked sword. Cinna fell down at the knees of the centurion, and offered him his seal ring, which was of great price; but the centurion with great contempt replied: “I am not going to seal a contract, but to punish an abominable and unjust tyrant,” and so killed him. Cinna thus perished, but he was succeeded in the direction of affairs by Carbo, a still more furious tyrant than himself, who kept the power in his hands till Sulla advanced against him, to the great joy of the most part, who in their present sufferings thought even a change of masters no small profit. To such a condition had calamities brought the state, that men despairing of freedom sought a more moderate slavery.

VI

Now about this time Pompeius was tarrying in Picenum in Italy, for he had estates10 there, but mainly because he liked the cities, which were well disposed and friendly towards him by reason of their ancient connection with his father. Seeing that the most distinguished and chief of the citizens were leaving their property and flocking from all sides to Sulla’s camp as to a harbour of refuge, Pompeius did not think it becoming in him to steal away to Sulla like a fugitive, nor without bringing some contribution, nor yet as if he wanted help, but he thought that he should begin by doing Sulla some service and so approach with credit and a force. Accordingly he attempted to rouse the people of Picenum, who readily listened to his proposals, and paid no attention to those who came from Carbo. A certain Vindius having remarked that Pompeius had just quitted school to start up among them as a popular leader, the people were so infu[Pg 201]riated that they forthwith fell on Vindius and killed him. Upon this Pompeius, who was now three and twenty years of age, without being appointed general by any one, but himself assuming the command in Auximum,11 a large city, placing a tribunal in the forum and by edict ordering two brothers Ventidii who were among the chief persons in the place and were opposing him on behalf of Carbo, to quit the city, began to enlist soldiers, and to appoint centurions and officers over them, and he went to all the surrounding cities and did the same. All who were of Carbo’s party got up and quitted the cities, but the rest gladly put themselves in the hands of Pompeius, who thus in a short time raised three complete legions, and having supplied himself with provisions and beasts of burden and waggons and everything else that an army requires, advanced towards Sulla, neither hurrying nor yet content with passing along unobserved, but lingering by the way to harass the enemy, and endeavouring to detach from Carbo every part of Italy that he visited.

VII

Now there rose up against him three hostile generals at once, Carinna,12 and Clœlius and Brutus, not all in front, nor yet all from the same quarter, but they surrounded him with three armies, with the view of completely destroying him. Pompeius was not alarmed, but getting all his force together he attacked one of the armies, that of Brutus, placing in the front his cavalry, among whom he himself was. From the side of the enemy the Celtæ rode out to meet him, when Pompeius with spear in hand struck the first and strongest of them and brought him down; on which the rest fled and put the infantry also into confusion, so that there was a general rout. Hereupon the generals quarrelled among themselves and retired, as each best could, and the cities took the part of Pompeius, seeing that the enemy had dispersed in alarm. Next came Scipio13 the consul against him, but before the [Pg 202]lines had come close enough to discharge their javelins, the soldiers of Scipio saluted those of Pompeius and changed sides, and Scipio made his escape. Finally, near the river Arsis,14 Carbo himself attacked Pompeius with several troops of horse, but Pompeius bravely stood the attack, and putting them to flight pursued and drove all of them upon difficult ground where no cavalry could act; and the men, seeing that there was no hope of saving themselves, surrendered with their arms and horses.

VIII

Sulla had not yet received intelligence of these events, but upon the first news and reports about Pompeius, being alarmed at his being among so many hostile generals of such reputation, he made haste to relieve him. Pompeius being informed that Sulla was near, ordered his officers to arm the forces and to display them in such manner that they might make the most gallant and splendid appearance to the Imperator, for he expected to receive great honours from him; and he got more than he expected. For when Sulla saw him approaching and his army standing by, admirable for the brave appearance of the men and elated and rejoicing in their success, he leapt down from his horse, and being addressed, according to custom, by the title of Imperator, he addressed Pompeius in return by the title of Imperator, though nobody would have expected that Sulla would give to a young man who was not yet a member of the Senate, the title for which he was fighting against the Scipios and the Marii. And indeed everything else was in accordance with the first greeting, for Sulla used to rise from his seat as Pompeius approached and take his vest from his head, which he was not observed to do generally to any other person, though there were many distinguished men about him. Pompeius, however, was not made vain by these marks of distinction, but on being immediately sent into Gaul by Sulla, where [Pg 203]Metellus15 commanded and appeared to be doing nothing correspondent to his means, Pompeius said it was not right to take the command from a man who was his senior and superior in reputation; however he said he was ready to carry on the war in conjunction with Metellus, if he had no objection, in obedience to his orders and to give him his assistance. Metellus accepted the proposal and wrote to him to come, on which Pompeius entering Gaul, performed noble exploits, and he also fanned into a flame again and warmed the warlike and courageous temper of Metellus, which was now near becoming extinct through old age, as the liquid, heated stream of copper by flowing about the hard, cold metal is said to soften and to liquefy it into its own mass better than the fire. But as in the case of an athlete16 who has obtained the first place among men and has gloriously vanquished in every contest, his boyish victories are made of no account and are not registered; so the deeds which Pompeius then accomplished, though of themselves extraordinary, yet as they were buried under the number and magnitude of his subsequent struggles and wars, I have been afraid to disturb them, lest if we should dwell too long on his first exploits, we should miss the acts and events which are the most important and best show the character of the man.

IX

17 Now when Sulla was master of Italy and was proclaimed Dictator, he rewarded the other officers and generals by making them rich and promoting them to magistracies and by granting them without stint and with readiness what they asked for. But as he admired [Pg 204]Pompeius for his superior merit and thought that he would be a great support to his own interests, he was anxious in some way to attach him by family relations. Metella, the wife of Sulla, had also the same wish, and they persuaded Pompeius to put away Antistia and to take to wife Aemilia, the step-daughter of Sulla, the child of Metella by Scaurus, who was then living with her husband and was pregnant. This matter of the marriage was of a tyrannical character, and more suited to the interests of Sulla than conformable to the character of Pompeius, for Aemilia, who was pregnant, was taken from another to be married to him, and Antistia was put away with dishonour and under lamentable circumstances, inasmuch as she had just lost her father also, and that, too, on her husband’s account; for Antistius was murdered in the Senate-house because he was considered to be an adherent of Sulla for the sake of Pompeius; and the mother of Antistia having witnessed all this put an end to her life, so that this misfortune was added to the tragedy of the marriage; and in sooth another besides, for Aemilia herself died immediately afterwards in child-birth in the house of Pompeius.

X

After this, news arrived that Perpenna18 was securing Sicily for himself, and that the island was supplying to those who remained of the opposite faction a point for concentrating their forces; for Carbo19 was afloat in those parts with a navy, and Domitius had fallen upon Libya, and many other fugitives of note were crowding there, who had escaped from the proscriptions. Against these Pompeius was sent with a large force: and Perpenna immediately evacuated Sicily upon his arrival. Pompeius relieved the cities which had been harshly treated, and behaved kindly to them all except to the Mamertini in Messene. For when the Mamertini protested against the tribunal and the Roman administration of justice, on the ground that there was an old Roman enactment which forbade their introduction, “[Pg 205]Won’t you stop,” said he, “citing laws to us who have our swords by our sides?” It was considered also that Pompeius triumphed over the misfortunes of Carbo in an inhuman manner. For if it was necessary to put Carbo to death, as perhaps it was, he ought to have been put to death as soon as he was taken, and then the act might have been imputed to him who gave the order. But Pompeius produced in chains a Roman who had three times been Consul, and making him stand in front of the tribunal while he was sitting, sat in judgment on him, to the annoyance and vexation of those who were present; after which he ordered him to be removed and put to death. They say that when Carbo had been dragged off, seeing the sword already bared, he begged them to allow him to retire for a short time as his bowels were disordered. Caius Oppius,20 the friend of Cæsar, says that Pompeius behaved inhumanly to Quintus Valerius also; for Pompeius, who knew that Valerius was a learned man and a particular lover of learning, embraced him, and after walking about with him and questioning him about what he wanted to know, and getting his answer, he ordered his attendants to take Valerius away and immediately put him to death. But when Oppius is speaking of the enemies or friends of Cæsar, it is necessary to be very cautious in believing what he says. Now as to those enemies of Sulla who were of the greatest note and were openly taken, Pompeius of necessity punished them; but as to the rest he allowed as many as he could to escape detection, and he even aided some in getting away. Pompeius had determined to punish the inhabitants of Himera which had sided with the enemy; but Sthenis the popular leader having asked for a conference with him, told Pompeius that he would not do right, if he [Pg 206]let the guilty escape and punished the innocent. On Pompeius asking who the guilty man was, Sthenis replied, it was himself, for he had persuaded those citizens who were his friends, and forced those who were his enemies. Pompeius admiring the bold speech and spirit of the man pardoned him first and then all the rest. Hearing that his soldiers were committing excesses on the march, he put a seal on their swords, and he who broke the seal was punished.

XI

While he was thus engaged in Sicily and settling the civil administration, he received a decree of the Senate and letters from Sulla which contained an order for him to sail to Libya and vigorously oppose Domitius,21 who had got together a power much larger than that with which Marius no long time back had passed over from Libya to Italy and put all affairs at Rome in confusion by making himself a tyrant after having been a fugitive. Accordingly making his preparations with all haste Pompeius left in command in Sicily Memmius,22 his sister’s husband, and himself set sail with a hundred and twenty large ships, and eight hundred transports which conveyed corn, missiles, money, and engines. On his landing with part of his vessels at Utica and the rest at Carthage, seven thousand men deserted from the enemy and came over to him; he had himself six complete legions. It is said that a ludicrous thing occurred here. Some soldiers having fallen in with a treasure, as it seems, got a large sum of money. The matter becoming known, all the rest of the soldiers got a notion that the place was full of money, which they supposed to have been hid during the misfortunes of the Carthaginians. The consequence was that Pompeius could do nothing with the soldiers for many days while they were busy with looking after treasure, but he went about laughing and looking on so many thousands all at one time digging and turning up the ground, till at last the men were tired and told their commander [Pg 207]to lead them were he pleased, as they had been punished enough for their folly.

XII

Domitius had posted himself to oppose Pompeius, with a ravine in his front which was difficult to pass and rough; but a violent rain accompanied with wind commenced in the morning and continued, so that Domitius giving up his intention of fighting on that day ordered a retreat. Pompeius taking advantage of this opportunity advanced rapidly and began to cross the ravine. But the soldiers of Domitius were in disorder and confusion, and what resistance they offered was neither made by the whole body nor yet in any regular manner: the wind also veered round and blew the storm right in their faces. However the storm confused the Romans also, for they did not see one another clearly, and Pompeius himself had a narrow escape with his life, not being recognised by a soldier to whom he was somewhat slow in giving the word on being asked for it. Having repulsed the enemy with great slaughter (for it is said that out of twenty thousand only three thousand escaped) they saluted Pompeius with the title of Imperator. But Pompeius said that he would not accept the honour, so long as the enemy’s encampment was standing, and if they thought him worthy of this title they must first destroy the camp, upon which they forthwith rushed against the rampart, and Pompeius fought without a helmet for fear of what just had happened. The camp was taken and Domitius fell. Some of the cities immediately submitted, and others were taken by storm. Pompeius also made a prisoner of Iarbas,23 one of the kings, who had sided with Domitius, and he gave his kingdom to Hiempsal. Availing himself of his success and the strength of his army he invaded Numidia. After advancing many days’ march and subduing all whom he met with, and firmly establishing the dread [Pg 208]of the Romans among the barbarians which had now somewhat subsided, he said that he ought not to leave even the wild beasts of Libya, without letting them have some experience of the strength and courage of the Romans. Accordingly he spent a few days in hunting lions and elephants;24 and in forty days in all, as it is said, he defeated his enemies, subdued Libya, and settled all the affairs of the kings, being then in his four and twentieth year.

XIII

On his return to Utica he received letters from Sulla, with orders to disband the rest of the army, and to wait there with one legion for his successor in the command. Pompeius was annoyed at this and took it ill, though he did not show it; but the army openly expressed their dissatisfaction, and when Pompeius requested them to advance, they abused Sulla, and they said they would not let Pompeius be exposed to danger without them, and they advised him not to trust the tyrant. At first Pompeius endeavoured to mollify and quiet them, but finding that he could not prevail, he descended from the tribunal and went to his tent weeping. But the soldiers laid hold of him and again placed him on the tribunal, and a great part of the day was spent in the soldiers urging him to stay and be their leader, and in Pompeius entreating the soldiers to be obedient and not to mutiny, till at last, as they still urged him and drowned his voice with their cries, he swore he would kill himself, if they forced him; and so at last with great difficulty they were induced to stop. Sulla at first received intelligence that Pompeius had revolted, on which he said to his friends, it was his fate now that he was old to fight with boys, alluding to [Pg 209]the fact that Marius, who was very young, gave him most trouble, and brought him into the extremest danger; but on hearing the true state of affairs, and perceiving that everybody with right good will was eager to receive Pompeius and to escort him, he made haste to outdo them. Accordingly he advanced and met Pompeius, and receiving him with all possible expressions of good-will, he saluted him with a loud voice by the name of Magnus,25 and he bade those who were present to address him in the same way. The word Magnus means Great. Others say that it was in Libya first that the whole army with acclamation pronounced the name, and that it obtained strength and currency by being confirmed by Sulla. But Pompeius himself, after everybody else, and some time later when he was sent into Iberia as proconsul against Sertorius, began to call himself in his letters and edicts Magnus Pompeius; for the name was no longer invidious when people had been made familiar with it. And here one may justly admire and respect the old Romans, who requited with such appellations and titles not success in war and battles only, but honoured therewith political services and merits also. Two men accordingly the people proclaimed Maximi, which means the Greatest; Valerius,26 because he reconciled the senate to the people when there was a misunderstanding between them; and Fabius Rullus,27 because he ejected from the senate certain rich persons the children of freedmen who had been enrolled in the list of senators.

XIV

After this Pompeius asked for a triumph, but [Pg 210]Sulla opposed his claim: for the law gives a triumph to a consul or to a prætor28 only, but to no one else. And this is the reason why the first Scipio, after defeating the Carthaginians in greater and more important contests in Iberia, did not ask for a triumph, for he was not consul, nor yet prætor. Sulla considered that if Pompeius, who was not yet well bearded, should enter the city in triumph, he who, by reason of his age, was not yet a member of the senate, both his own office and the honour given to Pompeius would be exposed to much obloquy. Sulla made these remarks to Pompeius, to show that he did not intend to let him have a triumph, but would resist him and check his ambition, if he would not listen to reason. Pompeius, however, was not cowed, but he told Sulla to reflect, that more men worship the rising than the setting sun, intending him to understand that his own power was on the increase, but that the power of Sulla was diminishing and fading away. Sulla did not distinctly hear these words, but observing that those who did hear them, by looks and gestures expressed their astonishment, he asked what it was that Pompeius had said. When he heard what it was, he was confounded at the boldness of Pompeius, and called out twice, “Let him triumph!” Now many persons were annoyed, and expressed their dissatisfaction at the triumph, on which Pompeius, wishing to annoy them still more, it is said, made preparation for entering the city in a car drawn by four elephants,29 for he brought from Libya many of the king’s elephants that he had taken; but as the gate was too narrow, he gave up his project and contented himself with horses. The soldiers, who had not [Pg 211]obtained as much as they expected, were ready to make a disturbance and impede the triumph, but Pompeius said that he cared not for it, and would rather give up the triumph than humour them; whereupon Servilius,30 a man of distinction, who had made most opposition to the triumph of Pompeius, said, Now he perceived that Pompeius was really Great and was worthy of the triumph. It is also certain that he might then have been easily admitted into the senate, if he had chosen; but he showed no eagerness for it, seeking, as they say, reputation from what was unusual. For it was nothing surprising if Pompeius were a senator before the age, but it was a most distinguished honour for him to triumph before he was a senator. Another thing also gained him the good-will of the many in no small degree, for the people were delighted at his being reviewed among the Equites after the triumph.

XV

Sulla31 was annoyed to see to what a height of reputation and power Pompeius was advancing, but as he was ashamed to attempt to check his career he kept quiet. However, when Pompeius had brought about the election of Lepidus as consul in spite of Sulla and against his wish, by canvassing for Lepidus, and by employing the affection of the people towards himself to induce them to favour Lepidus, Sulla seeing Pompeius retiring with the crowd through the Forum, said, “I see, young man, that you are pleased with your victory: and indeed how can it be otherwise than generous and noble, for Lepidus, the vilest of men, to be declared consul before Catulus the best, through your management of the people? However, it is time for you not to slumber, but to attend to affairs, for you have strengthened your rival against yourself.” Sulla showed mainly by his testament that he was not well disposed to Pompeius, for he left legacies to his other friends, and made them his son’s guardians, but he passed [Pg 212]over Pompeius altogether. But Pompeius took this very quietly, and behaved on the occasion as a citizen should do; and accordingly, when Lepidus and some others were putting impediments in the way of the body being interred in the Field of Mars, and were not for allowing the funeral to be public, Pompeius brought his aid, and gave to the interment both splendour and security.

XVI

As soon as Sulla’s death made his prophetic warnings manifest, and Lepidus was attempting to put himself in Sulla’s place, not by any circuitous movement or contrivance, but by taking up arms forthwith, and again stirring up and gathering round him the remnants of the factions which had long been enfeebled and had escaped from Sulla; and his colleague Catulus, to whom the most honest and soundest part of the Senate and the people attached themselves, was the first of the Romans of the day for reputation of temperance and integrity, but was considered to be better adapted for the conduct of civil than of military affairs, and circumstances themselves were calling for Pompeius, he did not hesitate what course to take, but attaching himself to the optimates,32 he was appointed commander of a force to oppose Lepidus, who had already stirred up a large part of Italy and held with an army under the command of Brutus, Gaul within the Alps. Now Pompeius easily defeated the rest whom he attacked, but at Mutina33 in Gaul he sat down for some time opposite to Brutus, while Lepidus having hurried on to Rome and posted himself before the walls was demanding a second consulship and terrifying the citizens with a numerous army. But the alarm was ended by a letter from Pompeius, who had brought the war to a fortunate issue without a battle. For Brutus, whether it was that he gave up his force himself or was betrayed by his army changing sides, surrendered his person to Pompeius [Pg 213]and with some horsemen as an escort retired to one of the small towns near the Padus, where after the interval of a single day he was put to death by Geminius, whom Pompeius sent to him; and Pompeius was much blamed for this. For at the very commencement of the affair of the army changing sides, he wrote to the Senate that Brutus34 had voluntarily surrendered, and he then sent another letter in which he criminated the man after he was put to death. This Brutus was the father of the Brutus who together with Cassius killed Cæsar, a man who neither fought nor died like his father, as is told in his Life. As soon as Lepidus was driven from Italy, he made his escape into Sardinia, where he fell sick and died of vexation, not at the state of affairs, as they say, but from finding some writing by which he discovered that his wife had committed adultery.

XVII

But a general, Sertorius,35 who in no respect resembled Lepidus, was in possession of Iberia and was hovering over the other Romans, a formidable adversary; for the civil wars had concentrated themselves as in a final disease in this one man, who had already destroyed many of the inferior commanders, and was then engaged with Metellus Pius, who was indeed a distinguished soldier and of great military ability, but owing to old age was considered to be following up the opportunities of war somewhat tardily, and was anticipated in his plans by the quickness and rapidity of Sertorius, who attacked him at all hazards and somewhat in robber fashion, and by his ambuscades and circuitous movements confounded a man well practised in regular battles and used to command a force of heavy-armed soldiers trained to close fighting. Upon this Pompeius, who had an army under his command, bestirred himself to be sent out to support Metellus; and though Catulus ordered him to disband his force he would not obey, but kept under arms in the neighbourhood of the city continually inventing excuses, until the command was given to him on the proposal of Lucius Philippus. It was on this occasion, as it is said, that some one in [Pg 214]the Senate asked Philippus with some surprise, if he thought that Pompeius ought to be sent out as Proconsul,36 and Philippus replied, “Not as Proconsul, as I think, but in place of the Consuls,” meaning that both the consuls of that year were good for nothing. I

XVIII

When Pompeius arrived in Iberia, as it usually happens with the reputation of a new commander, he gave the people great hopes, and the nations which were not firmly attached to the party of Sertorius began to stir themselves and change sides; whereupon Sertorius gave vent to arrogant expressions against Pompeius, and scoffingly said, he should only need a cane and a whip for this youth, if he were not afraid of that old woman, meaning Metellus. However he conducted his military operations with more caution, as in fact he kept a close watch on Pompeius and was afraid of him. For contrary to what one would have expected, Metellus had become very luxurious in his mode of life and had completely given himself up to pleasure, and there had been all at once a great change in him to habits of pride and extravagance, so that this also brought Pompeius a surpassing good-will and reputation, inasmuch as he maintained a frugal mode of living, a thing that cost him no great pains, for he was naturally temperate and well regulated in his desires. Though there were many vicissitudes in the war, the capture of Lauron by Sertorius gave Pompeius most annoyance; for while he supposed that Sertorius was surrounded, and had uttered certain boasting expressions, all at once it appeared that he himself was completely hemmed in, and as for this reason he was afraid to stir, he saw the city burnt before his face. But he defeated, near Valentia, Herennius and Perpenna, who were men of military talent, and among others had fled to Sertorius and served under him; and he slaughtered above ten thousand of their men.

XIX

[Pg 215]Elated by this success, and full of great designs, he hastened to attack Sertorius himself, in order that Metellus might not share the victory. They engaged on the banks of the Sucro, though it was near the close of day, both parties fearing the arrival of Metellus, one wishing to fight by himself, and the other wishing to have only one opponent. The issue of the battle was doubtful, for one wing was victorious on each side; but of the two commanders-in-chief Sertorius got the more honour, for he put to flight the enemy who were opposed to him. A man of tall stature, an infantry soldier, attacked Pompeius, who was on horseback; and as they closed and came to a struggle, the blows of the swords fell on the hands of both, but not with the same effect; for Pompeius was only wounded, but he cut off the man’s hand. Now, as many men rushed upon Pompeius, and the rout had already begun, he escaped, contrary to all expectation, by quitting his horse, which had trappings of gold and decorations of great value; for while the enemy were dividing the booty and fighting about it with one another, they were left behind in the pursuit. At daybreak both commanders again placed their forces in order of battle, with the intention of securing the victory, but when Metellus approached, Sertorius retreated and his army dispersed. For the fashion of his men was to disperse and again to come together, so that Sertorius often wandered about alone, and often appeared again at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men, like a winter-torrent suddenly swollen. Now, when Pompeius went to meet Metellus after the battle, and they were near one another, he ordered his lictors to lower their fasces out of respect to Metellus as the superior in rank. But Metellus would not allow this, and in all other respects he behaved with consideration to Pompeius, not assuming any superiority on the ground of being a consular and the elder, except that when the two armies encamped together the watchword for both armies was given out by Metellus; but the two armies generally encamped apart. For the enemy used to cut off their communications and separate them, being fertile in stratagems, and skilful in showing himself in many quarters in a short time, and in leading from one combat [Pg 216]to another. Finally, by cutting off their supplies, plundering the country, and getting the command of the sea, he drove both Pompeius and Metellus from that part of Iberia which was under him, and they were compelled to fly to other provinces through want of provisions.

XX

Pompeius having spent most of his own property and applied it to the purposes of the war, demanded money of the senate, and said that he would come to Italy with his army if they did not send it. Lucullus, who was then consul, being at variance with Pompeius, and intriguing to get the command in the Mithridatic war for himself, bestirred himself to get money sent for fear of letting Pompeius have a reason for leaving Sertorius, and attacking Mithridates, which he wished to do, for Mithridates was considered to be an opponent whom it would be an honour to oppose and easy to vanquish. In the meantime, Sertorius37 was assassinated by his friends, of whom Perpenna was the chief leader, and he attempted to do what Sertorius had done, having indeed the same troops and means, but not equal judgment for the management of them. Now Pompeius immediately advanced against Perpenna, and perceiving that he was floundering in his affairs, he sent down ten cohorts into the plain, as a bait, and gave them orders to disperse as if they were flying. When Perpenna had attacked the cohorts, and was engaged in the pursuit, Pompeius appeared in full force, and joining battle, gave the enemy a complete defeat. Most of the officers fell in the battle; but Perpenna was brought to Pompeius, who ordered him to be put to death, in which he did not show any ingratitude, nor that he had forgotten what had happened in Sicily, as some say, but he displayed great prudence and a judgment that was advantageous to the commonweal. For Perpenna, who had got possession of the writings of Sertorins, offered to produce letters from the most powerful men in Rome, who being [Pg 217]desirous to disturb the present settlement and to change the constitution, invited Sertorius to Italy. Now Pompeius, apprehending that this might give rise to greater wars than those which were just ended, put Perpenna to death, and burnt the letters without even reading them.

XXI

After staying38 long enough to extinguish the chief disturbances, and to quiet and settle those affairs which were in the most inflammatory state, he led his army back to Italy, and happened to arrive at the time when the servile war39 was at its height. This was the reason why Crassus the commander urged on the hazard of a battle, which he gained, with the slaughter of twelve thousand three hundred of the enemy. Fortune, however, in a manner adopted Pompeius into this success also, for five thousand men who escaped from the battle fell in his way, all of whom he destroyed, and he took the opportunity of writing first to the senate, to say that Crassus indeed had conquered the gladiators in a pitched battle, but he had pulled up the war by the roots. And this was agreeable to the Romans to hear, owing to their good-will towards Pompeius, and also to speak of. As to Iberia and Sertorius, no one even in jest would have said that the conquest was due to any one else than Pompeius. But though the man was in such repute, and such expectations were entertained of him, there was still some suspicion and fear that he would not disband his army, but would make his way by arms and sovereign power straight to the polity of Sulla. Accordingly, those who through fear ran to greet him on the way, were as many as those who did it from good-will. But when Pompeius had removed this suspicion also by declaring that he would disband his army after the triumph, there still remained one subject of reproach for those who envied him, that he attached [Pg 218]himself more to the people than to the senate, and that he had determined to restore the authority of the tribunate, which Sulla had destroyed, and to court the favour of the many, which was true. For there was nothing for which the people were more madly passionate, and nothing which they more desired, than to see that magistracy again, so that Pompeius considered the opportunity for this political measure a great good fortune, as he could not have found any other favour by which to requite the good-will of the citizens, if another had anticipated him in this.

XXII

Now after a second triumph40 and the consulship were voted to him, Pompeius was not for this reason considered an object of admiration and a great man; but the people considered it a proof of his distinction, that Crassus, though the richest of all who were engaged in public life, and the most powerful speaker and the greatest man, and though he despised Pompeius and everybody else, did not venture to become a candidate for the consulship till he had applied to Pompeius. Pompeius indeed was well pleased with this, as he had long wished to have the opportunity of doing some service and friendly act to Crassus. According he readily accepted the advances of Crassus, and in his address to the people he declared that he should be as grateful to them for his colleague as for the consulship. However, when they were elected consuls, they differed about everything, and came into collision: in the senate Crassus had more weight, but among the people the influence of Pompeius was great. For Pompeius restored the tribunate41 to the people, and he allowed the judicia to be again transferred to the Equites by a law. But the most agreeable of all spectacles was that which Pompeius exhibited to the people when he personally solicited his discharge from service. It is the [Pg 219]custom among the Roman Equites42 when they have served the time fixed by law, to lead their horse into the Forum before the two men whom they call Censors, and after mentioning each general and Imperator under whom they have served, and giving an account of their service, they receive their dismissal. Honours also and infamy are awarded according to each man’s conduct. Now on this occasion the Censors Gellius and Lentulus were sitting in all their official dignity, and the Equites who were to be inspected were passing by, when Pompeius was seen descending from the higher ground to the Forum, bearing the other insignia of his office, but leading his horse by the hand. When he came near and was full in sight, he bade the lictors make way for him, and he led his horse to the tribunal. The people admired, and kept profound silence; the censors were both awed and delighted at the sight. Then the elder said: “I ask you, Pompeius Magnus, if you have performed all the military services that the law requires?” Pompeius replied with a loud voice, “I have performed all, and all under my own command as Imperator.” On hearing this the people broke out into loud shouts, and it was impossible to repress the acclamations, so great was their delight; but the censors rising, conducted Pompeius home to please the citizens, who followed with loud expressions of applause.

XXIII

Now when the term of office was near expiring for Pompeius, and the differences with Crassus wore [Pg 220]increasing, one Caius Aurelius,43 who though a man of equestrian rank did not meddle with public affairs, on the occasion of an assembly of the people ascended the Rostra, and coming forward said, that Jupiter had appeared to him in his sleep and had bid him tell the consuls not to lay down their office before they were reconciled. On this being said, Pompeius stood still, without saying a word, but Crassus making the first advance to take his hand and address him, said, “I think I am doing nothing ignoble or mean, fellow citizens, in being first to give way to Pompeius, whom you considered worthy of the name of Magnus before he had a beard, and decreed to him two triumphs before he was a senator.” Upon this they were reconciled and laid down their office. Now Crassus continued the kind of life which he had originally adopted; but Pompeius withdrew himself from his numerous engagements as advocate, and gradually quitted the forum, and seldom went into public, and always with a large crowd of people. For it was no longer easy to meet with him or see him without a train; but he took most pleasure in showing himself with a numerous company close around him, and by these means he threw a dignity and importance about his presence, and thought that he ought to keep his high rank from contact or familiarity with the many. For life in the garment of peace is a hazardous thing towards loss of reputation for those who have gained distinction in arms and are ill suited for civil equality; for such men claim the first place in peace also, as in war, while those who get less honour in war cannot submit to have no advantage in peace at least. Wherefore when they moot in the Forum with the man who has been distinguished in camps and triumphs, they humble him and cast him down; but if a man renounces all pretensions to civil distinction and withdraws, they maintain his military honours and power untouched by envy. Facts soon showed this.

XXIV

[Pg 221]Now the power of the pirates44 had its beginning in Cilicia, and at first its adventure was attended with hazard and sought concealment, but it gained confidence and daring in the Mithridatic war by lending itself to aid the king. Then, the Romans being engaged in the civil wars about the gates of Rome, the sea was left destitute of all protection, and this by degrees drew them on, and encouraged them not to confine their attacks to those who navigated the sea, but to ravage islands and maritime cities. And now men who wore powerful by wealth and of distinguished birth, and who claimed superior education, began to embark on board piratical vessels and to share in their undertakings as if the occupation was attended with a certain reputation and was an object of ambition. There were also piratical posts established in many places and fortified beacons, at which armaments put in, which were fitted out for this peculiar occupation not only with bold vigorous crews and skilful helmsmen and the speed and lightness of the ships, but more annoying than their formidable appearance was their arrogant and pompous equipment, with their golden streamers45 and purple sails and silvered oars, as if they rioted in their evil practices and prided themselves on [Pg 222]them. And flutes and playing on stringed instruments and drinking along the whole coast, and capture of persons high in office, and ransomings of captured cities, were a disgrace to the Roman supremacy. Now the piratical ships had increased to above a thousand, and the cities captured by them were four hundred. They attacked and plundered the asyla and sacred places which had hitherto been unapproached, such as those of Claros,46 Didyma, Samothrace, the temple of Chthonia in Hermione, the temple of Æsculapius in Epidaurus, and those of Neptune at the Isthmus and Tænaros and Kalauria, and those of Apollo at Actium and Leucas, and that of Juno in Samos, and in Argos, and Lacinium. They also performed strange rites on Olympus47 and celebrated certain mysterious ceremonies, among which were those of Mithras48 and they are continued to the present time, having been first introduced by them. But they did most insult to the Romans, and going up from the sea they robbed on their roads and plundered the neighbouring villas. They once seized two prætors Sextilius and Bellinus in their purple dress, and they carried off with them their attendants and lictors. They also took the daughter of Antonius, a man who had enjoyed a triumph, as she was going into the country, and she was ransomed [Pg 223]at great cost. But their most insulting behaviour was in the following fashion. Whenever a man who was taken called out that he was a Roman and mentioned his name, they would pretend to be terror-struck and to be alarmed, and would strike their thighs and fall down at his knees praying him to pardon them; and their captive would believe all this to be real, seeing that they were humble and suppliant. Then some would put Roman shoes on his feet, and others would throw over him a toga, pretending it was done that there might be no mistake about him again. When they had for some time mocked the man in this way and had their fill of amusement, at last they would put a ladder down into the sea, and bid him step out and go away with their best wishes for a good journey; and if a man would not go, then they shoved him into the water.

XXV

The power of the pirates extended over the whole of our sea49 at once in a measure, so that it could not be navigated and was closed against all trade. It was this which mainly induced the Romans, who were hard pressed for provisions and were expecting great scarcity, to send out Pompeius to clear the sea of the pirates. Gabinius,50 one of the friends of Pompeius, drew up a law which gave Pompeius, not a naval command, but palpably sole dominion and power over all men without any responsibility. For the law gave him authority over the sea within the columns of Hercules and all the main land to the distance of four hundred stadia from the sea. There were not many places within the Roman dominions which lay beyond those limits, but the chief nations and the most powerful of the kings were comprised within them. Besides this, Pompeius was empowered to choose fifteen legati from the Senate who should command in particular parts, to take from the treasuries and from the Publicani as much money as he pleased, and two hundred ships, with full authority [Pg 224]as to the number and levying of the armed force and of the rowers for the vessels. When these provisions of the law were read, the people received them with exceeding great satisfaction, but the chief of the Senate and the most powerful citizens considered that this unlimited and indefinite power was indeed too great to be an object of envy, but was a matter for alarm. Accordingly with the exception of Cæsar they opposed the law; but Cæsar spoke in favour of it, though indeed he cared very little for Pompeius, but from the beginning it was his plan to insinuate himself into the popular favour and to gain over the people. But the rest vehemently assailed Pompeius. One of the consuls who had observed to him that if he emulated Romulus he would not escape the end of Romulus, was near being killed by the people. When Catulus came forward to speak against the law, the people out of respect were silent for some time; but after he had spoken at length with honourable mention of Pompeius and without any invidious remark, and then advised the people to spare him and not to expose such a man to repeated dangers and wars, “What other man,” he continued, “will you have, if you lose him?” when with one accord all the people replied, “Yourself.” Now as Catulus could produce no effect, he retired from the Rostra; when Roscius51 came forward, nobody listened, but he made signs with his fingers that they should not appoint Pompeius to the sole command, but should give him a colleague. At this it is said that the people being irritated sent forth such a shout, that a crow52 which was flying over the Forum was stunned and fell down into the crowd. Whence it appears, that birds which fall, do not tumble into a great vacuum in the air caused by its rending and separation, but that they are struck by the blow of the voice, which, when it is carried along with great mass and strength, causes an agitation and a wave in the air.

XXVI

Now for the time the assembly was dissolved. [Pg 225]But on the day on which they were going to put the law to the vote, Pompeius privately retired to the country, but on hearing that the law had passed, he entered the city by night, considering that he should make himself an object of jealousy if the people met him and crowded about him. At daybreak he came into public and sacrificed; and an assembly being summoned he contrived to get many other things in addition to what had been voted, and nearly doubled his armament. For he manned five hundred ships, and one hundred and twenty thousand heavy-armed soldiers and five thousand horse were raised. He chose out of the senate twenty-four men who had held command and served the office of prætor; and there were two quæstors. As the prices of provisions immediately fell, it gave the people, who were well pleased to have it, opportunity to say that the very name of Pompeius had put an end to the war. However, by dividing the waters and the whole space of the internal sea into thirteen parts and appointing a certain number of ships and a commander for each, with his force, which was thus dispersed in all directions, he surrounded the piratical vessels that fell in his way in a body, and forthwith hunted them down and brought them into port; but those who separated from one another before they were taken and effected their escape, crowded from all parts and made their way to Cilicia as to a hive; and against them Pompeius himself went with sixty of the best ships. But he did not sail against them till he had completely cleared of the piratical vessels the Tyrrhenian sea, the Libyan, and the seas around Sardinia, and Corsica, and Sicily, in forty days in all, by his own unwearied exertions and the active co-operation of his commanders.

XXVII

In Rome the consul Piso, through passion and envy, was damaging the preparations for the war, and disbanding the seamen who were to man the ships, but Pompeius sent round his navy to Brundisium and himself advanced through Tyrrhenia to Rome. On hearing this all the people poured forth out of the city upon the road, just as if they had not only a few days before conducted him out of the city. And the rejoicing was caused by the speediness of the change, which was contrary to [Pg 226]expectation, for the Forum had a superabundance of provisions. The consequence was that Piso ran the risk of being deprived of the consulship, for Gabinius had already a law drawn up. But Pompeius prevented this, and having managed everything else with moderation and got what he wanted, he went down to Brundisium and set sail. But though he was pressed by the urgency of the business and sailed past the cities in his haste, still he did not pass by Athens but he went up to it. After sacrifices to the gods and addressing the people, just as he was quitting the place he read two inscriptions, each of a single verse, addressed to him, the one within the gate,

“As thou own’st thyself a mortal, so thou art in truth a God.”

and that on the outside:

“Expected, welcomed, seen, we now conduct thee forth.”

Now as he treated mercifully some of the piratical crews which still held together and were cruising about the seas upon their preferring entreaties to him, and after receiving a surrender of their vessels and persons did them no harm, the rest entertaining good hopes attempted to get out of the way of the other officers, and coming to Pompeius they put themselves into his hands with their children and wives. But he spared all, and it was chiefly through their assistance that he tracked out and caught53 those who still lurked in concealment, as being conscious that they had committed unpardonable crimes.

XXVIII

The greater part and the most powerful of the pirates had deposited their families and wealth, and their useless people, in garrisons and strong forts among the heights of the Taurus; but manning their ships the pirates themselves awaited the approach of Pompeius near Coracesium54 in Cilicia, and a battle was fought in which they were defeated and afterwards [Pg 227]blockaded. At last sending a suppliant message they surrendered themselves and their cities and the islands of which they had possession and in which they had built forts that were difficult to force and hard to approach. Accordingly the war was ended, and all the pirates were driven from the sea in no more than three months. Pompeius received by surrender many ships, and among them ninety with brazen beaks. The pirates, who amounted to more than twenty thousand, he never thought of putting to death, but he considered that it would not be prudent to let them go and to allow them to be dispersed or to unite again, being poor, and warlike and many in number. Reflecting then that by nature man neither is made nor is a wild animal nor unsocial, and that he changes his character by the practice of vice which is contrary to his nature, but that he is tamed by habits and change of place and life, and that wild beasts by being accustomed to a gentler mode of living put off their wildness and savageness, he determined to transfer the men to the land from the sea and to let them taste a quiet life by being accustomed to live in cities and to cultivate the ground. The small and somewhat depopulated cities of Cilicia received some of the pirates whom they associated with themselves, and the cities received some additional tracts of land; and the city of Soli,55 which had lately been deprived of its inhabitants by Tigranes56 the Armenian king, he restored and settled many of them in it. To the greater part he gave as their residence Dyme57 in Achæa, which was then without inhabitants and had much good land.

XXIX

[Pg 228]Now those who envied Pompeius found fault with these measures; but as to his conduct towards Metellus58 in Crete, even his best friends were not pleased with it. Metellus, who was a kinsman of the Metellus who had the command in Iberia jointly with Pompeius, was sent as commander to Crete before Pompeius was chosen. For Crete was a kind of second source of pirates and next to Cilicia; and Metellus having caught many of them in the island took them prisoners and put them to death. Those who still survived and were blockaded, sent a suppliant message and invited Pompeius to the island, as being a part of his government and falling entirely within the limits reckoned from the coast. Pompeius accepted the invitation and wrote to Metellus to forbid him continuing the war. He also wrote to the cities not to pay any attention to Metellus, and he sent as commander one of his own officers, Lucius Octavius, who entering into the forts of the besieged pirates and fighting on their side made Pompeius not only odious and intolerable, but ridiculous also, inasmuch as he lent his name to accursed and godless men and threw around them his reputation as a kind of amulet, through envy and jealousy of Metellus. Neither did Achilles,59 it was argued, act like a man, but like a youth all full of violence and passionately pursuing glory, when he made a sign to the rest of the Greeks and would not let them strike Hector,

“For fear another gave the blow and won

The fame, and he should second only come;”

but Pompeius even protected and fought in behalf of the common enemy, that he might deprive of a triumph a general who had endured so much toil. Metellus however did not give in, but he took and punished the pirates, and after insulting and abusing Octavius in his camp he let him go.

XXX

When news reached Rome that the Pirates’ war [Pg 229]was at an end and that Pompeius being now at leisure was visiting the cities, Manlius,60 one of the tribunes, proposed a law, that Pompeius should take all the country and force which Lucullus commanded, with the addition of Bithynia, which Glabrio61 had, and should carry on the war against the kings Mithridates and Tigranes, with both the naval force and the dominion of the sea on the terms on which he received it originally. This was in short for the Roman dominion to be placed at the disposal of one man. For the provinces which alone he could not touch under the former law, Phrygia, Lycaonia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, the upper Colchis, Armenia, these he now had together with the armies and resources with which Lucullus defeated Mithridates and Tigranes. But though Lucullus was thus deprived of the glory of his achievements and was receiving a successor in a triumph rather than in a war, the aristocratical party thought less of this, though they considered that the man was treated unjustly and ungratefully, but they were much dissatisfied with the power of Pompeius which they viewed as the setting up of a tyranny, and they severally exhorted and encouraged one another to oppose the law and not to give up their freedom. But when the time came, the rest kept back through fear of the people and were silent, except Catulus, who after finding much fault with the law and the tribune, yet without persuading any one, urged the Senate from the Rostra, repeating it many times, to seek for a mountain,62 like their ancestors, and a rock, to which they might fly for refuge and preserve their liberty. Accordingly the law was ratified, as they say, by all the tribes63 and Pompeius in his absence [Pg 230]was put in possession of nearly everything which Sulla got after he had made himself master of the city by arms and war. On receiving the letters and reading the decrees in the presence of his friends who were congratulating him, Pompeius is said to have contracted his eyebrows and to have struck his thigh, and to have spoken like a man who was already tired and averse to command, “Oh, the endless toils, how much better it were to have been one unknown to fame, if there shall never be an end to my military service and I shall never elude this envy and live quietly in the country with my wife.”64 On hearing these expressions not even his intimate friends could endure his hypocritical pretences, as they knew that he was the more delighted, inasmuch as his difference with Lucullus gave additional fire to his innate ambition and love of command.

XXXI

And in truth his acts soon discovered his real temper: for he issued counter-edicts in all directions by which he required the presence of the soldiers and summoned to him the subject rulers and kings. And as he traversed the country, he let nothing that Lucullus had done remain undisturbed, but he both remitted the punishments of many, and took away what had been given, and in short he left nothing undone in his eagerness to prove to the admirers of Lucullus65 that he was entirely without power. Lucullus through his friends complained to Pompeius, and it was agreed that they should have a meeting. They met in Galatia: and as they were most distinguished generals and had won the greatest victories, their lictors met with the fasces wreathed with bay; but Lucullus advanced from green and shady parts, and Pompeius happened to have crossed an extensive tract without trees and parched. Accordingly the lictors of Lucullus seeing that the bays of Pompeius were faded and completely withered, gave them some of their own which were fresh, and so decorated and wreathed the fasces of Pompeius with them. This was considered a sign that Pompeius was coming to carry off [Pg 231]the prizes of victory and the glory that was due to Lucullus. As to the order of his consulship and in age also Lucullus had the priority, but the reputation of Pompeius was more exalted on account of his two triumphs. However they managed their first interview with as much civility and friendliness as they could, magnifying the exploits of each other, and congratulating one another on their victories: in their conferences however they came to no reasonable or fair settlement, but even fell to mutual abuse, Pompeius charging Lucullus with avarice, and Lucullus charging Pompeius with love of power; and they were with difficulty separated by their friends. Lucullus being in Galatia assigned portions of the captured land and gave other presents to whom he chose; while Pompeius, who was encamped at a short distance, prevented any attention being paid to the orders of Lucullus, and took from him all his soldiers except sixteen hundred, whose mutinous disposition he thought would make them useless to himself, but hostile to Lucullus. Besides this, Pompeius disparaged the exploits of Lucullus and openly said that Lucullus had warred against tragedies and mere shadows of kings, while to himself was reserved the contest against a genuine power and one that had grown wiser by losses, for Mithridates was now having recourse to shields, and swords and horses. Lucullus retorting said, that Pompeius was going to fight with a phantom and a shadow of war, being accustomed, like a lazy bird, to descend upon the bodies that others had slaughtered and to tear the remnants of wars; for so had he appropriated to himself the victories over Sertorius, Lepidus and Spartacus, though Crassus, Metellus and Catulus had respectively gained these victories: it was no wonder then, if Pompeius was surreptitiously trying to get the credit of the Armenian and Pontic wars, he who had in some way or other contrived to intrude himself into a triumph over runaway slaves.

XXXII

Lucullus66 now retired, and Pompeius after distributing his whole naval force over the sea between [Pg 232]Phœnicia and the Bosporus to keep guard, himself marched against Mithridates, who had thirty thousand foot soldiers of the phalanx and two thousand horsemen, but did not venture to fight. First of all, Mithridates left a strong mountain which was difficult to assault, whereon he happened to be encamped, because he supposed there was no water there; but Pompeius, after occupying the same mountain, conjectured from the nature of the vegetation upon it and the hollows formed by the slopes of the ground that the place contained springs, and he ordered wells to be dug in all parts: and immediately the whole army had abundance of water, so that it was a matter of surprise that Mithridates had all along been ignorant of this. Pompeius then surrounded Mithridates with his troops and hemmed him in with his lines. After being blockaded forty-five days Mithridates succeeded in stealing away with the strongest part of his army, after having first massacred those who were unfit for service and were sick. Next, Pompeius overtook him on the Euphrates and pitched his camp near him; and fearing lest Mithridates should frustrate his design by crossing the river, he led his army against him in battle order at midnight, at which very hour it is said that Mithridates had a vision in his sleep which forewarned him of what was going to happen. He dreamed that he was sailing on the Pontic sea with a fair wind, and was already in sight of the Bosporus, and congratulating his fellow voyagers, as a man naturally would do in his joy at a manifest and sure deliverance; but all at once he saw himself abandoned by everybody and drifting about upon a small piece of wreck. While he was suffering under this anguish and these visions, his friends came to his bed-side and roused him with the news that Pompeius was attacking them. The enemy accordingly must of necessity fight in defence of their camp, and the generals leading their forces out put them in order of battle. Pompeius, seeing the preparations to oppose him, hesitated about running any risk in the dark, and thought that he ought only to surround the enemy, to prevent their escape, and attack them when it was daylight, inasmuch as their numbers were greater. But the oldest centurions by their entreaties and exhortations [Pg 233]urged him on; for it was not quite dark, but the moon which was descending in the horizon still allowed them to see objects clear enough. And it was this which most damaged the king’s troops. For the Romans advanced with the moon on their backs, and as the light was much depressed towards the horizon, the shadows were projected a long way in front of the soldiers and fell upon the enemy, by reason of which they could not accurately estimate the distance between them and the Romans, but supposing that they were already at close quarters they threw their javelins without effect and struck nobody. The Romans perceiving this rushed upon the enemy with shouts, and as they did not venture to stand their ground, but were terror-struck and took to flight, the Romans slaughtered them to the number of much more than ten thousand, and took their camp. Mithridates at the commencement with eight hundred horsemen cut his way through the Romans, but the rest were soon dispersed and he was left alone with three persons, one of whom was his concubine Hypsikratia,67 who on all occasions showed the spirit of a man and desperate courage; and accordingly the king used to call her Hypsikrates. On this occasion, armed like a Persian and mounted on horseback, she was neither exhausted by the long journeys nor ever wearied of attending to the King’s person and his horse, till they came to a place called Inora,68 which was filled with the King’s property and valuables. Here Mithridates took costly garments and distributed among those who had flocked to him after the battle. He also gave to each of his friends a deadly poison to carry about with them, that none of them might fall into the hands of the Romans against his will. Thence he set out towards Armenia to Tigranes, but Tigranes forbade him to come and set a price of a hundred talents upon him, on which Mithri[Pg 234]dates passed by the sources of the Euphrates and continued his flight through Colchis.69

XXXIII

Pompeius invaded Armenia at the invitation of young Tigranes,70 who had now revolted from his father, and he met Pompeius near the river Araxes,71 which rises in the same parts with the Euphrates, but turns to the east and enters the Caspian Sea. Pompeius and Tigranes received the submission of the cities as they advanced: but King Tigranes, who had been lately crushed by Lucullus, and heard that Pompeius was of a mild and gentle disposition, admitted a Roman garrison into his palace,72 and taking with him his friends and kinsmen advanced to surrender himself. As he approached the camp on horseback, two lictors of Pompeius came up to him and ordered him to dismount from his horse and to enter on foot: they told him that no man on horseback had ever been seen in a Roman camp. Tigranes obeyed their orders, and taking off his sword presented it to them; and finally, when Pompeius came towards him, pulling off his cittaris,73 he hastened to lay it before his feet, and what was most humiliating of all, to throw himself down at his knees. But Pompeius prevented this by laying hold of his right hand and drawing the king towards him; he also seated Tigranes by his side, and his son on the other side, and said that Tigranes ought so far to blame Lucullus only, who had taken from [Pg 235]him Syria, Phœnicia, Cilicia, Galatia, and Sophene,74 but that what he had kept up to that time, he should still have, if he paid as a compensation to the Romans for his wrongful deeds six thousand talents, and his son should be King of Sophene. Tigranes assented to these terms, and being overjoyed by the Romans saluting him as king, he promised to give every soldier half a mina of silver,75 to a centurion ten minæ, and to a tribune a talent. But his son took this ill, and on being invited to supper he said that he was not in want of Pompeius to show such honour as this, for he would find another Roman.76 In consequence of this he was put in chains and kept for the triumph. No long time after Phraates the Parthian sent to demand the young man, as his son-in-law, and to propose that the Euphrates should be the boundary of the two powers. Pompeius replied that Tigranes belonged to his father rather than to his father-in-law, and that as to a boundary he should determine that on the principles of justice.

XXXIV

Leaving Afranius in care of Armenia, Pompeius advanced through the nations that dwell about the Caucasus,77 as of necessity he must do, in pursuit of Mithridates. The greatest of these nations are Albani and Iberians, of whom the Iberians extend to the Moschic mountains and the Pontus, and the Albani extend to the east and the Caspian Sea. The Albani at first allowed a free passage to Pompeius at his request; but as winter overtook the Romans in the country and they were occupied with the festival of the Saturnalia,78 mustering to the [Pg 236]number of forty thousand they attacked the Romans, after crossing the Cyrnus79 river, which rising in the Iberian mountains and receiving the Araxes which comes down from Armenia, empties itself by twelve mouths into the Caspian. Others say that the Araxes does not join this stream, but that it has a separate outlet, though near to the other, into the same sea. Pompeius, though he could have opposed the enemy while they were crossing the river, let them cross quietly, and then he attacked and put them to flight and destroyed a great number. As the King begged for pardon, and sent ambassadors, Pompeius excused him for the wrong that he had done, and making a treaty with him, advanced against the Iberians, who were as numerous as the Albani and more warlike, and had a strong wish to please Mithridates and to repel Pompeius. For the Iberians had never submitted either to the Medes or the Persians,80 and they had escaped the dominion of the Macedonians also, inasmuch as Alexander soon quitted Hyrkania. However Pompeius routed the Iberians also in a great battle, in which nine thousand of them were killed and above ten thousand taken prisoners, and he entered Colchis; and on the Phasis81 he was met by Servilius with the vessels with which he was guarding the Pontus.

XXXV

The pursuit of Mithridates was attended with great difficulties, as he had plunged among the nations around the Bosporus and the Mæotis; and intelligence [Pg 237]reached Pompeius that the Albani had again revolted. Moved by passion and desire of revenge, Pompeius turned against the Albani. He again crossed the Cyrnus with difficulty and danger, for the river had been fenced off with stakes to a great extent by the barbarians; and as the passage of the river was succeeded by a long waterless and difficult march, he had ten thousand skins filled with water and then advanced against the enemy, whom he found posted on the river Abas82 to the number of sixty thousand foot and twelve thousand cavalry, but poorly armed, and for the most part only with the skins of beasts. They were commanded by a brother of the king, named Kosis, who, when the two armies had come to close quarters, rushed against Pompeius and struck him with a javelin on the fold83 of his breastplate, but Pompeius with his javelin in his hand pierced him through and killed him. In this battle it is said that Amazons84 also [Pg 238]fought on the side of the barbarians, and that they had come down hither from the mountains about the river Thermodon. For after the battle, when the Romans were stripping the barbarians, they found Amazonian shields and boots, but no body of a woman was seen. The Amazons inhabit those parts of the Caucasus which extend towards the Hyrcanian sea, but they do not border on the Albani, for Gelæ and Leges dwell between; and they cohabit with these people every year for two months, meeting them on the river Thermodon, after which they depart and live by themselves.

XXXVI

After the battle Pompeius set out to advance to the Hyrkanian85 and Caspian sea, but he was turned from his route by the number of deadly reptiles, when he was three days’ march from it. He retired to the Less Armenia; and he returned a friendly answer to the Kings of the Elymæi86 and Medes who sent ambassadors, but against the Parthian king who had invaded Gordyene and was plundering the people of Tigranes, he sent Afranius with a force who drove him out and pursued him as far as the territory of Arbela. Of all the concubines of Mithridates who were brought to him, he knew not one, but sent all back to their parents and kin; for the greater part were the daughters and wives of generals and princes. Stratonike,87 who was in the greatest repute [Pg 239]and guarded the richest of the forts, was, it is said, the daughter of a harp-player, who was not rich and was an old man; and she made so sudden a conquest of Mithridates over his wine by her playing, that he kept the woman and went to bed with her, but sent away the old man much annoyed at not having been even civilly spoken to by the king. In the morning, however, when he got up and saw in his house tables loaded with silver and golden cups, and a great train of attendants, with eunuchs and boys bringing to him costly garments, and a horse standing before the door equipped like those that carried the king’s friends, thinking that this was all mockery and a joke he made an attempt to escape through the door. But when the slaves laid hold of him and told him that the king had made him a present of the large substance of a rich man who had just died, and that this was but a small foretaste and sample of other valuables and possessions that were to come, after this explanation hardly convinced he took the purple dress, and leaping on the horse rode through the city exclaiming, “All this is mine.” To those who laughed at him he said, this was nothing strange, but it was rather strange that he did not pelt with stones those who came in his way, being mad with delight. Of this stock and blood was Stratonike. But she gave up this place to Pompeius, and also brought him many presents, of which he took only such as seemed suitable to decorate the temples and add splendour to his triumph, and he told her she was welcome to keep the rest. In like manner when the King of the Iberians sent him a couch and a table and a seat all of gold, and begged him to accept them, he delivered them also to the quæstors for the treasury.

XXXVII

In the fort Kænum88 Pompeius found also [Pg 240]private writings of Mithridates, which he read through with some pleasure as they gave him a good opportunity of learning the man’s character. They were memoirs,89 from which it was discovered that he had taken off by poison90 among many others his son Ariarathes and Alkæus of Sardis because he got the advantage over the King in riding racehorses. There were registered also interpretations of dreams,91 some of which he had seen himself, and others had been seen by some of his women; and there were lewd letters of Monime92 to him and his answers to her. Theophanes says that there was also found an address of Rutilius93 in which he urged the King to the massacre of the Romans in Asia. But most persons with good reason suppose this to be a malicious story of Theophanes, perhaps invented through hatred to Rutilius, who was [Pg 241]a man totally unlike himself, or perchance to please Pompeius, whose father Rutilius in his historical writings had shown to be a thoroughly unprincipled fellow.

XXXVIII

Thence Pompeius went to Amisus,94 where his ambition led him to reprehensible measures. For though he had abused Lucullus greatly, because while the enemy was still alive, he published edicts for the settlement of the countries and distributed gifts and honours, things which victors are accustomed to do when a war is brought to a close and is ended, he himself, while Mithridates was still ruling in the Bosporus95 and had got together a force sufficient to enable him to take the field again, just as if everything was finished, began to do the very things that Lucullus had done, settling the provinces, and distributing gifts, many commanders and princes, and twelve barbarous kings having come to him. Accordingly he did not even deign when writing in reply to the Parthian,96 as other persons did, to address him by the title of King of Kings, and he neglected to do this to please the other kings. He was also seized with a desire and a passion to get possession of Syria and to advance through Arabia to the Erythræan sea,97 that in his victorious career he might reach the ocean that encompasses the world on all sides; for in Libya he was the first who advanced victoriously as far as the external sea, and again in Iberia he made the Atlantic sea the boundary of the Roman dominion; and thirdly, in his recent pursuit of the Albani he came very near to reaching the Hyrkanian sea. Accordingly he now put his army in motion that he might connect the circuit of his military expeditions with the [Pg 242]Erythræan sea; and besides, he saw that Mithridates was difficult to be caught by an armed force, and was a harder enemy to deal with when flying than when fighting.

XXXIX

Wherefore, remarking that he would leave behind him for Mithridates an enemy stronger than himself, famine, he set vessels to keep a guard on the merchants who sailed to the Bosporus; and death was the penalty for those who were caught. Taking the great bulk of his army he advanced on his march, and falling in with the bodies still unburied of those who with Triarius98 had fought unsuccessfully against Mithridates and fallen in battle, he buried all with splendid ceremonial and due honours. It was the neglect of this which is considered to have been the chief cause of the hatred to Lucullus. After subduing by his legate Afranius the Arabs in the neighbourhood of the Amanus,99 he descended into Syria, which he made a province and a possession of the Roman people on the ground that it had no legitimate kings; and he subdued Judæa100 and took King Aristobulus prisoner. He built some cities, and he gave others their liberty and punished the tyrants in them. But he spent most time in judicial business, settling the disputes of cities and kings, and in those cases for which he had no leisure, sending his friends; as for instance to the Armenians and Parthians, who referred to him the decision as to the country101 in dispute between them, he sent three judges and conciliators. For great was the fame of his power, and no less was the fame of his virtue and mildness; by reason of which he was enabled to veil most of the faults of his friends and intimates, for he did [Pg 243]not possess the art of checking or punishing evil doers, but he so behaved towards those who had anything to do with him, that they patiently endured both the extortion and oppression of the others.

XL

The person who had most influence with Pompeius was Demetrius, a freedman, a youth not without understanding, but who abused his good fortune. The following story is told of him. Cato the philosopher, who was still a young man, but had a great reputation and already showed a lofty spirit, went up to Antioch,102 when Pompeius was not there, wishing to examine the city. Now Cato, as was his custom, walked on foot, but his friends who were journeying with him were on horseback. Observing before the gate a crowd of men in white vestments, and along the road, on one side the ephebi, and on the other the boys, in separate bodies, he was out of humour, supposing that this was done out of honour and respect to him who wanted nothing of the kind. However he bade his friends dismount and walk with him. As they came near, the man who was arranging and settling all this ceremony, with a crown on his head and a wand in his hand, met them and asked where they had left Demetrius and when he would arrive. Now the friends of Cato fell a-laughing, but Cato exclaimed, “O wretched city,” and passed by without making further answer. However Pompeius himself made Demetrius less an object of odium to others by submitting to his caprices without complaint. For it is said that frequently when Pompeius at entertainments was waiting for and receiving his guests, Demetrius would already have taken his place at the table, reclining with haughty air, and with his vest103 over his ears hanging down. [Pg 244]Before he had returned to Rome, Demetrius had got possession of the most agreeable places in the suburbs, and the finest pleasure-grounds and costly gardens were called Demetrian; and yet up to his third triumph Pompeius was lodged in a moderate and simple manner. But afterwards when he was erecting for the Romans that beautiful and far-famed theatre,104 he built, what may be compared to the small boat that is towed after a big vessel, close by a house more magnificent than he had before; and yet even this was so far from being such a building as to excite any jealousy that the person who became the owner of it after Pompeius, was surprised when he entered it, and he asked where Pompeius Magnus used to sup. Such is the story about these matters.

XLI

The King of the Arabians in the neighbourhood of Petra105 hitherto had not troubled himself at all about [Pg 245]the Romans, but now being much alarmed he wrote to say that he was ready to submit and to do anything. Pompeius wishing to confirm him in this disposition made an expedition against Petra, wherein he did not altogether escape censure from most people. For they considered that this was evading the pursuit of Mithridates, and they urged him to turn against him who was his old antagonist and was fanning his flame and preparing according to report to lead an army through the country of the Scythians and Pæonians106 against Italy. But Pompeius thinking it would be easier to crush the forces of Mithridates in the field than to overtake him when he was flying, did not choose to exhaust himself to no purpose in a pursuit, and he contrived to find other occupations in the interval of the war and he protracted the time. Fortune, however, settled the difficulty; for when he was at no great distance from Petra, and had already pitched his camp for that day and was exercising himself with his horse around the camp, letter-bearers rode up from Pontus with good tidings. This was manifest at once by the points of their spears, for they were wreathed with bay. Pompeius at first wished to finish his exercises, but as the men called out and entreated him, he leapt from his horse and taking the letters advanced into the camp. But as there was no tribunal107 [Pg 246]and there had not been time to make even the kind of tribunal that is used in the camp, which they are accustomed to form by digging out large lumps of earth and putting them together upon one another, in their then zeal and eagerness they piled together the loadings of the beasts of burden and raised an elevated place. Pompeius ascending this announced to the soldiers, that Mithridates was dead, having put an end to his own life because his son Pharnakes108 rebelled against him, and Pharnakes had taken possession of everything in those parts, and put all under his own dominion and that of the Romans, as he said in his letter.

XLII

Upon this the soldiers being delighted, as was natural, occupied themselves with sacrifices and entertainments, considering that in the person of Mithridates ten thousand enemies had expired. Pompeius having brought his own undertakings and expeditions to a termination, which he had not anticipated could be so easily done, immediately retired from Arabia; and quickly traversing the intermediate provinces he arrived at Amisus, where he found that many presents had been sent by Pharnakes and many corpses of members of the royal family, and the corpse of Mithridates also, which could not well be recognised by the face (for those who had embalmed the body had neglected to destroy the brain); but those who wished to see the body, recognised it by the scars. Pompeius himself would not see the body, but fearing divine retribution109 he sent it off to Sinope.110 He was amazed at [Pg 247]the dress and armour of Mithridates, both at the size and splendour of what he saw; though the sword belt, which cost four hundred talents, Publius stole and sold to Ariarathes, and the cittaris, a piece of wonderful workmanship, Gaius the foster-brother of Mithridates himself gave to Faustus the son of Sulla who asked for it. Pompeius did not know this at the time; but Pharnakes who afterwards discovered it punished the thieves. After Pompeius had arranged and settled affairs in those parts, he continued his march with more pomp. On arriving at Mitylene111 he gave the city its freedom for the sake of Theophanes, and he witnessed the usual contest there among the poets, the sole subject being his own exploits. Being pleased with the theatre he had a sketch taken of it and a plan made, with the intention of making one like it in Rome, but larger and more splendid. When he was in Rhodes, he heard all the sophists and made each a present of a talent. Poseidonius112 put in writing the discourse which he read before Pompeius in opposition to the rhetorician Hermagoras on the doctrine of general invention. In Athens Pompeius behaved in like manner to the philosophers, and after giving also to the city fifty talents towards its restoration, he was in hopes to set foot in Italy with a reputation above that of any man and to be received by his family with the same eagerness that he had to see them. But the Dæmon113 who takes care always to mix some portion of ill with the great and glorious good things which come from Fortune, had long been lurking on the watch and preparing to make his return more painful to him. For during the absence of Pompeius his wife [Pg 248]Mucia114 had been incontinent. Indeed while Pompeius was at a distance he treated the report with contempt, but when he had come near to Italy, and had examined the charge with more deliberation, as it seems, he sent her notice of divorce, though neither then nor afterwards did he say for what reason he put her away: but the reason is mentioned in Cicero’s letters.

XLIII

All kinds of reports about Pompeius preceded his arrival at Rome, and there was great alarm, as it was supposed that he would forthwith lead his army against the city and that a monarchy115 would be firmly established. Crassus taking his sons and his money secretly got away from Rome, whether it was that he really was afraid, or, what is more probable, he wished to give credibility to the calumny and to strengthen the odium against Pompeius. As soon, however, as Pompeius landed116 in Italy, he summoned his soldiers to an assembly,and after saying what was suitable to the occasion and expressing his affectionate thanks to them, he bade them disperse among their several cities and each go to his home, remembering to meet again for his triumph. The army being thus dispersed, and the fact being generally known, a wonderful circumstance happened. For the cities seeing Pompeius Magnus unarmed and advancing with a few friends, as if he were returning from an ordinary journey, pouring forth through good [Pg 249]will and forming an escort brought him into Rome with a larger force, so that if he had designed to make any change and revolution at that time he would not have wanted the army which he had disbanded.

XLIV

As the law did not allow a general to enter the city before his triumph, Pompeius sent to the Senate to request they would put off the consular elections and to grant him this favour, that he might in his own person assist Piso in his canvass. As Cato opposed his request, he did not attain his object. But Pompeius admiring Cato’s boldness of speech and the vigour which he alone openly displayed in behalf of the law, desired in some way or other to gain the man; and as Cato had two nieces, Pompeius wished to take one of them to wife and to marry the other to his son. Cato saw his object, which he viewed as a way of corrupting him and in a manner bribing him by a matrimonial alliance; but his sister and wife took it ill that he should reject an alliance with Pompeius Magnus. In the mean time Pompeius wishing to get Afranius117 made consul, expended money on his behalf among the tribes, and the voters came down to the gardens of Pompeius where they received the money, so that the thing became notorious and Pompeius had an ill name for making that office which was the highest of all and which he obtained for his services, venal for those who were unable to attain to it by merit. “These reproaches however,” said Cato to the women, “we must take our share of, if we become allied to Pompeius.” On hearing this the women agreed that he formed a better judgment than themselves as to what was proper.

XLV

Though the triumph118 was distributed over two [Pg 250]days, such was its magnitude that the time was not sufficient, but much of the preparation was excluded from the spectacle, and enough for the splendour and ornament of another procession. The nations over which Pompeius triumphed were designated by titles placed in front. The nations were the following, Pontus, Armenia, Cappadocia, Paphlagonia, Media, Colchis, the Iberians, Albani, Syria, Cilicia, Mesopotamia, the parts about Phœnice and Palestine, Judæa, Arabia, and the whole body of pirates by sea and land who had been subdued. Among these nations fortified places not fewer than a thousand were taken, and cities not far short of nine hundred, and eight hundred piratical ships; and cities forty save one were founded. Besides this it was shown on written tablets that 5000 myriads (fifty millions) were the produce of the taxes, while from the additions that he had made to the state they received 8500 myriads (eighty-five millions), and there were brought into the public treasury in coined money and vessels of gold and silver twenty thousand talents, not including what had been given to the soldiers, of whom he who received the least according to his proportion received fifteen hundred drachmæ. The captives who appeared in the procession, besides the chief pirates, were the son of Tigranes the Armenian with his wife and daughter, and Zosime a wife of King Tigranes, and Aristobulus King of the Jews, and a wife and five children of Mithridates, and Scythian women, and also hostages of the Albani and Iberians and of the King of Commagene, and numerous trophies, equal in number to all the battles, which Pompeius had won himself or by his legati. But it was the chief thing towards his glory, and what had never happened before to any Roman, that he celebrated his third triumph over the third continent. For though others before him had triumphed three times, Pompeius by having gained his first triumph over Libya, his second over Europe, and this the last over Asia, seemed in a manner to have brought the whole world into his three triumphs.

XLVI

At this time Pompeius was under four-and-thirty119 [Pg 251]years of age, as those affirm who in all respects compare him with Alexander and force a parallel, but in fact he was near forty. How happy would it have been if he had died at the time up to which he had the fortune of Alexander; but the period that followed brought to him good fortune accompanied with odium, and ill fortune that was past all cure. For the power which he got in the city by fair means, he employed on the behalf of others illegally; and as much strength as he gave to them, so much he took from his own reputation, and so he was overthrown by the strength and magnitude of his own power before he was aware of it. And as the strongest parts and places in cities, when the enemies have got possession of them, give to them their own strength, so Cæsar being raised up through the power of Pompeius against the State, overthrew and cast down the man by whose help he became strong against others. And it was brought about thus. Immediately upon Lucullus returning from Asia, where he had been treated with great contumely by Pompeius, the Senate gave him a splendid reception, and when Pompeius had arrived they urged Lucullus still more to take a part in public affairs, for the purpose of limiting the credit of Pompeius. Though Lucullus was in other matters now dull and chilled for all active life, having given himself up to the pleasures of ease and the enjoyment of wealth, yet he forthwith sprang up against Pompeius, and by a vigorous attack got a victory over him with respect to the arrangements of Lucullus that he had annulled, and had the advantage in the Senate with the co-operation of Cato. Pompeius, defeated and pressed on all sides, was compelled to fly to tribunes and to attach himself to young men, of whom the most scandalous and the most daring, Clodius, took up his cause, but threw him completely under the feet of the people; and by making him inconsistently with his station constantly frequent the Forum and carrying him about, he used him for the purpose of confirming everything that was said or proposed to please and flatter the people. Further, he asked of Pompeius for his reward, just as if [Pg 252]he were not degrading him but were doing him a service, and he afterwards got what he asked, the betrayal of Cicero,120 who was a friend of Pompeius and had served him in public matters more than any one else. For when Cicero was in danger and prayed for his aid, Pompeius would not even see him, but shut the front door upon those who came on Cicero’s part and went out by another door. Cicero fearing the trial retired from Rome.

XLVII

At this time Cæsar121 returned from his government and undertook a political measure, which brought him the greatest popularity for the present and power for the future, but did the greatest damage to Pompeius and the State. For he became a candidate for his first consulship; but seeing that while Crassus was at variance with Pompeius, if he attached himself to one of them he would have the other for his enemy, he applied himself to effect a reconciliation between them, a thing which in other respects was fair and useful to the State, but was managed by him for a bad reason and with a dexterity full of treacherous design. For the strength which kept the State, just as in the case of a vessel, in a condition of equilibrium and prevented it falling over to this side or that, when brought together and united caused it to incline to one side with an irresistible force that overpowered and beat down everything. Accordingly Cato said that they were mistaken who affirmed that the State was overturned by the quarrel which afterwards broke out between Cæsar and Pompeius, for they laid the blame on the last events; for it was not their disunion nor yet their enmity, but their union and concord which was the first and greatest misfortune that befel the State. Cæsar was elected consul, and forthwith he courted the needy and poor by proposing measures for the establishment of cities, and the division of lands, wherein he stepped beyond the proprieties of his office and in a manner made his consulship into a tribunate. When his colleague Bibulus opposed him and Cato was prepared to support Bibulus most [Pg 253]vigorously, Cæsar brought forward Pompeius on the Rostra, and put the question to him, “If he approved of the proposed laws;” upon Pompeius saying that he did, “Will you not then,” said Cæsar, “if any one makes resistance to the laws, come forward before the people to maintain them?” “Certainly,” said Pompeius, “I will come against those who threaten swords, with sword and shield.” It was the general opinion that Pompeius up to that day had never said or done anything more arrogant, so that even his friends in his defence said that the words had escaped him at the moment. But yet it was clear from what followed that he had completely given himself up to Cæsar to do what he pleased with him: for contrary to all expectation Pompeius married Cæsar’s daughter Julia, who had been betrothed to Cæpio and was going to be married to him within a few days; and to pacify Cæpio, Pompeius gave him his own daughter who was already promised to Faustus the son of Sulla. Cæsar himself married Calpurnia the daughter of Piso.

XLVIII

After this Pompeius filled the city with soldiers and managed everything by force. For the soldiers suddenly fell on the consul Bibulus as he was going down to the Forum with Lucullus and Cato, and broke the fasces; and some one bedaubed Bibulus by throwing a basket of ordure over his head, and two of the tribunes who were conducting him were wounded. By these means they cleared the Forum of their opponents and then carried the law about the distribution of lands. The people being taken with this bait were now become tame and ready to support any project of theirs, giving no trouble at all, but silently voting for what was proposed to them. Accordingly the regulations of Pompeius as to which he was at variance with Lucullus were confirmed, and Cæsar received Gaul within and without the Alps and the province of Illyricum for five years with four complete legions; and it was settled that the consuls for the next year should be Piso122 the father-in-law of Cæsar, and Gabinius, who was the most extravagant of the flatterers of Pompeius. While this was going on, Bibulus shut himself up in his [Pg 254]house and never went out for eight months, the remainder of the period of his consulship, but he sent out counter-edicts full of abuse and charges against both: Cato as if inspired and under divine influence foretold in the Senate what would happen to the city and to Pompeius; and Lucullus123 renouncing public life kept quiet, on the ground that his age disqualified him for political concerns, on which Pompeius observed that for an old man luxury was more unsuitable to his age than to mingle in affairs of state. However Pompeius himself also was soon rendered inactive through passion for his young wife, with whom he passed the chief part of his time, and lived in the country and his gardens, and he paid no attention to what was going on in the Forum, so that even Clodius, who was then tribune, despised Pompeius and engaged in the most daring measures. For after Clodius had ejected Cicero and sent off Cato to Cyprus124 under colour of giving him a command, and Cæsar was gone to Gaul, and Clodius saw that the people were devoted to him as he was doing everything and framing all his measures to please them, he immediately attempted to repeal some of the regulations of Pompeius, and seizing the person of the captive Tigranes he kept him in his own house, and he instituted prosecutions against the friends of Pompeius, and so made trial of the power of Pompeius by attacking his friends. At last when Pompeius came forward upon the occasion of a certain trial, Clodius having with him a body of men filled with insolence and arrogance took his station in a conspicuous place and put to them the following questions: “Who is Imperator unlimited? what man seeks another man? who scratches his head125 with one finger?” The people like a Chorus trained to chant corresponding parts, while Clodius was shaking his toga,126 at every question with loud shouts replied, “Pompeius.”

XLIX

[Pg 255]Now this also annoyed Pompeius, who was unaccustomed to be abused and had no practice in this kind of warfare; but he was still more vexed when he perceived that the Senate were pleased at the insults offered to him and at his paying the penalty for his treachery to Cicero. But when it happened that they came to blows in the Forum and even proceeded so far as to wound one another, and a slave of Clodius was detected in the crowd stealing through the bystanders up to Pomipeius with a dagger in his hand, Pompeius alleging these proceedings as his excuse, and besides that, being afraid of the insolence and abuse of Clodius, came no more into the Forum so long as Clodius was in office, but kept to his house and was planning with his friends how he could pacify the resentment of the Senate and the nobles towards him. However he would not listen to Culleo,127 who advised him to put away Julia and giving up the friendship of Cæsar to pass over to the Senate, but he followed the advice of those who recommended that Cicero128 should be restored, who was the greatest enemy of Clodius and most beloved by the Senate. Pompeius with a strong party accompanied Cicero’s brother who was going to make his entreaty to the people, and after some wounds had been inflicted in the Forum and some persons were killed, they got the advantage over Clodius. Cicero returning to the city in pursuance of a law immediately reconciled Pompeius to the Senate, and, by speaking in favour of the law relating to grain,129 in a manner again made Pompeius master of all the land [Pg 256]and sea that the Romans possessed. For under his control were placed harbours, places of trade, the disposal of produce, in a word, all the affairs of those who navigated the sea and cultivated the land. But Clodius complained that the law had not been made on account of the scarcity of grain, but that the scarcity of grain was caused in order that the law might be passed, and that Pompeius might again fan into a flame and recover his power, which was as it were wasting away through his want of spirit. Others explained this to have been a device of the consul Spinther, whose object was to engage Pompeius in a higher official employment, that himself might be sent out to support king Ptolemæus.130 However Canidius the tribune proposed a measure to the effect that Pompeius without an army and with two lictors should go to bring about a reconciliation between the Alexandrians and the king. And indeed it was supposed that Pompeius was not displeased at the measure, but the Senate rejected it on the specious pretext that they feared for the safety of Pompeius. There were writings to be found scattered about the Forum and near the Senate-house, to the effect that Ptolemæus wished Pompeius to be given to him as general instead of Spinther. And Timagenes131 says that Ptolemæus without any reason and without necessity had quitted Egypt and [Pg 257]left it at the advice of Theophanes who was planning profitable occupation for Pompeius and a subject for a fresh command. But the villainy of Theophanes does not make this so probable, as the character of Pompeius makes it improbable, for he had no ambition of so mean and illiberal a kind.

L

Pompeius being appointed to look after the management and the supply of corn, sent his deputies and friends to many places, and he himself sailed to Sicily and Sardinia and Libya and collected grain. When he was about to set sail, there was a violent wind on the sea, and the masters of the ships were unwilling to put out, but Pompeius embarking first and bidding them raise the anchor, cried, “It is necessary to sail; there is no necessity to live.” By such boldness and zeal, and the help of good fortune, Pompeius filled the markets with grain and the sea with ships, so that the superfluity of what he got together sufficed even for those who were without, and there was as from a spring an abundant overflowing for all.

LI

During this time the Celtic wars132 raised Cæsar to great distinction; and though he was considered to be a very long way from Rome, and to be occupied with Belgæ and Suevi and Britanni, he contrived, by his skilful management, without being perceived, in the midst of the popular assemblies, and in the most important matters, to frustrate the political measures of Pompeius. For Cæsar’s military force was like a body that invested him, and he was training it to toil, and making it invincible and formidable, not to oppose the barbarians, but he was disciplining his men in these contests just as if it were merely hunting wild beasts and pursuing them with dogs; and in the meantime he was sending to Rome gold and silver, and the rest of the spoil and wealth which he got in abundance from so many enemies, and by tempting people there with gifts, and assisting ædiles in their expenses, and generals and consuls and their wives, he [Pg 258]was gaining over many of them; so that when he had crossed the Alps and was wintering in Luca, there was a great crowd of men and women who vied with one another in their eagerness to visit him, besides two hundred of the Senatorian class, among whom were Pompeius and Crassus; and one hundred and twenty fasces of proconsuls and prætors were seen at Cæsar’s doors. Now, after filling all the rest with hopes and money, he sent them off; but a compact was made between him and Crassus and Pompeius, that they should be candidates for the consulship, and that Cæsar should help them by sending many of his soldiers to vote, and that as soon as they were elected, they should secure for themselves the command of provinces and armies, and should confirm Cæsar’s provinces to him for another five years. Upon this being publicly known, the first men in the State were displeased, and Marcellinus coming forward before the popular assembly, asked both Crassus and Pompeius to their faces, if they would be candidates for the consulship. The assembly bade them give him an answer, on which Pompeius spoke first, and said, that perhaps he should and perhaps he should not. Crassus replied in a manner more befitting a citizen,133 for he said that he would act either way, as he should think it best for the common weal. But when Marcellinus stuck close to Pompeius, and was considered to be speaking in violent terms, Pompeius said that Marcellinus, of all men, showed the least regard to fair dealing, because he was not grateful to him in that he was the means of Marcellinus becoming eloquent, though he was formerly mute, and of now being so full as to vomit, though formerly he was starving of hunger.

LII

However, though everybody else declined to become candidates for the consulship, Cato persuaded Lucius Domitius,134 and encouraged him not to give up, for he said the contest with the tyrants was not for power, but for liberty. But Pompeius and his partisans fearing the vigour of [Pg 259]Cato, and lest, as he had all the Senate on his side, he should draw away and change the minds of the sounder part of the people, would not allow Domitius to come down into the Forum, but they sent armed men and killed the linkbearer, who was advancing in front, and put the rest to flight. Cato was the last to retreat, after being wounded in the right arm while he was fighting in front of Domitius. By such means they attained the consulship, nor did they conduct themselves in it with more decency. First of all, while the people were electing Cato prætor and giving their votes, Pompeius broke up the assembly, alleging that the omens were not favourable; and they had Vatinius135 proclaimed in place of Cato by bribing the tribes. In the next place they introduced measures by means of Trebonius,136 which gave to Cæsar, pursuant to the agreement, a second five years, to Crassus137 Syria and the Parthian expedition, but to Pompeius all Libya, and both the provinces of Iberia and four legions, of which he lent two to Cæsar at his request for the war in Gaul. Now Crassus went out to his province, after giving up his consular functions; and Pompeius opened his theatre,138 and gave gymnastic and musical contests at the dedication of it, and fights of wild beasts, in which five hundred lions were killed; and at the end he exhibited an elephant-fight, a most astonishing spectacle.

LIII

[Pg 260]For all this Pompeius got admiration and love; but on the other hand he brought on himself no less odium by giving up the forces and the provinces to legati who were his friends, while himself in the places of amusement in Italy going about from one to another spent his time with his wife, either because he loved her, or because he could not bear to leave his wife who was attached to him; for this also is said. And the love of the young woman for her husband was much talked about, for her affection towards Pompeius was not what might have been expected considering his age; but the reason appears to have been the chaste conduct of her husband who knew only his married wife, and the dignity of his manners which were not austere but agreeable and particularly attractive to women, if we must not disbelieve the testimony even of Flora the courtezan. It happened that at the election of ædiles some men came to blows and no small number were killed near Pompeius, and as his garments were drenched with blood, he changed them. There was great confusion and hurrying to the house of the slaves who were carrying the vests; and it happened that Julia,139 who was with [Pg 261]child, saw the bloody toga, upon which she fainted and with difficulty recovered, and in consequence of that alarm and the excitement, she miscarried. Even those who found most fault with the alliance of Cæsar and Pompeius, could not blame the woman for her affection. She became pregnant a second time and brought forth a female child, but she died of the pains of labour and the child did not survive her many days. Pompeius made preparations to bury her in his Alban villa, but the people by force took the body and carried it down into the Field of Mars, more from pity for the young woman than to please Pompeius and Cæsar. But of the two, it was considered that the people gave a larger portion of the honour to Cæsar who was absent than to Pompeius who was present. But in the city the waves forthwith began to move and everything was tossed to and fro, and was the subject of conversation tending to a complete split, now that the marriage connection was ended which hitherto rather veiled than checked the ambition of the two men. After no long time news also arrived that Crassus had lost his life among the Parthians; and that which had been a great hindrance to the civil war breaking out was now removed, for both Cæsar and Pompeius feared Crassus, and accordingly to some extent confined themselves within limits in their behaviour towards one another. But when fortune had cut off the man who was keeping a watch over the struggle, forthwith the words of the comic poet became applicable:

“Now each against the other smears his limbs,

And strews his hands with dust.”

So small a thing is fortune in comparison with men’s nature. For fortune cannot satisfy men’s desires, since so great an amount of command and extent of wide-stretched territory put no check on the desires of two men, but though they heard and read that “all things140 were divided into three portions for the gods and each got his share of dominion,” they thought the Roman empire was not enough for them who were only two.

LIV

[Pg 262]Yet Pompeius once said when he was addressing the people, that he had obtained every office sooner than he expected, and laid it down sooner than was expected. And in truth he had the disbandings of his forces a perpetual testimony of the truth of what he said. But now being convinced that Cæsar would not give up his power, he sought by means of the functionaries of the state to strengthen himself against him, but he attempted no change of any kind and did not wish to be considered to distrust Cæsar, but to disregard him rather and to despise him. However when he saw that the officers were not disposed of according to his judgment, the citizens being bribed, he allowed anarchy to spring up in the state; and forthwith there was much talk about a dictator, whom Lucilius the tribune first ventured to mention by advising the people to choose Pompeius dictator. Cato attacked him for this, and Lucilius ran the risk of losing his tribunate, and many of the friends of Pompeius came forward to exculpate him and said that he did not seek that office or wish for it. Upon this Cato commended Pompeius and exhorted him to turn his attention to the establishment of order, and Pompeius then out of shame did turn his attention to it, and Domitius141 and Messala were made consuls; but afterwards there was again anarchy, and a greater number of persons now began to agitate the question of a dictator more boldly, and Cato and his partisans fearing that they should be forced to yield, determined to let Pompeius have a certain legalized authority for the purpose of diverting him from that pure tyrannical office. Bibulus, who was an enemy of Pompeius, was the first to propose in the Senate to choose Pompeius sole consul142 and he said that [Pg 263]the city would thus either be relieved from the present disorder, or they would be slaves to the best man among them. This opinion appeared strange from such a person, when Cato rising for the purpose as it was expected of speaking against Bibulus, as soon as there was silence, said that for his part he would not have introduced the proposed measure, but as it was introduced by another he advised that it should be adopted, for he preferred any government to no government, and he thought that nobody would administer affairs better than Pompeius at a time of such disorder. The Senate accepted the proposal and passed a decree that Pompeius if elected should be solo consul, and that if he wanted a colleague, he might choose any person whom he approved of, but not before two months had elapsed; and Pompeius being made consul on these terms and declared by Sulpicius the Interrex, addressed Cato in a friendly manner, admitting his great obligations to him and urging him to give him his advice as a private man in the discharge of his office. But Cato would not admit that Pompeius was under any obligations to him, for he had said nothing that he did say out of regard to him, but out of regard to the state: he added that he would give him his advice if he were privately applied to; and if Pompeius did not invite him, he would publicly tell him his opinion. Such was Cato in everything.

LV

After entering the city, Pompeius married Cornelia,143 a daughter of Metellus Scipio, who was not a virgin, but had lately been left a widow by Publius, the son of Crassus, who had lost his life among the Parthians, and whose virgin bride she was. The young woman possessed many [Pg 264]charms besides her youthful beauty, for she was well instructed in letters, in playing on the lyre, and in geometry, and she had been accustomed to listen to philosophical discourses with profit. In addition to this she had a disposition free from all affectation and pedantic display, faults which such acquirements generally breed in women: her father also, both in respect to family and reputation, was above all imputation. Still the marriage did not please some people on account of the disparity of years; for the youth of Cornelia made her a fitter match for a son of Pompeius. But those who were more judicious considered that Pompeius had overlooked the state, which was in an unfortunate condition, to cure which the state had selected him for her physician, and put herself solely in his hands; and he was wearing chaplets and celebrating a marriage, when he ought to have considered his consulship a calamity, as it would not have been conferred on him so contrary to all constitutional practice, if his country were in a prosperous condition. However, he presided at the trials for corruption and bribery,144 and drew up laws, pursuant to which the trials were conducted, and with the exception presently to be mentioned, he conducted all the proceedings with dignity and fairness, and he secured to the courts safety, order, and quiet, by taking his own place there with armed men; but when his father-in-law Scipio was under trial, he sent for the three hundred and sixty judices to his house and obtained their support for him, and the accuser gave up the prosecution when he saw Scipio conducted from the Forum by the judices.145 This brought Pompeius again into bad report, which was still further increased when he came forward to speak in praise of [Pg 265]Plancus,146 though he had by special law put an end to encomiums on persons under trial. Cato, who happened to be one of the judices, stopped his ears with his hands, saying it was not right in him to listen to the encomiums which were contrary to law. In consequence of this Cato was rejected before the votes were given, but Plancus was convicted by the votes of the rest and to the shame of Pompeius. Now, a few days after, Hypsæus,147 a consular man, who was under prosecution, watched for Pompeius as he was going to sup after taking the bath, and clasping his knees, suppliantly entreated him; but Pompeius passed by contemptuously, saying that Hypsæus was spoiling his supper, and doing nothing more. By showing himself thus partial he got blame. However, in every other respect he established good order, and took his father-in-law as his colleague for the remaining five months. A decree also was made that he should hold the provinces for another four years, and should receive yearly a thousand talents, out of which he was to feed and maintain his troops.

LVI

Cæsar’s friends taking advantage of this, claimed some notice for Cæsar also, who was fighting so many battles for the supremacy of Rome; they said that he deserved either another consulship, or to have a fresh period added to his command, during which no other should supersede him and carry off the glory due to his labours, but that he who had accomplished those things should hold the command and quietly enjoy the honour. A debate arose on those subjects, on which Pompeius, affecting to deprecate the odium against Cæsar out of regard to him, said that he had letters of Cæsar, who was [Pg 266]willing to have a successor and to be relieved from service, but still Cæsar thought it fair that he should be allowed to be a candidate for the consulship though he was not at Rome. To this Cato made opposition, and said that Cæsar ought to become a private person and lay down his arms, and then get any favour that he could from the citizens; and when Pompeius did not prosecute the debate, but submitted as if he were worsted, his real opinions about Cæsar became more suspected. He also sent to Cæsar and demanded back the troops148 which he had lent him, pretending that he wanted them for the Parthian war. But Cæsar, though he knew why he was required to give up the troops, sent them back after handsomely rewarding them.

LVII

After this Pompeius had a dangerous illness at Neapolis, from which he recovered. Upon the suggestion of Praxagoras, the people of Neapolis offered sacrifices for his restoration to health. The neighbouring people followed their example, and the thing thus going the round of Italy, every city, small and great, celebrated a festival for several days. No place was large enough to contain the people, who flocked together from all parts, but the roads were filled and the villages and ports with the people rejoicing and sacrificing. Many persons also with chaplets on their heads and lighted torches received Pompeius, and accompanied him throwing flowers over him, so that his journey and progress was a most beautiful sight and very splendid. However, it is said that this circumstance contributed to bring about the war as much as [Pg 267]anything else. For an arrogant feeling entered the mind of Pompeius, and, with the greatness of the rejoicing, carried off all reflection on the present state of affairs; and throwing away the caution which had always secured his good fortune and his measures, he fell into a state of such unmingled confidence and contempt of Cæsar’s power, as to suppose that he would require neither arms to oppose him nor any troublesome preparation, but that he could put him down much easier than he had raised him. Besides this, Appius came from Gaul with the troops which Pompeius had lent to Cæsar; and he greatly disparaged Cæsar’s exploits there, and uttered much abuse against Cæsar; and he said that Pompeius did not know his own power and reputation, if he intended to strengthen himself against Cæsar by other troops, for that he could put down Cæsar with Cæsar’s own troops, as soon as he made his appearance; so great, as he said, was their hatred of Cæsar and their affection towards Pompeius. Accordingly Pompeius was so much elated, and through his confidence filled with such contempt, that he even ridiculed those who were afraid of the war; and to those who said that, if Cæsar advanced against the city, they saw no troops sufficient to repulse him, with smiling countenance and tranquil mien he bade them give themselves no trouble about that, “for in whatever part of Italy,” he said, “I stamp the earth with my foot, there will spring up forces both men and horse.”

LVIII

And now Cæsar also stuck to public affairs more vigorously, himself keeping at no great distance from Italy, and continually sending his soldiers to the city to attend the elections, and with money insinuating himself into the favour of many of the magistrates and corrupting them; among whom was Paulus149 the consul who changed [Pg 268]sides for fifteen hundred talents, and Curio150 the tribune who was released by Cæsar from countless debts, and Marcus Antonius who through friendship for Curio was involved in his obligations. Now it was said that one of the centurions who had come from Cæsar, while standing near the Senate-house and hearing that the Senate were refusing to allow Cæsar a prolongation of his term of government, said as he struck his hand on his sword, “But this will give it.” And all that was doing and preparing had this design in view. Yet the claims and reasons urged by Curio in favour of Cæsar were of a more constitutional character. For he asked one of two things, either that they should require Pompeius also to give up his force, or they should not take Cæsar’s troops from him: he said, “Whether they become private persons on fair terms or continued a match for one another by each keeping what he had, they would remain quiet; but he who proposed to weaken one of them would double the power which he feared.” Upon this Marcellus the consul called Cæsar a robber, and urged the Senate to vote him an enemy, if he should not lay down his arms. Yet Curio with the assistance of Antonius and Piso, prevailed so far as to have it put to a regular vote. Accordingly he proposed that those senators should move off to one side who were in favour of Cæsar alone laying down his arms and Pompeius remaining in command; and the majority went over to that side. Again, upon his proposing that all should withdraw who were of opinion that both should lay down their arms and that neither should hold a command, only two-and-twenty were in favour of Pompeius, and all the rest were on the side of Curio. Curio considering that he had gained his point, rushed forth to the people exulting with delight, and the people received him with [Pg 269]clapping of hands and threw on him chaplets and flowers. Pompeius was not in the Senate, for those who are in command of an army do not enter the city. But Marcellus rose up and said that he would not sit still to listen to words, but that as he spied ten legions already appearing in sight above the Alps and on their march, he also would dispatch a man to oppose them and to defend their country.

LIX

Upon this they changed their garments as was usual in a public calamity. Marcellus151 advanced to Pompeius through the Forum with the Senate following him, and standing in front of him said, “I bid you, Pompeius, defend your country and employ the forces that are in readiness and raise others.” Lentulus also said the same, who was one of the consuls elect for the coming year. But when Pompeius began to raise recruits, some refused and a few came together tardily and without any readiness, but the greater part cried out that some terms should be come to. For Antonius in spite of the Senate had read a letter of Cæsar to the people which contained proposals likely to conciliate the mass; for Cæsar proposed that both he and Pompeius should give up their provinces and dismiss their troops, and so put themselves in the hande of the people and render an account of what they had done. Lentulus who was now consul would not assemble the Senate; but Cicero who had just returned from Cilicia152 attempted an amicable settlement on the terms, that Cæsar should quit Gaul and give up all his army except two legions with which he should hold Illyricum and wait for his second consulship. As Pompeius was dissatisfied with this, the friends of Cæsar so far yielded as to agree that Cæsar should dismiss one [Pg 270]of these two legions; but as Lentulus made opposition and Cato called out that Pompeius was blundering again if he allowed himself to be deceived, the attempt at a settlement came to no conclusion.

LX

In the mean time intelligence arrived that Cæsar had taken Ariminum,153 a large city of Italy, and was marching straight upon Rome with all his force. But this was false; for he was advancing with only three hundred horsemen and five thousand legionary soldiers, and he did not wait for the rest of his force which was beyond the Alps, choosing to fall upon his enemies when they were in confusion and did not expect him, rather than to give them time to prepare to fight with him. Upon reaching the river Rubico, which was the boundary of his province, he stood in silence and lingered, reflecting, as we may presume, on the magnitude of the risk. Then, like those who throw themselves into a huge abyss from a precipice, closing the eyes of calculation and wrapping himself up to meet the danger, he called out in Greek to those who were present these words only, “Let the die be cast,” and took his army over. As soon as the report reached Rome, and tumult and fear, such as were never known before, together with consternation filled the city, the Senate immediately hurried in a body to visit Pompeius, and the magistrates with them; but upon Tullus154 asking about an army and force, and Pompeius after some delay saying in a tone of no great confidence, that he had the men in readiness who had come from Cæsar, and he thought he should soon be able to get together those who had been before enrolled to the number of thirty thousand, Tullus cried aloud, “You have deceived us, Pompeius,” and he advised to send commissioners to Cæsar. One Favonius,155 in other respects no bad man, but who with his self-will and insolence often supposed that he was imitating the bold language of Cato, bade Pompeius strike the ground with his foot and [Pg 271]call up the troops which he promised. Pompeius mildly submitted to this ill-timed sarcasm; and when Cato reminded him of what he had originally predicted to him about Cæsar, Pompeius replied that what Cato had said was in truth more prophetic, but what he had done was of a more friendly character.

LXI

Cato advised that Pompeius should be appointed general Imperator, adding, that it was the business of those who caused great mischief to put an end to it. Cato immediately left the city for Sicily, for he had obtained that island as his province; and of the rest each went to the province which had been assigned to him by lot. But as nearly all Italy was in commotion, the events that happened caused much perplexity; for those who were out of Rome hurried from all parts and crowded into the city, and the inhabitants of Rome hastened to leave the city, which in such tempest and confusion was weak in available means, but strong in insubordination and the difficulty that it caused to the magistrates. For it was not possible to allay the fear, nor did any one allow Pompeius to follow his own judgment, but in whatever way a man was affected, whether by fear, grief or perplexity, he carried it to Pompeius and filled him with it; and opposite measures prevailed in the same day, and it was impossible for Pompeius to get any true intelligence about the enemy, because there were many who reported anything that they chanced to hear, and were vexed if he did not believe them. Under these circumstances after declaring by an edict that he saw nothing but confusion, and bidding all the senators follow him, and giving notice that he should consider all who stayed behind as partisans of Cæsar, he left the city late in the evening; and the consuls fled without even making the sacrifices which were usual before wars. But even in the midst of danger Pompeius was fortunate in the general affection of the people, for though many blamed the generalship, there was not one who hated the general, but one might have found that those who were not willing to leave Pompeius were more numerous than those who left the city for the cause of liberty.

LXII

A few davs after, Cæsar entered and took pos[Pg 272]session of Rome.156 He behaved with moderation to all and pacified everybody, except Metellus157 one of the tribunes who attempted to hinder him from taking money out of the treasury, on which Cæsar threatened him with death and added to his threat still harsher words, for he said, That to say this was harder for him than to do it. Having thus put Metellus to flight and taken what he wanted, Cæsar pursued Pompeius, being anxious to drive him out of Italy before his troops from Iberia arrived. Pompeius who had got possession of Brundisium and had plenty of ships, immediately put on board the consuls and with them thirty cohorts and sent them over before him to Dyrrachium: Scipio his father-in-law and his own son Cneius he sent to Syria to get a fleet ready. After barricading the gates and placing on the walls the soldiers who were most lightly armed, he ordered the people of Brundisium158 to keep quiet in their houses, and he then broke up all the ground in the city and intersected it with ditches, and filled up all the streets with stakes except two through which he went down to the sea. On the third day he had already embarked at his leisure all the troops with the exception of those who were guarding the walls, to whom he suddenly gave a signal, upon which they all ran down quickly and being taken on board got out to sea. When Cæsar saw the walls deserted, he concluded that the [Pg 273]enemy were making off, and in his pursuit of them he narrowly escaped getting involved among the stakes and trenches; but as the people of Brundisium gave him warning, he avoided the city and, making a circuit round it, he found that all had got under sail, except two vessels which contained only a few soldiers.

LXIII

Now everybody else reckons the sailing away of Pompeius among the best military stratagems, but Cæsar159 wondered that Pompeius, who was in possession of a strong city and was expecting his troops from Iberia and was master of the sea, should desert and abandon Italy. Cicero160 also blames Pompeius for imitating the generalship of Themistokles rather than that of Perikles, the circumstances being like those of Perikles and not those of Themistokles. And Cæsar showed by what he did that he was greatly afraid of time:161 for when he had taken prisoner Numerius, a friend of Pompeius, he sent him to Brundisium with instructions to bring about a reconciliation on fair terms; but Numerius sailed off with Pompeius. Upon this Cæsar, who in sixty days had become master of Italy without shedding any blood, was desirous of pursuing Pompeius immediately, but as he had no vessels, he turned about and marched to Iberia with the design of gaining over the troops there.

LXIV

During this time Pompeius got together a great force: his naval power was completely irresistible, for [Pg 274]the fighting ships were five hundred, and the number of Liburnian vessels162 and other small craft was immense; the cavalry, the flower of the Romans and Italians, was seven thousand, distinguished by family, and wealth and courage; his infantry, which was a mixed body and required discipline, he exercised in Berœa,163 not sitting still lazily, but practising himself in gymnastic exercises164 as if he were still in the vigour of his age. And it was a great motive to confidence, when men saw Pompeius Magnus, who was now sixty years of age save two, exercising himself among the infantry under arms, then mounting his horse and drawing his sword without any trouble while his horse was galloping and easily sheathing it again; and in the throwing of his spear showing not only an exactness of aim, but a strength of arm in the distance to which he sent it, which many of the young men could not surpass. Both kings of nations and governors came to him; and of the men of rank about him from Rome there were sufficient to make up a complete Senate.165 There [Pg 275]came also Labeo,166 who left Cæsar though he had been his friend and had served with him in Gaul; and Brutus,167 son of the Brutus who was put to death in Gaul, a man of noble spirit who had never yet spoken to Pompeius or saluted him because Pompeius had put his father to death, but now he took service under him as the liberator of Rome. Cicero,168 though he had both in his writings and his speeches in the Senate recommended other measures, was ashamed not to join those who were fighting in defence of their country. There came also to Macedonia Tidius Sextius,169 a man of extreme old age, lame of one leg; and while others were laughing and jeering, Pompeius on seeing him rose up and ran to meet him, for he considered it a great testimony for men of advanced age and feeble strength to choose danger with him in preference to safety.

LXV

A Senate being formed, upon the proposition of Cato they came to a resolution to put no Roman to death except in battle, and not to plunder any city that was subject to the Romans, which increased still further the popularity of the party of Pompeius; for those who were unconcerned about the war by reason of being far removed from it or who were disregarded on account of their weakness, gave Pompeius the benefit of their good wishes at least, and as far as words could go contended on his behalf in favour of the right, considering every man an enemy to [Pg 276]gods and to men who did not wish Pompeius to be victorious. Cæsar also showed much moderation in his success, for after he had captured and defeated the forces of Pompeius in Iberia,170 he let the generals go and employed the troops. After crossing the Alps again and hurrying through Italy, he arrived at Brundisium about the winter solstice. He then crossed the sea and putting in at Oricum sent Jubius,171 a friend of Pompeius, who was his prisoner, to Pompeius172 to propose that they should both meet together on the third day, disband all their forces, and after being reconciled and confirming their union by oath, return to Italy. Pompeius again considered this to be an ambuscade, and hastily going down to the sea he took possession of the posts and places which presented very strong positions for an army; he also seized the naval stations and landing places which were favourable for those who came by sea, so that every wind which blew brought to Pompeius corn or troops or money; but Cæsar being confined in straits both on the sea and land side was of necessity glad to fight, and he attacked the lines of Pompeius and continually provoked him to battle, in which Cæsar had generally the advantage and the superiority in the skirmishing. But on one occasion he narrowly escaped being completely crushed and losing his army, for Pompeius fought with great courage and routed [Pg 277]all the enemy, who lost two thousand men; but he was either unable or was afraid to force his way into Cæsar’s camp and to enter with the fugitives, which made Cæsar say to his friends, “To-day the victory would have been with the enemy, if they had had a commander who knew how to conquer.”

LXVI

The partisans of Pompeius being greatly elated at this success were eager to have a decisive battle. Pompeius wrote to the distant kings and generals and cities to inform them that he was victorious, but he feared the risk of a battle, thinking that by delay and reducing the enemy to straits he should finally vanquish men who were invincible in arms and had long been accustomed to conquer together, but as to the other military duties, and marches, and change of position, and digging of trenches and building of walls, were not efficient by reason of age and on this account were eager to come to close fighting and to engage hand to hand. However, previous to the last contest Pompeius had been able in some degree to draw his men from their purpose by persuading them to keep quiet; but when Cæsar after the battle was compelled by want of provisions to break up his camp, and began his march into Thessaly through the country of the Athamanes,173 the confidence of the soldiers of Pompeius could no longer be kept in check, and calling out that Cæsar was flying, some were for following and pursuing him, and others for crossing over into Italy, and others were sending to Rome their slaves and friends to get possession of houses near the Forum, with the intention of forthwith becoming candidates for office. Many of their own accord sailed to Cornelia who was in Lesbos bearing the good tidings of the war being at an end; for Pompeius had sent her there out of the way of danger. The Senate being assembled, Afranius gave his opinion that they should stick to Italy, for Italy was the chief prize of the war, and would bring to those who were masters of it the possession of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Iberia, and all Gaul; and as to [Pg 278]that which was the greatest concern to Pompeius, his native country who was stretching out her hands only at a short distance from them, it was not honourable to leave her to be insulted and enslaved by slaves and flatterers of tyrants. But Pompeius did not consider it to be consistent with his reputation to run away from Cæsar a second time and to be pursued, when fortune gave him the opportunity of being the pursuer, nor did he think it consistent with his duty to desert Scipio174 and the consular men in Hellas and Thessaly who would immediately fall into Cæsar’s hands with their military chests and large forces; he thought also that Rome was best cared for by fighting in her defence as far from her as possible, that she might wait for the conqueror without feeling or hearing of any misfortunes.

LXVII

Having come to this decision, Pompeius pursued Cæsar, resolved to avoid a battle, but by following close up to hem him in and wear him out by privation. He had other reasons for thinking this to be the best plan, and it also reached his ears that it was a subject of common conversation among the cavalry that they ought to defeat Cæsar as soon as they could and then put down Pompeius also. Some say that this was also the reason why Pompeius employed Cato175 in no matter of importance, but even when he was marching against Cæsar left him on the coast to look after the stores, through fear that if Cæsar were destroyed, Cato might forthwith compel him also to lay down his command. Accordingly as he followed the enemy leisurely he was much censured and there was a clamour against him, that his object was not to defeat Cæsar by his generalship, but his native country and the Senate, that he might always keep the command and never give over having as his attendants and guards those who considered themselves the masters of the world. Domitius Ahenobarbus also by always calling him Agamemnon and King of Kings made him odious. [Pg 279]Favonius too made himself no less disagreeable by his scoffing manner than others by the unseasonable freedom of their language, calling out, “Men, we shall not eat figs in Tusculum176 even this year!” Lucius Afranius who had lost his forces in Iberia and on that account had fallen under the imputation of treachery, now seeing that Pompeius avoided a battle, said he was surprised that those who accused him did not advance and fight against the trafficker in provinces. By these and like expressions often repeated they at last prevailed over Pompeius, a man who was a slave to public fame and the opinion of his friends, and drew him on to follow their own hopes and impetuosity and to give up the best considered plans, a thing which would have been unbefitting even in the master of a vessel, to say nothing of the commander-in-chief of so many nations and forces. Pompeius approved of the physician who never gratifies the desires of his patients, and yet he yielded to military advisers who were in a diseased state, through fear of offending if he adopted healing measures. And how can one say those men were in a healthy state, some of whom were going about among the troops and already canvassing for consulships and prætorships, and Spinther and Domitius177 and Scipio were disputing and quarrelling about the priesthood of Cæsar and canvassing, just as if Tigranes the Armenian were encamped by them or the King of the Nabathæans, and not that Cæsar and that force with which he had taken a thousand cities by storm, and subdued above three hundred nations, and had fought with Germans and Gauls unvanquished in more battles than could be counted, and had taken a hundred times ten thousand prisoners, and [Pg 280]had slaughtered as many after routing them in pitched battles.

LXVIII

However, by importunity and agitation, after the army had descended into the plain of Pharsalus,178 they compelled Pompeius to hold a council of war, in which Labienus, who was commander of the cavalry, got up first, and swore that he would not leave the battle till he had routed the enemy; and they all swore to the same effect. In the night Pompeius dreamed that as he was entering the theatre, the people clapped, and that he was decorating a temple of Venus the Victorious179 with many spoils. And in some respects he was encouraged, but in others rather depressed by the dream, lest fame and glory should accrue from him to the race of Cæsar, which traced its descent from Venus; and certain panic alarms which were rushing through the camp aroused him. In the morning-watch a bright light180 shone forth above the camp of Cæsar, which was in a state of profound tranquillity, and a flame-like torch springing from this light descended upon the camp of Pompeius; and Cæsar himself says that he witnessed this as he was visiting the watches. At daybreak, as Cæsar was going to move to Scotussa,181 and the soldiers were engaged in taking down the tents and sending forward the beasts and camp-followers, the scouts came with intelligence that they spied many arms in the enemy’s encampment moving backwards and forwards, and that there was a movement and noise as of men coming out to battle. After them others came announcing that the vanguard was already putting itself in battle order. Upon this, Cæsar observing that the expected day had arrived on which they would have to fight against men, and not [Pg 281]against hunger and poverty, quickly gave orders to hang out in front of his tent the purple colours,182 which is the signal for battle among the Romans. The soldiers at the sight of it left their tents with loud shouts and rejoicing and hurried to arms; as the centurions led them to their several ranks, every man, just as if he belonged to a chorus, without confusion, being well trained, quietly took his place.

LXIX

Pompeius commanded the right wing, intending to oppose Antonius; in the centre he placed his father-in-law Scipio against Calvinus Lucius;183 and the left was commanded by Lucius Domitius, and strengthened with the main body of the cavalry. For nearly all the horsemen had crowded to that point, with the design of overpowering Cæsar and cutting to pieces the tenth legion, which had a very great reputation for courage, and Cæsar was accustomed to take his station in this legion when he fought a battle. But Cæsar, observing that the enemy’s left wing was strengthened by so large a body of cavalry, and fearing their brilliant equipment, summoned six cohorts from the reserve, and placed them in the rear of the tenth legion, with orders to keep quiet and not let the enemy see them; but as soon as the cavalry advanced, they had orders to run forwards through the first ranks, and not to throw [Pg 282]their javelins, as the bravest soldiers are used to do in their eagerness to get to fighting with the sword, but to push upwards and to wound the eyes and faces of the enemy, for those handsome, blooming pyrrichists would not keep their ground for fear of their beauty being spoiled, nor would they venture to look at the iron that was pushed right into their faces. Now Cæsar was thus employed. But Pompeius, who was examining the order of battle from his horse, observing that the enemy were quietly awaiting in their ranks the moment of attack, and the greater part of his own army was not still, but was in wavelike motion through want of experience and in confusion, was alarmed lest his troops should be completely separated at the beginning of the battle, and he commanded the front ranks to stand with their spears presented, and keeping their ground in compact order to receive the enemy’s attack. But Cæsar finds fault184 with this generalship of Pompeius; for he says that he thus weakened the force of the blows which a rapid assault produces; and the rush to meet the advancing ranks, which more than anything else fills the mass of the soldiers with enthusiasm and impetuosity in closing with the enemy, and combined with the shouts and running increases the courage—Pompeius, by depriving his men of this, fixed them to the ground and damped them. On Cæsar’s side the numbers were twenty-two thousand; on the side of Pompeius the numbers185 were somewhat more than double.

LXX

186 And now, when the signal was given on both sides, and the trumpet was beginning to urge them on to the conflict, every man of this great mass was busy in looking after himself; but a few of the Romans, the best, and some Greeks who were present, and not engaged in the battle, as the conflict drew near, began to reflect to [Pg 283]what a condition ambition and rivalry had brought the Roman State. For kindred arms and brotherly battalions and common standards,187 and the manhood and the might of a single state in such numbers, were closing in battle, self-matched against self, an example of the blindness of human nature and its madness, under the influence of passion. For if they had now been satisfied quietly to govern and enjoy what they had got, there was the largest and the best portion of the earth and of the sea subject to them; and if they still wished to gratify their love of trophies and of triumphs, and their thirst for them, they might have their fill of Parthian or German wars. Scythia, too, and the Indians were a labour in reserve, and ambition had a reasonable pretext for such undertaking, the civilization of barbaric nations. And what Scythian horse, or Parthian arrows, or Indian wealth could have checked seventy thousand Romans advancing in arms under Pompeius and Cæsar, whose name these nations heard of long before they heard of the name of Rome? Such unsociable, and various, and savage nations had they invaded and conquered. But now they engaged with one another in battle, without even feeling any compunction about their own glory, for which they spared not their native country, up to this day having always borne the name of invincible. For the relationship that had been made between them, and the charms of Julia, and that marriage, were from the very first only deceitful and suspected pledges of an alliance formed from interested motives, in which there was not a particle of true friendship.

LXXI

Now when the plain of Pharsalus was filled with men and horses and arms, and the signal for battle was raised on both sides, the first to spring forward from the line of Cæsar was Caius Crassianus188 a centurion who had the command of one hundred and twenty men, and was now fulfilling a great promise to Cæsar. For as Cæsar observed him to be the first that was quitting the camp, he spoke to him and asked what he thought of the battle; and Crassianus stretching out his right [Pg 284]hand replied with a loud voice, “You shall have a splendid victory, Cæsar; and as to me, you shall praise me whether I survive the day or die.” Remembering what he had said, he rushed forward and carrying many along with him fell on the centre of the enemy. The struggle was forthwith with the sword and many fell; but while Crassianus was pushing forwards and cutting down those who were in the front ranks, a soldier made a stand against him and drove his sword through his mouth so that the point came out at the back of the neck. When Crassianus had fallen, the battle was equally contested in this part of the field. Now Pompeius did not quickly lead on the right wing, but was looking at the opposite wing and lost time in waiting for the cavalry to get into action. The cavalry were now extending their companies with the view of surrounding Cæsar, and they drove Cæsar’s cavalry who were few in number upon the line in front of which they were stationed. But upon Cæsar giving the signal, the cavalry retired, and the cohorts which had been reserved to meet the enemy’s attempt to outflank them, rushed forward, three thousand in number, and met the enemy; then fixing themselves by the side of the horsemen, they pushed their spears upwards, as they had been instructed, against the horses, aiming at the faces of the riders. The horsemen, who were altogether inexperienced in fighting, and had never expected or heard of such a mode of attack, did not venture to stand or endure the blows aimed at their eyes and mouths, but turning their backs and holding their hands before their faces they ingloriously took to flight. The soldiers of Cæsar leaving these fugitives to escape advanced against the infantry, and they made their attack at that point where the wing having lost the protection of the cavalry gave them the opportunity of outflanking and surrounding them. These men falling on the enemy in the flank and the tenth legion attacking them in front, the enemy did not stand their ground nor keep together, for they saw that while they were expecting to surround the enemy, they were themselves surrounded.

LXXII

After the infantry were routed, and Pompeius seeing the dust conjectured what had befallen the cavalry, [Pg 285]what reflections passed in his mind, it is difficult to say; but like a madman more than anything else and one whose reason was affected, without considering that he was Magnus Pompeius, without speaking a word to any one, he walked slowly back to his camp, so that one may properly apply to him the verses189

“But lofty father Zeus struck fear in Ajax;

He stood confounded, and behind him threw

His shield of seven-ox-hide, and trembling look’d

Towards the crowd.”

In this state Pompeius came to his tent and sat down without speaking, until many of the pursuers rushed into the camp with the fugitives; and then merely uttering these words, “What, even to the camp!” and nothing more, he rose and taking a dress suitable to his present condition made his way out. The rest of the legions also fled, and there was great slaughter in the camp of those who were left to guard the tents and of the slaves; but Asinius Pollio190 says that only six thousand soldiers fell, and Pollio fought in that battle on Cæsar’s side. When Cæsar’s men took the camp, they saw evidence of the folly and frivolity of the enemy. For every tent was crowned with myrtle and furnished with flowered coverings to the couches and tables loaded with cups; and bowls of wine were laid out, and there was the preparation and decoration of persons who had performed a sacrifice and were celebrating a festival,191 rather than of men who were arming for battle. So blinded by their hopes, and so full of foolish confidence did they come out to war.

LXXIII

Pompeius having proceeded a little way from the camp let his horse go, and with very few persons about him, went on slowly as no one pursued him, and [Pg 286]with such thoughts, as would naturally arise in the mind of a man who for four-and-thirty years had been accustomed to conquer and to have the mastery in everything, and now for the first time in his old age experienced what defeat and flight were; reflecting also that in a single battle he had lost the reputation and the power which were the fruit of so many struggles and wars, and while a little before he was protected by so many armed men and horses, and armaments, now he was retreating and had become so weak and humbled, as easily to escape the notice of his enemies who were looking for him. After passing Larissa192 and arriving at Tempe, being thirsty he threw himself down on his face and drank of the river, and then rising up he proceeded through Tempe till he reached the sea. There he rested for the remainder of the night in a fisherman’s hut, and at daybreak embarking on board of one of the river-boats and taking with him those of his followers who were freemen, and bidding his slaves go to Cæsar without any apprehension for their safety, he rowed along the coast till he saw a large merchant-ship preparing to set sail, the master of which was a Roman, who had no intimacy with Pompeius, but knew him by sight: his name was Peticius. It happened the night before that Peticius saw Pompeius in a dream, not as he had often seen him, but humble and downcast, speaking to him. And it happened that he was telling his dream to his shipmates, as is usual with men in such weighty matters, who have nothing to do; when all at once one of the sailors called out that he spied a river-boat rowing from the land with men in it who were making signals with their clothes and stretching out their hands to them. Accordingly Peticius turning his eyes in that direction recognised Pompeius just as he had seen him in the dream, and striking his forehead he ordered the sailors to put the boat alongside, and he stretched out his right [Pg 287]hand and called to Pompeius, already conjecturing from his appearance the fortune and the reverses of the man. Upon which the master, without waiting to be entreated or addressed, took on board with him, all whom Pompeius chose (and these were the two Lentuli193 and Favonius), and set sail; and shortly after seeing King Deiotarus making his way from the land as fast as he could they took him in also. When it was supper time and the master had made the best preparation that he could, Favonius observing that Pompeius had no domestics and was beginning to take off his shoes, ran up to him and loosed his shoes and helped him to anoint himself. And henceforward Favonius continued to wait on Pompeius and serve him, just as slaves do their master, even to the washing of his feet and preparing his meals, so that a witness of the free will of that service and the simplicity and absence of all affectation might have exclaimed

“To generous minds how noble every task.”194

LXXIV

In such wise Pompeius coasted to Amphipolis,195 and thence crossed over to Mitylene, wishing to take up Cornelia and her son. Upon reaching the shore of the island he sent a message to the city, not such as Cornelia expected, for the pleasing intelligence that she had received both by report and by letter led her to hope that the war was terminated near Dyrrachium, and that all that remained for Pompeius was to pursue Cæsar. The messenger, who found her in this state of expectation, did not venture to salute her, but indicating by tears more than words the chief and greatest of her misfortunes, he bade [Pg 288]her hasten, if she wished to see Pompeius in a single vessel and that not his own. Cornelia, on hearing these words, threw herself on the ground, and lay there a long time without sense or speech, and with difficulty recovering herself, and seeing that it was not a time for tears and lamentations, she ran through the city to the sea. Pompeius met and caught her in his arms as she was just ready to sink down and fall upon him, when Cornelia said, “I see you, husband, not through your own fortune but mine, reduced to a single vessel, you who before your marriage with Cornelia sailed along this sea with five hundred ships. Why have you come to see me, and why did you not leave to her evil dæmon one who has loaded you also with so much misfortune? How happy a woman should I have been had I died before I heard that Publius, whose virgin bride I was, had perished by the Parthians; and how wise, if even after he died I had put an end to my own life, as I attempted to do; but forsooth I have been kept alive to be the ruin of Pompeius Magnus also.”

LXXV

So it is said Cornelia spoke, and thus Pompeius replied: “It is true, Cornelia, you have hitherto known only one fortune, and that the better; and perhaps it has deceived you too, in that it has abided with me longer than is wont. But as we are mortals, we must bear this change, and still try fortune; for it is not hopeless for a man to attempt from this condition to recover his former state who has come to this after being in that other.” Accordingly Cornelia sent for her property and slaves from the city; and though the Mitylenæans came to pay their respects to Pompeius, and invited him to enter the city, he would not, but he exhorted them also to yield to the conqueror and to be of good heart, for Cæsar was merciful and of a humane disposition. But turning to Kratippus196 the philosopher, for he had come down from the city to [Pg 289]see him, Pompeius found fault with and in a few words expressed some doubts about Providence, Kratippus rather giving way to him and trying to lead him to better hopes, that he might not give him pain at so unseasonable a time by arguing against him; for Pompeius might have questioned him about Providence, and Kratippus might have shown that the state of affairs at Rome required a monarchy on account of the political disorder; and he might have asked Pompeius, “How, Pompeius, and by what evidence shall we be persuaded that you would have used your fortune better than Cæsar, if you had been victorious?” But these matters that concern the gods we must leave as they are.

LXXVI

Taking on board his wife and friends, Pompeius continued his voyage, only putting in at such ports as of necessity he must for water or provisions. The first city that he came to was Attaleia197 of Pamphylia; and there some galleys from Cilicia met him, and some soldiers were collecting, and there were again about sixty senators about him. Hearing that his navy still kept together, and that Cato had recruited many soldiers and was passing over to Libya, he lamented to his friends and blamed himself for being forced to engage with his army only, and for not making any use of the force which was beyond all dispute superior to that of the enemy; and that his navy was not so stationed that if he were defeated by land he might forthwith have had what would have made him a match for the enemy, a strength and power so great by sea close at hand. Indeed Pompeius committed no greater fault, nor did Cæsar show any greater generalship, than in withdrawing the field of battle so far beyond the reach of assistance from the navy. However, being compelled in the present state of affairs to decide and do something, he sent round to the cities, and himself sailing about to some, asked them for money, and began to man ships. But fearing the rapid movements and speed of his enemy, lest he should come upon him and take him before he was [Pg 290]prepared, he looked about for a place of refuge for the present and a retreat. Now there appeared to them upon consideration to be no province to which they could safely fly; and as to the kingdoms, Pompeius gave it as his opinion that the Parthian198 at the present was the best able to receive and protect them in their present weakness, and to strengthen them again and to send them forth with the largest force; of the rest, some turned their thoughts towards Libya and Juba,199 but Theophanes of Lesbos pronounced it madness to leave Egypt, which was only three days’ sail distant, and Ptolemæus,200 who was still a youth, and indebted to Pompeius for the friendship and favour which his father had received from him, and to put himself in the hands of the Parthians, a most treacherous nation; and to be the first of all persons who did not choose to submit to a Roman who had been connected with him by marriage, nor to make trial of his moderation, and to put himself in the power of Arsakes,201 who was not able to take even Crassus so long as he was alive; and to carry a young wife of the family of Scipio among barbarians, who measured their power by their insolence and unbridled temper; and if no harm should befall Cornelia, and it should only be apprehended that she might suffer injury, it would be a sad thing for her to be in the power of those who were able to do it. This alone, it is said diverted Pompeius from proceeding to the Euphrates; if indeed any reflection still guided Pompeius, and he was not rather directed by a dæmon to the way that he took.

LXXVII

Accordingly when the proposal to fly to [Pg 291]Egypt prevailed, Pompeius setting sail from Cyprus in a galley of Seleukeia202 with his wife (and of the rest some accompanied him also in ships of war, and others in merchant vessels), crossed the sea safely; and hearing that Ptolemæus203 was seated before Pelusium with his army, being engaged in war against his sister, he came to that part of the coast and sent forward a person to announce his arrival to the king and to pray for his protection. Now Ptolemæus was very young, and Potheinus who managed everything, summoned a council of the chief persons; and the chief persons were those whom he chose to make so, and he bade each man give his opinion. It was indeed a sad thing that such men should deliberate about Pompeius Magnus, as Potheinus the eunuch and Theodotus of Chios who was hired as a teacher of rhetoric and the Egyptian Achillas: for these were the chief advisers of the king among the eunuchs and others who had the care of his person; and such was the court whose decision Pompeius was waiting for at anchor some distance from the shore and tossed by the waves, he who thought it beneath him to be indebted to Cæsar for his life. Now opinions among the rest were so far divided that some advised they should drive away Pompeius, and others, that they should invite and receive him: but Theodotus displaying his power in speech and his rhetorical art proved that neither of these courses was safe, but that if they received Pompeius, they would have Cæsar for an enemy and Pompeius for their master, and if they drove him away, they would incur the displeasure of Pompeius [Pg 292]for ejecting him and of Cæsar for the trouble of the pursuit; it was therefore best to send for the man and kill him, for thus they would please Cæsar and have nothing to fear from Pompeius. And he concluded with a smile, as it is said, A dead man does not bite.

LXXVIII

Having determined on this they intrust the execution to Achillas, who taking with him one Septimius who had a long time ago served under Pompeius as a centurion and Salvius another centurion and three or four slaves, put out towards the ship of Pompeius. It happened that all the most distinguished persons who accompanied Pompeius had come on board his ship to see what was going on. Accordingly when they saw a reception which was neither royal nor splendid nor corresponding to the expectations of Theophanes, but a few men in a fishing-boat sailing towards them, this want of respect made them suspect treachery and they advised Pompeius to row back into the open sea, while they were still out of reach of missiles. In the mean time as the boat was nearing, Septimius was the first to rise and he addressed Pompeius as Imperator in the Roman language and Achillas saluting him in Greek invited him to enter the boat, because, as he said, the shallows were of great extent and the sea being rather sandy had not depth enough to float a trireme. At the same time it was observed that some of the king’s ships were getting their men on board, and soldiers occupied the shore, so that it appeared impossible to escape even if they changed their minds and made the attempt; and besides, this want of confidence would give the murderers some excuse for their crime. Accordingly, after embracing Cornelia who was anticipating and bewailing his fate, he ordered two centurions to step into the boat before him, and Philippus one of his freedmen and a slave called Scythes, and while Achillas was offering him his hand out of the boat, he turned round to his wife and son and repeated the iambics of Sophocles,

“Whoever to a tyrant bends his way,

Is made his slave, e’en if he goes a freeman.”

LXXIX

204 These were the last words that he spoke to his [Pg 293]friends before he entered the boat: and as it was a considerable distance to the land from the galley, and none of those in the boat addressed any friendly conversation to him, looking at Septimius he said, “I am not mistaken I think in recognising you as an old comrade of mine;” and Septimius nodded without making any reply or friendly acknowledgment. As there was again a profound silence, Pompeius who had a small roll on which he had written a speech in Greek that he intended to address to Ptolemæus, began reading it. As they neared the land, Cornelia with her friends in great anxiety was watching the result from the galley, and she began to have good hopes when she saw some of the king’s people collecting together at the landing as if to honor Pompeius and give him a reception. In the mean time, while Pompeius was taking the hand of Philippus that he might rise more easily, Septimius from behind was the first to transfix him with his sword; and Salvius, and after him Achillas drew their swords. Pompeius drawing his toga close with both hands over his face, without saying or doing anything unworthy of himself, but giving a groan only, submitted to the blows, being sixty years of age save one, and ending his life just one day after his birthday.

LXXX

Those in the ships seeing the murder uttered a shriek which could be heard even to the land, and quickly raising their anchors, took to flight: and a strong breeze aided them in their escape to the open sea, so that the Egyptians, though desirous of pursuing, turned back. They cut off the head of Pompeius, and throwing the body naked out of the boat, left it for those to gaze at who felt any curiosity. Philippus stayed by the body, till the people wore satisfied with looking at it, and then washing it with sea-water he wrapped it up in a tunic of his own; and as he had no other means, he looked about till he found the wreck of a small fishing-boat, which was decayed indeed, but enough to make a funeral pile in case of need for a naked body, and that not an entire corpse. [Pg 294]As he was collecting these fragments and putting them together, a Roman, now an old man205 who had served his first campaigns in his youth under Pompeius, stood by him and said: “Who are you, my friend, that are preparing to perform the funeral rites to Pompeius Magnus?” Philippus replying that he was a freedman, the man said: “But you shall not have this honour to yourself: allow me too to share in this pious piece of good fortune, that I may not altogether have to complain of being in a strange land, if in requital for many sufferings I get this honour at least, to touch and to tend with my hands the greatest of the Roman generals.” Such were the obsequies of Pompeius. On the next day Lucius Lentulus who was on his voyage from Cyprus, not knowing what had happened, was coasting along the shore, when he saw the pile and Philippus standing by it before he was seen himself and said, “Who is resting here after closing his career?” and after a slight interval, with a groan, he added, “perhaps it is you, Pompeius Magnus.” Presently he landed, and being seized was put to death. This was the end of Pompeius. Not long after Cæsar arriving in Egypt, which was filled with this horrid deed, turned away from the man who brought him the head of Pompeius, as from a murderer, and when he received the seal of Pompeius, he shed tears; the device was a lion holding a sword. He put to death Achillas and Potheinus, and the king himself being defeated in battle was lost somewhere near the river. Theodotus the sophist escaped the vengeance of Cæsar, for he fled from Egypt and wandered about in a miserable state, the object of detestation; but Brutus Marcus, after he had killed Cæsar and got the power in his hands, finding Theodotus in Asia, put him to death with every circumstance of contumely. Cornelia obtained the remains of Pompeius and had them carried to his Alban villa and interred there.

COMPARISON OF
AGESILAUS AND POMPEIUS.

I

As both these men’s lives are now before us, let us briefly recapitulate them, observing as we do so the points in which they differ from one another. These are as follows:—First, Pompeius obtained his power and renown by the most strictly legitimate means, chiefly by his own exertions when assisting Sulla in the liberation of Italy; while Agesilaus obtained the throne in defiance of both human and divine laws, for he declared Leotychides to be a bastard, although his brother had publicly recognised him as his own son, and he also by a quibble evaded the oracle about a lame reign.

Secondly, Pompeius both respected Sulla while he lived, gave his body an honourable burial, in spite of Lepidus, when he died, and married Sulla’s daughter to his own son Faustus; while Agesilaus, on a trifling pretext, disgraced and ruined Lysander. Yet Sulla gave Pompeius nothing more than he possessed himself, whereas Lysander made Agesilaus king of Sparta, and leader of the united armies of Greece.

Thirdly, the political wrong-doings of Pompeius were chiefly committed to serve his relatives, Cæsar and Scipio; while Agesilaus saved Sphodrias from the death which he deserved for his outrage upon the Athenians merely to please his son, and vigorously supported Phœbidas when he committed a similar breach of the peace against the Thebans. And generally, we may say that while Pompeius only injured the Romans through inability to refuse the demands of friends, or through ignorance, Agesilaus ruined the Lacedæmonians by plunging them into war with Thebes, to gratify his own angry and quarrelsome temper.

II

[Pg 296]If it be right to attribute the disasters which befel either of those men to some special ill-luck which attended them, the Romans had no reason whatever to suspect any such thing of Pompeius; but Agesilaus, although the Lacedæmonians well knew the words of the oracle, yet would not allow them to avoid “a lame reign.” Even if Leotychides had been proved a thousand times to be a bastard, the family of Eurypon could have supplied Sparta with a legitimate and sound king, had not Lysander, for the sake of Agesilaus, deceived them as to the true meaning of the oracle. On the other hand, we have no specimen of the political ingenuity of Pompeius which can be compared with that admirable device of Agesilaus, when he readmitted the survivors of the battle of Leuktra to the privileges of Spartan citizens, by permitting the laws to sleep for one day. Pompeius did not even think it his duty to abide by the laws which he had himself enacted, but broke them to prove his great power to his friends. Agesilaus, when forced either to abolish the laws or to ruin his friends, discovered an expedient by which the laws did his friends no hurt, and yet had not to be abolished in order to save them. I also place to the credit of Agesilaus that unparalleled act of obedience, when on receiving a despatch from Sparta he abandoned the whole of his Asian enterprise. For Agesilaus did not, like Pompeius, enrich the state by his own exploits, but looking solely to the interests of his country, he gave up a position of greater glory and power than any Greek before or since ever held, with the single exception of Alexander.

III

Looking at them from another point of view, I suppose that even Xenophon himself would not think of comparing the number of the victories won by Pompeius, the size of the armies which he commanded, and that of those which he defeated, with any of the victories of Agesilaus; although Xenophon has written so admirably upon other subjects, that he seems to think himself privileged to say whatever he pleases about the life of his favourite hero. I think also that the two men differ much in their treatment of their enemies. The Greek wished to sell the Thebans for slaves, and to drive the Messenians from their country, although Thebes was the mother city of [Pg 297]Sparta, and the Messenians sprang from the same stock as the Lacedæmonians. In his attempts to effect this, he all but lost Sparta herself, and did lose the Spartan empire; while Pompeius even gave cities to be inhabited by such of the Mediterranean pirates as abandoned that mode of life; and when Tigranes the king of Armenia was in his power, he did not lead him in his triumph, but chose rather to make him an ally of Rome; observing, that he preferred an advantage which would last for all time to the glory which only endured for a single day.

If, however, we place the chief glory of a general in feats of arms and strategy, the Laconian will be found greatly to excel the Roman. Agesilaus did not abandon Sparta even when it was attacked by seventy thousand men, when he had but few troops with which to defend it, and those too all disheartened by their recent defeat at Leuktra. Pompeius, on hearing that Cæsar, with only five thousand three hundred men, had taken a town in Italy, left Rome in terror, either yielding to this small force like a coward, or else falsely supposing it to be more numerous than it was. He carefully carried off his own wife and children, but left the families of his partizans unprotected in Rome, when he ought either to have fought for the city against Cæsar, or else to have acknowledged him as his superior and submitted to him, for Cæsar was both his fellow-countryman and his relative. Yet, after having violently objected to the prorogation of Cæsar’s term of office as consul, he put it in his power to capture Rome itself, and to say to Metellus that he regarded him and all the rest of the citizens as prisoners of war.

IV

Agesilaus, when he was the stronger, always forced his enemy to fight, and when weaker, always avoided a battle. By always practising this, the highest art of a general, he passed through his life without a single defeat; whereas Pompeius was unable to make use of his superiority to Cæsar by sea, and was forced by him to hazard everything on the event of a land battle; for as soon as Cæsar had defeated him, he at once obtained possession of all Pompeius’s treasure, supplies, and command of the sea, without gaining which he must inevitably have been defeated, even without a battle. Pompeius’s excuse [Pg 298]for his conduct is, in truth, his severest condemnation. It is very natural and pardonable for a young general to be influenced by clamours and accusations of remissness and cowardice, so as to abandon the course which he had previously decided upon as the safest; but that the great Pompeius, of whom the Romans used to say that the camp was his home, and that he only made an occasional campaign in the senate house, at a time when his followers called the consuls and generals of Rome traitors and rebels, and when they knew that he was in possession of absolute uncontrolled power, and had already conducted so many campaigns with such brilliant success as commander-in-chief—that he should be moved by the scoffs of a Favonius or a Domitius, and hazard his army and his life lest they should call him Agamemnon, is a most discreditable supposition. If he were so sensitive on the point of honour, he ought to have made a stand at the very beginning, and fought a battle in defence of Rome, not first to have retreated, giving out that he was acting with a subtlety worthy of Themistokles himself, and then to have regarded every day spent in Thessaly without fighting as a disgrace. The plain of Pharsalia was not specially appointed by heaven as the arena in which he was to contend with Cæsar for the empire of the world, nor was he summoned by the voice of a herald either to fight or to avow himself vanquished. There were many plains, and innumerable cities and countries which his command of the sea would have enabled him to reach, if he had wished to imitate Fabius Maximus, Marius, Lucullus, or Agesilaus himself, who resisted the same kind of clamour at Sparta, when his countrymen wished to fight the Thebans and protect their native land; while in Egypt he endured endless reproaches, abuse, and suspicion from Nektanebis because he forbade him to fight, and by consistently carrying out his own judicious policy saved the Egyptians against their will. He not only guided Sparta safely through that terrible crisis, but was enabled to win a victory over the Thebans in the city itself, which he never could have done had he yielded to the entreaties of the Lacedæmonians to fight when their country was first invaded. Thus it happened that Agesilaus was warmly praised by those [Pg 299]whose opinions he had overruled, while Pompeius made mistakes to please his friends, and afterwards was reproached by them for what he had done. Some historians tell us, however, that he was deceived by his father-in-law, Scipio, who with the intention of embezzling and converting to his own use the greater part of the treasure which Pompeius brought from Asia, urged him to fight as soon as possible, as though there was likely to be a scarcity of money. In these respects, then, we have reviewed their respective characters.

V

Pompeius went to Egypt of necessity, fleeing for his life; but Agesilaus went there with the dishonourable purpose of acting as general for the barbarians, in order that he might employ the money which he earned by that means in making war upon the Greeks. We blame the Egyptians for their conduct to Pompeius; but the Egyptians have equal reason to complain of the conduct of Agesilaus towards themselves; for though Pompeius trusted them and was betrayed, yet Agesilaus deserted the man who trusted him, and joined the enemies of those whom he went out to assist.

[Pg 300]

LIFE OF
ALEXANDER.

I

In writing the Lives of Alexander the Great and of Cæsar the conqueror of Pompeius, which are contained in this book, I have before me such an abundance of materials, that I shall make no other preface than to beg the reader, if he finds any of their famous exploits recorded imperfectly, and with large excisions, not to regard this as a fault. I am writing biography, not history; and often a man’s most brilliant actions prove nothing as to his true character, while some trifling incident, some casual remark or jest, will throw more light upon what manner of man he was than the bloodiest battle, the greatest array of armies, or the most important siege. Therefore, just as portrait painters pay most attention to those peculiarities of the face and eyes, in which the likeness consists, and care but little for the rest of the figure, so it is my duty to dwell especially upon those actions which reveal the workings of my heroes’ minds, and from these to construct the portraits of their respective lives, leaving their battles and their great deeds to be recorded by others.

II

All are agreed that Alexander was descended on his father’s side from Herakles through Karanus, and on his mother’s from Æakus through Neoptolemus.

We are told that Philip and Olympias first met during their initiation into the sacred mysteries at Samothrace, and that he, while yet a boy, fell in love with the orphan girl, and persuaded her brother Arymbas to consent to their marriage. The bride, before she consorted with her husband, dreamed that she had been struck by a thunderbolt, from which a sheet of flame sprang out in every direction, and then suddenly died away. Philip himself some time after his marriage dreamed that he set a seal [Pg 301]upon his wife’s body, on which was engraved the figure of a lion. When he consulted the soothsayers as to what this meant, most of them declared the meaning to be, that his wife required more careful watching; but Aristander of Telmessus declared that she must be pregnant, because men do not seal up what is empty, and that she would bear a son of a spirited and lion-like disposition. Once Philip found his wife asleep, with a large tame snake stretched beside her; and this, it is said, quite put an end to his passion for her, and made him avoid her society, either because he feared the magic arts of his wife, or else from a religious scruple, because his place was more worthily filled. Another version of this story is that the women of Macedonia have been from very ancient times subject to the Orphic and Bacchic frenzy (whence they were called Clodones and Mimallones), and perform the same rites as do the Edonians and the Thracian women about Mount Haemus, from which the word “threskeuein” has come to mean “to be over-superstitious.” Olympias, it is said, celebrated these rites with exceeding fervour, and in imitation of the Orientals, and to introduce into the festal procession large tame serpents,1 which struck terror into the men as they glided through the ivy wreaths and mystic baskets which the women carried on their heads.

III

We are told that Philip after this portent sent Chairon of Megalopolis to Delphi, to consult the god there, and that he delivered an oracular response bidding him sacrifice to Zeus Ammon, and to pay especial reverence to that god: warning him, moreover, that he would some day lose the sight of that eye with which, through the chink of the half-opened door, he had seen the god consorting with his wife in the form of a serpent. The historian Eratosthenes informs us that when Alexander was about to set out on his great expedition, Olympias told him the secret of his birth, and bade him act worthily of his divine parentage. Other writers say that she scrupled to mention the subject, and was heard to say “Why does Alexander make Hera jealous of me?”

Alexander was born on the sixth day of the month [Pg 302]Hekatombæon,2 which the Macedonians call Lous, the same day on which the temple of Artemis at Ephesus was burned. This coincidence inspired Hegesias of Magnesia to construct a ponderous joke, dull enough to have put out the fire, which was, that it was no wonder that the temple of Artemis was burned, since she was away from, it, attending to the birth of Alexander.3 All the Persian magi who were in Ephesus at the time imagined that the destruction of the temple was but the forerunner of a greater disaster, and ran through the city beating their faces and shouting that on that day was born the destroyer of Asia. Philip, who had just captured the city of Potidæa, received at that time three messengers. The first announced that the Illyrians had been severely defeated by Parmenio; the second that his racehorse had won a victory at Olympia, and the third, that Alexander was born. As one may well believe, he was delighted at such good news and was yet more overjoyed when the soothsayers told him that his son, whose birth coincided with three victories, would surely prove invincible.

IV

His personal appearance is best shown by the statues of Lysippus, the only artist whom he allowed to represent him; in whose works we can clearly trace that slight droop of his head towards the left, and that keen glance of his eyes which formed his chief characteristics, and which were afterwards imitated by his friends and successors.

Apelles, in his celebrated picture of Alexander wielding a thunderbolt, has not exactly copied the fresh tint of his flesh, but has made it darker and swarthier than it was, for we are told that his skin was remarkably fair, inclining to red about the face and breast. We learn from the memoirs of Aristoxenes, that his body diffused a rich perfume, which scented his clothes, and that his breath was remarkably sweet. This was possibly caused by the hot and fiery constitution of his body; for sweet scents are produced, according to Theophrastus, by heat acting upon moisture. For this reason the hottest and driest [Pg 303]regions of the earth produce the most aromatic perfumes, because the sun dries up that moisture which causes most substances to decay.

Alexander’s warm temperament of body seems to have rendered him fond of drinking, and fiery in disposition. As a youth he showed great power of self-control, by abstaining from all sensual pleasures in spite of his vehement and passionate nature; while his intense desire for fame rendered him serious and high-minded beyond his years.

For many kinds of glory, however, Alexander cared little; unlike his father Philip, who prided himself on his oratorical powers, and used to record his victories in the chariot races at Olympia upon his coins. Indeed, when Alexander’s friends, to try him, asked him whether he would contend in the foot race at Olympia, for he was a remarkably swift runner, he answered, “Yes, if I have kings to contend with.” He seems to have been altogether indifferent to athletic exercises; for though he gave more prizes than any one else to be contended for by dramatists, flute players, harp players, and even by rhapsodists,4 and though he delighted in all manner of hunting and cudgel playing, he never seems to have taken any interest in the contests of boxing or the pankratium.5 When ambassadors from the King of Persia arrived in Macedonia, Philip was absent, and Alexander entertained them. His engaging manners greatly charmed them, and he became their intimate friend. He never put any childish questions to them, but made many enquiries about the length of the journey from the sea coast to the interior of Persia, about the roads which led thither, about the king, whether he was experienced in war or not, and about the resources and military strength of the Persian empire, so that the ambassadors were filled with admira[Pg 304]tion, and declared that the boasted subtlety of Philip was nothing in comparison with the intellectual vigour and enlarged views of his son. Whenever he heard of Philip’s having taken some city or won some famous victory, he used to look unhappy at the news, and would say to his friends, “Boys, my father will forestall us in everything; he will leave no great exploits for you and me to achieve.” Indeed, he cared nothing for pleasure or wealth, but only for honour and glory; and he imagined that the more territory he inherited from his father, the less would be left for him to conquer. He feared that his father’s conquests would be so complete, as to leave him no more battles to fight, and he wished to succeed, not to a wealthy and luxurious, but to a military empire, at the head of which he might gratify his desire for war and adventure.

His education was superintended by many nurses, pedagogues, and teachers, the chief of whom was Leonidas, a harsh-tempered man, who was nearly related to Olympias. He did not object to the title of pedagogue,6 thinking that his duties are most valuable and honourable, but, on account of his high character and relationship to Alexander, was generally given the title of tutor by the others. The name and office of pedagogue was claimed by one Lysimachus, an Akarnanian by birth, and a dull man, but who gained the favour of Alexander by addressing him as Achilles, calling himself Phœnix, and Philip, Peleus.

VI

When Philoneikus the Thessalian brought the horse Boukephalus7 and offered it to Philip for the sum of thirteen talents, the king and his friends proceeded to some level ground to try the horse’s paces. They found that he was very savage and unmanageable, for he allowed no one to mount him, and paid no attention to any man’s voice, but refused to allow any one to approach [Pg 305]him. On this Philip became angry, and bade them take the vicious intractable brute away. Alexander, who was present, said, “What a fine horse they are ruining because they are too ignorant and cowardly to manage him.” Philip at first was silent, but when Alexander repeated this remark several times, and seemed greatly distressed, he said, “Do you blame your elders, as if you knew more than they, or were better able to manage a horse?” “This horse, at any rate,” answered Alexander, “I could manage better than any one else.” “And if you cannot manage him,” retorted his father, “what penalty will you pay for your forwardness?” “I will pay,” said Alexander, “the price of the horse.”

While the others were laughing and settling the terms of the wager, Alexander ran straight up to the horse, took him by the bridle, and turned him to the sun; as it seems he had noticed that the horse’s shadow dancing before his eyes alarmed him and made him restive. He then spoke gently to the horse, and patted him on the back with his hand, until he perceived that he no longer snorted so wildly, when, dropping his cloak, he lightly leaped upon his back. He now steadily reined him in, without violence or blows, and as he saw that the horse was no longer ill-tempered, but only eager to gallop, he let him go, boldly urging him to full speed with his voice and heel.

Philip and his friends were at first silent with terror; but when he wheeled the horse round, and rode up to them exulting in his success, they burst into a loud shout. It is said that his father wept for joy, and, when he dismounted, kissed him, saying, “My son, seek for a kingdom worthy of yourself: for Macedonia will not hold you.”

VII

Philip, seeing that his son was easily led, but could not be made to do anything by force, used always to manage him by persuasion, and never gave him orders. As he did not altogether care to entrust his education to the teachers whom he had obtained, but thought that it would be too difficult a task for them, since Alexander required, as Sophokles says of a ship:

“Stout ropes to check him, and stout oars to guide.”

[Pg 306]he sent for Aristotle, the most renowned philosopher of the age, to be his son’s tutor, and paid him a handsome reward for doing so. He had captured and destroyed Aristotle’s native city of Stageira; but now he rebuilt it, and repeopled it, ransoming the citizens, who had been, sold for slaves, and bringing back those who were living in exile. For Alexander and Aristotle he appointed the temple and grove of the nymphs, near the city of Mieza, as a school-house and dwelling; and there to this day are shown the stone seat where Aristotle sat, and the shady avenues where he used to walk. It is thought that Alexander was taught by him not only his doctrines of Morals and Politics, but also those more abstruse mysteries which are only communicated orally and are kept concealed from the vulgar: for after he had invaded Asia, hearing that Aristotle had published some treatises on these subjects, he wrote him a letter in which he defended the practice of keeping these speculations secret in the following words:—

“Alexander to Aristotle wishes health. You have not done well in publishing abroad those sciences which should only be taught by word of mouth. For how shall we be distinguished from other men, if the knowledge which we have acquired be made the common property of all? I myself had rather excel others in excellency of learning than in greatness of power. Farewell.”

To pacify him, Aristotle wrote in reply that these doctrines were published, and yet not published: meaning that his treatise on Metaphysics was only written for those who had been instructed in philosophy by himself, and would be quite useless in other hands.

VIII

I think also that Aristotle more than any one else implanted a love of medicine in Alexander, who was not only fond of discussing the theory, but used to prescribe for his friends when they were sick, and order them to follow special courses of treatment and diet, as we gather from his letters. He was likewise fond of literature and of reading, and we are told by Onesikritus that he was wont to call the Iliad a complete manual of the military art, and that he always carried with him Aristotle’s recension of Homer’s poems, which is called ‘the casket [Pg 307]copy,’ and placed it under his pillow together with his dagger. Being without books when in the interior of Asia, he ordered Harpalus to send him some. Harpalus sent him the histories of Philistus, several plays of Euripides, Sophokles, and Æschylus, and the dithyrambic hymns of Telestus and Philoxenus.

Alexander when a youth used to love and admire Aristotle more even than his father, for he said that the latter had enabled him to live, but that the former had taught him to live well. He afterwards suspected him somewhat; yet he never did him any injury, but only was not so friendly with him as he had been, whereby it was observed that he no longer bore him the good-will he was wont to do. Notwithstanding this, he never lost that interest in philosophical speculation which he had acquired in his youth, as it proved by the honours which he paid to Anaxarchus, the fifty talents which he sent as a present to Xenokrates, and the protection and encouragement which he gave to Dandamris and Kalanus.

IX

When Philip was besieging Byzantium he left to Alexander, who was then only sixteen years old, the sole charge of the administration of the kingdom of Macedonia, confirming his authority by entrusting to him his own signet.8 He defeated and subdued the Mædian9 rebels, took their city, ejected its barbarian inhabitants, and reconstituted it as a Grecian colony, to which he gave the name of Alexandropolis.

He was present at the battle against the Greeks at Chæronea, and it is said to have been the first to charge the Sacred Band of the Thebans. Even in my own time, an old oak tree used to be pointed out, near the river Kephissus,10 which was called Alexander’s oak, because his tent was pitched beside it. It stands not far from the place where the Macedonian corpses were buried after the battle. Philip, as we may imagine, was overjoyed at [Pg 308]these proofs of his son’s courage and skill, and nothing pleased him more than to hear the Macedonians call Alexander their king, and himself their general. Soon, however, the domestic dissensions produced by Philip’s amours and marriages caused an estrangement between them, and the breach was widened by Olympias, a jealous and revengeful woman, who incensed Alexander against his father. But what especially moved Alexander was the conduct of Attalus at the marriage feast of his niece Kleopatra. Philip, who was now too old for marriage, had become enamoured of this girl, and after the wedding, Attalus in his cups called upon the Macedonians to pray to the gods that from the union of Philip and Kleopatra might be born a legitimate heir to the throne.

Enraged at these words, Alexander exclaimed, “You villain, am I then a bastard?” and threw a drinking cup at him. Philip, seeing this, rose and drew his sword to attack Alexander; but fortunately for both he was so excited by drink and rage that he missed his footing and fell headlong to the ground. Hereupon Alexander mocking him observed, “This is the man who was preparing to cross from Europe to Asia, and has been overthrown in passing from one couch11 to another.”

After this disgraceful scene, Alexander, with his mother Olympias, retired into Epirus, where he left her, and proceeded to the country of the Illyrians. About the same time Demaratus of Corinth, an old friend of the family, and privileged to speak his mind freely, came on a visit to Philip. After the first greetings were over, Philip enquired whether the states of Greece agreed well together. “Truly, King Philip,” answered Demaratus, “it well becomes you to show an interest in the agreement of the Greeks, after you have raised such violent quarrels in your own family.”

These words had such an effect upon Philip that Demaratus was able to prevail upon him to make his peace with Alexander and to induce him to return.

X

Yet when Pixodarus, the satrap of Karia, hoping to [Pg 309]connect himself with Philip, and so to obtain him as an ally, offered his eldest daughter in marriage to Arrhidæus, Philip’s natural son, and sent Aristokrites to Macedonia to conduct the negotiations, Olympias and her friends again exasperated Alexander against his father by pointing out to him that Philip, by arranging this splendid marriage for Arrhidæus, and treating him as a person of such great importance, was endeavouring to accustom the Macedonians to regard him as the heir to the throne. Alexander yielded to these representations so far as to send Thessalus, the tragic actor, on a special mission to Pixodarus in Karia, to assure him that he ought to disregard Arrhidæus, who was illegitimate, and foolish to boot, and that it was to Alexander that he ought to offer the hand of his daughter.

Pixodarus was much more eager to accept this proposal than the former, but Philip one day hearing that Alexander was alone in his chamber, went thither with Philotas, the son of Parmenio, an intimate friend, and bitterly reproached him, pointing out how unworthy it was of his high birth and glorious position to stoop to marry the daughter of a mere Karian,12 and of a barbarian who was a subject of the King of Persia.

Upon this he wrote to the Corinthians to send him Thessalus in chains, and also banished out of his kingdom Harpalus, Nearchus, Erigyius, and Ptolemæus, all of whom Alexander afterwards brought back and promoted to great honours.

Shortly after this, Pausanias was grossly insulted by the contrivance of Attalus and Kleopatra, and, as he could not obtain amends for what he suffered, assassinated Philip. We are told that most men laid the blame of this murder upon Queen Olympias, who found the young man smarting from the outrage which had been committed upon him, and urged him to avenge himself, while some accused Alexander himself. It is said that when Pausanias came to him and complained of his treatment, Alexander answered him by quoting the line from the Medea of [Pg 310]Euripides, in which she declares that she will be revenged upon

“The guardian, and the bridegroom, and the bride,”

alluding to Attalus, Philip, and Kleopatra.

However this may be, it is certain that he sought out and punished all who were concerned in the plot, and he expressed his sorrow on discovering that during his own absence from the kingdom, Kleopatra had been cruelly tortured and put to death by his mother Olympias.

XI

At the age of twenty he succeeded to the throne of Macedonia, a perilous and unenviable inheritance: for the neighbouring barbarian tribes chafed at being held in bondage, and longed for the rule of their own native kings; while Philip, although he had conquered Greece by force of arms, yet had not had time to settle its government and accustom it to its new position. He had overthrown all constituted authority in that country, and had left men’s minds in an excited condition, eager for fresh changes and revolutions. The Macedonians were very sensible of the dangerous crisis through which they were passing, and hoped that Alexander would refrain as far as possible from interfering in the affairs of Greece, deal gently with the insurgent chiefs of his barbarian subjects, and carefully guard against revolutionary outbreaks. He, however, took quite a different view of the situation, conceiving it to be best to win safety by audacity, and carrying things with a high hand, thinking that if he showed the least sign of weakness, his enemies would all set upon him at once. He crushed the risings of the barbarians by promptly marching through their country as far as the river Danube, and by winning a signal victory over Syrmus, the King of the Triballi. After this, as he heard that the Thebans had revolted, and that the Athenians sympathised with them, he marched his army straight through Thermopylæ, with the remark that Demosthenes, who had called him a boy while he was fighting the Illyrians and Triballi, and a youth while he was marching through Thessaly, should find him a man when he saw him before the gates of Athens. When he reached Thebes, he gave the citizens [Pg 311]an opportunity to repent of their conduct, only demanding Phœnix and Prothytes to be given up to him, and offering the rest a free pardon if they would join him. When, however, the Thebans in answer to this, demanded that he should give up Philotas and Antipater to them, and called upon all who were willing to assist in the liberation of Greece to come and join them, he bade his Macedonians prepare for battle.

The Thebans, although greatly outnumbered, fought with superhuman valour; but they were taken in the rear by the Macedonian garrison, who suddenly made a sally from the Kadmeia, and the greater part of them were surrounded and fell fighting. The city was captured, plundered and destroyed. Alexander hoped by this terrible example to strike terror into the other Grecian states, although he put forward the specious pretext that he was avenging the wrongs of his allies; for the Platæans and Phokians had made some complaints of the conduct of the Thebans towards them. With the exception of the priests, the personal friends and guests of the Macedonians, the descendants of the poet Pindar, and those who had opposed the revolt, he sold for slaves all the rest of the inhabitants, thirty thousand in number. More than six thousand men perished in the battle.

XII

Amidst the fearful scene of misery and disorder which followed the capture of the city, certain Thracians broke into the house of one Timoklea, a lady of noble birth and irreproachable character. Their leader forcibly violated her, and then demanded whether she had any gold or silver concealed. She said that she had, led him alone into the garden, and, pointing to a well, told him that when the city was taken she threw her most valuable jewels into it. While the Thracian was stooping over the well trying to see down to the bottom, she came behind, pushed him in, and threw large stones upon him until he died. The Thracians seized her, and took her to Alexander, where she proved herself a woman of courage by her noble and fearless carriage, as she walked in the midst of her savage captors. The king enquired who she was, to which she replied she was the sister of Theagenes, who fought against Philip to protect the liberty of Greece, and who fell leading on the Thebans [Pg 312]at Chæronea. Alexander, struck by her answer, and admiring her exploit, gave orders that she and her children should be set at liberty.

XIII

Alexander came to terms with the Athenians, although they had expressed the warmest sympathy for the Thebans, omitting the performance of the festival of Demeter, out of respect for their misfortunes, and giving a kindly welcome to all the fugitives who reached Athens. Either he had had his fill of anger, like a sated lion, or possibly he wished to perform some signal act of mercy by way of contrast to his savage treatment of Thebes. Be this as it may, he not only informed the Athenians that he had no grounds of quarrel with them, but even went so far as to advise them to watch the course of events with care, since, if anything should happen to him, they might again become the ruling state in Greece. In after times, Alexander often grieved over his harsh treatment of the Thebans, and the recollection of what he had done made him much less severe to others. Indeed, he always referred his unfortunate drunken quarrel with Kleitus, and the refusal of the Macedonian soldiers to invade India, by which they rendered the glory of his great expedition incomplete, to the anger of Dionysius,13 who desired to avenge the fate of his favourite city. Moreover, of the Thebans who survived the ruin of their city, no one ever asked any favour of Alexander without its being granted. This was the manner in which Alexander dealt with Thebes.

XIV

The Greeks after this assembled at Corinth and agreed to invade Persia with Alexander for their leader. Many of their chief statesmen and philosophers paid him visits of congratulation, and he hoped that Diogenes of Sinope, who was at that time living at Corinth, would do so. As he, however, paid no attention whatever to Alexander and remained quietly in the suburb called Kraneium, Alexander himself went to visit him. He found him lying at full length, basking in the sun. At the approach of so many people, he sat up, and looked at Alexander. Alexander greeted him, and enquired whether he could do anything for him. “Yes,” answered [Pg 313]Diogenes, “you can stand a little on one side, and not keep the sun off me.” This answer is said to have so greatly surprised Alexander, and to have filled him with such a feeling of admiration for the greatness of mind of a man who could treat him with such insolent superiority, that when he went away, while all around were jeering and scoffing he said, “Say what you will; if I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.”

Desiring to consult the oracle of Apollo concerning his campaign, he now proceeded to Delphi. It chanced that he arrived there on one of the days which are called unfortunate, on which no oracular responses can be obtained. In spite of this he at once sent for the chief priestess, and as she refused to officiate and urged that she was forbidden to do so by the law, he entered the temple by force and dragged her to the prophetic tripod. She, yielding to his persistence, said, “You are irresistible, my son.” Alexander, at once, on hearing this, declared that he did not wish for any further prophecy, but that he had obtained from her the response which he wished for. While he was preparing for his expedition, among many other portents, the statue of Orpheus at Loibethra, which is made of cypress-wood, was observed to be covered with sweat. All were alarmed at this omen, but Aristander bade them take courage, as it portended that Alexander should perform many famous acts, which would cause poets much trouble to record.

XV

The number of his army is variously stated by different authorities, some saying that it amounted to thirty thousand foot and four thousand horse, while others put the whole amount so high as forty-three thousand foot and five thousand horse. To provide for this multitude, Aristobulus relates that he possessed only seventy talents, while Douris informs us that he had only provisions for thirty days, and Onesikritus declares that he was in debt to the amount of two hundred talents. Yet although he started with such slender resources, before he embarked he carefully enquired into the affairs of his friends, and made them all ample presents, assigning to some of them large tracts of land, and to others villages, the rents of houses, or the right of levying harbour dues. When he [Pg 314]had almost expended the whole of the revenues of the crown in this fashion, Perdikkas enquired of him, “My king, what have you reserved for yourself?” “My hopes,” replied Alexander. “Then,” said Perdikkas, “are we who go with you not to share them?” and he at once refused to accept the present which had been offered to him, as did several others. Those, however, who would receive his gifts, or who asked for anything, were rewarded with a lavish hand, so that he distributed among them nearly all the revenues of Macedonia; so confident of success was he when he set out. When he had crossed the Hellespont he proceeded to Troy, offered sacrifice to Athena, and poured libations to the heroes who fell there. He anointed the column which marks the tomb of Achilles with fresh oil, and after running round it naked with his friends, as is customary, placed a garland upon it, observing that Achilles was fortunate in having a faithful friend while he lived, and a glorious poet to sing of his deeds after his death. While he was walking through the city and looking at all the notable things, he was asked whether he wished to see the harp which had once belonged to Paris. He answered, that he cared nothing for it, but that he wished to find that upon which Achilles used to play when he sang of the deeds of heroes.

XVI

Meanwhile the generals of Darius had collected a large army, and posted it at the passage of the river Granikus, so that it was necessary for Alexander to fight a battle in order to effect so much as an entrance into Asia. Most of the Greek generals were alarmed at the depth and uneven bed of the river, and at the rugged and broken ground on the farther bank, which they would have to mount in the face of the enemy. Some also raised a religious scruple, averring that the Macedonian kings never made war during the month Daisius. Alexander said that this could be easily remedied, and ordered that the second month in the Macedonian calendar should henceforth be called Artemisium. When Parmenio besought him not to risk a battle, as the season was far advanced, he said that the Hellespont would blush for shame if he crossed it, and then feared to cross the Granikus, and at once plunged into the stream with [Pg 315]thirteen squadrons of cavalry. It seemed the act of a desperate madman rather than of a general to ride thus through a rapid river, under a storm of missiles, towards a steep bank where every position of advantage was occupied by armed men. He, however, gained the farther shore, and made good his footing there, although with great difficulty on account of the slippery mud. As soon as he had crossed, and driven away those who had opposed his passage, he was charged by a mass of the enemy, and forced to fight, pell-mell, man to man, before he could put those who had followed him over into battle array. The enemy came on with a shout, and rode straight up to the horses of the Macedonians, thrusting at them with spears, and using swords when their spears were broken. Many of them pressed round Alexander himself, who was made a conspicuous figure by his shield and the long white plume which hung down on each side of his helmet. He was struck by a javelin in the joint of his corslet, but received no hurt. Rhœsakes and Spithridates, two of the Persian generals, now attacked him at once. He avoided the charge of the latter, but broke his spear against the breastplate of Rhœsakes, and was forced to betake him to his sword. No sooner had they closed together than Spithridates rode up beside him, and, standing up in his stirrups, dealt him such a blow with a battle-axe, as cut off one side of his plume, and pierced his helmet just so far as to reach his hair with the edge of the axe. While Spithridates was preparing for another blow, he was run through by black Kleitus with a lance, and at the same moment Alexander with his sword laid Rhœsakes dead at his feet. During this fierce and perilous cavalry battle, the Macedonian phalanx14 crossed the river, and engaged the enemy’s infantry force, none of which offered much resistance except a body of mercenary Greeks in the pay of Persia. These troops retired to a small rising ground, and begged for quarter. Alexander, however, furiously attacked them by riding up to them by himself, in front of his men.

He lost his horse, which was killed by a sword-thrust, [Pg 316]and it is said that more of the Macedonians perished in that fight, and that more wounds were given and received, than in all the rest of the battle, as they were attacking desperate men accustomed to war.

The Persians are said to have lost twenty thousand infantry, and two thousand five hundred cavalry. In the army of Alexander, Aristobulus states the total loss to have been thirty-four men, nine of whom were foot soldiers. Alexander ordered that each of these men should have his statue made in bronze by Lysippus; and wishing to make the Greeks generally partakers of his victory, he sent the Athenians three hundred captured shields, and on the other spoils placed the following vainglorious inscription:15 “Alexander, the son of Philip, and the Greeks, all but the Lacedæmonians, won these spoils from the barbarians of Asia.” As for the golden drinking-cups, purple hangings, and other plunder of that sort, he sent it nearly all to his mother, reserving only a few things for himself.

XVII

This victory wrought a great change in Alexander’s position. Several of the neighbouring states came and made their submission to him, and even Sardis itself, the chief town in Lydia, and the main station of the Persians in Asia Minor, submitted without a blow. The only cities which still resisted him, Halikarnassus and Miletus, he took by storm, and conquered all the adjacent territory, after which he remained in doubt as to what to attempt next; whether to attack Darius at once and risk all that he had won upon the issue of a single battle, or to consolidate and organise his conquests on the coast of Asia Minor, and to gather new strength for the final struggle. It is said that at this time a spring in the country of Lykia, near the city of Xanthus, overflowed, and threw up from its depths a brazen tablet, upon which, in ancient characters, was inscribed a prophecy that the Persian empire should be destroyed by the Greeks. Encouraged by this portent, he extended his conquests along the sea coast as far as Phœnicia and Kilikia. Many [Pg 317]historians dwelt with admiration on the good fortune of Alexander, in meeting with such fair weather and such a smooth sea during his passage along the stormy shore of Pamphylia, and say that it was a miracle that the furious sea, which usually dashed against the highest rocks upon the cliffs, fell calm for him. Menander alludes to this in one of his plays.

“Like Alexander, if I wish to meet

A man, at once I find him in the street;

And, were I forced to journey o’er the sea,

The sea itself would calm its waves for me.”

Alexander himself, however, in his letters, speaks of no such miracle, but merely tells us that he started from Phaselis, and passed along the difficult road called Klimax, or the Ladder.16 He spent some time in Phaselis, and while he was there, observing in the market-place a statue of Theodektes, a philosopher, who had recently died, he made a procession to it one day after dinner, and crowned it with flowers, as a sportive recognition of what he owed to Theodektes, with whose philosophical writings Aristotle had made him familiar.

XVIII

After this he put down a revolt among the Pisidians, and conquered the whole of Phrygia. On his arrival at Gordium, which is said to have been the capital of King Midas of old, he was shown the celebrated chariot there, tied up with a knot of cornel-tree bark. Here he was told the legend, which all the natives believed, that whoever untied that knot was destined to become lord of all the world. Most historians say that as the knot was tied with a strap whose ends could not be found, and was very complicated and intricate, Alexander, despairing of untying it, drew his sword and cut through the knot, thus making many ends appear. But Aristobulus tells us that he easily undid it by pulling out of the pole the [Pg 318]pin to which the strap was fastened, and then drawing off the yoke itself from the pole.

He now prevailed upon the people of Paphlagonia and Kappadokia to join him, and also was encouraged in his design of proceeding farther into the interior by receiving intelligence of the death of Memnon, the general to whom Darius had entrusted the defence of the sea coast, who had already caused him much trouble, and had offered a most stubborn resistance to him. Darius, too, came from Susa, confident in the numbers of his army, for he was at the head of six hundred thousand men, and greatly encouraged by a dream upon which the Magi had put rather a strained interpretation in order to please him. He dreamed that he saw the Macedonian phalanx begirt with flame, and that Alexander, dressed in a courier’s cloak like that which he himself had worn before he became king, was acting as his servant. Afterwards, Alexander went into the temple of Belus, and disappeared. By this vision the gods probably meant to foretell that the deeds of the Macedonians would be brilliant and glorious, and that Alexander after conquering Asia, just as Darius had conquered it when from a mere courier he rose to be a king, would die young and famous.

XIX

Darius was also much encouraged by the long inaction of Alexander in Kilikia. This was caused by an illness, which some say arose from the hardships which he had undergone, and others tell us was the result of bathing in the icy waters of the Kydnus. No physician dared to attend him, for they all thought that he was past the reach of medicine, and dreaded the anger of the Macedonians if they proved unsuccessful. At last Philip, an Akarnanian, seeing that he was dangerously ill, determined to run the risk, as he was his true friend, and thought it his duty to share all his dangers. He compounded a draught for him, and persuaded him to drink it, by telling him that it would give him strength and enable him to take the field. At this time Parmenio sent him a letter from the camp, bidding him beware of Philip, who had been bribed to poison him by Darius with rich presents, and the offer of his own daughter in marriage. Alexander read the letter, and showed it to no one, but [Pg 319]placed it under his pillow. At the appointed hour, Philip and his friends entered the room, bringing the medicine in a cup. Alexander took the cup from him, and gave him the letter to read, while he firmly and cheerfully drank it off. It was a strange and theatrical scene. When the one had read, and the other had drunk, they stared into each other’s faces, Alexander with a cheerful expression of trust and kindly feeling towards Philip, while Philip, enraged at the calumny, first raised his hands to heaven, protesting his innocence, and then, casting himself upon his knees at the bed-side, besought Alexander to be of good cheer and follow his advice. The effect of the drug at first was to produce extreme weakness, for he became speechless and almost insensible. In a short time, however, by Philip’s care, he recovered his strength, and showed himself publicly to the Macedonians, who were very anxious about him, and would not believe that he was better until they saw him.

XX

There was in the camp of Darius a Macedonian refugee, named Amyntas, who was well acquainted with Alexander’s character. This man, when he found that Darius wished to enter the hilly country to fight Alexander amongst its narrow valleys, besought him to remain where he was, upon the flat open plains, where the enormous numbers of his troops could be advantageously used against the small Macedonian army. When Darius answered that he feared Alexander and his men would escape unless he attacked, Amyntas said, “O king, have no fears on that score; for he will come and fight you, and I warrant he is not far off now.” However, Amyntas made no impression on Darius, who marched forward into Kilikia, while at the same time Alexander marched into Syria to meet him. During the night they missed one another, and each turned back, Alexander rejoicing at this incident, and hurrying to catch Darius in the narrow defile leading into Kilikia, while Darius was glad of the opportunity of recovering his former ground, and of disentangling his army from the narrow passes through the mountains. He already had perceived the mistake which he had committed in entering a country where the sea, the mountains, and the river Pyramus which ran between them, made it impossible for [Pg 320]his army to act, while on the other hand it afforded great advantages to his enemies, who were mostly foot soldiers, and whose numbers were not so great as to encumber their movements.

Fortune, no doubt, greatly favoured Alexander, but yet he owed much of his success to his excellent generalship; for although enormously outnumbered by the enemy, he not only avoided being surrounded by them, but was able to outflank their left with his own right wing, and by this manœuvre completely defeated the Persians. He himself fought among the foremost, and, according to Chares, was wounded in the thigh by Darius himself. Alexander in the account of the battle which he despatched to Antipater, does not mention the name of the man who wounded him, but states that he received a stab in the thigh with a dagger, and that the wound was not a dangerous one.

He won a most decisive victory, and slew more than a hundred thousand of the enemy, but could not come up with Darius himself, as he gained a start of nearly a mile. He captured his chariot, however, and his bow and arrows, and on his return found the Macedonians revelling in the rich plunder which they had won, although the Persians had been in light marching order, and had left most of their heavy baggage at Damascus. The royal pavilion of Darius himself, full of beautiful slaves, and rich furniture of every description, had been left unplundered, and was reserved for Alexander himself, who as soon as he had taken off his armour, proceeded to the bath, saying “Let me wash off the sweat of the battle in the bath of Darius.” ” Nay,” answered one of his companions, “in that of Alexander; for the goods of the vanquished become the property of the victor.” When he entered the bath and saw that all the vessels for water, the bath itself, and the boxes of unguents were of pure gold, and smelt the delicious scent of the rich perfumes with which the whole pavilion was filled; and when he passed from the bath into a magnificent and lofty saloon where a splendid banquet was prepared, he looked at his friends and said “This, then, it is to be a king indeed.”

XXI

[Pg 321]While he was dining it was told him that the mother and wife of Darius, and his two daughters, who were among the captives, had seen the chariot and bow of Darius, and were mourning for him, imagining him to be dead. Alexander when he heard this paused for a long time, being more affected by the grief of these ladies, than by the victory which he had won. Hie sent Leonnatus to inform them, that they need neither mourn for Darius, nor fear Alexander; for he was fighting for the empire of Asia, not as a personal enemy of Darius, and would take care that they were treated with the same honour and respect as before. This generous message to the captive princesses was followed by acts of still greater kindness; for he permitted then to bury whomsoever of the slain Persians they wished, and to use all their own apparel and furniture, which had been seized by the soldiers as plunder. He also allowed them to retain the regal title and state, and even increased their revenues. But the noblest and most truly royal part of his treatment of these captive ladies was that he never permitted them to hear any coarse language, or imagine for a moment that they were likely to suffer violence or outrage; so that they lived unseen and unmolested, more as though they were in some sacred retreat of holy virgins than in a camp. Yet the wife of Darius is said to have been the most beautiful princess of her age, just as Darius himself was the tallest and handsomest man in Asia, and their daughters are said to have resembled their parents in beauty. Alexander, it seems, thought it more kingly to restrain himself than to conquer the enemy, and never touched any of them, nor did he know any other before his marriage, except Barsine. This lady, after the death of her husband Memnon, remained at Damascus. She had received a Greek education, was naturally attractive, and was of royal descent, as her father was Artabazus, who married one of the king’s daughters; which, added to the solicitations of Parmenio, as we are told by Aristobulus, made Alexander the more willing to attach himself to so beautiful and well-born a lady. When Alexander saw the beauty of the other captives, he said in jest, that the Persian ladies make [Pg 322]men’s eyes sore to behold them. Yet, in spite of their attractions, he was determined that his self-restraint should be as much admired as their beauty, and passed by them as if they had been images cut out of stone.

XXII

Indeed, when Philoxenus, the commander of his fleet, wrote to inform him that a slave merchant of Tarentum, named Theodorus, had two beautiful slaves for sale, and desired to know whether he would buy them, Alexander was greatly incensed, and angrily demanded of his friends what signs of baseness Philoxenus could have observed in him that he should venture to make such disgraceful proposals to him. He sent a severe reprimand to Philoxenus, and ordered him to send Theodorus and his merchandise to the devil. He also severely rebuked a young man named Hagnon for a similar offence.

On another occasion, when he heard that two Macedonians of Parmenio’s regiment, named Damon and Timotheus, had violently outraged the wives of some of the mercenary soldiers, he wrote to Parmenio, ordering him, if the charge were proved, to put them to death like mere brute beasts that prey upon mankind. And in that letter he wrote thus of himself. “I have never seen, or desired to see the wife of Darius, and have not even allowed her beauty to be spoken of in my presence.”

He was wont to say that he was chiefly reminded that he was mortal by these two weaknesses, sleep and lust; thinking weariness and sensuality alike to be bodily weaknesses. He was also most temperate in eating, as was signally proved by his answer to the princess Ada, whom he adopted as his mother, and made Queen of Karia. She, in order to show her fondness for him, sent him every day many dainty dishes and sweetmeats, and at last presented him with her best cooks. He answered her that he needed them not, since he had been provided with much better relishes for his food by his tutor Leonidas, who had taught him to earn his breakfast by a night-march, and to obtain an appetite for his dinner by eating sparingly at breakfast. “My tutor,” he said, “would often look into my chests of clothes, and of bedding, to make sure that my mother had not hidden any delicacies for me in them.”

XXIII

[Pg 323]He was less given to wine than he was commonly supposed to be. He was thought to be a great drinker because of the length of time which he would pass over each cup, in talking more than in drinking it, for he always held a long conversation while drinking, provided he was at leisure to do so. If anything had to be done, no wine, or desire of rest, no amusement, marriage, or spectacle could restrain him, as they did other generals. This is clearly shown by the shortness of his life, and the wonderful number of great deeds which he performed during the little time that he lived. When he was at leisure, he used to sacrifice to the gods immediately after rising in the morning, and then sit down to his breakfast. After breakfast, he would pass the day in hunting, deciding disputes between his subjects, devising military manœuvres, or reading. When on a journey, if he was not in any great hurry, he used, while on the road, to practice archery, or to dismount from a chariot which was being driven at full speed, and then again mount it. Frequently also he hunted foxes and shot birds for amusement, as we learn from his diaries. On arriving at the place where he intended to pass the night, he always bathed and anointed himself, and then asked his cooks what was being prepared for his dinner.

He always dined late, just as it began to grow dark, and was very careful to have his table well provided, and to give each of his guests an equal share. He sat long over his wine, as we have said, because of his love of conversation. And although at all other times his society was most charming, and his manners gracious and pleasant beyond any other prince of his age, yet when he was drinking, his talk ran entirely upon military topics, and became offensively boastful, partly from his own natural disposition, and partly from the encouragement which he received from his flatterers. This often greatly embarrassed honest men, as they neither wished to vie with the flatterers in praising him to his face, nor yet to appear to grudge him his due share of admiration. To bestow such excessive praise seemed shameful, while to withhold it was dangerous. After a drinking bout, he would take a bath, and often slept until late in the following day; and [Pg 324]sometimes he passed the whole day asleep. He cared but little for delicate food, and often when the rarest fruits and fish were sent to him from the sea-coast, he would distribute them so lavishly amongst his friends as to leave none for himself; yet his table was always magnificently served, and as his revenues became increased by his conquests, its expense rose to ten thousand drachmas a day. To this it was finally limited, and those who entertained Alexander were told that they must not expend more than that sum.

XXIV

After the battle of Issus, he sent troops to Damascus, and captured all the treasure, the baggage, and the women and children of the Persian army. Those who chiefly benefited by this were the Thessalian cavalry, who had distinguished themselves in the battle, and had been purposely chosen for this service by Alexander as a reward for their bravery; yet all the camp was filled with riches, so great was the mass of plunder. Then did the Macedonians get their first taste of gold and silver, of Persian luxury and of Persian women; and after this, like hounds opening upon a scent, they eagerly pressed forward on the track of the wealthy Persians. Alexander, however, thought it best, before proceeding further, to complete the conquest of the sea-coast. Cyprus was at once surrendered to him by its local kings, as was all Phœnicia, except Tyre. He besieged Tyre for seven months, with great mounds and siege artillery on the land side, while a fleet of two hundred triremes watched it by sea. During the seventh month of the siege he dreamed that Herakles greeted him in a friendly manner from the walls of Tyre, and called upon him to come in. Many of the Tyrians also dreamed that Apollo appeared to them, and said that he was going to Alexander, since what was being done in the city of Tyre did not please him. The Tyrians, upon this, treated the god as though he were a man caught in the act of deserting to Alexander, for they tied cords round his statue, nailed it down to its base, and called him Alexandristes, or follower of Alexander. Alexander now dreamed another dream, that a satyr appeared to him at a distance, and sported with him, but when he endeavoured to catch him, ran away, and that, at length, after much [Pg 325]trouble, he caught him. This was very plausibly explained by the prophets to mean “Sa Tyros”—“Tyre shall be thine,” dividing the Greek word Satyros into two parts. A well is shown at the present day near which Alexander saw the satyr in his dream.

During the siege, Alexander made an expedition against the neighbouring Arab tribes, in which he fell into great danger through his old tutor Lysimachus, who insisted on accompanying him, declaring that he was no older and no less brave than Phœnix when he followed Achilles to Troy. When they reached the mountains, they were forced to leave their horses and march on foot. The rest proceeded on their way, but Lysimachus could not keep up, although night was coming on and the enemy were near. Alexander would not leave him, but encouraged him and helped him along until he became separated from his army, and found himself almost alone. It was now dark, and bitterly cold. The country where they were was very rugged and mountainous, and in the distance appeared many scattered watch-fires of the enemy.

Alexander, accustomed to rouse the disheartened Macedonians by his own personal exertions, and trusting to his swiftness of foot, ran up to the nearest fire, struck down with his sword two men who wore watching beside it, and brought a burning firebrand back to his own party. They now made up an enormous fire, which terrified some of the enemy so much that they retreated, while others who had intended to attack them, halted and forbore to do so, thus enabling them to pass the night in safety.

XXV

The siege of Tyre came to an end in the following manner. The greater part of Alexander’s troops were resting from their labours, but in order to occupy the attention of the enemy, he led a few men up to the city walls, while Aristander, the soothsayer, offered sacrifice. When he saw the victims, he boldly informed all who were present that during the current month, Tyre would be taken. All who heard him laughed him to scorn, as that day was the last of the month, but Alexander seeing him at his wits’ end, being always eager to support the credit of prophecies, gave orders that that day should [Pg 326]not be reckoned as the thirtieth of the month, but as the twenty-third. After this he bade the trumpets sound, and assaulted the walls much more vigorously than he had originally intended. The attack succeeded, and as the rest of the army would no longer stay behind in the camp, but rushed to take their share in the assault, the Tyrians were overpowered, and their city taken on that very day.

Afterwards, while Alexander was besieging Gaza, the largest city in Syria, a clod of earth was dropped upon his shoulder by a bird, which afterwards alighted upon one of the military engines, and became entangled in the network of ropes by which it was worked. This portent also was truly explained by Aristander; for the place was taken, and Alexander was wounded in the shoulder.

He sent many of the spoils to Olympias, Kleopatra, and others of his friends, and sent his tutor Leonidas five hundred talents weight of frankincense, and a hundred talents of myrrh, to remind him of what he had said when a child. Leonidas once, when sacrificing, reproved Alexander for taking incense by handfuls to throw upon the victim when it was burning on the altar. “When,” he said, “you have conquered the country from which incense comes, Alexander, then you may make such rich offerings as these; but at present you must use what we have sparingly.” Alexander now wrote to him, “We have sent you abundance of frankincense and myrrh, that you may no longer treat the gods so stingily.”

XXVI

When a certain casket was brought to him, which appeared to be the most valuable of all the treasures taken from Darius, he asked his friends what they thought he ought to keep in it as his own most precious possession. After they had suggested various different things, he said that he intended to keep his copy of the Iliad in it. This fact is mentioned by many historians; and if the legend which is current among the people of Alexandria; on the authority of Herakleides, be true, the poems of Homer were far from idle or useless companions to him, even when on a campaign. The story goes that after conquering Egypt, he desired to found a great and populous Grecian city, to be called after his own [Pg 327]name, and that after he had fixed upon an excellent site, where in the opinion of the best architects, a city surpassing anything previously existing could be built, he dreamed that a man with long hair and venerable aspect appeared to him, and recited the following verses:

“Hard by, an island in the stormy main

Lies close to Egypt, Pharos is its name.”

As soon as he woke, he proceeded to Pharos, which then was an island near the Canopic mouth of the Nile, though at the present day so much earth has been deposited by the river that it is joined to the mainland. When he saw the great advantages possessed by this place, which is a long strip of land, stretching between the sea and a large inland lake, with a large harbour at the end of it, he at once said that Homer, besides his other admirable qualities, was a splendid architect, and gave orders to his workmen to mark out a site for a city suitable to such a situation. There was no chalk or white earth, with which it is usual to mark the course of the walls, but they took barley-groats, and marked out a semicircular line with them upon the black earth, dividing it into equal segments by lines radiating from the centre, so that it looked like a Macedonian cloak, of which the walls formed the outer fringe. While the king was looking with satisfaction at the plan of the new city, suddenly from the lake and the river, innumerable aquatic birds of every kind flew like great clouds to the spot, and devoured all the barley. This omen greatly disturbed Alexander; however, the soothsayers bade him take courage, and interpreted it to mean that the place would become a very rich and populous city. Upon this he ordered the workmen at once to begin to build, while he himself started to visit the shrine and oracle of Zeus Ammon. This journey is tedious and difficult, and dangerous also, because the way lies over a waterless desert, where the traveller is exposed to violent storms of sand whenever the south wind blows. It was here that fifty thousand men of the army of Cambyses are said to have been overwhelmed by the sand, which rolled upon them in huge billows until they were completely ingulfed. All these perils were present [Pg 328]to all men’s minds, but it was hard to turn Alexander away from any project upon which he had once set his heart. The invariable good fortune which he had enjoyed confirmed his self-will, and his pride would not allow him to confess himself vanquished either by human enemies or natural obstacles.

XXVII

During his journey, the signal assistance which he received from the gods in all his difficulties was more remarkable and more generally believed than the oracular response which he is said to have received, although these portents made men more inclined to believe in the oracle. In the first place, plentiful showers were sent, which quite dissipated any fears which the expedition had entertained about suffering from thirst, while the rain cooled the sand and thus tempered the hot air of the desert to a pleasant warmth. Next, when the guides lost their way, and all were wandering helplessly, birds appeared who guided them on the right path, flying before them and encouraging them to march, and waiting for those of them who fell behind wearied. “We are even assured by Kallisthones that, at night, the birds by their cries recalled stragglers, and kept all on the direct road.

When Alexander had crossed the desert, and arrived at the temple, the priest of Ammon greeted him as the son of the god. He inquired whether anyone of his father’s murderers had escaped, to which the priest answered that he must not ask such questions, for his father was more than man. Alexander now altered the form of his inquiry and asked whether he had punished all the murderers of Philip: and then he asked another question, about his empire, whether he was fated to conquer all mankind. On receiving as an answer that this would be granted to him and that Philip had been amply avenged, he made splendid presents to the god, and amply rewarded the priests.

This is the account which most historians give about the response of the oracle; but in a letter to his mother, Alexander says that he received certain secret prophecies, which upon his return he would communicate to her alone. Some narrate that the priest, wishing to give him a friendly greeting in the Greek language, said “My son,” [Pg 329]but being a foreigner, mispronounced the words so as to say “Son of Zeus,” a mistake which delighted Alexander and caused men to say that the god himself had addressed him as “Son of Zeus.” We are told that while in Egypt, he attended the lectures of the philosopher Psammon, and was especially pleased when he pointed out that God is King over all men, because that which rules and conquers must be king. He himself thought that he had improved upon this by saying that although God is the common father of all men, yet that he makes the best men more peculiarly his own.

XXVIII

In his dealings with Asiatics, he always acted and spoke with the greatest arrogance, and seemed firmly convinced of his own divine parentage, but he was careful not to make the same boast when among Greeks. On one occasion, indeed, he wrote to the Athenians the following letter about their possession of Samos. “I,” he said, “should not have presented you with that free and glorious city; but it was presented to you by its former master, my reputed father Philip.”

Yet afterwards when he was wounded by an arrow and in great pain he said “This, my friends, is blood that runs from my wound, and not

“Ichor, that courses through the veins of gods.”

Once when a great thunderstorm terrified every one, Anaxarchus the sophist, who was with him, said “Son of Zeus, canst thou do as much?” To this, Alexander answered with a smile, “Nay, I love not to frighten my friends, as you would have me do, when you complained of my table, because fish was served upon it instead of princes’ heads.” Indeed we are told that once, when Alexander had sent some small fish to Hephæstion, Anaxarchus used this expression ironically disparaging those who undergo great toils and run great risks to obtain magnificent results which, after all, make them no happier or able to enjoy themselves than other men. From these anecdotes we see that Alexander himself did not put any belief in the story of his divine parentage, but that he used it as a means of imposing upon others.

XXIX

[Pg 330]From Egypt he returned to Phœnicia, and there offered magnificent sacrifices to the gods, with grand processions, cyclic choruses, and performances of tragic dramas. These last were especially remarkable, for the local kings of Cyprus acted as choragi, that is, supplied the chorus and paid all the expenses of putting the drama upon the stage, just as is done every year at Athens by the representatives of the tribes, and they exhibited wonderful emulation, desiring to outdo each other in the splendour of their shows. The contest between Nikokreon, King of Salamis, and Pasikrates, King of Soli, is especially memorable. These two had obtained by lot the two most celebrated actors of the day, who were named Athenodorus and Thessalus, to act in their plays. Of these, Athenodorus was assigned to Nikokreon, and Thessalus, in whose success Alexander himself was personally interested, to Pasikrates. Alexander, however, never allowed any word to escape him denoting his preference for one over the other until after the votes had been given, and Athenodorus had been proclaimed the winner, when, as he was going home, he said that he would willingly have given up a province of his kingdom to save Thessalus from being vanquished. As Athenodorus was fined by the Athenians for being absent from their Dionysian festival, in which he ought to have taken part, he begged Alexander to write them a letter to excuse him. Alexander refused to do this, but paid his fine himself. And when Lykon, of Skarphia, an excellent actor who had pleased Alexander well, inserted a verse into the comedy which he was acting, in which he begged to be given ten talents, Alexander laughed and gave them to him.

Darius now sent an embassy to Alexander, bearing a letter, in which he offered to pay ten thousand talents as a ransom for his wife and children, and proposed that Alexander should receive all the territory west of the Euphrates, and become his ally and son-in-law. Alexander laid this proposal before his friends, and when Parmenio said, “I should accept it, if I were Alexander.” “So would I,” replied Alexander, “if I were Parmenio.” He wrote, however, a letter in answer to Darius, informing [Pg 331]him that if he would come to him, and submit himself, he should be used with courtesy; but that if not, he should presently march against him.

XXX

Soon after this the wife of Darius died in child-bed, which greatly grieved Alexander, as he thereby lost a great opportunity of displaying his magnanimity: nevertheless he granted her a magnificent funeral. We are told that one of the eunuchs attached to the royal harem, named Teireus, who had been captured with the ladies, made his escape shortly after the queen’s death, rode straight to Darius, and informed him of what had happened. Darius, at this, beat his face and wept aloud, saying, “Alas for the fortune of Persia! that the wife and sister of the king should not only have been taken captive while she lived, but also have been buried unworthily of her rank when she died.” To this the eunuch answered, “You have no cause to lament the evil fortune of Persia on account of your wife’s burial, or of any want of due respect to her. Our lady Statira, your children, and your mother, when alive wanted for nothing except the light of your countenance, which our lord Oromasdes will some day restore to them, nor was she treated without honour when she died, for her funeral was even graced by the tears of her enemies. Alexander is as gracious a conqueror as he is a terrible enemy.”

These words roused other suspicions in the mind of Darius: and, leading the eunuch into an inner chamber in his tent, he said to him, “If you have not, like the good luck of Persia, gone over to Alexander and the Macedonians, and if I am still your master Darius, tell me, I conjure you by the name of great Mithras our lord, and by the right hand of a king, which I give thee, do I lament over the least of Statira’s misfortunes when I weep for her death, and did she not in her life make us more miserable by her dishonour, than if she had fallen into the hands of a cruel enemy? For what honest communication can a young conqueror have with the wife of his enemy, and what can be the meaning of his showing such excessive honour to her after her death?” While Darius was yet speaking, Teireus threw himself at his feet, and besought him to be silent, and not to dishonour Alexander [Pg 332]and his dead wife and sister by such suspicions, nor yet to take away from himself that thought which ought to be his greatest consolation in his misfortunes, which was that he had been conquered by one who was more than man. Rather ought he to admire Alexander, whose honourable treatment of the Persian women proved him to be even greater than did his bravery in vanquishing their men. Those words the eunuch assured him, with many protestations and oaths, were perfectly true. Darius, when he heard this, came out of his tent to his friends, and, raising his hands to heaven, said, “Ye parent gods, who watch over the Persian throne, grant that I may again restore the fortune of Persia to its former state, in order that I may have an opportunity of repaying Alexander in person the kindness which he has shown to those whom I hold dearest; but if indeed the fated hour has arrived, and the Persian empire is doomed to perish, may no other conqueror than Alexander mount the throne of Cyrus.” The above is the account given by most historians of what took place on this occasion.

XXXI

Alexander, after conquering all the country on the higher bank of the Euphrates, marched to attack Darius, who was advancing to meet him with an army of a million fighting men.

During this march, one of Alexander’s friends told him as a joke, that the camp-followers had divided themselves into two bodies in sport, each of which was led by a general, the one called Alexander, and the other Darius; and that after beginning to skirmish with one another by throwing clods of earth, they had come to blows of the fist, and had at length become so excited that they fought with sticks and stones, and that it was hard to part them. On hearing this, Alexander ordered the two leaders to fight in single combat: and he himself armed the one called Alexander, while Philotas armed the representative of Darius. The whole army looked on, thinking that the result would be ominous of their own success or failure. After a severe fight, the one called Alexander conquered, and was rewarded with twelve villages and the right of wearing the Persian garb. This we are told by Eratosthenes the historian.

[Pg 333]The decisive battle with Darius was fought at Gaugamela, not at Arbela, as most writers tell us. It is said that this word signifies “the house of the camel,” and that one of the ancient Kings of Persia, whose life had been saved by the swiftness with which a camel bore him away from his enemies, lodged the animal there for the rest of its life, and assigned to it the revenues of several villages for its maintenance.

During the month Bœdromion, at the beginning of the celebration of the Eleusinian mysteries, there was an eclipse, of the moon: and on the eleventh day after the eclipse the two armies came within sight of one another. Darius kept his troops under arms, and inspected their ranks by torch-light, while Alexander allowed the Macedonians to take their rest, but himself with the soothsayer Aristander performed some mystical ceremonies in front of his tent, and offered sacrifice to Phœbus.

When Parmenio and the elder officers of Alexander saw the entire plain between Mount Niphates and the confines of Gordyene covered with the watch fires of the Persians, and heard the vague, confused murmur of their army like the distant roar of the sea, they were astonished, and said to one another that it would indeed be a prodigious effort to fight such a mass of enemies by daylight in a pitched battle.

As soon as Alexander had finished his sacrifice they went to him, and tried to persuade him to fall upon the Persians by night, as the darkness would prevent his troops from seeing the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. It was then that he made that memorable answer, “I will not steal a victory,” which some thought to show an over-boastful spirit, which could jest in the presence of such fearful danger; while others thought that it showed a steady confidence and true knowledge of what would happen on the morrow, and meant that he did not intend to give Darius, when vanquished, the consolation of attributing his defeat to the confusion of a night attack; for Darius had already explained his defeat at Issus to have been owing to the confined nature of the ground, and to his forces having been penned up between the mountains and the sea. It was not any want of men [Pg 334]or of arms which would make Darius yield, when he had so vast a country and such great resources at his disposal: it was necessary to make pride and hope alike die within him, by inflicting upon him a crushing defeat in a fair field and in open daylight.

XXXII

After his officers had retired, Alexander retired to his tent and is said to have slept more soundly than was his wont, which surprised the generals who came to wait upon him early in the morning. On their own responsibility they gave orders to the soldiers to prepare their breakfast; and then, as time pressed, Parmenio entered his tent, and standing by his bed-side, twice or thrice called him loudly by name. When he was awake, Parmenio asked him why he slept so soundly, as if he had already won the victory instead of being just about to fight the most important of all his battles. Alexander answered with a smile; “Do you not think we have already won the victory, now that we are no longer obliged to chase Darius over an enormous tract of wasted country?”

Alexander both before the battle, and in the most dangerous crisis of the day proved himself truly great, always taking judicious measures, with a cheerful confidence of success. His left wing was terribly shaken by a tumultuous charge of the Bactrian cavalry, who broke into the ranks of the Macedonians, while Mazæus sent some horsemen completely round the left wing, who fell upon the troops left to guard the baggage. Parmenio, finding his men thrown into confusion by these attacks, sent a message to Alexander, that his fortified camp and baggage would be lost, if he did not at once despatch a strong reinforcement to the rear. At the time when Alexander received this message, he was in the act of giving his own troops orders to attack, and he answered that Parmenio must, in his confusion, have forgotten that the victors win all the property of the vanquished, and that men who are defeated must not think about treasure or prisoners, but how to fight and die with honour. After sending back this answer to Parmenio, he put on his helmet; for he had left his tent fully armed at all other points, wearing a tunic of Sicilian manufacture [Pg 335]closely girt round his waist, and over that a double-woven linen corslet, which had been among the spoils taken at Issus. His helmet was of steel, polished as bright as silver, and was wrought by Theophilus, while round his neck he wore a steel gorget, inlaid with precious stones. His sword, his favourite weapon, was a miracle of lightness and tempering, and had been presented to him by the King of Kitium in Cyprus. The cloak which hung from his shoulders was by far the most gorgeous of all his garments, and was the work of the ancient artist Helikon,17 presented to Alexander by the city of Rhodes, and was worn by him in all his battles. While he was arraying his troops in order of battle, and giving final directions to his officers, he rode another horse to spare Boukephalus, who was now somewhat old. As soon as he was ready to begin the attack, he mounted Boukephalus and led on his army.

XXXIII

Upon this occasion, after addressing the Thessalians and other Greek troops at considerable length, as they confidently shouted to him to lead them against the barbarians, we are told by Kallisthenes that he shifted his lance into his left hand, and raising his right hand to heaven, prayed to the gods that, if he really were the son of Zeus, they would assist and encourage the Greeks. The prophet Aristander, who rode by his side, dressed in a white robe, and with a crown of gold upon his head, now pointed out to him an eagle which rose over his head and directed its flight straight towards the enemy. This so greatly encouraged all who beheld it, that all the cavalry of Alexander’s army at once set spurs to their horses and dashed forwards, followed by the phalanx. Before the first of them came to actual blows, the Persian line gave way, and terrible confusion took place, as Alexander drove the beaten troops before him, struggling to fight his way to the centre, where was Darius himself.

Alexander had already noted the conspicuous figure of this tall, handsome prince, as he stood in his lofty chariot, surrounded by the royal body guard, a glittering mass of well-armed horsemen, behind the deep ranks of the [Pg 336]Persian army. The onslaught of Alexander was so terrific that none could withstand him, and those whom he drove before him, in headlong flight, disordered the ranks which were yet unbroken, and caused a general rout. Yet the noblest and bravest of the Persians fought and died manfully in defence of their king, and, even when lying on the ground at their last gasp, seized the men and horses by the legs to prevent their pursuing him. Darius himself, seeing all these frightful disasters, when his first line was hurled back in ruin, would fain have turned his chariot and fled, but this was difficult, for the wheels were encumbered by the heaps of corpses, and the horses were so excited and restive that the charioteer was unable to manage them. Darius, we are told, left his chariot and his arms, mounted a mare which had recently foaled, and rode away. He would not have escaped even thus, had not mounted messengers just then arrived from Parmenio, begging Alexander to come to his aid, as he was engaged with a large body of the enemy upon which he could make no impression. Indeed, throughout this battle, Parmenio is said to have displayed great remissness and self-will, either because his courage was damped by age, or because, as we are told by Kallisthenes, he envied Alexander’s greatness and prosperity. Alexander was much vexed at the message, but without explaining to the soldiers what his real reasons were, ordered the trumpets to sound the recall, as though he were tired of slaughter, or because night was now coming on. He himself at once rode to the scene of danger, but on his way thither heard that the enemy had been completely defeated and put to flight.

XXXIV

The result of this battle was the complete destruction of the Persian empire. Alexander was at once saluted King of Asia, and after a splendid sacrifice to the gods, distributed the treasures and provinces of that country among his friends. In the pride of his heart he now wrote to Greece, saying that all the despots must be driven out, and each city left independent with a constitutional government, and gave orders for the rebuilding of the city of Platæa, because the ancestors of the citizens of Platæa gave their territory to be consecrated to the [Pg 337]gods on behalf of the liberties of Greece. He also sent some part of the spoils to the citizens of Kroton, in Italy, to show his respect for the memory of Phaÿllus the athlete, who, during the Persian invasion, when all the other Greek cities in Italy deserted the cause of their countrymen in Greece, fitted out a ship of war at his own expense, and sailed to Salamis to take part in the battle there, and share in the dangers of the Greeks. Such honour did Alexander pay to personal prowess, for he loved to reward and to commemorate noble deeds.

XXXV

Alexander now marched into the country of Babylonia, which at once yielded to him. As he drew near to Ekbatana he marvelled much at an opening in the earth, out of which poured fire, as if from a well. Close by, the naphtha which was poured out formed a large lake. This substance is like bitumen, and is so easy to set on fire, that without touching it with any flame, it will catch light from the rays which are sent forth from a fire, burning the air which is between both. The natives, in order to show Alexander the qualities of naphtha, lightly sprinkled with it the street which led to his quarters, and when it became dark applied a match to one end of the track which had been sprinkled with it. As soon as it was alight in one place, the fire ran all along, and as quick as thought the whole street was in flames. At this time Alexander was in his bath, and was waited upon by Stephanus, a hard-favoured page-boy, who had, however, a fine voice. Athenophanes, an Athenian, who always anointed and bathed King Alexander, now asked him if he would like to see the power of the naphtha tried upon Stephanus, saying that if it burned upon his body and did not go out, the force of it must indeed be marvellous. The boy himself was eager to make the trial, and was anointed with it and set on fire. He was at once enveloped in flame, and Alexander was terrified for him, fearing that he would be burned to death. Indeed, had it not chanced that several attendants with pitchers of water in their hands had just arrived, all help would have been too late. They poured water over the boy and extinguished the flames, but not before he had been badly burned, so that he was ill for some time after. Some [Pg 338]writers, who are eager to prove the truth of ancient legends, say that this naphtha was truly the deadly drug used by Medea, with which she anointed the crown and robe spoken of in the tragedies: for flame could not be produced by them, nor of its own accord, but if fire were brought near to clothes steeped in naphtha they would at once burst into flame. The reason of this is that the rays which fire sends forth fall harmlessly upon all other bodies, merely imparting to them light and heat; but when they meet with such as have an oily, dry humour, and thereby have a sympathy with the nature of fire, they easily cause them to catch fire. It is a disputed question, however, how the naphtha is produced, though most writers conceive its combustible principle to be supplied by the greasy and fiery nature of the soil; for all the district of Babylonia is fiery hot, so that often barley is cast up out of the ground in which it is sown, as if the earth throbbed and vibrated with the heat, and during the hottest part of summer the inhabitants are wont to sleep upon leathern bags filled with water for the sake of coolness. Harpalus, who was appointed governor of the district, took an especial delight in adorning the palace and the public walks with Greek flowers and shrubs; but although he found no difficulty with most of them, he was unable to induce ivy to grow, because ivy loves a cold soil, and the earth there is too hot for it. These digressions, provided they be not too lengthy, we hope will not be thought tedious by our readers.

XXXVI

When Alexander made himself master of Susa, he found in the palace forty thousand talents worth of coined money, besides an immense mass of other valuable treasure. Here we are told was found five thousand talents weight of cloth dyed with Hermionic18 purple cloth, which had been stored up there for a space of two hundred years save ten, and which nevertheless still kept its colour as brilliantly as ever. The reason of this is said to be that honey was originally used in dyeing the cloth purple, and white olive oil for such of it as was [Pg 339]dyed-white: for cloth of these two colours will preserve its lustre without fading for an equal period of time. Demon also informs us that amongst other things the Kings of Persia had water brought from the Nile and the Danube, and laid up in their treasury, as a confirmation of the greatness of their empire, and to prove that they were lords of all the world.

XXXVII

As the district of Persis19 was very hard to invade, both because of its being mountainous, and because it was defended by the noblest of the Persians (for Darius had fled thither for refuge), Alexander forced his way into it by a circuitous path, which was shown him by a native of the country, the son of a Lykian captive, by a Persian mother, who was able to speak both the Greek and the Persian language. It is said that while Alexander was yet a child, the prophetess at the temple of Apollo at Delphi foretold that a wolf20 should some day serve him for a guide when he went to attack the Persians. When Persis was taken, a terrible slaughter was made of all the prisoners. A letter written by Alexander himself is still extant, in which he orders that they should all be put to the sword, thinking this to be the safest course. He is said to have found as much coined money here21 as in Susa, and so much other treasure that it required ten thousand carts, each drawn by a pair of mules, and five thousand camels, to carry it away.

Alexander, observing a large statue of Xerxes which had been thrown down and was being carelessly trampled upon by the soldiers as they pressed into the royal palace, stopped, and addressed it as though it were alive. “Shall we,” said he, “leave thee lying there, because of thy invasion of Greece, or shall we set thee up again because of thy magnificence and greatness of soul?” He then stood musing for a long time, till at length he roused himself from his reverie and went his way. Being desirous of giving his soldiers some rest, as it was now winter, he remained in that country for four months. It is related [Pg 340]that when he first took his seat upon the royal throne of Persia, under the golden canopy, Demaratus, an old friend and companion of Alexander, burst into tears, and exclaimed that the Greeks who had died before that day had lost the greatest of pleasures, because they had not seen Alexander seated on the throne of Darius.

XXXVIII

After this, while he was engaged in preparing to march in pursuit of Darius, he chanced to be present at a banquet where his friends had brought their mistresses. Of these ladies the chief was the celebrated Thais, who afterwards became the mistress of King Ptolemy of Egypt, and who was of Attic parentage.

She at first amused Alexander by her conversation, then adroitly flattered him, and at last, after he had been drinking for some time, began to speak in a lofty strain of patriotism which scarcely became such a person. She declared, that she was fully repaid for all the hardships which she had undergone while travelling through Asia with the army, now that she was able to revel in the palace of the haughty Kings of Persia; but that it would be yet sweeter to her to burn the house of Xerxes, who burned her native Athens, and to apply the torch with her own hand in the presence of Alexander, that it might be told among men that a woman who followed Alexander’s camp had taken a more noble revenge upon the Persians for the wrongs of Greece, than all the admirals and generals of former times had been able to do. This speech of hers was enthusiastically applauded, and all Alexander’s friends pressed him to execute the design. Alexander leaped from his seat, and led the way, with a garland upon his head and a torch in his hand. The rest of the revellers followed, and surrounded the palace, while the remainder of the Macedonians, hearing what was going on, brought them torches. They did so the more readily because they thought that the destruction of the palace indicated an intention on Alexander’s part to return home, and not to remain in Persia. Some historians say that this was how he came to burn the palace, while others say that he did it after mature deliberation: but all agree that he repented of what he had done, and gave orders to have the fire extinguished.

XXXIX

[Pg 341]His liberality and love of making presents increased with his conquests: and his gifts were always bestowed in so gracious a manner as to double their value. I will now mention a few instances of this. Ariston, the leader of the Pæonians, having slain an enemy, brought his head and showed it to Alexander, saying, “O king, in my country such a present as this is always rewarded with a gold cup.” Alexander smiled, and said, “Yes, with an empty cup: but I pledge you in this gold cup, full of good wine, and give you the cup besides.” One of the common Macedonian soldiers was driving a mule laden with gold belonging to Alexander; but as the animal became too weary to carry it, he unloaded it, and carried the gold himself. When Alexander saw him toiling under his burden, and learned his story, he said, “Be not weary yet, but carry it a little way farther, as far as your own tent; for I give it to you.” He seemed to be more vexed with those who did not ask him for presents than with those who did so. He wrote a letter to Phokion, in which he declared that he would not any longer remain his friend, if Phokion refused all his presents. Serapion, a boy who served the ball to the players at tennis, had been given nothing by Alexander because he had never asked for anything. One day when Serapion was throwing the ball to the players as usual, he omitted to do so to the king, and when Alexander asked why he did not give him the ball, answered “You do not ask me for it.” At this, Alexander laughed and gave him many presents. Once he appeared to be seriously angry with one Proteus, a professed jester. The man’s friends interceded for him, and he himself begged for pardon with tears in his eyes, until Alexander said that he forgave him. “My king,” said he “will you not give me something by way of earnest, to assure me that I am in your favour.” Upon this the king at once ordered him to be given five talents. The amount of money which he bestowed upon his friends and his body guard appears from a letter which his mother Olympias wrote to him, in which she said, “It is right to benefit your friends and to show your esteem for them; but you are making them all as great as kings, so that they get many friends, and leave you alone without [Pg 342]any.” Olympias often wrote to him to this effect, but he kept all her letters secret, except one which Hephæstion, who was accustomed to read Alexander’s letters, opened and read. Alexander did not prevent him, but took his own ring from his finger, and pressed the seal upon Hephæstion’s mouth. The son of Mazæus, who had been the chief man in the kingdom under Darius, was governor of a province, and Alexander added another larger one to it. The young nobleman refused to accept the gift, and said, “My king, formerly there was only one Darius, but you now have made many Alexanders.”

He presented Parmenio with the house of Bagoas, in which it is said that property worth a thousand talents was found which had belonged to the people of Susa. He also sent word to Antipater, warning him to keep a guard always about his person, as a plot had been formed against his life. He sent many presents to his mother, but forbade her to interfere with the management of the kingdom. When she stormed at this decision of his, he patiently endured her anger; and once when Antipater wrote a long letter to him full of abuse of Olympias, he observed, after reading it, that Antipater did not know that one tear of his mother’s eye would outweigh ten thousand such letters.

XL

Alexander now observed that his friends were living in great luxury and extravagance; as for instance, Hagnon of Teos had his shoes fastened with silver nails; Leonnatus took about with him many camels, laden with dust,22 from Egypt, to sprinkle his body with when he wrestled; Philotas had more than twelve miles of nets for hunting; and that all of them used richly perfumed unguents to anoint themselves with instead of plain oil, and were attended by a host of bathmen and chamberlains. He gently reproved them for this, saying that he was surprised that men who had fought so often and in such great battles, did not remember that the victors always sleep more sweetly than the vanquished, and that they did not perceive, when they imitated the luxury of the Persians, that indulgence is for slaves, but labour for [Pg 343]princes. “How,” he asked, “can a man attend to his horse, or clean his own lance and helmet, if he disdains to rub his own precious body with his hands? And do you not know, that our career of conquest will come to an end on the day when we learn to live like those whom we have vanquished?” He himself, by way of setting an example, now exposed himself to greater fatigues and hardships than ever in his campaigns and hunting expeditions, so that old Lakon, who was with him when he slew a great lion, said, “Alexander, you fought well with the lion for his kingdom.” This hunting scene was afterwards represented by Kraterus at Delphi. He had figures made in bronze of Alexander and the hounds fighting with the lion, and of himself running to help him. Some of the figures were executed by the sculptor Lysippus, and some by Leochares.

XLI

Thus did Alexander risk his life in the vain endeavour to teach his friends to live with simplicity and hardihood; but they, now that they had become rich and important personages, desired to enjoy themselves, and no longer cared for long marches and hard campaigns, so that at last they began to murmur against him, and speak ill of him. He bore this with great gentleness at first, saying that it was the part of a king to do his subjects good and to be ill-spoken of by them in return. Indeed, he used to take advantage of the most trifling incidents to show the esteem he had for his intimate friends, of which I will now give a few examples.

Peukestas once was bitten by a bear, while hunting. He wrote and told his friends of his mishap, but kept it secret from Alexander. He, when he heard of it, wrote to Peukestas, blaming him for having concealed his hurt. “But now,” he writes, “let me know how you are, and tell me if those who were hunting the bear with you deserted you, that I may punish them.” When Hephæstion was absent on some business, he wrote to him to say that Kraterus had been struck in the thighs with Perdikkas’s spear, while they were amusing themselves by baiting an ichneumon.

When Peukestas recovered from some illness, he wrote to the physician Alexippus, congratulating him on the [Pg 344]cure which he had effected. When Kraterus was ill, Alexander had a dream about him, in consequence of which he offered sacrifice to certain gods, and bade him also sacrifice to them: and when Pausanias the physician wished to give Kraterus a draught of hellebore, Alexander wrote to him, advising him to take the drug, but expressing the greatest anxiety about the result.

He imprisoned Ephialtes and Kissus, who were the first to bring him the news that Harpalus had absconded, because he thought that they wrongfully accused him.

When he was on the point of sending home all his invalided and superannuated soldiers, Eurylochus of Ægæ was found to have placed his name upon the list, although he was in perfect health. When questioned, he confessed that he was in love with a lady named Telesippa, who was returning to the sea-coast, and that he had acted thus in order to be able to follow her. Alexander on hearing this, enquired who this lady was. Being told that she was a free-born Greek courtezan, he answered, “I sympathise with your affection, Eurylochus; but since Telesippa is a free-born woman, let us try if we cannot, either by presents or arguments, persuade her to remain with us.”

XLII

It is wonderful how many letters and about what trifling matters he found time to write to his friends. For instance, he sent a letter to Kilikia ordering search to be made for a slave boy belonging to Seleukus, who had run away, and praising Peukestas because he had captured Nikon, the runaway slave of Kraterus. He wrote also to Megabazus about a slave who had taken sanctuary in a temple, ordering him to catch him when outside of the temple, if possible, but not to lay hands on him within its precincts.

We are told that when he was sitting as judge to hear men tried for their lives, he was wont to close one ear with his hand, while the prosecutor was speaking, in order that he might keep it unbiassed and impartial to listen to what the accused had to say in his defence. But later in his life, so many persons were accused before him, and so many of them truly, that his temper became soured and he inclined to believe them to be all alike [Pg 345]guilty. And he was especially transported with rage, and made completely pitiless if any one spoke ill of him, for he valued his reputation more than his life or his crown.

He now set out again in pursuit of Darius, with the intention of fighting another battle with him: but on hearing that Darius had been taken by the satrap Bessus, he dismissed all his Thessalian cavalry and sent them home, giving them a largess of two thousand talents over and above the pay which was due to them. He now set out on a long and toilsome journey in pursuit of Darius, for in eleven days he rode more than five hundred miles, so that his men were terribly distressed, especially by want of water. One day he met some Macedonians who were carrying water from a river in skins on the backs of mules. Seeing Alexander faint with thirst, as it was the hottest time of the day, they quickly filled a helmet with water and gave it to him to drink. He asked them to whom they were carrying the water, to which they answered, “To our own sons; but provided that you live, even if they should die, we can beget other children.” On hearing this he took the helmet into his hands; but seeing all the horsemen around him eagerly watching him and coveting the water, he gave it back without tasting it. He thanked the men for offering it to him, but said, “If I alone drink it, all these soldiers will be discontented.” The soldiers, when they saw the noble courage and self-denial of Alexander, bade him lead them on boldly, and urged forward their horses, saying that they felt neither hunger nor thirst, and did not think themselves to be mortal men, so long as they had such a king as Alexander to lead them.

XLIII

The whole of his army was equally enthusiastic; yet the fatigues of the march were so great, that when Alexander burst into the enemy’s camp, only sixty men are said to have followed him. Here they passed over great heaps of gold and silver, and pursued a long line of waggons, full of women and children, which were proceeding along without any drivers, until they had reached the foremost of them, because they imagined that Darius might be hidden in them. At last he was found, [Pg 346]lying in his chariot, pierced with innumerable javelins, and just breathing his last. He was able to ask for drink, and when given some cold water by Polystratus, he said to him, “My good sir, this is the worst of all my misfortunes that I am unable to recompense you for your kindness to me; but Alexander will reward you, and the gods will reward Alexander for his courteous treatment of my mother and wife and daughters. Wherefore I pray thee, embrace him, as I embrace thee.” With these words he took Polystratus by the hand and died. When Alexander came up, he showed great grief at the sight, and covered the body with his own cloak. He afterwards captured Bessus and tore him asunder, by bending down the tops of trees and tying different parts of his body to each, and then letting them spring up again so that each tore off the limb to which it was attached. Alexander now had the corpse of Darius adorned as became a prince, and sent it to his mother, while he received his brother Exathres into the number of his intimate friends.

XLIV

He himself, with a few picked troops, now invaded Hyrkania, where he discovered an arm of the sea, which appeared to be as large as the Euxine, or Black Sea, but not so salt. He was unable to obtain any certain information about it, but conjectured it to be a branch of the Mæotic lake.23 Yet geographers, many years before Alexander, knew well that this, which is entitled the Hyrkanian or Caspian Sea, is the northernmost of four gulfs proceeding from the exterior ocean. Here some of the natives surprised the grooms in charge of his horse Boukephalus, and captured the animal. Alexander was much distressed at this, and sent a herald to make proclamation that unless his horse were restored to him, he would massacre the whole tribe with their wives and children. When, however, they brought back his horse, and offered to place their chief cities in his hands as a pledge for their good behaviour, he treated them all with kindness, and paid a ransom for the horse to those who had captured it.

XLV

From hence he passed into Parthia, where, being at leisure, he first began to wear the Persian dress, either [Pg 347]because he thought that he should more easily win the hearts of the natives by conforming to their fashion, or else in order to try the obedience of his Macedonian soldiers and see whether they might not, by degrees, be brought to pay him the same respect and observance which the kings of Persia used to exact from their subjects. He did not, however, completely adopt the Persian costume, which would have been utterly repugnant to Grecian ideas, and wore neither the trousers, the coat with long sleeves, nor the tiara, but his dress, though less simple than the Macedonian, was still far from being so magnificent or so effeminate as that of the Persians. He at first only wore this dress when giving audiences to the natives of the country, or when alone with his more intimate friends, but afterwards he frequently both drove out publicly and transacted business in the Persian dress. The sight greatly offended the Macedonians, but yet they were so filled with admiration for his courage, that they felt he must be indulged in his fancies about dress; for besides all his other honourable wounds, he had only a short time before this been struck by an arrow in the calf of his leg, so that splinters of the bone came out, and also received such a blow upon his neck from a stone, that his eyesight was affected for a considerable time afterwards. Yet he did not cease to expose himself to danger, but crossed the river Orexartes, which he himself thought to be the Tanais or Don, and, although suffering from an attack of dysentery, defeated the Scythians and chased them for many miles.

XLVI

Most historians, amongst whom are Kleitarchus, Polykleitus, Onesikritus, Antigenes, and Istrus, say that while in this country he met an Amazon: while Aristobulus, Chares the court-usher, Ptolemy, Antikleides, Philon of Thebes, and Philippus the herald of festivals, besides Hekatæus of Eretria, Philip of Chalkis, and Douris of Samos, say that this is a mere fiction. And this opinion seems to be corroborated by Alexander himself: for he wrote to Antipater an exact account of his Scythian campaign, and mentioned that the King of the Scythians offered him his daughter in marriage, but says nothing about Amazons. It is said that many years afterwards, [Pg 348]when Lysimachus had made himself king, Onesikritus was reading aloud to him the fourth book of his History of Alexander, in which mention is made of the Amazon. Lysimachus asked him with a quiet smile, “And where was I all the time?” However, Alexander’s fame is not impaired if we disbelieve this story, nor is it increased if we regard it as true.

XLVII

As he feared that the Macedonians would refuse to follow him any farther, he allowed the great mass of his army to repose itself, and advanced through Hyrkania with a force of twenty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, all picked men. In a speech addressed to these select regiments, he declared that the natives of Asia had only seen them hitherto as if in a dream; and that, if they merely threw the whole country into disorder and then retired from it, the Asiatics would attack them as boldly as if they were so many women. Yet he said, that he permitted those who desired it to leave his service and return home, merely protesting against being left, with only his personal friends and a few volunteers, to carry on the noble enterprise of making Macedonia mistress of the whole world. These are almost the exact words which he uses in a letter to Antipater, and he further says that when he had spoken thus, the soldiers burst into a universal shout, bidding him lead them whithersoever he would. After this experiment had succeeded with the select troops, it was no difficult matter to induce the remainder to follow him, but they came almost of their own accord. He now began to imitate the Asiatic habits more closely, and endeavoured to assimilate the Macedonian and Asiatic customs and manners, hoping that by this means his empire, during his absence, would rest upon a foundation of good will rather than of force. To further this object he selected thirty thousand native youths, whom he ordered to be taught to speak the Greek language and to use the same arms as the Macedonians; and appointed a numerous body of instructors for them. His marriage with Roxana was due to a genuine passion, for he was struck by her great beauty when he saw her dance in a chorus after a feast, but nevertheless the alliance was a very politic one; for [Pg 349]the natives were pleased to see him take a wife from among themselves, and were charmed with the courteous and honourable conduct of Alexander, who, although Roxana was the only woman whom he had ever loved, yet would not approach her until he was lawfully married to her.

As Alexander perceived that, among his most intimate friends, Hephæstion encouraged him and furthered his designs, while Kraterus steadfastly adhered to the Macedonian customs, he made use of the latter in all transactions with Asiatics, and of the former when dealing with Greeks and Macedonians. He loved Hephæstion, and respected Kraterus above all the rest of his friends, and was wont to say that Hephæstion loved Alexander, but that Kraterus loved the king. His favour caused constant jealousies between them, so that once in India they actually drew their swords and fought with one another. Their friends began to take part in the quarrel on either side, when Alexander rode up, and bitterly reproached Hephæstion before them all, saying that he must be a fool and a madman if he did not see, that without Alexander’s favour he would be nobody. Privately also he sharply rebuked Kraterus; and calling them both before him, made them be friends again, swearing by Zeus Ammon, and all the gods, that they were the two men whom he loved best in the world; but that if he heard of any more quarrelling between them he would put them both to death, or at least him who began the quarrel. In consequence of this, it is said that there never again, even in sport, was any dispute between them.

XLVIII

Philotas, the son of Parmenio, was a man of much importance among the Macedonians; for he was courageous and hardy, and the most liberal man, and the most devoted to his friends in all the army except Alexander himself. We are told of him that once a friend of his came to him to borrow money, and he at once commanded one of his servants to let him have it. His purse-bearer answered that he had no money, upon which Philotas exclaimed, “What! Have I no plate or furniture upon which you can raise money for my friend?”

His lofty carriage, his immense wealth, and the splendour in which he lived, caused him to appear too great for a [Pg 350]private station, while his pride and vulgar ostentation made him generally disliked. His own father, Parmenio, once said to him: “My son, I pray you show a little more humility.” He had long been an object of suspicion to Alexander, who was kept constantly informed about him by the following means:—After the battle of Issus, when the baggage of Darius was captured at Damascus, there was taken among the captives a beautiful Greek girl, named Antigone. She fell to the lot of Philotas, and became his mistress; and the young man, who was much enamoured of her, used to boast to her over his wine that all the conquests of the Macedonians were really due to the prowess of his father and himself, and that Alexander was merely a foolish boy, who owed his crown and his empire to their exertions. Antigone repeated these expressions to one of her friends, who, as was natural, did not keep them secret, so that at last they reached the ears of Kraterus. Kraterus privately introduced the woman to Alexander; and he, after he had heard her repeat what she had been told, ordered her to take secret note of the confidential expressions of Philotas, and to report them, from time to time, to himself.

XLIX

Philotas had no idea that he was being spied upon in this manner, and in his conversation with Antigone frequently spoke insolently and slightingly of his sovereign. Alexander, although he had accumulated terrible proofs of treason against Philotas, nevertheless remained silent, either because he felt assured of the loyalty of Parmenio, or because he feared to attack a man of such power and importance. At length, however, a Macedonian of Chalastra, named Simnus, formed a plot against Alexander’s life, and invited a young man, named Nikomachus, his own intimate friend, to join him. Nikomachus refused compliance, and told the whole story of the plot to his brother, Kebalinus, who at once had an interview with Philotas, and bade him bring them at once to Alexander, as persons who had a most important communication to make to him. Philotas, however, for some reason or other, did not bring them before Alexander, but said that the king was not at leisure to hear them, as he was engaged in more important business. This he repeated on a second [Pg 351]occasion, and as his behaviour made the two brothers suspect his loyalty, they communicated with another officer, and by his means obtained an audience. They now told Alexander about the design of Limnus, and also said that Philotas had acted very luke-warmly in the matter, as they had twice told him that there was a plot against Alexander, and yet he had, on each occasion, disregarded their warning.

This greatly enraged Alexander: and as when Limnus was arrested he defended himself desperately and was killed in the scuffle, he was yet more disturbed, as he feared he had now lost all clue to the plot. He now openly showed his displeasure with Philotas, and encouraged all his enemies to say boldly that it was folly of the king to imagine that an obscure man like Limnus would have ventured to form a conspiracy against his life, but that Limnus was merely a tool in the hands of some more powerful person; and that if he wished to discover the real authors of the plot, he must seek for them among those who would have been most benefited by its success. Finding that the king lent a ready ear to suggestions of this kind, they soon furnished him with an overwhelming mass of evidence of the treasonable designs of Philotas. Philotas was at once arrested, and put to the torture in the presence of the chief officers of the Macedonian army, while Alexander himself sat behind a curtain to hear what he would say. It is said that when Alexander heard Philotas piteously beg Hephæstion for mercy, he exclaimed aloud, “Are you such a coward as this, Philotas, and yet contrive such daring plots?” To be brief, Philotas was put to death, and immediately afterwards Alexander sent to Media and caused Parmenio to be assassinated, although he was a man who had performed the most important services for Philip, had, more than any other of the older Macedonians, encouraged Alexander to invade Asia, and had seen two of his three sons die in battle before he perished with the third. This cruelty made many of the friends of Alexander fear him, and especially Antipater,24 who now formed a secret league with the Ætolians, who also feared Alexander because [Pg 352]when he heard of the destruction of the people of Œneadæ, he said that he himself, and not the sons of the people of Œneadæ, would be revenged upon the Ætolians.

L

Not long after this followed the murder of Kleitus, which, if simply told, seems more cruel than that of Philotas; but if we consider the circumstances under which it took place, and the provocation which was given, we shall treat it rather as a misfortune which befel Alexander during a fit of drunken passion than as a deliberate act. It happened as follows. Some men came from the sea-coast, bringing Greek grapes as a present to Alexander. He admired their bloom and ripeness, and invited Kleitus to see them, meaning to present him with some of them. Kleitus was engaged in offering sacrifice, but on receiving this summons left his sacrifice and went to the king: upon which, three of the sheep which he was about to offer up as victims, followed him. When Alexander heard of this, he consulted his soothsayers, Aristander, and Kleomantes the Laconian. As they reported that this was an evil omen, he bade them at once offer an expiatory sacrifice on behalf of Kleitus; for he himself, three days before, had dreamed a strange dream about Kleitus, that he had seen him sitting dressed in black amongst the sons of Parmenio, who were all of them dead. Before, however, the sacrifices on behalf of Kleitus had been performed, he came to the banquet, before which Alexander himself had offered sacrifice to the Dioskuri.

After all had drunk heavily, a song was sung which had been composed by one Pranichus, or Pierion according to some writers, in which the generals who had recently been defeated by the barbarians were held up to public shame and ridicule. The elder Macedonians were vexed at this, and blamed both the writer of the song and the man who sung it, but Alexander and his associates were much pleased with it, and bade the singer go on. Kleitus, who was now very much excited by drink and who was naturally of a fierce and independent temper, was especially annoyed, and said that it was not right for Macedonians to be thus insulted in the presence of enemies and barbarians, for that, in spite of their misfortune, they were far braver men than those who ridiculed them. [Pg 353]Alexander answered that Kleitus, when he called cowardice a misfortune, was no doubt pleading his own cause: at which reproach Kleitus sprang to his feet, and exclaimed, “my cowardice at any rate saved the life of the son of the gods, when he turned his back to the sword of Spithridates; so that now, by the blood and wounds of the Macedonians, you have become so great a man that you pretend to be the child of Ammon, and disown your father Philip.”

LI

Alexander, stung to the quick by these words, said, “Villain, do you suppose that you will be allowed to spread these calumnies against me, rendering the Macedonians disaffected, and yet go unpunished?” “Too much are we punished,” answered Kleitus, “when we see such a reward as this given us for all our hard service, but we congratulate those of us who are dead, because they died before they saw Macedonians beaten with Median rods, and begging Persian attendants to procure them an audience of their king.” When Kleitus spoke his mind thus boldly, Alexander’s intimate friends answered with bitter reproaches, but the older men endeavoured to pacify them. Alexander now turning to Xenodochus of Kardia and Astenius of Kolophon, asked, “Do not the Greeks seem to you to treat the Macedonians as if they were beasts, and they themselves were more than mortal men? “Kleitus, however, would not hold his peace, but went on to say that if Alexander could not bear to hear men speak their mind, he had better not invite free-born people to his table, and ought to confine himself to the society of barbarians and slaves who would pay respect to his Persian girdle and striped25 tunic. At this speech Alexander could no longer restrain his passion, but seized an apple from the table, hurled it at Kleitus, and began to feel for his dagger. Aristophanes, one of his body-guard, had already secreted it, and the rest now pressed round him imploring him to be quiet. He however leaped to his feet, and, as if in a great emergency, ehouted in the Macedonian tongue to the foot-guards to [Pg 354]turn out. He bade the trumpeter sound an alarm, and as the man hesitated and refused, struck him with his fist. This man afterwards gained great credit for his conduct, as it was thought that by it he had saved the whole camp from being thrown into an uproar. As Kleitus would not retract what he had said, his friends seized him and forced him out of the room. But he re-entered by another door, and in an offensive and insolent tone began to recite the passage from the Andromache of Euripides, which begins,

“Ah me! in Greece an evil custom reigns,” &c.

Upon this Alexander snatched a lance from one of his guards, and ran Kleitus through the body with it, just as he was drawing aside the curtain and preparing to enter the room. Kleitus fell with a loud groan, and died on the spot. Alexander, when he came to himself, and saw his friends all standing round in mute reproach, snatched the spear out of the corpse, and would have thrust it into his own neck, but was forcibly witheld by his guards, who laid hold of him and carried him into his bed-chamber.

LII

Alexander spent the whole night in tears, and on the next day was so exhausted by his agony of grief as to be speechless, and only able to sigh heavily. At length his friends, alarmed at his silence, broke into the room. He took no notice of any of their attempts at consolation, except that he seemed to make signs of assent when Aristander the soothsayer told him that all this had been preordained to take place, and reminded him of his dream about Kleitus. His friends now brought to him Kallisthenes the philosopher, who was a nephew of Aristotle, and Anaxarchus of Abdera. Kallisthenes endeavoured to soothe his grief, by kind and gentle consolation, but Anaxarchus, a man who had always pursued an original method of his own in philosophical speculations, and who was thought to be overbearing and harsh-tempered by his friends, as soon as he entered the room exclaimed, “This is that Great Alexander, upon whom the eyes of the world are fixed: there he lies like a slave, fearing what men will say of him, although he ought rather to dictate to them what they should think right, as becomes [Pg 355]the master of the world, and not to be influenced by their foolish opinions. Know you not,” asked he “that Law and Justice sit beside the throne of Zeus, and make everything which is done by those in power to be lawful and right?” By such discourse as this Anaxarchus assuaged Alexander’s sorrow, but encouraged his savage and lawless disposition. He gained great favour for himself, and was able to influence Alexander against Kallisthenes, who was already no favourite with him on account of his upright, uncompromising spirit. It is related that once at table, when the conversation turned upon the seasons, and upon the climate of Asia, Kallisthenes argued that it was colder in the country where they were than in Greece; and when Anaxarchus vehemently contradicted this, he said, “Why, you must admit that this country is the colder of the two; for in Greece you used to wear only one cloak all through the winter, whereas here you sit down to dinner wrapped in three Persian rugs.” This reply made Anaxarchus more his enemy than before.

LIII

Kallisthenes made all the sophists and flatterers of Alexander jealous of him because he was much sought after by the young men for his learning, and was liked by the elder men on account of his sober, dignified, and austere life, which confirmed the common report, that he had come to the court of Alexander with the intention of prevailing upon him to refound his native city, and collect together its scattered citizens. His high moral character gained him many enemies, but he himself gave some colour to their accusations by his conduct in constantly refusing all invitations, and by behaving himself with gravity and silence when in society, as if he were displeased with his company. His manner had caused Alexander himself to say of him, “I hate a philosopher who is not wise in his own interest.” It is related that once at a great banquet, when sitting over their wine, Kallisthenes was asked to speak in praise of the Macedonians, and that he at once poured forth such a fluent and splendid eulogy that all the company rose, vehemently applauding, and threw their garlands to him. At this Alexander remarked that, as Euripides says,

“On noble subjects, all men can speak well.”

“[Pg 356]Now,” said he, “show us your ability by blaming the Macedonians, in order that they may be made better men by having their shortcomings pointed out.” Kallisthenes hereupon began to speak in a depreciatory strain, and told many home-truths about the Macedonians, pointing out that Philip had become strong only because Greece was weakened by faction, and quoting the line,

“In times of trouble, bad men rise to fame.”

This speech caused the Macedonians to hate him most bitterly, and provoked Alexander to say that Kallisthenes had made a display, not of his own abilities, but of his dislike to the Macedonians.

LIV

This is the account which Strœbus, Kallisthenes’s reader, is said by Hermippus to have given to Aristotle about the quarrel between Kallisthenes and Alexander; and he added that Kallisthenes was well aware that he was out of favour with the king, and twice or thrice when setting out to wait on him would repeat the line from the Iliad,

“Patroklus, too, hath died, a better man than thou.”

On hearing this Aristotle acutely remarked, that Kallisthenes had great ability and power of speech, but no common sense. He, like a true philosopher, refused to kneel and do homage to Alexander, and alone had the spirit to express in public what all the oldest and best Macedonians privately felt. By his refusal he relieved the Greeks and Alexander from a great disgrace, but ruined himself, because he seemed to use force rather than persuasion to attain his object. We are told by Charon of Mitylene that once when at table, Alexander, after drinking, passed the cup to one of his friends; and that he after receiving it, rose, stood by the hearth, and after drinking knelt before Alexander: after which he kissed him and resumed his seat. All the guests did this in turn until the cup came to Kallisthenes. The king, who was conversing to Hephæstion, did not take any notice of what he did, and after drinking he also came forward to kiss him, when Demetrius, who was surnamed Pheidon, said, “My king, do not kiss him, for he alone has not done [Pg 357]homage to you.” Upon this Alexander avoided kissing Kallisthenes, who said in a loud voice, “Then I will go away with the loss of a kiss.”

LV

The breach thus formed was widened by Hephæstion, who declared that Kallisthenes had agreed with him to kneel before Alexander, and then had broken his compact; and this story was believed by Alexander. After this came Lysimachus and Hagnon, and many others, who accused Kallisthenes of giving himself great airs, as though he were a queller of despots, and said that he had a large following among the younger men, who looked up to him as being the only free man among so many myriads of people. These accusations were more easily believed to be true because at this time the plot of Hermolaus was discovered; and it was said that when Hermolaus enquired of Kallisthenes how one might become the most famous man in the world, he answered, “By killing the most famous man in the world.” He was even said to have encouraged Hermolaus to make the attempt, bidding him have no fear of Alexander’s golden throne, and reminding him that he would have to deal with a man who was both wounded and in ill-health. Yet none of those concerned in Hermolaus’s conspiracy mentioned the name of Kallisthenes, even under the most exquisite tortures. Alexander himself, in the letters which he wrote to Kraterus, Attalus, and Alketas immediately after the discovery of the plot, states that the royal pages, when put to the torture, declared that they alone had conspired, and that they had no accomplices. “The pages,” Alexander goes on to say, “were stoned to death by the Macedonians, but I will myself punish the sophist, and those who sent him hither, and those who receive into their cities men that plot against me.” In these words he evidently alludes to Aristotle: for Kallisthenes was brought up in his house, being the son of Hero, Aristotle’s first cousin. Some writers tell us that Kallisthenes was hanged by the orders of Alexander; others that he was thrown into chains and died of sickness. Chares informs us that he was kept in confinement for seven months, in order that he might be tried in the presence of Aristotle himself, but that during the time [Pg 358]when Alexander was wounded in India, he died of excessive corpulence, covered with vermin.

LVI

This, however, took place after the period of which we write. At this time Demaratus of Corinth, although an elderly man, was induced to travel as far as the court of Alexander: and when he beheld him, said that the Greeks who had died before they saw Alexander sitting upon the throne of Darius, had lost one of the greatest pleasures in the world.

Demaratus by this speech gained great favour with the king, but lived but a short time to enjoy it, as he was soon carried off by sickness. His funeral was conducted with the greatest magnificence, for the whole army was employed to raise a mound of great extent, and eighty cubits high, as a memorial of him; while his remains were placed in a splendidly equipped four-horse chariot and sent back to the sea-coast.

LVII

As Alexander was now about to invade India, and observed that his army had become unwieldy and difficult to move in consequence of the mass of plunder with which the soldiers were encumbered, he collected all the baggage-waggons together one morning at daybreak, and first burned his own and those of his companions, after which he ordered those of the Macedonians to be set on fire. This measure appears to have been more energetic than the occasion really required; and yet it proved more ruinous in the design than in the execution: for although some of the soldiers were vexed at the order, most of them with enthusiastic shouts distributed their most useful property among those who were in want, burning and destroying all the rest with a cheerful alacrity which raised Alexander’s spirits to the highest pitch. Yet Alexander was terrible and pitiless in all cases of dereliction of duty. He put to death Menander, one of his personal friends, because he did not remain in a fort, where he had been appointed to command the garrison; and he shot dead with his own hand Orsodates, a native chief who had revolted from him. At this time it happened that a ewe brought forth a lamb, upon whose head was a tiara in shape and colour like that of the King of Persia, with stones hanging on each side of it.

[Pg 359]Alexander, much disturbed at this portent, was purified by the priests at Babylon, whom he was accustomed to make use of for this purpose, but told his friends that he was alarmed for their sake, and not for his own, as he feared that if he fell, heaven might transfer his crown to some unworthy and feeble successor. However, he was soon cheered by a better omen. The chief of Alexander’s household servants, a Macedonian named Proxenus, while digging a place to pitch the royal tent near the river Oxus, discovered a well, full of a smooth, fatty liquid. When the upper layer was removed, there spouted forth a clear oil, exactly like olive oil in smell and taste, and incomparably bright and clear: and that, too, in a country where no olive trees grew. It is said that the water of the Oxus itself is very soft and pleasant, and that it causes the skin of those who bathe in it to become sleek and glossy. Alexander was greatly delighted with this discovery, as we learn from a letter which he wrote to Antipater, in which he speaks of this as being one of the most important and manifest signs of the divine favour which had ever been vouchsafed to him. The soothsayers held that the omen portended, that the campaign would be glorious, but laborious and difficult: for oil has been given by the gods to men to refresh them after labour.

LVIII

Alexander when on this expedition ran terrible risks in battle, and was several times grievously wounded. His greatest losses were caused, however, by the want of provisions, and by the severity of the climate. He himself, striving to overcome fortune by valour, thought nothing impossible to a brave man, and believed that, while daring could surmount all obstacles, cowardice could not be safe behind any defences. We are told that when he was besieging the fortress of Sisymithres, which was placed upon a steep and inaccessible rock, his soldiers despaired of being able to take it. He asked Oxyartes what sort of a man Sisymithres himself was in respect of courage. When Oxyartes answered that he was the greatest coward in the world, Alexander said ‘You tell me, that the fortress can be taken; for its spirit is weak.” And indeed he did take it, by playing upon the fears of Sisymithres. Once he was attacking another [Pg 360]fortress, also situated upon the top of a lofty rock. While he was addressing words of encouragement to the younger Macedonians, finding that one of them was named Alexander, he said “You must this day prove yourself a brave man, if but for your name’s sake.” The youth fought most bravely, but fell, to the great grief of Alexander. When he reached the city named Nysa,26 the Macedonians were unwilling to attack it, because a very deep river ran past its walls. “Unlucky that I am,” exclaimed Alexander, “why did I never learn to swim?” Saying thus, he prepared to cross the river just as he was, with his shield upon his left arm. After an unsuccessful assault, ambassadors were sent by the besieged, who were surprised to find Alexander dressed in his armour, covered with dust and blood. A cushion was now brought to him, and he bade the eldest of the ambassadors seat himself upon it. This man was named Akouphis: and he was so much struck with the splendid courtesy of Alexander, that he asked him what his countrymen must do, in order to make him their friend. Alexander replied that they must make Akouphis their chief, and send a hundred of their best men to him. Upon this Akouphis laughed, and answered: “I shall rule them better, O King, if I send the worst men to you and not the best.”

LIX

There was one Taxiles,27 who was said to be king of a part of India as large as Egypt, with a rich and fertile soil. He was also a shrewd man, and came and embraced Alexander, saying, “Why should we two fight one another, Alexander, since you have not come to take away from us the water which we drink nor the food which we eat; and these are the only things about which it is worth while for sensible men to fight? As for all other kinds of property, if I have more than you, I am willing to bestow it upon you, or, if you are the richer, I would willingly be placed in your debt by receiving some from you.” Alexander was delighted with these [Pg 361]words, and giving him his right hand as a pledge of his friendship exclaimed, “Perhaps you suppose that by this arrangement we shall become friends without a contest; but you are mistaken, for I will contend with you in good offices, and will take care that you do not overcome me.” Saying thus, they exchanged presents, amongst which Alexander gave Taxiles a thousand talents of coined money. This conduct of his greatly vexed his friends; but caused him to be much more favourably regarded by many of the natives.

After this, Alexander, who had suffered great losses from the Indian mercenary troops who flocked to defend the cities which he attacked, made a treaty of alliance with them in a certain town, and afterwards, as they were going away set upon them while they were on the road and killed them all. This is the greatest blot upon his fame; for in all the rest of his wars, he always acted with good faith as became a king. He was also much troubled by the philosophers who attended him, because they reproached those native princes who joined him, and encouraged the free states to revolt and regain their independence. For this reason, he caused not a few of them to be hanged.

LX

His campaign against king Porus is described at length in his own letters. He tells us that the river Hydaspes28 ran between the two camps, and that Porus with his elephants watched the further bank, and prevented his crossing. Alexander himself every day caused a great noise and disturbance to be made in his camp, in order that the enemy might be led to disregard his movements: and at last upon a dark and stormy night he took a division of infantry and the best of the cavalry, marched to a considerable distance from the enemy, and crossed over into an island of no great extent. Here he was exposed to a terrible storm of rain, with thunder and lightning; but, although several of his men were struck dead, he pressed on, crossed the island, and gained the furthermost bank of the river. The Hydaspes was flooded by the rain, and the stream ran fiercely down this second branch, while the Macedonians could with difficulty keep [Pg 362]their footing upon this slippery and uneven bottom Here it was that Alexander is said to have exclaimed, “O ye Athenians, what toils do I undergo to obtain your praise.”

This, however, rests only on the authority of the historian Oneskritus, for Alexander himself relates that they abandoned their rafts, and waded through this second torrent under arms, with the water up to their breasts. After crossing, he himself rode on some twenty furlongs in advance of the infantry, thinking that if the enemy met him with their cavalry alone, he would be able to rout them easily, and that, if they advanced their entire force, before a battle could be begun, he would be joined by his own infantry. And indeed he soon fell in with a thousand horse and sixty war chariots of the enemy, which he routed, capturing all the chariots, and slaying four hundred of the horsemen. Porus now perceived that Alexander himself had crossed the river, and advanced to attack him with all his army, except only a detachment which he left to prevent the Macedonians from crossing the river at their camp. Alexander, alarmed at the great numbers of the enemy, and at their elephants, did not attack their centre, but charged them on the left wing, ordering Koinus to attack them on the right. The enemy on each wing were routed, but retired towards their main body, where the elephants stood. Here an obstinate and bloody contest took place, insomuch that it was the eighth hour of the day before the Indians were finally overcome. These particulars we are told by the chief actor in the battle himself, in his letters. Most historians are agreed that Porus stood four cubits29 and a span high, and was so big a man that when mounted on his elephant, although it was a very large one, he seemed as well proportioned to the animal as an ordinary man is to a horse. This elephant showed wonderful sagacity and care for its king, as while he was still vigorous it charged the enemy and overthrew them, but when it perceived that he was fainting from his wounds, fearing that he might fall, it [Pg 363]quietly knelt on the ground, and then gently drew the spears out of his body with its trunk. When Porus was captured, Alexander asked him how he wished to be treated. “Like a king,” answered Porus. Alexander then enquired if he had nothing else to ask about his treatment. “Everything,” answered Porus, “is comprised in these words, like a king.” Alexander now replaced Porus in his kingdom, with the title of satrap, and also added a large province to it, subduing the independent inhabitants. This country was said to have contained fifteen separate tribes, five thousand considerable cities and innumerable villages; besides another district three times as large, over which he appointed Philippus, one of his personal friends, to be satrap.

LXI

After this battle with Porus, Alexander’s horse Boukephalus died, not immediately, but some time afterwards. Most historians say that he died of wounds received in the battle, but Onesikritus tells us that he died of old age and overwork, for he had reached his thirtieth year. Alexander was greatly grieved at his loss, and sorrowed for him as much as if he had lost one of his most intimate friends. He founded a city as a memorial of him upon the banks of the Hydaspes, which he named Boukephalia. It is also recorded that when he lost a favourite dog called Peritas, which he had brought up from a whelp, and of which he was very fond, he founded a city and called it by the dog’s name. The historian Sotion tells us that he heard this from Potamon of Lesbos.

LXII

The battle with King Porus made the Macedonians very unwilling to advance farther into India. They had overcome Porus with the greatest difficulty, as he brought against them a force of twenty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, and now offered the most violent opposition to Alexander, who wished to cross the river Ganges. This river, they heard, was thirty-two furlongs wide and a hundred cubits deep, while its further banks were completely covered with armed men, horses and elephants, for it was said that the kings of the Gandaritæ and Præsiæ were awaiting his attack with an army of eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand foot soldiers, eight thousand war chariots, and six thousand elephants; nor was this any exaggeration, for not long [Pg 364]afterwards Androkottus, the king of this country, presented five hundred elephants to Seleukus, and overran and subdued the whole of India with an army of six hundred thousand men.

Alexander at first retired to his tent in a rage, and shut himself up there, not feeling any gratitude to those who had prevented his crossing the Ganges, but regarding a retreat as an acknowledgment of defeat. However, after his friends had argued with him, and his soldiers had come to the door of his tent, begging him with tears in their eyes to go no farther, he relented, and gave orders for a retreat. He now contrived many ingenious devices to impress the natives, as, for instance, he caused arms, and bridles and mangers for horses to be made of much more than the usual size, and left them scattered about. He also set up altars, which even to the present day are reverenced by the kings of the Præsiæ, who cross the river to them, and offer sacrifice upon them in the Greek fashion. Androkottus himself, who was then a lad, saw Alexander himself and afterwards used to declare that Alexander might easily have conquered the whole country, as the then king was hated by his subjects on account of his mean and wicked disposition.

LXIII

After this, Alexander wishing to see the outer ocean,30 caused many rafts and vessels managed with oars to be built, and proceeded in a leisurely manner down the Indus. His voyage, however, was not an idle one, nor was it unaccompanied with danger, for as he passed down the river, he disembarked, attacked the tribes on the banks, and subdued them all. When he was among the Malli, who are said to be the most warlike tribe in India, he very nearly lost his life. He was besieging their chief city, and after the garrison had been driven from the walls by volleys of missiles, he was the first man to ascend a scaling ladder and mount the walls. The ladder now broke, so that no more could mount, and as the enemy began to assemble inside at the foot of the wall and shoot up at him from below, Alexander, alone against a host, leaped down amongst them, and by good luck, [Pg 365]alighted on his feet. His armour rattled loudly as he leaped, and made the natives think that a bright light was emitted from his body; so that at first they gave way and fled from him. But when they saw that he was attended by only two followers, some of them attacked him at close quarters with swords and spears, while one standing a little way off shot an arrow at him with such force and with such good aim, that it passed through his corslet and imbedded itself in the bones of his breast. As he shrank back when the arrow struck him, the man who had shot it ran up to him with a drawn sword in his hand. Peukestas and Limnæus now stood before Alexander to protect him. Both were wounded, Limnæus mortally; but Peukestas managed to stand firm, while Alexander despatched the Indian with his own hand. Alexander was wounded in many places, and at last received a blow on the neck with a club, which forced him to lean his back against the wall, still facing the enemy. The Macedonians now swarmed round him, snatched him up just as he fainted away, and carried him insensible to his tent. A rumour now ran through the camp that he was dead, and his attendants with great difficulty sawed through the wooden shaft of the arrow, and so got off his corslet. They next had to pluck out the barbed head of the arrow, which was firmly fixed in one of his ribs. This arrow-head is said to have measured four fingers-breadths31 in length, and three in width. When it was pulled out, he swooned away, so that he nearly died, but at length recovered his strength. When he was out of danger, though still very weak, as he had to keep himself under careful treatment for a long time, he heard a disturbance without, and learning that the Macedonians were anxious to see him, took his cloak and went out to them. After sacrificing to the gods for the recovery of his health, he started again on his journey, and passed through a great extent of country and past many considerable cities, all of which he subdued.

LXIV

[Pg 366]He captured ten of the Indian philosophers called Gymnosophistæ;32 who had been instrumental in causing Sabbas to revolt, and had done much mischief to the Macedonians. These men are renowned for their short, pithy answers, and Alexander put difficult questions to all of them, telling them that he would first put to death the man who answered him worst, and so the rest in order. The first was asked, whether he thought the living or the dead to be the more numerous. He answered, “The living, for the dead are not.”

The second was asked, which breeds the largest animals, the sea or the land. He answered, “The land, for the sea is only a part of it.”

The third was asked, which is the cleverest of beasts. He answered, “That which man has not yet discovered.”

The fourth was asked why he made Sabbas rebel. He answered, “Because I wished him either to live or to die with honour.”

The fifth was asked, which he thought was first, the day or the night. He answered, “The day was first, by one day.” As he saw that the king was surprised at this answer, he added, “impossible questions require impossible answers.”

Alexander now asked the sixth how a man could make himself most beloved. He answered, “By being very powerful, and yet not feared by his subjects.”

Of the remaining three, the first one was asked, how a man could become a god. He answered, “By doing that which is impossible for a man to do.”

The next was asked, which was the stronger, life or death. He answered, “Life, because it endures such terrible suffering.”

The last, being asked how long it was honourable for a man to live, answered, “As long as he thinks it better for him to live than to die.”

Upon this Alexander turned to the judge and asked [Pg 367]him to pronounce his decision. He said that they had answered each one worse than the other. “Then,” said Alexander, “you shall yourself be put to death for having given such a verdict.” “Not so,” said he, “O king, unless you mean to belie your own words, for you said at the beginning that you would put to death him who gave the worst answer.”

LXV

Alexander now gave them presents and dismissed them unhurt. He also sent Onesikritus to the most renowned of them, who lived a life of serene contemplation, desiring that they would come to him. This Onesikritus was a philosopher of the school of Diogenes the cynic. One of the Indians, named Kalanus, is said to have received him very rudely, and to have proudly bidden him to take off his clothes and speak to him naked, as otherwise he would not hold any conversation with him, even if he came from Zeus himself. Dandamis, another of the Gymnosophists, was of a milder mood, and when he had been told of Sokrates, Pythagoras, and Diogenes, said that they appeared to him to have been wise men, but to have lived in too great bondage to the laws. Other writers say that Dandamis said nothing more than “For what purpose has Alexander come all the way hither?” However, Taxiles persuaded Kalanus to visit Alexander. His real name was Sphines: but as in the Indian tongue he saluted all he met with the word ‘Kale,’ the Greeks named him Kalanus. This man is said to have shown to Alexander a figure representing his empire, in the following manner. He flung on the ground a dry, shrunken hide, and then trod upon the outside of it, but when he trod it down in one place, it rose up in all the others. He walked all round the edge of it, and showed that this kept taking place until at length he stepped into the middle, and so made it all lie flat. This image was intended to signify that Alexander ought to keep his strength concentrated in the middle of his empire, and not wander about on distant journeys.

LXVI

Alexander’s voyage down the Indus and its tributaries, to the sea-coast, took seven months. On reaching the ocean he sailed to an island which he himself called Skillustis, but which was generally known as [Pg 368]Psiltukis. Here he landed and sacrificed to the gods, after which he explored the sea and the coast as far as he could reach. Having done this, he turned back, after praying to the gods that no conqueror might ever transcend this, the extreme limit of his conquests. He ordered his fleet to follow the line of the coast, keeping India on their right hand: and he gave Nearchus the supreme command, with Onesikritus as chief pilot. He, himself, marched through the country of the Oreitæ, where he endured terrible sufferings from scarcity of provisions, and lost so many men that he scarcely brought back home from India the fourth part of his army, which originally amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand foot, and fifteen thousand horse. Most of the men perished from sickness, bad food, and the excessive heat of the sun, and many from sheer hunger, as they had to march through an uncultivated region, inhabited only by a few miserable savages, with a stunted breed of cattle whose flesh had acquired a rank and disagreeable taste through their habit of feeding on sea-fish.

After a terrible march of sixty days, the army passed through this desert region, and reached Gedrosia, where the men at once received abundant supplies of food, which were furnished by the chiefs of the provinces which they entered.

LXVII

After he had refreshed his troops here for a little, Alexander led them in a joyous revel for seven days through Karmania.33 He, himself, feasted continually, night and day, with his companions, who sat at table with him upon a lofty stage drawn by eight horses, so that all men could see them. After the king’s equipage followed numberless other waggons, some with hangings of purple and embroidered work, and others with canopies of green boughs, which were constantly renewed, containing the rest of Alexander’s friends and officers, all [Pg 369]crowned with flowers and drinking wine. There was not a shield, a helmet, or a pike, to be seen, but all along the road the soldiers were dipping cups, and horns, and earthenware vessels into great jars of liquor and drinking one another’s healths, some drinking as they marched along, while others sat by the roadside. Everywhere might be heard the sound of flutes and pipes, and women singing and dancing; while with all this dissolute march the soldiers mingled rough jokes, as if the god Dionysus himself were amongst them and attended on their merry procession. At the capital of Gedrosia, Alexander again halted his army, and refreshed them with feasting and revelry. It is said that he himself, after having drunk hard, was watching a contest between several choruses, and that his favourite Bagoas won the prize, and then came across the theatre and seated himself beside him, dressed as he was and wearing his crown as victor. The Macedonians, when they saw this, applauded vehemently, and cried out to Alexander to kiss him, until at length he threw his arms round him and kissed him.

LXVIII

He was now much pleased at being joined by Nearchus and his officers, and took so much interest in their accounts of their voyage, that he wished to sail down the Euphrates himself with a great fleet, and then to coast round Arabia and Libya, and so enter the Mediterranean sea through the pillars of Herakles.34 He even began to build many ships at Thapsakus, and to collect sailors and pilots from all parts of the world, but the severe campaigns which he had just completed in India, the wound which he had received among the Malli, and the great losses which his army had sustained in crossing the desert, had made many of his subjects doubt whether he was ever likely to return alive, and had encouraged them to revolt, while his absence had led many of his satraps and viceroys to act in an extremely arbitrary and despotic manner, so that his whole empire was in a most critical condition, and full of conspiracies and seditious risings. Olympias and Kleopatra35 had attacked and driven out Antipater, and had divided the kingdom [Pg 370]between themselves, Olympias taking Epirus, and Kleopatra Macedonia. When Alexander heard this, he said that his mother had proved herself the wiser of the two; for the Macedonians never would endure to be ruled by a woman. He now sent Nearchus back to the sea, determining to make war all along the coast, and coming down in person to punish the most guilty of his officers. He killed Oxyartes, one of the sons of Abouletes (the satrap of Susiana) with his own hands, with a sarissa or Macedonian pike. Abouletes had made no preparations to receive Alexander, but offered him three thousand talents of silver. Alexander ordered the money to be thrown down for the horses; and as they could not eat it, he said “What is the use of your having prepared this for me?” and ordered Abouletes to be cast into prison.

LXIX

While Alexander was in Persis36 he first renewed the old custom that whenever the king came there he should give every woman a gold piece. On account of this custom we are told that many of the Persian kings came but seldom to Persis, and that Ochus never came at all, but exiled himself from his native country through his niggardliness. Shortly afterwards Alexander discovered that the sepulchre of Cyrus had been broken into, and put the criminal to death, although he was a citizen of Pella37 of some distinction, named Polemarchus. When he had read the inscription upon the tomb, he ordered it to be cut in Greek letters also. The inscription ran as follows: “O man, whosoever thou art, and whencesoever thou comest—for I know that thou shalt come—I am Cyrus, who won the empire for the Persians. I pray thee, do not grudge me this little earth that covereth my body.” These words made a deep impression upon Alexander, and caused him to meditate upon the uncertainty and changefulness of human affairs. About this time, Kalanus, who had for some days been suffering from some internal disorder, begged that a funeral pile might be erected for him. He rode up to it on horseback, said [Pg 371]a prayer, poured a libation for himself and cut off a lock of his own hair, as is usual at a sacrifice, and then, mounting the pile, shook hands with those Macedonians who were present, bidding them be of good cheer that day, and drink deep at the king’s table. He added, that he himself should shortly see the king at Babylon. Having spoken thus he lay down and covered himself over. He did not move when the fire reached him, but remained in the same posture until he was consumed, thus sacrificing himself to the gods after the manner of the Indian philosophers. Many years afterwards another Indian, a friend of Cæsar, did the like in the city of Athens; and at the present day his sepulchre is shown under the name of “the Indian’s tomb.”

LXX

After Alexander left the funeral pyre, he invited many of his friends and chief officers to dinner, and offered a prize to the man who could drink most unmixed wine. Promachus, who won it, drank as much as four choes.38 He was presented with a golden crown worth a talent, and lived only three days afterwards. Of the others, Chares, the historian, tells us that forty-one died of an extreme cold that came upon them in their drunkenness.

Alexander now celebrated the marriage of many of his companions at Susa. He himself married Statira, the daughter of Darius, and bestowed the noblest of the Persian ladies upon the bravest of his men. He gave a splendid banquet on the occasion of his marriage, inviting to it not only all the newly married couples, but all those Macedonians who were already married to Persian wives. It is said that nine thousand guests were present at this feast, and that each of them was presented with a golden cup to drink his wine in. Alexander entertained them in all other respects with the greatest magnificence, and even paid all the debts of his guests, so that the whole expense amounted to nine thousand eight hundred and seventy talents. On this occasion, Antigenes the one-eyed got his name inscribed on the roll as a debtor, and produced a man who said that he was his creditor. He received the amount of his alleged debt, but his deceit [Pg 372]was afterwards discovered by Alexander, who was much enraged, banished him from his court, and took away his command. This Antigenes was a very distinguished soldier. When Philip, was besieging Perinthus, Antigenes, who was then very young, was struck in the eye with a dart, and would not allow his friends to pull it out, nor leave the fight, before he had driven back the enemy into the city. He now was terribly cast down at his disgrace, and made no secret of his intention of making away with himself. The king, fearing that he would carry out his threat, pardoned him, and permitted him to keep the money.

LXXI

Alexander was much pleased with the appearance of the three thousand youths whom he had left to be trained in the Greek manner, who had now grown into strong and handsome men, and showed great skill and activity in the performance of military exercises; but the Macedonians were very discontented, and feared that their king would now have less need for them. When Alexander sent those of them who were sick or maimed back to the sea coast, they said that it was disgraceful treatment that he should send these poor men home to their country and their parents in disgrace, and in worse case than when they set out, after he had had all the benefit of their services. They bade him send them all home, and regard them all as unserviceable, since he had such a fine troop of young gallants at his disposal to go and conquer the world with. Alexander was much vexed at this. He savagely reproached the soldiers, dismissed all his guards, and replaced them with Persians, whom he appointed as his body-guards and chamberlains. When the Macedonians saw him attended by these men, and found themselves shut out from his presence, they were greatly humbled, and after discussing the matter together they became nearly mad with rage and jealousy. At last they agreed to go to his tent without their arms, dressed only in their tunics, and there with weeping and lamentation offered themselves to him and bade him deal with them as with ungrateful and wicked men. Alexander, although he was now inclined to leniency, refused to receive them, but they would not go away, and remained [Pg 373]for two days and nights at the door of his tent lamenting and calling him their sovereign. On the third day he came out, and when he saw them in such a pitiable state of abasement, he wept for some time. He then gently blamed them for their conduct, and spoke kindly to them. He gave splendid presents to all the invalids, and dismissed them, writing at the same time to Antipater with orders, that in every public spectacle these men should sit in the best places in the theatre or the circus with garlands on their heads. The orphan children of those who had fallen he took into his own service.

LXXII

After Alexander was come to the city of Ekbatana in Media, and had despatched the most weighty part of his business there, he gave himself up entirely to devising magnificent spectacles and entertainments, with the aid of three thousand workmen, whom he had sent for from Greece. During this time, Hephæstion fell sick of a fever, and being a young man, and accustomed to a soldier’s life, did not put himself upon a strict diet and remain quiet as he ought to have done. As soon as Glaukus, his physician, left him to go to the theatre, he ate a boiled fowl for his breakfast, and drank a large jar of cooled wine. Upon this he was immediately taken worse, and very shortly afterwards died.

Alexander’s grief for him exceeded all reasonable measure. He ordered the manes of all the horses and mules to be cut off in sign of mourning, he struck off the battlements of all the neighbouring cities, crucified the unhappy physician, and would not permit the flute or any other musical instrument to be played throughout his camp, until a response came from the oracle of Ammon bidding him honour Hephæstion and offer sacrifice to him as to a hero.39 To assuage his grief he took to war, and found consolation in fighting and man-hunting. He conquered the tribe called Kossæi, and slew their entire male population, which passed for an acceptable offering to the manes of Hephæstion. He now determined to spend ten thousand talents40 on the funeral and tomb of Hephæstion; [Pg 374]and as he wished to exceed the cost by the ingenuity and brilliancy of invention shown in this spectacle, he chose Stasikrates out of all his mechanicians to arrange it, as he was thought to be able both to devise with grandeur and to execute with skill.

He on one occasion before this, when conversing with Alexander, told him that of all mountains in the world Mount Athos in Thrace was that which could most easily be carved into the figure of a man; and that, if Alexander would give him the order, he would form Athos into the most magnificent and durable monument of him that the world had ever seen, as he would represent him as holding in his left hand the city of Myriandrus, and with his right pouring, as a libation, a copious river into the sea. Alexander would not, indeed, adopt this suggestion, but was fond of discussing much more wonderful and costly designs than this with his engineers.

LXXIII

Just as Alexander was on the point of starting for Babylon, Nearchus, who had returned with his fleet up the Euphrates, met him, and informed him that some Chaldæans had warned Alexander to avoid Babylon. He took no heed of this warning, but went his way. When he drew near the walls he saw many crows flying about and pecking at one another, some of whom fell to the ground close beside him. After this, as he heard that Apollodorus, the governor of Babylon, had sacrificed to the gods to know what would happen to Alexander, he sent for Pythagoras, the soothsayer, who had conducted the sacrifice, to know if this were true. The soothsayer admitted that it was, on which Alexander inquired what signs he had observed in the sacrifice. Pythagoras answered that the victim’s liver wanted one lobe. “Indeed!” exclaimed Alexander, “that is a terrible omen.” He did Pythagoras no hurt, but regretted that he had not listened to the warning of Nearchus, and spent most of his time in his camp outside the walls of Babylon, or in boats on the river Euphrates. Many unfavourable omens now depressed his spirit. A tame ass attacked and kicked to death the finest and largest lion that he kept; and one day, as he [Pg 375]stripped to play at tennis, the young man with whom he played, when it was time to dress again, saw a man sitting on the king’s throne, wearing his diadem and royal robe. For a long time this man refused to speak, but at length said that he was a citizen of Messene, named Dionysius, who had been brought to Babylon and imprisoned on some charge or other, and that now the god Serapis had appeared to him, loosed his chains, and had brought him thither, where he had bidden him to put on the king’s diadem and robe, seat himself on his throne, and remain silent.

LXXIV

When Alexander heard this, he caused the man to be put to death, according to the advice of his soothsayers; but he himself was much cast down, and feared that the gods had forsaken him: he also grew suspicious of his friends. Above all he feared Antipater and his sons, one of whom, Iolas, was his chief cup-bearer, while the other, Kassander, had but recently arrived from Greece, and as he had been trained in the Greek fashion, and had never seen any Oriental customs before, he burst into a loud, insolent laugh, when he saw some of the natives doing homage to Alexander. Alexander was very angry, and seizing him by the hair with both hands, beat his head against the wall. Another time he stopped Kassander, when he was about to say something to some men who were accusing his father, Antipater. “Do you imagine” said he, “that these men would have journeyed so far merely in order to accuse a man falsely, if they had not been wronged by him?” When Kassander answered, that it looked very like a false accusation for a man to journey far from the place where his proofs lay, Alexander said with a laugh, “This is how Aristotle teaches his disciples to argue on either side of the question; but if any of you be proved to have wronged these men ever so little, you shall smart for it.” It is related that after this, terror of Alexander became so rooted in the mind of Kassander, that many years afterwards, when Kassander was king of Macedonia, and lord of all Greece, he was walking about in Delphi looking at the statues, and that when he saw that of Alexander he was seized with a violent shuddering; his hair stood upright on his head, [Pg 376]and his body quaked with fear, so that it was long before he regained his composure.

LXXV

After Alexander had once lost his confidence and become suspicious and easily alarmed, there was no circumstance so trivial that he did not make an omen of it, and the palace was full of sacrifices, lustrations, and soothsayers. So terrible a thing is disbelief in the gods and contempt for them on the one hand, while superstition and excessive reverence for them presses on men’s guilty consciences like a torrent of water41 poured upon them. Thus was Alexander’s mind filled with base and cowardly alarms. However when the oracular responses of the gods about Hephæstion were reported to him, he laid aside his grief somewhat, and again indulged in feasts and drinking bouts. He entertained Nearchus and his friends magnificently, after which he took a bath, and then, just as he was going to sleep, Medius invited him to a revel at his house. He drank there the whole of the following day, when he began to feel feverish: though he did not drink up the cup of Herakles at a draught, or suddenly feel a pain as of a spear piercing his body, as some historians have thought it necessary to write, in order to give a dramatic fitness and dignity to the end of so important a personage. Aristobulus tells us that he became delirious through fever, and drank wine to quench his thirst, after which he became raving mad, and died on the thirtieth day of the month Daisius.

LXXVI

In his own diary his last illness is described thus: “On the eighteenth day of Daisius he slept in the bath-room, because he was feverish. On the following day after bathing he came into his chamber and spent the day playing at dice with Medius. After this he bathed late in the evening, offered sacrifice to the gods, dined, and suffered from fever during the night. On the twentieth he bathed and sacrificed as usual, and while reclining in his bath-room he conversed with Nearchus and his friends, listening to their account of their voyage, and of the Great Ocean. On the twenty-first he did the same, but his fever grew much worse, so that he suffered much [Pg 377]during the night, and next day was very ill. On rising from his bed he lay beside the great plunge-bath, and conversed with his generals about certain posts which were vacant in his army, bidding them choose suitable persons to fill them. On the twenty-fourth, although very ill, he rose and offered sacrifice; and he ordered his chief officers to remain near him, and the commanders of brigades and regiments to pass the night at his gate. On the twenty-fifth he was carried over the river to the other palace, and slept a little, but the fever did not leave him. When his generals came to see him he was speechless, and remained so during the twenty-fifth, so that the Macedonians thought that he was dead. They clamoured at his palace gates, and threatened the attendants until they forced their way in. When the gates were thrown open they all filed past his bed one by one, dressed only in their tunics. On this day Python and Seleukus, who had been to the temple of Serapis, enquired whether they should bring Alexander thither. The god answered that they must leave him alone. The eight and twentieth day of the month, towards evening, Alexander died.”

LXXVII

Most of the above is copied, word for word, from Alexander’s household diary. No one had any suspicion of poison at the time; but it is said that six years after there appeared clear proof that he was poisoned, and that Olympias put many men to death, and caused the ashes of Iolas, who had died in the mean time, to be cast to the winds, as though he had administered the poison to Alexander.

Some writers say that Antipater was advised by Aristotle to poison Alexander, and inform us that one Hagnothemis declared that he had been told as much by Antipater; and that the poison was as cold as ice, and was gathered like dew, from a certain rock near the city of Nonakris, and preserved in the hoof of an ass: for no other vessel could contain it, because it is so exceedingly cold and piercing. Most historians, however, think that the whole story of Alexander’s being poisoned was a fiction; and this view is strongly supported by the fact, that as Alexander’s generals began to fight one another immediately after his death, his body lay for many days [Pg 378]unheeded, in hot and close rooms, and yet showed no signs of decay, but remained sweet and fresh. Roxana, who was pregnant, was regarded with great respect by the Macedonians, and being jealous of Statira, she sent her a forged letter, purporting to come from Alexander and asking her to come to him. When Statira came, Roxana killed both her and her sister, cast their bodies down a well, and filled up the well with earth. Her accomplice in this crime was Perdikkas, who on the death of Alexander at once became a very powerful man. He sheltered his authority under the name of Arrhidæus, who became the nominal, while Perdikkas was the virtual king of Macedonia. This Arrhidæus was the son of Philip by a low and disreputable woman named Philinna, and was half-witted in consequence of some bodily disorder with which he was afflicted. This disease was not congenital nor produced by natural causes, for he had been a fine boy and showed considerable ability, but Olympias endeavoured to poison him, and destroyed his intellect by her drugs.

LIFE OF
C. CÆSAR.

I1

When Sulla got possession of the supreme power, he confiscated the marriage portion of Cornelia2 the daughter of Cinna3 who had once enjoyed the supremacy in Rome, because he could not either by promises or threats induce Cæsar to part with her. The cause of the enmity between Cæsar and Sulla was Cæsar’s relationship to Marius; for the elder Marius was the husband of Julia the sister of Cæsar’s father, and Julia was the mother of the younger Marius, who was consequently Cæsar’s cousin. Cæsar was not content with being let alone by Sulla, who [Pg 380]was at first fully occupied with the proscriptions and other matters, but he presented himself to the people as a candidate for a priesthood,4 though he had hardly arrived at man’s estate. But Sulla by his opposition contrived to exclude him from this office, and even thought of putting him to death; and when some observed that there was no reason in putting to death such a youth, Sulla observed, that they had no sense if they did not see many Marii in this boy. These words were conveyed to Cæsar, who thereupon concealed himself by wandering about for some time in the Sabine country. On one occasion when he was changing his place of abode on account of sickness, he fell in by night with the soldiers of Sulla who were scouring those parts and seizing on those who were concealed. But Cæsar got away by giving Cornelius,5 who was in command of the soldiers, two talents, and going straightway down to the coast he took ship and sailed to Bithynia to King Nicomedes,6 with whom he stayed no long time. On his voyage from Bithynia, he was captured near the island Pharmacusa7 by pirates,8 who at that time were in possession of the seas with a powerful force and numerous ships.

II

The pirates asked Cæsar twenty talents for his ransom, on which he laughed at them for not knowing who their prize was, and he promised to give them fifty talents. While he dispatched those about him to various [Pg 381]cities to raise the money, he was left with one friend and two attendants among these Cilician pirates, who were notorious for their cruelty, yet he treated them with such contempt that whenever he was lying down to rest, he would send to them and order them to be quiet. He spent eight and thirty days among them, not so much like a prisoner as a prince surrounded by his guards, and he joined in their sports and exercises with perfect unconcern. He also wrote poems and some speeches which he read to them, and those who did not approve of his compositions he would call to their faces illiterate fellows and barbarians, and he would often tell them with a laugh that he would hang them all. The pirates were pleased with his manners, and attributed this freedom of speech to simplicity and a mirthful disposition. As soon as the ransom came from Miletus and Cæsar had paid it and was set at liberty, he manned some vessels in the port of Miletus and went after the pirates, whom he found still on the island, and he secured most of them. All their property he made his booty; but the pirates, he lodged in prison at Pergamum, and then went to Junius,9 who, as governor of the provinces of Asia, was the proper person to punish the captives. But as the governor was casting a longing eye on the booty, which was valuable, and said he would take time to consider about the captives, Cæsar without more ado, left him and going straight to Pergamum took all the pirates out of prison and crucified them, as he had often told them he would do in the island when they thought he was merely jesting.

III

Sulla’s power was now declining, and Cæsar’s friends in Rome recommended him to return. However, he first made a voyage to Rhodus in order to have the instruction of Apollonius the son of Molon,10 of whom Cicero also was a hearer. This Apollonius was a [Pg 382]distinguished rhetorician, and had the reputation of being a man of a good disposition. Cæsar is said to have had a great talent for the composition of discourses on political matters, and to have cultivated it most diligently, so as to obtain beyond dispute the second rank; his ambition to be first in power and arms, made him from want of leisure give up the first rank, to which his natural talents invited him, and consequently his attention to military matters and political affairs by which he got the supreme power, did not allow him to attain perfection in oratory. Accordingly at a later period, in his reply to Cicero about Cato,11 he deprecates all comparison between the composition of a soldier and the eloquence of an accomplished orator who had plenty of leisure to prosecute his studies.

IV

On his return to Rome he impeached12 Dolabella13 for maladministration in his province, and many of the cities of Greece gave evidence in support of the charge. Dolabella, indeed, was acquitted; but to make some return to the Greeks for their zeal in his behalf, Cæsar assisted them in their prosecution of Publius Antonius14 for corruption before Marcus Lucullus, the governor of Macedonia; and his aid was so effectual that Antonius appealed to the tribunes, alleging that he had not a fair trial in Greece with the Greeks for his accusers. At Rome Cæsar got a brilliant popularity by aiding at trials with his eloquence; and he gained also much good will by his agreeable mode of saluting people and his pleasant manners, for he was more attentive to please than persons usually are at that age. He was also gradually acquiring political influence by the splendour of his entertainments and his table and of his general mode of living. At first [Pg 383]those who envied him, thinking that when his resources failed his influence would soon go, did not concern themselves about his flourishing popularity: but at last when his political power had acquired strength and had become difficult to overthrow and was manifestly tending to bring about a complete revolution, they perceived that no beginnings should be considered too small to be capable of quickly becoming great by uninterrupted endurance and having no obstacle to their growth by reason of being despised. Cicero, who is considered to have been the first to suspect and to fear the smiling surface15 of Cæsar’s policy, as a man would the smiling smoothness of a sea, and who observed the bold and determined character which was concealed under a friendly and joyous exterior, said that in all his designs and public measures he perceived a tyrannical purpose; “but on the other hand,” said he, “when I look at his hair, which is arranged with so much care, and see him scratching his head with one finger,16 I cannot think that such a wicked purpose will ever enter into this man’s mind as the overthrow of the Roman State.” This, however, belongs to a later period.

V

He received the first proof of the good will of the people towards him when he was a competitor against Caius Popilius for a military tribuneship,17 and was proclaimed before him. He received a second and more conspicuous evidence of popular favour on the occasion of the death of Julia18 the wife of Marius, when Cæsar, who was her nephew, pronounced over her a splendid funeral oration in the Forum, and at the funeral ventured to exhibit the images19 of Marius, which were then seen for the first time [Pg 384]since the administration of Sulla, for Marius and his son had been adjudged enemies. Some voices were raised against Cæsar on account of this display, but the people responded by loud shouts, and received him with clapping of hands, and admiration, that he was bringing back as from the regions of Hades, after so long an interval, the glories of Marius to the city. Now it was an ancient Roman usage to pronounce funeral orations20 over elderly women, but it was not customary to do it in the case of young women, and Cæsar set the first example by pronouncing a funeral oration over his deceased wife, which brought him some popularity and won the many by sympathy to consider him a man of a kind disposition and full of feeling. After the funeral of his wife he went to Iberia as quæstor to the Prætor Vetus,21 for whom he always showed great respect, and whose son he made his own quæstor when he filled the office of Prætor. After his quæstorship he married for his third wife Pompeia22 he had by his wife Cornelia a daughter, who afterwards married Pompeius Magnus. Owing to his profuse expenditure (and indeed men generally supposed that he was buying at a great cost a short-lived popularity, though in fact he was purchasing things of the highest value at a low price) it is said that before he attained any public office he was in debt to the amount of thirteen hundred talents. Upon being appointed curator of the Appian Road,23 he laid out upon it a large sum of his own; and [Pg 385]during his ædileship24 he exhibited three hundred and twenty pair of gladiators, and by his liberality and expenditure on the theatrical exhibitions, the processions, and the public entertainments, he completely drowned all previous displays, and put the people in such a humour, that every man was seeking for new offices and new honours to requite him with.

VI

There were at this time two parties in the State, that of Sulla, which was all-powerful, and that of Marius, which was cowed and divided and very feeble. It was Cæsar’s object to strengthen and gain over the party of Marius, and accordingly, when the ambitious splendour of his ædileship was at its height, he had images of Marius secretly made, and triumphal Victories, which he took by night and set up on the Capitol. At daybreak the people seeing the images glittering with gold, and exquisitely laboured by art (and there were inscriptions also which declared the Cimbrian victories of Marius), were in admiration at the boldness of him who had placed them there, for it was no secret who it was, and the report quickly circulating through the city, brought everybody to the spot to see. Some exclaimed that Cæsar had a design to make himself tyrant, which appeared by his reviving those testimonials of honour which had been buried in the earth by laws and decrees of the senate, and that it was done to try if the people, who were already tampered with, were tamed to his purpose by his splendid exhibitions, and would allow him to venture on such tricks and innovations. But the partisans of Marius, encouraging one another, soon collected in surprising numbers, and filled the Capitol with their noise. Many also shed tears of joy at seeing the likeness of Marius, and Cæsar was highly extolled as the only man worthy to be a kinsman of Marius. The senate being assembled about these matters, Catulus Lutatius, who had at that time the greatest name of any man in Rome, got up, and charging Cæsar, uttered that [Pg 386]memorable expression: “Cæsar, no longer are you taking the state by underground approaches, but by storming engines.” Cæsar spoke in reply to this charge, and satisfied the senate, on which his admirers were still more elated, and urged him not to abate of his pretensions for any one: with the favour of the people, they said, he would soon get the better of all, and be the first man in the State.

VII

About this time Metellus,25 the Pontifex Maximus, died, and though Isauricus and Catulus were candidates for the priesthood, which was a great object of ambition, and were men of the highest rank and greatest influence in the senate, Cæsar would not give way to them, but he presented himself to the people as a competitor. The favour of the people appearing equally divided, Catulus, as the more distinguished candidate, being more afraid of the uncertainty of the event, sent and offered Cæsar a large sum of money if he would retire from his canvass; but Cæsar replied that he would stand it out even if he had to borrow still more. On the day of the election, his mother, with tears, accompanied him to the door, when Cæsar embracing her, said, “Mother, to-day you shall see your son either Pontifex Maximus, or an exile.” After the voting was over, which was conducted with great spirit, Cæsar prevailed, a circumstance which alarmed the senate and the nobles, who feared that he would lead on the people to the boldest measures. Accordingly, Piso and Catulus blamed Cicero for having spared Cæsar, who, in the matter of Catiline’s26 conspiracy, had given him a [Pg 387]handle. Now Catiline designed not only to alter the form of government, but to subvert the whole Commonwealth, and throw all into confusion, but he was ejected from the city on being convicted of some minor charges, and before the extent of his designs was discovered. He left behind him in the city Lentulus and Cethegus, to carry his plans into execution. It is uncertain if Cæsar secretly lent them any countenance and aid, but when they were completely convicted in the senate, and Cicero the consul put it to each senator to give his opinion on their punishment, all who spoke declared for death till it came to Cæsar’s turn to speak. Cæsar rose and delivered a studied oration, to the effect that it was not consistent with the constitution, nor was it just to put to death without a trial men distinguished for their high character and their family, unless there was the most urgent necessity; and he added that, if they were imprisoned in the Italian cities which Cicero himself might choose, until the war against Catiline was brought to an end, the senate might have time to deliberate on the case of each prisoner when peace was restored.

VIII

This proposal appeared so humane, and was supported by so powerful a speech, that not only those who rose after Cæsar sided with, him, but many of those who had already spoken changed their opinions and went over to that of Cæsar, till it came to the turn of Cato and Catulus to speak. After they had made a vigorous opposition, and Cato in his speech had also urged suspicious matter against Cæsar and strongly argued against him, the conspirators were handed over to the executioner, and as Cæsar was leaving the Senate many of the young men who then acted as a guard to Cicero, crowded together and threatened Cæsar with their naked swords.27 But [Pg 388]Curio28 is said to have thrown his toga round Cæsar, and to have carried him off; and Cicero also, when the young men looked to him, is said to have checked them by a motion, either through fear of the people or because he thought that the death of Cæsar would be most unjust and a violation of law. If this is true, I cannot conceive why Cicero said nothing about it in the book on his Consulship;29 but Cicero was blamed afterwards for not having taken advantage of so favourable an opportunity to get rid of Cæsar, and for having feared the people, who were extravagantly attached to Cæsar. And indeed a few days after, when Cæsar had gone to the Senate and defended himself in a speech against the imputations that had been cast on him, and his speech was received with loud marks of disapprobation and the sitting of the Senate was lasting longer than usual, the people came with loud cries and surrounded the Senate-house calling for Cæsar and bidding the Senate let him go. Accordingly, Cato apprehending danger mainly from some movement of the needy part of the people, who were like a firebrand among the rest of the citizens, as they had all their hopes in Cæsar, prevailed on the Senate to give them a monthly allowance of corn, which produced an addition to the rest of the expenditure of seven millions30 five hundred thousands. However, the immediate alarm was manifestly quenched by this measure, which snapped off the best part of Cæsar’s influence and scattered it, at a time when he was going [Pg 389]to enter on his office of Prætor which made him more formidable.

IX

No tumults occurred in Cæsar’s Prætorship,31 but a disagreeable incident happened in his family. Publius Clodius,32 a man of Patrician rank, was distinguished both by wealth and eloquence, but in arrogance and impudence he was not inferior to the most notorious scoundrels in Rome. Clodius was in love with Pompeia, Cæsar’s wife, and Pompeia was in no way averse to him. But a strict watch was kept over the woman’s apartment, and Aurelia, Cæsar’s mother, who was a prudent woman, by always observing Pompeia, made it difficult and hazardous for the lovers to have an interview. Now the Romans have a goddess whom they call Bona, as the Greeks have a Gynæceia. The Phrygians, who claim this goddess, say she was the mother of King Midas; the Romans say she was a Dryad and the wife of Faunus; but the Greeks say she is one of the mothers of Dionysus, whose name must not be uttered; and this is the reason why they cover the tents with vine-leaves during the celebration of her festival, and a sacred serpent sits by the goddess according to the mythus. No man is allowed to approach the festival, nor to be in the house during the celebration of the rites; but the women by themselves are said to perform many rites similar to the Orphic in the celebration. Accordingly when the season of the festival is come, the husband, if he be consul or prætor, leaves the house and every male also quits it; and the wife taking possession [Pg 390]of the house makes all arrangements, and the chief ceremonies are celebrated by night, the evening festival being accompanied with mirth and much music.

X

While Pompeia33 was now celebrating this festival, Clodius, who was not yet bearded, and for this reason thought that he should not be discovered, assumed the dress and equipment of a female lute-player and went to the house looking just like a young woman. Finding the door open, he was safely let in by a female slave who was in the secret, and who forthwith ran off to tell Pompeia. As there was some delay and Clodius was too impatient to wait where the woman had left him, but was rambling about the house, which was large, and trying to avoid the lights, Aurelia’s waiting-woman, as was natural for one woman with another, challenged him to a little mirthful sport, and as he declined the invitations, she pulled him forward and asked who he was and where he came from. Clodius replied that he was waiting for Abra the maid of Pompeia, for that was the woman’s name, but his voice betrayed him, and the waiting-woman ran with a loud cry to the lights and the rest of the company, calling out that she had discovered a man. All the women were in the greatest alarm, and Aurelia stopped the celebration of the rites and covered up the sacred things: she also ordered the doors to be closed and went about the house with the lights to look for Clodius. He was discovered lurking in the chamber of the girl who had let him in, and on being recognised by the women was turned out of doors. The women went straightway, though it was night, to their husbands to tell them what had happened; and as soon as it was day, the talk went through Rome of the desecration of the sacred rites by Clodius, and how he ought to be punished for his behaviour, not only to the persons whom he had insulted, but to the city and the gods. Accordingly one of the tribunes instituted a prosecution against Clodius for an offence against religion, and the most powerful of the senators combined against him, charging him, among other abominations, with adultery with his sister, who was the wife of Lucullus. The people set themselves in opposition to their exertions and supported [Pg 391]Clodius, and were of great service to him with the judices, who were terror-struck and afraid of the people. Cæsar immediately divorced Pompeia, and when he was summoned as a witness on the trial, he said he knew nothing about the matters that Clodius was charged with. This answer appearing strange, the accuser asked him, “Why have you put away your wife?” to which Cæsar replied, “Because I considered that my wife ought not even to be suspected.” Some say that this was the real expression of Cæsar’s opinion, but others affirm that it was done to please the people who were bent on saving Clodius. However this may be, Clodius was acquitted, for the majority of the judices gave in their votes34 written confusedly, that they might run no risk from the populace by convicting Clodius nor lose the good opinion of the better sort by acquitting him.

XI

On the expiration of his Prætorship, Cæsar received Iberia35 for his province, but as he had a difficulty about arranging matters with his creditors, who put obstructions in the way of his leaving Rome, and were clamorous, he applied to Crassus, then the richest man in Rome, who stood in need of the vigour and impetuosity of Cæsar to support him in his political hostility to Pompeius. Crassus undertook to satisfy the most importunate and unrelenting of the creditors, and having become security for Cæsar to the amount of eight hundred and thirty talents, thus enabled him to set out for his province. There is a story that as Cæsar was crossing the Alps, he passed by a small barbarian town which had very few inhabitants and was a miserable place, on which his companions jocosely observed, “They did not suppose there were any contests [Pg 392]for honors in such a place as that, and struggles for the first rank and mutual jealousy of the chief persons:” on which Cæsar earnestly remarked, “I would rather be the first man here than the second at Rome.” Again in Spain, when he had some leisure and was reading the history of Alexander,36 he was for a long time in deep thought, and at last burst into tears; and on his friends asking the reason of this, he said, “Don’t you think it is a matter for sorrow, that Alexander was king of so many nations at such an early age, and I have as yet done nothing of note?”

XII

However, as soon as he entered Iberia, he commenced active operations and in a few days raised ten cohorts in addition to the twenty which were already there, and with this force marching against the Calaici37 and Lusitani he defeated them, and advanced to the shores of the external sea, subduing the nations which hitherto had paid no obedience to Rome. After his military success, he was equally fortunate in settling the civil administration by establishing friendly relations among the different states, and particularly by healing the differences between debtors and creditors;38 for which purpose he determined that the creditor should annually take two-thirds of the debtor’s income, and that the owner should take the other third, which arrangement was to continue till the debt was paid. By these measures he gained a good reputation, and he retired from the province with the acquisition of a large fortune, having enriched his soldiers also by his campaigns and been saluted by them Imperator.

XIII

As it was the law at Rome that those who were [Pg 393]soliciting a triumph should stay outside the city, and that those who were candidates for the consulship should be present in the city, Cæsar finding himself in this difficulty, and having reached Rome just at the time of the consular elections, sent to the senate to request permission to offer himself to the consulship in his absence through the intervention of his friends. Cato at first urged the law in opposition to Cæsar’s request, but seeing that many of the senators had been gained over by Cæsar, he attempted to elude the question by taking advantage of time and wasting the day in talking, till at last Cæsar determined to give up the triumph and to secure the consulship. As soon as he entered the city, he adopted a policy which deceived everybody except Cato; and this was the bringing about of a reconciliation between Pompeius and Crassus, the two most powerful men in Rone, whom Cæsar reconciled from their differences, and centering in himself the united strength of the two by an act that had a friendly appearance, changed the form of government without its being observed. For it was not, as most people suppose, the enmity of Cæsar and Pompeius which produced the civil wars, but their friendship rather, inasmuch as they first combined to depress the nobility and then quarrelled with one another. Cato, who often predicted what would happen, at the time only got by it the character of being a morose, meddling fellow, though afterwards he was considered to be a wise, but not a fortunate adviser.

XIV

Cæsar,39 however, supported on both sides by the friendship of Crassus and Pompeius, was raised to the consulship and proclaimed triumphantly with Calpurnius Bibulus for his colleague. Immediately upon entering on his office he proposed enactments more suitable to the most turbulent tribune than a consul, for in order to please the populace he introduced measures for certain allotments and divisions of land.40 But he met with [Pg 394]opposition in the Senate from the good and honourable among them, and as he had long been looking for a pretext, he exclaimed with solemn adjurations, that he was driven against his will to court the favour of the people by the arrogance and obstinacy of the Senate, and accordingly he hurried to the popular assembly and placing Crassus on one side of him and Pompeius on the other, he asked them if they approved of his legislative measures. Upon their expressing their approbation, he entreated them to give him their aid against those who threatened to oppose him with their swords. Pompeius and Crassus promised their assistance, and Pompeius added, that he would oppose swords with sword and shield. The nobility were annoyed at hearing such mad, inconsiderate words drop from Pompeius, which were unbecoming his own character and the respect that he owed to the Senate; but the people were delighted. Cæsar, whose secret design it was to secure the influence of Pompeius still more, gave him to wife his daughter Julia,41 who was already betrothed to Servilius Cæpio; and he promised Cæpio that he should have the daughter of Pompeius, though she also was not disengaged, being betrothed to Faustus, the son of Sulla. Shortly after Cæsar married Calpurnia, the daughter of Piso, and got Piso named consul for the next year, though Cato in this matter also strongly protested and exclaimed that it was an intolerable thing for the chief power to be prostituted by marriage bargains and that they should help one another [Pg 395]by means of women, to provinces and armies and political power. Bibulus, Cæsar’s colleague, found it useless to oppose Cæsar’s measures, and he and Cato several times narrowly escaped with their lives in the Forum, whereupon Bibulus shut himself up at home for the remainder of his consulship. Immediately after his marriage Pompeius filled the Forum with armed men, and supported the people in passing Cæsar’s laws and in giving him for five years Gaul on both sides of the Alps with the addition of Illyricum and four legions. Upon Cato’s venturing to speak against these measures, Cæsar ordered him to be carried off to prison, thinking that he would appeal to the tribunes. But Cato went off without speaking a word; and Cæsar observing that the nobles were much annoyed at this, and the people also through respect for Cato’s virtue were following him in silence and with downcast eyes, secretly asked one of the tribunes to release Cato. Very few of the senators used to accompany Cæsar to the Senate, but the majority not liking his measures stayed away. Considius,42 who was a very old man, observed that the senators did not come because they were afraid of the arms and the soldiers. “Why don’t you then stay at home for the same reason?” replied Cæsar, to which Considius rejoined, “My age makes me fearless, for the little of life that remains for me is not worth much thought.” The most scandalous public measure in Cæsar’s consulship was the election as tribune of that43 Clodius who had dishonoured Cæsar’s wife and violated the mysterious nocturnal rites. But he was elected in order to ruin Cicero, and Cæsar did not set out [Pg 396]for his province till with the aid of Clodius he had put down Cicero by his cabals and driven him out of Italy.

XV

Such is said to have been the course of Cæsar’s life before his Gallic campaigns.44 But the period of his wars which he afterwards fought and his expedition by which he subdued Gaul, is just like a new beginning in his career and the commencement of a new course of life and action, in which he showed himself as a soldier and a general inferior to none who have gained admiration as leaders and been the greatest men: for whether we compare Cæsar’s exploits with those of the Fabii, Scipios, and Metelli, or with those of his contemporaries or immediate predecessors, Sulla and Marius and both the Luculli or even Pompeius himself, whose fame, high as the heavens, was blossoming at that time in every kind of military virtue, Cæsar will be found to surpass them all—his superiority over one appearing in the difficulties of the country in which he carried on his campaigns, over another in the extent of country subdued, over a third in the number and courage of the enemy whom he defeated, over another again in the savage manners and treacherous character of the nations that he brought to civility, over a fourth in his clemency and mildness to the conquered, over another again in his donations and liberality to his soldiers; and in fine his superiority over all other generals appears by the numbers of battles that he fought and of enemies that he slew. For in somewhat less than ten years during which he carried on his campaign in Gaul he took by storm above eight hundred cities, and subdued three hundred nations, and fought with three millions of men at different times, of whom he destroyed one million in battle and took as many prisoners.

XVI

45 So great were the good-will and devotion of [Pg 397]Cæsar’s soldiers to him, that those who under other generals were in no way superior to ordinary soldiers, were invincible and irresistible and ready to meet any danger for Cæsar’s glory. An instance of this is Acilius, who in the sea-fight of Massalia46 boarded one of the enemy’s ships and had his right hand cut off with a sword, but he still kept hold of his shield with the left hand and striking at the faces of the enemy drove all to flight and got possession of the vessel. Another instance was Cassius Scæva,47 who in the fight at Dyrrachium had one eye destroyed by an arrow, his shoulder transfixed with one javelin and his thigh with another, and on his shield he had received the blows of one hundred and thirty missiles. In this plight he called to the enemy as if he designed to surrender himself, and two of them accordingly approached him, but with his sword he lopped off one man’s shoulder and wounding the other in the face, put him to flight, and finally he escaped himself with the aid of his friends. In Britannia on one occasion the natives had attacked the foremost centurions who had got into a marshy spot full of water, upon which, in the presence of Cæsar who was viewing the contest, a soldier rushed into the midst of the enemy, and after performing many conspicuous acts of valour, rescued the centurions from the barbarians, who took to flight. The soldier, with difficulty attempting to cross after all the rest, plunged into the muddy stream, and with great trouble and the loss of his shield, sometimes swimming, sometimes walking, he got safe over. While those who were about Cæsar were admiring his conduct and coming to receive him with congratulations and shouts, the soldier, with the greatest marks of dejection and tears in his eyes, fell down at Cæsar’s feet and begged pardon for the loss of his shield. [Pg 398]Again, in Libya, Scipio’s party having taken one of Cæsar’s ships in which was Granius Petro, who had been appointed quæstor, made booty of all the rest, but offered to give the quæstor his life; but he replying that it was the fashion with Cæsar’s soldiers to give and not to accept mercy, killed himself with his own sword.

XVII

This courage and emulation Cæsar cherished and created, in the first place by distributing rewards and honours without stint, and thus showing that he did not get wealth from the enemy for his own enjoyment and pleasure, but that it was treasured up with him as the common reward of courage, and that he was rich only in proportion as he rewarded deserving soldiers; and in the next place by readily undergoing every danger and never shrinking from any toil. Now they did not so much admire Cæsar’s courage, knowing his love of glory; but his endurance of labour beyond his body’s apparent power of sustaining it, was a matter of astonishment, for he was of a spare habit, and had a white and soft skin, and was subject to complaints in the head and to epileptic fits, which, as it is said, first attacked him at Corduba;48 notwithstanding all this, he did not make his feeble health an excuse for indulgence, but he made military service the means of his cure, by unwearied journeying, frugal diet, and by constantly keeping in the open air and enduring fatigue, struggling with his malady and keeping his body proof against its attacks. He generally slept in chariots or in litters, making even his repose a kind of action; and in the daytime he used to ride in a vehicle to the garrisons, cities and camps, with a slave by his side, one of those who were expert at taking down what was dictated on a journey, and a single soldier behind him armed with a sword. He used to travel so quick that on his first journey from Rome he reached the Rhodanus49 in [Pg 399]eight days. From his boyhood he was a good horseman, for he had been accustomed to place his hands behind him and, holding them close together on his back, to put the horse to his full speed. In that campaign he also practised himself in dictating letters as he was riding and thus giving employment to two scribes, and as Oppius50 says, to more. He is said also to have introduced the practice of communicating with his friends by letters, as there was no time for personal interviews on urgent affairs, owing to the amount of business and the size of the city. This anecdote also is cited as a proof of his indifference as to diet. On one occasion when he was entertained at supper by his host Valerius Leo51 in Mediolanum, asparagus was served up with myrum poured on it instead of oil, which Cæsar ate without taking any notice of it, and reproved his friends who were out of humour on the occasion. “You should be content,” he said, “not to eat what you don’t like; but to find fault with your host’s ill-breeding is to be as ill-bred as himself.” Once upon a journey he was compelled by a storm to take shelter in a poor man’s hut, which contained only a single chamber and that hardly large enough for one person, on which he observed to his friends that the post of honour must be given to the worthiest and the place of safety to the weakest; and he bade Oppius lie down while he and the rest slept in the porch.

XVIII

Cæsar’s first Gallic campaign was against the Helvetii52 and Tigurini, who had burnt their cities, twelve [Pg 400]in number, and their villages, of which there were four hundred, and were advancing through that part of Gaul which was subject to the Romans, like the Cimbri and Teutones of old, to whom they were considered to be not inferior in courage and in numbers equal, being in all three hundred thousand, of whom one hundred and ninety thousand were fighting men. The Tigurini were not opposed by Cæsar in person, but by Labienus, who was sent against them by Cæsar and totally defeated them near the Arar. The Helvetii fell on Cæsar unexpectedly as he was leading his forces to a friendly city, but he succeeded in making his way to a strong position, where he rallied his army and prepared for battle. A horse being brought to him, he said, “I shall want this for the pursuit after I have defeated the enemy; but let us now move on against them;” and accordingly he made the charge on foot. After a long and difficult contest, the Helvetian warriors were driven back, but the hardest struggle was about the chariots and the camp, for the Helvetians made a stand there and a desperate resistance, and also their wives and children, who fought till they were cut to pieces, and the battle was hardly over at midnight. This glorious deed of victory Cæsar followed up by one still better, for he brought together those who had escaped from the battle and compelled them to re-occupy the tract which they had left and to rebuild the cities which they had destroyed; and the number of these was above one hundred thousand. His object in this measure was to prevent the Germans from crossing the Rhenus and occupying the vacant country.

XIX

His next contest was with the Germans and for the immediate defence of the Gauls, although he had before this made an alliance with their king Ariovistus53 [Pg 401]in Rome. But the Germans were intolerable neighbours to Cæsar’s subjects, and if opportunity offered, it was supposed that they would not remain satisfied with what they had, but would invade and occupy Gaul. Cæsar observing his officers afraid of the approaching contest, and particularly the men of rank and the youths who had joined him in the expectation of finding a campaign with Cæsar a matter of pleasure and profit, called them to a public assembly and bade them leave him and not fight against their inclination since they were so cowardly and effeminate: as for himself he said he would take the tenth legion by itself and lead it against the enemy, knowing that he should not have to deal with a braver enemy than the Cimbri, and that he was not a worse general than Marius. Upon this the tenth legion sent a deputation of their body to thank him, but the rest of the legions abused their own officers, and the whole army, full of impetuosity and eagerness, all followed Cæsar, marching for many days, till they encamped within two hundred stadia of the enemy. The courage of Ariovistus was somewhat broken by the bare approach of the Romans; for as he had supposed that the Romans would not stand the attack of the Germans, and he never expected that they would turn assailants, he was amazed at Cæsar’s daring and he also saw that his own army was disturbed. The spirit of the Germans was still more blunted by the predictions of their wise women, who observing the eddies in the rivers and drawing signs from the whirlings and noise of the waters, foreboded the future and declared that the army ought not to fight before it was new moon. Cæsar hearing of this and perceiving that the Germans were inactive, thought it a good opportunity for engaging with them, while they were out of spirits instead of sitting still and waiting for their time. By attacking their fortifications and the hills on which they were encamped, he irritated the Germans and provoked them to come down in passion and fight. The Germans were [Pg 402]completely routed and pursued to the Rhenus a distance of four hundred stadia, and the whole of this space was strewed with dead bodies and arms. Ariovistus with a few escaped across the river. The dead are said to have been eighty thousand in number.

XX

After these exploits he left his forces among the Sequani54 to winter, and with the view of attending to what was going on at Rome, came down to Gaul about the Padus, which was a part of his province; for the river Rubico separates the rest of Italy from Gaul beneath the Alps. Fixing his residence there, he carried on his political intrigues, and many persons came to visit him to whom he gave what they asked for; and he dismissed all either with their wishes satisfied, or with hopes. During the whole period of his government in Gaul, he conducted his operations without attracting any attention from Pompeius, though at one time he was subduing the enemy by the arms of the citizens, and at another capturing and subjecting the citizens by the money which he got from the enemy. Hearing that the Belgæ55 had risen in arms, who were the most powerful nation of the Gauls and in possession of a third part of all Gaul, and that they had assembled many ten thousands of armed men, he immediately turned about and went against them with all possible expedition; and falling upon the enemy while they were plundering the Gauls who were in alliance with the Romans, he put to flight and destroyed those who were collected in greatest numbers and the chief part of them after an unsuccessful resistance, and such was the slaughter that the Romans crossed the lakes [Pg 403]and deep rivers over the dead bodies. Of the rebels all who dwelt near the ocean surrendered without resistance; but against the fiercest and most warlike of those in these parts, the Nervii,56 Cæsar led his forces. The Nervii, who inhabited the dense thickets and had placed their families and property in a deep recess of the forest as far as possible from the enemy, suddenly, to the number of sixty thousand, attacked Cæsar while he was fortifying his camp and not expecting a battle, and they put the Roman cavalry to flight, and surrounding the twelfth and seventh legions, killed all the centurions. If Cæsar had not seized a shield and, making his way through the first ranks, charged the barbarians, and if the tenth legion had not run down from the heights to support him when he was in danger of being overpowered, and broken the ranks of the enemy, it is supposed that not a single Roman would have escaped. Encouraged by Cæsar’s intrepidity, the Romans fought, as the saying is, beyond their strength, but yet they could not put the Nervii to flight, who defended themselves till they were cut to pieces. Out of sixty thousand only five hundred are said to have escaped; and three senators out of four hundred.

XXI

The Senate on receiving intelligence of this victory, decreed that for fifteen days57 there should be sacrifices to the gods and cessation from all business, with feasting, which had never been done before, for so long a time. For the danger was considered to have been great, so many nations having broken out at once; and because Cæsar was the conqueror, the good will of the many towards him made the victory more splendid. And accordingly, having settled affairs in Gaul, he again spent the winter in the plain of the Padus, and employed himself in intriguing at Rome. Not only the candidates [Pg 404]for the offices of the State carried their election by Cæsar supplying them with money which they spent in bribing the people, and directed all their measures to the increase of Cæsar’s power, but the greater part of the Romans most distinguished for rank and political power, came to see him at Luca,58 Pompeius and Crassus, and Appius, the governor of Sardinia, and Nepos, proconsul of Iberia, so that there were a hundred and twenty lictors there, and more than two hundred senators. Their deliberations resulted in this: it was agreed that Pompeius and Crassus should be made consuls, and that Cæsar should have an allowance of money and five additional years in his province, which to all reflecting people seemed the most extravagant thing of all. For those who were receiving so much from Cæsar, urged the Senate to grant him money as if he had none, or rather compelled the Senate to do it, groaning as it were over its own decrees. Cato, indeed, was not present, for he had been purposely sent out of the way on a mission to Cyprus; and Favonius, who affected to imitate Cato, finding he could do nothing by his opposition, hastily left the Senate and began to clamour to the people. But nobody attended to him, some from fear of displeasing Pompeius and Crassus, but the greater part kept quiet to please Cæsar, living on hopes from him.

XXII

Cæsar again returned to his troops in Gaul where he found much war in the country, for two great German nations had just crossed the Rhenus for the purpose of getting land; the one nation was called Usipes,59 and the other Tenteritæ. Respecting the battle with them, Cæsar says in his Commentaries,60 that the [Pg 405]barbarians, while they were treating with him during a truce, attacked on their march and so put to flight his own cavalry to the number of five thousand with eight hundred of their own, for his men were not expecting an attack; that they then sent other ambassadors to him intending to deceive him again, whom he detained, and then led his army against the barbarians, considering all faith towards such faithless men and violators of truces to be folly. But Tanusius61 says that while the senate were decreeing festivals and sacrifices for the victory, Cato delivered it as his opinion, that they ought to give up Cæsar to the barbarians, and so purge themselves of the violation of the truce on behalf of the city, and turn the curse on the guilty man. Of those who had crossed the river there were slaughtered to the number of four hundred thousand, and the few who recrossed the river were received by the Sugambri62 a German tribe. Cæsar laying hold of this ground of complaint against the Germans, and being also greedy of glory and desirous to be the first man to cross the Rhenus with an army, began to build a bridge over the river, which was very broad, and in this part of the bed spread out widest, and was rough, and ran with a strong current so as to drive the trunks of trees that were carried down and logs of wood against the supports of the bridge,63 and tear them asunder. But Cæsar [Pg 406]planted large timbers across the bed of the river above the bridge to receive the trees that floated down, and thus bridling the descending current, beyond all expectation he accomplished the completion of the bridge in ten days.

XXIII

Cæsar now led his troops over the river, no one venturing to oppose him, and even the Suevi, the most valiant of the Germans, retired with their property into deep woody valleys. After devastating with fire the enemy’s country and encouraging all those who favoured the Romans, he returned into Gaul after spending eighteen days in Germany. His expedition against the Britanni64 was notorious for its daring: for he was [Pg 407]the first who entered the western Ocean with an armament and sailed through the Atlantic sea, leading an army to war; and by attempting to occupy an island of incredible magnitude, which furnished matter for much dispute to numerous writers, who affirmed that the name and the accounts about it were pure inventions, for it never had existed and did not then exist, he extended the Roman supremacy beyond the inhabited world. After twice crossing over to the island from the opposite coast of Gaul, and worsting the enemy in many battles rather than advantaging his own men, for there was nothing worth taking from men who lived so wretched a life and were so poor, he brought the war to a close not such as he wished, but taking hostages from the king and imposing a tribute, he retired from the island. On his return he found letters which were just going to cross [Pg 408]over to him from his friends in Rome, informing him of his daughter’s death, who died in child-birth in the house of her husband Pompeius. Great was the grief of Pompeius, and great was the grief of Cæsar; and their friends were also troubled, as the relationship was now dissolved which maintained peace and concord in the State, which but for this alliance was threatened with disturbance. The child also died after surviving the mother only a few days. Now the people, in spite of the tribunes, carried Julia65 to the Field of Mars, where her obsequies were celebrated; and there she lies.

XXIV

As the force of Cæsar was now large, he was obliged to distribute it in many winter encampments. But while he was on his road to Italy, according to his custom, there was another general rising of the Gauls, and powerful armies scouring the country attempted to destroy the winter camps, and attacked the Roman entrenchments. The most numerous and bravest of the revolted Gauls under Abriorix destroyed Cotta66 and Titurius with their army; and the legion under Cicero67 they surrounded with sixty thousand men and blockaded, and they came very near taking the camp by storm, for all the Romans had been wounded and were courageously defending themselves above their strength. When this intelligence reached Cæsar, who was at a distance, he quickly turned about, and getting together seven thousand [Pg 409]men in all, he hurried to release Cicero from the blockade. The besiegers were aware of his approach and met him with the intention of cutting him off at once, for they despised the fewness of his numbers. But Cæsar, deceiving the enemy, avoided them continually, and having occupied a position which was advantageous to one who had to contend against many with a small force, he fortified his camp, and kept his men altogether from fighting; and he made them increase the height of the ramparts and build up the gates as if they were afraid, his manœuvre being to make the enemy despise him, till at last when they made their assault in scattered bodies, urged by self-confidence, sallying out he put them to flight and killed many of them.

XXV

68 The frequent defections of the Gauls in those parts were thus quieted, and also by Cæsar during the winter moving about in all directions and carefully watching disturbances. For there had come to him from Italy three legions to replace those that had perished, Pompeius having lent him two of those which were under his command, and one legion having been newly raised in Gaul upon the Padus. But in the course of time there showed themselves, what had long in secret been planted and spread abroad by the most powerful men among the most warlike tribes, the elements of the greatest and the most dangerous of all the wars in Gaul, strengthened by a numerous body of young men armed and collected from all quarters, and by great stores brought together, and fortified cities, and countries difficult of access. And at that time, during the winter, frozen rivers and forests buried in snow, and plains overflowed by winter torrents, and in some parts paths that could not be discovered for the depth of the snow, and in other parts the great uncertainty of a march through marshes and streams diverted from their course, seemed to place the proceedings of the insurgents altogether beyond any attempt on the part of Cæsar. Accordingly many tribes had revolted, but the leaders of the revolt were the Arvenni and the Car[Pg 410]nuntini; Vergentorix was elected to the supreme direction of the war, he whose father the Gauls had put to death on the ground of aiming at a tyranny.

XXVI

Vergentorix,69 dividing his force into many parts, and placing over them many commanders, began to gain over all the surrounding country as far as those who bordered on the Arar, it being his design, as Cæsar’s enemies in Rome were combining against him, to rouse all Gaul to war. If he had attempted this a little later, when Cæsar was engaged in the civil war, alarms no less than those from the invasion of the Cimbri would have seized on Italy. But now Cæsar, who appears to have had the talent for making the best use of all opportunities in war, and particularly critical seasons, as soon as he heard of the rising, set out on his march, by the very roads70 that he traversed, and the impetuosity and rapidity of his march in so severe a winter letting the barbarians see that an invincible and unvanquished army was coming against them. For where no one believed that a messenger or a letter-carrier from him could make his way in a long time, there was Cæsar seen with all his army, at once ravaging their lands, and destroying the forts, taking cities, and receiving those who changed sides and came over to him, till at last even the nation of the Edui71 declared against him, who up to this time had called themselves brothers of the Romans, and had received signal distinction, but now by joining the insurgents they greatly [Pg 411]dispirited Cæsar’s troops. In consequence of this, Cæsar moved from those parts, and passed over the territory of the Lingones,72 wishing to join the Sequani, who were friends, and formed a bulwark in front of Italy against the rest of Gaul. There the enemy fell upon him and hemmed him in with many ten thousands, upon which Cæsar resolved to fight a decisive battle against the combined forces, and after a great contest, he gained a victory at last, and with great slaughter, routed the barbarians; but at first it appears that he sustained some loss, and the Aruveni show a dagger73 suspended in a temple, which they say was taken from Cæsar. Cæsar himself afterwards saw it, and smiled; and when his friends urged him to take it down, he would not, because he considered it consecrated.

XXVII

However, the chief part of those who then escaped, fled with the king to the city of Alesia.74 And [Pg 412]while Cæsar was besieging this city, which was considered to be impregnable by reason of the strength of the walls and the number of the defenders, there fell upon him from without a danger great beyond all expectation. For the strength of all the nations in Gaul assembling in arms came against Alesia, to the number of three hundred thousand; and the fighting men in the city were not fewer than one hundred and seventy thousand; so that Cæsar being caught between two such forces and blockaded, was compelled to form two walls for his protection, the one towards the city, and the other opposite those who had come upon him, since, if these forces should unite, his affairs would be entirely ruined. On many accounts then, and with good reason, the hazard before the walls of Alesia was famed abroad, as having produced deeds of daring and skill such as no other struggle had done; but it is most worthy of admiration that Cæsar engaged with so many thousands outside of the town and defeated them without it being known to those in the city; and still more admirable, that this was also unknown to the Romans who were guarding the wall towards the city. For they knew nothing of the victory till they heard the weeping of the men in Alesia and the wailing of the women, when they saw on the other side many shields adorned with silver and gold, and many breastplates smeared with blood, and also cups and Gallic tents conveyed by the Romans to their camp. So quickly did so mighty a force, like a phantom or a dream, vanish out of sight and disperse, the greater part of the men having fallen in battle. But those who held Alesia, after giving no small trouble to themselves and to Cæsar, at last surrendered; and the leader of the whole war, Vergentorix, putting on his best armour, and equipping his horse, came out through the gates, and riding round Cæsar who was seated, and then leaping down from his horse, he threw off his complete armour, and seating himself at Cæsar’s feet, he re[Pg 413]mained there till he was delivered up to be kept for the triumph.

XXVIII

75 Cæsar had long ago resolved to put down Pompeius, as Pompeius also had fully resolved to do towards him. For now that Crassus had lost his life among the Parthians, who kept a watch over both of them, it remained for one of them, in order to be the chief, to put down him who was, and to him who was the chief, to take off the man whom he feared, in order that this might not befall him. But it had only recently occurred to Pompeius to take alarm, and hitherto he had despised Cæsar, thinking it would be no difficult thing for the man whom he had elevated to be again depressed by him; but Cæsar, who had formed his design from the beginning, like an athlete, removed himself to a distance from his antagonists, and exercised himself in the Celtic wars, and thus disciplined his troops and increased his reputation, being elevated by his exploits to an equality with the victories of Pompeius; also laying hold of pretexts, some furnished by the conduct of Pompeius himself, and others by the times and the disordered state of the administration at Rome, owing to which, those who were candidates for magistracies placed tables in public and shamelessly bribed the masses, and the people being hired went down to show their partisanship not with votes on behalf of their briber, but with bows and swords and slings. And after polluting the Rostra with blood and dead bodies, they separated, leaving the city to anarchy, like a ship carried along without a pilot, so that sensible men were well content if matters should result in nothing worse than a monarchy after such madness and such tempest. And there were many who even ventured to say publicly that the state of affairs could only be remedied by a monarchy, and that they ought to submit to this remedy when applied by the mildest of physicians, hinting at Pompeius. But when Pompeius in what he said affected to decline the honour, though in fact he was more than anything else labouring to bring about his appointment as dictator, Cato, who saw through his intention, persuaded the Senate to appoint [Pg 414]him sole consul, that he might not by violent means get himself made dictator, and might be contented with a mere constitutional monarchy. They also decreed an additional period for his provinces: and he had two, Iberia76 and all Libya, which he administered by sending Legati and maintaining armies, for which he received out of the public treasury a thousand talents every year.

XXIX

Upon this, Cæsar began to canvass for a consulship by sending persons to Rome, and also for a prorogation of the government of his provinces. At first Pompeius kept silent, but Marcellus77 and Lentulus opposed his claim, for they hated Cæsar on other grounds, and they added to what was necessary what was not necessary, to dishonour and insult him. For they deprived of the citizenship the inhabitants of Novum Comum78 a colony lately settled by Cæsar in Gaul; and Marcellus, who was consul, punished with stripes one of the Senators of Novum Comum who had come to Rome, and added too this insult, “That he put these marks upon him to show that he was not a Roman,” and he told him to go and show them to Cæsar. After the consulship of Marcellus, when Cæsar had now profusely poured forth his Gallic wealth for all those engaged in public life to draw from, and had released Curio79 the tribune from many debts, and given to Paulus the consul fifteen hundred talents, out of which he decorated the Forum with the Basilica, a famous monument which he built in place of the old one called Fulvia;—under these circumstances, Pompeius, fearing cabal, both openly himself and by means of his friends exerted himself to have a successor80 appointed to Cæsar in his government, and he sent and demanded back of him the soldiers81 which he had lent to Cæsar for the Gallic wars. Cæsar sent [Pg 415]the men back after giving each of them a present of two hundred and fifty drachmæ. The officers who led these troops to Pompeius, spread abroad among the people reports about Cæsar which were neither decent nor honest; and they misled Pompeius by ill-founded hopes, telling him that the army of Cæsar longed to see him, and that while he with difficulty directed affairs at Rome owing to the odium produced by secret intrigues, the force with Cæsar was all ready for him, and that if Cæsar’s soldiers should only cross over to Italy, they would forthwith be on his side: so hateful, they said, had Cæsar become to them on account of his numerous campaigns, and so suspected owing to their fear of monarchy. With all this Pompeius was inflated, and he neglected to get soldiers in readiness, as if he were under no apprehension; but by words and resolution he was overpowering Cæsar, as he supposed, by carrying decrees against him, which Cæsar cared not for at all. It is even said that one of the centurions who had been sent by him to Rome, while standing in front of the Senate-house, on hearing that the Senate would not give Cæsar a longer term in his government. “But this,” he said, “shall give it,” striking the hilt of his sword with his hand.

XXX

However, the claim of Cæsar at least had a striking show of equity. For he proposed that he should lay down his arms and that when Pompeius had done the same and both had become private persons, they should get what favours they could from the citizens; and he argued that if they took from him his power and confirmed to Pompeius what he had, they would be stigmatizing one as a tyrant and making the other a tyrant in fact. When Curio made this proposal before the people on behalf of Cæsar, he was loudly applauded; and some even threw chaplets of flowers upon him as on a victorious athlete. Antonius, who was tribune, produced to the people a letter82 of Cæsar’s on this subject which he had [Pg 416]received, and he read it in spite of the consuls. But in the Senate, Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompeius, made a motion, that if Cæsar did not lay down his arms on a certain day, he should be declared an enemy. Upon the consuls putting the question, whether they were of opinion that Pompeius should dismiss his troops, and again, whether Cæsar should, very few voted in favour of the former question, and all but a few voted in favour of the latter; but when Antonius83 on his side moved that both should dismiss their troops, all unanimously were in favour of that opinion. Scipio made a violent opposition, and Lentulus, the consul, called out that they needed arms to oppose a robber, and not votes, on which the Senate broke up and the Senators changed their dress as a sign of lamentation on account of the dissension.

XXXI

But when letters had come from Cæsar by which he appeared to moderate his demands, for he proposed to surrender everything else except Gaul within the Alps and Illyricum with two legions, which should be given to him to hold till he was a candidate for a second consulship, and Cicero the orator, who had just returned from Cilicia and was labouring at a reconciliation, was inducing Pompeius to relent, and Pompeius was ready to yield in everything else except as to the soldiers, whom he still insisted on taking from Cæsar, Cicero urged the friends of Cæsar to give in and to come to a settlement on the terms of the above-mentioned provinces and the allowance of six thousand soldiers, only to Cæsar. Pompeius was ready to yield and to give way; but the consul Lentulus would not let him, and he went so far as to insult and drive with dishonour from the Senate both Curio and Antonius, thus himself contriving for Cæsar the most specious of all pretexts, by the aid of which indeed Cæsar mainly excited the passions of his men, pointing out to them that men of distinction and magistrates had made their escape in hired vehicles in the [Pg 417]dress of slaves. For, putting on this guise through fear, they had stolen out of Rome.

XXXII

Now Cæsar had about him no more than three hundred horse and five thousand legionary soldiers; for the rest of his army, which had been left beyond the Alps, was to be conducted by those whom he sent for that purpose. Seeing that the commencement of his undertaking and the onset did not so much require a large force at the present, but were to be effected by the alarm which a bold stroke would create and by quickly seizing his opportunity, for he concluded that he should strike terror by his unexpected movement more easily than he could overpower his enemies by attacking them with all his force, he ordered his superior officers and centurions with their swords alone and without any other weapons to take Ariminum, a large city of Gaul, avoiding all bloodshed and confusion as much as possible; and he intrusted the force to Hortensius.84 Cæsar himself passed the day in public, standing by some gladiators who were exercising, and looking on; and a little before evening after attending to his person and going into the mess-room and staying awhile with those who were invited to supper, just as it was growing dark he rose, and courteously addressing the guests, told them to wait for his return, but he had previously given notice to a few of his friends to follow him, not all by the same route, but by different directions. Mounting one of the hired vehicles, he drove at first along another road, and then turning towards Ariminium, when he came to the stream which divides Gaul within the Alps from the rest of Italy (it is called Rubico85 , and he [Pg 418]began to calculate as he approached nearer to the danger, and was agitated by the magnitude of the hazard, he checked his speed; and halting he considered about many things with himself in silence, his mind moving from one side to the other, and his will then underwent many changes; and he also discussed at length with his friends who were present, of whom Pollio Asinius86 was one, all the difficulties, and enumerated the evils which would ensue to all mankind from his passage of the river, and how great a report of it they would leave to posterity. At last, with a kind of passion, as if he were throwing himself out of reflection into the future, and uttering what is the usual expression with which men preface their entry upon desperate enterprises and daring, “Let the die be cast,” he hurried to cross the river; and thence advancing at full speed, he attacked Ariminum before daybreak and took it. It is said that on the night before the passage of the river, he had an impure dream,87 for he dreamed that he was in unlawful commerce with his mother.

XXXIII

But when Ariminum was taken, as if the war had been let loose through wide gates over all the earth and sea at once, and the laws of the state were confounded together with the limits of the province, one would not have supposed that men and women only, as on other occasions, in alarm were hurrying through Italy, but that the cities themselves, rising from their [Pg 419]foundations, were rushing in flight one through another; and Rome herself, as if she were deluged by torrents, owing to the crowding of the people from the neighbouring towns and their removal, could neither easily be pacified by magistrate nor kept in order by words, and in the midst of the mighty swell and the tossing of the tempest, narrowly escaped being overturned by her own agitation. For contending emotions and violent movements occupied every place. Neither did those who rejoiced keep quiet, but in many places, as one might expect in a large city, coming into collision with those who were alarmed and sorrowing, and being full of confidence as to the future, they fell to wrangling with them; and people from various quarters assailed Pompeius, who was terror-struck and had to endure the censure of one party for strengthening Cæsar against himself and the supremacy of Rome, while others charged him with inciting Lentulus to insult Cæsar who was ready to give way and was proposing fair terms of accommodation. Favonius bade him stamp on the ground with his foot; for Pompeius on one occasion in an arrogant address to the Senate, told them not to be concerned or trouble themselves about preparations for war; when Cæsar advanced, he would stamp upon the earth with his foot and fill Italy with armies. However, even then Pompeius had the advantage over Cæsar in amount of forces: but nobody would let the man follow his own judgment: and giving way to the many false reports and alarms, that the war was now close at hand and the enemy in possession of everything, and carried away by the general movement, he declared by an edict that he saw there was tumult, and he left the city after giving his commands to the Senate to follow, and that no one should stay who preferred his country and freedom to tyranny.

XXXIV

88 Accordingly the consuls fled without even making the sacrifices which it was usual to make before quitting the city; and most of the senators also took to flight, in a manner as if they were robbing, each [Pg 420]snatching of his own what first came to hand as if it belonged to another. There were some also who, though they had hitherto vehemently supported the party of Cæsar, through alarm at that time lost their presence of mind, and without any necessity for it were carried along with the current of that great movement. A most piteous sight was the city, when so great a storm was coming on, left like a ship whose helmsman had given her up, to be carried along and dashed against anything that lay in her way. But though this desertion of the city was so piteous a thing, men for the sake of Pompeius considered the flight to be their country, and they were quitting Rome as if it were the camp of Cæsar; for even Labienus,89 one of Cæsar’s greatest friends, who had been his legatus and had fought with him most gallantly in all the Gallic wars, then fled away from Cæsar and came to Pompeius. But Cæsar sent to Labienus both his property and his baggage; and advancing he pitched his camp close by Domitius, who with thirty cohorts held Corfinium.90 Domitius despairing of himself asked his physician, who was a slave, for poison, and taking what was given, he drank it, intending to die. Shortly after, hearing that Cæsar showed wonderful clemency towards his prisoners, he bewailed his fate and blamed the rashness of his resolution. But on the physician assuring him that what he had taken was only a sleeping potion and not deadly, he sprung up overjoyed, and going to Cæsar, received his right hand, and yet he afterwards [Pg 421]went over again to Pompeius. This intelligence being carried to Rome made people more tranquil, and some who had fled, returned.

XXXV

Cæsar took the troops of Domitius into his service, as well as the soldiers that were raising for Pompeius whom he surprised in the cities; and having now got a numerous and formidable army, he advanced against Pompeius. Pompeius did not await his approach, but fled to Brundisium, and sending the consuls over before him with a force to Dyrrachium,91 himself shortly after sailed from Brundisium upon the approach of Cæsar, as will be told more particularly in the Life of Pompeius.92 Though Cæsar wished to pursue immediately, he was prevented by want of ships, and he turned back to Rome, having in sixty days without bloodshed become master of Italy. Finding the city more tranquil than he expected and many of the Senators in it, he addressed them in moderate and constitutional language,93 urging them to send persons to Pompeius with suitable terms of accommodation; but no one listened to his proposal, either because they feared Pompeius, whom they had deserted, or supposed that Cæsar did not really mean what he said, and merely used specious words. When the tribune Metellus94 attempted to prevent him from taking money from the reserved treasure95 and alleged certain laws, Cæsar [Pg 422]replied, “That the same circumstances did not suit arms and laws: but do you, if you don’t like what is doing, get out of the way, for war needs not bold words; when we have laid down our arms after coming to terms, then you may come forward and make your speeches to the people.” “And in saying this,” he continued, “I waive part of my rights, for you are mine, and all are mine, who have combined against me, now that I have caught them.” Having thus spoken to Metellus he walked to the doors of the treasury; but as the keys were not found, he sent for smiths and ordered them to break the locks. Metellus again opposed him, and some commended him for it, but Cæsar, raising his voice, threatened to kill him, if he did not stop his opposition, “And this,” said he, “young man, you well know, is more painful for me to have said than to do.” These words alarmed Metellus and made him retire, and also caused everything else to be supplied to Cæsar for the war without further trouble, and with speed.

XXXVI

He marched against Iberia,96 having first [Pg 423]determined to drive out Afranius and Varro, the legati of Pompeius, and having got into his power the forces and the provinces in those parts, then to advance against Pompeius without leaving any enemy in his rear. After having often been exposed to risk in his own person from ambuscades, and with his army chiefly from want of provisions, he never gave up pursuing, challenging to battle and hemming in the enemy with his lines, till he had made himself master of their camps and forces. The generals escaped to Pompeius.

XXXVII

On his return to Rome, Piso, the father-in-law of Cæsar, advised that they should send commissioners to Pompeius to treat of terms, but Isauricus opposed the measure to please Cæsar. Being chosen Dictator by the Senate, he restored the exiles, and the children of those who had suffered in the times of Sulla,97 he reinstated in their civil rights, and he relieved the debtors by a certain abatement of the interest, and took in hand other measures of the like kind, not many in number; but in eleven days, he abdicated the monarchy, and declaring himself and Servilius Isauricus consuls98 set out on his expedition. The rest of his forces he passed by on his hurried march, and with six hundred picked horsemen and five legions, the time being the winter solstice and the commencement of January (and this pretty nearly corresponds to the Poseideon of the Athenians), he put to sea, and crossing the Ionian gulf he took Oricum and Apollonia; but he sent back his ships to Brundisium for the soldiers whom he had left behind on his march. But while the men were still on the road, as they were already passed the vigour of their age and worn out by the number of their campaigns, they murmured against Cæsar, “Whither now will he lead us and [Pg 424]where will this man at last carry us to, hurrying us about and treating us as if we could never be worn out and as if we were inanimate things? even the sword is at last exhausted by blows, and shield and breastplate need to be spared a little after so long use. Even our wounds do not make Cæsar consider that he commands perishable bodies, and that we are but mortal towards endurance and pain; and the winter season and the storms of the sea even a god cannot command; but this man runs all risks, as if he were not pursuing his enemies, but flying from them.” With such words as these they marched slowly towards Brundisium. But when they found that Cæsar had embarked, then quickly changing their temper, they reproached themselves as traitors to their Imperator; and they abused their officers also for not hastening the march. Sitting on the heights, they looked towards the sea and towards Epirus for the ships which were to carry them over to their commander.

XXXVIII

At Apollonia, as Cæsar had not a force sufficient to oppose the enemy, and the delay of the troops from Italy put him in perplexity and much uneasiness, he formed a desperate design, without communicating it to any one, to embark in a twelve-oared boat and go over to Brundisium, though the sea was commanded by so many ships of the enemy.99 Accordingly, disguising himself in a slave’s dress, he went on board by night, and throwing himself down as a person of no importance, he lay quiet. While the river Anius100 was carrying down the boat towards the sea, the morning breeze, which at that time generally made the water smooth at the outlet of the river by driving the waves before it, was beaten down by [Pg 425]a strong wind which blew all night over the sea; and the river, chafing at the swell of the sea and the opposition of the waves, was becoming rough, being driven back by the huge blows and violent eddies, so that it was impossible for the master of the boat to make head against it; on which he ordered the men to change about, intending to turn the boat round. Cæsar perceiving this, discovered himself, and taking the master by the hand, who was alarmed at the sight of him, said, “Come, my good man, have courage and fear nothing; you carry Cæsar and the fortune of Cæsar in your boat.” The sailors now forgot the storm, and sticking to their oars, worked with all their force to get out of the river. But as it was impossible to get on, after taking in much water and running great risk at the mouth of the river, Cæsar very unwillingly consented that the master should put back. On his return, the soldiers met him in crowds, and blamed him much and complained that he did not feel confident of victory even with them alone, but was vexed and exposed himself to risk on account of the absent, as if he distrusted those who were present.

XXXIX

Shortly after Antonius arrived from Brundisium with the troops; and Cæsar, being now confident, offered battle to Pompeius, who was well posted and had sufficient supplies both from land and sea, while Cæsar at first had no abundance, and afterwards was hard pressed for want of provisions: but the soldiers cut up a certain root101 and mixing it with milk, ate it. And once, having made loaves of it, they ran up to the enemies’ outposts, threw the bread into the camp, and pitched it about, adding, that so long as the earth produces such roots, they will never stop besieging Pompeius. Pompeius, however, would not let either the matter of the loaves or these words be made known to the mass of the army; for his soldiers were dispirited and dreaded the savage temper and endurance of the enemy as if they were wild beasts. There were continually skirmishes about the fortifications [Pg 426]of Pompeius, and Cæsar had the advantage in all except one, in which there was a great rout of his troops and he was in danger of losing his camp. For when Pompeius made an onset, no one stood the attack, but the trenches were filled with the dying, and Cæsar’s men were falling about their own ramparts and bulwarks, being driven in disorderly flight. Though Cæsar met the fugitives and endeavoured to turn them, he had no success, and when he laid hold of the colours, those who were carrying them threw them down, so that the enemy took two and thirty, and Cæsar himself had a narrow escape with his life. A tall, strong man was running away past by Cæsar, who putting his hand upon him, ordered him to stand and face the enemy; but the man, who was completely confounded by the danger, raised his sword to strike him, on which Cæsar’s shield-bearer struck the man first and cut off his shoulder. Cæsar had so completely given up his cause as lost, that when Pompeius either through caution or from some accident did not put the finishing stroke to his great success, but retreated after shutting up the fugitives within their ramparts, Cæsar said to his friends as he was retiring, To-day the victory would be with the enemy, if they had a commander who knew how to conquer. Going into his tent and lying down, Cæsar spent that night of all nights in the greatest agony and perplexity, considering that his generalship had been bad, in that while a fertile country lay near him and the rich cities of Macedonia and Thessaly, he had neglected to carry the war thither, and was now stationed on the sea which the enemy commanded with his ships, and that he was rather held in siege by want of supplies than holding the enemy in siege by his arms. Accordingly, after passing a restless night, full of uneasiness at the difficulty and danger of his present position, he broke up his camp with the determination of leading his troops into Macedonia to oppose Scipio, for he concluded that either he should draw Pompeius after him to a country where he would fight without the advantage of having the same supplies from the sea, or that he would defeat Scipio if he were left to himself.

XL

This encouraged the army of Pompeius and the [Pg 427]officers about him to stick close to Cæsar, whom they considered to have been defeated and to be making his escape; though Pompeius himself was cautious about hazarding a battle for so great a stake, and, as he was excellently furnished with everything for prolonging the war, he thought it best to wear out and weaken the vigour of the enemy, which could not be long sustained. For the best fighting men in Cæsar’s army possessed experience and irresistible courage in battle; but in marchings and making encampments and assaulting fortifications and watching by night, they gave way by reason of their age, and their bodies were unwieldy for labour, and owing to weakness, had lost their alacrity. It was also reported that a pestilential disease was prevalent in Cæsar’s army, which had originated in the want of proper food; and, what was chief of all, as Cæsar was neither well supplied with money nor provisions, it might be expected that in a short time his army would be broken up of itself.

XLI

For these reasons Pompeius did not wish to fight, and Cato alone commended his design, because he wished to spare the citizens; for after seeing those who had fallen in the battle to the number of a thousand, he wrapped up his face and went away with tears in his eyes. But all the rest abused Pompeius for avoiding a battle, and tried to urge him on by calling him Agamemnon and King of Kings, by which they implied that he was unwilling to lay down the sole command, and was proud at having so many officers under his orders and coming to his tent, Favonius, who aped Cato’s freedom of speech, raved because they should not be able even that year to enjoy the figs of Tusculum owing to Pompeius being so fond of command; and Afranius (for he had just arrived from Iberia, where he had shown himself a bad general), being charged with betraying his army for a bribe, asked why they did not fight with the merchant who had bought the provinces of him. Pressed by all this importunity, Pompeius pursued Cæsar with the intention of fighting, though contrary to his wish. Cæsar accomplished his march with difficulty, as no one would supply him with provisions and he was universally despised on account of [Pg 428]his recent defeat; however, after taking Gomphi,102 a Thessalian city, he had not only provisions for his army, but his men were unexpectedly relieved from their disease. For they fell in with abundance of wine, of which they drank plentifully, and revelling and rioting on their march, by means of their drunkenness, they threw off and got rid of their complaint in consequence of their bodies being brought into a different habit.

XLII

When the two armies had entered the plain of Pharsalus and pitched their camps, Pompeius again fell back into his former opinion, and there were also unlucky appearances and a vision in his sleep.103 He dreamed that he saw himself in the theatre, applauded by the Romans. But those about him were so confident, and so fully anticipated a victory, that Domitius and Scipio and Spinther were disputing and bestirring themselves against one another about the priesthood of Cæsar, and many persons sent to Rome to hire and get possession of houses that were suitable for consuls and prætors, expecting to be elected to magistracies immediately after the war. But the cavalry showed most impatience for the battle, being sumptuously equipped with splendid armour, and priding themselves on their well-fed horses and fine persons, and on their numbers also, for they were seven thousand against Cæsar’s thousand. The number of the infantry also was unequal, there being forty-five thousand matched against twenty-two thousand.

XLIII

Cæsar, calling his soldiers together and telling them that Corfinius104 was close at hand with two legions, [Pg 429]and that other cohorts to the number of fifteen under Calenus were encamped near Megara and Athens, asked if they would wait for them or hazard a battle by themselves. The soldiers cried out aloud that they did not wish him to wait, but rather to contrive and so manage his operations that they might soonest come to a battle with their enemies. While he was performing a lustration of the army, as soon as he had sacrificed the first victim, the soothsayer said that within three days there would be a decisive battle with the enemy. Upon Cæsar asking him, if he saw any favourable sign in the victims as to the result of the battle also, he replied, “You can answer this better for yourself: the gods indicate a great change and revolution of the actual state of things to a contrary state, so that if you think yourself prosperous in your present condition, expect the worst fortune; but if you do not, expect the better.” As Cæsar was taking his round to inspect the watches the night before the battle about midnight, there was seen in the heavens a fiery torch, which seemed to pass over Cæsar’s camp and assuming a bright and flame-like appearance to fall down upon the camp of Pompeius. In the morning watch they perceived that there was also a panic confusion among the enemy. However, as Cæsar did not expect that the enemy would fight on that day, he began to break up his camp with the intention of marching to Scotussa.

XLIV

The tents were already taken down when the scouts rode up to him with intelligence that the enemy were coming down to battle, whereupon Cæsar was overjoyed, and after praying to the gods he arranged his battle in three divisions. He placed Domitius Calvinus in command of the centre, Antonius had the left wing, and he commanded the right, intending to fight in the tenth legion. Observing that the cavalry of the enemy were posting themselves opposite to this wing and fearing their splendid appearance and their numbers, he ordered six cohorts to come round to him from the last line without being observed and he placed them in the rear of [Pg 430]the right wing with orders what to do when the enemy’s cavalry made their attack. Pompeius commanded his own right, and Domitius the left, and the centre was under Scipio, his father-in-law. But all the cavalry crowded to the left, intending to surround the right wing of the enemy and to make a complete rout of the men who were stationed about the general; for they believed that no legionary phalanx, however deep, could resist, but that their opponents would be completely crushed and broken to pieces by an attack of so many cavalry at once. When the signal for attack was going to be given on both sides, Pompeius ordered the legionary soldiers to stand with their spears presented and in close order to wait the attack of the enemy till they were within a spear’s throw. But Cæsar says that here also Pompeius made a mistake, not knowing that the first onset, accompanied with running and impetuosity, gives force to the blows, and at the same time fires the courage, which is thus fanned in every way. As Cæsar was about to move his phalanx and was going into action, the first centurion that he spied was a man who was faithful to him and experienced in war, and was encouraging those under his command and urging them to vigorous exertion. Cæsar addressing him by name said, “What hopes have we Caius Crassinius,105 and how are our men as to courage?” Crassinius stretching out his right hand and calling out aloud, said, “We shall have a splendid victory, Cæsar; and you shall praise me whether I survive the day or die.” Saying this, he was the first to fall on the enemy at his full speed and carrying with him the hundred and twenty soldiers who were under his command. Having cut through the first rank, he was advancing with great slaughter of the enemy and was driving them from their ground, when he was stopped by a blow from a sword through the mouth, and the point came out at the back of his neck.

XLV

The infantry having thus rushed together in the centre and being engaged in the struggle, the cavalry of Pompeius proudly advanced from the wing, extending their companies to enclose Cæsar’s right; but before they [Pg 431]fell upon the enemy, the cohorts sprang forward from among Cæsar’s troops, not, according to the usual fashion of war, throwing their spears nor yet holding them in their hands and aiming at the thighs and legs of the enemy, but pushing them against their eyes and wounding them in the face; and they had been instructed to do this by Cæsar, who was confident that men who had no great familiarity with battles or wounds, and were young and very proud of their beauty and youth, would dread such wounds and would not keep their ground both through fear of the present danger and the future disfigurement. And it turned out so; for they could not stand the spears being pushed up at them nor did they venture to look at the iron that was presented against their eyes, but they turned away and covered their faces to save them; and at last, having thus thrown themselves into confusion, they turned to flight most disgracefully and ruined the whole cause. For those who had defeated the cavalry, immediately surrounded the infantry and falling on them in the rear began to cut them down. But when Pompeius saw from the other wing the cavalry dispersed in flight, he was no longer the same, nor did he recollect that he was Pompeius Magnus, but more like a man who was deprived of his understanding by the god than anything else,106 he retired without speaking a word to his tent, and sitting down awaited the result, until the rout becoming general the enemy were assailing the ramparts, and fighting with those who defended them. Then, as if he had recovered his senses and uttering only these words, as it is reported, “What even to the ramparts!” he put off his military and general’s dress, and taking one suited for a fugitive, stole away. But what fortunes he afterwards had, and how he gave himself up to the Egyptians and was murdered, I shall tell in the Life of Pompeius.

XLVI

When Cæsar entered the camp of Pompeius and saw the bodies of those who were already killed, and the slaughter still going on among the living, he said with a groan: They would have it so; they brought me [Pg 432]into such a critical position that I, Caius Cæsar, who have been successful in the greatest wars, should have been condemned, if I had disbanded my troops. Asinius Pollio107 says that Cæsar uttered these words on that occasion in Latin, and that he wrote them down in Greek. He also says that the chief part of those who were killed were slaves, and they were killed when the camp was taken; and that not more than six thousand soldiers fell. Of those who were taken prisoners, Cæsar drafted most into his legions; and he pardoned many men of distinction, among whom was Brutus, who afterwards murdered him. Cæsar is said to have been very much troubled at his not being found, but when Brutus, who had escaped unhurt, presented himself to Cæsar, he was greatly pleased.

XLVII

There were many prognostics of the victory, but the most remarkable is that which is reported as having appeared at Tralles.108 In the temple of Victory there stood a statue of Cæsar, and the ground about it was naturally firm and the surface was also paved with hard stone; from this, they say, there sprung up a palm-tree by the pedestal of the statue. In Patavium, Caius Cornelius, a man who had reputation for his skill in divination, a fellow-citizen and acquaintance of Livius the historian, happened to be sitting that day to watch the birds. And first of all, as Livius says, he discovered the time of the battle, and he said to those who were present that the affair was now deciding and the men were going into action. Looking again and observing the signs, he sprang up with enthusiasm and called out, “You conquer, Cæsar.” The bystanders being surprised, he took the chaplet from his head and said with an oath, that he [Pg 433]would not put it on again till facts had confirmed his art. Livius affirms that these things were so.

XLVIII

Cæsar after giving the Thessalians their liberty109 in consideration of his victory, pursued Pompeius. On reaching Asia110 he made the Cnidians free to please Theopompus,111 the collector of mythi, and he remitted to all the inhabitants of Asia the third of their taxes. Arriving at Alexandria112 after the death of Pompeius, he turned away from Theodotus who brought him the head of Pompeius, but he received his seal ring113 and shed tears over it. All the companions and intimate friends of Pompeius who were rambling about the country and had been taken by the King, he treated well and gained over to himself. He wrote to his friends in Rome, that the chief and the sweetest pleasure that he derived from his victory, was to be able to pardon any of those citizens who had fought against him. As to the war114 there, some say [Pg 434]that it might have been avoided and that it broke out in consequence of his passion for Kleopatra and was discreditable to him and hazardous; but others blame the King’s party and chiefly the eunuch Potheinus,who possessed the chief power, and having lately cut off Pompeius and driven out Kleopatra, was now secretly plotting against Cæsar; and on this account they say that Cæsar from that time passed the nights in drinking in order to protect himself. But in his public conduct Pothinus was unbearable, for he both said and did many things to bring odium on Cæsar and to insult him. While measuring out to the soldiers the worst and oldest corn he told them they must be satisfied with it and be thankful, as they were eating what belonged to others; and at the meals he used only wooden and earthen vessels, alleging that Cæsar had got all the gold and silver vessels in payment for a debt.115 For the father of the then King owed Cæsar one thousand seven hundred and fifty times ten thousand, of which Cæsar had remitted the seven hundred and fifty to the King’s sons before, but he now claimed the one thousand to maintain his army with. Upon Pothinus now bidding him take his departure and attend to his important affairs and that he should afterwards receive his money back with thanks, Cæsar said, that least of all people did he want the Egyptians as advisers, and he secretly sent for Kleopatra from the country.

XLIX

Kleopatra,116 taking Apollodorus the Sicilian alone of all her friends with her, and getting into a small boat, [Pg 435]approached the palace as it was growing dark; and as it was impossible for her to escape notice in any other way, she got into a bed sack and laid herself out at full length, and Apollodorus, tying the sack together with a cord, carried her through the doors to Cæsar. Cæsar is said to have been first captivated by this device of Kleopatra, which showed a daring temper, and being completely enslaved by his intercourse with her and her attractions, he brought about an accommodation between Kleopatra and her brother on the terms of her being associated with him in the kingdom. A feast was held to celebrate the reconciliation, during which a slave of Cæsar, his barber, owing to his timidity in which he had no equal, leaving nothing unscrutinized, and listening and making himself very busy, found out that a plot against Cæsar was forming by Achillas the general and Potheinus the eunuch. Cæsar being made acquainted with their design, placed a guard around the apartment, and put Potheinus to death. Achillas escaped to the camp, and raised about Cæsar a dangerous and difficult war for one who with so few troops had to resist so large a city and force. In this contest the first danger that he had to encounter was being excluded from water, for the canals117 were dammed up by the enemy; and, in the second place, an attempt being made to cut off his fleet, he was compelled to repel the danger with fire, which spreading from the arsenals to the large library118 destroyed it; and, in the third place, in the battle near the Pharos119 he leaped down from the mound into a small [Pg 436]boat and went to aid the combatants; but as the Egyptians were coming against him from all quarters, he threw himself into the sea and swam away with great difficulty. On this occasion it is said that he had many papers in his hands, and that he did not let them go, though the enemy were throwing missiles at him and he had to dive under the water, but holding the papers above the water with one hand, he swam with the other; but the boat was sunk immediately. At last, when the King had gone over to the enemy, Cæsar attacked and defeated them in a battle in which many fell and the King120 himself disappeared. Leaving Kleopatra121 Queen of Egypt, who shortly after gave birth to a child that she had by Cæsar, which the Alexandrines named Cæsarion, he marched to Syria.

L

From Syria continuing his march through Asia he heard that Domitius had been defeated by Pharnakes122 [Pg 437]son of Mithridates, and had fled from Pontus with a few men; and that Pharnakes, who used his victory without any moderation, and was in possession of Bithynia and Cappadocia, also coveted Armenia, called the Little, and was stirring up all the kings and tetrarchs in this part. Accordingly Cæsar forthwith advanced against the man with three legions and fighting a great battle near Zela drove Pharnakes in flight from Pontus, and completely destroyed his army. In reporting to one of his friends at Rome, Amantius,123 the celerity and rapidity of this battle, he wrote only three words: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” In the Roman language the three words ending in the like form of verb, have a brevity which is not without its effect.

LI

After this, passing over to Italy he went up to Rome at the close of the year for which he had been chosen Dictator124 the second time, though that office had never before been for a whole year; and he was elected consul for the following year. He was much blamed about a mutiny125 that broke out among the soldiers in which [Pg 438]they killed two men of prætorian rank, Cosconius and Galba, because he reproved his men no further than by calling them citizens instead of soldiers, and he gave to each of them a thousand drachmæ, and allotted to them much land in Italy. He also bore the blame of the madness of Dolabella,126 the covetousness of Amantius, and the drunkenness of Antonius, and the greedy tricks of Corfinius in getting the house of Pompeius, and his building it over again as if it were not fit for him; for the Romans were annoyed at these things. But Cæsar, in the present state of affairs, though he was not ignorant of these things, and did not approve of them, was compelled to employ such men in his service.

LII

As Cato127 and Scipio, after the battle near Pharsalus, had fled to Libya, and there, with the assistance of King Juba, got together a considerable force, Cæsar determined to go against them; and about the winter solstice passing over to Sicily and wishing to cut off from the officers about him all hopes of delay and tarrying there, he placed his own tent on the margin of the waves,128 and as soon as there was a wind he went on board and set sail with three thousand foot-soldiers and a few horsemen. Having landed them unobserved he embarked again, for he was under some apprehension about the larger part of his force; and having fallen in with it on the sea, he conducted all to the camp. Now there was with him in the army a man in other respects contemptible enough and of no note, but of the family of the Africani, and his [Pg 439]name was Scipio Sallutio;129 and as Cæsar heard that the enemy relied on a certain old oracular answer, that it was always the privilege of the family of the Scipios to conquer in Libya, either to show his contempt of Scipio as a general by a kind of joke, or because he really wished to have the benefit of the omen himself (it is difficult to say which), he used to place this Sallutio in the front of the battles as if he were the leader of the army; for Cæsar was often compelled to engage with the enemy and to seek a battle, there being neither sufficient supply of corn for the men nor fodder for the animals, but they were compelled to take the sea-weed after washing off the salt and mixing a little grass with it by way of sweetening it, and so to feed their horses. For the Numidians, by continually showing themselves in great numbers and suddenly appearing, kept possession of the country; and on one occasion while the horsemen of Cæsar were amusing themselves with a Libyan, who was exhibiting to them his skill in dancing and playing on a flute at the same time in a surprising manner, and the men, pleased with the sight, were sitting on the ground and the boys holding their horses, the enemy suddenly coming round and falling upon them killed some, and entered the camp together with the rest, who fled in disorderly haste. And if Cæsar himself and Asinius Pollio had not come out of the camp to help the men, and checked the pursuit, the war would have been at an end. In another battle, also, the enemy had the advantage in the encounter, on which occasion it is said that Cæsar, seizing by the neck the man who bore the eagle and was running away, turned him round, and said, “There is the enemy!”

LIII

However Scipio130 was encouraged by these advantages to hazard a decisive battle; and leaving Afranius and [Pg 440]Juba131 encamped each separately at a short distance, he commenced making a fortified camp above a lake near the city Thapsus, intending it as a place for the whole army to sally forth from to battle and a place of refuge also. While he was thus employed, Cæsar with incredible speed making his way through woody grounds which contained certain approaches that had not been observed, surrounded part of the enemy and attacked others in front. Having put these to flight he availed himself of the critical moment and the career of fortune, by means of which he captured the camp of Afranius on the first assault, and at the first assault also he broke into the camp of the Numidians from which Juba fled; and in a small part of a single day he made himself master of three camps and destroyed fifty thousand of the enemy without losing as many as fifty of his own men. This is the account that some writers give of that battle; but others say that Cæsar was not in the action himself, but that as he was marshalling and arranging his forces, he was attacked by his usual complaint, and that perceiving it as soon as it came on, and before his senses were completely confounded and overpowered by the malady, just as he was beginning to be convulsed, he was carried to one of the neighbouring towers and stayed there quietly. Of the men of consular and prætorian rank who escaped from the battle, some killed themselves when they were being taken, and Cæsar put many to death who were captured.

LIV

Being ambitious to take Cato132 alive, Cæsar hastened to Utica, for Cato was guarding that city and was not in the battle. Hearing that Cato had put an end [Pg 441]to himself, Cæsar was evidently annoyed, but for what reason is uncertain. However, he said, “Cato, I grudge you your death, for you also have grudged me the preservation of your life.” But the work which be wrote against Cato after his death cannot be considered an indication that he was mercifully disposed towards him or in a mood to be easily reconciled. For how can we suppose that he would have spared Cato living, when he poured out against him after he was dead so much indignation? However, some persons infer from his mild treatment of Cicero and Brutus and ten thousand others of his enemies that this discourse also was composed not from any enmity, but from political ambition, for the following reason. Cicero wrote a panegyric on Cato and gave the composition the title “Cato”; and the discourse was eagerly read by many, as one may suppose, being written by the most accomplished of orators on the noblest subject. This annoyed Cæsar, who considered the panegyric on a man whose death he had caused to be an attack upon himself. Accordingly in his treatise he got together many charges against Cato; and the work is entitled “Anticato.”133 Both compositions have many admirers, as well on account of Cæsar as of Cato.

LV

However, on his return134 to Rome from Libya, in the first place Cæsar made a pompous harangue to the people about his victory, in which he said that he had conquered a country large enough to supply annually to the treasury two hundred thousand Attic medimni of corn, and three million litræ of oil. In the next place he celebrated triumphs,135 the Egyptian, the Pontic, and the [Pg 442]Libyan, not of course for his victory over Scipio, but over Juba.136 On that occasion Juba also, the son of King Juba, who was still an infant, was led in the triumphal procession, most fortunate in his capture, for from being a barbarian and a Numidian he became numbered among the most learned of the Greek writers. After the triumphs Cæsar made large presents to the soldiers, and entertained the people with banquets and spectacles, feasting the whole population at once at twenty-two thousand triclina,137 and exhibiting also shows of gladiators and naval combats in honour of his daughter Julia who had been dead for some time. After the shows a census138 was taken, in which instead of the three hundred and twenty thousand of former enumerations, there were enrolled only one hundred and fifty thousand. So much desolation had the civil wars produced and so large a proportion of the people had been destroyed in them, not to reckon the miseries that had befallen the rest of Italy and the provinces.

LVI

All this being completed, Cæsar was made [Pg 443]consul139 for the fourth time, and set out to Iberia to attack the sons of Pompeius, who were still young, but had got together a force of amazing amount and displayed a boldness that showed they were worthy to command, so that they put Cæsar in the greatest danger. The great battle was fought near the city of Munda,140 in which Cæsar, seeing that his men were being driven from their ground and making a feeble resistance, ran through the arms and the ranks calling out, “If they had no sense of shame, to take and deliver him up to the boys.” With difficulty and after great exertion he put the enemy to flight and slaughtered above thirty thousand of them, but he lost a thousand of his own best soldiers. On retiring after the battle he said to his friends, that he had often fought for victory, but now for the first time he had fought for existence. He gained this victory on the day of the festival of Bacchus, on which day it is said that Pompeius Magnus also went out to battle; the interval was four years. The younger of the sons141 of Pompeius escaped, but after a few days Didius142 brought the head of the elder. This was the last war that Cæsar was engaged in; but the triumph143 that was celebrated for [Pg 444]this victory vexed the Romans more than anything else. For this was no victory over foreign leaders nor yet over barbarian kings, but Cæsar had destroyed the children of the bravest of the Romans, who had been unfortunate, and had completely ruined his family, and it was not seemly to celebrate a triumph over the calamities of his country, exulting in these things, for which the only apology both before gods and men was that they had been done of necessity; and that too when he had never before sent either messenger or public letters to announce a victory gained in the civil wars, but had from motives of delicacy rejected all glory on that account.

LVII

However, the Romans, gave way before the fortune of the man and received the bit, and considering the monarchy to be a respite from the civil wars and miseries they appointed him dictator144 for life. This was confessedly a tyranny, for the monarchy received in addition to its irresponsibility the character of permanency; and when Cicero145 in the Senate had proposed the highest [Pg 445]honours146 to him, which though great were still such as were befitting a human being, others by adding still further honours and vying with one another made Cæsar odious and an object of dislike even to those who were of the most moderate temper, by reason of the extravagant and unusual character of what was decreed; and it is supposed that those who hated Cæsar cooperated in these measures no less than those who were his flatterers, that they might have as many pretexts as possible against him and might be considered to make their attempt upon him with the best ground of complaint. For in all other respects, after the close of the civil wars, he showed himself blameless; and it was not without good reason that the Romans voted a temple to Clemency to commemorate his moderate measures. For he pardoned many of those who had fought against him, and to some he even gave offices and honours, as to Brutus and Cassius, both of whom were Prætors. He also did not allow the statues of Pompeius to remain thrown down, but he set them up again, on which Cicero said that by erecting the statues of Pompeius, Cæsar had firmly fixed his own. When his friends urged him to have guards and many offered their services for this purpose, he would not consent, and he said, that it was better to die at once than to be always expecting death. But for the purpose of surrounding himself with the affection of the Romans as the noblest and also the securest protection, he again courted the people with banquets and distribution of corn, and the soldiers with the foundation of colonies, of which [Pg 446]the most conspicuous were Carthage147 and Corinth, to both of which it happened that their former capture and their present restoration occurred at once and at the same time.

LVIII

To some of the nobles he promised consulships and prætorships for the future, and others he pacified with certain other offices and honours, and he gave hopes to all, seeking to make it appear that he ruled over them with their own consent, so that when Maximus148 the consul died, he appointed Caninius Revilius consul for the one day that still remained of the term of office. When many persons were going, as was usual, to salute the new consul and to form part of his train Cicero said, “We must make haste, or the man will have gone out of office.” Cæsar’s great success did not divert his natural inclination for great deeds and his ambition to the enjoyment of that for which he had laboured, but serving as fuel and incentives to the future bred in him designs of greater things and love of new glory, as if he had used up what he had already acquired; and the passion was nothing else than emulation of himself as if he were another person, and a kind of rivalry between what he intended and what he had accomplished; and his propositions and designs were to march against the Parthians,149 and after subduing them and marching through Hyrkania [Pg 447]and along the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, and so encompassing the Euxine, to invade Scythia, and after having overrun the countries bordering on the Germans and Germany itself to return through Gaul to Italy, and so to complete his circle of the empire which would be bounded on all sides by the ocean. During this expedition he intended also to dig through the Corinthian Isthmus,150 and he had already commissioned Anienus to superintend the work; and to receive the Tiber151 immediately below the city in a deep cut, and giving it a bend towards Circæum to make it enter the sea by Tarracina, with the view of giving security and facility to those who came to Rome for the purpose of trade: besides this he designed to draw off the water from the marshes about Pomentium and Setia,152 and to make them solid ground, which would [Pg 448]employ many thousands of men in the cultivation; and where the sea was nearest to Rome he designed to place barriers to it by means of moles, and after clearing away the hidden rocks and dangerous places on the shore of Ostia153 to make harbours and naval stations which should give security to the extensive shipping. And all these things were in preparation.

LIX

But the arrangement of the Kalendar154 and the [Pg 449]correction of the irregularity in the reckoning of time were handled by him skilfully, and being completed were of the most varied utility. For it was not only in very ancient times that the Romans had the periods of the moon in confusion with respect to the year, so that the feasts and festivals gradually changing at last fell out in opposite seasons of the year, but even with respect to the solar year at that time nobody kept any reckoning except the priests, who, as they alone knew the proper time, all of a sudden and when nobody expected it, would insert the intercalary month named Mercedonius, which King Numa is said to have been the first to intercalate, thereby devising a remedy, which was slight and would extend to no great period, for the irregularity in the recurrence of the times, as I have explained in the Life of Numa. But Cæsar laying the problem before the ablest philosophers and mathematicians, from the methods that were laid before him compounded a correction of his own which was more exact, which the Romans use to the present time, and are considered to be in less error than other nations as to the inequality. However, even this furnished matter for complaint to those who envied him and disliked his power; for Cicero, the orator, as it is said, when some observed that Lyra would rise to-morrow, “Yes,” he replied, “pursuant to the Edict,” meaning that men admitted even this by compulsion.

LX

But the most manifest and deadly hatred towards him was produced by his desire of kingly power, which to the many was the first, and to those who had long nourished a secret hatred of him the most specious, cause. [Pg 450]And indeed those who were contriving this honour for Cæsar spread about a certain report among the people, that according to the Sibylline writings155 it appeared that Parthia could be conquered by the Romans if they advanced against it with a king, but otherwise could not he assailed. And as Cæsar was going down from Alba to the city, they ventured to salute him as King, but as the people showed their dissatisfaction, Cæsar was disturbed and said that he was not called King but Cæsar; and as hereupon there was a general silence, he passed along with no great cheerfulness nor good humour on his countenance. When some extravagant honours had been decreed to him in the Senate, it happened that he was sitting above the Rostra,156 and when the consuls and prætors approached with all the Senate behind them, without rising from his seat, but just as if he were transacting business with private persons, he answered that the honours required rather to be contracted than enlarged. This annoyed not the Senate only, but the people also, who considered that the State was insulted in the persons of the Senate; and those who were not obliged to stay went away forthwith with countenance greatly downcast, so that Cæsar perceiving it forthwith went home, and as he threw his cloak from his shoulders he called out to his friends, that he was ready to offer his throat to anyone who wished to kill him; but afterwards he alleged his disease as an excuse for his behaviour, saying that persons who are so affected cannot usually keep their senses steady when they address a multitude standing, but that the senses being speedily convulsed and whirling about bring on giddiness and are overpowered. However, the fact was not so, for it is said that he was very desirous to rise up when the Senate came, but was checked by one of his friends, or rather one of his flatterers, Cornelius Balbus,157 [Pg 451]who said, “Will you not remember that you are Cæsar, and will you not allow yourself to be honoured as a superior?”

LXI

There was added to these causes of offence the insult offered to the tribunes. It was the festival of the Lupercalia,158 about which many writers say that it was originally a festival of the shepherds and had also some relationship to the Arcadian Lykæa. On this occasion many of the young nobles and magistrates run through the city without their toga, and for sport and to make laughter strike those whom they meet with strips of hide that have the hair on; many women of rank also purposely put themselves in the way and present their hands to be struck like children at school, being persuaded that this is favourable to easy parturition for those who are pregnant, and to conception for those who are barren. Cæsar was a spectator, being seated at the Rostra on a golden chair in a triumphal robe; and Antonius was one of those who ran in the sacred race, for he was consul. Accordingly, when he entered the Forum and the crowd made way for him, he presented to Cæsar a diadem159 which he carried surrounded with a crown of bay; and there was [Pg 452]a clapping of hands, not loud, but slight, which had been already concerted. When Cæsar put away the diadem from him all the people clapped their hands, and when Antonius presented it again, only a few clapped; but when Cæsar declined to receive it, again all the people applauded. The experiment having thus failed, Cæsar rose and ordered the crown to be carried to the Capitol. But as Cæsar’s statues were seen crowned with royal diadems, two of the tribunes, Flavius and Marullus, went up to them and pulled off the diadems, and having discovered those who had been the first to salute Cæsar as king they led them off to prison. The people followed clapping their hands and calling the tribunes Bruti, because it was Brutus who put down the kingly power and placed the sovereignty in the Senate and people instead of its being in the hands of one man. Cæsar being irritated at this deprived Flavius and Marullus of their office, and while rating them he also insulted the people by frequently calling the tribunes Bruti and Cumæi.160

LXII

In this state of affairs the many turned to Marcus Brutus,161 who on his father’s side was considered to be a descendant of the ancient Brutus, and on his mother’s side belonged to the Servilii, another distinguished house, and he was the son-in-law and nephew of Cato. The honours and favours which Brutus had received from Cæsar dulled him towards attempting of his own proper motion the overthrow of the monarchical power; for not only was his life saved at the battle of Pharsalus after the rout of Pompeius, and many of his friends also at his entreaty, but besides this he had great credit with Cæsar. He had also received among those who then held the prætorship162 the chief office, and he [Pg 453]was to be consul in the fourth year from that time, having been preferred to Cassius who was a rival candidate. For it is said that Cæsar observed that Cassius urged better grounds of preference, but that he could not pass over Brutus. And on one occasion when some persons were calumniating Brutus to him, at a time when the conspiracy was really forming, he would not listen to them, but touching his body with his hand he said to the accusers, “Brutus waits163 for this dry skin,” by which he intended to signify that Brutus was worthy of the power for his merits, but for the sake of the power would not be ungrateful and a villain. Now, those who were eager for the change and who looked up to him alone, or him as the chief person, did not venture to speak with him on the subject, but by night they used to fill the tribunal and the seat on which he sat when discharging his functions as prætor with writings, most of which were to this purport, “You are asleep, Brutus,” and “You are not Brutus.” By which Cassius,164 perceiving that his ambition was somewhat stirred, urged him more than he had done before, and pricked him on; and Cassius himself had also a private grudge against Cæsar for the reasons which I have mentioned in the Life of Brutus. Indeed Cæsar suspected Cassius, and he once said to his friends, “What think ye is Cassius aiming at? for my part, I like him not over much, for he is over pale.” On the other hand it is said that when a rumour reached him, that Antonius and Dolabella were plotting, he said, “I am not much afraid of these well-fed,165 long-haired fellows, [Pg 454]but I rather fear those others, the pale and thin,” meaning Cassius and Brutus.

LXIII

But it appears that destiny is not so much a thing that gives no warning as a thing that cannot be avoided, for they say that wondrous signs and appearances presented themselves. Now, as to lights in the skies and sounds by night moving in various directions and solitary birds descending into the Forum, it is perhaps not worth while recording these with reference to so important an event: but Strabo166 the Philosopher relates that many men all of fire were seen contending against one another, and that a soldier’s slave emitted a great flame from his hand and appeared to the spectators to be burning, but when the flame went out, the man had sustained no harm; and while Cæsar himself was sacrificing the heart of the victim could not be found, and this was considered a bad omen, for naturally an animal without a heart cannot exist. The following stories also are told by many; that a certain seer warned him to be on his guard against great danger on that day of the month of March, which the Romans call the Ides;167 and when the day had arrived, as Cæsar was going to the Senate-house, he saluted the seer and jeered him saying, “Well, the Ides of March are come;” but the seer mildly replied, “Yes, they are come, but they are not yet over.” The day before, when Marcus Lepidus was entertaining him, he chanced to be signing some letters, according to his habit, while he was reclining at table; and the conversation having turned on what kind of death was the best, before any one could give an opinion he called out, “That which is unexpected!” After this, while he was sleeping, as he was accustomed to do, by the side of his wife, all the doors and windows in the house flew open at once, and being startled by the noise and the brightness of the moon which was shining down upon him, he observed that Calpurnia168 was in a deep slumber, but was [Pg 455]uttering indistinct words and inarticulate groans in the midst of her sleep; and indeed she was dreaming that she held her murdered husband in her arms and was weeping over him. Others say this was not the vision that Calpurnia had, but the following: there was attached to Cæsar’s house by way of ornament and distinction pursuant to a vote of the Senate an acroterium,169 as Livius says, and Calpurnia in her dream seeing this tumbling down lamented and wept. When day came accordingly she entreated Cæsar, if it were possible, not to go out, and to put off the meeting of the Senate; but if he paid no regard to her dreams, she urged him to inquire by other modes of divination and by sacrifices about the future. Cæsar also, as it seems, had some suspicion and fear; for he had never before detected in Calpurnia any womanish superstition, and now he saw that she was much disturbed. And when the seers also after sacrificing many victims reported to him that the omens were unfavourable, he determined to send Antonius to dismiss the Senate.

LXIV

In the mean time Decimus Brutus,170 surnamed [Pg 456]Albinus, who was in such favour with Cæsar that he was made in his will his second heir,171 but was engaged in the conspiracy with the other Brutus and Cassius, being afraid that if Cæsar escaped that day, the affair might become known, ridiculed the seers and chided Cæsar for giving cause for blame and censure to the Senate who would consider themselves insulted: he said, “That the Senate had met at his bidding and that they were all ready to pass a decree, that he should be proclaimed King of the provinces out of Italy and should wear a diadem whenever he visited the rest of the earth and sea; but if any one shall tell them when they are taking their seats, to be gone now and to come again, when Calpurnia shall have had better dreams, what may we not expect to be said by those who envy you? or who will listen to your friends when they say that this is not slavery and tyranny; but if,” he continued, “you are fully resolved to consider the day inauspicious, it is better for you to go yourself and address the Senate and then to adjourn the business.” As he said this, Brutus took Cæsar by the hand and began to lead him forth: and he had gone but a little way from the door, when a slave belonging to another person, who was eager to get at Cæsar but was prevented by the press and numbers about him, rushing into the house delivered himself up to Calpurnia and told her to keep him till Cæsar returned, for he had important things to communicate to him.

LXV

Artemidorus,172 a Knidian by birth, and a professor of Greek philosophy, which had brought him into [Pg 457]the familiarity of some of those who belonged to the party of Brutus, so that he knew the greater part of what was going on, came and brought in a small roll the information which he intended to communicate; but observing that Cæsar gave each roll as he received it to the attendants about him, he came very near, and said, “This you alone should read, Cæsar, and read it soon; for it is about weighty matters which concern you.” Accordingly Cæsar received the roll, but he was prevented from reading it by the number of people who came in his way, though he made several attempts, and he entered the Senate holding that roll in his hand and retaining that alone among all that had been presented to him. Some say that it was another person who gave him this roll, and that Artemidorus did not even approach him, but was kept from him all the way by the pressure of the crowd.

LXVI

Now these things perchance may be brought about by mere spontaneity; but the spot that was the scene of that murder and struggle, wherein the Senate was then assembled, which contained the statue of Pompeius173 and was a dedication by Pompeius and one of the ornaments that he added to his theatre, completely proved that it was the work of some dæmon to guide and call the execution of the deed to that place. It is said also that Cassius174 looked towards the statue of Pompeius before the deed was begun and silently invoked it, though he was not averse to the philosophy of Epikurus; but the critical moment for the bold attempt which was now come probably produced in him enthusiasm and feeling in place of his former principles. Now Antonius,175 who was faith[Pg 458]ful to Cæsar and a robust man, was kept on the outside by Brutus Albinus, who purposely engaged him in a long conversation. When Cæsar entered, the Senate rose to do him honour, and some of the party of Brutus stood around his chair at the back, and others presented themselves before him, as if their purpose was to support the prayer of Tillius Cimber176 on behalf of his exiled brother, and they all joined in entreaty, following Cæsar as far as his seat. When he had taken his seat and was rejecting their entreaties, and, as they urged them still more strongly, began to show displeasure towards them individually, Tillius taking hold of his toga with both his hands pulled it downwards from the neck, which was the signal for the attack. Casca177 was the first to strike him on the neck with his sword, a blow neither mortal nor severe, for as was natural at the beginning of so bold a deed he was confused, and Cæsar turning round seized the dagger and held it fast. And it happened that at the same moment he who was struck cried out in the Roman language, “You villain, Casca, what are you doing?” and he who had given the blow cried out to his brother in Greek, “Brother, help.” Such being the beginning, those who were not privy to the conspiracy were prevented by consternation and horror at what was going on either from flying or going to aid, and they did not even venture to utter a word. And now each of the conspirators bared his sword, and Cæsar, being hemmed in all round, in whatever direction he turned meeting blows and swords aimed against his eyes and face, driven about like a wild beast, was caught in the hands of his enemies; for it was arranged that all of them should take a part in and taste of the deed of blood. Accordingly Brutus178 also gave him [Pg 459]one blow in the groin. It is said by some authorities, that he defended himself against the rest, moving about his body hither and thither and calling out, till he saw that Brutus had drawn his sword, when he pulled his toga over his face and offered no further resistance, having been driven either by chance or by the conspirators to the base on which the statue of Pompeius stood. And the base was drenched with blood, as if Pompeius was directing the vengeance upon his enemy who was stretched beneath his feet and writhing under his many wounds; for he is said to have received three and twenty wounds. Many of the conspirators were wounded by one another, while they were aiming so many blows against one body.

LXVII

After Cæsar was killed, though Brutus came forward as if he was going to say something about the deed, the Senators,179 without waiting to listen, rushed through the door and making their escape filled the people with confusion and indescribable alarm, so that some closed their houses, and others left their tables and places of business, and while some ran to the place to see what had happened, others who had seen it ran away. But Antonius and Lepidus,180 who were the chief friends of [Pg 460]Cæsar, stole away and fled for refuge to the houses of other persons. The partizans of Brutus, just as they were, warm from the slaughter, and showing their bare swords, advanced all in a body from the Senate-house to the Capitol, not like men who were flying, but exultant and confident, calling the people to liberty and joined by the nobles who met them. Some even went up to the Capitol with them and mingled with them as if they had participated in the deed, and claimed the credit of it, among whom were Caius Octavius and Lentulus Spinther.181 But they afterwards paid the penalty of their vanity, for they were put to death by Antonius and the young Cæsar, without having enjoyed even the reputation of that for which they lost their lives, for nobody believed that they had a share in the deed. For neither did those who put them to death, punish them for what they did, but for what they wished to do. On the next day Brutus came down and addressed the people, who listened without expressing disapprobation or approbation of what had been done, but they indicated by their deep silence that they pitied Cæsar and respected Brutus. The Senate, with the view of making an amnesty and conciliating all parties, decreed that Cæsar should be honoured as a god and that not the smallest thing should be disturbed which he had [Pg 461]settled while he was in power; and they distributed among the partisans of Brutus provinces and suitable honours, so that all people supposed that affairs were quieted and had been settled in the best way.

LXVIII

But when the will182 of Cæsar was opened and it was discovered that he had given to every Roman a handsome present, and they saw the body, as it was carried through the Forum, disfigured with the wounds, the multitude, no longer kept within the bounds of propriety and order, but heaping about the corpse benches, lattices and tables taken from the Forum, they set fire to it on the spot and burnt it; then taking the flaming pieces of wood they ran to the houses of the conspirators to fire them, and others ran about the city in all directions seeking for the men to seize and tear them in pieces. But none of the conspirators came in their way, and they were all well protected. One Cinna,183 however, a friend of Cæsar, hap[Pg 462]pened, as it is said, to have had a strange dream the night before; for he dreamed that he was invited by Cæsar to sup with him, and when he excused himself, he was dragged along by Cæsar by the hand, against his will and making resistance the while. Now, when he heard that the body of Cæsar was burning in the Forum, he got up and went there out of respect, though he was somewhat alarmed at his dream and had a fever on him. One of the multitude who saw Cinna told his name to another who was inquiring of him, and he again told it to a third, and immediately it spread through the crowd that this man was one of those who had killed Cæsar; and indeed there was one of the conspirators who was named Cinna: and taking this man to be him the people forthwith rushed upon him and tore him in pieces on the spot. It was principally through alarm at this that the partisans of Brutus and Cassius after a few days left the city. But what they did and suffered before they died is told in the Life of Brutus.184

LXIX

At the time of his death Cæsar was full fifty-six years old, having survived Pompeius not much more than four years, and of the power and dominion which all through his life he pursued at so great risk and barely got at last, having reaped the fruit in name only, and with the glory of it the odium of the citizens. Yet his great dæmon,185 which accompanied him through life, followed him even when he was dead, the avenger of his murder, through every land and sea hunting and tracking out his murderers till not one of them was left, and pursuing even those who in any way whatever had either put their hand to the deed or been participators in the plot. Among human events the strangest was that which befell Cassius, for after his defeat at Philippi he killed himself with the [Pg 463]same dagger that he had employed against Cæsar; and among signs from heaven, there was the great comet, which appeared conspicuous for seven nights after Cæsar’s assassination and then disappeared, and the obscuration of the splendour of the sun. For during all that year the circle of the sun rose pale and without rays, and the warmth that came down from it was weak and feeble, so that the air as it moved was dark and heavy owing to the feebleness of the warmth which penetrated it, and the fruits withered and fell off when they were half ripened and imperfect on account of the coldness of the atmosphere. But chief of all, the phantom that appeared to Brutus showed that Cæsar’s murder was not pleasing to the gods; and it was after this manner. When Brutus was going to take his army over from Abydus186 to the other continent, he was lying down by night, as his wont was, in his tent, not asleep, but thinking about the future; for it is said that Brutus of all generals was least given to sleep, and had naturally the power of keeping awake longer than any other person. Thinking that he heard a noise near the door, he looked towards the light of the lamp which was already sinking down, and saw a frightful vision of a man of unusual size and savage countenance. At first he was startled, but observing that the figure neither moved nor spoke, but was standing silent by the bed, he asked him who he was. The phantom replied, “Thy bad dæmon, Brutus; and thou shalt see me at Philippi.” Upon which Brutus boldly replied, “I shall see;” and the dæmon immediately disappeared. In course of time having engaged with Antonius and Cæsar at Philippi, in the first battle he was victorious, and after routing that part of the army which was opposed to him he followed up his success and plundered Cæsar’s camp. As he was preparing to fight the second battle, the same phantom appeared again by night, without speaking to him, but Brutus, who perceived what his fate was, threw himself headlong into the midst of the danger. However he did not fall in the battle, but when the rout took [Pg 464]place, he fled to a precipitous spot, and throwing himself with his breast on his bare sword, a friend also, as it is said, giving strength to the blow, he died.187

LIFE OF
PHOKION.

I

The orator Demades, who became one of the chief men in Athens by his subservience to the Macedonians and Antipater, and who was forced to say and to write much that was derogatory to the glory and contrary to the traditional policy of Athens, used to excuse himself by pleading that he did not come to the helm before the vessel of the State was an utter wreck. This expression, which seems a bold one when used by Demades, might with great truth have been applied to the policy of Phokion. Indeed Demades himself wrecked Athens by his licentious life and policy, and when he was an old man Antipater said of him that he was like a victim which has been cut up for sacrifice, for there was nothing left of him but his tongue and his paunch; while the true virtue of Phokion was obscured by the evil days for Greece during which he lived, which prevented his obtaining the distinction which he deserved. We must not believe Sophokles, when he says that virtue is feeble and dies out in men:

“Why, not the very mind that’s born with man,

When he’s unfortunate, remains the same.”

Yet we must admit that fortune has so much power even over good men, that it has sometimes withheld from them their due meed of esteem and praise, has sullied their reputations with unworthy calumnies, and made it difficult for the world to believe in their virtue.

II

It would seem that democracies, when elated by success, are especially prone to break out into wanton maltreatment of their greatest men; and this is also true in the opposite case: for misfortunes render popular assemblies harsh, irritable, and uncertain in temper, so [Pg 467]that it becomes a dangerous matter to address them, because they take offence at any speaker who gives them wholesome counsel. When he blames them for their mistakes, they think that he is reproaching them with their misfortunes, and when he speaks his mind freely about their condition, they imagine that he is insulting them. Just as honey irritates wounds and sores, so does true and sensible advice exasperate the unfortunate, if it be not of a gentle and soothing nature: exactly as the poet calls sweet things agreeable, because they agree with the taste, and do not oppose or fight against it. An inflamed eye prefers the shade, and shuns strong lights: and a city, when involved in misfortunes, becomes timid and weak through its inability to endure plain speaking at a time when it especially needs it, as otherwise its mistakes cannot be repaired. For this reason the position of a statesman in a democracy must always be full of peril; for if he tries merely to please the people he will share their ruin, while if he thwarts them he will be destroyed by them.

Astronomers teach us that the sun does not move in exactly the same course as the stars, and yet not in one which is opposed to them, but by revolving in an inclined and oblique orbit performs an easy and excellent circuit through them all, by which means everything is kept in its place, and its elements combined in the most admirable manner. So too in political matters, the man who takes too high a tone, and opposes the popular will in all cases, must be thought harsh and morose, while on the other hand he who always follows the people and shares in all their mistakes pursues a dangerous and ruinous policy. The art of government by which states are made great consists in sometimes making concessions to the people, and gratifying them when they are obedient to authority, and at the same time insisting upon salutary measures. Men willingly obey and support such a ruler if he does not act in a harsh and tyrannical fashion: but he has a very difficult and laborious part to play, and it is hard for him to combine the sternness of a sovereign with the gentleness of a popular leader, If, however, he succeed in combining these qualities, they produce the [Pg 468]truest and noblest harmony, like that by which God is said to regulate the universe, as everything is brought about by gentle persuasion, and not by violence.

III

All this was exemplified in the case of the younger Cato: for he had not the art of persuasion and was unacceptable to the people, nor did he rise to eminence by the popular favour, but Cicero1 says that he lost his consulship because he acted as if he were living in the Republic of Plato, and not in the dregs of Romulus. Such men seem to me to resemble fruits which grow out of season: for men gaze upon them with wonder, but do not eat them: and the stern antique virtue of Cato, displayed as it was in a corrupt and dissolute age, long after the season for it had gone by, gained him great glory and renown, but proved totally useless, as it was of too exalted a type to suit the political exigencies of the day. When Cato began his career, his country was not already ruined, as was that of Phokion. The ship of the state was indeed labouring heavily in the storm, but Cato, although he was not permitted to take the helm and guide the vessel, exerted himself so manfully, and gave so much assistance to those who were more powerful than himself, that he all but triumphed over fortune. The constitution was, no doubt, finally overthrown; but its ruin was due to others, and only took place after a long and severe struggle, during which Cato very nearly succeeded in saving it. I have chosen Phokion to compare with him, not because of the general resemblance of their characters as good and statesmanlike men, for a man may possess the same quality in various forms, as, for example, the courage of Alkibiades was of a different kind to that of Epameinondas; the ability of Themistokles was different [Pg 469]to that of Aristeides; and the justice of Numa Pompilius was different to that of Agesilaus. But in the case of Phokion and Cato, their virtues bore the same stamp, form, and ethical complexion down to the most minute particulars. Both alike possessed the same mixture of kindness and severity, of caution and daring: both alike cared for the safety of others and neglected their own: both alike shrank from baseness, and were zealous for the right; so that one would have to use a very nice discrimination to discover the points of difference between their respective dispositions.

IV

Cato is admitted by all writers to have been a man of noble descent, as will be explained in his life: and I imagine that the family of Phokion was not altogether mean and contemptible. If his father had really been a pestle maker, as we are told by Idomeneus, who may be sure that Glaukippus, the son of Hypereides, who collected and flung at him such a mass of abuse, would not have omitted to mention his low birth, nor would he have been so well brought up as to have been a scholar of Plato while a lad, and afterwards to have studied under Xenokrates in the Academy; while from his youth up he always took an interest in liberal branches of learning. We are told by the historian Douris that scarcely any Athenian ever saw Phokion laughing or weeping, or bathing in the public baths, or with his hand outside of his cloak, when he wore one. Indeed when he was in the country or on a campaign he always went barefooted and wore only his tunic, unless the cold was excessively severe; so that the soldiers used to say in jest that it was a sign of wintry weather to see Phokion wearing his cloak.

V

Though one of the kindest and most affable of men, he was of a forbidding and severe countenance, so that men who did not know him well feared to address him when alone. Once when Chares in a speech mentioned Phokion’s gloomy brow, the Athenians began to laugh. “Yet,” said he, “his brow has never harmed you: but the laughter of these men has brought great sorrow upon the state.” In like manner also the oratory of Phokion was most valuable, as it incited his countrymen to win [Pg 470]brilliant successes, and to form lofty aspirations. He spoke in a brief, harsh, commanding style, without any attempt to flatter or please his audience. Just as Zeno says that a philosopher ought to steep his words in meaning, so Phokion’s speeches conveyed the greatest possible amount of meaning in the smallest compass. It is probably in allusion to this that Polyeuktus2 of Sphettus said that Demosthenes was the best orator, but that Phokion was the most powerful speaker. As the smallest coins are those which have the greatest intrinsic value, so Phokion in his speeches seemed to say much with few words. We are told that once while the people were flocking into the theatre Phokion was walking up and down near the stage, plunged in thought. “You seem meditative, Phokion,” said one of his friends. “Yes, by Zeus,” answered he, “I am considering whether I can shorten the speech which I am going to make to the Athenians.” Demosthenes himself, who despised the other orators, when Phokion rose used to whisper to his friends, “Here comes the cleaver of my harangues.” Much of his influence, however, must be ascribed to his personal character; since a word or a gesture of a truly good man carries more weight than ten thousand eloquently argued speeches.

VI

While yet a youth Phokion especially attached himself to the general Chabrias, and followed him in his campaigns, in which he gained considerable military experience, and in some instances was able to correct the strange inequalities of his commander’s temperament. Chabrias, usually sluggish and hard to rouse, when in action became vehemently excited, and tried to outdo the boldest of his followers in acts of daring: indeed he lost his life at Chios by being the first to run his ship on shore and to try to effect a landing in the face of the enemy. Phokion, who was a man of action, and cautious nevertheless, proved most useful in stirring up Chabrias when sluggish, and again in moderating his eagerness when roused. In consequence of this, Chabrias, who was of a kindly and noble disposition, loved Phokion and promoted him to many responsible posts, so that his name became [Pg 471]well known throughout Greece, as Chabrias entrusted him with the management of the most important military operations. At the battle of Naxos he enabled Phokion to win great glory, by placing him in command of the left wing, where the most important struggle took place, and where the victory was finally decided. As this was the first sea fight, since the capture and ruin of Athens, which the Athenians won by themselves, without allies, over other Greeks, they were greatly pleased with Chabrias, and Phokion was henceforth spoken of as a man of military genius. The battle was won during the performance of the Great Mysteries at Eleusis; and every year afterwards, on the sixteenth day of the month Böedromion, Chabrias used to entertain the Athenians, and offer libations of wine to the gods.

VII

After this Chabrias sent Phokion to visit the islands and exact tribute from them, giving him an escort of twenty ships of war: upon which Phokion is said to have remarked, that if he was sent to fight the islanders, he should require a larger force, but that if he was going to the allies of Athens, one ship would suffice for him. He sailed in his own trireme, visited all the states, simply and unassumingly explained the objects of his mission to their leading men, and returned home with a large fleet, which the allies despatched to convey their tribute safe to Athens.

He not only esteemed and looked up to Chabrias while he lived, but after his death he took care of his family, and endeavoured to make a good man of his son Ktesippus; and though he found this youth stupid and unmanageable, he never ceased his efforts to amend his character and to conceal his faults. Once only we are told that when on some campaign the young man was tormenting him with unreasonable questions, and offering him advice as though he were appointed assistant-general, Phokion exclaimed, “O Chabrias, Chabrias, I do indeed prove myself grateful for your friendship for me, by enduring this from your son!” Observing that the public men of the day had, as if by lot, divided the duties of the war-office and of the public assembly amongst themselves, so that Eubulus, Aristophon, Demosthenes, Lykurgus, and Hype[Pg 472]reides did nothing except make speeches to the people and bring forward bills, while Diopeithes, Menestheus, Leosthenes, and Chares rose entirely by acting as generals and by making war, Phokion wished to restore the era of Perikles, Aristeides, and Solon, statesmen who were able to manage both of these branches of the administration with equal success. Each one of those great men seemed to him, in the words of Archilochus, to have been

“A man, who served the grisly god of arms,

Yet well could comprehend the Muses’s charms.”

The tutelary goddess of Athens herself, he remarked, presided equally over war and over domestic administration, and was worshipped under both attributes.

VIII

With this object in view Phokion invariably used his political influence in favour of peace, but nevertheless was elected general3 more times not only than any of his contemporaries, but also than any of his predecessors: yet he never canvassed his countrymen or made any effort to obtain the office, though he did not refuse to fill it at his country’s bidding. All historians admit that he was elected general five-and-forty times, and never once missed being elected, since even when he was absent the Athenians used to send for him to come home and be elected; so that his enemies used to wonder that Phokion, who always thwarted the Athenians and never flattered them either by word or deed, should be favoured by them, and were wont to say that the Athenians in their hours of relaxation used to amuse themselves by listening to the speeches of their more lively and brilliant orators, just as royal personages are said to amuse themselves with their favourites after dinner, but that they made their appointments to public offices in a sober and earnest spirit, choosing for that purpose the most severe and sensible man in Athens, and the one too, who alone, or at any rate more than any one else, was in the habit of opposing their impulses and wishes. When an oracle was [Pg 473]brought from Delphi and read before the assembly, which said that when all the Athenians were of one mind, one man would be opposed to the state, Phokion rose and said that he was the man in question, for he disapproved of the whole of their policy. And once when he made some remark in a speech which was vociferously applauded, and he saw the whole assembly unanimous in its approval of his words, he turned to some of his friends and said, “Have I inadvertently said something bad?”

IX

Once when the Athenians were asking for subscriptions for some festival, and all the others had paid their subscriptions, Phokion, after he had been frequently asked to subscribe, answered, “Ask these rich men: for my part I should be ashamed of myself if I were to give money to you, and not pay what I owe to this man here,” pointing to Kallikles the money-lender. As the people did not cease shouting and abusing him, he told them a fable: “A cowardly man went to the wars, and when he heard the cawing of the crows, he laid down his arms and sat still. Then he took up his arms and marched on, and they again began to caw, so he halted again. At last he said, ‘You may caw as loud as you please, but you shall never make a meal of me.’” On another occasion when the Athenians wished to send him to meet the enemy, and when he refused, called him a coward, he said, “You are not able to make me brave, nor am I able to make you cowards. However, we understand one another.” At some dangerous crisis the people were greatly enraged with him, and demanded an account of his conduct as general. “I hope,” said he, “my good friends, that you will save yourselves first.” As the Athenians, when at war, were humble-spirited, and full of fears, but after peace was made became bold, and reproached Phokion for having lost them their chance of victory, he said, “You are fortunate in having a general who understands you; for if you had not, you would long ago have been ruined.” When the Athenians wished to decide some dispute about territory by arms instead of by arbitration, Phokion advised them to fight the Bœotians with words, in which they were superior, not with arms, [Pg 474]in which they were inferior to them. Once when they would not attend to his words, or listen to him, he said, “You are able to force me to do what I do not wish, but you shall never force me to counsel what I do not approve.” When Demosthenes, one of the orators of the opposite party, said to him, “Phokion, the Athenians will kill you, if they lose their senses.” He answered, “Yes, but they will kill you, if they regain them.” When he saw Polyeuktus of Sphettus in a great heat urging the Athenians to go to war with Philip, panting and sweating profusely, as he was a very fat man, and drinking great draughts of water, he said, “Ought you to believe what this man says, and vote for war? What sort of a figure will he make in a suit of armour and with a shield to carry, when the enemy are at hand, if he cannot explain his thoughts to you without nearly choking himself?” When Lykurgus abused him freely in the public assembly and above all, reproached him with having advised the people to deliver up ten citizens to Alexander when he demanded them, he said, “I have often given the people good advice, but they will not obey me.”

X

There was one Archibiades, who was surnamed the Laconizer, who grew a great beard, wore a Spartan cloak, and affected a stern demeanour like a Spartan. Once when Phokion was being violently attacked in the assembly he called upon this man to bear witness to the truth of what he said, and to assist him. Archibiades now rose and said what he thought would please the Athenians, upon which Phokion, seizing him by the beard, exclaimed, “Why then, Archibiades, do you not shave?”4 When Aristogeiton, the informer, who made warlike speeches in the public assembly, and urged the people to action, came to be enrolled on the list for active service leaning on a stick, with his legs bandaged, Phokion, catching sight of him from the tribune where he stood, called out “Write down Aristogeiton, a cripple and a villain.” From this it appears strange that so harsh and ungenial a man should have been named “The Good.”

[Pg 475]It is difficult, I imagine, but not impossible, for the same man to be like wine, both sweet and harsh: just as other men and other wines seem at first to be pleasant, but prove in the end both disagreeable and injurious to those who use them. We are told that Hypereides once said to the Athenians, “Men of Athens, do not think whether I am harsh or not, but whether I am harsh for nothing;” as if it was only covetousness that made men hated, and as if those persons were not much more generally disliked who used their power to gratify their insolence, their private grudges, their anger, or their ambition. Phokion never harmed any Athenian because he disliked him, and never accounted any man his enemy, but merely showed himself stern and inexorable to those who opposed his efforts to save his country, while in the rest of his life he was so kind and amiable to all men, that he often helped his opponents, and came to the aid of his political antagonists when they were in difficulties. Once when his friends reproached him for having interceded in court for some worthless man who was being tried, he answered that good men do not need any intercessor. When Aristogeiton, after he had been condemned, sent for Phokion, and begged him to visit him, he at once started to go to the prison; and when his friends tried to prevent him, he said, “My good sirs, let me go; for where would one wish to meet Aristogeiton rather than in prison?”

XI

Indeed, if any other generals were sent out to the allies and people of the islands, they always treated them as enemies, fortified their walls, blocked up their harbours, and sent their slaves and cattle, their women and children, into their cities for shelter; but when Phokion was in command they came out a long way to meet him with their own ships, crowned with flowers, and led him rejoicing into their cities.

XII

When Philip stealthily seized Eubœa,5 landed a [Pg 476]Macedonian army there, and began to win over the cities by means of their despots, Plutarchus of Eretria sent to Athens and begged the Athenians to rescue the island from the Macedonians. Phokion was now sent thither in command of a small force, as it was expected that the people of the country would rally round him. He found, however, nothing but treachery and corruption, as all patriotism had been undermined by the bribes of Philip, and soon was brought into great danger. He established himself upon a hill which was cut off by a ravine from the plain near the city of Tamynæ, and there collected the most trustworthy part of his forces, bidding his officers take no heed of the undisciplined mass of talkers and cowards who deserted from his camp and made their way home, observing that they were useless in action because they would not obey orders, and only hindered the fighting men, while at Athens the consciousness of their baseness would prevent their bringing false accusations against him.

XIII

When the enemy6 drew near, he ordered his troops to remain quiet under arms until he had finished offering sacrifice. Either the sacrifices were unfavourable, or else he designedly wasted time, wishing to bring the enemy as close as possible. The result was that Plutarchus,7 imagining that the Athenians were terror-stricken and hanging back, rushed to attack the enemy at the head of the Eubœans. Seeing this, the Athenian cavalry could no longer endure to remain idle, but charged at once, pouring out of their camp in scattered bodies and with much confusion. These first troops were defeated, and Plutarchus himself took to flight. Some of the enemy now came close up to the rampart of the Athenian [Pg 477]camp, and began to tear down the stakes of which it was formed as though they were already completely victorious.

At this crisis the sacrifices proved favourable, and the Athenian infantry, sallying out of their camp, routed and overthrew all whom they found near their ramparts. Phokion now ordered his main body to remain in reserve, in order to give those who had been scattered in the former skirmish a point to rally on, while he himself, with some picked men, charged the enemy. A severe battle now took place, in which all exerted themselves with the most reckless bravery. Thallus, the son of Kineas, and Glaukus, the son of Polymedes, who fought by the side of the general himself, were especially distinguished. Kleophanes also did most excellent service on this occasion, for he rallied the scattered horsemen, called upon them to help their general in his utmost need, and prevailed upon them to return and complete the victory which the infantry had gained. After this, Phokion banished Plutarchus from Eretria, and captured a fort named Zaretra, which commanded the narrowest part of the island. He set free all the Greek captives, because he feared that the Athenian orators might urge the people in their anger to treat them with undue severity.

XIV

After Phokion had accomplished this, he sailed away to Athens; and the allies soon found cause to wish for his goodness and justice, while the Athenians soon learned to value his courage and military skill. Molossus, his successor, managed the war so unsuccessfully that he himself was made a prisoner by the enemy. Shortly afterwards Philip, full of great designs, proceeded with all his army to the Hellespont, in order to take Perinthus, Byzantium, and the Chersonese at one blow. The Athenians were eager to help these cities, and the orators succeeded in getting Chares sent thither in command of an army. However, when he arrived he effected nothing of importance, for the cities would not admit his troops within their walls, and viewed him with suspicion, so that he was reduced to roaming about the country, exacting contributions of money from the allies of Athens, and regarded with contempt by the enemy. Upon this the [Pg 478]people, exasperated by the speeches of the orators, became much enraged, and regretted that they had sent any assistance to the people of Byzantium: but Phokion rose, and said that they ought not be angry with their allies for not trusting them, but with their generals for not being trustworthy. “These men,” he remarked, “make you feared even by those who cannot be saved without your assistance.”

The Athenians were much moved by these words. They repented of their anger, and ordered Phokion himself to take a second armament and proceed to the assistance of their allies on the Hellespont. The reputation of Phokion had been very great even before this, but now, since Leon, the leading man in Byzantium, who had been a fellow-student in the Academy with Phokion, made himself answerable for his good faith, the Byzantines would not permit him to carry out his intention of encamping outside their walls, but opened their gates and received the Athenians into their houses. Phokion’s men proved not only irreproachable in their conduct, but repaid the confidence which had been shown them by fighting on all occasions with the utmost bravery. Thus was Philip this time driven from the Hellespont, and regarded with contempt as a coward and a runaway, while Phokion took several of his ships, recovered some towns which had received Macedonian garrisons, and landed at various points on the coast to ravage and overrun the country, until at last he was wounded by the enemy and forced to return home.

XV

Once when the people of Megara secretly invited Phokion to come to their aid, as he was afraid that the Bœotians might hear of his intentions and cut off the proposed reinforcements, he called a meeting of the Assembly at daybreak, laid the Megarian proposals before the Athenians, and as soon as a decree had been passed to aid them, ordered the trumpet to sound, bade his troops leave the Assembly and get under arms at once, and led them straightway to Megara. The people of Megara gladly welcomed him, and he not only fortified Nisæa, but built two long walls from the city to its seaport, thus joining Megara to the sea in such a fashion that the city [Pg 479]no longer feared its enemies by land, and cheerfully threw in its lot with the Athenians.

XVI

When Philip was viewed with hostility by every state in Greece, and other generals had been elected in Phokion’s absence to make war against him, Phokion, when he returned from his tour among the islands, advised them to make peace, and come to terms with Philip, who on his part was quite willing to do so, and feared to go to war. On this occasion a pettifogging Athenian, who spent all his time in the law courts, opposed Phokion, and said, “Do you dare, Phokion, to advise the Athenians to turn back when they have arms already in their hands?” “Yes, I do,” answered he, “and that too although I know that in time of war I shall be your master, and in time of peace you will be mine.” As Phokion did not succeed, but Demosthenes carried his point, and counselled the Athenians to fight as far as possible from Attica, he said to him: “My good sir, let us not consider where we are to fight, but how we can win the victory. If we are victorious, the war will be kept at a distance, but all the horrors of war always press closely upon the vanquished.” After the defeat,8 the noisy revolutionary party dragged Charidemus to the tribune, and bade him act as general. All the more respectable citizens were much alarmed at this. They appealed to the council of the Areopagus to aid them, addressed the people with tears and entreaties, and prevailed upon them to place the city under the charge of Phokion. Phokion now considered it necessary to submit with a good grace to the pleasure of Philip, and when Demades moved that Athens should share the general peace and take part in the congress of the Greek states, Phokion objected to the motion before it was known what Philip wished the Greeks to do. His opposition was fruitless, because of the critical state of affairs; but when afterwards he saw the Athenians bitterly repenting of what they had done, because they were obliged to furnish Philip with ships of war and cavalry, he said: “It was because I feared this that I opposed the motion of Demades: but now that you have passed that motion you must not be grieved and downcast, but [Pg 480]remember that your ancestors were sometimes independent and sometimes subject to others, but that they acted honourably in either case, and saved both their city and the whole of Greece.” On the death of Philip he opposed the wish of the Athenians to hold a festival9 because of the good news: for he said that it was an unworthy thing for them to rejoice, because the army which had defeated them at Chæronea had been weakened by the loss of only one man.

XVII

When Demosthenes spoke abusively of Alexander, who was even then at the gates of Thebes, Phokion said to him, in the words of Homer,

“‘Rash man, forbear to rouse the angry chief,’

who is also a man of unbounded ambition. When he has kindled such a terrible conflagration close by, why do you wish our city to fan the flame? I, however, will not permit these men to ruin us, even though they wish it, for that is why I have undertaken the office of general.”

After Thebes was destroyed, Alexander demanded Demosthenes and his party, with Lykurgus, Hypereides, and Charidenus to be delivered up to him. The whole assembly, on hearing this proposal, cast its eyes upon Phokion, and, after calling upon him repeatedly by name, induced him to rise. Placing by his side his most beloved and trusted friend, he said:10 “These men have brought the city to such a pass, that if any one were to demand that Nikokles here should be delivered up to him, I should advise you to give him up. For my own part, I should account it a happy thing to die on behalf of all of you. I feel pity also, men of Athens,” said he, “for those Thebans [Pg 481]who have fled hither for refuge; but it is enough that Greece should have to mourn for the loss of Thebes. It is better then, on behalf of both the Thebans and ourselves, to deprecate the wrath of our conqueror rather than to oppose him.”

We are told that when the decree refusing to give up the persons demanded was presented to Alexander, he flung it from him and refused to listen to the envoys; but he received a second embassy headed by Phokion, because he was told by the older Macedonians that his father had always treated him with great respect. He not only conversed with Phokion, and heard his petition, but even asked his advice. Phokion advised him, if he desired quiet, to give up war; and if he wished for glory, to turn his arms against the Persians, and leave the Greeks unmolested. Phokion conversed much with Alexander, and, as he had formed a shrewd estimate of his character, was so happy in his remarks that he entirely appeased his anger, and even led him to say that the Athenians must watch the progress of events with care, since, if anything were to happen to him, it would be their duty to take the lead in Greece. Alexander singled out Phokion in a special manner as his guest and friend, and treated him with a degree of respect which he showed to few even of his own companions. The historian Douris tells us in confirmation of this that after Alexander had conquered Darius, and had become a great man, he omitted the usual words of greeting from all his letters, except from those which he wrote to Phokion, addressing him alone as he addressed Antipater (his viceroy), with the word ‘Hail.’ This is also recorded by the historian Chares.

XVIII

With regard to money matters, all writers agree in saying that Alexander sent Phokion a hundred talents as a present. When this money arrived at Athens Phokion enquired of those who brought it why Alexander should give all this money to him alone, when there were so many other citizens in Athens? They answered, “Because he thinks that you alone are a good and honourable man.” “Then,” said Phokion, “let him allow me still to be thought so, and to remain so.” When the men who brought the treasure followed him into his [Pg 482]house, and saw its frugal arrangements, and his wife making bread, while Phokion with his own hands drew water from the well and washed their feet, they pressed the money upon him yet more earnestly, and expressed their disappointment at his refusal, saying that it was a shameful thing for a friend of King Alexander to live so poorly. Phokion, seeing a poor old man walk by clad in a ragged cloak, asked them whether they thought him to be a worse man than that. They begged him not to say such things, but he answered. “And yet that man lives on slenderer means than mine, and finds that they suffice him. Moreover,” he continued, “if I received such a mass of gold and did not use it, I should reap no advantage from it, while, if I did use it, I should destroy both my own character and that of the giver.” So the treasure was sent back from Athens, and proved that the man who did not need such a sum was richer than he who offered it. As Alexander was displeased, and wrote to Phokion saying that he did not regard as his friends those who asked him for nothing, Phokion did not even then ask for money, but begged for the release of Echekrates the sophist, Athenodorus of Imbros, and of two Rhodians, Demaratus and Sparton, who had been arrested, and were imprisoned at Sardis. Alexander immediately set these men at liberty, and sending Kraterus to Macedonia bade him hand over to Phokion whichever he might choose of the Asiatic cities of Kius, Gergithus, Mylassa, and Elæa; showing all the more eagerness to make him a present because he was angry at his former refusal. Phokion however would not take them, and Alexander shortly afterwards died. The house of Phokion may be seen at the present day in Melite.11 It is adorned with plates of copper, but otherwise is very plain and simple.

XIX

We have no information about Phokion’s first wife, except that she was the sister of Kephisodotus the modeller in clay. His second wife was no less renowned in Athens for her simplicity of life then was Phokion himself for his goodness. Once when the Athenians were witnessing a new play, the actor who was to play the [Pg 483]part of the king demanded from the choragus a large troop of richly-attired attendants, and, as he did not obtain them, refused to appear upon the stage, and kept the audience waiting: At last Melanthius, the choragus, shoved him on to the stage, exclaiming. “Do you not see the wife of Phokion there, who always goes about with only one maidservant to wait upon her, and are you going to give yourself ridiculous airs and lead our wives into extravagance?” These words were heard by the audience, and were received with great cheering and applause. Once, when an Ionian lady was displaying a coronet and necklace of gold and precious stones to her, she said, “My only ornament is that this is the twentieth year that Phokion has been elected general by the Athenians.”

XX

As his son Phokus wished to contend in the games at the Panathenaic Festival, he entered him for the horse race,12 not because he cared about his winning the prize, but because he thought that the youth, who was addicted to wine and of licentious life, would be benefited by the strict training and exercise which he would have to undergo. The young man won the race, and was invited by many of his friends to dine with them to celebrate his victory. Phokion excused him to all but one, with whom he permitted him to dine in honour of his success. When, however, he came to the dinner and saw footpans filled with wine and aromatic herbs offered to the guests as they entered to wash their feet in, he turned to his son, and said, “Phokus, why do you not prevent your friend from spoiling your victory.” As he wished to remove his son altogether from the influence of Athenian life he took him to Lacedæmon, and placed him with the young men who were undergoing the Spartan training there. The Athenians were vexed at this, because Phokion appeared to despise and undervalue the institutions of his own country. Once Demades said to him “Phokion, why should we not advise the Athenians to adopt the Spartan constitution; if you bid me, I am quite willing to make a speech and bring forward a motion [Pg 484]in the assembly for doing so.” “Indeed,” answered Phokion “it would suit a man who is scented like you, and wears so rich a robe, to talk about plain Spartan fare and Lykurgus to the Athenians!”

XXI

When Alexander wrote to the Athenians ordering them to send ships of war to him, some of the orators were against doing so, and the senate asked Phokion to speak. “I say,” remarked he, “that we ought either to conquer, or else to keep on good terms with our conqueror.” “When Pytheas first began to make speeches, as he was even then fluent and impudent, Phokion said, “Will you not be silent, and remember that you are only a newly-bought servant of the people.” When Harpalus fled from Asia with a large amount of treasure and came to Athens, where all the venal politicians paid great court to him, he gave them but a very small part of his hoard, but sent a present of seven hundred talents to Phokion, placing all his other property and his person in his hands. Phokion returned a rough answer, telling Harpalus that if he continued corrupting the Athenians he would sorely repent of it. For the moment Harpalus desisted from his offers, but shortly afterwards when the Athenians were met together in the assembly he observed that those who had received his bribes all turned against him and spoke ill of him, that they might not be suspected, while Phokion, who had taken nothing from him, nevertheless showed some interest in his safety as well as in the welfare of Athens. Harpalus now was induced to pay his court to him a second time, but after assailing him on all sides found that he was impregnable by bribes. However Harpalus made a friend and companion of his son-in-law Charikles, who entirely lost his reputation in consequence, as Harpalus entrusted him with the entire management of his affairs.

XXII

Moreover, upon the death of Pythionike, the courtezan, whose lover Harpalus had been, and who had borne him a daughter, as he desired to erect a very costly monument to her memory, he appointed Charikles13 to [Pg 485]superintend the building of it. Charikles was mean enough to accept this commission; and he incurred even more disgrace from the appearance of the tomb when it was completed. It stands at the present day in the precinct of Hermes, on the road from Athens to Eleusis, and cannot have cost anything like thirty talents, which sum is said to have been paid to Charikles by Harpalus for its construction. Besides this, after his death, his daughter was adopted by Charikles and Phokion, and received every attention from them. When, however, Charikles was prosecuted for having taken a share of the treasure of Harpalus,14 and begged Phokion to come into court and speak in his favour, Phokion refused, saying “Charikles, I chose you to be my son-in-law in all honesty.”

When Asklepiades, the son of Hipparchus, first brought the news of Alexander’s death to Athens, Demades advised the people not to believe it. Such a corpse, he declared, must have been smelt throughout the world. Phokion, seeing that the people were excited at the report, endeavoured to soothe and pacify them. Upon this many rushed to the tribune, and loudly declared that Asklepiades had brought true tidings, and that Alexander was really dead. “If,” replied Phokion, “he is dead to-day, he will be dead to-morrow and the day after, so that we may quietly, and with all the greater safety, take counsel as to what we are to do.”

XXIII

When Leosthenes plunged the city into the war15 for the liberation of Greece, as Phokion opposed him, he sneeringly asked him what good he had done the city during the many years that he had been general. “No small good,” retorted Phokion, “I have caused the Athenians to be buried at home in their own sepulchres.” As Leosthenes spoke in a boastful and confident [Pg 486]manner before the public assembly, Phokion said, “Your speeches, young man, are like cypress trees; they are tall and stately, but they bear no fruit.” When Hypereides rose and asked Phokion when he would advise the Athenians to go to war; “When,” answered he, “I see young men willing to observe discipline, the rich subscribing to the expenses, and the orators leaving off embezzling the public funds.” As many admired the force which Leosthenes got together, and inquired of Phokion whether he thought that sufficient preparations had been made, he answered, “Enough for the short course; but I fear for Athens if the race of war is to be a long one, since she has no reserves, either of money, ships, or men.” The events of the war bore out the justice of his remark; for at first Leosthenes was elated by his great success, as he defeated the Bœotians in a pitched battle, and drove Antipater into Lamia. The Athenians were now full of hope, and did nothing but hold high festival to welcome the good news, and offer sacrifices of thanksgiving to the gods. Phokion, however, when asked whether he did not wish that he had done all this, answered, “Certainly I do; but I wish that quite the contrary policy had been adopted.” Again, when despatch after despatch kept arriving from the camp, announcing fresh successes, he said, “I wonder when we shall leave off being victorious.”

XXIV

After the death of Leosthenes, those who feared that, if Phokion were made commander-in-chief, he would put an end to the war, suborned an obscure person to rise in the assembly and say that, as a friend and associate of Phokion, he should advise them to spare him, and keep him safe, since they had no one else like him in Athens, and to send Antiphilus to command the army. The Athenians approved of this advice, but Phokion came forward and declared that he had never associated with the man, or had any acquaintance with him. “From this day forth, however,” said he, “I regard you as my friend and companion, for you have given advice which suits me.” When the Athenians were eager to invade Bœotia, he at first opposed them; and when some of his friends told him that he would be put to death if he always [Pg 487]thwarted the Athenians, he answered, “I shall suffer death unjustly, if I tell them what is to their advantage, but justly if I do wrong.” When he saw that they would not give up the project, but excitedly insisted on it, he bade the herald proclaim that all Athenians who had arrived at manhood16 from sixty years and under, should take provisions for five days and follow him to Bœotia at once. Upon this a great disturbance took place, as the older citizens leaped to their feet, and clamoured loudly. “There is nothing strange in the proclamation,” said Phokion, “for I, who am eighty years of age, shall be with you as your general.” Thus he managed to quiet them, and induced them to give up their intention.”

XXV

As the seaboard of Attica was being plundered by Mikion, who had landed at Rhamnus17 with a large force of Macedonians and mercenary soldiers, and was overrunning the country, Phokion led out the Athenians to attack him. As men kept running up to him and pestering him with advice, to seize this hill, to despatch his cavalry in that direction, to make his attack in this other place, he said “Herakles, how many generals I see, and how few soldiers.” While he was arraying his hoplites in line, one of them advanced a long way in front, and then, fearing one of the enemy, retired. “Young man,” said Phokion, “are you not ashamed of having deserted two posts, that in which you were placed by your general and that in which you placed yourself?” He now charged the enemy and overthrew them, slaying Mikion himself and many others. Meanwhile the Greek army in Thessaly fought a battle with Leonnatus, who was coming18 to join Antipater with a Macedonian army from Asia. [Pg 488]Antiphilus led the infantry and Menon, a Thessalian, the cavalry. In the battle Leonnatus himself was slain, and his troops defeated.

XXVI

Shortly afterwards Kraterus crossed over from Asia with a large force, and a second battle took place at Krannon.19 The Greeks were defeated, but not in a crushing manner or with much loss. Yet, as the Greek commanders were young men, unable to maintain discipline, and, as at the same time, Antipater was tampering with the loyalty of the cities from which the army came, the whole force broke up, and most disgracefully betrayed the cause of Grecian liberty. Antipater at once marched upon Athens with his army. Demosthenes and Hypereides at once fled from Athens, but Demades, who had not been able to pay any part of the money which he had been condemned to pay to the state (for he had been convicted of making illegal proposals20 on seven separate occasions, and had become disfranchised and disqualified from addressing the people), now set the laws at defiance, and proposed that ambassadors, with full powers, should be sent to Antipater to sue for peace. The people were greatly alarmed, and called upon Phokion, saying that they could trust no one else. “If I had always been trusted,” said he, “we should not now be discussing such matters as these.” The motion was carried, and Phokion was sent to Antipater, who was encamped in the Kadmeia of Thebes, and preparing to invade Attica. Phokion’s first request was that he would stay where he was and arrange terms. Upon hearing this Kraterus said, “Phokion advises us to do what is unjust, when he bids us remain here, doing evil to the country of our friends [Pg 489]and allies, while we might do ourselves good in that of our enemies.” Antipater, however, seized him by the hand and said, “We must yield to Phokion in this.” With regard to terms, he said that he required the same terms from the Athenians which Leosthenes had demanded from himself at Lamia.

XXVII

When Phokion returned to Athens, as the people had no choice but to submit to these terms, he went back again to Thebes with the other ambassadors;21 for the Athenians had appointed the philosopher Xenokrates22 as an additional ambassador, because his virtue, wisdom, and intellectual power was so renowned that they imagined that no man’s heart could be so arrogant, cruel, and savage as not to be touched by some feeling of reverence and awe at the sight of Xenokrates.

However, their expectations were entirely disappointed by the ignorance and hatred of good men displayed by Antipater. In the first place, though he shook hands with the others, he bestowed no greeting upon Xenokrates; upon which Xenokrates is said to have remarked that Antipater did well in showing that he felt shame before him for the treatment which he was about to inflict upon the city. After this Xenokrates began to make him a speech, but Antipater would not suffer him to proceed, and by rude interruptions reduced him to silence. After Phokion and Demades had spoken, Antipater stated his willingness to make peace and become an ally of the Athenians, if they would deliver up Demosthenes, Hypereides, and some other orators to him,23 re-establish their original government, in which the magistrates were chosen according to property, receive a garrison in Munychia, and pay the whole expenses of the war, besides a fine. The ambassadors thought that they ought to be contented and thankful for these terms, with the exception of Xenokrates, who said, “If Antipater looks [Pg 490]upon us as slaves, the terms are moderate; if as free men, they are severe.”24 When Phokion earnestly begged Antipater not to send a garrison to Athens, he is said to have said in reply, “Phokion, I am willing to grant you any request you please, unless it be one which would be fatal both to you and to myself.” Some say that this is not the true version of the incident, but that Antipater enquired of Phokion whether, if he did not place a garrison in Athens, Phokion would guarantee that the city would abide by the terms of the peace, and not intrigue with a view of regaining its independence: and as Phokion was silent and hesitated how to reply, Kallimedon, surnamed ‘the crab’ a man of a fierce and anti-democratical temper, exclaimed: “If, Antipater, this man should talk nonsense, will you believe him, and not do what you have decided upon?”

XXVIII

Thus it came to pass that the Athenians received into their city a Macedonian garrison, whose commander was Menyllus, an amiable man and a friend of Phokion himself. It was thought that the sending of the garrison was a mere piece of arrogance on Antipater’s part, and to be more due to an insolent desire to show the extent of his power than to any real necessity. The time, too, at which it was sent, rendered its arrival especially galling to the Athenians: for it was during the celebration of the mysteries, on the twentieth day of the month Bœdromion, that the garrison entered the city. On that day, Iacchus used to be carried in procession from Athens to Eleusis, but now the whole ritual was marred, and the Athenians sadly contrasted this celebration of the mysteries with those of former years. In earlier times,25 when the city was powerful and flourishing, the splendid spectacle of the celebration of the mysteries used to strike awe and terror into the hearts of the enemies of Athens, but now at these same rites the gods seemed to look on unmoved at the disasters of Greece, while the most sacred season was desecrated, and that which had been the pleasantest time of the year now served merely to remind them of their greatest misfortunes. A few years before this, the priestesses of Dodona had sent an [Pg 491]oracular warning to Athens, bidding the Athenians guard the extremities of Artemis. In those days the fillets which are wound round the couches of the gods which are carried in the mysteries were dyed of a yellow instead of a crimson colour, and presented a corpse-like appearance, and, what was more remarkable, the fillets dyed by private persons at the same time, all were of the same colour. One of the initiated also, while washing a little pig in the harbour of Kantharus,26 was seized by a shark, who swallowed all the lower part of his body. By this portent, Heaven clearly intimated to the Athenians that they were to lose the lower part of their city, and their command of the sea, but to keep the upper part. As for the Macedonian garrison, Menyllus took care that the Athenians suffered no inconvenience from it; but more than twelve thousand of the citizens were disfranchised under the new constitution, on account of their poverty. Of these men, those who remained in Athens were thought to have been shamefully ill treated, while those who left the city in consequence of this measure and proceeded to Thrace, where Antipater provided them with a city and with territory, looked like the inhabitants of a town which has been taken by storm.

XXIX

The deaths of Demosthenes at Kalauria, and of Hypereides at Kleonæ, which I have recounted elsewhere, very nearly led the Athenians to look back with regret upon the days of Alexander and Philip. In later times, after Antigonus had been assassinated, and his murderers had begun a career of violence and extortion, some one seeing a countryman in Phrygia digging in the ground, asked him what he was doing, the man replied with a sigh, “I am seeking for Antigonus.” Just so at this time it recurred to many to reflect on the noble and placable character of those princes, and to contrast them with Antipater, who, although he pretended to be only a private citizen, wore shabby clothes, and lived on humble fare, really tyrannized over the Athenians in their distress more grievously than either of them.

[Pg 492]Phokion, however, managed to save many from exile, by supplicating Antipater on their behalf, and in the case of the exiles he obtained this much favour, that they were not transported quite out of Greece, beyond the Keraunian mountains and Cape Tænarus, as were the exiles from the other Greek cities, but were settled in Peloponnesus. Among these was Hagnonides, the informer. Phokion now devoted his attention to the management of the internal politics of Athens in a quiet and law-abiding fashion. He contrived to have good and sensible men always appointed as magistrates, and by excluding the noisy and revolutionary party from the public offices, made them less inclined to create a disturbance, and taught them to be content with their country as it was, and to turn their minds to agricultural pursuits. When he saw Xenokrates paying his tax as a resident alien, he wished to enrol him as a citizen; but Xenokrates refused, saying that he would not put himself under the new constitution after he had gone on an embassy to prevent its being established.

XXX

When Menyllus offered him presents, Phokion replied that he did not consider him to be a better man than Alexander, and saw no greater reason why he should accept a present now than when Alexander offered it to him. As Menyllus begged his son Phokus to accept it, Phokion said, “If Phokus alters his nature, and becomes frugal, his father’s property will be enough for him; but, as it is, nothing will satisfy him.”

He gave a sharp reply to Antipater, who asked him to perform some disgraceful service for him. “I cannot,” said he, “be Antipater’s friend and his toady at the same time.”

Antipater himself is said to have remarked that he had two friends at Athens, Phokion and Demades, the one of whom he could not persuade to take a bribe, while the other took bribes and never was satisfied. Phokion indeed considered it a great proof of his virtue that he had grown old in poverty, after having so many times been elected general of the Athenians, and having been the friend of kings; while Demades openly prided himself both upon his wealth and his contempt for the laws. Although there was a law in force at Athens at that period, which forbade [Pg 493]foreigners to appear in a chorus, and imposed a fine of one thousand drachmas upon the choragus who allowed them to do so, Demades exhibited a chorus of one hundred foreigners, and publicly paid in the theatre a fine of a thousand drachmas for each of them. On the occasion of the marriage of his son Demeas, he said, “My boy, when I married your mother, our next-door neighbours heard nothing of it; but kings and potentates shall attend your nuptials.”

Although the Athenians tormented Phokion with requests that he would use his influence with Antipater to get the Macedonian garrison withdrawn, he always contrived to postpone making this application, either because he knew that it would not be granted, or because he thought that the fear of the Macedonian troops compelled the Athenians to live in a quiet and orderly fashion; but, on the other hand, he induced Antipater to postpone indefinitely his demand for money from the city. The Athenians now betook themselves to Demades, who eagerly promised his services, and, together with his son, started for Macedonia, to which country it seems as if he was brought by the direct agency of the gods at a time when Antipater was on a sick bed, and Kassander, who was now at the head of affairs, had discovered a letter addressed by Demades to Antigonus in Asia, inviting him to cross over into Greece and Macedonia, and free them from their dependence on an old and rotten warp27 -by which expression he meant to sneer at Antipater. As soon as Kassander saw Demades arrive in Macedonia he had him arrested, and first led his son close to him and then stabbed him, so that his robe was covered with his son’s blood, and then, after bitterly upbraiding him with his ingratitude and treason, killed him also.

XXXI

Antipater on his death-bed appointed Polysperchon to the supreme command, and gave Kassander the post of chiliarch, or general of the body guard. Kassander, however, instantly began to plot against Polysperchon, and taking time by the forelock, sent Nikanor in haste to supersede Menyllus, before the news of the death of Antipater became publicly known, with [Pg 494]orders to make himself master of Munychia. This was done, and when after a few days the Athenians heard that Antipater was dead they blamed Phokion, insinuating that he had been told of the death of Antipater, but said nothing about it, and so encouraged the designs of Nikanor. Phokion took no notice of this scandalous talk, but put himself in communication with Nikanor, and prevailed upon him to treat the Athenians with mildness, and even induced him to act as president of the games, in the performance of which office he took considerable pride and incurred some expense.

XXXII

Meanwhile Polysperchon, who was now regent of the Macedonian empire, and had put down Kassander, sent a letter to the Athenians to the effect that “the king restored the democracy at Athens, and bade the Athenians govern themselves according to the customs of their fathers.” This was merely a trick to ruin Phokion, for Polysperchon, whose design, as his acts shortly afterwards proved, was to gain over the city of Athens to his side, had no hopes of succeeding in this unless Phokion were driven out of Athens; while he expected that Phokion would be driven out when all the exiled citizens returned, and when the informers and mob orators again occupied the bema. As the Athenians were excited at this intelligence, Nikanor desired to discuss the matter with them, and appeared at a conference held in Peiræus, having received from Phokion a pledge for his personal safety. Derkyllus, the local commander, tried to seize him, but Nikanor escaped, and at once began to take measures for the defence of Peiræus against the Athenians. Phokion, when blamed for having permitted Nikanor to escape, answered that he felt confidence in Nikanor, and did not expect that he would do any harm; and even if he did, he preferred suffering wrong to doing it. This was no doubt a most magnanimous sentiment; but when a man on such grounds risks the freedom of his country, especially when he is acting as general, I am inclined to think that he breaks an older and more important law, that, namely, of his duty to his fellow-citizens. We cannot argue that Phokion refrained from seizing Nikanor because he feared to involve his country in war, and it [Pg 495]was absurd of him to plead that good faith and justice demanded that Nikanor should be left alone, on the understanding that he would feel bound to abstain from any acts of violence. The real truth seems to have been that Phokion had a firm belief in Nikanor’s honesty, since he refused to believe those who told him that Nikanor was plotting the capture of Peiræus, and had sent Macedonian soldiers into Salamis, and had even corrupted some of the inhabitants in Peiræus itself. Even when Philomelus of Lamptra moved a resolution that all Athenians should get under arms and be ready to follow their general Phokion, he refused to act, until Nikanor marched his troops out of Munychia and fortified Peiræus with a trench and palisade.

XXXIII

When this took place Phokion, who was now quite willing to lead the Athenians to attack Nikanor, was insulted and treated with contempt; and now Alexander the son of Polysperchon arrived with a military force, nominally with the intention of assisting the citizens against Nikanor, but really meaning if possible to make himself master of the city while it was divided against itself. The exiled Athenians who accompanied him at once entered the city, and as the disfranchised inhabitants joined them, a disorderly and informal assembly was held, in which Phokion was removed from his office, and other men were appointed generals. Had it not been that Alexander and Nikanor were observed to hold frequent conferences together alone outside the walls, the city could not have been saved. Hagnonides the informer now at once began to accuse Phokion and his party of treason; upon which Charikles and Kallimedon left the city in terror, while Phokion and those of his friends who stood by him proceeded to Polysperchon himself. They were accompanied, out of regard for Phokion, by Solon of Platæa and Deinarchus of Corinth, who were thought to be intimate friends of Polysperchon. As Deinarchus was sick, they waited for some days at Elatea, and in the meantime, at the instigation of Hagnonides, although Archestratus brought forward the motion for it in the assembly, the Athenians sent an embassy to the court of Macedonia to accuse Phokion of treason. [Pg 496]Both met Polysperchon at the same time, as he with the king28 was passing through a village of Phokis named Pharyges, which lies at the foot of the Akrousian mountain, now called Galate. Here Polysperchon set up the throne with the gilt ceiling, under which he placed the king and his friends. He ordered Deinarchus at once to be seized, tortured, and put to death, but he allowed the Athenians to plead their cause before him. They however made a great disturbance by contradicting and abusing one another, so that Hagnonides said, “Pack us all into one cage and send us back to Athens to be tried.” At this the king laughed, but the Macedonians and others who were present wished to hear what each side had to say, and bade the two embassies state their case. They were not, however, fairly treated, for Polysperchon several times interrupted Phokion during his speech, until at last he struck the ground with his staff in a rage and held his peace. When Hegemon29 too said that Polysperchon himself knew him to be a friend to the people of Athens, Polysperchon angrily exclaimed “Do not slander me to the king.” At this the king himself leaped to his feet, and would have struck Hegemon with a spear, but was quickly seized by Polysperchon, upon which the court broke up.

XXXIV

Phokion and his companions were now taken into custody: upon which such of his friends as saw this from a distance covered their faces with their cloaks and made their escape. Kleitus conducted the prisoners back to Athens, nominally to be tried there, but really already under sentence of death. The procession was a sad one, as they were brought in carts through the Kerameikus to the theatre, where Kleitus kept them until the archons had convened the assembly. From this assembly neither slaves, foreigners, nor disfranchised citizens were excluded, but every one, men and women alike, were allowed to be present and to address the people. After the king’s letter was read, in which he said that he was convinced that these men were traitors, but sent them to Athens for trial because that city was free and independent, Kleitus brought in the prisoners. At the sight of Phokion the better class of citizens covered their faces and silently [Pg 497]wept, and one of them had the courage to rise and say that, as the king had allowed the Athenian people to conduct so important a trial, all slaves and foreigners ought to leave the assembly. The populace, however, would not hear of this, but cried, “Down with the oligarchs who hate the people.” As no other friend of Phokion dared to speak, he himself, after obtaining a hearing with difficulty, asked “Do you wish to condemn us to death justly or unjustly?” As some answered “justly,” he said, “How can you be sure of this, if you will not hear us?” As however the people paid no more attention to him, he came nearer to them and said, “For my own part, I admit that I have done wrong, and I consider that my political acts deserve to be punished with death; but, men of Athens, why will you kill these others, who have done no wrong?” When many voices answered, “Because they are your friends,” Phokion retired and held his peace. Hagnonides now read the motion which he was about to put to the meeting which called upon the people to decide by a show of hands whether the men were guilty or not; and in case they were found guilty, to put them to death.

XXXV

When this decree was read some wished to add to it that they should be put to death with torture, and bade Hagnonides send for the rack and the executioners; but Hagnonides, seeing that even the Macedonian Kleitus was disgusted at this proposal, and thought it a savage and wicked action, said, “Men of Athens, when we catch the villain Kallimedon, we will put him to the torture; but I will make no such proposal in the case of Phokion.” Upon this one of the better class cried out, “And quite right too; for if we torture Phokion, what shall we do to you?” When the decree was passed by show of hands, no one sat still, but the whole people, many of them wearing garlands of flowers, rose and voted for the death of the accused. These, besides Phokion, consisted of Nikokles, Thodippus, Hegemon, and Pythokles: while sentence of death in their absence was passed against Demetrius Phalereus, Kallimedon, Charikles, and some others.

XXXVI

When after the assembly broke up the condemned men were being taken to prison, the others threw themselves into the arms of their friends and relations, [Pg 498]and walked along with tears and lamentations; but when they saw that the countenance of Phokion was as calm as when he used as general to be conducted in state out of the assembly, they wondered at his composure and greatness of soul. His enemies accompanied him and abused him, and one even came up to him and spat in his face. At this outrage it is said that Phokion looked towards the archons, and said, “Will no one make this fellow behave himself?” As Thodippus in prison, when he saw the hemlock being prepared, bewailed his fate, and said that he did not deserve to perish with Phokion, Phokion said, “Are you not satisfied then to die in Phokion’s company?” When one of his friends asked him if he had any message for his son Phokus, he answered, “Yes, tell him not to bear any malice against the Athenians.” When Nikokles, the most trusty of his friends, begged to be allowed to drink the poison before him, he answered, “Your request is one which it grieves me to grant; but, as I have never refused you anything in your life, I agree even to this.” When all his friends had drunk, the poison ran short, and the executioner refused to prepare any more unless he were paid twelve drachmas, the price of that weight of hemlock. After a long delay, Phokion called one of his friends to him, and, saying that it was hard if a man could not even die gratis at Athens, bade him give the man the money he wanted.

XXXVII

The day of Phokion’s death was the nineteenth of the month Munychion,30 and the knights rode past the prison in solemn procession to the temple of Zeus. Some of them took off their garlands from their heads, while others came in tears to the gates of the prison and looked in. All whose better feelings were not utterly overpowered by passion and hatred agreed in thinking it a very indecent proceeding not to have waited one day for the execution, and so to have avoided the pollution of the festival by the death of the prisoners. Moreover, the enemies of Phokion, as if they had not even yet satisfied their spite, passed a decree excluding his body from burial, and forbidding any Athenian to furnish fire to burn it. In consequence of this, no one of his friends dared to touch [Pg 499]the body, but one Konopion, a man who was accustomed to deal with such cases for hire, conveyed the body beyond Eleusis, obtained fire from Megara over the Attic frontier, and burned it. Phokion’s wife, who was present with her maids, raised an empty tomb31 on the spot, placed the bones in her bosom, and carried them by night into her own house, where she buried them beside the hearth, saying, “To thee, dear hearth, I entrust these remains of a good man; do you restore them to his fathers’ tomb when the Athenians recover their senses.”

XXXVIII

After a short time, however, when circumstances had taught them what a protector and guardian of virtue they had lost, the Athenians set up a brazen statue of Phokion, and gave his remains a public burial. They themselves condemned and executed Hagnonides, while Phokion’s son followed Epikurus and Demophilus, who fled the country, discovered their place of refuge, and avenged himself upon them. He is said to have been far from respectable in character; and once, when attached to a common prostitute, who was the slave of a brothel-keeper, he happened to attend one of the lectures of Theodorus, who was surnamed “the atheist,” in the Lyceum. As he heard him say that “if it be noble to ransom one’s male friends from captivity, it must be equally so to ransom one’s female friends; and that, if it be right for a man to set free the man whom he loves, it must be his duty to do likewise to the woman whom he loves,” he determined to use this argument for the gratification of his own passion, and to conclude that the philosopher bade him purchase the freedom of his mistress.

The treatment of Phokion reminded the Greeks of that of Sokrates, as both the crime and the misfortune of the city in both cases was almost exactly the same.

LIFE OF
CATO.

I

Cato’s family derived the origin of its splendour and reputation from his great-grandfather1 Cato, a man who had reputation and power chief among the Romans by reason of his merit, as it has been written in his Life. Cato was left an orphan with his brother Cæpio and a sister Porcia. Servilia also was a sister of Cato by the same mother. All of them were brought up and lived with Livius Drusus,2 their mother’s uncle, who was then the chief political leader; for he was a most powerful speaker, and also a man of the best regulated habits, and in lofty bearing inferior to no Roman. It is said that Cato from his childhood both in his voice and the expression of his countenance and even in his amusements gave indication of a character immovable and impassive and firm in everything. His purposes displayed a strength [Pg 501]in accomplishing his ends which was above his age: and while he was rough and stubborn towards those who attempted to flatter him, still more did he show his mastery over all who would try to terrify him by threats. He was also difficult to move to laughter, and his countenance was seldom relaxed even into a smile; he was not quick nor prone to anger, but when he had been moved to anger, he was hard to pacify. Accordingly when he began to learn, he was dull and slow to conceive, but when he had conceived, he held fast and remembered well. And it is generally the case that those who have a good natural capacity are more ready at recollection,3 but those have a strong memory who learn with labour and trouble; for all learning is in a manner a branding on the mind. It appears too that Cato’s difficulty of persuasion made learning a matter of more labour to him; for learning is in truth a kind of passive condition, and to be easily persuaded is incident to those who have less power of resistance. It is for this reason that young men are more easily persuaded than old men, and sick persons than those who are whole; and generally, with those in whom the doubting faculty is weakest, that which is proposed meets the readiest acceptance. However, they say that Cato was obedient to his pædagogus and did everything that he was bid, but he would ask for the reason of everything, and inquire the Why. His pædagogus also was a good-tempered man, and was readier at a reason than a blow: his name was Sarpedon.

II

While Cato was still a boy, the Allies4 of the Romans were agitating to obtain the Roman franchise; and a certain Pompædius Sillo,5 a man of military talent and of the highest repute, and a friend of Drusus, lodged with him several days, during which he became familiar with the youths, and he said, “Come now, pray your uncle on our behalf to exert himself to get the franchise [Pg 502]for us.” Now, Cæpio with a smile nodded assent, but as Cato made no answer and looked on the strangers steadily and sternly, Pompædius said, “But you, young man, what reply have you for us? Can you not help the strangers with your uncle, like your brother?” As Cato still would not speak, but by his silence and his expression showed that he rejected their entreaty, Pompædius took him up and holding him through the window as if he intended to drop him down, told him either to assent or he would let him fall, and at the same time he assumed an angry tone and several times he swung the boy backwards and forwards as he held him in his hands. Now, when Cato had borne this for some time, unmoved and fearless, Pompædius gently putting him down said to his friends, “What a blessing6 to Italy that he is a child; for if he were a man, I do not think we should have a single vote among the people.” On another occasion when a kinsman on his birthday invited to supper other boys and Cato with them, in order to pass the time they played in a part of the house by themselves, younger and older mixed together; and the game consisted of trials, and accusations, and carrying off those who were convicted. Now, one of the boys convicted, who was of a handsome presence, being dragged off by an older boy to a chamber and shut up, called on Cato for aid. Cato soon perceiving what was going on came to the door, and pushing through those who were standing before it and endeavouring to stop him, took the boy out; and in a passion he went off home with him and other boys accompanied him.

III

Cato was so much talked off that when Sulla was preparing for exhibition the sacred horse race called Troja,7 in which youths are the actors, and had got together the boys of noble birth and appointed two captains, the boys submitted to the one for his mother’s sake, for he [Pg 503]was a son of Metella, Sulla’s wife; but the other, who was a nephew of Pompeius and named Sextus, they would not have, nor would they go through their exercise nor follow him; and on Sulla asking whom they would have, they all called out “Cato,” and Sextus himself gave way and yielded the honour to Cato as his better. It happened that Sulla was an old friend of Cato’s family, and sometimes he had the children brought to him and talked with them, a kind of friendship which he showed to few, by reason of the weight and state of the office and power that he held. Sarpedon considering this a great matter both as regarded the honour and security of the youth, constantly took Cato to pay his respects to Sulla at his house, which at that time to all outward appearance differed not from a place of torture for criminals,8 so great was the number of those who were dragged there and put to the rack. Cato was at this time in his fourteenth year, and seeing the heads of persons who were said to be men of distinction brought out, and those who were present lamenting inwardly, he asked his pædagogus why nobody killed this man. Sarpedon replied, “Because they fear him, child, more than they hate him.” “Why, then,” said Cato, “do you not give me a sword that I might kill him, and so free my country from slavery?” Hearing these words and at the same time observing his eyes and countenance to be filled with passion and resolve, Sarpedon was so afraid that henceforward he kept a close look and watch upon him, that he should not venture on any desperate measure. Now when he was still a little boy, and some persons asked him whom he loved most, he replied his brother; when he was asked whom he loved next, he gave the same answer, his brother; and so on to the third question, until the questioner was tired out by always getting the same answer. When he arrived at man’s estate, he strengthened still more his affection to his brother; for when he was twenty years of age he never supped, he never went abroad, never came into the Forum without Cæpio. When Cæpio used perfumes, Cato would [Pg 504]not have them; and in all other respects he was strict and frugal in his way of living. Accordingly Cæpio, who was admired for his temperance and moderation, admitted that he was indeed temperate and moderate when contrasted with others, “but,” said he, “when I compare my life with Cato’s, I seem to myself to differ not at all from Sippius;” which was the name of a man notorious at that time for luxury and effeminacy.

IV

After Cato obtained the priesthood9 of Apollo, he changed his residence, and taking his portion of his paternal property, which portion was a hundred and twenty talents, he contracted his style of living still further, and making his companion of Antipater10 of Tyrus, a Stoic, he attached himself mainly to Ethical and Political studies, occupying himself with every virtue as if he were possessed by some divine influence; but above all that part of the beautiful which consists in steady adherence to justice and in inflexibility towards partiality or favour was his great delight. He disciplined himself also in the kind of speaking which works upon numbers, considering that, as in a great state, so in political philosophy, there should be nurtured with it something of the contentious quality. Yet he did not practise his exercises in company with others, nor did any one hear him when he was declaiming; but to one of his companions who observed, “Men find fault, Cato, with your silence,” he replied, “I only hope they may not find fault with my life. But I will begin to speak, when I am not going to say something that were better unsaid.”

V

The Basilica11 called Porcia was a censorial dedication of the old Cato. Now, as the tribunes were accus[Pg 505]tomed to transact business here, and there was a pillar which was considered to be in the way of their seats, they resolved to take it away or to remove it to another spot. This was the first occasion that brought Cato into the Forum, and against his will; for he opposed the tribunes, and he gained admiration by this sample of his eloquence and elevated character. His speech contained nothing juvenile or artificial, but it was straightforward, full to overflowing, and rough. However there was diffused over the roughness of the sentiments a charm which led the ear, and his own character intermingled with it gave to the dignity of his address a certain pleasingness and placidity, that were not ill calculated to win men’s favour. His voice was loud and powerful enough to reach to so large a multitude, and it had a strength and tone which could neither be broken nor tired; for he often spoke for a whole day without being wearied. On this occasion he got the better in the matter in dispute, and then again wrapped himself up in silence and his discipline. He used to harden his body by vigorous exercises, training himself to endure both heat and snow with uncovered head, and to walk along the roads in all seasons without a vehicle. His friends who used to accompany him on his journeys employed horses, and Cato would often go side by side with each of them in turns, and talk to them, himself walking while they rode. He showed in his complaints also wonderful endurance and self-denial; for when he had a fever, he would spend the day quite alone without permitting any person to approach him, until he felt certain relief, and that the disease was going away.

VI

At entertainments he used to cast lots for the parts, and if he failed, and his friends urged him to begin first, he would say that it was not right to do so against the will of Venus.12 And at first he would get up from [Pg 506]supper after drinking once, but in course of time he stuck to drinking more than anybody, so that he often continued over his wine till daybreak. His friends said that the cause of this was the administration and public affairs, in which Cato being engaged all day and hindered from literary pursuits, associated with philosophers during the night and over his cups. Accordingly when one Memmius13 observed in company that Cato was intoxicated all night long, Cicero rejoined, “But you do not say that he also plays at dice all day long.” Altogether Cato thought that he ought to walk a course the opposite to the then modes of life and usages, which he considered to be bad and to require a great change, and observing that a purple dress of a deep bright was much in fashion, he himself wore the dark. He would go into public without shoes and tunic after dinner, not seeking for reputation by the strangeness of the practice, but habituating himself to be ashamed only of what was shameful, and to despise everything else as indifferent. The inheritance of his cousin Cato of the value of a hundred talents having been added to his property, he turned it into money and let any of his friends make use of it who needed, without paying interest. Some also pledged to the treasury both lands and slaves of his, which Cato himself offered for this purpose and confirmed the pledge.

VII

When he considered that he was ripe for marriage, without ever having had to do with any woman, he betrothed Lepida, who had before been promised in marriage to Scipio Metellus,14 but at that time was disengaged, for Scipio had repudiated her, and the betrothment was cancelled. However before the marriage Scipio [Pg 507]again changed his mind, and by using every exertion got the maid. Cato, who was greatly irritated and stung, made preparation to prosecute the matter in legal form, but on his friends preventing him, in his passion and youthful fervour he betook himself to iambic verses and vented much injurious language upon Scipio, employing the bitterness of Archilochus,15 but dropping his ungoverned licence and childish manner. He married Atilia,16 the daughter of Soranus, and this was the first woman with whom he came together, but not the only woman, like Lælius17 the companion of Scipio; for Lælius was more fortunate in having known during his long life only one woman and that his wife.

VIII

When the Servile War18 was on foot, which they called the war of Spartacus, Gellius was commander, but Cato joined the service as a volunteer for his brother’s sake, for his brother Cæpio was a tribune. He had not indeed the opportunity of displaying as much as he wished his zeal and his discipline in virtue owing to the war being ill conducted; but notwithstanding this, by showing, in contrast to the great effeminacy and luxury of those who were engaged in that campaign, orderly behaviour and bravery when it was required, and courage and prudence in all things, he was considered in no degree to fall short of the old Cato. Gellius assigned to him special distinctions and honours, which Cato would not take nor allow, saying that he had done nothing worthy of honour. In consequence of this he was considered a strange kind of fellow; and when a law was made, that those who were candidates for an office should not be accompanied by [Pg 508]nomenclators,19 he was the only person when a candidate for a tribuneship who observed the law; and having himself made it his business to salute and address those whom he met with, he did not escape censure even from those who praised him, for the more they perceived the honourable nature of his conduct, the more they were annoyed at the difficulty of imitating it.

IX

Upon being appointed a tribune he was sent to Macedonia to Rubrius the Prætor. On that occasion it is told that his wife being troubled and shedding tears, one of the friends of Cato, Munatius, said, “Atilia, be of good cheer; I will take care of him for you.” “It shall be so,” replied Cato; and after they had advanced one day’s journey, he said immediately after supper, “Come, Munatius, and keep your promise to Atilia by not separating yourself from me either by day or by night.” Upon this he ordered two beds to be placed in the same chamber and Munatius always slept thus, being watched in jest by Cato. There accompanied him fifteen slaves, and two freedmen and four friends, and while they rode on horseback, Cato himself always went on foot, keeping by the [Pg 509]side of each of them in turns and talking with them. When he arrived at the camp, where there were several legions, being appointed to the command of one legion by the general, he considered the display of his own merit, being only one thing, as a small matter and nothing kingly, but being chiefly ambitious to make those who were under him like himself, he did not deprive his power of its terrors, but he added to it reason, by means of which persuading and instructing his men about every thing—honour and punishment following; whether he made his soldiers more peaceable or warlike or more full of zeal or just, it is difficult to say, so formidable did they become to the enemy, and gentle to the allies, and so little disposed to wrong, and so ambitious of praise. But that which Cato cared least for, he had most of, both good opinion, and popularity, and honour above measure, and affection from the soldiers. For by voluntarily labouring at that which he imposed on others, and in his dress and way of living and marching on foot making himself like them rather than the commander, and in his morals and in his noble bearing, and in eloquence surpassing all who were intitled Imperators and generals, by such means he imperceptibly produced in the men at the same time good will towards himself. For no true emulation after virtue is bred except from perfect good will and respect towards him who commends it: but those who having no love, praise the brave, respect their character, though they admire not their virtue, nor do they imitate it.

X

Hearing that Athenodorus20 named Kordylion, who had great skill in the Stoic philosophy, was living at Pergamus, being now an old man, and having most resolutely resisted all intimacy and friendship with governors and kings, Cato thought that he should get nothing by sending and writing to him, but as he had a furlough of two months allowed by the law, he made a voyage to Asia to the man, in the confidence that through his own merits he should not fail in the chase. [Pg 510]After discoursing with Athenodorus and getting the victory over him and drawing him from his settled purpose, he returned with him to the camp, overjoyed and greatly elated at having made the noblest capture and got a more splendid booty than the nations and kingdoms which Pompeius at that time and Lucullus were subduing in their campaigns.

XI

While Cato was still engaged in the service, his brother, who was on his road to Asia, fell sick at Ænus,21 in Thrace; and a letter immediately came to Cato, and though the sea was very stormy, and there was no vessel at hand of sufficient size, taking only two friends with him and three slaves, he set sail from Thessalonike in a small trading ship. After narrowly escaping being drowned at sea, he was saved by unexpected good luck, but he found Cæpio already dead. He was considered to have borne the misfortune with more of passion than philosophy, not only in his lamentations and his embracings of the dead body and the heaviness of his grief, but also in his expenditure about the interment, and the trouble that he took about fragrant spices and costly vests which were burnt with the body, and a monument of polished Thasian stone of the cost of eight talents which was constructed in the Agora of Ænus. These things there were some who found fault with by comparison with Cato’s freedom from all display in other matters, not seeing how much mildness and affection there was in the man who was inflexible and firm against pleasures and fears and shameless entreaties. For the celebration of the funeral both cities and princes offered to send him many things to do honour to the dead, from none of whom however would he receive valuables, but he accepted fragrant spices and vests, paying the price to those who sent the things. Though the succession came to him and the young daughter of Cæpio, he did not claim back in the division of the property any thing that he had expended about the funeral. And though he did such [Pg 511]things as these and continued to do such, there was one22 who wrote, that he passed the ashes of the dead through a sieve and sifted them to search for the gold that was burnt. So far did the writer allow, not to his sword only, but also to his stilus, irresponsibility and exemption from all account.

XII

When the time of Cato’s service was at an end, he was attended on his departure, not with good wishes, which is usual, nor yet with praises, but with tears and never-satisfied embraces, the soldiers placing their garments under his feet on the way by which he went and kissing his hands, which the Romans of that day hardly ever did to any of their Imperators. As he wished, before engaging in public affairs, at the same time to travel about to make himself acquainted with Asia, and to see with his own eyes the customs and mode of living and power of each province, and at the same time not to give any offence to the Galatian Deiotarus,23 who prayed Cato to come to him on account of the ancient ties of hospitality and friendship that subsisted between him and Cato’s family, he made his sojourning after this fashion. At daybreak he used to send forward his bread-maker and cook to the place where he intended to lodge; and it was their practice to enter the city with great decorum and no stir, and if there happened to be no ancient friend of Cato’s family there or no acquaintance, they would prepare for his reception in an inn without troubling anybody; and if there was no inn, they would in that case apply to the magistrates and gladly accept what accommodation was offered. And oftentimes getting no credit, and being neglected because they did not apply to the magistrates about these matters with noise or threats, [Pg 512]Cato came upon them before they had accomplished their business, and when he was seen, he was still more despised; and because he would sit silently on the baggage, he gave them the notion of being a person of mean condition and a very timid man. However Cato would call them to him, and would say, “Ye miserable wretches, lay aside this inhospitable practice. All those who come to you will not be Catos. Dull by your kind reception the power of those who only want a pretext to take by force what they cannot get from you with your consent.”

XIII

In Syria24 a laughable incident is said to have happened to him. For as he was walking to Antiocheia, he saw near the gates on the outside a number of men arranged on each side of the road, among whom young men by themselves in cloaks and boys on the other side stood in orderly wise, and some had white vests and crowns, and these were priests of the gods or magistrates. Now Cato, being quite sure that some honourable reception was preparing for him by the city, was angry with those of his own people who had been sent on, for not having prevented this, and he bade his friends get off their horses and he proceeded with them on foot. But when they came near, he who was arranging all this ceremony and setting the folk in order, a man somewhat advanced in years, holding a rod in his hand and a chaplet, advanced in front of the rest, and meeting Cato, without even saluting him, asked where they had left Demetrius and when he would be there. Demetrius had been a slave of Pompeius, but at this time, as all the world, so to speak, had their eyes on Pompeius, Demetrius was courted above his merits on account of his great influence with Pompeius. Now the friends of Cato were seized with such a fit of laughter that they could not contain themselves as they walked through the crowd, but Cato, who at the time was vehemently disconcerted, uttered the words, “O ill-fated city,” and nothing more; [Pg 513]afterwards however he was accustomed to laugh at the matter himself both when he told the story and when he thought of it.

XIV

However Pompeius himself reproved those who thus misbehaved themselves towards Cato in their ignorance. For when Cato on his arrival at Ephesus went to pay his respects to Pompeius as his elder, and much his superior in reputation and then at the head of the greatest armies, Pompeius observing him did not wait or allow Cato to approach him as he was seated, but springing up as to a man of superior rank, he met him and gave him his right hand. And Pompeius passed many encomiums on the merit of Cato while treating him as a friend and showing him attention during his stay, and still more when he had departed, so that all persons being admonished and now directing their observation to Cato admired him for the things for which he was despised, and studied his mildness and magnanimity. Yet it did not escape notice that the great attention of Pompeius to him proceeded more from respect than from love, and people discerned that Pompeius honoured him while he was present, and was glad when he went away. For the other young men who came to him, he was ambitious to keep with him, and he wished them to stay, but he asked of Cato nothing of the kind, and as if he were not commander with irresponsible power while Cato was there, he was glad to get rid of him; and yet he was almost the only person among those who were sailing to Rome to whom Pompeius commended his children and wife, who however were connected with Cato by kinship. In consequence of this there was high regard and great exertion and emulation in the cities towards Cato, and suppers and invitations, wherein Cato bade his friends keep a watch upon him, lest he should unawares make good what Curio25 had said. For Curio, who was annoyed at the austerity of Cato, who was his friend and intimate, asked him if he should like to visit Asia after he had served his time in the army. And on Cato saying that he should like it very much, “You say well,” replied [Pg 514]Curio, “for you will be more agreeable when you return thence, and tamer,” using some such words as these.

XV

Deiotarus the Galatian, who was now an old man, sent for Cato, wishing to intrust to him his children and his family; and on his arrival he offered him all manner of presents, and tried and entreated him in every way till he so irritated Cato, that after arriving in the evening and staying all night, he set off on the following day about the third hour. However when he had advanced one day’s journey, he found in Possinus26 more presents than before awaiting him there, and letters from the Galatian begging him to receive them; and if he should not be disposed to take them, to let his friends at least receive favours on his account, as they well deserved it, and Cato had not much of his own. But Cato did not give in even to these arguments, though he saw that some of his friends were beginning to be softened and were inclined to blame him; but observing that all receiving of gifts might find a good excuse, and his friends should share in all that he got honourably and justly, he sent back the presents to Deiotarus. As he was about to set sail to Brundisium, his friends thought that they ought to put the ashes of Cæpio in another vessel, but Cato, saying that he would rather part with his life than the ashes of his brother, set sail. And indeed it is said that it chanced that he had a very dangerous passage, though the rest got to Brundisium with little difficulty.

XVI

On his return to Rome he spent his time either at home in the company of Athenodorus, or in the Forum assisting his friends. Though the office of Quæstor27 was now open to him, he did not become a candidate for it till he had read the laws relating to the quæstorship, and had learned all particulars from the experienced, and had comprehended the powers of the office in a certain shape. Accordingly as soon as he was established in the office, he made a great change in the servants and clerks about the treasury, for as they constantly had in hand the public accounts and the laws, and had young superiors who, by reason of their inexperience and ignorance, in fact re[Pg 515]quired others to teach and direct them, they did not allow their superiors to have any power, but were the superior officers themselves, until Cato vigorously applied himself to the business, not having the name only and the honour of a magistrate, but understanding and judgment and apt expression; and he resolved to make the clerks into servants as they really were, in some things detecting their evil doings, and in others correcting their errors which arose from inexperience. But as the clerks were insolent, and attempted to ingratiate themselves with and to flatter the other quæstors, and resisted him, he expelled from the treasury the first among them whom he had detected in knavish dealings in a matter of trust concerning an inheritance, and he brought another to trial for dishonesty. This second person Catulus Lutatius28 the censor came forward to defend, a man who had great dignity from his office, and the greatest from his merit, being considered superior to all the Romans in integrity and temperance; and he was also an admirer and intimate friend of Cato all through his life. Now, when Catulus found that the justice of the case was against him and openly asked to have the man acquitted for his sake, Cato would not allow him to act so: and when he still continued to urge his request, Cato said, “It were a scandalous thing, Catulus, for you, who are the censor, and whose duty it is to examine into our lives, to be turned out29 by our officers.” When Cato had uttered these words, Catulus looked at him as if he were going to reply, but he said nothing, and either being angry or ashamed he went away in silence and perplexed. However the man was not convicted, for when the votes for condemnation had exceeded those for acquittal by a single vote, and Lollius Marcus, one of the colleagues of Cato, owing to [Pg 516]sickness had not attended at the trial, Catulus sent to him and prayed him to give his support to the man; and he was carried thither in a litter after the trial and gave the vote which acquitted. However Cato did not employ the clerk nor give him his pay, nor did he take any reckoning at all of the vote of Lollius.

XVII

Having thus humbled the clerks and reduced them to obedience, by managing the accounts in his own way, he made the treasury in a short time more respected than the Senate, so that every body said and considered that Cato had surrounded the quæstorship with the dignity of the consulship. For in the first place finding that many persons owed old debts to the state and that the state was indebted to many, he at the same time put an end to the state being wronged and wronging others, by demanding the money from those who owed it vigorously and without relenting at all, and paying the creditors speedily and readily, so that the people respected him when they saw those pay who expected to defraud the state, and those recover who never expected it. In the next place, it was the general practice to bring in writings without observing the proper forms, and previous quæstors used to receive false decrees to please persons, and at their request. Cato however let nothing of this kind escape his notice, and on one occasion being in doubt about a decree, whether it was really ratified, though many persons testified to the fact, he would not trust them, nor did he allow it to be deposited until the consuls came and by oath confirmed its genuineness. Now there were many whom Sulla had rewarded for killing proscribed persons at the rate of twelve thousand drachmæ apiece, and though all detested them as accursed and abominable wretches, no one ventured to bring them to punishment; but Cato, calling to account every man who had public money by unfair means, made him give it up and at the same time upbraided him for his unholy and illegal acts with passion and argument. Those whom this befel were immediately charged with murder and were brought before the judices in a manner prejudged, and were punished, to the joy of all who considered that the tyranny of those former times was at the same time [Pg 517]blotted out and that they witnessed Sulla himself punished.

XVIII

The many were captivated by his persevering and unwearied industry: for none of his colleagues went up earlier to the treasury or came away after him. He never omitted attending any meeting of the people and of the Senate, for he feared and kept a watch on those who were ready to vote for remissions of debts and taxes and for gifts in favour of any body. By proving that the treasury was inaccessible and free from intrigues, and full of money, he showed that they could be rich without doing wrong. Though at first he appeared to be disliked by and odious to some of his colleagues, he afterwards gained their good-will by subjecting himself on behalf of them all to the hatred that was incurred by not giving away the public money and by not deciding dishonestly, and by furnishing them with an answer to those who preferred their requests and urged them, that nothing could be done if Cato did not consent. On the last day of his office when he had been accompanied to his house by almost all the citizens, he heard that many who were intimate with Marcellus,30 and men of influence, had fallen upon him at the treasury and having got round him were forcing him to sign a certain payment of money that was due. Marcellus from his boyhood had been a friend of Cato and together with him had been a most excellent magistrate, but by himself he was easily led by others through false shame, and was ready to oblige any body. Accordingly Cato immediately returned to the treasury, and finding that Marcellus had been prevailed upon to sign the payment asked for the tablets and erased what was written, while Marcellus stood by and said not a word. Having done this Cato conducted him down from the treasury and put him in his house; and Marcellus neither then nor afterwards found fault with Cato, but continued on intimate terms with him all along. Nor did Cato when he had quitted the treasury leave it destitute of protection, but slaves of his were there daily who copied out the transactions, and he himself purchased for five talents [Pg 518]books which contained the public accounts from the times of Sulla to his own quæstorship, and he always had them in his hands.

XIX

He used to go into the Senate house the first, and he was the last to come away; and often while the rest were slowly assembling, he would sit and read quietly, holding his toga before the book. He never went abroad when there was to be a meeting of the Senate; but afterwards when Pompeius saw that Cato could not be prevailed upon, and could never be brought to comply with the unjust measures on which he was intent, he used to contrive to engage him in giving his aid to some friend in a matter before the courts, or in arbitrations, or in discharging some business. But Cato quickly perceiving his design, refused all such engagements and made it a rule to do nothing else while the Senate was assembled. For it was neither for the sake of reputation, nor self-aggrandisement, nor by a kind of spontaneous movement, nor by chance, like some others, that he was thrown into the management of state affairs, but he selected a public career as the proper labour of a good man, and thought that he ought to attend to public concerns more than the bee to its cells, inasmuch as he made it his business to have the affairs of the provinces and decrees and trials and the most important measures communicated to him by his connections and friends in every place. On one occasion by opposing Clodius the demagogue, who was making a disturbance and laying the foundation for great charges, and calumniating to the people the priests and priestesses, among whom was also Fabia,31 the sister of Terentia, [Pg 519]Cicero’s wife, he was in great danger, but he involved Clodius in disgrace and compelled him to withdraw from the city; and when Cicero thanked him, Cato said that he ought to reserve his gratitude for the state, as it was for the sake of the state that he did every thing and directed his political measures. In consequence of this there was a high opinion of him, so that an orator said to the judices on a certain trial when the evidence of a single person was produced, that it was not right to believe a single witness even if he was Cato; and many persons now were used to say when speaking of things incredible and contrary to all probability, as by way of proverb, that this could not be believed even if Cato said it. And when a man of bad character and great expense delivered a discourse in the senate in favour of frugality and temperance, Amnæus32 rose up and said, “My man, who will endure you, you who sup like Crassus, and build like Lucullus, and harangue us like Cato.” Others also who were people of bad character and intemperate, but in their language dignified and severe, they used to call by way of mockery, Catos.

XX

Though many invited him to the tribuneship, he did not think it well to expend the power of a great office and magistracy, no more than that of a strong medicine, on matters wherein it was not required. At the same time as he had leisure from public affairs, he took books and philosophers with him and set out for Lucania, for he had lands there on which there was no unseemly residence. On the road he met with many beasts of burden and baggage and slaves, and learning that Nepos Metellus33 was returning to Rome for the purpose of being a candidate for the tribuneship, he halted without speaking, and after a short interval ordered his people to turn back. His friends wondering at this, he said, “Don’t you know that even of himself Metellus is a formidable man by reason of his violence; and now that he has come upon the motion of Pompeius, he will fall upon the state like a thunderbolt [Pg 520]and put all in confusion? It is therefore not a time for leisure or going from home, but we must get the better of the man or die nobly in defence of liberty.” However at the urgency of his friends he went first to visit his estates, and after staying no long time he returned to the city. He arrived in the evening, and as soon as day dawned, he went down into the Forum to be a candidate for the tribuneship and to oppose Metellus. For this magistracy gives more power to check than to act; and even if all the rest of the tribunes save one should assent to a measure, the power lies with him who does not consent or permit.

XXI

At first there were few of Cato’s friends about him, but when his views became public, in a short time all the people of character and distinction crowded together and cheered and encouraged him, for they said it was no favour that he was receiving, but he was conferring the greatest favour on his country and the most honest of the citizens, for that when it was often in his power to hold a magistracy without any trouble, he now came down to contend on behalf of freedom and the constitution, not without danger. It is said that owing to many persons through zeal and friendly disposition crowding towards him he was in some danger, and with difficulty on account of the crowd he made his way to the Forum. Being elected tribune with others and with Metellus, and observing that the consular comitia were accompanied with bribery, he rated the people, and at the close of his speech he swore that he would prosecute the briber, whoever he might be, with the exception of Silanus,34 on account of his connection with him; for Silanus had to wife Servilia, a sister of Cato. For this reason he passed over Silanus, but he prosecuted Lucius Murena,35 on the charge of having secured his election with Silanus by bribery. There was a law according to which the accused had always the power to [Pg 521]appoint a person to watch the accuser, in order that it might not be unknown what he was getting together and preparing to support the prosecution. Now he who was appointed by Murena to watch Cato used to accompany him and observe his conduct, and when he saw that Cato was doing nothing with unfair design or contrary to equity, but honourably and in a kindly spirit was going a simple and straightforward course towards the prosecution, he had such admiration of his noble bearing and morality that he would come up to Cato in the Forum, or go to his door and ask, whether he intended that day to attend to any matters that concerned the prosecution, and if he said that he did not, he would take his word and go away. When the trial came on, Cicero, who was then consul and one of the advocates of Murena, on account of Cato’s connection with the Stoics, ridiculed and mocked these philosophers and their so-called paradoxes, and thus made the judices laugh. On which it is said that Cato, with a smile, observed to those who were present, “My friends, what a ridiculous consul we have.” Murena, who was acquitted, did not display towards Cato the temper of a bad or a foolish man, for in his consulship he used to ask his advice in the most important affairs, and all along in every other matter showed him respect and confidence. Cato’s own conduct was the cause of this, for while he was severe and terrible on the judgment seat and in the Senate on behalf of justice, he was benevolent and friendly in all his social intercourse.

XXII

Before Cato entered on the tribuneship, during Cicero’s consulship he supported his administration in many other difficulties, and he put the finishing stroke to the measures relating to Catiline,36 which were the most important and glorious of all. Catiline himself, who was designing to effect a pernicious and complete change in the Roman state, and was at the same time stirring up insurrection and war, being convicted by Cicero, fled from the city; but Lentulus and Cethegus and many others with them, who had taken up the conspiracy, upbraiding Catiline with cowardice and want of spirit in his [Pg 522]designs, were plotting to destroy the city with fire, and to subvert the supremacy of Rome by the revolt of nations and by foreign wars. Their schemes having been discovered in the manner told in the Life of Cicero, he laid the matter before the Senate for their deliberation, whereupon Silanus, who spoke first, gave his opinion that the men ought to suffer the extreme punishment, and those who followed him spoke to the same effect, till it came to Cæsar’s turn. Cæsar now rose, and as he was a powerful speaker and wished rather to increase all change and disturbance in the state than to allow it to be quenched, considering it as the stuff for his own designs to work upon, he urged many arguments of a persuasive and humane kind to the effect that the men ought not to be put to death without trial, and he advised that they should be confined in prison: and he wrought so great a change in the opinion of the Senate, who were afraid of the people, that even Silanus retracted what he had said, and affirmed that neither had he recommended that they should be put to death, but that they should be imprisoned; for to a Roman this was the extreme of punishment.

XXIII

Such had been the change, and all the Senators in a body had gone over to the milder and more humane proposal, when Cato rising to deliver his opinion, commenced his speech in anger and passion, abusing Silanus for changing his mind, and attacking Cæsar, whom he charged with a design to overturn the State under a popular guise and pretext of humanity, and with making the Senate alarmed at things at which he himself ought to be alarmed, and therewith well content, if he escaped unharmed on account of what had passed and without suspicion, when he was so openly and audaciously endeavouring to rescue the common enemies of all, and admitting that he had no pity for the state, such and so great though it was, and though it had so narrowly escaped destruction, but was shedding tears and lamenting because those who ought never to have existed or been born would by their death release the state from great bloodshed and danger. They say that this is the only speech of Cato which is preserved, and that it was owing to [Pg 523]Cicero the consul, who had previously instructed those clerks who surpassed the rest in quick writing in the use of certain signs which comprehended in their small and brief marks the force of many characters and had placed them in different parts of the Senate house. For the Romans at this time were not used to employ nor did they possess what are called note-writers,37 but it was on this occasion, as they say, that they were first established in a certain form. However, Cato prevailed and changed the opinion of the Senate, who condemned the men to death.

XXIV

Now as we perhaps ought not to omit even the slight tokens of character when we are delineating as it were a likeness of the soul, it is reported that on this occasion when Cæsar was making much exertion and a great struggle against Cato, and the attention of the Senate was fixed on both of them, a small letter was brought in for Cæsar from the outside. Cato attempted to fix suspicion on this matter, and alleged that some of the senators were disturbed at it and he bade him read the writing, on which Cæsar handed the letter to Cato who was standing near him. Cato read the letter, which was an amatory epistle addressed to Cæsar by his sister Servilia38 who was enamoured of Cæsar and had been debauched by him, and throwing it at Cæsar he said, “Take it, drunkard,” and so resumed his speech. Indeed in the female part of his family Cato appears to have always been unlucky. For this sister had a bad report in respect of Cæsar; and the conduct of the other Servilia, also a sister of Cato, was still more unseemly. For though she was married to Lucullus, a man who was among the first of the Romans in reputation, and bore him a child, she was driven from his house for incontinence. And what was [Pg 524]most scandalous of all, even Cato’s wife Atilia was not free from such vices, for though he had two children by her, he was compelled to put her away for her unseemly behaviour.

XXV

Cato then married Marcia, a daughter of Philippus,39 who had the character of being an honest woman, and about whom a good deal is said; but just as in a drama, this part of Cato’s life is a difficult and perplexed matter. However it was after the following manner, as Thrasea40 writes, who refers as his authority to Munatius, a companion and intimate associate of Cato. Among the numerous friends and admirers of Cato there were some more conspicuous and distinguished than others, of whom one was Quintus Hortensius,41 a man of splendid reputation and honest morals. Now as Hortensius was desirous to be not merely an intimate friend and companion of [Pg 525]Cato, but in a manner to unite in kinship and community the whole family and stock, he endeavoured to persuade Cato, whose daughter Porcia was the wife of Bibulus and had born him two sons, to give her in turn to him as a fertile soil to beget children in. He said that according to men’s opinion such a thing was strange, but that according to nature it was good and for the advantage of states, that a woman who was in her youth and perfection should neither lie idle and check her procreative power, nor yet should by breeding more children than enough cause trouble to her husband and impoverish him when he wanted no more children; but that if there was a community of offspring among worthy men, it would make virtue abundant and widely diffused among families, and would mingle the state with itself by these family relationships. If Bibulus, he said, was greatly attached to his wife, he would return her as soon as she had born a child, and he had become more closely united both with Bibulus and Cato by a community of children. Cato replied that he loved Hortensius and valued his kinship, but he considered it strange for Hortensius to speak about the marriage of his daughter who had been given to another; on which Hortensius changing his proposal and disclosing himself did not hesitate to ask the wife of Cato, who was still young enough to bear children, while Cato himself had children enough. And it cannot be said that Hortensius did this because he knew that Cato paid no attention to Marcia, for they say that she happened to be with child at the time. Accordingly Cato seeing the earnestness and eagerness of Hortensius did not refuse, but he said that Philippus the father of Marcia must also approve of it. When they had seen Philippus and informed him of the agreement, he did not give Marcia in marriage, except in the presence of Cato, and Cato joined in giving her away. Though this took place later, it seemed convenient to me to anticipate the time as I had made mention of the female part of Cato’s family.

XXVI

When Lentulus and his associates had been executed, and Cæsar, on account of the charges and insinuations made against him before the Senate, betook himself to the people for protection and was stirring up the numerous [Pg 526]diseased and corrupted members of the state and collecting them about him, Cato, being alarmed, persuaded the Senate to relieve the crowd of poor who had no property by an allowance of grain, the expenditure for which purpose was to the amount of twelve hundred and fifty talents42 annually; and the threats of Cæsar were manifestly rendered futile by this liberality and bounty. After this, Metellus, as soon as he had entered on the tribuneship, got together tumultuous meetings and proposed a law that Pompeius Magnus43 should hasten to Italy with his forces and should undertake the protection of the city, which it was alleged was in danger from Catiline. This was in appearance a specious proposal, but the real object and end of the law was to put affairs in the hands of Pompeius and to surrender to him the supremacy. When the Senate was assembled and Cato did not in his usual way fall violently on Metellus, but advised him with much forbearance and moderation, and at last even betook himself to entreaty and praised the family of the Metelli for having always been aristocratic, Metellus becoming much emboldened and despising Cato, whom he supposed to be giving way and cowering, broke out in extravagant threats and arrogant expressions, as if he would accomplish every thing in spite of the Senate. On this Cato, changing his attitude and tone and language, and concluding all that he said with a vehement affirmation that so long as he lived Pompeius should not come into the city with his soldiers, brought the Senate to this opinion, that neither he nor Metellus was in a sober mind and that neither of them was guided by sound considerations, but that the measures of Metellus were madness which from excess of depravity was loading to the destruction and confusion of every thing, and those of Cato an enthusiasm of virtue struggling in behalf of honour and justice.

XXVII

But when the people were going to vote on the law, and armed strangers and gladiators and slaves had come to the Forum arrayed to support Metellus, and that part of the people which longed for Pompeius from desire of change was not small, and there was also great [Pg 527]support from Cæsar who was then prætor, and the first men of the citizens rather shared in the indignation and wrongs of Cato than joined him in making resistance, and great depression and alarm prevailed in his family, so that some of his friends taking no food watched all night with one another in perplexed deliberation on his behalf, and his wife and sisters also were lamenting and weeping, Cato himself displayed a fearless and confident behaviour to all, and cheered them, and he took his supper, as usual, and after resting all night was roused from a deep sleep by Minucius Thermus one of his colleagues; and they went down to the Forum with a few persons accompanying them, though many met them and urged them to be on their guard. When Cato stopped and saw the temple of the Dioscuri44 surrounded by armed men and the steps guarded by gladiators, and Metellus himself with Cæsar sitting above, he turned to his friends and said, “O the daring and cowardly men, to collect such a force of soldiery against a single man unarmed and defenceless.” Saying this he advanced straight forwards with Thermus; and those who occupied the steps made way for them but they let nobody else pass, except that Cato with difficulty pulled Munatius by the hand and got him up, and then advancing right onwards, he flung himself between Metellus and Cæsar and there took his seat, and so cut off their communications. Cæsar and Metellus were disconcerted, but the better part of the people seeing and admiring the noble bearing and spirit of Cato came nearer, and with shouts encouraged Cato to be of good heart, and they urged one another to stay and keep close together and not to betray their liberty and the man who was contending in defence of it.

XXVIII

The clerk now produced the law, but Cato would not let him read it, and when Metellus took it and began to read, Cato snatched the writing from him; and when Metellus who knew the law by heart was beginning to declare it orally, Thermus held his mouth with his hand and stopped his voice, till at last Metellus seeing that the [Pg 528]men were making an opposition which he could not resist and that the people were beginning to give way to what was best and to change, he ordered armed men to hurry thither from his house45 with threats and shouts. This being done, and all having been dispersed except Cato, who stood there, though he was pelted with stones and pieces of wood from above, Murena, who had been brought to trial and prosecuted by Cato, did not remain indifferent, but holding his toga in front of him and calling out to those who were throwing missiles, to stop, and finally persuading Cato himself and taking him in his arms, led him off to the temple of the Dioscuri. Now when Metellus saw that all was clear about the Rostra, and that his opponents were flying through the Forum, being quite confident that he had got the victory, he ordered the armed men to go away, and coming forward in an orderly manner he attempted to conduct the proceedings about the law. But his opponents quickly recovering themselves from their rout again advanced with loud and confident shouts, so that the partizans of Metellus were seized with confusion and fear, for they thought that their opponents were falling on them with arms which they had provided themselves with from some place or other, and not one of them stood his ground, but all ran away from the Rostra. When they were thus dispersed, and Cato coming forward partly commended and partly encouraged the people, the people prepared themselves to put down Metellus by every means, and the Senate assembling declared anew that they would support Cato and resist the law, which they considered to be introducing discord and civil war into Rome.

XXIX

Metellus himsalf was unmoved from his purpose and still bold, but seeing that his partizans were struck with great terror at Cato, and considered him invincible and that it was impossible to overpower him, he suddenly hurried out to the Forum, and assemb[Pg 529]ling the people he said many things calculated to bring odium on Cato, and crying out that he was flying from his tyranny and the conspiracy against Pompeius, for which the city would speedily repent and for their disgracing so great a man, he forthwith set out to Asia to lay all these charges before Pompeius. Now the fame of Cato was great inasmuch as he had eased the state of the no small burden of the tribuneship, and in a manner had put down the power of Pompeius in the person of Metellus; but he got still more credit by not consenting that the Senate, who were minded to do it, should degrade Metellus, and by opposing the measure and praying them not to pass it. For the majority considered it a token of a humane and moderate temper not to trample on his enemy nor insult him after he had got the victory; and to the prudent it appeared wise and politic in him not to irritate Pompeius. After this, Lucullus,46 who had returned from his campaign, the conclusion and the glory of which Pompeius was considered to have snatched from him, ran the risk of not having a triumph, owing to Caius Memmius stirring up the people and bringing charges against him, rather to please Pompeius than out of any private ill-will. But Cato, being connected with Lucullus by Lucullus having married Cato’s sister Servilia, and also thinking it a scandalous affair, resisted Memmius and exposed himself to much calumny and many imputations. Finally an attempt being made to eject Cato from his office, on the ground that he was exercising tyrannical power, he so far prevailed as to compel Memmius himself to desist from his prosecution and to give up the contest. Lucullus accordingly had a triumph, in consideration of which he stuck still more closely to the friendship of Cato, which was to him a protection and bulwark against the power of Pompeius.

XXX

Pompeius47 returning from his military command [Pg 530]with great reputation, and relying on the splendour and heartiness of his reception for getting everything from the citizens that he asked for, sent a message to the Senate before his arrival at Rome, to ask them to put off the Comitia, that he might be present to assist Piso at his canvass. The majority were ready to give way, but Cato who did not consider the putting off the Comitia as the chief matter, and wished to cut short the attempts and the hopes of Pompeius, opposed the request and induced the Senate to change their mind and reject it. This gave Pompeius no little uneasiness, and considering that he should find no slight obstacle in Cato, if he did not make him his friend, he sent for Munatius,48 an intimate of Cato, and as Cato had two marriageable nieces, he asked for the elder for his own wife, and the younger for his son. Some say that the suit was not for the nieces, but the daughters of Cato. When Munatius made the proposal to Cato and his wife and sisters, the women were delighted above measure at the prospect of the alliance by reason of the greatness and reputation of the man; but Cato, without pause or deliberation, with passion forthwith replied, “Go, Munatius, go, and tell Pompeius, that Cato is not to be caught by approaching him through the women’s chamber, but that he is well content to have the friendship of Pompeius, and if Pompeius will act rightly, Cato will show him a friendship more sure than any marriage connection, but he will not give up hostages to the reputation of Pompeius contrary to the interests of his country.” The women were vexed at these words, and Cato’s friends blamed his answer as both rude and insolent. The next thing, however, was that Pompeius while trying to secure the consulship for one of his friends, sent money for the tribes, and the bribery49 was notorious, the money being counted out in his gardens. Accordingly when Cato observed to the women, that he who was connected with Pompeius by marriage, must of necessity [Pg 531]participate in such measures and be loaded with the disgrace of them, they admitted that he had judged better in rejecting the alliance of Pompeius. But if we may judge by the result, Cato appears to have made a complete mistake in not accepting the proposed alliance with Pompeius, and allowing him to turn to Cæsar and to contract a marriage, which, by uniting the power of Pompeius and Cæsar, nearly overthrew the Roman state and did destroy the constitution, nothing of which probably would have happened if Cato had not, through fear of the small errors of Pompeius, overlooked the greatest, which was the allowing him to increase the power of another.

XXXI

These things, however, were still in the future. Now when Lucullus was engaged in a contest with Pompeius respecting the arrangements made in Pontus, for each of them wished his own arrangements to be confirmed, and Cato gave his aid to Lucullus, who was manifestly wronged, Pompeius being worsted in the Senate and seeking to make himself popular, proposed a division of lands among the soldiery. But when Cato opposed him in this measure also and frustrated the law, Pompeius next attached himself to Clodius, the boldest of the demagogues at that time, and gained over Cæsar,50 to which Cato in a manner gave occasion. For Cæsar, who had returned from his prætorship in Iberia, at the same time wished to be a candidate for the consulship and asked for a triumph. But as it was the law that those who were candidates for a magistracy should be present, and those who were going to have a triumph should stay outside the walls, Cæsar asked permission of the Senate to solicit the office through means of others. Many were willing to consent, but Cato spoke against it, and when he saw that the Senators were ready to oblige Cæsar, he took up the whole day in talking, and thus frustrated the designs, of the Senate. Cæsar accordingly giving up his hopes of a triumph, entered the city, and immediately attached himself to Pompeius, and sought the consulship. Being [Pg 532]elected consul, Cæsar gave Julia in marriage to Pompeius, and the two now coalescing against the state, the one introduced laws for giving to the poor allotments and a distribution of land, and the other assisted in supporting these measures. But Lucullus and Cicero siding with Bibulus, the other consul, opposed the measures, and Cato most of all, who already suspected that the friendship and combination of Cæsar and Pompeius had no just object, and said that he was not afraid of the distribution of the land, but of the reward for it which those would claim who were gratifying the multitude, and alluring them by this bait.

XXXII

By these arguments Cato brought the Senate to an unanimous opinion; and of those without the Senate no small number supported the senators, being annoyed at the unusual measures of Cæsar: for what the boldest and most reckless tribunes were used to propose for popularity’s sake, these very measures Cæsar in the possession of consular power adopted, basely and meanly endeavouring to ingratiate himself with the people. Cæsar’s party, therefore, being alarmed, had recourse to violence, and first of all a basket of ordure was thrown upon Bibulus as he was going down to the Forum, and then the people fell on his lictors and broke the fasces; finally missiles being thrown about, and many being wounded, all the rest ran away from the Forum except Cato, who walked away slowly, every now and then turning round and cursing the citizens. Accordingly Cæsar’s partisans not only passed the law for the distribution of land,51 but they added to it a clause to compel all the Senate to swear that they would maintain the law, and give their aid against any one who should act contrary to it, and they enacted heavy penalties against those who did not swear. All swore to maintain the law under compulsion, bearing in mind what befell Metellus of old, whom the people allowed to be driven from52 Italy because he would not swear to observe a like enactment. For this reason the women [Pg 533]of Cato’s family with tears earnestly entreated him to yield and take the oath, and also his friends and intimate acquaintance. But the person who most persuaded and induced Cato to take the oath was Cicero the orator, who argued and urged that perhaps it was not even right for him to think that he was the only man who ought to refuse obedience to what had been determined by the common voice; and when it was impossible to undo what had been done, it was altogether senseless and mad to have no regard for himself; and of all evils, he argued, it was the greatest to give up and surrender the state, to the interests of which all his actions were directed, to those who were plotting against it, as if he were glad to be released from all struggles in its behalf; for if Cato did not stand in need of Rome, Rome stood in need of Cato, and all his friends also did; and among them Cicero said that he was the first, being the object of the designs of Clodius, who was clearly proceeding to attack him by means of the tribunitian office. By these and the like arguments and entreaties, both at home and in the Forum, it is said that Cato was induced to relent, and was prevailed upon with difficulty, and that he came forward to take the oath last of all, except Favonius, one of his friends and intimates.

XXXIII

Cæsar being encouraged, introduced another law for the division of nearly the whole of Campania among the poor and needy. Nobody spoke against it except Cato; and him Cæsar caused to be dragged from the Rostra to prison, Cato the while remitting nothing of his freedom of speech, but as he went along, at the same time speaking about the law and advising them to cease attempting such political measures. The Senate followed with downcast countenances, and the best part of the people, much annoyed and troubled, though they said nothing, so that Cæsar did not fail to see that they were displeased; but out of self-will and expectation that Cato would appeal and have recourse to entreaties, he continued leading him to prison. But when it was plain that Cato intended to do nothing at all, Cæsar, overcome by shame and the ill opinion of the thing, privately persuaded one of the tribunes to rescue Cato. By these laws, [Pg 534]however, and these grants of land, they so cajoled the people, that they voted to Cæsar the government of Illyricum and all Gaul with four legions for five years, though Cato warned them that they would by their own votes plant the tyrant in the Acropolis; and they transferred by illegal means Publius Clodius from the patrician order to the plebeians, and made the man a tribune, who was willing to do anything in his public capacity to serve them, on condition that they would let Cicero be driven out; and they made consuls Piso53 Calpurnius, the father of Cæsar’s wife, and Gabinius Aulus, a man from the lap of Pompeius, as those say who were acquainted with his habits and life.

XXXIV

But though Cæsar and his party had thus violently got possession of the power, and had one part of the citizens at their command through their grants, and another part through fear, they still dreaded Cato. For even when they did get the advantage over him, the fact that it was with difficulty and labour, and not without shame and exposure that they hardly forced their purpose, was annoying and vexatious. Clodius, indeed, did not expect to be able to put down Cicero so long as Cato was at home, and as he was contriving how to effect this, he sent for Cato as soon as he was in his office, and addressed him to the effect that he considered Cato to be the purest man of all the Romans, and he was ready to prove the sincerity of his opinion by his acts, and he said that though many persons were soliciting the commission to Cyprus and Ptolemæus,54 and asking to be sent, he thought [Pg 535]Cato alone worthy of it, and that he gladly offered him the favour. On Cato crying out that the thing was a snare and insult and not a favour, Clodius replied in an insolent and contemptuous manner, “Well, if you don’t like it, you shall make the voyage against your liking;” and immediately going before the people he got the mission of Cato confirmed by a law. When Cato was leaving Rome, Clodius allowed him neither ship nor soldier nor attendant except two clerks, one of whom was a thief and a thorough knave, and the other was a client of Clodius. And as if he had given him but small occupations with the affairs of Cyprus and Ptolemæus, Clodius commissioned him also to restore the Byzantine fugitives, his wish being that Cato should be as long as possible from Rome during his tribuneship.

XXXV

Being under such compulsion, Cato advised Cicero, who was pressed by his enemies, not to raise any commotion nor to involve the city in a contest and bloodshed, but by yielding to the times to be again the saviour of his country; and sending forward to Cyprus Canidius,55 one of his friends, he prevailed on Ptolemæus56 to yield without a struggle, assuring him that he should want neither money nor respect, for that the people would give him the priesthood of the goddess at Paphos.57 Cato himself stayed in Rhodes making preparation and waiting for the answers. In the meantime Ptolemæus,58 King of Egypt, left Alexandria in anger after quarrelling with the citizens, and set sail for Rome in the hope that Cæsar and Pompeius would restore him with a military force; and as he wished to see Cato he sent a message, expecting [Pg 536]that Cato would come to him. Cato happened to be then undergoing a purging,59 and he answered that Ptolemæus must come, if he wished to see him; and when the king did come, Cato neither advanced to meet him nor rose, but saluted him as one of his ordinary visitors and bade him be seated; and by this behaviour the king was at first disturbed, and was amazed at the contrast between Cato’s haughty behaviour and rough manners, and the meanness and simplicity of the man’s attire. But when he had begun to talk with him about his own affairs, and listened to words full of wisdom and plain-speaking, for Cato reproved him and showed what a happy condition he had left and to what servitude and toils and corruption and love of aggrandisement in the chief men of the Romans he was subjecting himself, whom scarcely Egypt would satisfy if it were all turned into silver, and Cato advised the king to return and be reconciled to his people, and said that he was ready to sail with him and assist in bringing about an accommodation, the king, as if he had been brought to his senses from some madness or delirium by the words of Cato, and perceiving the integrity and judgment of the man, was resolved to follow his advice. However, the king was again turned by his friends to his original design, but as soon as he was in Rome and was approaching the door of one of the magistrates, he groaned over his ill resolve, as if he had rejected, not the advice of a good man, but the prophetic warning of a deity.

XXXVI

The Ptolemæus in Cyprus, to Cato’s good luck, poisoned himself; and as it was said that he had left a large sum of money, Cato determined to go to Byzantium himself, and he sent his nephew Brutus60 to [Pg 537]Cyprus, because he did not altogether trust Canidius. After bringing the exiles to terms with their fellow-citizens and leaving Byzantium at peace with itself, he sailed to Cyprus. Now as there was a great quantity of movables, such as suited a royal household, consisting of cups, tables, precious stones and purple, all which was to be sold and turned into money, Cato being desirous to do everything with the greatest exactness and to bring up everything to the highest price, and to be present everywhere and to apply the strictest reckoning, would not trust even to the usages of the market, but suspecting all alike, assistants, criers, purchasers and friends, in fine, by talking to the purchasers singly and urging them to bid, he in this way got most of the things sold that were put up for sale. Cato thus offended the rest of his friends by showing that he did not trust them, and Munatius, the most intimate of all, he put into a state of resentment that was well nigh past cure; so that when Cæsar was writing his book against Cato, this passage in the charges against him furnished matter for the most bitter invective.

XXXVII

Munatius, however, states that his anger against Cato arose not by reason of Cato’s distrust of him, but his contemptuous behaviour, and a certain jealousy of his own in regard to Canidius; for Munatius also published a book about Cato, which Thrasea chiefly followed. He says that he arrived after the rest in Cyprus and found very poor accommodation prepared for him; and that on going to Cato’s door he was repulsed, because Cato was engaged about some matters in the house with Canidius, and when he complained of this in reasonable terms, he got an answer which was not reasonable and to the effect: That excessive affection, as Theophrastus says, is in danger of often becoming the cause of hatred, “for,” continued Cato, “you, by reason of your very great affection for me, are vexed when you suppose that you receive less respect than is your due. But I employ Canidius because I have made trial of him and trust him more than others, for he came at the first and has shown himself to be an honest man.” This, says Munatius, Cato said to him, when they two were alone, but that Cato afterwards told it to Canidius; and accordingly when [Pg 538]Munatius heard of it, as he says, he did not go to Cato’s table nor to his counsels when he was invited; and when Cato threatened that he would take pledges61 from him, which the Romans do in the case of those who refuse to obey a command, that without caring for Cato’s threats he sailed away from Cyprus and for a long time continued to be angry with him. That afterwards Marcia, for she was still the wife of Cato, having spoken with Cato, both Cato and he happened to be invited to supper by Barcas;62 and Cato, who came in after the guests were seated, asked where he should recline. Upon Barcas answering, “Where he pleased,” Cato looking about him said he would take his place near Munatius; and going round he did take his place near him, but showed him no other sign of friendly feeling during the supper. However, upon Marcia preferring a second request, Cato wrote to him to say that he wished to see him on some matter, and that he went early in the morning to the house and was detained by Marcia till all the rest went way, when Cato came in and throwing both his arms round him saluted and received him with all signs of friendship. Now I have told this at some length, because I consider such things to contain a certain evidence for the exhibition and perception of character no less than public and great acts.

XXXVIII

Cato63 got together nearly seven thousand talents of silver, and being afraid of the length of the voyage, he had many vessels made, each of which contained two talents and five hundred drachmæ, and he fastened to each vessel a long rope, to the end of which was attached a very large piece of cork, with the view, [Pg 539]that if the ship were wrecked, the cork holding the vessels suspended in the deep sea might indicate the place. Now the money, with the exception of a small part, was safely conveyed; but though he had accounts of all his administration carefully drawn up in two books, he saved neither of them. One of them was in the care of his freedman Philargyros, who set sail from Kenchreæ,64 but was wrecked, and lost the book and all the cargo with it: the other he had safely carried as far as Corcyra, where he pitched his tent in the Agora; but the sailors on account of the cold having lighted many fires, the tents were burnt in the night, and the book was destroyed. The king’s managers who were present were ready to stop the mouths of the enemies and detractors of Cato; but the matter gave him annoyance for other reasons. For it was not to prove his own integrity, but to set an example of exact dealing to others that he was ambitious to produce his accounts, and this was the cause of his vexation.

XXXIX

Cato’s arrival with the ships did not pass unobserved by the Romans, for all the magistrates and priests, and all the Senate and a great part of the people met him at the river, so that both the banks were covered, and Cato’s voyage upwards was not inferior to a triumph in show and splendour. Yet it seemed to some to be a perverse and stubborn thing, that though the consuls and prætors were present, Cato neither landed to meet them nor stopped his course, but sweeping along the shore in a royal galley of six banks, he never stopped till he had moored his ships in the dockyard. However, when the money was carried along through the Forum, the people were amazed65 at the quantity, and the Senate assembling voted together with suitable thanks that an extraordinary prætorship66 should be given to Cato, and that he should [Pg 540]wear a dress with a purple border when he was present at the public spectacles. Cato protested against both these distinctions, but he recommended the Senate to emancipate Nikias, the king’s steward, to whose care and integrity he bore testimony. At that time Philippus, the father of Marcia, was consul, and in a manner the dignity and power of the office were transferred to Cato, for the colleague of Philippus67 paid no less respect to Cato on account of his merit than on account of his relationship to Philippus.

XL

When Cicero68 had returned from the exile into which he was driven by Clodius, and was now a powerful man, he forcibly pulled down and destroyed in the absence of Clodius, the tribunitian tablets which Clodius had recorded and placed in the Capitol; and the Senate having been assembled about this business, and Clodius making it a matter of accusation, Cicero said that inasmuch as Clodius had been made tribune in an illegal manner, all that had been done during his tribunate and recorded ought to be ineffectual and invalid. But Cato took exception to what Cicero said, and at length he rose and declared, that he was of opinion that there was nothing sound or good in any degree in the administration of Clodius, but that if any man was for rescinding all that Clodius had done in his tribunate, all his own measures relating to Cyprus were thereby rescinded, and his mission had not been legal, having been proposed by a man who was not legally tribune: he maintained that Clodius had not been illegally elected tribune by virtue of being adopted out of the patrician body into a plebeian family, for the law allowed this; but if he had been a bad magistrate, like others, it was fitting to call to account the man who had done wrong, and not to annul the office which had been wronged also. In consequence of this, Cicero was [Pg 541]angry with Cato, and for a long time ceased all friendly intercourse with him: however, they were afterwards reconciled.

XLI

After this Pompeius and Crassus69 had a meeting with Cæsar, who had come across the Alps, in which they agreed that they should seek a second consulship; and when they were established in it, they should cause another period in Cæsar’s government as long as the first to be given him by the vote of the people, and to themselves the chief of the provinces and money and military forces: the which was a conspiracy for the division of the supreme power and the destruction of the constitution. Now though many honest men were at this time preparing to be candidates for the consulship, they were deterred by seeing Pompeius and Crassus canvassing; but Lucius Domitius alone, the husband of Porcia, the sister of Cato, was induced by Cato not to give way or to yield, as the contest was not for office but for the liberty of Rome. And indeed it was currently said among that part of the citizens who were still of sober thoughts, that they ought not to allow the consular office to become completely overbearing and oppressive by permitting the power of Crassus and Pompeius to be combined, but that they should deprive one of them of the office. And they ranged themselves on the side of Domitius, urging and encouraging him to keep to his purpose; for many, they argued, even of those who said nothing by reason of fear, would help him with their votes. The party of Pompeius and Crassus fearing this, laid an ambuscade for Domitius as he was going down to the Campus Martius early in the morning, by torch-light. First of all the man who was lighting Domitius and standing close by him was struck and fell down dead; and after him others also being wounded, there was a general flight of all except Cato and Domitius; for Cato held Domitius though he himself was wounded in the arm, and urged him to stay and so long as there was breath in them, not to give up the struggle for liberty against the tyrants [Pg 542]who showed how they would use their power, by making their way to it through such acts of wrong.

XLII

Domitius, however, did not face the danger, but fled to his house, upon which Pompeius and Crassus,70 were elected. Yet Cato did not give up the contest, but came forward as a candidate for a prætorship, because he wished to have a strong position in his struggles with them and not to be himself a private man while he was opposing those who were in office. Pompeius and Crassus being afraid of this, and considering that the prætorship by reason of Cato would become a match for the consulship, in the first place on a sudden and without the knowledge of many of the body, summoned the Senate, and got a vote passed that those who were elected prætors should enter on office forthwith and should not let the time fixed by law intervene, during which time prosecutions were allowed of those who had bribed the people. In the next place, now that they had by the vote of the Senate made bribery free from all responsibility, they brought forward their own tools and friends as candidates for the prætorship, themselves giving the bribe-money, and themselves standing by while the voting was going on. But when the merit and good name of Cato were getting the superiority even over all this, the many for very shame considering it a great crime by their votes to sell Cato, whom it were even honourable to purchase for the state as prætor, and the tribe which was first called voted for him, Pompeius all at once, falsely saying he had heard thunder, dissolved the assembly, for it was the custom of the Romans to view such tokens as inauspicious, and not to ratify anything when there had been signs from heaven. Thereafter, by employing excessive bribery and driving all the honest folks from the Campus they brought about by violence that Vatinius should be elected prætor instead of Cato. Upon this it is said that those who had given their votes thus illegally and dishonestly, forthwith skulked away; and a certain tribune forming on the spot a meeting of those who were assembling together and expressing their dis[Pg 543]satisfaction, Cato came before them, and as if inspired by the gods, foretold everything that would happen to the state, and urged the citizens to oppose Pompeius and Crassus as being privy to such measures and engaging in a course of policy, on account of which they feared Cato lest, if he were prætor, he should get the advantage over them. And finally as he went home, he was attended by such a crowd as not even all the prætors together, who were elected, had to accompany them.

XLIII

When Caius Trebonius71 drew up a law for the division of the provinces between the consuls, to the effect that one of them should have the government of Iberia and Libya, and the other Syria and Egypt, to attack and carry on war against whom they pleased with naval and military forces, the rest despairing of all opposition and hindrance even desisted from speaking against the measure, and when Cato got up on the Rostra before the question was put to the vote, and expressed a wish to speak, he with difficulty obtained leave to speak for two hours.72 After Cato had occupied this time with much speaking, and alleging of arguments and prophetic warnings, they would not let him speak longer, but an officer went up and pulled him down while he was still keeping his place on the Rostra. But inasmuch as he continued to cry out from the place where he was standing below, and had persons to listen to him and join in his dissatisfaction, the officer again laid hold of him and taking him away, put him out of the Forum. But scarcely was he let loose when he returned and made his way to the Rostra with loud shouts, urging the citizens to aid him. This being repeated several times, Trebonius in a passion ordered him to be led to prison, and the crowd followed listening to him talking as he went along, so that Trebonius was afraid and let him go. In this manner Cato took up all that day: but on the following [Pg 544]days by terrifying some of the citizens and gaining over others by favours and by bribes, and with armed men preventing Aquilius73 one of the tribunes from coming out of the senate house, and by ejecting from the Forum Cato himself, who called out that there had been thunder, and by wounding no small number, and even killing some, they forcibly carried the law, in consequence of which many persons in passion crowded together and pelted the statues of Pompeius. Cato, however, who came up to them stopped this; and further, when a law was proposed respecting the provinces and armies of Cæsar, Cato no longer addressed himself to the people, but turning to Pompeius himself he adjured and forewarned him, that he did not see that he was now taking up Cæsar on his shoulders, but that when he began to feel the weight of his burden and to be mastered by it, having neither power to rid himself of it nor strength to bear it, he would fall with it upon the state, and then he would remember Cato’s advice and see that it concerned no less the interests of Pompeius than honour and justice. Though Pompeius heard this often, he cared not for it and let it pass, not believing there would be any change in Cæsar, because he trusted in his own good fortune and power.

XLIV

For the following year Cato was chosen prætor,74 [Pg 545]but he was considered not to add so much dignity and honour to the office by his good administration, as to detract from it and bring it into disrepute by often going to the Rostra without his shoes and his tunic, and in this attire presiding at trials of men of rank in matters of life and death. Some also say that even after dinner, when he had drunk wine, he would transact business; but this at least is untruly said. The people being now corrupted by the bribery of those who were ambitious of office, and the majority being accustomed to receive money for their votes as if in the way of a regular trade, Cato wishing to eradicate completely this disease in the state, persuaded the Senate to make a decree, that if those who were elected magistrates should have none ready to accuse them, they should themselves be compelled to come forward before a sworn court and give an account of their election. The candidates for magistracies were vexed at this, and still more vexed were the mass who received the bribe-money. Accordingly in the morning when Cato had gone to the tribunal, the people in a body pressing upon him, cried out, abused him, and pelted him so that every person fled from the tribunal, and Cato himself being shoved from his place by the crowd and carried along with it, with difficulty laid hold of the Rostra. Thereupon getting up, by the boldness and firmness of his demeanour, Cato forthwith mastered the tumult, and stopped the shouting, and after saying what was suitable to the occasion and being listened to with perfect quiet, he put an end to the disturbance. When the Senate were bestowing praise upon him, he said, “But I cannot praise you, who left a prætor in danger and did not come to his help.” But of the candidates for magistracies every man felt himself in a difficult position, being afraid to give bribes himself, and being afraid that he should lose the office if another did it. Accordingly it was agreed among them that they should come together to one place, and each lay down one hundred and twenty-five thousand drachmæ of silver, and all should then seek the office in a right and just way, and that he who broke the terms and employed [Pg 546]bribery, should lose his money. Having agreed to these terms they chose Cato as depositary and umpire and witness, and bringing the money, they offered to place it with him; and they had the terms of the agreement drawn up before him, but Cato took sureties instead of the money, and would not receive the money itself. When the day for the election came, Cato taking his place by the presiding tribune and watching the vote, discovered that one of those who had entered into the engagement, was playing foul, and he ordered him to pay the money to the rest. But they, commending his uprightness and admiring it, waived the penalty, considering that they had sufficient satisfaction from the wrong-doer; but Cato offended all the rest and got very great odium from this, it being as if he assumed to himself the power of the Senate and of the courts of justice and of the magistrates. For the opinion and the credit of no one virtue makes people more envious than that of justice,75 [Pg 547]because both æpower and credit among the many follow it chiefly. For people do not merely honour the just, as they do the brave, nor do they admire them, as they do the wise, but they even love the just, and have confidence in them and give them credit. But as to the brave and wise, they fear the one, and give no credit to the other; and besides this, they think that the brave and the wise excel by nature rather than by their own will; and with respect to courage and wisdom, they consider the one to be a certain sharpness, and the other a firmness of soul; but inasmuch as any man who chooses, has it in his power to be just, they have most abhorrence of injustice as badness that is without excuse.

XLV

Wherefore all the great were enemies of Cato, as being reproved by his conduct: and as Pompeius viewed Cato’s reputation even as a nullification of his own power, he was continually setting persons on to abuse him, among whom Clodius also was one, the demagogue, who had again insensibly attached himself to Pompeius, and was crying out against Cato on the ground that he had appropriated to his own purposes much money in Cyprus, and was hostile to Pompeius because Pompeius had rejected a marriage with Cato’s daughter. Cato replied that he had brought to the city from Cyprus, without the aid of a single horse or soldier, more money than Pompeius had brought back from so many wars and triumphs after disturbing the habitable world, and that he never chose Pompeius to make a marriage alliance with, not because he considered Pompeius unworthy, but because he saw the difference between his polity and that of Pompeius. “For my part,” continued Cato, “I declined a province when it was offered to me after my prætorship, but Pompeius has got some provinces, and he also offers some to [Pg 548]others; and now, last of all, he has lent to Cæsar a force of six thousand legionary soldiers for Gaul, which neither did Cæsar ask of you, nor did Pompeius give with your assent; but forces to such an amount and arms and horses are gifts from private persons and things of mutual exchange. And being called Imperator and governor he has given up to others the armies and the provinces, and he himself sits down close to the city raising commotions at the elections and contriving disturbances, from which it is manifest that he is intriguing to get by means of anarchy a monarchy for himself.”

XLVI

In this fashion Cato defended himself against Pompeius. But Marcus Favonius, an intimate friend and admirer of Cato, just as Apollodorus76 of Phalerum is said to have been of Socrates of old, being a passionate man and one who was violently moved by his principles, did not with any temper or moderation, but intemperately attack Pompeius, like a man under the influence of drink and somewhat mad. Favonius was a candidate for the ædileship and was losing his election, when Cato, who was present, observed that the voting tablets were written in one hand, and so proved the knavery, and by appealing to the tribunes stopped the return. Afterwards when Favonius was made ædile, Cato both administered the other duties of the ædileship, and superintended the exhibitions in the theatre, giving to the actors not crowns of gold, but as is the fashion of Olympia, crowns of wild olive, and instead of costly presents, giving to the Greeks, turnips and lettuces and radishes and parsley;77 and to the Romans, earthen jars of wine, and hogs’ flesh, and figs and gourds, and bundles of wood, at the thrift of which gifts some laughed, but others treated the matter in a respectful way, [Pg 549]seeing the austere and serious countenance of Cato imperceptibly assuming a pleasant expression. Finally, Favonius, mingling with, the crowd and sitting among the spectators, applauded Cato, and called out to him to give to those who were distinguishing themselves, and to honour them, and he urged the spectators to the same effect, inasmuch as he had surrendered all his authority to Cato. Now in the other theatre, Curio, the colleague of Favonius, was conducting the celebration in splendid style, but still the people left him to go to the other place, and they readily joined in the amusement of Favonius playing a private part and Cato the part of the superintendent of the exhibitions. And Cato did this to disparage the thing and to show that when a man is in sport he should use sportive ways, and accompany it with unpretending kindness rather than with much preparation and great cost, bestowing great care and trouble on things of no value.

XLVII

Now when Scipio and Hypsæus and Milo78 were candidates for the consulship, and were employing not merely those wrongful ways that were now familiar and had become usual in matters political, the giving of gifts and bribery, but were plainly pushing on through arms and slaughter to civil war, in their daring and madness, and some persons were urging Pompeius to preside over the comitia, Cato at first opposed this and said, that the laws should not owe their maintenance to Pompeius, but that Pompeius should owe his security to the laws. However, when there had been an anarchy for some time, and three armies were occupying the Forum daily, and the mischief had well nigh become past checking, he determined in favour of putting affairs in the hands of Pompeius before the extreme necessity arrived, by the voluntary favour of the Senate, and by employing the most moderate of unconstitutional means as a healing measure for the settlement of what was most important, to bring on the monarchy rather than to let the civil dissensions result in a monarchy. Accordingly [Pg 550]Bibulus, who was a friend of Cato, proposed that they ought to elect Pompeius sole consul, for that either matters would be put into a good condition by his settlement of them, or that the state would be enslaved by the best man in it. Cato rose and spoke in favour of the proposal, which nobody could have expected, and recommended any government as better than no government; and he added, that he expected that Pompeius would manage present affairs best, and would protect the state with which he was intrusted.

XLVIII

Pompeius79 being thus declared consul prayed Cato to come to him to the suburbs: and on his arrival Pompeius received him in a friendly manner with salutations and pressing of hands, and after acknowledging his obligations he entreated Cato to be his adviser and his assessor in the consulship. But Cato replied, that neither had he said what he first said out of evil disposition towards Pompeius, nor had he said what he last said in order to win his favour, but everything for the interest of the state; accordingly he observed that he would give Pompeius his advice when he was privately invited, but that in public, even if he should not be invited, he would certainly say what he thought. And he did as he said. In the first place, when Pompeius was proposing laws with new penalties and severe proceedings against those who had already bribed the people, Cato advised him not to care about the past, but to attend to the future, for he said, it was not easy to determine at what point the inquiry into past offences should stop, and if penalties be imposed after the offences, those would be hardly dealt with who were punished by a law which they were not breaking at the time of their wrong-doing. In the next place, when many men of rank were under trial, some of whom were friends and relations of Pompeius, Cato observing that Pompeius was giving way to the greater part of them and yielding, rebuked him firmly and roused him up. Though Pompeius himself had caused a law to be passed which did not allow the panegyrics which used to be pronounced on those who were under [Pg 551]trial, he wrote a panegyric on Munatius Plancus80 on the occasion of his trial and handed it in, but Cato by stopping his ears with his hands, for he happened to be one of the judices, prevented the testimonial from being read. Plancus challenged Cato as one of the judices after the speeches, but nevertheless he was convicted. And altogether Cato was a kind of thing difficult and unmanageable for persons accused, as they were neither willing to have him to be a judex, nor could they venture to challenge him. For not a few were convicted because, by being unwilling to have Cato for one of their judices, they were considered to show that they had no confidence in the justice of their cause; and their revilers even charged it upon some as matter of great reproach that they would not have Cato as one of their judices when he was proposed.

XLIX

Now when Cæsar, though he kept close to his armies in Gaul and stuck to arms, was still employing gifts and money and friends to secure his power in the city, Cato’s admonitions roused Pompeius from his former long continued state of incredulity, and he began to be afraid of the danger; but as he was somewhat hesitating and spiritlessly procrastinating all attempts at prevention, Cato resolved to be a candidate for the consulship with the view of either forthwith wresting Cæsar’s arms from him or demonstrating his designs. But the rival candidates were both popular men: and Sulpicius81 had already derived much advantage from Cato’s reputation in the state and his influence. He therefore seemed to be doing what was neither just nor grateful, but yet Cato found no fault with him. “What is it strange,” said [Pg 552]he, “if a man does not give up to another the thing which he thinks to be the greatest of goods?” But Cato by persuading the Senate to pass a Consultum that those who were candidates for the office should canvass the people themselves, and should not solicit through any other person, not even by such person going about to see the citizens on their behalf, still more irritated the citizens, in that by depriving them not only of the opportunity of receiving money, but even of conferring a favour, he rendered the people at once poor and dishonoured. In addition to this, as Cato had neither any persuasive manners in canvassing for himself, but wished to maintain the dignity of his life in his character rather than to add to it that of the consulship by shaking hands with the electors, and as he would not allow his friends to do the things by which the mass are taken and gained over, he lost the office.

L

Though the matter caused not only to those who failed, but to their friends and kin a certain degree of shame and depression and sorrow for many days, Cato bore what had happened with so little concern, that after anointing himself in the Campus he exercised at ball, and again after dinner, according to his wont, he went down into the Forum without his shoes and tunic, and walked about with his intimates. But Cicero blames him, that when the times required such a magistrate, he used no exertion nor tried to gain the favour of the people by friendly intercourse with them, but for the future ceased to make any effort and gave up the contest, though he was again a candidate for the prætorship. Cato, however, said, that he lost the prætorship not by the real will of the majority, but because they were forced or corrupted; whereas in the voting for the consulship, in which there was no foul play, he further perceived that he had displeased the people by his manners, which it was not the part of a man of sense to change in order to please others, nor, if he still kept to the like manners, to subject himself to the like treatment.

LI

When Cæsar had attacked warlike nations and had conquered them with great hazard, and when it was the opinion that he had fallen upon the Germans even after a [Pg 553]truce had been made, and had destroyed three hundred thousand82 of them, the rest indeed were promising to the people to offer sacrifices for the victory, but Cato urged that they should give up Cæsar to those who had been wronged, and should not turn the guilt upon themselves nor allow it to fall on the state. “However,” said he, “let us still sacrifice to the gods, that they do not turn their vengeance for the madness and desperation of the commander upon the soldiers, and that they spare the city.” Upon this Cæsar wrote and sent a letter to the Senate; and when the letter had been read, which contained much abuse of Cato and many charges against him, Cato got up, and not under the influence of passion or personal animosity, but as if it were on good consideration and due preparation, showed that the charges against him were in the nature of abuse and insult, and were pure trifling and mockery on Cæsar’s part. Then taking hold of all Cæsar’s measures from the first, and unveiling all his plans, not as if he were an enemy, but a fellow conspirator and participator, he proved to them that they had no reason to fear the sons of the Britons nor yet the Celts, but Cæsar himself, if they were prudent; and he so worked on and excited them that the friends of Cæsar repented of having read the letter in the Senate, and so given Cato an opportunity of making a fair statement and true charges. Nothing, however, was done, but it was merely said that it would be well for a successor to Cæsar to be appointed. But when Cæsar’s friends required that Pompeius also should lay down his arms and give up his provinces, or that Cæsar should not, Cato cried out, that now what he foretold them had come to pass, and that the man was having recourse to force and was openly employing the power which he had got by deceiving and gulling the state; yet Cato could do nothing out of doors, because the people all along wished Cæsar to have the chief power, and he found the Senate ready to assent to his measures, but afraid of the people.

LII

[Pg 554]But when Ariminum83 was captured, and news came that Cæsar with his army was advancing against the city, then indeed all men turned their eyes on Cato, both the people and Pompeius, as the only man who from the first had foreseen and who had first clearly shown the designs of Cæsar. Accordingly Cato said, “Men, if any among you had listened to what I had all along been foretelling and advising, you would neither have to fear a single man now, nor would you have to rest all your hopes on a single man.” Upon Pompeius saying that Cato had indeed spoken more like a prophet, but that he had acted more like a friend, Cato advised the Senate to place affairs in the hands of Pompeius alone, for it was the business of those who caused great evils to put an end to them. Now as Pompeius had not a force in readiness, and he saw that the troops which he was then levying had no zeal, he left Rome. Cato having determined to follow Pompeius in his flight, sent his younger son into the country of the Bruttii84 to Munatius for safe keeping, but the elder he took with him. And as his household and daughters required some one to look after them, he took again Marcia, who was now a widow with a large estate, for Hortensius at his death had made her his heir. It was with reference to this that Cæsar85 vented most abuse on Cato, and charged him with covetousness and making a traffic of his marriage; for why should he give up his wife, said Cæsar, if he still wanted one, or why should he take her back, if he did not want [Pg 555]one? if it was not that from the first86 the woman was put as a bait in the way of Hortensius, and Cato gave her up when she was young that he might have her back when she was rich. Now, in reply to these charges, this from Euripides suffices:—

“First then what can’t be said, for of this kind

I deem thy so call’d cowardice, O Hercules.”

For to accuse Cato of filthy lucre is like upbraiding Hercules with cowardice. But whether the matter of the marriage was not well in other respects is a thing for inquiry. However, Cato did espouse Marcia, and intrusting to her his family and daughters, hurried after Pompeius.

LIII

From that day it is said that Cato never cut the hair of his head or beard, nor put on a chaplet, but maintained till his death the same outward signs of sorrow and depression of spirits and grief over the misfortunes of his country, just the same when his party was victorious and when it was vanquished. At that time having got by lot Sicily as his province, he crossed over to Syracuse, and on hearing that Asinius Pollio87 had arrived from the enemy with a large force at Messene, he sent to him to demand the reason of his coming. But Cato in turn being asked for the reason of the change in affairs, and having heard that Pompeius had completely deserted Italy and was encamped in Dyrrachium, he said that there was great perplexity and uncertainty in matters appertaining to the gods. Pompeius, who had always been invincible while he was doing what was not honest or just, now when he wished to save his country and fight in defence of liberty, was deserted by his good fortune. As to Asinius, he said that he was able to drive him out of Sicily, but as another greater force was coming against him, he did not choose to ruin the island by a war; and after advising the Syracusans to join the victorious party and to take care of themselves, he sailed away. When he came to Pompeius, he kept steadily to [Pg 556]one opinion, to prolong the war, for he expected some terms of reconciliation and did not wish that the state should be worsted in a battle and suffer from itself the extreme of sufferings by having its fate determined by the sword. And he persuaded Pompeius and his council to other determinations akin to these, neither to plunder any city that was subject to the Romans, nor to put to death any Roman except on the field of battle; and he gained good opinion and brought over many to the side of Pompeius, who were pleased with his moderation and mildness.

LIV

Being sent to Asia to help those there who were collecting vessels and an army, he took with him his sister Servilia and her young child by Lucullus. For Servilia, who was now a widow, followed Cato, and she removed much of the evil report about her licentious conduct by voluntarily subjecting herself to the guardianship of Cato and his wanderings and mode of life. But Cæsar88 did not spare his abuse of Cato even with respect to Servilia. However as it seems the generals of Pompeius did not want the assistance of Cato at all; and after persuading the Rhodians to join the side of Pompeius and leaving Servilia and the child there, he returned to Pompeius, who had already a splendid military force and a naval power with him. Here indeed Pompeius appeared most clearly to show his mind; for at first he intended to give to Cato the command of the ships, and the fighting vessels were not fewer than five hundred, and the Liburnian and spy ships and open boats were very numerous: but having soon perceived, or it having been hinted to him by his friends, that it was the one chief thing in all the policy of Cato to liberate his country, and that if he should have the command of so great a force, the very day on which they should defeat Cæsar, Cato would require Pompeius also to lay down his arms and to follow the laws, he changed his mind though he had already spoken with him, and he appointed Bibulus commander of the ships. Yet he found not Cato’s zeal dulled by this; [Pg 557]for it is told that when Pompeius was urging his troops to a battle before Dyrrachium and bidding each of the commanders say something and to encourage the men, the soldiers heard them with listlessness and silence; but when Cato, after the rest, had gone through all the topics derived from philosophy that were suitable to the occasion to be said about liberty and virtue, and death and good fame, with great emotion on his part, and finally addressed himself to invoke the gods as being there present and watching over the struggle on behalf of their country, there was so loud an acclamation and so great a movement in the whole army thus excited, that all the commanders hastened to the contest full of hopes. The soldiers of Pompeius routed and defeated the enemy, but the dæmon of Cæsar prevented the completion of the victory by taking advantage of the caution of Pompeius and his want of confidence in his success. Now this is told in the Life of Pompeius.89 But while all were rejoicing and magnifying the victory, Cato wept for his country and bewailed the love of power that brought destruction and misfortune with it, when he saw that many brave citizens had fallen by the hands of one another.

LV

When Pompeius in order to pursue Cæsar broke up his camp to march into Thessaly, he left at Dyrrachium a great quantity of arms and stores, and many kinsmen and friends, and he appointed Cato commander and guardian over all with fifteen cohorts, both because he trusted and feared the man. For if he were defeated, he considered that Cato would be his surest support; but that if he were victorious, Cato would not, if he were present, let him manage matters as he chose. Many men of rank also were left behind in Dyrrachium with Cato. When the defeat at Pharsalus took place, Cato resolved that if Pompeius were dead, he would take over to Italy those who were with him, and himself would live an exile as far from the tyranny as possible; but if Pompeius were alive, that he would by all means keep together the force for him. Accordingly having crossed over to Cercyra, where the navy was, he proposed to give up the command to Cicero, who was a consular, while he was only of prætorian rank; [Pg 558]but when Cicero would not accept the command and set off for Italy, Cato observing that Pompeius90 through his stubborn self-will and unreasonable temper was desirous of punishing those who were sailing away, privately admonished and pacified him, by which Cato manifestly saved Cicero from death and secured the safety of the rest.

LVI

Conjecturing that Pompeius Magnus would make his escape to Egypt or to Libya, and being in haste to join him, Cato with all whom he had about him weighed anchor and set sail after permitting all those to go away or stay behind who were not ready to accompany him. He reached Libya, and coasting along he fell in with Sextus,91 the younger son of Pompeius, who reported to him his father’s death in Egypt. Now they were all much troubled, and no one after the death of Pompeius would obey any other commander while Cato was present. Wherefore Cato, out of respect to those who were with him, and because he had not heart to desert and leave in difficulties the brave men who had given proof of their fidelity, undertook the command and went along the coast till he came to Cyrene; for the people received him though a few days before they had shut out Labienus. Upon hearing that Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompeius, had been well received by King Juba, and that Varus Attius, who had been appointed governor of Libya by Pompeius, was with them with a force, he set out by land in the winter season, having got together a number of asses to carry water, and driving along with him a quantity of cattle, and also taking chariots and the people called Psylli,92 who cure the bites of serpents by sucking out the [Pg 559]poison with their mouths, and deaden and soothe the serpents themselves by charming them with music. Though the march was seven days in succession, Cato led at the head of his men without using horse or beast of burden. And he continued to sup in a sitting posture from the day that he heard of the defeat at Pharsalus, and he added this further sign of his sorrow, never to lie down except when he was sleeping. Having spent the winter in Libya93 he led forth his army; and the men were near ten thousand.

LVII

Matters were in bad plight between Scipio and Varus, for in consequence of their disagreement and disunion they were secretly trying to win the favour of Juba,94 who was intolerable for the arrogance of his temper and his haughtiness by reason of his wealth and power. When he was going to have his first interview with Cato, Juba placed his seat between the seats of Scipio and Cato. However, when Cato observed it, he took up his seat and moved it to the other side so as to leave Scipio in the middle, though Scipio was his enemy, and had published a certain writing which contained abuse of Cato. This, indeed, people make no account of; but they blame Cato that in Sicily he placed Philostratus95 [Pg 560]in the middle, as he was walking about with him, to do honour to philosophy. On this occasion, however, he checked Juba, who had all but made Scipio and Varus his satraps, and he reconciled them. Though all invited Cato to the command, and Scipio and Varus were the first to surrender and give it up to him, he said that he would not break the laws in defence of which they were fighting against him who broke them, nor would he place himself, who was a proprætor, before a proconsul who was present. For Scipio had been appointed proconsul, and the majority, on account of the name, had confidence that they should be successful, if a Scipio commanded in Libya.

LVIII

However when Scipio96 immediately on receiving the command, wished to please Juba by putting to death all the people of Utica who were capable of bearing arms, and to dig down the city, because it favoured Cæsar, Cato would not endure this, but with adjurations and loud cries in the council and by appealing to the gods he with difficulty rescued the people from their cruelty; and partly at the request of the citizens of Utica97 and partly at the instance of Scipio, he undertook to keep guard in the city, that it should not either involuntarily or voluntarily join Cæsar. For the place was in all respects advantageous, and defensible by those who held it; and it was strengthened still more by Cato. For he brought abundance of corn into the city, and he strengthened the walls by raising towers, and making strong ditches and palisado-work in front of the city. To the people of Utica who were able to bear arms he assigned the palisado-work as their quarter, and made them give up their arms to him; but he kept the rest in the city, and took great care that they should not be wronged and should suffer no harm from the Romans. He also sent [Pg 561]out a great quantity of arms, supplies and grain to those in camp, and altogether he made the city the storehouse for the war. But the advice which he gave Pompeius before, and gave Scipio then, not to fight with a man of a warlike turn and great ability, but to take advantage of time which wastes all the vigour wherein the strength of tyranny lies, Scipio through self-will despised; and on one occasion he wrote to Cato upbraiding him with cowardice, in that he was not content to sit down within a city and walls, but would not even let others boldly use their own judgment as opportunity offered. To this Cato replied, that he was ready to take the legionary soldiers and horsemen whom he had brought into Libya, and carry them over to Italy, and so make Cæsar change his place and to turn him from them to himself. And when Scipio mocked at this also, it was clear that Cato was much annoyed that he had declined the command, for he saw that Scipio would neither conduct the war well, nor, if he should succeed contrary to expectation, would he behave with moderation to the citizens in his victory. Accordingly Cato formed the opinion and mentioned it to some of his friends, that he had no good hopes of the war on account of the inexperience and confidence of the commanders, but if there should be any good fortune, and Cæsar should be worsted, he would not stay in Rome, and would fly from the harshness and cruelty of Scipio, who was even then uttering dreadful and extravagant threats against many. But it turned out worse than he expected; and late in the evening there arrived a messenger from the camp who had been three days on the road, with the news that a great battle had been fought at Thapsus98 in which their affairs were entirely ruined, that Cæsar was in possession of the camps, Scipio and Juba had escaped with a few men, and the rest of the army was destroyed.

LIX

On the arrival of this intelligence, the city, as was natural on the receipt of such news by night and in time of war, nearly lost its reason, and hardly contained itself within the walls; but Cato coming forward, when[Pg 562]ever he met with any one running about and calling out, laid hold of him, and cheering him took away the excessive fright and confusion of his alarm, by saying that matters perchance were not so bad as they had been reported, but were magnified by rumour; and so he stayed the tumult. At daybreak he made proclamation that the three hundred, whom he had as a Senate, and these were Romans, and were carrying on business in Libya as merchants and money-lenders, should assemble at the temple of Jupiter, and also all the Roman senators who were present and their sons. While they were still assembling, Cato advanced, without hurry and with a tranquil countenance, as if nothing new had happened, holding a book in his hand, which he was reading; and this was a register of the military engines, arms, corn, bows, and legionary soldiers. When they had come together, beginning with the three hundred, and commending at some length the zeal and fidelity which they had displayed in aiding with their means and persons and advice, he exhorted them not to let their hopes be destroyed, and not severally to provide for their flight or escape. For, he said, that if they would keep together, Cæsar would despise them less if they made resistance, and would spare them more if they asked his mercy. And he urged them to deliberate about themselves, and that he would not find fault with their deciding either way, and if they should be disposed to turn to the fortunate side, he should attribute the change to necessity; but if they preferred to oppose the danger and to undertake the hazard in defence of liberty, he should not only commend them, but admire their virtue, and make himself their commander and fellow-combatant, till they had tried the last fortune of their country, which was not Utica or Adrumetum only, but Rome, that had often by her might recovered from greater falls. And they had many grounds for safety and security; and chief of all, that they were warring against a man who was pulled in many directions by the circumstances of the times, for Iberia had gone over to Pompeius the young, and Rome herself had not yet altogether received the bit for want of being used to it, but was impatient of suffering and ready to rise up collected upon every change, and [Pg 563]danger was not a thing to fly from, but they should take as a pattern the enemy, who was not sparing of his life for accomplishing the greatest wrongs, and for whom the uncertainty of the war had not the same result as for them, to whom it would bring the happiest life, if they were successful, and the most glorious death if they failed. However, he said they ought to deliberate by themselves, and he joined them in praying that in consideration of their former virtue and zeal what they resolved might be for the best.

LX

When Cato had spoken to this effect, some of them indeed were brought to confidence by his words; but the greater part seeing his fearlessness and noble and generous temper, nearly forgot present circumstances, and considering him alone as an invincible leader and superior to all fortune, prayed him to use their persons and property and arms as he judged best, for they said it was better to die in obedience to him than to save their lives by betraying such virtue. On a certain person observing that they should declare freedom to the slaves, and most of them assenting to this, Cato said he would not do so, for it was not lawful nor yet right; but if the masters were ready to give up their slaves, they should receive those who were of military age. Many offers were made, and Cato, after telling them to enrol every man who was willing, retired. Shortly after there came to him letters from Juba and Scipio; from Juba, who was hid in a mountain with a few men, asking him what he had resolved to do; and that if Cato left Utica he would wait for him, and if he stood a siege he would come to aid him with an army; from Scipio, who was in a vessel off a certain point not far from Utica, and waiting with the same views.

LXI

Accordingly Cato determined to detain the letter-carriers till he had confirmed the resolution of the three hundred. For the senators were zealous, and immediately manumitted their slaves, and set about arming them. But with respect to the three hundred, inasmuch as they were men engaged in maritime affairs and money lending, and had the chief part of their substance in slaves, the words of Cato stood no long time in them, but oozed out, just as [Pg 564]bodies which have a great degree of rarity easily receive heat and again part with it, being cooled when the fire is removed; in like manner Cato, while they saw him, fanned the flame and warmed those men; but when they began to reflect by themselves, the fear of Cæsar drove out of them all regard to Cato and to honour. “Who are we,” said they, “and who is the man whose commands we are refusing to obey? Is not this Cæsar, to whom the whole power of the Romans has been transferred? and not one of us is a Scipio, nor a Pompeius, nor a Cato. But at a time when all men by reason of fear are humbled in mind more than is fitting, at such a time shall we fight in defence of the liberty of the Romans, and contend in Utica against a man before whom Cato with Pompeius Magnus fled and gave up Italy; and shall we manumit our slaves to oppose Cæsar, we who have only as much freedom as he shall choose to give? No, even yet, miserable wretches, let us know our own weakness, and deprecate the conqueror, and send persons to supplicate him.” This was what the most moderate among the three hundred recommended; but the majority were forming a design on the senatorial class, with the hope that, if they seized them, they would pacify Cæsar’s rage against themselves.

LXII

Though Cato suspected the change, he took no notice of it. However he wrote to Scipio and Juba to tell them to keep away from Utica, because he distrusted the three hundred, and he sent off the letter-carriers. But the horsemen who had escaped from the battle, no contemptible number, riding up to Utica, sent to Cato three men, who did not bring the same message from all; for one party was bent on going to Juba, another wished to join Cato, and a third was afraid of entering Utica. Cato on hearing this ordered Marcus Rubrius to observe the three hundred and quietly to receive the registrations of those who manumitted their slaves without forcing any one; and himself taking the senatorial men went out of Utica, and meeting with the commanders of the cavalry he besought them not to betray so many Roman senators, nor to choose Juba for their commander in place of Cato but to secure their own safety and that of the rest by coming into a city which could not be taken by storm, [Pg 565]and contained both corn and other resources for many years. The senatorial men joined in this prayer and wept; and the commanders conferred with the cavalry, while Cato sat down on a mound with the senatorial men and waited for the answer.

LXIII

In the meantime Rubrius came in a passion, charging the three hundred with great disorder and tumult, inasmuch, as they were falling off and disturbing the city. On which the rest, altogether despairing, fell to weeping and lamentation, but Cato attempted to cheer them, and sent to the three hundred and bade them wait. But the representatives on the part of the horsemen came with no reasonable requisitions: for they said that they neither wanted Juba for their pay-master, nor were they afraid of Cæsar if they had Cato to command them, but it was a dangerous thing to shut themselves up with the citizens of Utica, who were Phœnicians and an inconstant people; and if they should keep quiet now, they would set upon them and betray them, when Cæsar came. If then any man wanted their aid in war and their presence, he must eject or kill all the people of Utica, and then invite them into a city free from enemies and barbarians. Cato considered this to be an excessively savage and barbarous proposal, but he answered mildly and said that he would consult with the three hundred. When he had returned into the city he found the men no longer making pretexts or evasions out of respect to him, but openly complaining that any one should force them to fight with Cæsar when they were neither able nor willing. Some even whispered with respect to the senatorial men, that they ought to keep them in the city, since Cæsar was near. Cato let this pass as if he did not hear it, and indeed he was somewhat deaf; but when one came up to him and reported that the horsemen were going away, Cato, fearing that the three hundred might do something desperate to the senatorial men, got up with his friends and set out walking; but observing that they had already advanced some distance, he seized a horse and rode to them. The horsemen were glad to see him approach, and received him and urged him to save himself with them. Then it is said that Cato even shed tears, beseeching on behalf of the [Pg 566]senatorial men and holding forth his hands, and turning back the horses of some and laying hold of their arms, until he prevailed on them to abide there for that day at least, and secure the senatorial men in their flight.

LXIV

When Cato arrived with the horsemen, and had posted some at the gates, and had delivered the citadel to others to watch, the three hundred, who were afraid that they should be punished for their change, sent to Cato and prayed him by all means to come to them. But the senatorial men crowding round him would not let him go, and they declared that they would not give up their guardian and saviour to faithless men and traitors. For a most lively perception, as it appears, and affection and admiration of Cato’s virtue had been implanted in all alike who were in Utica, inasmuch as nothing spurious or deceitful was mingled with what he did. And as the man had long resolved to kill himself, he laboured with prodigious toil, and had care and pain on behalf of others, in order that after placing all in safety he might be released from life. For his resolution to die was no secret, though he said nothing. Accordingly he complied with the wish of the three hundred after comforting the senatorial men, and he went alone to the three hundred, who thanked him, and prayed him to employ them and trust them in everything else, and if they are not Catos, and not capable of the lofty mind of Cato, he should have pity on their weakness; and as they had determined to supplicate Cæsar and to send to him, on Cato’s behalf chiefly and for him first of all they would prefer their prayer; and if they could not prevail on Cæsar, neither would they receive the grace if it were offered to themselves, but so long as they breathed would fight for him. In reply to this Cato commended their good intentions, but said that they ought for their own safety’s sake to send quickly, and not to offer any petition on his behalf, for entreaty belonged to the vanquished, and deprecation of vengeance to those who were wrongdoers; that he had not only been unvanquished all through life, but that he was victorious as far as he chose to be, and had the superiority over Cæsar in things honourable and just, and that [Pg 567]Cæsar was the party who was captured and conquered; for what he used to deny that he was doing against his country long ago, he was now convicted of and detected therein.

LXV

Having thus spoken to the three hundred he went away, and hearing that Cæsar at the head of all his army was already on his march, “Ha!” said he, “he considers that he has to deal with men;” and turning to the senators he urged them not to delay, but to make their escape while the horsemen were still staying there. He also closed the gates, except one that led to the sea, where he assigned vessels to those under his command and preserved order by stopping wrong-doing and settling disturbances, and supplying with stores those who were ill provided. And when Marcus Octavius99 with two legions had encamped near, and had sent a message to Cato, in which he called on Cato to come to some terms with him about the command, Cato gave him no answer, but he said to his friends, “Do we wonder why our affairs are ruined, when we see that love of power abides among us even when we are in the midst of ruin?” In the mean time hearing that the horsemen, as they were leaving the city, were pillaging and plundering the people of Utica, as if their property was booty, Cato hurried to them as fast as he could run, and took the plunder from the first that he met with, and the rest made haste to throw it away or set it down on the ground, and all of them for very shame retired in silence and with downcast looks. Cato having called together the people of Utica in the city, entreated them not to irritate Cæsar against the three hundred, but to unite altogether to secure their safety. Then again betaking himself to the sea he inspected the persons who were embarking, and all his friends and acquaintance whom he could persuade to go away, he embraced and accompanied to the shore. But he did not recommend his son to take shipping, nor did he think it his duty to turn him from his purpose of sticking to his father. There was one Statyllius, in years a young man, but one who aimed at being resolute in [Pg 568]character and an imitator of the indifference of Cato. This man Cato entreated to embark, for he was notoriously a hater of Cæsar; and-when he would not go, Cato looking on Apollonides the Stoic and Demetrius the Peripatetic said—“It is your business to soften this stubborn man and to fashion him to his own interests.” But Cato himself was busied all the night and the greatest part of the following day in assisting the rest in making their escape and helping those who wanted his aid.

LXVI

When Lucius Caæsar,100 who was a kinsman of Cæsar, and about to go to him as ambassador on behalf of the three hundred, urged Cato to help him in devising some plausible speech which he should employ on behalf of the three hundred, “for on thy behalf,” he continued, “it is becoming for me to touch the hands and to fall down at the knees of Cæsar,” Cato would not allow him to do this, and said, “For my part, if I wished to save my life by Cæsar’s favour, I ought to go to him myself. But I do not choose to thank a tyrant for his illegal acts; and he acts illegally in sparing as master those whom he has no right to lord it over. However, if you please, let us consider how you shall get pardon for the three hundred.” After talking with Lucius on this matter he presented his son and his friends to him as he was departing, and after accompanying him some distance and taking leave of him he returned home, and then calling together his son and his friends he spoke on many subjects, among which he forbade his son to meddle in political matters, for, he said, circumstances no longer allowed him to act as befitted a Cato, and to act otherwise was base. At evening he went to the bath. While he was bathing, he remembered Statyllius, and calling out aloud he said, “Apollonides, have you sent Statyllius away, and brought him down from his stubborn temper, and has the man [Pg 569]gone without even taking leave of us?” “By no means,” replied Apollonides, “though we said much to him, but he is lofty and immovable and says he will stay and do whatever you do.” On this they say that Cato smiled and replied, “Well, this will soon be shown.”

LXVII

After taking the bath he supped in much company, still sitting as his fashion had been since the battle, for he never reclined except when he was sleeping; and there were at supper with him all his friends and the magistrates of Utica. After supper the drinking went on with much gaiety and enjoyment, one philosophical subject after another taking its turn, till at last the enquiry came round to the so-called paradoxes of the Stoics, that the good man alone is free, and that all the bad are slaves. Hereupon the Peripatetic making objections, as one might expect, Cato broke in with great vehemence, and with a loud tone and harsh voice maintained his discourse at great length, and displayed wonderful energy, so that no one failed to observe that he had resolved to end his life and relieve himself from present troubles. Wherefore as there was silence and depression of spirits among all the company, after he had done speaking, with the view of cheering them up and diverting their suspicions, Cato again begun to put questions and to express anxiety about the state of affairs, and his fears for those who had sailed away, and also for those who were going through a waterless and barbarian desert.

LXVIII

At the end of the entertainment he took his usual walk with his friends after supper, and after giving the officers of the watch the proper orders, he retired to his chamber, but he first embraced his son and his friends with more than his usual expression of kindness, which again made them suspect what was going to happen. On entering his chamber and lying down he took Plato’s dialogue on the Soul,101 and when he had gone through the greater part of it, he looked up over his head, and not seeing his sword hanging there, for his son had caused it [Pg 570]to be taken away while he was at supper, he called a slave and asked who had taken his sword. The slave made no answer and Cato was again at the book, but after a short interval, as if he were in no haste or hurry, and was merely looking for his sword, he bade the slave bring it. As there was some delay and nobody brought it, after having read the dialogue through he again called his slaves one by one, and raising his voice demanded his sword; and striking the mouth of one of them with his fist he bruised his hand, being in a great passion and calling out aloud that he was surrendered defenceless to the enemy by his son and his slaves, till at last his son ran in weeping with his friends, and embracing him fell to lamentations and entreaties. But Cato rising up looked sternly and said, “When and where have I been proved, and without knowing it, to have lost my reason, that no one instructs me or teaches me in the matters wherein I am judged to have determined ill, but I am hindered from using my own reasonings and am deprived of my weapons? Why don’t you put your father in chains also, generous son, and his hands behind his back, till Cæsar shall come and find me unable even to defend myself? For I need not a sword to kill myself, when it is in my power to die by holding my breath for a short time and giving my head a single blow against the wall.”

LXIX

As he said this the youth went out weeping, and all the rest, except Demetrius and Apollonides, to whom when they were left by themselves Cato begun to speak in milder terms, and said, “I suppose you too have resolved by force to keep alive a man of my age and to sit here in silence and to watch him, or are you come to prove that it is neither a shocking nor a shameful thing for Cato, when he has no other way to save his life, to wait for mercy from his enemy? Why then do you not speak and convince me of this and teach me a new doctrine, that we may cast away those former opinions and reasons in which we lived together, and being made wiser through Cæsar owe him the greater thanks for it? And yet for my part I have come to no resolve about myself, but it is necessary that when I have resolved I have power to do what I have determined. And I will deliberate in a manner together [Pg 571]with you, deliberating with the reasons which even you in your philosophy follow. Go away then in good heart and tell my son not to force his father when he cannot persuade him.”

LXX

Upon this Demetrius and Apollonides without making any reply retired weeping. The sword was sent in by a child, and when Cato received it he drew it and looked at it. Seeing that the point was entire and the edge preserved, he said, “Now I am my own master,” and laying the sword down, he began reading the book again, and he is said to have read it through twice.102 He then fell into so sound a sleep that those who were outside the chamber were aware of it, and about midnight he called his freedmen Cleanthes the physician and Butas whom he employed chief of all in public matters. He sent Butas to the sea to examine if all had set sail and to report to him, and he presented his hand to the physician to tie it up, as it was inflamed from the blow which he gave the slave. And this made them all more cheerful, for they thought that Cato was inclined to live. In a little time Butas came and reported that all had set sail except Crassus,103 who was detained by some business, and that even he was now all but on board, and that a violent storm and wind prevailed at sea. Cato hearing this groaned for pity of those who were at sea and he sent Butas again to the sea, to learn if any one were driven [Pg 572]back and waited any necessaries, and to let him know. And now the birds were beginning to sing,104 and he sank asleep again for a while. When Butas had returned and reported that all was quiet about the ports, Cato, bidding him close the door, threw himself on the bed as if he were going to sleep for the rest of the night. When Butas had gone out, he drew the sword and thrust it beneath his chest, but as he used his hand with less effect owing to the inflammation, he did not immediately despatch himself, and having some difficulty in dying he fell from the bed and made a noise by overturning a little abacus of the geometrical kind that stood by, which his attendants perceiving called out and his son and his friends immediately ran in. Seeing him smeared with blood and the greater part of his bowels protruding, though he was still alive and his eyes were open, they were all dreadfully alarmed, and the physician going up to him attempted to replace his bowels, which remained uninjured, and to sew up the wound. But when Cato recovered and saw this, he pushed the physician away, and tearing the bowels with his hands and at the same time rending the wound he died.105

LXXI

In a space of time which one would not have thought enough for all in the house to have heard of the event, there were present at the door the three hundred, and soon after the people of Utica were assembled, with [Pg 573]one voice calling Cato benefactor and saviour and the only free man, the only unvanquished. And this they did though it was told that Cæsar was advancing; but neither fear nor subserviency towards the conqueror nor their mutual differences and quarrels dulled them towards doing honour to Cato. They decorated the body in splendid style, and made a pompous procession and interred him near the sea, where a statue of him now stands with a sword in his hand, and then they began to think how they should save themselves and their city.

LXXII

Cæsar hearing from those who came to him that Cato was staying in Utica and not flying away, and that he was sending off the rest, while himself and his companions and his son were fearlessly going about, thought it difficult to ascertain the intentions of the man, but as he made most account of him he advanced with his force by quick marches. When he heard of his death, it is reported that he said this, “Cato, I grudge thee thy death, for thou hast grudged me thy safety.” For in fact if Cato had submitted to receive his life from Cæsar, he would not have been considered to have lowered his own fame so much as to have added to the splendour of Cæsar’s. What would have been done is uncertain, but with respect to Cæsar the milder measures are more probable.

LXXIII

When Cato died he was fifty106 years of age save two. His son107 received no harm from Cæsar, but he is said to have been fond of pleasure and not free from blame with regard to women. In Cappadocia he had as his host Marphadates, one of the royal family, who possessed a handsome wife, and as Cato stayed longer with [Pg 574]them than was decent, he was satirized in such terms as these:

“To-morrow Cato goes away, to-morrow thirty days.”

And:

“Porcius and Marphadates, friends are two, but Psyche one.”

For the wife of Marphadates was named Psyche (Soul). And again:

“Of noble blood and splendid fame, Cato has a royal Soul.”

But he blotted out and destroyed all such ill report by his death; for while fighting at Philippi against Cæsar and Antonius in defence of liberty, and the line was giving way, not deigning either to fly or to secrete himself, but challenging the enemy and showing himself in front of them and cheering on those who kept the ground with him he fell after exhibiting to his adversaries prodigies of valour. And still more, the daughter of Cato being inferior neither in virtue nor courage (for she was the wife of Brutus who killed Cæsar) was both privy to the conspiracy and parted with life in a manner worthy of her noble birth and merit, as is told in the Life of Brutus. Statyllius, who said that he would follow Cato’s example, was prevented indeed at the time by the philosophers, though he wished to kill himself, but afterwards he showed himself most faithful to Brutus and most serviceable at Philippi, and there he died.

LIFE OF
AGIS.

I

Many writers have very naturally conceived that the myth of Ixion, who is fabled to have embraced a cloud instead of Hera, and so to have begotten the centaurs, is really typical of ambitious men; for, although they aim at obtaining glory, and set before themselves a lofty ideal of virtue, yet they never succeed in producing any very distinct result, because all their actions are coloured by various human passions and prejudices, just as the herdsmen with their flocks say in Sophokles’s play:—

“We needs must serve them, though their lords we be,

And to their mute commands obedience pay.”

These verses really represent the state of those who, in order to obtain the empty title of statesmen and popular leaders, govern a country by following the caprices and impulses of the people. Just as the men stationed in the bows of a ship see what is coming before the steersmen, but yet look up to them as their chiefs and execute their orders; so they who govern with a view solely to their own popularity, although they may be called rulers, are, in truth, nothing more than slaves of the people.

II

An absolutely perfect man would not even wish for popularity, except so far as it enabled him to take part in politics, and caused him to be trusted by the people; yet a young and ambitious man must be excused if he feels pride in the glory and reputation which he gains by 2 brilliant exploits. For, as Theophrastus says, the virtue which buds and sprouts in youthful minds is confirmed by praise, and the high spirit thus formed leads it to attempt greater things. On the other hand, an excessive love of praise is dangerous in all cases, but, in statesmen, utterly ruinous; for when it takes hold of men in the possession of great power it drives them to commit acts of sheer madness, because they forget that honourable conduct must increase their popularity, and think that any measure that increases their popularity must necessarily be a good one. We ought to tell the people that they cannot have the same man to lead them and to follow them, just as Phokion is said to have replied to Antipater, when he demanded some disgraceful service from him, “I cannot be Antipater’s friend and his toady at the same time.” One might also quote the fable of the serpent’s tail which murmured against the head and desired sometimes to take the lead, and not always follow the head, but which when allowed to lead the way took the wrong path and caused the head to be miserably crushed, because it allowed itself to be guided by that which could neither see nor hear. This has been the fate of many of those politicians who court the favour of the people; for, after they have once shared their blind impulses, they lose the power of checking their folly, and of restoring good discipline and order. These reflections upon the favour of the people occurred to me when I thought of its power, as shown in the case of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, men who were well born, well educated, and began their political career with great promise, and yet were ruined, not so much by an excessive craving for popular applause as by a very pardonable fear of disgrace. They both received at the outset great proofs of their countrymen’s goodwill, but felt ashamed to remain as it were in their debt, and they ever strove to wipe out their obligations to the people by legislation on their behalf, and by their beneficent measures continually increased their popularity, until, in the heat of the rivalry thus created, they found themselves pledged to a line of policy in which they could not even pause with honour, and which they could not desist from without disgrace. The reader, however, will be able to form his own opinion 3 about them from their history, and I shall now write, as a parallel to them, the lives of that pair of Laconian reformers, Agis and Kleomenes, kings of Sparta, who, like the Gracchi, increased the power of the people, and endeavoured to restore an admirable and just constitution which had fallen into desuetude; but who, like them, incurred the hatred of the governing class, who were unwilling to relinquish their encroachments and privileges. These Lacedæmonians were not indeed brothers, yet they pursued a kindred policy, with the same objects in view.

III

After the desire for silver and gold had penetrated into Sparta, the acquisition of wealth produced greed and meanness, while the use and enjoyment of riches was followed by luxury, effeminacy, and extravagance. Thus it fell out that Sparta lost her high and honoured position in Greece, and remained in obscurity and disgrace until the reign of Agis and Leonidas. Agis was of the Eurypontid line, the son of Eudamidas, and the sixth in descent from king Agesilaus, who invaded Asia, and became the most powerful man in Greece. This Agesilaus had a son named Archidamus, who fell in battle against the Messapians at the battle of Mandurium1 in Italy. He was succeeded by his eldest son Agis, who, being killed by Antipater near Megalopolis, and leaving no issue, was succeeded by his brother, Eudamidas; he, by a son named Archidamus; and Archidamus by another Eudamidas, the father of Agis, the subject of this memoir.

Leonidas, the son of Kleonymus, was of the other royal family, that of the Agiadæ, and was eighth in descent from Pausanias who conquered Mardonius at the battle of Plataea. Pausanias had a son named Pleistoanax, whose 4 son was again named Pausanias. This Pausanias2 fled for his life from Sparta to Tegea, and was succeeded by his eldest son Agesipolis; and he, dying childless, by his younger brother Kleombrotus. Kleombrotus left two sons, Agesipolis and Kleomenes, of whom Agesipolis reigned but a short time, and left no children. Kleomenes succeeded his brother Agesipolis on the throne. Of his two sons, the elder, Akrotatus, died during his father’s lifetime, and the younger, Kleonymus, never reigned, as the throne was occupied by Areus3 the grandson of Kleomenes, and the son of Akrotatus. Areus perished in battle before Corinth, and was succeeded by his son Akrotatus. This Akrotatus was defeated and slain near the city of Megalopolis by the despot Aristodemus, leaving his wife pregnant. When she bore a son, Leonidas the son of Kleonymus was appointed his guardian, and, as the child died before reaching manhood, he succeeded to the throne although he was far from being an acceptable personage to his countrymen; for, though the Spartans at this period had all abandoned their original severe simplicity of living, yet they found the manners of Leonidas in offensive contrast to their own. Indeed, Leonidas, who had spent much of his life at the courts of Asiatic potentates, and had been especially attached to that of Seleukus, seemed inclined to outrage the political feeling of the Greeks by introducing the arrogant tone of an Oriental despot into the constitutional monarchy of Sparta.

IV

On the other hand, the goodness of heart and intellectual power of Agis proved so greatly superior not only to that of Leonidas, but of every king since Agesilaus the Great, that before he arrived at his twentieth year, in spite of his having been brought up in the greatest luxury by his mother Agesistrata and his grandmother Archidamia, the two richest women in Sparta, he abjured all frivolous indulgence, laid aside all personal ornament, avoided extravagance of every kind, prided himself on practising the old Laconian habits of dress, food, and bathing, and was wont to say that he would not care to 5 be king unless he could use his position to restore the ancient customs and discipline of his country.

V

The corruption of the Lacedæmonians began at the time when, after having overthrown the Athenian empire, they were able to satiate themselves with the possession of gold and silver. Nevertheless, as the number of houses instituted by Lykurgus was still maintained, and each father still transmitted his estate to his son, the original equal division of property continued to exist and preserved the state from disorder. But a certain powerful and self-willed man, named Epitadeus, who was one of the Ephors, having quarrelled with his son, proposed a rhetra permitting a man to give his house and land to whomsoever he pleased, either during his life, or by his will after his death. This man proposed the law in order to gratify his own private grudge; but the other Spartans through covetousness eagerly confirmed it, and ruined the admirable constitution of Lykurgus. They now began to acquire land without limit, as the powerful men kept their relatives out of their rightful inheritance; and as the wealth of the country soon got into the hands of a few, the city became impoverished, and the rich began to be viewed with dislike and hatred. There were left at that time no more than seven hundred Spartans, and of these about one hundred possessed an inheritance in land, while the rest, without money, and excluded from all the privileges of citizenship, fought in a languid and spiritless fashion in the wars, and were ever on the watch for some opportunity to subvert the existing condition of affairs at home.

VI

Agis, therefore, thinking that it would be an honourable enterprise, as indeed it was, to restore these citizens to the state and to re-establish equality for all, began to sound the people themselves as to their opinion about such a measure. The younger men quickly rallied round him, and, with an enthusiasm which he had hardly counted upon, began to make ready for the contest; but most of the elder men, who had become more thoroughly tainted by the prevailing corruption, feared to be brought back to the discipline of Lykurgus as much as a runaway slave fears to be brought back to his master, and they 6 bitterly reviled Agis when he lamented over the condition of affairs and sighed for the ancient glories of Sparta. His enthusiastic aspirations, however, were sympathised with by Lysander the son of Libys, Mandrokleidas the son of Ekphanes, and Agesilaus. Lysander was the most influential of all the Spartans, while Mandrokleidas was thought to be the ablest politician in Greece, as he could both plot with subtlety and execute with boldness. Agesilaus was the uncle of King Agis and a fluent speaker, but of a weak and covetous disposition. It was commonly supposed that he was stirred to action by the influence of his son Hippomedon, who had gained great glory in the wars and was exceedingly popular among the younger citizens; but what really determined him to join the reformers was the amount of his debts, which he hoped would be wiped out by a revolution. As soon as Agis had won over this important adherent, he began to try to bring over his mother to his views, who was Agesilaus’s sister, and who, from the number of her friends, debtors, and dependants, was very powerful in the state, and took a large share in the management of public affairs.

VII

When she first heard of Agis’s designs she was much startled, and dissuaded the youth from an enterprise which she thought neither practicable nor desirable. However, when Agesilaus pointed out to her what a notable design it was, and how greatly to the advantage of all, while the young king himself besought his mother to part with her wealth in order to gain him glory, arguing that he could not vie with other kings in riches, as the servants of Persian satraps, and the very slaves of the intendants of Ptolemy and Seleukus possessed more money than all the kings that ever reigned in Sparta; but that, if he could prove himself superior to those vanities by his temperance, simplicity of life, and true greatness of mind, and could succeed in restoring equality among his fellow-countrymen, he would be honoured and renowned as a truly great king. By this means the youth entirely changed his mother’s mind, and so fired her with his own ambition, as if by an inspiration from heaven, that she began to encourage Agis and urge him 7 on, and invited her friends to join them, while she also communicated their design to the other women, because she knew that the Lacedæmonians were in all things ruled by their women, and that they had more power in the state than the men possessed in their private households. Most of the wealth of Lacedæmon had fallen into female hands at this time, and this fact proved a great hindrance to the accomplishment of Agis’s schemes of reform; for the women offered a vehement opposition to him, not merely through a vulgar love for their idolised luxury, but also because they saw that they would lose all the influence and power which they derived from their wealth. They betook themselves to Leonidas, and besought him, as being the elder man, to restrain Agis, and check the development of his designs. Leonidas was willing enough to assist the richer class, but he feared the people, who were eager for reform, and would not openly oppose Agis, although he endeavoured secretly to ruin his scheme, and to prejudice the Ephors against him, by imputing to him the design of hiring the poor to make him despot with the plunder of the rich, and insinuating that by his redistribution of lands and remission of debts he meant to obtain more adherents for himself instead of more citizens for Sparta.

VIII

In spite of all this, Agis contrived to get Lysander appointed one of the Ephors, and immediately brought him to propose a rhetra before the Gerusia, or Senate, the main points of which were that all debts should be cancelled; that the land4 should be divided, that between the valley of Pellene and Mount Taygetus, Malea, and Sellasia into four thousand five hundred lots, and the outlying districts into fifteen thousand: that the latter district should be distributed among the Periœki of military age, and the former among the pure Spartans: that the number of these should be made up by an extension of the franchise to Periœki or even foreigners of free birth, liberal education, and fitting personal qualifications: and that these citizens should be divided into fifteen companies some of four hundred, and some of two hundred, for the public meals, and should conform in every respect to the discipline of their forefathers.

8

IX

When, this rhetra was proposed, as the Senate could not agree whether it should become law, Lysander convoked a popular assembly and himself addressed the people. Mandrokleidas and Agesilaus also besought them not to allow a few selfish voluptuaries to destroy the glorious name of Sparta, but to remember the ancient oracles, warning them against the sin of covetousness, which would prove the ruin of Sparta, and also of the responses which they had recently received from the oracle of Pasiphae. The temple and oracle of Pasiphae at Thalamae was of peculiar sanctity. Pasiphae is said by some writers to have been one of the daughters of Atlas, and to have become the mother of Ammon by Zeus, while others say that Kassandra the daughter of Priam died there, and was called Pasiphae because her prophecies were plain to all men. Phylarchus again tells us that Daphne the daughter of Amyklas, while endeavouring to escape from the violence of Apollo, was transformed into the laurel,5 which bears her name, and was honoured by the god and endowed by him with the gift of prophecy. Be this as it may, the oracular responses which were brought from this shrine bade the Spartans all become equal according as Lykurgus had originally ordained. After these speeches had been delivered, King Agis himself came forward, and, after a few introductory words, said that he was giving the strongest possible pledges of his loyalty to the new constitution; for he declared his intention of surrendering to the state, before any one else, his own property, consisting of a vast extent of land, both arable and pasture, besides six thousand talents of money; and he assured the people that his mother and her friends, the richest people in Sparta, would do the same.

X

The people were astounded at the magnanimity of the youth, and were filled with joy, thinking that at last, after an interval of three hundred years, there had appeared a king worthy of Sparta. Leonidas, on the other hand, opposed him as vigorously as he could, reflecting that he would be forced to follow his example, and divest himself of all his property, and that Agis, not he, would get the credit of the act. He therefore inquired of Agis whether 9 he thought Lykurgus to have been a just and well-meaning man. Receiving an affirmative reply, he again demanded, “Where, then, do we find that Lykurgus approved of the cancelling of debts, or of the admission of foreigners to the franchise, seeing that he did not think that the state could prosper without a periodical expulsion of foreigners?” To this Agis answered, that it was not to be wondered at if Leonidas, who had lived in a foreign country, and had a family by the daughter of a Persian satrap, should be ignorant that Lykurgus, together with coined money, had banished borrowing and lending from Sparta, and that he had no hatred for foreigners, but only for those whose profession and mode of life made them unfit to associate with his countrymen. These men Lykurgus expelled, not from any hatred of their persons, but because he feared that their manners and habits would infect the citizens with a love of luxury, effeminacy, and avarice. Terpander, Thales, and Pherekydes were all foreigners, but, since they sang and taught what Lykurgus approved, they lived in Sparta, and were treated with especial honour. “Do you,” asked he, “praise Ekprepus, who when Ephor cut off with a hatchet the two additional strings which Phrynis the musician had added to the original seven strings of the lyre, and those who cut the same strings off the harp of Timotheus, and yet do you blame us when we are endeavouring to get rid of luxury, extravagance, and frivolity, just as if those great men did not merely mean thereby to guard against vain refinements of music, which would lead to the introduction of extravagant and licentious manners, and cause the city to be at discord and variance with itself?”

XI

After this the people espoused the cause of Agis, while the rich begged Leonidas not to desert them, and by their entreaties prevailed upon the senators, who had the power of originating all laws, to throw out the rhetra by a majority of only one vote. Lysander, who was still one of the Ephors, now proceeded to attack Leonidas, by means of a certain ancient law, which forbade any descendant of Herakles to beget children by a foreign wife, and which bade the Spartans put to death any citizen who left his country to dwell in a foreign land. He 10 instructed his adherents to revive the memory of this law, and threaten Leonidas with its penalties, while he himself with the other Ephors watched for the sign from heaven. This ceremony is conducted as follows:—Every ninth year the Ephors choose a clear moonless night, and sit in silence watching the heavens. If a star shoots across the sky, they conclude that the kings must have committed some act of impiety, and they suspend them from their office, until they were absolved by a favourable oracle from Delphi or Olympia. Lysander now declared that he had beheld this sign, and impeached Leonidas, bringing forward witnesses to prove that he had two children born to him by an Asiatic wife, the daughter of one of the lieutenants of Seleukus, and that having quarrelled with his wife and become hated by her he had unexpectedly returned home, and in default of a direct heir, had succeeded to the throne. At the same time Lysander urged Kleombrotus, the son-in-law of Leonidas, who was also of the royal family, to claim the throne for himself. Leonidas, terrified at this, took sanctuary in the temple of Athena of the Brazen House, and was joined there by his daughter, who left her husband Kleombrotus. When the trial came on, Leonidas did not appear in court, he was removed from the throne, and Kleombrotus was appointed in his stead.

XII

At this crisis Lysander was forced to lay down his office, as the year for which he had been elected had expired. The Ephors at once took Leonidas under their protection, restored him to the throne, and impeached Lysander, and Mandrokleidas as the authors of illegal measures in the cancelling of debts and the redistribution of the land. As these men were now in danger of their lives, they prevailed upon the two kings to act together and overrule the decision of the Ephors; for this, they declared, was the ancient rule of the constitution, that if the kings were at variance, the Ephors were entitled to support the one whom they judged to be in the right against the other, but their function was merely to act as arbitrators and judges between the kings when they disagreed, and not to interfere with them when they were of one mind. Both the kings agreed to act upon this advice, 11 and came with their friends into the assembly, turned the Ephors out of their chairs of office, and elected others in their room, one of whom was Agesilaus. They now armed many of the younger citizens, released the prisoners, and terrified their opponents by threatening a general massacre. No one, however, was killed by them; for although Agesilaus desired to kill Leonidas, and when he withdrew from Sparta to Tegea, sent men to waylay and murder him on the road, Agis, hearing of his intention, sent others on whom he could rely, who escorted Leonidas safely as far as Tegea.

XIII

Thus far all had gone well, and no one remained to hinder the accomplishment of the reforms; but now Agesilaus alone upset and ruined the whole of this noble and truly Spartan scheme by his detestable vice of covetousness. He possessed a large quantity of the best land in the country, and also owed a great sum of money, and as he desired neither to pay his debts nor to part with his land, he persuaded Agis that it would be too revolutionary a proceeding to carry both measures at once, and that, if the moneyed class were first propitiated by the cancelling of debts, they would afterwards be inclined to submit quietly to the redistribution of lands. Lysander and the rest were deceived by Agesilaus into consenting to this, and they brought all the written securities for money which had been given by debtors, which are called by them klaria, into the market-place, collected them into one heap, and burned them. As the flames rose up, the rich and those who had lent money went away in great distress, but Agesilaus, as if exulting at their misfortune, declared that he had never seen a brighter blaze or a purer fire. As the people at once demanded the division of the land, and called upon the kings to distribute it among them, Agesilaus put them off with various excuses, and managed to spin out the time till Agis was sent out of the country on military service, as the Achæans, who were allies, had demanded a reinforcement from Sparta, because the Ætolians threatened to invade Peloponnesus through the territory of Megara, and Aratus, the general of the Achæans, who was collecting an army to resist them, sent to Sparta demanding assistance.

12

XIV

The Spartans at once despatched Agis at the head of an army, whose high spirits and devotion to his person filled him with delight. The men were nearly all young and poor; and as they were now relieved from the pressure of their debts, and expected that on their return the land would be distributed amongst them, they behaved with the most admirable discipline. They marched through Peloponnesus without doing the least damage, without offending any one, almost without noise; so that all the cities were astonished at the spectacle thus afforded them, and men began to wonder what a Lacedæmonian army must have been like when led by Agesilaus or Lysander the Great, or by the ancient hero Leonidas, if such awe and reverence was paid by the soldiers to one who was nearly the youngest of them all. Their youthful leader himself was worthy of admiration, and was looked up to by the men because of his simple hard-working habits, and the pride which he took in wearing the same dress and using the same arms as the common soldiers. The revolution which he had effected, however, was very distasteful to the rich, who feared lest it might be taken as an example by the people in other states and lead to further disturbances.

XV

Agis joined Aratus at Corinth, while the question of how to repel the invasion was still being debated. His advice was spirited, without being rash or foolhardy. He gave it as his opinion that it was their duty to fight, and not abandon the gate of Peloponnesus and let the enemy into the country, but that he would defer to the decision of Aratus, who was an older man than himself, and was the general of the Achæans, and that he had not come to give them advice or to take the command of them, but to reinforce them and serve as their ally. The historian Baton of Sinope declares that Agis declined to fight although Aratus wished him to do so; but he is mistaken, and clearly has not read the justification which Aratus has written of his conduct, namely, that as the farmers had nearly all finished gathering in their harvest, he thought it better to allow the enemy to enter the country than to hazard everything upon the issue of a single battle. As Aratus decided not to fight, and dismissed his allies with thanks, 13 Agis returned home, greatly honoured by those under his orders, and found the internal affairs of Sparta in great turmoil and confusion.

XVI

Agesilaus, who was now Ephor, and who was no longer restrained by the presence of those of whom he had formerly stood in awe, was using the most disgraceful expedients to extort money from the people, and had even intercalated a thirteenth month in the year, although the state of the calendar did not require it, and caused taxes to be paid for it. As he feared those whom he had wronged, and was an object of universal hatred, he had taken a body-guard of swordsmen into his pay, and walked through the city accompanied by them. As for the kings, he regarded Kleombrotus with contempt, and though he still paid some respect to Agis, he wished it to be thought that he did so because he was nearly related to himself, not because he was king. He also gave out that he intended to remain in office as Ephor for the next year as well. In consequence of this his enemies determined to bring matters to a crisis. They assembled in force, brought back Leonidas publicly from Tegea, and reinstated him as king, to the great joy of most of the citizens, who were angry with the other party because they had been deceived by them about the redistribution of the land. Agesilaus was able to leave the country in safety, owing to the intercession of his son Hippomedon, who was very popular with all classes on account of his bravery. Of the two kings, Agis fled to the temple of Athena of the Brazen House, while Kleombrotus took sanctuary in the temple of Poseidon.6 It appeared that Leonidas hated Kleombrotus most of the two; for he passed by Agis, but marched in pursuit of Kleombrotus with an armed force, and angrily reproached him that being his own son-in-law he had conspired against him, dethroned him, and driven him into exile.

XVII

Kleombrotus could find nothing to say in his defence, and sat silent and helpless; but Chilonis, the daughter of Leonidas, who formerly had taken offence at her father’s injurious treatment, and when Kleombrotus 14 usurped the throne had left him, and showed her sympathy with Leonidas in his misfortune by accompanying him in the temple where he took sanctuary, and after he left the country by mourning for him and remaining at variance with her husband Kleombrotus, now changed sides with his changing fortunes, and appeared sitting by her husband’s side as a suppliant to the god with him, with her arms cast round him, and her two children on each side of her. All stood amazed and were moved to tears by her noble and affectionate conduct, and she, pointing to her mean dress and dishevelled hair, said, “Father, I have not adopted this posture and this dress out of pity for Kleombrotus, but I have so long been in mourning for your misfortunes and your banishment that it has become customary with me. Am I now to remain in mourning while you are victorious and reign in Sparta, or am I to dress myself in fine clothes as becomes a princess, while I see my husband murdered by your hand? Unless he can move you to compassion, and obtain your pity by the tears of his wife and children, he will suffer a more terrible penalty for his misconduct than you wish to impose, by seeing me his dearest wife die before him; for how can I endure to live among other women, if I prove unable to move either my husband or my father to compassion? Both as a wife and as a daughter I have been fated to suffer with my own kin and to be despised with them. If there is anything which can be urged on behalf of my husband’s conduct, I have made it impossible to plead it for him by the part which I have taken in protesting against his conduct to you; but you yourself suggest a sufficient apology for his crime, by showing that you think royalty so great and precious a thing, that to obtain it you are willing to murder your son-in-law and neglect your own child.”

XVIII

Chilonis, after speaking thus, nestled her face against that of her husband, and glanced round at the spectators with red and tearful eyes. Leonidas, after a short consultation with his friends, bade Kleombrotus rise and leave the country, but besought his daughter to remain with him, and not to leave him who loved her so dearly, and had just spared her husband’s life in consequence of 15 her entreaties. He could not, however, prevail upon her to stay, but she rose up with her husband, took one child in her arms, and led the other, and so, after kneeling before the altar, followed her husband, who, if his mind was not entirely corrupted by vain ambition, must have thought exile with such a wife preferable to royalty. After driving Kleombrotus from the throne, ejecting the Ephors from office and substituting others chosen by himself, Leonidas addressed himself to Agis. At first he tried to persuade him to come out of sanctuary and reign as his colleague, saying that the citizens had forgiven him, because they knew that he was young and impetuous, and had been deceived by Agesilaus. However, as Agis saw through these devices and remained where he was, Leonidas left off making these hypocritical offers. Amphares, Damochares, and Arkesilaus were in the habit of going to the temple and conversing with him; and once he came out of the temple in their company to take a bath, and after bathing was conducted back again by them in safety. All three were on intimate terms with him, but Amphares, who had lately borrowed some rich clothing and valuable plate from Agesistrata, was inclined to plot against the king and the royal ladies, that he might not be obliged to restore them. He, therefore, we are told, lent a ready ear to Leonidas’s plans, and excited the zeal of the Ephors, one of whom he was.

XIX

Since Agis lived entirely in the temple, and only left it in order to bathe, they determined to seize him when he came out for this purpose. Having one day watched him bathing they came up and greeted him in a friendly way, and walked along with him talking and jesting as young men who are on intimate terms are wont to do. When they reached the place where a road branches off to the public prison, Amphares, in virtue of his Ephorship, laid hold of Agis and said: “Agis, I must lead you before the Ephors to give an account of your conduct.” At the same time Damochares, a tall and strong man, threw his cloak round Agis’s neck and dragged him along by it. Others now appeared by previous arrangement, and pushed him from behind, and as no one came to 16 help him, he was forced into the prison. Hereupon, Leonidas appeared with a band of mercenaries, and surrounded the prison. The Ephors now went in to Agis, and sent for all the senators of their way of thinking to come to the prison in order to go through the form of a trial. Agis laughed at their hypocrisy, but Amphares told him that it was no laughing matter, and that he would soon pay a bitter penalty for his rashness. Another of the Ephors, wishing to offer a means of escape to Agis, inquired of him whether he had acted on his own responsibility, or had been compelled to do so by Agesilaus and Lysander. Agis answered that no man had compelled him, but that he admired and imitated Lykurgus, and had aimed at reviving his institutions. Upon this the same Ephor asked him whether he repented of what he had done. When the brave youth answered that he never would repent of his glorious designs, whatever tortures he might have to suffer for them, the assembly at once condemned him to death, and bade the prison officials at once remove him to the place called Dechas, which is a part of the prison in which criminals are strangled. Seeing that the servants would not lay hands upon Agis, and that even those mercenaries who were present shrunk from such work, because it was held to be unlawful and impious to lay hands upon the person of the king, Damochares, after threatening and abusing them, dragged Agis with his own hands to the place of execution. Many of the citizens had by this time heard of his arrest, and many men had assembled with torches in their hands and were clamouring at the gate of the prison. The mother and grandmother of Agis were also present, and loudly demanded that the king of Sparta should have a fair trial in the presence of his countrymen. For this reason they within hurried on the execution, as they feared that if a larger crowd collected Agis would be rescued during the night.

XX

While Agis was being led to execution, he saw one of the servants of the prison weeping and in great distress. “My man,” said he, “do not weep for me, for I am a better man than those who are murdering me in this cruel and illegal fashion.” With these words he, of 17 his own accord, put the noose round his neck. Meanwhile Amphares proceeded to the prison gate. Here Agesistrata fell at his feet, believing him still to be her friend. Amphares raised her, saying that Agis would suffer no violent treatment, and bade her, if she wished, go in and see her son. As she asked to be accompanied by her mother, Amphares said that there was no objection to that, and after receiving them both within the walls, ordered the prison gates to be closed. He first sent Archidamia, who was now very old, and greatly respected by her countrywomen, to the place of execution, and when she was dead, bade Agesistrata enter. When she saw the corpse of her son lying on the ground, and her mother hanging by a halter, she herself assisted the servants to take her down, laid her body beside that of Agis, and arranged and covered up the two corpses. She then knelt and kissed the face of her son, saying, “My child, thy great piety, goodness, and clemency has brought thee and us to this death.” Upon this Amphares, who was watching and listening at the door, came into the room, and said angrily to Agesistrata, “If you approve of your son’s deeds, you shall suffer with him.” At these words Agesistrata rose and offered her neck to the halter, saying, “I only pray that this may be for the good of Sparta.”

XXI

When the sad news was known throughout the city, and the three corpses brought out of the prison, the terror which was inspired did not prevent the citizens from manifesting their sorrow at the deed, and their hatred of Leonidas and Amphares. No such wicked or cruel deed, they declared, had been committed in Sparta since the Dorians settled in Peloponnesus. The very enemies of the Lacedæmonians generally seemed unwilling to lay violent hands on their kings when they met them in battle, and turned aside through reverence of their exalted position. For this reason, in all the battles which the Lacedæmonians had fought against the Greeks before the era of Philip of Macedon, only one king, Kleombrotus, had fallen on the field of Leuktra; for though the Messenians aver that Theopompus, a king of Lacedæmon, was slain by Aristomenes, the Lacedæmonians deny it, 18 and say that he was only wounded. This matter is doubtful, but Agis was the first king who was put to death by the Ephors in Lacedæmon, because he had conceived a noble design and one which was worthy of Sparta. He was of an age when men’s shortcomings deserve to be pardoned; and deserves to be blamed by his friends more than by his enemies, because with an ill-judged clemency he spared the life of Leonidas, and trusted in the professions of the rest of his political enemies.

19

LIFE OF
KLEOMENES.

I

After the death of Agis, as has been related, Leonidas was not able to seize the person of his brother Archidamus, who at once fled out of the country, but he brought the wife of Agis with her newly-born child out of her house, and forcibly married her to his own son Kleomenes, who was scarcely come to an age for marriage, because he was unwilling for her to marry any one else. Indeed Agiatis was the daughter of Gylippus, and heiress to a great estate. She was thought to be the most beautiful woman of her time in all Greece, and was of a noble disposition. It is said that she made many entreaties not to be forced into a second marriage, but that after her union with Kleomenes, although she continued to hate his father Leonidas, she made a good and affectionate wife to the young man, who became passionately fond of her, and sympathised with her loving remembrance of Agis, so that he would often ask her to tell him about her late husband, and used to listen with rapt attention while she explained the designs and projects of Agis. For Kleomenes was as eager for honour, and had as noble a mind as Agis himself, and was equally moderate and simple in his way of life; but he lacked the other’s discreet and gentle temper, and was of a stirring and vehement nature, eager to embark on any honourable enterprise. He thought it the most glorious position of all to rule over an obedient people; but he took pride also in bending disobedient subjects to his will, and forcibly compelling them to move in the path of honour.

II

He was far from satisfied with the state of things at Sparta, where the citizens had given themselves up to luxurious repose, while the king Leonidas cared nothing 20 for public affairs, so long as he was able to gratify his own love of extravagance and self-indulgence. Public virtue was entirely gone, and no man cared to profit his country, but only himself. As for discipline, orderly training of the young, hardiness of body, and equality, all these things had perished with Agis, and it was not safe even to speak of them. We are told that while yet a lad Kleomenes was instructed in the principles of the Stoic philosophy by Sphærus of Borysthenes,1 who visited Lacedæmon and gave excellent instruction there to the young. This Sphærus was one of the aptest pupils of Zeno of Kitium,2 and he seems to have admired the manly spirit of Kleomenes and to have encouraged him in the pursuit of honour. The ancient hero Leonidas, when asked what he thought of Tyrtæus, is said to have answered, “He is good at exciting the minds of the youth.” Indeed they became filled with enthusiasm by the poems of Tyrtæus, and fought with reckless daring in battle: and so also the Stoic philosophy often renders brave and fiery natures over-daring and venturesome, and yields the best fruit when applied to a grave and gentle nature.

III

When after the death of Leonidas, Kleomenes succeeded to the throne, he found the state utterly disorganised, for the rich took no part in politics, and cared for nothing but their own pleasure and profit, while the miserable condition of the poor caused them to fight without spirit in the wars, and to neglect the proper training of their children. He himself was a king only in name, as the Ephors had engrossed all real power. Under these circumstances he at once began to revolve schemes of reform in his mind, and began to sound the opinion of his intimate friend Xenares, by enquiring of him what sort of a king Agis had been, and in what manner, and with what associates he had made his attempts at reform. Xenares at first very willingly gave 21 him a complete narrative of the whole transaction; but as he saw that Kleomenes listened with intense interest, and was deeply excited by the recital of Agis’s designs, to which he was never weary of listening, Xenares at last angrily reproached him with not being in his right mind, and at last broke off all intercourse with him. He did not, however, tell any one the reason of their being at variance, but declared that Kleomenes knew well what it was. Kleomenes, after meeting with this rebuff from Xenares, imagining that every one else would be of the same mind, determined to concert his own measures alone. As he thought that there was more chance of effecting reforms during war than in time of peace, he involved Sparta in a war with the Achæans, for which they themselves furnished the pretext. Aratus, the chief of the Achæans, had always desired to unite the whole of the Peloponnesus in one confederacy, and in all his long political career had steadily kept this object in view, as he thought that thus, and thus alone, the people of Peloponnesus would be able to defend themselves against external foes. Nearly all the tribes of Peloponnesus joined his confederacy except the Lacedæmonians, the people of Elis, and such of the Arcadians as were under Lacedæmonian influence. On the death of Leonidas, Aratus began to make plundering expeditions into the territory of the Arcadians, especially those near the Achæan frontier, in order to see what steps the Lacedæmonians would take; for he despised Kleomenes as a young and inexperienced man.

IV

Upon this the Ephors first sent Kleomenes to occupy the temple of Athena, near Belbina. This place was situated in a mountain pass leading into Laconia, and it was claimed by the citizens of Megalopolis as belonging to their territory. Kleomenes seized the pass and fortified it, to which Aratus offered no objection, but endeavoured by a night march to surprise the cities of Tegea and Orchomenes. However, the hearts of the traitors within the walls failed them, and so Aratus led his army back, hoping that his object had not been discovered. Kleomenes, by way of jest, now wrote him a letter affecting to enquire of him in the most friendly 22 terms where he had been to in the night. He answered that he had heard that Kleomenes was about to erect fortifications at Belbina, and had marched to prevent his doing so. To this Kleomenes answered that he was satisfied that this had been Aratus’s intention. “But,” he continued, “if you do not mind, please tell me why you brought scaling ladders and torches with you.” Aratus laughed at this home-thrust, and enquired what sort of a youth Kleomenes might be. Damochares, the Lacedæmonian exile, answered, “If you mean to do anything against the Lacedæmonians, you must make haste and do it before this young gamecock’s spurs are grown.” After this the Ephors ordered Kleomenes, who was encamped in Arcadia with a few horsemen and three hundred foot, to retire, as they feared to go to war. But since, as soon as he had withdrawn, Aratus captured the city of Kaphyæ, they sent him back again. He captured Methydrium, and overran Argolis, upon which the Achæans sent an army of twenty thousand foot and a thousand horse, under the command of Aristomachus, to attack him. Kleomenes met them near Pallantium, and was eager to fight, but Aratus, alarmed at his daring, would not permit the Achæan general to fight, and drew off his forces, incurring thereby the anger of the Achæans, and the ridicule and contempt of the Lacedæmonians, who only amounted to one-fifth of the enemy’s numbers. This affair gave Kleomenes great self-confidence, and parodying a saying of one of the ancient kings, he said to his countrymen that it was useless nowadays for the Lacedæmonians to ask either how many their enemies were, or where they were.3

V

Shortly after, as the Achæans were making war against the Eleans, Kleomenes was sent to aid the latter, and met with the army of the Achæans returning home, near the mountain called Lykæum. He attacked their forces, and utterly routed them, killing many and capturing numbers of prisoners, so that a report spread throughout Greece that Aratus himself had perished. But Aratus, turning the disaster to good account, immediately after 23 the defeat marched to Mantinea, and as no one expected him, captured the city and placed a strong garrison in it. This completely disheartened the Lacedæmonians, who desired to recall Kleomenes and put an end to the war. Kleomenes now sent to Messene and invited back Archidamus, the brother of Agis, who ought to have been on the throne as the representative of the other royal family, imagining that if there were two kings reigning at Sparta at the same time, the power of the Ephors would be weakened. However, the party who had previously murdered Agis perceived this, and as they feared that if Archidamus returned to Sparta he would make them pay the penalty of their crimes, they welcomed him back and assisted him to make a secret entry into the city, but immediately afterwards assassinated him, either against the will of Kleomenes, as we are told by Phylarchus, or else with his connivance, in consequence of the representations of his friends. They indeed bore the chief blame in the matter, as they were thought to have forced Kleomenes into consenting to the murder.

VI

Kleomenes, determined to carry out his designs of reform, now proceeded to bribe the Ephors into sending him out on a new military expedition. He also won over a considerable number of supporters among the citizens by means of the lavish expenditure and influence of his mother Kratesiklea, who, though averse to a second marriage, is said to have married one of the leading men in Sparta in order to further her son’s interests.

Kleomenes now took the field at the head of his army, and captured a small town within the territory of Megalopolis, named Leuktra.4 The Achæans under Aratus promptly came up, and a battle was fought under the walls of the town, in which part of the army of Kleomenes was defeated. Aratus however refused to follow up his advantage, and kept the main body of the Achæans motionless behind the bed of a torrent. Enraged at his inaction, Lydiades of Megalopolis charged at the head of the cavalry under his own command, but got entangled in the pursuit of the enemy in ground which was cut up by walls and watercourses. Seeing him thrown into disorder, 24 Kleomenes sent his Tarentine and Cretan troops to attack him, by whom Lydiades, fighting bravely, was overpowered and slain. The Lacedæmonians now recovered their spirits, and with loud shouts attacked the Achæans and completely defeated them. Many were slain, and their corpses were given up to the enemy for burial, with the exception of that of Lydiades, which Kleomenes ordered to be brought to himself. He then attired it in a purple robe, placed a garland upon its head, and sent it to the city of Megalopolis. This was that Lydiades who had been despot of Megalopolis, but who abdicated his throne, restored liberty to his countrymen, and brought the city to join the Achæan league.

VII

After this victory Kleomenes became inspired with fresh confidence, and was convinced that if he only were allowed undisputed management he would easily conquer the Achæans. He explained to his step-father Megistonous that the time had at length come for the abolition of the Ephors, the redistribution of property, and the establishment of equality among the citizens, after which Sparta might again aspire to recover her ancient ascendancy in Greece. Megistonous agreed, and communicated his intentions to two or three of his friends. It chanced that at this time one of the Ephors who was sleeping in the temple of Pasiphæ dreamed an extraordinary dream, that in the place where the Ephors sat for the dispatch of business he saw four chairs removed, and one alone remaining, while as he wondered he heard a voice from the shrine say “This is best for Sparta.” When the Ephor related this dream to Kleomenes, he was at first much alarmed, and feared that the man had conceived some suspicion of his designs, but finding that he was really in earnest recovered his confidence. Taking with him all those citizens whom he suspected to be opposed to his enterprise, he captured Heræa and Alsæa, cities belonging to the Achæan league, revictualled Orchomenus, and threatened Mantinea. By long marches and counter-marches he so wearied the Lacedæmonians that at last at their own request he left the greater part of them in Arcadia, while he with the mercenaries returned to Sparta. During his homeward march he revealed his intentions to25 those whom he considered to be most devoted to his person, and regulated his march so as to be able to fall upon the Ephors while they were at their evening meal.

VIII

When he drew near to the city, he sent Eurykleidas into the dining-room of the Ephors, on the pretence of bringing a message from the army. After Eurykleidas followed Phoebis and Therukion, two of the foster-brothers of Kleomenes, called mothakes5 by the Lacedæmonians, with a few soldiers. While Eurykleidas was parleying with the Ephors, these men rushed in with drawn swords and cut them down. The president, Agylæus, fell at the first blow and appeared to be dead, but contrived to crawl out of the building unobserved into a small temple, sacred to Fear, the door of which was usually closed, but which then chanced to be open. In this he took refuge and shut the door. The other four were slain, and some few persons, not more than ten, who came to assist them. No one who remained quiet was put to death, nor was any one prevented from leaving the city. Even Agylæus, when he came out of his sanctuary on the following day, was not molested.

IX

The Lacedæmonians have temples dedicated not only to Fear, but to Death, and Laughter, and the like. They honour Fear, not as a malevolent divinity to be shunned, but because they think that the constitutions of states are mainly upheld by Fear. For this reason, Aristotle tells us that the Ephors, when they enter upon their office, issue a proclamation ordering the citizens to shave the moustache and obey the laws, that the laws might not be hard upon them. The injunction about shaving the moustache is inserted, I imagine, in order to accustom the young to obedience even in the most trivial matters. It seems to me that the ancient Spartans did not regard bravery as consisting in the absence of fear, but in the fear of shame and dread of dishonour; for those who fear the laws most are the bravest in battle; and 26those who most fear disgrace care least for their own personal safety. The poet was right who said

“Where there is fear, is reverence too;”

and Homer makes Helen call Priam

“My father-in-law dear,

Whom most of all I reverence and fear;”

while he speaks of the Greek army as obeying

“Its chiefs commands in silence and with fear.”

Human nature, indeed, leads most men to reverence those whom they fear; and this is why the Lacedæmonians placed the temple of Fear close to the dining-hall of the Ephors, because they invested that office with almost royal authority.

X

On the following morning Kleomenes published a list containing the names of eighty citizens, whom he required to leave the country, and removed the chairs of the Ephors, except one, which he intended to occupy himself. He now convoked an assembly, and made a speech justifying his recent acts. In the time of Lykurgus, he said, the kings and the senate shared between them the supreme authority in the State; and for a long time the government was carried on in this manner without any alteration being required, until, during the long wars with Messene, as the kings had no leisure to attend to public affairs, they chose some of their friends to sit as judges in their stead, and these persons acted at first merely as the servants of the kings, but gradually got all power into their own hands, and thus insensibly established a new power in the State. A proof of the truth of this is to be found in the custom which still prevails, that when the Ephors send for the king, he refuses to attend at the first and second summons, but rises and goes to them at the third. Asteropus, who first consolidated the power of the Ephors, and raised it to the highest point, flourished in comparatively recent times, many generations after the original establishment of the office. If, he went on to say, the Ephors would have behaved with moderation, it would have been better to allow them to remain in existence;27 but when they began to use their ill-gotten power to destroy the constitution of Sparta, when they banished one king, put another to death without trial, and kept down by terror all those who wished for the introduction of the noblest and most admirable reforms, they could no longer be borne. Had he been able without shedding a drop of blood to drive out of Lacedæmon all those foreign pests of luxury, extravagance, debt, money-lending, and those two more ancient evils, poverty and riches, he should have accounted himself the most fortunate of kings, because, like a skilful physician, he had painlessly performed so important an operation upon his country: as it was, the use of force was sanctioned by the example of Lykurgus, who, though only a private man, appeared in arms in the market-place, and so terrified King Charilaus, that he fled for refuge to the altar of Athena. He, however, being an honest and patriotic man, soon joined Lykurgus, and acquiesced in the reforms which he introduced, while the acts of Lykurgus prove that it is hard to effect a revolution without armed force, of which he declared that he had made a most sparing use, and had only put out of the way those who were opposed to the best interests of Lacedæmon. He announced to the rest of the citizens that the land should be divided among them, that they should be relieved from all their debts, and that all resident aliens should be submitted to an examination, in order that the best of them might be selected to become full citizens of Sparta, and help to defend the city from falling a prey to Ætolians and Illyrians for want of men to defend her.

XI

After this he himself first threw his inheritance into the common stock, and his example was followed by his father-in-law Megistonous, his friends, and the rest of the citizens. The land was now divided, and one lot was assigned to each of those whom he had banished, all of whom he said it was his intention to bring back as soon as order was restored. He recruited the numbers of the citizens by the admission of the most eligible of the Periœki to the franchise, and organised them into a body of four thousand heavy armed infantry, whom he taught to use the sarissa, or Macedonian pike which was grasped28 with both hands, instead of the spear, and to sling their shields by a strap instead of using a handle. He next turned his attention to the education and discipline of the youth, in which task he was assisted by Sphærus. The gymnasia and the common meals were soon re-established, and the citizens, for the most part willingly, resumed their simple Laconian habits of living. Kleomenes, fearing to be called a despot, appointed his own brother, Eukleidas, as his colleague. Then for the first time were two kings of the same family seen at once in Sparta.

XII

As Kleomenes perceived that Aratus and the Achæans thought that while Sparta was passing through so perilous a crisis her troops were not likely to leave the country, he thought that it would be both a spirited and a useful act to display the enthusiasm of his army to the enemy. He invaded the territory of Megalopolis, carried off a large booty, and laid waste a large extent of country. Finding a company of players on their road from Messene, he took them prisoners, caused a theatre to be erected in the enemy’s country, and offered them forty minæ for a performance for one day, at which he himself attended as a spectator, not that he cared for the performance, but because he wished to mock at his enemies, and to show by this studied insult the enormous superiority of which he was conscious. At this period his was the only army, Greek or foreign, which was not attended by actors, jugglers, dancing-girls, and singers; but he kept it free from all licentiousness and buffoonery, as the younger men were nearly always being practised in martial exercises, while the elders acted as their instructors; and when they were at leisure they amused themselves with witty retorts and sententious Laconian pleasantries. The great value of this kind of discipline is described at greater length in the life of Lykurgus.

XIII

In everything Kleomenes himself acted as their teacher, and example, offering his own simple, frugal life, so entirely free from vulgar superfluities, as a model of sobriety for them all to copy; and this added greatly to his influence in Greece. For when men attended the29 courts of the other kings of that period they were not so much impressed by their wealth and lavish expenditure as they were disgusted by their arrogant, overbearing manners; but when they met Kleomenes, who was every inch a king, and saw that he wore no purple robes, did not lounge on couches and litters, and was not surrounded by a crowd of messengers, doorkeepers, and secretaries, so as to be difficult of access, but that he himself, dressed in plain clothes, came and shook them by the hand, and conversed with them in a kindly and encouraging tone, they were completely fascinated and charmed by him, and declared that he alone was a true descendant of Herakles. His dinner was usually served upon a very small Laconian table with three couches,6 but if he were entertaining ambassadors or foreigners two additional couches were added, and his servants somewhat improved his dinner, not by adding to it made-dishes and pastry, but by serving a greater abundance of food and a more liberal allowance of wine. Indeed he blamed one of his friends, when he heard that when entertaining foreigners at dinner he had placed before them black broth and barley cakes: for he said that in such matters, and when entertaining strangers, it was not well to be too rigidly Spartan. After the table was removed a tripod was brought in which supported a bronze bowl full of wine, two silver pateræ, that held each about a pint, and a number of very small silver cups, from which any one drank who wished, for Kleomenes never forced men to drink against their will. No recitations were performed for the amusement of the guests; for he himself would lead the conversation and entertain them over their wine, partly by asking questions of them and partly by relating anecdotes to them: for he well knew both how to make serious subjects interesting, and to be pleasant and witty without giving offence. He was of opinion that the habit of other princes, of tempting men into their service by presents and bribes, was both clumsy and wicked; but he thought it peculiarly befitting a king to influence and captivate men’s minds by the charm of his conversation, 30 and was wont to say that a friend differed only from a mercenary soldier in that a man wins the one by the influence of his character and his conversation, and the other by his money.

XIV

First of all the people of Mantinea made overtures to him. They admitted him to their city by night, aided him to drive out the Achæan garrison, and placed themselves unreservedly in his hands. He, however, restored them to the enjoyment of their own laws and original constitution, and marched away the same day to Tegea. Shortly afterwards by a circuitous march through Arcadia he arrived before the Achæan city of Pheræ, desiring either to fight a battle with the Achæans, or to make Aratus incur the disgrace of retreating and leaving him in possession of the country: for although Hyperbates was nominally in command, all real power over the Achæans was in the hands of Aratus. The Achæans took the field with their entire force, and encamped at Dymæ, near the temple called Hekatombæon. When Kleomenes arrived here he was unwilling to establish himself between the hostile city of Dymæ and the army of the Achæans, and challenged them, forced them to fight, and completely routed their phalanx. He killed many, took a large number of prisoners, and then, marching to Langon, drove out the Achæan garrison, and restored the city to the Eleans.

XV

As the Achæan power was now quite broken, Aratus, who was usually elected general every other year, refused to take office, and excused himself when they besought him to do so: a dishonourable act, when the times became more stormy, to desert the helm, and give up his power to another. Kleomenes at first used very moderate language to the Achæan ambassadors, but sent others ordering them to acknowledge him for their sovereign, and promising that if they did so he would do them no further hurt, and would at once restore the prisoners and fortresses which he had taken. As the Achæans were willing to accept these terms they invited Kleomenes to a conference at Lerna. It happened, however, that Kleomenes, after a long march, drank a quantity of cold water, which caused him to bring up much blood,31 and to lose his voice. In consequence of this, although he sent back the most distinguished of his prisoners, he was obliged to postpone the conference, and went home to Lacedæmon.

XVI

This mischance ruined Greece, which even now might have recovered herself, and avoided falling into the hands of the insolent and rapacious Macedonians. For Aratus, either because he distrusted and feared Kleomenes, or else because he grudged him his success, and thought that after he had for thirty-three years been chief of the Achæans, it was not to be endured that a young man should overthrow him, and enter into the fruit of his labours, at first tried to oppose the Achæans when they offered to come to terms with the Lacedæmonians; but as they would not listen to him, because they were cowed by the boldness of Kleomenes, and also admitted the justice of the Lacedæmonian claim to be the leading state in Peloponnesus, as their ancestral right, he adopted a course which was a disgraceful one for any Greek, but especially so for him, and one which was most unworthy of his former political life. He determined to invite Antigonus into Greece, and to fill the Pelopennesus with those very Macedonians whom he himself when a lad had chased out of the country by his capture of the Acro-Corinthus, although he was regarded with suspicion by all the kings, and was at variance with them all, and though he had already accused this very Antigonus himself of every conceivable crime in his “Memoirs,” which are still extant. Yet he himself has stated that he suffered much, and risked much to free Athens from a Macedonian garrison; though now he led these very men with arms in their hands into his own native country, and up to his own paternal hearth. He thought that Kleomenes, a descendant of Herakles, a king of Sparta, who had restored the simple ancient Dorian constitution of Lykurgus, as one tightens the relaxed strings of a lyre, to bring it into tune, was unworthy to be accounted the ruler of Sikyon and Tritæa; and in his eagerness to avoid the rough Spartan cloak, and the Spartan barley bread, and that with which he especially charged Kleomenes, the destruction of wealth and the encouragement of poverty, threw himself and32 all Achæa with him, into the arms of the Macedonians, with all their diadems and their purple robes and their habits of oriental despotism. That he might avoid acting under the orders of Kleomenes, he was content to offer sacrifice at festivals in honour of Antigonus, and himself to place a garland upon his head, and to lead the pæan in praise of a man wasted and emaciated by consumption. And this I write, not from any desire to depreciate Aratus, for in many respects he proved himself a truly great and patriotic man, but rather out of pity for the weakness of human nature, which will not allow even the most eminent persons to present us with the spectacle of an entirely unblemished virtue.

XVII

When the Achæans again assembled at Argos to hold a conference there, and Kleomenes started to go thither from Tegea, men’s minds were full of hope that peace would be finally established. But Aratus, who had already settled the main points of his treaty with Antigonus, and feared that Kleomenes would either by persuasion or force bring the assembly over to his views, sent to him demanding either that he should take three hundred hostages for his safety and come to the conference alone, or else meet them with his army outside the walls at the gymnasium called the Kyllarabium. Kleomenes on hearing this said that he had not been properly treated; for Aratus ought to have warned him of this at once, not have waited till he was almost at the gates of Argos and then expressed suspicions of his honesty of purpose and driven him away. He sent a letter to the assembled Achæans, containing bitter invectives against Aratus, and as Aratus replied by maligning him in a public oration, he broke up his camp and sent a herald with a declaration of war, not to Argos, according to Aratus, but to Ægium, in order to take the Achæans by surprise. The Achæan cities were all ripe for revolt, as the populace hoped for a redistribution of the land and cancelling of debts if they joined the Spartans, while the leading men were all jealous of the power and influence of Aratus, and some of them hated him as the traitor who was bringing the Macedonians into Peloponnesus. Relying upon the prevalence of this feeling Kleomenes invaded33 Achaia, took Pellene by surprise, and drove out the garrison and the Achæan inhabitants. Soon afterwards he captured the cities of Pheneus and Penteleum.

The Achæans of Corinth and Sikyon now began to fear that his partisans were plotting to deliver up those cities to him, and in consequence sent their cavalry and foreign mercenaries away from Argos to guard those towns, while they themselves proceeded to Argos to hold the Nemean festival there. Kleomenes, rightly judging that his appearance at a time when the city was full of a disorderly crowd of people who were come to attend the feasts and games would produce great confusion, marched up to the walls by night, seized the place called the ‘Shield,’ which is just above the theatre, and is very difficult of access, and so terrified the citizens that no one attempted to offer any resistance. They willingly agreed to admit a Spartan garrison, to give twenty of their chief men as hostages for their loyalty, and to become the allies of the Lacedæmonians, acknowledging their supremacy.

XVIII

This exploit added not a little to the reputation and power of Kleomenes. None of the ancient kings of Sparta could ever make themselves masters of Argos, although they often attempted to do so; and even that most brilliant general King Pyrrhus, though he forced his way into the city, could not take it, but perished, and with him a great part of his army. For these reasons, the skill and audacity of Kleomenes were the more admired: and those who had before ridiculed his attempts to bring back the days of Solon and Lykurgus by the cancelling of debts and redistribution of land, now became entirely convinced that these measures had been the cause of the revival of Sparta. The Spartans before this had been so feeble and helpless, that the Aetolians invaded Laconia and carried off a booty of fifty thousand slaves, on which occasion it is said that an old Spartan observed that the enemy had greatly benefited Laconia by relieving it from its burdens. Yet a short time after this, by the restoration of their former constitution, and by re-establishing the ancient system of training, they made as magnificent a display of discipline and valour as if Lykurgus himself were alive and at the head of affairs,34 for they gained for Sparta the first place in Greece, and won the whole of Peloponnesus by the sword.

XIX

The submission of Argos to Kleomenes was soon followed by that of Phlius and Kleonæ. During these events Aratus was at Corinth, busily engaged in searching for the partisans of the Lacedæmonians. When the news of the fall of these cities reached Corinth, as he observed that the city of Corinth was eager to join Kleomenes and leave the Achæan league, he summoned the citizens to meet in the public assembly, and himself made his way unperceived to the gate. He had already sent his horse thither, and mounting, fled to Sikyon. The Corinthians now hurried to Argos to surrender their city to Kleomenes; in such haste, writes Aratus in his ‘Memoirs,’ that they foundered all their horses. Kleomenes reproached them for allowing Aratus to escape, but shortly afterwards sent Megistonous to him, asking him to hand over the citadel of Corinth, which was in possession of an Achæan garrison, and offering him a large sum of money. He answered that the course of affairs was not in his power, but that he was rather in theirs. These particulars we have extracted from Aratus’s own writings. Kleomenes now marched from Argos to Corinth, receiving on the way the submission of Trœzene, Epidaurus, and Hermione. As the garrison refused to surrender the citadel, he built a rampart round it, and sending for the friends and representatives of Aratus, bade them take charge of his house and property during his absence. He now sent the Messenian Tritymallus to Aratus, with instructions to propose to him that the garrison of Acro-Corinthus should be composed partly of Spartan and partly of Achæan troops, while he himself privately offered him double the amount of the pension which he received from King Ptolemy of Egypt. However, as Aratus refused to listen to his overtures, but sent his own son with the other hostages to Antigonus, and persuaded the Achæans to pass a decree to hand over the Acro-Corinthus to Antigonus, Kleomenes invaded the territory of Sikyon and laid it waste, and also took the property of Aratus when it was publicly presented to him by the people of Corinth.

35

XX

When Antigonus crossed the Geranean mountains with a large force, Kleomenes did not think it necessary to guard the isthmus, but determined to fortify the mountains called Onea, and by holding that strong position, to protract the war and wear out the Macedonian force, rather than fight a pitched battle with their phalanx. By this line of policy he reduced Antigonus to great straits; for he had made no preparations for feeding his troops for more than a short time, and yet to force his way in over the isthmus was a difficult operation while Kleomenes barred the way. An attempt which he made to steal through by Lechæum7 at night was repulsed with considerable loss; so that Kleomenes and his friends, elated by their victory, supped merrily together, while Antigonus was at his wit’s end to know what to do. He even began to meditate marching to the promontory of Heræum, and conveying his forces over the Corinthian gulf to Sikyon, an operation which would have required much time and many ships. However, late in the evening there arrived certain friends of Aratus by sea from Argos, inviting him to come thither, as the Argives intended to revolt from Kleomenes. The prime mover in this revolt was one Aristoteles, who easily prevailed upon the people to rise, because they were disappointed with Kleomenes, who had not cancelled all their debts as they hoped he would. Aratus now took fifteen hundred of Antigonus’s soldiers and proceeded by sea to Epidaurus. Aristoteles however did not wait for his arrival, but led the citizens to attack the garrison in the citadel, assisted by Timoxenus with a body of Achæans from Sikyon.

XXI

Intelligence of this movement reached Kleomenes about the second watch of the night. He at once sent for Megistonous, and angrily ordered him at once to go to the assistance of the garrison of Argos; for it was he who had so confidently assured Kleomenes of the loyalty of the Argives, and had dissuaded him from banishing those whom he suspected from the city. Having detached Megistonous with two thousand men on this service, he himself turned his attention to Antigonus, and pacified the people of Corinth by assuring them that nothing had 36happened at Argos except a slight disturbance which would be easily suppressed. However, as Megistonous was killed while forcing his way into the city, and the garrison were hard pressed, and kept sending messengers to Kleomenes begging for assistance, he, fearing that if the enemy gained Argos they might cut him off from Laconia, and sack the defenceless city of Sparta, withdrew his army from Corinth. He lost this city at once, for Antigonus instantly entered it and placed a garrison in it. He now proceeded to assault the city wall of Argos, and concentrated his troops for this purpose. He broke through the vaults supporting the part of the city called the ‘Shield,’ forced his way in, and joined his garrison, who were still holding out against the Achæans. He now, by the use of scaling ladders, captured some of the strong places in the city, and cleared the streets of the enemy by means of his Cretan archers. When however he saw Antigonus marching down from the mountains to the plain with his phalanx in battle array, and saw the Macedonian cavalry pouring along towards the city, he despaired of success, and collecting all his troops into one mass, led them safely out of the city. He had in a wonderfully short time effected great things, and had all but made himself master of the whole of Peloponnesus: but now he lost it all as quickly as he had won it, for some of his allies at once deserted him, and many shortly afterwards surrendered their cities to Antigonus.

XXII

As Kleomenes was marching into the city of Tegea at nightfall, on his return from this disastrous campaign, he was met by messengers bearing the news of a still greater calamity, the death of his wife Agiatis, of whom he was so fond that even when in the full tide of success he never would remain continuously with his army, but used constantly to return to Sparta to see her. He was terribly grieved and cast down, as one would expect a young man to be on losing so beautiful and excellent a wife, yet he did not allow his noble spirit to be crushed by his sorrow, but without showing any outward signs of grief in his voice or countenance, continued to give his orders to his officers, and to take measures for placing Tegea in a posture of defence. At daybreak next morning 37 he returned to Lacedæmon, and after lamenting his misfortune with his mother and his children, began to consider by what policy he might save his country.

Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, now offered him assistance on the condition of receiving his mother and children as hostages. For a long time he shrank from mentioning this proposal to his mother, and often conversed with her without having the courage to allude to it, until she suspected that he had something on his mind, and inquired of his friends whether there was not some subject about which he hesitated to speak to her. At last Kleomenes brought himself to mention Ptolemy’s proposal to her. On hearing it, she laughed loudly, and said, “This, then, is that which you have so long been fearing to tell me. Pray place me and the children on board ship as soon as possible, and send us to any place where this body of mine may be useful to Sparta, before it be uselessly consumed by old age at home.”

When all was prepared for her voyage, Kratesiklea proceeded to Tænarus escorted by Kleomenes with all his troops under arms. Before embarking she retired alone with him into the temple of Poseidon, where, after embracing him as he sorrowed at her departure, she said, “Now, king of the Lacedæmonians, take care when we come out that no one sees us weeping or doing anything unworthy of Sparta. This lies in our own power; but good or evil fortune befalls us according to the will of Heaven.”

Saying thus, she fixed her eyes upon the ship, walked swiftly to it carrying the child, and bade the pilot start at once. When she reached Egypt, as she heard that Ptolemy had received an embassy from Antigonus, and was told that although the Achæans wished to come to terms with him, he had feared on her account to make peace with them without consulting Ptolemy, she wrote to him bidding him act worthily of Sparta, and consult her interests, and not fear to displease Ptolemy because of what he might do to an old woman and an infant. So great a spirit is she said to have shown in her misfortunes.

XXIII

Antigonus now advanced, took Tegea, and allowed his troops to plunder Orchomenus and Mantinea. Kleomenes, who was confined to the territory of Lacedæmon, 38 proceeded to emancipate all helots who could pay a sum of five Attic minæ for their freedom, by which means he raised a sum of five hundred talents. He also organised a special corps of two thousand men, armed after the Macedonian fashion, with which he hoped to be able to meet the Leukaspids,8 or white-shielded troops of Antigonus, and proceeded to attempt a wonderful and surprising feat of arms.

The city of Megalopolis at that time was itself quite as large and as powerful as Sparta, and had close at hand the army of the Achæans, and that of Antigonus himself, whom the people of Megalopolis had been especially eager to invite into Peloponnesus. This city Kleomenes determined to pounce upon: (no other word expresses the speed with which he surprised it). He ordered his troops to provision themselves for five days, and led them to Sellasia, as though he intended to invade Argolis. From Sellasia he marched into the territory of Megalopolis, halted at Rhœteum for supper, and thence proceeded along the road by Helikus straight towards Megalopolis. When he was close to it he detached Panteus with two regiments to attack a part of the wall lying between two towers, which he had heard was often left unguarded, while he moved slowly forward with the main body. Panteus not only found that spot, but a great extent of the city wall unguarded. While he was engaged in throwing down the wall and killing those who attempted to defend it, Kleomenes came up, and was within the city with his army before the people of Megalopolis knew of his arrival.

XXIV

When at last the inhabitants discovered the extent of their misfortune, some snatched up what they could and fled at once, while others got under arms and endeavoured to drive out the enemy. In this they could not succeed, but they enabled the fugitives to escape 39unmolested, so that no more than a thousand souls remained in the city, as all the rest got safe with their wives and children to Messene. Of those who offered resistance but a few were slain, and a very small number were taken prisoners, amongst whom were Lysandridas and Thearidas, the two most important persons in Megalopolis. On this account the soldiers who took them brought them at once to Kleomenes. Lysandridas, as soon as he saw Kleomenes at a distance, called out loudly to him, “King of the Lacedæmonians, now you have an opportunity to add to your glory by a deed even more noble and more worthy of a king than that which you have achieved!” Kleomenes, suspecting what he meant, asked, “What do you mean, Lysandridas? do you bid me give you back your city?” “That is what I bid you to do,” answered Lysandridas; “and I advise you not to ruin so great a city, but to fill it with friends and trusty allies, by restoring it to the people of Megalopolis, and becoming their saviour.” To this Kleomenes, after a short silence, replied, “It is hard to believe this; but let us ever prefer honour to profit.” Saying this he sent his prisoners to Messene, and a herald with them, who offered to restore the city to the people of Megalopolis, on the condition that they should desert the Achæans and become the friends and allies of the Spartans. However, Philopimen would not allow his countrymen to break their faith with the Achæans and accept this wise and generous offer. He declared that Kleomenes did not intend to give them back their city, but wanted to get possession of them as well as of their city, and with violent abuse drove Thearidas and Lysandridas out of the Messenian country. This was that Philopœmen who afterwards became the general of the Achæans and won great distinction, as will be found in the life of him which I have written.

XXV

When this answer was brought back to Kleomenes, who had hitherto carefully kept the city unharmed, and had not allowed any one to appropriate the most trifling article, he became furious with disappointment. He plundered the city, sent all the statues and pictures to Sparta, utterly destroyed all the best part of40 the city, and returned home, for he feared Antigonus and the Achæans. They, however, did not offer to attack him: for they were engaged in holding a conference at Ægium. Here Aratus ascended the tribune, and for a long time wept with his face hidden in his gown. At last, as the others in wonder bade him tell them the cause of his grief, he said that Megalopolis had been ruined by Kleomenes. On hearing this the assembly at once broke up. The Achæans were terror-stricken at the suddenness and importance of the blow, and Antigonus determined to proceed to the assistance of the people of Megalopolis, but as it took a long time to assemble his troops from their winter-quarters, he ordered them to stay where they were, and himself with a small force marched to Argos. Kleomenes now engaged in a second enterprise, which appeared completely insane, but which is said by the historian Polybius to show consummate generalship. As he knew that all the Macedonian troops were scattered over the country in winter-quarters, and that Antigonus with a few mercenary troops was spending the winter at Argos with his friends, he invaded the Argive territory, thinking that either he should shame Antigonus into a battle, and beat him, or else that if he did not dare to fight, the Argives would be disgusted with him. And so it fell out. The Argives, seeing their country spoiled by Kleomenes, were greatly enraged, and gathering together before the house in which Antigonus was lodging, excitedly called upon him either to fight or to resign his post as commander-in-chief in favour of a better man. But Antigonus, like a prudent general as he was, thought it more disgraceful to run foolish risks and incur unnecessary danger than to hear himself called hard names by the mob, and refused to leave the city, but stood constant in his original policy. Kleomenes, after marching up to the gates of Argos, ostentatiously ravaged the country, and returned home unmolested.

XXVI

Shortly afterwards, hearing that Antigonus had again advanced to Tegea, intending to invade Laconia by that route, Kleomenes quickly assembled his army, marched by a different road, avoiding Antigonus, and at daybreak appeared near the city of Argos, where he41 ravaged the plain country, not reaping the corn, as invaders usually do, with sickles and swords, but beating down with great clubs, so that his soldiers in sheer sport as they marched along were able to destroy the whole crop without trouble. When they reached the gymnasium of Kyllarabis some of the officers proposed to set it on fire; but Kleomenes forbade it, saying that even in destroying Megalopolis he had been guided by anger rather than by honour. Antigonus at first retired directly towards Argos, but afterwards occupied all the passes by which the Lacedæmonians could retreat. Kleomenes affected to set him at defiance, and sent a herald to Argos to demand the keys of the temple of Hera (between Argos and Mycenæ), in order that he might offer sacrifice there before retiring. After insulting the Argives by this ironical request, he offered sacrifice outside the temple, for the doors remained locked, and led away his army to Phlius. From thence he marched to Mount Oligyrtus, where he defeated the Macedonian troops who guarded the pass, and returned home by way of Orchomenus, having inspired his countrymen with hope and confidence, and having proved to his enemies that he was a consummate general, capable of conducting the most important operations. It was indeed no small feat for him, with only the resources of one small state at his disposal, to make war against the power of Macedonia and all the cities of the Peloponnesus, with Antigonus for their paymaster, and not only to prevent the enemy’s setting foot in Laconia, but to lay waste their country, and take such large and important cities from them.

XXVII

However, he who first called money the sinews of war must have had this war in his mind. So also Demades, when the Athenians wished to man a fleet at a time when they had no money, observed that they must make bread before they could make a voyage. Archidamus, too, who was king of Sparta at the opening of the Peloponnesian war, when his allies asked him to fix the limit of their several contributions, answered that the consumption of war is unlimited. For just as trained athletes in time overpower their antagonist in spite of his strength and skill, so Antigonus, having vast resources42 to draw upon, wearied out and overpowered Kleomenes, who had the greatest difficulty in paying his mercenary troops and feeding his countrymen. In other respects the long duration of the contest was in Kleomenes’s favour, as Antigonus had troubles at home which made the contest a more equal one. The barbarians, in his absence, always overran and plundered the outskirts of the kingdom of Macedonia, and at this period an army of Illyrians had invaded the country from the north, against whose depredations the Macedonians besought Antigonus to return and protect them. The letter calling upon him to return was very nearly delivered to him before the decisive battle of the war; and had he received it, he would no doubt have returned home at once and taken a long farewell of the Achæans. However, fortune, who delights to show that the most important events are decided by the merest trifles, caused the embassy with the letters for the recall of Antigonus to reach him just after the battle of Sellasia, in which Kleomenes lost his army and his country. This makes the misfortune of Kleomenes yet more pitiable; for if he had avoided a battle for two days longer, he never need have fought at all, as the Macedonians would have retreated, and left him to make what terms he pleased with the Achæans: whereas, as has been explained, his want of money forced him to fight, and that too when, according to Polybius, he had only twenty thousand men to oppose to thirty thousand.

XXVIII

In the battle he acted like a great general, and the Spartans fought with desperate courage, while the mercenary troops also behaved well; but he was overpowered by the Macedonian armament and by the irresistible weight of their phalanx. The historian Phylarchus says that Kleomenes was ruined by treachery, for Antigonus sent his Illyrians and Akarnanians to make a flank march and attack one of the enemy’s wings, which was commanded by Eukleidas, the brother of Kleomenes, and there placed the rest of his army in battle array. Kleomenes, who was watching the enemy from an eminence, could not see the Illyrian and Akarnanian troops, and suspected some manœuvre of the kind. He sent for43 Damoteles, the chief of the Spartan secret-service,9 and ordered him to explore the ground on both flanks, and see that no attack was meditated in that direction. As Damoteles, who is said to have been bribed by Antigonus, answered that all was well on the flanks, and that he had better give his entire attention to the enemy in front, Kleomenes believed him, and at once charged the army of Antigonus. The furious attack of the Spartans drove back the Macedonian phalanx, and Kleomenes forced it to retreat before him for a distance of about five stadia. Then, as he found that his brother Eukleidas on the other wing was surrounded by the enemy, he halted, and looking towards him, said, “You are gone, my dearest brother; you have fought bravely, and are a noble model to the Spartan youth, a noble theme for Spartan maidens’ songs.” Then, as the entire division under Eukleidas was cut to pieces, and the victors attacked his own men, who were thrown into confusion and could no longer stand their ground, he escaped from the field as best he could. It is said that many of the mercenaries were slain, and that of the Lacedæmonians, who were six thousand in all, only two hundred remained alive.

XXIX

Kleomenes, when he reached Sparta, advised the citizens whom he met to submit to Antigonus, and declared that he himself, whether he lived or died, would do what was best for Sparta. As he saw the women running up to those who had accompanied him in his flight, taking their arms from them and offering them drink, he retired into his own house, where his mistress, a girl of a good family of Megalopolis, whom he had taken to live with him after his wife’s death, came up to him as usual, and wished to attend upon him on his return from the wars. But he would neither drink, although excessively thirsty, nor sit down, weary though he was, but in his armour as he was took hold of one of the columns with his hand, leaned his face upon his elbow, and after resting 44a short time in this posture while he revolved in his mind every kind of plan, proceeded with his friends to Grythium. Here they embarked on a ship which had been prepared in case of such a disaster, and sailed away.

XXX

After the battle Antigonus advanced upon Sparta, and made himself master of the city. He treated the Lacedæmonians with kindness, and offered no kind of insult to their glorious city, but permitted them to retain their laws and constitution, sacrificed to the gods, and on the third day withdrew, as he had learned that a terrible war was raging in Macedonia, and that his kingdom was being ravaged by the barbarians. His health was already affected by a disease, which ended in consumption. However, he bore up against it, and was able to die gloriously after having recovered his kingdom, won a great victory over the barbarians, and killed a great number of them. Phylarchus tells us that he ruptured his lungs by shouting in the battle itself, and this seems the most probable account, but the common report at the time was that while shouting aloud after the victory, “O happy day!” he brought up a vast quantity of blood and fell sick of a fever, of which he died. Such was the fate of Antigonus.

XXXI

Kleomenes sailed from Kythera to another island, named Ægialea. As he was about to cross over from this place to Cyrene, one of his friends named Therykion, a brilliant warrior and a man of lofty, unbending spirit, said to him in private, “My king, we have lost the opportunity of falling by the noblest of deaths in the battle, although we publicly declared that Antigonus should never enter Sparta unless he first passed over the dead body of the king. However, the course which is next to this in honour is still open to us. Why should we recklessly embark on this voyage merely in order to exchange our misfortunes at home for others in a distant country? If it be not disgraceful for the sons of Herakles to submit to the successors of Philip and Alexander, we shall save ourselves a long voyage by delivering ourselves up to Antigonus, who is probably as much better than Ptolemy as the Macedonians are better than the Egyptians. If, on the other hand, we scorn to become the subjects of our conqueror, why should we become subject to one who45 has not conquered us, and so prove ourselves inferior to two men instead of one, by becoming the courtiers of Ptolemy as well as fleeing before Antigonus? Is it on account of your mother that we are going to Egypt? If so, you will indeed make a glorious appearance before her, and you will be much to be envied when she shows her son to the ladies of Ptolemy’s court, an exile instead of a king. While we are still masters of our own swords, and are still in sight of Laconia, let us put ourselves beyond the reach of further misfortunes, and make amends to those who died for Sparta at Sellasia, rather than settle ourselves in Egypt, and inquire whom Antigonus has been pleased to appoint satrap of Lacedæmon?”10

To these remarks of Therykion Kleomenes answered, “Wretch, do you think that by suicide, the easiest way out of all difficulties, and one which is within every man’s reach, you will gain a reputation for bravery, and will not rather be flying before the enemy more disgracefully than at Sellasia? More powerful men than ourselves have ere now been defeated, either by their own evil fortune or by the excessive numbers of their enemy: but the man who refuses to bear fatigue and misery, and the scorn of men, is conquered by his own cowardice. A self-inflicted death ought to be an honourable action, not a dishonourable means of escape from the necessity for action. It is disgraceful either to live or to die for oneself alone: yet this is the course which you recommend, namely, that I should fly from my present misery without ever again performing any useful or honourable action. I think that it is both your duty and mine, not to despair of our country: for when all hope fails us, we can easily find means to die.” To this Therykion made no answer, but as soon as he had an opportunity left Kleomenes, sought a retired spot upon the beach, and killed himself.

XXXII

Kleomenes sailed from Ægialea to Libya, where he was received with royal honours and conducted to Alexandria. At his first interview Ptolemy11 treated him with mere ordinary politeness, but when by46 converation with him he discovered his great abilities, and in the familiar intercourse of daily life observed the noble Spartan simplicity of his habits, and saw with how proud and unbroken a spirit he bore his misfortunes, he thought him a much more trustworthy friend than any of the venal throng of courtiers by whom he was surrounded. Ptolemy felt real regret at having neglected so great a man, and allowed Antigonus to gain so much glory and power at his expense. He showed Kleomenes great kindness and honour, and encouraged him by promising that he would place a fleet and a sum of money at his disposal, which would enable him to return to Greece and recover his throne. He settled upon him a yearly allowance of twenty-four talents, the most part of which he and his friends, who still retained their simple Spartan habits, distributed in charity among the Greek refugees who had found an asylum in Egypt.

XXXIII

The elder Ptolemy died before he could accomplish his promise of attempting to restore Kleomenes to his throne; and amidst the drunken licence of the court of his successor, the affairs of Kleomenes were entirely neglected. The young king12 was so given up to wine and women, that his soberest moments were spent in organising religious ceremonies in the palace, and in carrying a kettledrum in honour of the mother of the gods. The whole of the public business of the kingdom was managed by Agathoklea, the king’s mistress, her mother, and the brothel-keeper Œnanthes. Yet even here it seems that the assistance of Kleomenes was needed, for the king, fearing his brother Magas, who through his mother had great influence with the army, attached himself in a special manner to Kleomenes, and made him a member of his own secret council, desiring to make use of him to kill his brother. Kleomenes, although every one in the court bade him do this, refused, saying that it would rather be his duty, if it were possible, to raise up more brothers for the king, to strengthen and confirm his throne. When Sosibius, the most powerful of the king’s favourites, said that the mercenary troops were not to be 47depended upon while Magas was alive, Kleomenes answered that he might be quite easy on that score, for more than three thousand of the mercenaries were Peloponnesians, and at the slightest sign from him would seize their arms and rally round him. This speech was thought at the time to be a great proof of the loyalty of Kleomenes, and gave the courtiers a great idea of his power; but afterwards, as Ptolemy’s weakness of character produced cowardice, and after the manner of empty-headed men he began to think it safest to suspect every one, these words made the courtiers fear Kleomenes, as having a dangerous power over the mercenaries; and many of them were wont to say, “This man moves among us like a lion among a flock of sheep.” Indeed the demeanour of Kleomenes in the Egyptian palace, as he calmly and quietly watched the course of events, naturally suggested this simile.

XXXIV

Kleomenes gave up asking for a fleet and an army; but hearing that Antigonus was dead, and that the Achæans were involved in a war with the Ætolians, while his presence was imperatively demanded at home, as all Peloponnesus seemed to be going to ruin, he desired to be sent home alone with his friends. However, he could persuade no one to accede to this request, as the king thought of nothing but his concubines and his revels, and Sosibius, upon whom devolved the whole conduct of affairs, although he knew that Kleomenes would be dangerous and hard to manage if kept in Egypt against his will, yet feared to set at large so daring and enterprising a man, who had gained a thorough insight into the utter rottenness of the Ptolemaic dynasty. For Kleomenes could not be bribed into remaining quiet, but as the bull13 sacred to Apis, although he is abundantly fed and supplied with every luxury, yet longs to frisk and range about as 48nature intended, so he cared for none of their effeminate pleasures,

“but wore his soul away”

like Achilles,

“Idling at home, though eager for the fray.”

XXXV

While his affairs were in this posture, there arrived at Alexandria one Nikagoras, a Messenian, who pretended to be a friend to Kleomenes, but really hated him bitterly, because he had once sold him a fair estate, but had never received the money, either because Kleomenes intended to cheat him, or because he was unable to pay him on account of the wars. As this man was disembarking from his ship, Kleomenes, who happened to be walking upon the quay, saw him, and at once warmly greeted him, and inquired what business had brought him to Egypt. Nikagoras returned his salutation with equal friendliness, and said that he had brought over some fine horses for the king’s use in the wars. At this Kleomenes laughed, and said, “I had rather you had brought singing-girls or beautiful boys, for they are what please the king best.” Nikagoras listened to this remark with a smile, but a few days afterwards he reminded Kleomenes of the estate which he had bought, and asked him to pay the price, saying that he would not have pressed for it if he had not sustained losses on his cargo. As Kleomenes replied that all his pension from the king was spent, Nikagoras in a rage repeated to Sosibius the sarcasm which he had used. Sosibius was much pleased to hear of it, but as he wished to have some graver matter of which to accuse him to the king, he persuaded Nikagoras to write a letter before he left Egypt, accusing Kleomenes of a design to make himself master of Cyrene, if the king put him in possession of a fleet and army. Nikagoras wrote the letter, and sailed away to Greece; and after forty days Sosibius took the letter and showed it to Ptolemy, as though he had just received it. By this means he so wrought upon the young king’s mind, that he confined Kleomenes in a large house, and placed a guard before all the doors, although he continued to allow him his pension as before.

XXXVI

This treatment was in itself 49sufficiently grievous to Kleomenes, and made him fear that something worse was in store. Now Ptolemy, the son of Chrysermes, who was a friend of the king’s, had always been on good terms with Kleomenes, and they had been in the habit of conversing familiarly together. This man now, at Kleomenes’s own request, came to see him, and talked amicably with him, explaining away all which had appeared suspicious about the king’s conduct. As he was leaving the house, without noticing that Kleomenes had followed him to the door, he harshly reproved the guard for keeping such careless watch over so great and savage a monster. Kleomenes himself heard him say this, and before Ptolemy observed him, retired and told his friends what he had heard. They at once abandoned all hope, and fiercely determined to avenge themselves on Ptolemy for his wickedness and arrogance, and die as became Spartans, not wait to be butchered like fat cattle. They thought that it was intolerable that Kleomenes should have disdained to make terms with Antigonus, who was a soldier and a man of action, and should sit waiting for the pleasure of a timbrel-playing king, who as soon as he was at leisure from his kettle-drummings and revellings, intended to murder him.

XXXVII

As soon as they had formed this resolution, as it happened that Ptolemy had gone to Canopus, they spread a report that the king had given orders for the guard to be removed. Next, observing the custom of the kings of Egypt, which was to send a dinner and various presents to those who are about to be released from confinement, the friends of Kleomenes prepared many presents of this kind and sent them to him, deceiving the guard, who believed that they had been sent by the king. Kleomenes offered sacrifice, and gave the soldiers on guard an ample share of the meat, while he himself put on a garland and feasted with his friends. It is said that they proceeded to action sooner than had been originally intended, because Kleomenes perceived that one of the servants who was in the plot had left the house, though he had only gone to visit his mistress. Fearing that he meant to denounce them, as soon as it was noon, and the guard were sleeping off their wine, Kleomenes put on 50his tunic, slit up the seam over the right shoulder, seized his naked sword, and sallied forth with his friends similarly arrayed, thirteen in all. One of them named Hippitas, who was lame, came boldly out with the rest, but finding that they proceeded slowly to enable him to keep up with them, begged them to kill him, and not spoil their plot by waiting for a useless man. It happened that one of the Alexandrians was leading a horse past the door; they at once took it, placed Hippitas on its back, and ran quickly through the streets, calling upon the populace to rise and set itself free. The people, it appears, had spirit enough to admire Kleomenes, but no one dared to follow or help him. Three of the conspirators met Ptolemy, the son of Chrysermes, coming out of the palace, and killed him: and when another Ptolemy, the governor of the city, drove towards them in a chariot, they rushed to meet him, scattered his body-guard, dragged him out of the chariot and killed him. They now made their way to the citadel, intending to break open the prison and make use of the prisoners to swell their numbers; but the guardians of the prison had closed the gates effectually before they arrived, and Kleomenes, failing in this attempt, roamed through the city without finding any one to join him, as all fled in terror at his approach. At last he stopped, and said to his friends, “No wonder women bear rule in a city where men fear to be free.” He now bade them all end their lives worthily of him and of themselves. First of all Hippitas, at his own request, was struck dead by one of the younger men; after which, each man deliberately and fearlessly inflicted upon himself a mortal stab, with the exception of Panteus, who had been the first to break into the city of Megalopolis. This man, the handsomest and best warrior of all the Spartan youth, was especially loved by the king, and was ordered by him to wait till all the rest were dead, and then to put an end to his life. When they had all fallen, Panteus pricked each man with his dagger, to make certain that none of them were alive. When he pricked Kleomenes in the ankle he saw his face contract. He kissed him and sat down beside him until he was quite dead, and then, embracing the corpse, killed himself upon it.

51

XXXVIII

Thus perished Kleomenes, after having reigned over Sparta for thirteen years, as described above. The news of his death was soon bruited abroad, and Kratesiklea, although a woman of high spirit, was so overcome by her misfortune that she embraced the children and wept for Kleomenes. Upon this the eldest boy leaped up, and before any one knew what he was going to do, threw himself headlong from the roof of the house. He was much hurt, but not killed, and was taken up, crying out and reproaching his friends because they would not allow him to die. When Ptolemy heard the news, he ordered the corpse of Kleomenes to be flayed and exposed on a gibbet, and his children, his mother, and her attendants to be put to death. Among these was the wife of Panteus, the fairest and noblest-looking of them all. She and her husband had only recently been married when their misfortunes began. When Panteus left Sparta she wished to accompany him, but her parents would not allow her to do so, and locked her up in their house. But she shortly afterwards procured a horse and a little money, and made her escape by night. She rode all the way to Taenarum, where she found a ship about to sail to Egypt, on board of which she crossed the sea, joined her husband, and cheerfully shared his exile. She now, when the soldiers came to lead away Kratesiklea, took her by the hand, held up the train of her dress, and bade her be of good courage; although Kratesiklea herself was not afraid to die, but only asked one favour, that she might die before her children. When they arrived at the place of execution, the children were first killed before the eyes of Kratesiklea, and then she herself. All she said was: “My children, whither have you come?” The wife of Panteus, being a tall and robust woman, girded up her robe, and arranged each of the corpses as decently as her means permitted. After she had paid the last offices to each of them she prepared herself for death, bared her neck, allowed no one to approach her but the executioner, and died like a heroine, without requiring any one to arrange her corpse. Thus the modesty which she had observed throughout her life, did not desert her even when she was dead.

52

XXXIX

Thus gloriously, even during its last days, did Lacedæmon, whose women are taught to vie with men in courage, prove that virtue is superior to Fortune. A few days afterwards, those who were watching the body of Kleomenes as it hung upon the gibbet, observed a large snake which wound its body round his head and covered his face, so that no ravenous bird could alight upon it. On hearing this, the king was struck with superstitious terror, fearing that he had offended the gods by the murder of one who was evidently a favourite of Heaven, and something more than mortal. All the ladies of his court began to offer sacrifices of atonement for his sin, and the people of Alexandria went to the place and worshipped Kleomenes as a hero and child of the gods, until they were restrained by the learned, who explained that as from the corrupted bodies of oxen are bred bees, from horses wasps, and from asses beetles, so human bodies, by the melting and gathering together of the juices of the marrow, produce serpents. This was observed by the ancients, who therefore considered that of all animals the serpent was peculiarly appropriated to heroes.

53

LIFE OF
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS.

I

Having finished the first History,1 it remains to contemplate equal calamities in the pair of Roman Lives, in a comparison of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus with Agis and Kleomenes.2 Tiberius and Caius were the sons of54 Tiberius Gracchus,3 who was censor and twice consul, and celebrated two triumphs, but was still more55 distinguished for his personal character, to which he owed the honour of having for his wife Cornelia, the daughter of Scipio,4 the conqueror of Hannibal, whom he married after Scipio’s death, though Tiberius had not been a friend of Scipio, but rather a political opponent. A story is told that Tiberius once caught a couple of snakes5 in his bed, and the diviners, after consulting on the matter, told him that he must not kill both nor yet let both go; as to the male, they said, if it were killed, the death of Tiberius would follow, and if the female were killed, Cornelia would die. Now Tiberius, who loved his wife and thought it would be more suitable for him to die first, as he was an elderly man and his wife was still young, killed the male snake and let the female go; and he died 56no long time after, leaving twelve children by Cornelia, Cornelia undertook the care of her family and her husband’s property, and showed herself so prudent, so fond of her children, and of so exalted a character, that Tiberius was judged to have done well in dying in place of such a wife. And though Ptolemæus,6 the king of Egypt, invited Cornelia to share his crown, and wooed her for his wife, she refused the offer and continued a widow. All her children died before her, except one daughter, who married the younger Scipio,7 and two sons, of whom I am 57going to speak, Tiberius and Caius, who were brought up by their mother so carefully that they became, beyond dispute, the most accomplished of all the Roman youth, which they owed, perhaps, more to their excellent education than even to their natural good qualities.

II

Now as the figures of the Dioscuri,8 whether sculptured or painted, though resembling one another, still present such an amount of difference as appears when we contrast a boxer with a runner, so in these two youths, with all their resemblance in courage, temperance, generous temper, eloquence, and magnanimity, yet great contrasts also in their actions and polity blossomed forth, so to speak, and displayed themselves, which I think it well to set forth. First in the character and expression of his countenance, and in his movements, Tiberius was mild and sedate; Caius was animated and impetuous. When Tiberius harangued the people, he would stand composedly on one spot; but Caius was the first Roman who moved about on the rostra9 and pulled his toga from his shoulder while he was speaking, as Kleon10 the58 Athenian is said to have been the first popular orator at Athens who threw his cloak from him and struck his thigh. The manner of Caius was awe-striking and vehemently impassioned; the manner of Tiberius was more pleasing and calculated to stir the sympathies: the language of Tiberius was pure and elaborated to great nicety; that of Caius was persuasive and exuberant. In like manner, in his mode of life and his table, Tiberius was frugal and simple; compared with others, Caius was moderate and austere, but, contrasted with his brother, luxurious and curious, as we see by Drusus charging him with buying silver dolphins11 at the price of twelve hundred and fifty drachmæ for every pound that they weighed. The differences in their character corresponded to their respective styles of speaking: Tiberius was moderate and mild; Caius was rough and impetuous, and it often happened that in his harangues he was carried away by passion, contrary to his judgment, and his voice became shrill, and he fell to abuse, and grew confused in his discourse. To remedy this fault, he employed Licinius, a well-educated slave, who used to stand behind him when he was speaking, with a musical instrument,12 such as is 59used as an accompaniment to singing, and whenever he observed that the voice of Caius was becoming harsh and broken through passion, he would produce a soft note, upon which Caius would immediately moderate his vehemence and his voice, and become calm.

III

Such were the contrasts between the two brothers, but in courage against the enemy, in justice to the subject nations, in vigilance in the discharge of public duties, and in self-control over indulgence, they were both alike. Tiberius was the elder by nine years, a circumstance which caused their political career to be separated by an interval, and greatly contributed to the failure of their measures, for they did not rise to eminence at the same time nor unite their strength in one effort, which from their union, would have been powerful and irresistible. I must accordingly speak of each separately, and of the elder first.

IV

Immediately on attaining man’s estate, Tiberius had so great a reputation that he was elected a member of the college of augurs,13 rather for his excellent qualities than his noble birth. Appius Claudius,14 a man of consular and censorian rank, who in consideration of 60his dignity was appointed Princeps Senatus,15 and in loftiness of character surpassed all his contemporaries, showed his opinion of Tiberius; for when the augurs were feasting together, Appius addressed Tiberius with many expressions of friendship, and solicited him to take his daughter to wife. Tiberius gladly accepted the proposal, and the agreement was forthwith made. As Appius was entering the door on his return home, he called out to his wife in a loud voice, “Antistia, I have given our daughter Claudia to wife.” Antistia in surprise replied, “What is the need or the hurry, unless you have got Tiberius Gracchus for her husband?” I am aware that some writers tell this story of Tiberius the father of the Gracchi and of Scipio Africanus; but the majority have the story as I give it, and Polybius16 says that after the death of Scipio Africanus, his kinsmen selected Tiberius to be the husband of Cornelia, and that she had neither been given in marriage nor betrothed by her father in his lifetime. Now the younger Tiberius served in the army in Africa17
61with the second Scipio,18 who had married his sister, and by living in the general’s tent he soon learned his character, which exhibited many and great qualities for virtuous emulation and practical imitation. Tiberius, also, soon surpassed all the young soldiers in attention to discipline and in courage; and he was the first to mount the enemy’s wall, as Fannius19 says, who also asserts that he mounted the wall with Tiberius and shared the honour with him. While he was in the army Tiberius won the affection of all the soldiers, and was regretted when he went away.

V

After that expedition he was elected quæstor,20 and it fell to his lot to serve in that capacity under the consul Caius Mancinus,21 no bad man, but the most unlucky of62 Roman generals. Accordingly in adverse fortune and critical affairs the prudence and courage of Tiberius became the more conspicuous, and not only his prudence and courage, but what was truly admirable, his consideration and respect for his general, whose reverses almost made him forget who he was. Having been defeated in several great battles, Mancinus attempted to leave his camp by night and make a retreat. The Numantines, however, perceived his movements, and immediately seizing the camp, fell on the Romans in their flight and killed those in the rear; and at last, when they were surrounding the whole army and driving them to unfavourable ground, from which escape was impossible, Mancinus, despairing of all chance of saving himself by resistance, sent to treat for a truce and terms of peace. But the Numantines declared that they would trust nobody except Tiberius, and they bade Mancinus send him. The Numantines had come to this resolution as well from a knowledge of the young man’s character, for there was much talk about him in this campaign, as from the remembrance of his father Tiberius, who, after carrying on war against the Iberians and subduing many of them, made peace with the Numantines, and always kept the Roman people to a fair and just observance of it. Accordingly Tiberius was sent, and had a conference with the Numantines, in which he got some favourable conditions, and, by making some concessions, obtained a truce, and thus saved twenty thousand Roman citizens, besides the slaves and camp-followers.

VI

All the property that was taken in the camp became the booty of the Numantines; and among it were the tablets of Tiberius, which contained the entries and accounts of his administration as quæstor. Being very anxious to recover them, though the army had already advanced some distance, he returned to the city with three or four companions, and calling forth the magistrates of Numantia, he begged to have back his tablets, in order that his enemies might not have an opportunity of calumniating him if he should not be able to give an account 63of his administration of the public money. The Numantines were pleased at the opportunity of doing him a service, and invited him to enter the city; and when he stood hesitating, they came near and clung to his hands, and were urgent in entreating him not to consider them as enemies any longer, but as friends, and to trust them. Tiberius determined to do so, as he was very anxious to get the tablets, and feared to irritate the Numantines if he should seem to distrust them. When he had entered the city, the first thing they did was to prepare an entertainment, and to urge him most importunately to sit down and eat with them. They afterwards gave him back the tablets, and bade him take anything else he liked. Tiberius, however, would have nothing except the frankincense which he wanted for the public sacrifices, and after a friendly embrace he took his leave of them.

VII

On his return to Rome, the whole transaction was greatly blamed as dishonourable and disgraceful to Rome. The kinsfolk and friends of the soldiers, who were a large part of the people, crowded about Tiberius, charging the general with the disgraceful part of what had happened, and declaring that Tiberius had been the saviour of so many citizens. Those who were the most vexed at the events in Iberia,22 recommended that they should 64follow the example of their ancestors; for in former times the Romans stripped of their clothes and delivered up to the Samnites23 those who had purchased their safety on 65dishonourable terms, both the generals and all who had any share or participation in the treaty, quæstors and tribunes all alike, and on their heads they turned the violation of the oaths and the infraction of the agreement. It was on this occasion particularly, that the people showed their affection and zeal towards Tiberius: for they decided to deliver up the consul, stripped and in chains, to the Numantines, but they spared all the rest on account of Tiberius. It appears that Scipio also, who was then the most powerful man in Rome, gave his assistance in this matter, but nevertheless he was blamed for not saving Mancinus, and not making any exertion to ratify the treaty with the Numantines, which had been concluded by his relation and friend Tiberius. But whatever difference there was between Scipio and Tiberius on this occasion, perhaps originated mainly in jealousy and was owing to the friends of Tiberius and the sophists, who endeavoured to prejudice him against Scipio. There was, however, no irreconcilable breach made between them, and no bad result from this affair; indeed, it seems to me that Tiberius would never have been involved in those political measures which cost him his life, if Scipio Africanus had been at Rome while they were going on. But it was while Scipio was carrying on the war at Numantia24 that Tiberius commenced his legislation, to which he was led from the following motives.

VIII

Whatever territory the Romans acquired from their neighbours in war, they sold part, and retaining the other part as public property,25 they gave it to the 66poorer citizens to cultivate, on the payment of a small sum to the treasury. But as the rich began to outbid the poor, and so to drive them out, a law was passed which forbade any one to have more than five hundred jugera of land. This law restrained the greediness of the rich for a short time, and was a relief to the poor, who remained on the land which they had hired, and cultivated the several portions which they originally had. But in course of 67time their rich neighbours contrived to transfer the holdings to themselves in the names of other persons, and at last openly got possession of the greater part of the public lands in their own names, and the poor, being expelled, were not willing to take military service and were careless about bringing up families, in consequence of which there was speedily a diminution in the number of freemen all through Italy, and the country was filled with ergastula26 of barbarian slaves, with whom the rich cultivated the lands from which they had expelled the citizens. Now Caius Lælius,27 the friend of Scipio, attempted to remedy this mischief, but he desisted through fear of the disturbances that were threatened by the opposition of the rich, whence he got the name of wise or prudent, for such is the signification of the Roman word “sapiens.” Tiberius, on being elected tribune,28 immediately undertook the same measures, as most say, at the instigation of the orator Diophanes and the philosopher Blossius.29 Diophanes 68was an exile from Mitylene: Blossius was an Italian from Cumæ, and had been an intimate at Rome with Antipater of Tarsus, who had done him the honour of dedicating to him some of his philosophical writings. Some give part of the blame to Cornelia also, the mother of Tiberius, who frequently reproached her sons that the Romans still called her the mother-in-law of Scipio, but not yet the mother of the Gracchi. Others say that jealousy of one Spurius Postumius,30 a contemporary of Tiberius, and a rival of his reputation as an orator, was the immediate motive: for it is said that when Tiberius returned to Rome from his military service, he found that Postumius had far out-stripped him in reputation and influence, and seeing the distinction that Postumius had attained, he determined to get the advantage over him by engaging in measures which were attended with hazard, but promised great results. But his brother Caius in a certain book has recorded, that as Tiberius was passing through Tyrrhenia (Tuscany), on his road to Numantia, he observed the deserted state of the country, and that the cultivators and shepherds were foreign slaves and barbarians; and that he then for the first time conceived those political measures which to them were the beginning of infinite calamities. But the energy and ambition of Tiberius were mainly excited by the people, who urged him by writing on the porticoes, the walls, and on the tombs, to recover the public land for the poor.

IX

He did not, however, draw up the law without assistance, but took the advice of the citizens most eminent 69for character and reputation, among whom were Crassus31 the pontifex maximus, Mucius Scævola,32 the jurist, who was then consul, and Claudius Appius, his father-in-law. Never was a measure directed against such wrong and aggression conceived in more moderate and gentle terms; for though the rich well deserved to be punished for their violation of law and to be compelled to surrender under penalties the land which they had been illegally enjoying, the law merely declared that they should give up their unjust acquisitions upon being paid the value of them, and should allow the lands to be occupied by the citizens who were in want of this relief. Though the reform of this abuse was so moderate and reasonable, the people were satisfied to take no notice of the past and to secure themselves against wrong for the future. But the 70rich and those who had possessions detested the proposed law because of their greediness, and the proposer of it was the object of their indignation and jealousy; and accordingly they attempted to divert the people from the measure, by insinuating that Tiberius was proposing a division of land merely to disturb the state and to bring about a revolution. But they failed altogether; for Tiberius, supporting a measure in itself honourable and just, with an eloquence33 calculated to set off even a meaner subject, showed his power and his superiority over his opponents, whenever the people were crowded round the rostra and he addressed them about the poor. “The wild beasts of Italy,” he would say, “had their dens and holes and hiding-places, while the men who fought and died in defence of Italy enjoyed, indeed, the air and the light, but nothing else: houseless and without a spot of ground to rest upon, they wander about with their wives and children, while their commanders, with a lie in their mouth, exhort the soldiers in battle to defend their tombs and temples against the enemy, for out of so many Romans not one has a family altar or ancestral tomb, but they fight to maintain the luxury and wealth of others, and they die with the title of lords of the earth,34 without possessing a single clod to call their own.”

X

Such language as this, proceeding from a lofty spirit and genuine feeling, and delivered to the people, who were vehemently excited and roused, none of the 71enemies of Tiberius attempted to refute. Abandoning, therefore, all idea of opposing him by words, they addressed themselves to Marcus Octavius,35 one of the tribunes, a young man of sober and orderly disposition, and a companion and friend of Tiberius. At first Octavius, from regard to Tiberius, evaded the proposals, but being urged and importuned by many of the powerful nobles,36
72and as it were, driven to it, he set himself in opposition to Tiberius, and prevented the passing of the law. Now 73all the power is virtually in the hands of the dissentient tribune, for the rest can do nothing if a single tribune 74oppose them. Irritated at this, Tiberius withdrew his moderate measure and introduced another, more agreeable 75to the people and more severe against the illegal possessors of land; this new measure ejected persons out of the lands which they had got possession of contrary to existing laws. There was a daily contest between him and Octavius at the rostra, but though they opposed one another with great earnestness and rivalry, it is said they never uttered a disparaging word against one another, and that no unbecoming expression ever escaped either of them against the other. It is not, then, in bacchanalian revelries37 only, as it seems, but also in ambitious rivalry and passion, that to be of noble nature and to have been well brought up, restrains and governs the mind. Tiberius, observing that Octavius himself was obnoxious to the law and possessed a considerable tract of the public land, begged him to desist from his opposition, offering to pay him the value of the land out of his own purse, though he was by no means in affluent circumstances. Upon Octavius rejecting the proposal, Tiberius by an edict forbade all the other magistrates to transact any public business until the people had voted upon his law; and he placed his private seals on the temple of Saturn,38 that the quæstors might not be able to take anything out of it or pay anything in, and he gave public notice that a penalty would be imposed on the prætors if they76 disobeyed; in consequence of which all the magistrates were afraid and ceased from discharging their several functions. Upon this the possessors changed their dress and went about the Forum in a piteous and humble guise, but in secret they plotted against Tiberius and endeavoured to procure assassins to take him off; in consequence of which, Tiberius, as everybody knew, wore under his dress a short sword, such as robbers use, which the Romans call dolo.39

XI

When the day came and Tiberius was calling the people to the vote, the voting-urns40 were seized by the 77rich and the proceedings were put into great confusion. However, as the partisans of Tiberius, who had the superiority in numbers, were collecting in order to make resistance, Manlius41 and Fulvius, both consular men, falling down at the knees of Tiberius, and clinging to his hands with tears, begged him to desist. Tiberius, seeing that matters were near coming to extremities, and from regard to the men also, asked them what they would have him do; to which they replied, that they were not competent to advise on so important a matter, and they urged him to refer it to the senate, and at last he consented. The senate met, but did nothing, owing to the opposition of the rich, who had great influence in the body; upon which Tiberius had recourse to the unconstitutional and violent measure of depriving Octavius of his office, finding it impossible to put his proposed law to the vote in any other way. In the first place, he publicly entreated Octavius, addressing him affectionately and clinging to his hands, to yield to and gratify the people, who asked for nothing but their rights, and would only get a small matter in return for great dangers and sufferings. Octavius rejected this proposition; upon which Tiberius reminded him that both of them were magistrates and were contending with equal power on a weighty matter, and that it was not possible for this struggle to continue without coming to open hostility; that he saw no remedy except for one of them to give up his office; and he bade Octavius put it to the people to vote on his case first, and said that he would immediately descend to the station of a private man, if the 78citizens should desire it. As Octavius refused this proposal also, Tiberius said that he would put the question about Octavius retiring from the tribunate to the people, if Octavius did not change his resolution.

XII

Thus ended the assembly of that day. On the following day Tiberius mounted the rostra and again endeavoured to persuade Octavius; but as he would not yield, Tiberius proposed a law by which Octavius should be deprived of his tribunate, and he forthwith summoned the citizens to vote upon it. Now, there were five and thirty tribes,42 and when seventeen of them had already given their vote, and the addition of one more tribe would reduce Octavius to a private condition, Tiberius stopped the voting, and again entreated Octavius, embracing him in the presence of the people and urgently praying him not to be careless about being deprived of his office, and not to bring on him the blame of so severe and odious a measure. It is said that Octavius was not entirely untouched or unmoved by these entreaties, and his eyes were filled with tears and he was silent for some time. But when he looked to the rich and the possessors, who were standing together in one body, through fear of losing their good opinion, as it seems, he boldly determined to run every risk, and he told Tiberius to do what he pleased. Accordingly the law was passed, and Tiberius ordered one of his freedmen to drag Octavius from the rostra, for Tiberius employed his own freedmen as officers; a circumstance which made the spectacle of Octavius dragged from the rostra with contumely still more deplorable. At the same time the people made an assault on Octavius, and though the rich all ran to his assistance and disengaged him from their hands, it was not without difficulty that he was rescued and made his escape from the mob. But one of his faithful slaves, who had placed himself in front of his master to defend him, had his eyes torn out. This violence was 79quite contrary to the wishes of Tiberius, who, on seeing what was going on, speedily made his way to the disturbance.

XIII

The law about the land was now immediately carried, and triumviri43 were appointed for ascertaining its bounds and distributing it; the triumviri were Tiberius, and his father-in-law Claudius Appius, and Caius Gracchus, his brother, who, however, was not at Rome, but serving under Scipio against Numantia. All this Tiberius accomplished quietly without any opposition, and he also procured to be elected tribune in the room of Octavius, not a person of rank, but one Mucius44 a client45 of his own. The nobles, who were vexed at all these measures and feared the growing power of Tiberius, treated him in the senate with contumely; and upon his asking, according to custom, for a tent from the treasury for his use while he was distributing the land, they refused it to him, though others had often had one allowed them on less important occasions; and they only gave him for his expenses nine oboli46 a day, which was done on the motion of Publius Nasica,47 who entered violently into the opposition against Tiberius, for he was in possession of a very large amount of public land, and was greatly annoyed at being forcibly ejected from it. But the people now became still more violent. A friend of Tiberius happened to die suddenly, and suspicious marks immediately showed themselves on the body. The people cried out that he was poisoned, and collecting in great numbers at the funeral, they carried the bier and stood by while the body was burnt. And the suspicion of poison appeared to have some reason, for the 80body burst on the pile and sent forth such a quantity of corrupt humours as to quench the flame; and though a light was again applied, the body would not burn till it was removed to another place, where, after much trouble, the fire at last laid hold of it. Upon this Tiberius, with the view of exciting the people still more, changed his dress, and showing his children to the people, begged that they would protect them and their mother, for he now despaired of his own safety.

XIV

On the death of Attalus48 Philometor, Eudemus of Pergamum brought his will to Rome, in which the Roman people were made the king’s heir. In order to please the people, Tiberius promulgated a law to the effect that as soon as the king’s treasures were received, they should be distributed among those who had assignments of land, in order to enable them to stock the farms and to assist them in their cultivation. With respect to the cities included within the kingdom of Attalus, he said that the senate had no right to decide about them, but he would bring the subject before the popular assembly. This measure gave violent offence to the senate, and Pompeius49 getting up, said that he lived near Tiberius, and so knew that Eudemus of Pergamum had given a diadem out of the royal treasures and a purple robe to Tiberius, who designed to make himself king in Rome. Quintus Metellus50 reproached Tiberius by reminding him, that whenever his father, during his censorship, was returning home from supper, the citizens used to put out the lights 81for fear it might be supposed that they were indulging too much in entertainments and drinking, but that the most insolent and needy of the citizens accompanied Tiberius with lights at night. Titus Annius,51 who was not a man of good repute or sober behaviour, but in any contest of words by way of question and answer was considered to be unequalled, challenged Tiberius to answer definitely whether he had or had not branded with infamy his brother tribune, though by the law he was sacred and inviolable. As the question was received with signs of approbation, Tiberius, hastily quitting the senate-house, convoked the people and ordered Annius to be brought before them, with the intention of accusing him. But Annius, who was much inferior to Tiberius both in eloquence and reputation, had recourse to his tricks, and called on Tiberius to answer a few questions before he began his speech. Tiberius assented, and as soon as there was silence, Annius said, “If you intend to deprive me of my rank, and disgrace me, and I appeal to one of your brother tribunes, and he shall come to my aid, and you shall then fall into a passion, will you deprive him of his office?” On this question being put, it is said that Tiberius, though no man was readier in words or bolder in action, was so confused that he made no reply.

XV

For the present Tiberius52 dissolved the assembly, seeing that his proceedings with respect to Octavius were 82not liked either by the nobles or the people, for they considered that the high and honourable dignity of the tribunate, which had been kept unimpaired up to that time, had been destroyed and trampled upon. He made an harangue to the people, a few of the arguments of which it will not be out of place to mention, for the purpose of showing the persuasive eloquence and the subtlety of the man. He said that a tribune was sacred and inviolate, only because he was dedicated to the people and was the guardian of the people. If then a tribune should deviate from his duty and wrong the people, abridge their power and deprive them of the opportunity of voting, he had by his own act deprived himself of his rank, by not fulfilling the conditions on which he received it. Now we must consider a tribune to be still a tribune, though he should dig down the Capitol and burn the naval arsenal. If he should commit such excesses as these, he is a bad tribune; but if he should attempt to deprive the people of their power, he is not a tribune at all. And is it not a monstrous thing if a tribune shall have power to order a consul to be put in prison, and the people shall not be able to deprive a tribune of his power when he is using it against the people who gave it to him? for both tribune and consul are equally chosen by the people. Now the kingly office, besides comprehending within it all civil power, is consecrated to the divinity by the discharge of the chief ceremonials of religion; and yet the state ejected Tarquinius for his wrong-doing, and for the violence of one man the ancient power which established Rome was overthrown. And what is there at Rome so sacred, so venerated as the virgins who guard the ever-burning fire? but if any of them offends, she is buried alive; for when they sin against the gods, they no longer retain that inviolable sanctity which they have by being devoted to the gods. In like manner, neither has a tribune when he is wronging the people any right to retain the inviolable character which he receives from the people, for he is destroying the very power which is the origin of his own power. And indeed, if he has legally received the tribunitian power by the votes of a majority of the tribes, how is it that he cannot even 83still more legally be deposed by the vote of all the tribes? Now, nothing is so sacred and inviolable as things dedicated to the gods; but yet no one has ever hindered the people from using such things, moving them, and changing their places as they please. It is therefore legal for the people to transfer the tribunate, as a consecrated thing, from one man to another. And that the tribunate is not an inviolable thing, nor an office of which a man cannot be divested, is clear from this that many magistrates have abdicated their office and prayed to be excused from it of their own free will.

XVI

Such were the heads of the justification of Tiberius. His friends, seeing the threats of his enemies and their combination, thought that he ought to be a candidate for the tribunate for the next year; and Tiberius attempted to strengthen his popularity by promising to carry new measures,53 such as a diminution of the period of military service, an appeal to the people from the judices, an intermixture of an equal number of the Equites with the Senators, from whom alone the judices were then taken; and in every way he attempted to abridge the power of the Senate, influenced rather by passion and ambition, than justice and the interests of the state. While the voting was going on, the friends of Tiberius, seeing that their enemies were gaining the advantage, for all the people were not present,54 at first attempted to prolong the time by abusing the other tribunes, and next they dissolved the meeting and appointed it for the following day. Tiberius, going down to the Forum, supplicated the citizens in humble manner and with tears in his eyes; he then said that he feared his enemies would break into his house by night and kill him, 84and thus he induced a great number of the citizens to take their station about his house and watch there all night.

XVII

At daybreak the man came to bring the birds which the Romans use in their auspices, and he threw them food. But the birds would not come out of the basket55 with the exception of one, though the man shook it hard; and even this one would not touch the food, but after raising its left wing and stretching out a leg it ran back to the basket. This reminded Tiberius of another omen that had happened. He had a helmet which he wore in battle, elaborately worked and splendid. Some snakes had got into the helmet unobserved, and laid their eggs and hatched them there. This made Tiberius still more uneasy about the signs from the fowls. Nevertheless he advanced up the city on hearing that the people was assembled about the Capitol; but before he got out of the house he stumbled over the threshold, and the blow was so violent that the nail of his great toe was broken, and the blood ran out through his shoe. He had not got far before some crows were seen fighting on the roof of a house on the left hand, and though a great crowd was passing by, as was natural on such an occasion, a stone which was pushed off by one of the crows fell by the feet of Tiberius. This made even the boldest of his adherents hesitate; but Blossius of Cumæ, who was present, said it would be a shame and a great disgrace if Tiberius, a son of Gracchus and a grandson of Scipio Africanus, and a defender of the Roman people should 85not obey the summons of the people for fear of a crow, and that his enemies would not treat this cowardly act as a matter of ridicule, but would make it the ground of calumniating him to the people as playing the tyrant and treating them with contempt. At the same time many persons ran up to Tiberius with a message from his friends in the Capitol, to hasten there, as all was going on favourably. And indeed everything promised well at first, for as soon as he appeared he was greeted with friendly cheers, and as he ascended the Capitol he was joyfully received, and the people crowded about him to prevent any stranger from approaching.

XVIII

Now, Mucius began to summon the tribes again, but nothing could be conducted with the usual forms on account of the confusion that prevailed among those who were on the outskirts of the assembly, where they were struggling with their opponents, who were attempting to force their way in and mingle with the rest. At this juncture Flavius Flaccus,56 a senator, posted himself in a conspicuous place, and as it was not possible to make his voice heard so far, he made a signal with his hand that he wished to say something in private to Tiberius. Tiberius bade the crowd let Flaccus pass, who, with great difficulty making his way up to Tiberius, told him that the Senate was sitting, that as they could not prevail on the consul, the rich were resolving to kill Tiberius themselves, and that they had armed many of their slaves and friends for this purpose.

XIX

Upon Tiberius reporting this to those who were standing about him, they forthwith tucked up their dress, and breaking the staves which the officers use to keep the crowd back, distributed the fragments among them and made ready to defend themselves against their assailants. While those at a distance were wondering at what was going on, and asking what it meant, Tiberius touched his head with his hand, since his voice could not be heard, intending thereby to signify to the people that his life was in danger. His enemies on seeing this ran to 86the Senate and told them that Tiberius was asking for a crown, and that his touching his head was a proof of it. On this the whole body was greatly disturbed; Nasica entreated the consul57 to protect the state and put down the tyrant. The consul however answered mildly that he would not be the first to use violence, and that he would not take any citizen’s life without a regular trial; if however, he said, the people should come to an illegal vote at the instigation of Tiberius, or from compulsion, he would not respect any such decision. Upon this Nasica springing up exclaimed, “Well then, as the consul betrays the state, do you who wish to maintain the laws follow me.” As he uttered these words he drew the skirt of his dress over his head, and hastened to the Capitol; and the senators who followed him, wrapping their dress about them with one hand, pushed all the people they met out of the way, no one opposing them, from respect to their rank, but taking to flight and trampling down one another. The followers of the senators had clubs and sticks which they had brought from home; but the senators seizing the fragments and legs of the benches which were broken by the people in their hurry to escape, made right to Tiberius, and struck all those who were in their road. The people were all put to flight or killed. As Tiberius was attempting to make his escape, some one laid hold of his dress, on which he dropped his toga and fled in his tunic; but he stumbled over some persons who were lying on the ground and was thrown down. While he was endeavouring to rise, he received the first blow, as it is universally admitted, from Publius Satyreius, one of his colleagues, who struck him on the head with the leg of a bench. Lucius Rufus claimed the credit of giving him the second blow, as if that were a thing to be proud of. Above three hundred persons lost their lives by sticks and stones, but none by the sword.

87

XX

This is said to have been the first disturbance at Rome since the abolition of the kingly power, which ended in bloodshed and the death of citizens. All previous disputes, though they were neither trifling nor about trifling matters, were settled by mutual concession: the nobles yielded through fear of the people, and the people yielded from respect to the Senate. Even on this occasion it is probable that Tiberius would have given way to persuasion without any difficulty, and still more readily if his assailants had not come to bloodshed and blows, for those about him were not above three thousand in number. But the combination against him seems to have proceeded rather from the passion and hatred of the rich citizens, than from the reasons which they alleged; and the brutal and indecent treatment of his dead body is a proof of this. For they would not listen to his brother’s request58 to take up the body and bury it at night, but it was thrown into the Tiber with the other bodies. And this was not all; they banished some of his friends without trial, and others they seized and put to death, among whom was Diophanes the orator. One Caius Villius59 they shut up in a vessel with snakes and vipers, and thus he died. Blossius of Cumæ, being brought before the consuls and questioned about what had passed, admitted that he had done everything at the bidding of Tiberius. On Nasica asking60 him, “What if Tiberius had told you to burn the Capitol?” Blossius said, that Tiberius would never have given him any such order. The same question being often put to him, and by several persons, he said, “If he had commanded me to burn the Capitol, it would have been a good deed for me to do; for Tiberius would not have given such an order unless it were for the interest of the people.” Blossius, however, was set at liberty, and afterwards went to Aristonikus61 in Asia, on the ruin of whose affairs he killed himself.

88

XXI

The Senate, under present circumstances, endeavoured to soothe the people; they made no opposition to the distribution of the public land, and they allowed the people to elect another commissioner in place of Tiberius. Having come to a vote, they elected Publius Crassus62 a relation of Gracchus, for his daughter Licinia was the wife of Caius Gracchus. Cornelius Nepos,63 indeed, says that Caius did not marry the daughter of Crassus, but the daughter of Brutus64 who triumphed over the Lusitanians: however, the majority of writers state the matter as I have done. Now, as the people were sore about the death of Tiberius, and were manifestly waiting for an opportunity to be revenged, and Nasica65 was threatened with prosecutions, the Senate, fearing for his safety, made a decree for sending him to Asia, though they had nothing for him to do there. For when men met Nasica they did not conceal their hostility, but broke out into violence, and abused him wherever they fell in with him, calling him accursed, and tyrant, who had stained with the blood of an inviolable and sacred functionary the most sacred and revered of all the holy places in the city. Accordingly, Nasica left Italy, 89though bound by the most sacred functions, for he was Pontifex Maximus; and, rambling about despised from place to place, he died no long time after in the neighbourhood of Pergamum. It is no wonder if Nasica was so much hated by the people, when even Scipio Africanus, whom the Romans considered inferior to no man in integrity, and loved as well as any, narrowly escaped losing the popular favour, because, on receiving the news of the death of Tiberius, at Numantia, he exclaimed in the verse of Homer,

So perish66 all who do the like again.

Subsequently, when Caius and Fulvius asked him, before an assembly of the people, what he thought of the death of Tiberius, he showed by his answer that he was not pleased with the measures of Tiberius. This made the people interrupt him with their shouts when he was speaking, as they had never done before; and Scipio was so far transported with passion as to break out into invectives against them. But of this I have spoken more particularly in the Life of Scipio.67

90

LIFE OF
CAIUS GRACCHUS.

I

Caius Gracchus at first, either through fear of his enemies or with the view of making them odious, withdrew from the Forum1 and kept quiet at home, like a man humbled for the present, and intending for the future to keep aloof from public affairs; which gave occasion for some people to say that he disliked the measures of Tiberius, and had abandoned them. He was also still quite a youth, for he was nine years younger than his brother, and Tiberius was not thirty2 when he was killed. But in the course of time, as his character gradually displayed itself in his aversion to indolence, luxury, wine, and all matters of private profit, and it was clear, from his application to the study of eloquence, that he was preparing, as it were, his pinions for public life, and that he would not remain quiet; and further, when he showed by his defence of Vettius, one of his friends, who was under prosecution, the people all around him being wild and frantic with delight, that the rest of the 91orators were mere children, the nobles were again alarmed, and there was much talk among them that they would not allow Caius to obtain the tribunate. It happened without any set design that the lot fell on him to go as quæstor to Sardinia,3 under Orestes4 the consul, which pleased his enemies, and was not disagreeable to Caius. For he was fond of war, and equally disciplined for military service and speaking in the courts of justice; but he still shrunk from public affairs and the Rostra, and as he could not resist the invitations of the people and his friends, he was well pleased with this opportunity of leaving Rome. It is true it is a common opinion that Caius was a pure demagogue, and much more greedy of popular favour than Tiberius. But it was not so in fact, and Caius seems to have been involved in public affairs rather through a kind of necessity than choice. Cicero the orator also says that Caius declined all offices, and had determined to live in retirement, but that his brother appeared to him in a dream,5 and said, “Caius, why do you linger? There is no escape: one life for both of us, and one death in defence of the people is our fate.”

II

Now, Caius during his stay in Sardinia exhibited his excellent qualities in every way; he far surpassed all the young men in military courage, in upright conduct to the subject people, in loyalty and respect to the commander; and in temperance, frugality, and attention to his duties he excelled even his elders. The winter having been severe and unhealthy in Sardinia, the general demanded clothing for his soldiers from the cities, upon which they sent to Rome to pray to be relieved from this imposition. The Senate granted their petition, and ordered the general to get supplies for the troops by other means; but as the general was unable to do this, and the soldiers were suffering, Caius went round to the cities and induced them voluntarily to send clothing and to assist the Romans. This, being reported to Rome, made the Senate uneasy, for 92they viewed it as a preliminary to popular agitation. Ambassadors also arrived at Rome from Libya, with a message from King Micipsa,6 that the king had sent corn to the commander in Sardinia, out of respect for Caius Gracchus. The Senate, taking offence at the message, would not receive the ambassadors, and they passed a decree that fresh troops should be sent out to replace those in Sardinia, but that Orestes should stay; intending by this measure to keep Caius there also, in respect of his office. On this being done, Caius immediately set sail in a passion, and appearing at Rome contrary to all expectation, was not only blamed by his enemies, but even the people considered it a strange thing for the quæstor to leave his general behind. However, when the matter was brought before the Censors,7 he asked for permission to make his defence, and he produced such a change in the opinions of his audience, that he was acquitted, and considered to have been exceedingly ill used: he said that he 93had served in the army for twelve years, while others were only required to serve ten years, and that he had exercised the functions of quæstor to the commander for three years, though the law allowed him to return after one year’s service; he added that he was the only soldier who took out a full purse with him and brought it back empty, while the rest took out with them only jars of wine, which they had emptied in Sardinia, and brought them back full of gold and silver.

III

After this, his enemies brought fresh charges against him, and harassed him with prosecutions on the ground of causing the defection of the allies and having participated in the conspiracy which had been detected at Fregellæ.8 But he cleared himself of all suspicion, and having established his innocence, immediately set about canvassing for the tribunate. All the men of distinction, without exception, opposed him; and so great a multitude flocked to Rome from all parts of Italy, to the Comitia, that many of them could not find lodgings, and the Campus Martius9 being unable to contain the numbers, they shouted from the house-tops and tilings. However, the nobility so far prevailed against the people as to disappoint the hopes of Caius, inasmuch as he was not returned first, as he expected, but only fourth. But upon entering on his office he soon made himself first, for he surpassed every Roman in eloquence,10 and his misfortunes gave him a 94licence for speaking freely when lamenting the fate of his brother. He took every opportunity of directing the thoughts of the people to this subject, reminding them of former times, and contrasting the conduct of their ancestors, who went to war with the Falisci on behalf of Gemicius, a tribune, who had been insulted by them, and condemned Caius Veturius to death because he was the only man that did not make way for a tribune as he was passing through the Forum. “But before your eyes,” he exclaimed, “these men beat Tiberius to death with staves, and his body was dragged through the midst of the city to be thrown into the Tiber; and all his friends who were caught were put to death without trial. And yet it is an old usage among us, if a man is accused of a capital charge and does not appear, for a trumpeter to come to the door of his house in the morning and summon him by the sound of the trumpet, and the judices cannot vote upon the charge till this has been done. So circumspect and careful were the Romans of old in the trials of persons accused.”

IV

Having first stirred up the people by such harangues as these (and he had a very loud voice, and was most vigorous in speech), he promulgated two laws:11 one, to the 95effect that if the people had deprived any magistrate of his office, he should be incapacitated from holding office a second time; and the other, which rendered a magistrate liable to a public prosecution if he had banished any citizen without trial. One of these rogations had the direct effect of branding with infamy Marcus Octavius, who had been deprived of the tribunate by Tiberius; and Popillius12 came within the penalties of the other, for during his prætorship he had banished the friends of Tiberius. Popillius did not stand his trial, and he fled from Italy; but the other law Caius himself withdrew, saying that he refrained from touching Octavius at the request of his mother Cornelia. The people admired his conduct on this occasion, and gave their consent, for they respected Cornelia no less for the sake of her sons than her father; and afterwards they set up a bronze statue13 of her, with the inscription—Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi. There are recorded several things that Caius said in defence of his mother in a rhetorical and coarse way, in reply to one of his enemies. “What,” said he, “do you abuse Cornelia, the mother of Tiberius?” And as the man laboured under the imputation of being a dissolute fellow, he added, “How can you have the impudence to compare yourself with Cornelia? Have you been a mother, as she has?”—and more to the like effect, but still coarser. Such was the bitterness of his language, and many like things occur in his writings.

V

Of the laws14 which he promulgated with the view 96of gaining the popular favour and weakening the Senate, one was for the establishment of colonies and the distribution 97 of Public Land among the poor; another provided for supplying the soldiers with clothing at the public expense, without any deduction on this account being made from their pay, and exempted youths under seventeen years of age from being drafted for the army; a third was in favour of the allies, and put the Italians on the same footing as the citizens with respect to the suffrage; another related to grain, and had for its object the lowering of the 98price for the poor; the last related to the judices, a measure which most of all encroached on the privileges of the senate—for the senate alone supplied judices for the trials, and this privilege rendered that body formidable both to the people and the equites. The law of Gracchus added three hundred equites to the senate, who were also three hundred in number, and it made the judices eligible out of the whole six hundred. In his endeavours to carry this law he is said to have made every exertion; and in particular it is recorded that all the popular leaders who preceded him turned their faces to the senate and the comitium while they were speaking, but he was the first who turned his face the other way to the Forum while haranguing the people, and he continued to do so; and by a small deviation and alteration in attitude he stirred a great question, and in a manner transformed the government from an aristocratical to a democratical form, by this new attitude intimating that the orators should direct their speeches to the many and not to the senate.

VI

The people not only passed this law, but empowered Gracchus to select from the equites those who were to act as judices, which conferred on him a kind of monarchical authority, and even the senate now assented to the measures which he proposed in their body. But all the measures which he proposed were honourable to the senate; such, for instance, was the very equitable and just decree about the grain which Fabius the proprætor sent from Iberia. Gracchus induced the senate to sell the grain and to return the money which it produced to the Iberian cities, and further to censure Fabius for making the Roman dominion heavy and intolerable to the subject nations; this measure brought him great reputation and popularity in the provinces. He also introduced measures for sending out colonies, the construction of roads, and the building of public granaries; and he made himself director and superintendent for the carrying all these measures into effect. Though engaged in so many great undertakings, he was never wearied, but with wonderful activity and labour he effected every single object as if he had for the time no other occupation, so that even those who thoroughly hated and feared him were struck with amazement at the 99rapidity and perfect execution of all that he undertook. But the people looked with admiration on the man himself, seeing him attended by crowds of building-contractors, artificers, ambassadors, magistrates, soldiers, and learned men, to all of whom he was easy of access; and while he maintained his dignity, he was affable to all, and adapted his behaviour to the condition of every individual, and so proved the falsehood of those who called him tyrannical or arrogant or violent. He thus showed himself more skilful as a popular leader in his dealings with men, and in his conduct, than in his harangues from the Rostra.

VII

But Caius busied himself most about the construction of roads,15 having in view utility, convenience, and ornament. The roads were made in a straight line, right through the country, partly of quarried stone and partly with tight-rammed masses of earth. By filling up the depressions, and throwing bridges across those parts which were traversed by winter torrents or deep ravines, and raising the road on both sides to the same uniform height, the whole line was made level and presented an agreeable appearance. He also measured all the roads by miles (the Roman mile is not quite eight Greek stadia), and fixed stone blocks to mark the distances. He placed other stones at less distances from one another on each side of the road, that persons might thus easily mount their horses without assistance.

VIII

As the people extolled him for all these services, and were ready to show their good will towards him in any way, he said on one occasion when he was addressing them, that he would ask a favour, which he would value above everything if it was granted, but if it were refused, 100he should not complain. It was accordingly expected that he would ask for the consulship, and everybody supposed that he would be a candidate for the consulship and the tribunate at the same time. When the consular comitia were near, and all were at the highest point of expectation, Caius appeared conducting Caius Fannius into the Campus Martius, and canvassing with his friends for Fannius.16 This gave Fannius a great advantage. Fannius was elected consul, and Caius tribune for the second time, though he was neither a candidate nor canvassed, but his election was entirely due to the zeal of the people. Perceiving, however, that the senate was clearly opposed to him, and that the kind feeling of Fannius towards him cooled, he forthwith endeavoured to attach the people by other measures, by proposing to send colonies to Tarentum and Capua, and by inviting the Latins to a participation in the Roman franchise. The senate, fearing that Gracchus would become irresistible, attempted a new and unusual method of diverting the people from him, by opposing popular measures to his, and by gratifying the people, contrary to sound policy. Livius Drusus was one of the colleagues of Caius, a man by birth and education inferior to none in Rome, and in character, eloquence, and wealth equal to any who enjoyed either honour or power by the aid of these advantages. To him accordingly the chief nobles applied, and they urged him to attack Caius, and to unite with them against him, not by adopting violent measures, nor coming into collision with the many, but by a course of administration adapted to please, and by making such concessions as it would have been honourable to refuse, even at the risk of unpopularity.

IX

Livius, having agreed to employ his tribunitian authority on the side of the senate, framed measures which had neither any honourable nor any useful object: he only had in view to outbid Caius in the popular favour, just as it is in a comedy, by making himself busy and vying with his rival. This showed most clearly that the senate were 101not displeased with the measures of Caius, but only wished to destroy him or completely humble him. When Caius proposed to send out ten colonies consisting of citizens of the best character, the senate accused him of truckling to the people; but they co-operated with Livius, who proposed twelve colonies, each of which was to consist of three thousand needy citizens. They set themselves in opposition to Caius when he proposed to distribute land among the poor, subject to a yearly payment to the treasury from each, on the ground that he was trying to gain the popular favour; but they were satisfied when Livius proposed to relieve the colonists even from this payment. Further, Caius gave them offence by proposing to confer on the Latins the Roman suffrage; but when Livius brought forward a measure which forbade any Latin to be beaten with rods even while serving in the army, they supported it. And indeed Livius himself, in his harangues to the people, always said that he only proposed what was agreeable to the senate, who had a regard for the many; which indeed was the only good that resulted from his measures. For the people became more pacifically disposed towards the senate; and though the most distinguished of them were formerly suspected and hated by the people, Livius did away with and softened their recollection of past grievances and their ill feeling, by giving out that it was in accordance with the wish of the senate that he had entered upon his popular career and framed measures to please the many.

X

But the best proof to the people of the good intentions and honesty of Livius was, that he proposed nothing for himself or in behalf of his own interests; for he appointed other persons to superintend the establishment of the colonies, and he did not meddle with the administration of the money, while Caius had assigned to himself most of such functions, and the most important of them. It happened that Rubrius, one of the tribunes, had proposed a measure for the colonisation of Carthage, which had been destroyed by Scipio; and as the lot fell on Caius, he set sail to Libya to found the colony. In his absence, Drusus, making still further advances, insinuated himself into the favour of the people, and gained them over mainly 102by calumniating Fulvius.17 This Fulvius was a friend of Caius and a joint commissioner for the distribution of lands; but he was a noisy fellow, and specially disliked by the senate; he was also suspected by others of stirring up the allies, and secretly encouraging the Italians to revolt; and though this was said without proof or inquiry, Fulvius himself gave it credit by his unwise and revolutionary policy. This more than anything else destroyed the popularity of Caius, who came in for his share of the odium against Fulvius. And when Scipio18 Africanus died without any obvious cause, and certain signs of blows and violence were supposed to be visible on the body, as I told in the Life of Scipio, the suspicion fell chiefly on Fulvius, who was his enemy, and on that day had abused Scipio from the Rostra. Suspicion attached to Caius also. So abominable a crime committed against the first and greatest of the Romans went unpunished, and there was not even an inquiry; for the many opposed it and stopped the investigation through fear for Caius, lest he should be discovered to be implicated in the murder. These events, indeed, belong to an earlier period.

XI

In Libya, as to the foundation of Carthage,19 which103 Caius named Junonia, which is the same as Heraea, it is said there were many supernatural hindrances. For the first standard was seized and broken by a violent gust of wind, though the standard-bearer stuck to it vigorously; and the victims which were lying on the altars were dispersed by a tempest, and scattered beyond the stakes which marked the limits of the city, and the stakes were torn up by the wolves and carried a long way off. However Caius, after settling and arranging everything in seventy days, returned to Rome upon hearing that Fulvius was hard pressed by Drusus, and that affairs required his presence. Lucius Opimius, a man who belonged to the faction of the oligarchs,20 and had great influence in the senate, failed on a former occasion when he was a candidate for the consulship, at the time when Caius brought forward Fannius and canvassed against Opimius; but now, being supported by a powerful party, it was expected that Opimius would be elected consul and would put down Caius, whose influence was already in some degree on the wane, and the people also were tired of such measures as his, for there were many who sought their favour, and the senate easily gave way.

XII

On his return from Libya, Caius removed from the Palatium to the neighbourhood of the Forum, as being a more popular place of residence, for it happened that most of the lowest classes of the poor lived there; he next promulgated the rest of his measures, intending to take the vote of the people upon them. As crowds were collecting 104from all parts to support Caius, the senate prevailed on the consul Fannius to drive out of the city all who were not Romans. Accordingly a strange and unusual proclamation was made, to the effect that none of the allies or friends of the Roman state should appear in Rome during those days; on which Caius published a counter edict, in which he criminated the consul and promised his support to the allies if they remained in Rome. But he did not keep his promise; for though he saw one of them, who was his own friend and intimate, dragged off by the officers of Fannius, he passed by without helping him, whether it was that he feared to put to the test his power which was now on the decline, or that he did not choose, as he said, to give his enemies the opportunity which they were seeking of coming to a collision and a struggle. It also chanced that he had incurred the ill-will of his fellow-colleagues, in the following manner:—The people were going to see an exhibition of gladiators in the Forum, and most of the magistrates had constructed seats round the place, with the intention of letting them for hire. But Caius urged them to remove the seats, that the poor might be able to see the show without paying. As no one took any notice of what he said, he waited till the night before the show, when he went with the workmen whom he had under him, and removed the seats, and at daybreak he pointed out to the people that the place was clear; for which the many considered him a man, but he offended his colleagues, who viewed him as an audacious and violent person. Owing to this circumstance, it is supposed, he lost his third tribunate, though he had most votes, for it is said that his colleagues acted illegally and fraudulently in the proclamation and return. This, however, was disputed. Caius did not bear his failure well: and to his enemies, who were exulting over him, he is said to have observed, with more arrogance than was befitting, that their laugh was a sardonic laugh,21 for they knew not 105what a darkness his political measures had spread all around them.

XIII

After effecting the election of Opimius to the consulship, the enemies of Caius began to repeal many of his laws and to disturb the settlement of Carthage, for the purpose of irritating Caius, in order that he might give them some cause of quarrel, and so be got rid of. He endured this for some time, but his friends, and especially Fulvius, beginning to urge him on, he again attempted to combine his partisans against the consul. On this occasion it is said that his mother also helped him, by hiring men from remote parts and sending them to Rome in the disguise of reapers, for it is supposed that these matters are obscurely alluded to in her letters22 to her son. Others, on the contrary, say that this was done quite contrary to the wishes of Cornelia. On the day on which the party of Opimius intended to repeal the laws of Caius, the Capitol had been occupied by the opposite faction early in the morning. The consul had offered the sacrifices, and one of his officers, named Quintus Antyllius,23 was carrying the viscera to another part, when he said to the partisans of Fulvius, “Make way for honest men, you rascals.” Some say that as he uttered these words he also held out his bare arm with insulting gestures. However this may be, Antyllius was killed on the spot, being pierced with large styles24 said to have been made expressly for the purpose. The 106people were greatly disturbed at the murder, but it produced exactly opposite effects on the leaders of the two parties. Caius was deeply grieved at what had happened, and abused his party for having given a handle to their enemies, who had long been looking for it; but Opimius, as if he had got the opportunity which he wanted, was highly elated, and urged the people to avenge the murder.

XIV

A torrent of rain happened to fall just then, and the meeting was dissolved. Early on the following day Opimius summoned the senate to transact business. In the mean time the naked body of Antyllius was placed on a bier, and, according to arrangement, carried through the Forum past the senate-house with loud cries and lamentations. Opimius, though he knew what was going on, pretended to be surprised at the noise, and the senators went out to see what was the matter. When the bier had been set down in the midst of the crowd, the senators began to express their indignation at so horrible and monstrous a crime; but this only moved the people to hate and execrate the oligarchs, who, after murdering Tiberius Gracchus in the Capitol, a tribune, had treated his body with insult; while Antyllius, a mere servant, who perhaps had not deserved his fate, yet was mainly to blame for what happened, was laid out in the Forum, and surrounded by the Roman senate lamenting and assisting at the funeral of a hireling; and all this merely to accomplish the ruin of the only remaining guardian of the people’s liberties. On returning to the senate-house, the senators passed a decree25 by which the consul Opimius was directed to save the state in such way as he could, and to put down the tyrants. Opimius gave 107notice to the senators to arm, and each eques was commanded to bring in the morning two armed slaves. On the other side, Fulvius also made preparation and got together a rabble; but Caius as he left the Forum stood opposite his father’s statue, and looking at it for some time without speaking, at last burst into tears, and fetching a deep sigh, walked away. The sight of this moved many of the spectators to compassion, and blaming themselves for deserting the man and betraying him, they came to the house of Caius and passed the night at his door; but not in the same manner as those who watched about the house of Fulvius, for they spent the night in tumult and shouting, drinking, and bragging what they would do. Fulvius himself, who was the first to get drunk, spoke and acted in a way quite unseemly for a man of his age. The followers of Caius, viewing the state of affairs as a public calamity, kept quiet, thinking of the future, and they passed the night watching and sleeping in turns.

XV

At daybreak Fulvius was with difficulty roused from his drunken sleep, and his partisans, arming themselves with the warlike spoils in his house, which he had taken in his victory over the Gauls during his consulship, with loud threats and shouts went to seize the Aventine Hill.26 Caius would not arm, but went out in his toga just as if he was proceeding to the Forum, with only a short dagger at his side. As he was going out at the door, his wife met him, and throwing one arm round him, while she held in the other their little child, said, “Caius, not as in time past do I take my leave of you going to the Rostra as tribune and as legislator, nor yet going to a glorious war, where, if you died in the service of your country, you would still leave me an honoured grief; but you are going to expose yourself to the murderers of Tiberius: ’tis right indeed to go unarmed, and to suffer rather than do wrong, but you will perish without benefiting the state. The worst has now prevailed; force and the sword determine all controversies. If your brother had died at Numantia, his body would have been restored to us on the 108usual terms of war; but now perchance I too shall have to supplicate some river or the sea to render up to me your corpse from its keeping. What faith can we put in the laws or in the deities since the murder of Tiberius?” While Licinia was thus giving vent to sorrow, Gracchus gently freed himself from his wife’s embrace, and went off in silence with his friends. Licinia, as she attempted to lay hold of his dress, fell down on the floor, and lay there some time speechless, until her slaves took her up fainting, and carried her to her brother Crassus.

XVI

When they were all assembled, Fulvius, at the request of Caius, sent his younger son with a caduceus27 to the Forum. He was a most beautiful youth, and with great decorum and modesty, and with tears in his eyes he addressed to the consul and the senate the message of conciliation. The majority who were present were not disinclined to come to terms; but Opimius replied, that Fulvius and Gracchus must not attempt to bring the senate to an accommodation through the medium of a messenger; they must consider themselves as citizens who had to account for their conduct, and come down and surrender, and then beg for mercy; he further told the youth that these were the terms on which he must come a second time, or not at all. Now Caius, it is said, wished to go and clear himself before the senate, but as no one else assented, Fulvius again sent his son to address the senate on their behalf in the same terms as before. But Opimius, who was eager to come to blows, forthwith ordered the youth to be seized and put in prison, and advanced against the party of Fulvius with many legionary soldiers and Cretan bowmen28 who mainly contributed to put them into confusion by discharging their arrows and wounding them. The partisans of Fulvius being put to flight, he made his escape into a bath that was not used where he was soon discovered and put to death with his elder son. Caius was not observed to take any part in the contest, but greatly troubled at what was taking place, he retired 109to the temple of Diana, and was going to kill himself there, but was prevented by his faithful friends Pomponius and Licinius, who took the sword away and induced him to fly. It is said that he went down on his knees in the temple, and stretching out his hands to the statue of the goddess, prayed that the Roman people, for their ingratitude and treachery to him, might always be slaves; for the greater part of them had openly gone over to the other side upon an amnesty29 being proclaimed.

XVII

In his flight Caius was followed by his enemies, who were near overtaking him at the wooden bridge,30 but his two friends, bidding him make his escape, opposed the pursuers and allowed no man to pass the head of the bridge till they were killed. Caius was accompanied by a single slave, named Philocrates,31 and though all the spectators urged him to fly, just as if they were shouting at a race, yet no one, though he prayed for it, would come to his aid or lend him a horse: for the pursuers were close upon him. He just escaped into a sacred grove of the Furies,32 and there he fell by the hand of Philocrates, who killed himself on the body of his master. Some say both of them were taken alive by their enemies, and that the slave embraced his master so closely, that Caius could 110not be struck until the slave had been dispatched first, and with many blows. It is said that a man cut off the head of Caius and was carrying it away, but it was taken from him by a friend of Opimius named Septimuleius; for proclamation had been made at the beginning of the contest, that those who brought the heads of Caius and Fulvius should have their weight in gold. The head of Caius was brought to Opimius by Septimuleius stuck on a spear, and it weighed seventeen pounds and two-thirds in the scales. Septimuleius was a scoundrel and a knave33 here also, for he had taken out the brain and dropped melted lead in its place. Those who brought the head of Fulvius got nothing, for they belonged to the lower class. The bodies of Caius and Fulvius and their partisans were thrown into the river, the number of dead being three thousand: their property was sold and the produce paid into the treasury. They also forbade the women to lament for their relatives, and Licinia was deprived of her marriage portion. But their conduct was most cruel to the younger son of Fulvius, who had neither raised up his hand against them nor been among the combatants; for he was seized before the battle, when he came to treat of terms, and was put to death after the battle. But what most of all vexed the people was the circumstance of Opimius erecting a temple to Concord, which was viewed as an evidence of his insolence and arrogance, and as a kind of triumph for the slaughter of so many citizens. Accordingly by night some person wrote under the inscription on the temple the following line:—

The work of Discord34 makes the temple of Concord.

111

XVIII

This Opimius,35 the first man that ever exercised the dictatorial power in the office of consul, and who had condemned without trial three thousand citizens, and among them Caius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus36—Flaccus, a consular, who had enjoyed a triumph; Gracchus, the first man of his age in character and reputation—this Opimius did not keep himself free from corruption. Being sent as a commissioner to Jugurtha, the Numidian, he was bribed by him, and being convicted of most shameful corruption, he spent the last years of his life in infamy, hated and insulted by the people, who, though humbled and depressed for the time, soon showed how much they desired and regretted the Gracchi. For they had statues of the two brothers made and set up in public places, and the spots on which they fell were declared sacred ground, to which people brought all the first fruits of the seasons, and many persons daily offered sacrifices there and worshipped, just as at the temples of the gods.

XIX

Cornelia is said to have borne her misfortunes with a noble and elevated spirit, and to have said of the sacred ground on which her sons were murdered, that they had a tomb worthy of them. She resided in the neighbourhood of Misenum, without making any change in her usual mode of life. She had many friends, and her hospitable table was always crowded with guests; Greeks and learned men were constantly about her, and kings sent and received presents from her. To all her visitors and friends she was a most agreeable companion: [Pg 112]
[Pg 113]
[Pg 114]she would tell them of the life and habits of her father Africanus, and, what is most surprising, would speak of her sons without showing sorrow or shedding a tear, relating their sufferings and their deeds to her inquiring friends as if she was speaking of the men of olden time. This made some think that her understanding had been impaired by old age or the greatness of her sorrows, and that she was dull to all sense of her misfortunes, while in fact such people themselves were too dull to see what a support it is against grief to have a noble nature, and to be of honourable lineage and honourably bred; and that though fortune has often the advantage over virtue in its attempts to guard against evils, yet she cannot take away from virtue the power of enduring them with fortitude.37

115

COMPARISON OF
TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND KLEOMENES.

I

Now that we have completed the narrative of these men’s lives, it remains for us to compare them with one another. As for the Gracchi, not even their bitterest enemies could deny that they were the most virtuous of all the Romans, or that they were excellently well nurtured and educated; while Agis and Kleomenes appear to have excelled them in strength of mind, because they both, after having been brought up in the same fashion by which their elders had been corrupted, became the restorers of temperance and simplicity of life. Furthermore, the Gracchi, who lived at a period when Rome was at the height of its greatness and renown, felt ashamed to fall short of the glorious achievements of their forefathers; while the virtuous impulses of the others were not checked by their fathers having pursued the opposite course of policy, or by the miserable and distracted condition of their country. The greatest proof of the unselfishness and indifference to money of the Gracchi is that they filled various offices in the state, and yet kept their hands clean from dishonest gains; while it would be an insult to Agis to praise him for not having taken other men’s money, as he gave up to his countrymen his own private property, which alone was worth six hundred talents. If then he thought it discreditable for him to be richer than any of his countrymen, even though his riches were lawfully acquired, what must have been his abhorrence of those who obtain money wrongfully.

II

There was also a great difference in the boldness and extent of their schemes of reform. The Gracchi were chiefly engaged in the construction of roads and the founding 116 of cities, and Tiberius’s most important measure of reform was the division of the public lands among the people, while the best act of his brother Caius was the establishment of a mixed tribunal by adding to the three hundred Senators three hundred Roman Knights. The revolution effected by Agis and Kleomenes was of quite a different kind. They thought, in Plato’s words, that to proceed by slow degrees was merely cutting off the heads of the hydra,1 and therefore they by one comprehensive measure swept away all abuses at once: although it would be nearer the truth to say that they swept all abuses out of the state by restoring to it its original constitution. It may also be observed that the reforms of the Gracchi were opposed by some of the most powerful men in Rome, whereas the legislation which was begun by Agis, and completed by Kleomenes, followed a famous and ancient precedent, the rhetras on sobriety and equality which had been communicated to their ancestors by Lykurgus with the sanction of the Pythian Apollo. It is also most important to notice that the reforms of the Gracchi made Rome no greater than she was before, while the acts of Kleomenes enabled him in a short time to make Sparta mistress of the whole of Peloponnesus, and to engage in a contest with the most powerful man of his time, with the object of ridding Greece from Illyrian and Gaulish mercenary troops, and of renewing its ancient glories under the rule of the Herakleidæ.

III

I think too that the deaths of these men show a certain difference in their courage. The Gracchi fought with their countrymen, and were slain by them while flying, while of the other two, Agis may almost be said to have died voluntarily, because he would not put a citizen to death, while Kleomenes, when insulted and ill-treated, fiercely attempted to avenge himself, and as circumstances prevented his succeeding, bravely killed himself. It may be said on the other side that Agis never distinguished himself in the field, and we may set against the many 117brilliant victories of Kleomenes the scaling of the wall of Carthage by Tiberius Gracchus, no slight achievement, and the peace which he made with the Numantines, by which he saved the lives of twenty thousand Roman soldiers, who could not otherwise have hoped to survive; while Caius, in several campaigns both in Italy and Sardinia, showed great military skill; so that they both might have rivalled the fame of the greatest generals of Rome, had they not been cut off so soon.

IV

In political matters Agis appears to have shown weakness, as he allowed Agesilaus to cheat the citizens out of their promised redistribution of lands, and in a feeble and vacillating manner announced his intention and then abandoned it. The cause of his irresolution was his extreme youth; while Kleomenes on the other hand effected his revolution with too great promptitude and daring, putting the Ephors to death without a trial, when it would have been easy for him to have won them over to his side, and banishing many of the citizens. It is not the part either of a wise physician or of a good politician to use the knife except in the last extremity, but it shows a want of skill in both, and in the latter case it is unjust as well as cruel. Of the Gracchi, neither would begin a civil war, and Caius is said not even to have defended himself when struck, but though forward enough in battle he was loth to fight in a party quarrel; for he appeared in public unarmed, and retired when fighting began, and evidently took more pains not to do any harm than not to suffer any. For this reason we must regard the flight of both the Gracchi as a proof, not of cowardice, but of caution; for they must either have retreated when attacked or have retaliated upon their opponents.

V

The heaviest charge that can be brought against Tiberius is that he deposed his colleague from the tribuneship, and afterwards sought a second tribuneship for himself. As for the murder of Antyllius, Caius Gracchus was most falsely and unjustly accused of it, for he did not wish him to die, and was grieved at his death. Again Kleomenes, not to speak of his massacre of the Ephors, set all the slaves at liberty, and practically made himself despot of the kingdom, although for form’s sake he 118associated his brother with him, who was of the same family. And when Archidamus, who was the next heir to the throne of the other royal house, was persuaded by him to return from Messene to Sparta, as Kleomenes did not avenge his death, he caused men to suspect that he himself had some share in it. Yet Lykurgus, whom he affected to imitate, abdicated the throne of his own free will in favour of his nephew Charilaus, and fearing that if the child died by any mischance he might be thought guilty of having caused its death, he travelled abroad for a long time and did not return until Charilaus had begotten a son to succeed him. However, no Greek can bear comparison with Lykurgus; yet we have proved that Kleomenes effected greater reforms, and showed less respect to the laws than any of the others. Both the Greeks have been blamed for having from the very outset aimed at being nothing more than warlike despots; while the worst enemies of the Romans only charge them with an immoderate ambition, and admit that they became so excited by the contest with their political opponents that the natural heat of their temper drove them in spite of themselves like a baleful gust of wind to advocate extreme measures. What indeed can be more just or honourable than the objects with which they started; for their troubles were brought upon them by the opposition which the rich offered to their laws, so that the one was forced to fight to save his own life, while the other endeavoured to avenge his brother, who was slain without law or justice? From what has been said the reader can himself form an opinion about their respective merits, but if I must say what I think of each, I should give the highest place in respect of virtue to Tiberius Gracchus; I think that the young Agis committed the fewest crimes; while in daring and action Caius fell far short of Kleomenes.

119

LIFE OF
DEMOSTHENES.

I

The writer of the Ode to Alkibiades on the occasion of his winning the chariot-race at Olympia, whether he was Euripides, as is commonly supposed, or some other poet, my friend Sossius, tells us that the first thing necessary for a perfectly happy man is that he should be born a citizen of some famous city. But for my own part I believe that for the enjoyment of true happiness, which depends chiefly upon a man’s character and disposition, it makes no difference whether he be born in an obscure state or of an ill-favoured mother, or not. It would indeed be absurd if one were to suppose that the town of Iulis, which is only a small part of the little island of Keos or Ægina, which some Athenian bade his countrymen clear away because it was an eyesore to Peiræus, should be able to produce good actors and poets, and yet be unable to bring forth a just, virtuous, sensible and high-minded man. We may reasonably expect that those arts by which men gain glory or profit should be neglected and fall into decay in small and obscure towns; but virtue, like a hardy plant, can take root in any country where it meets with noble natures and industrious disposition. I myself therefore must lay the blame of my intellectual and moral shortcomings, not upon the insignificance of my native city, but upon myself.

II

However, when a man is engaged in compiling a history from materials which are not ready to his hand, but for the most part are to be found scattered through other foreign towns, it becomes really of the first importance that he should live in some famous, cultivated, and populous city, where he can have unlimited access to books of all kinds, and where he can also personally 120collect and inquire into the truth of those stories which, though not reduced to writing, are all the more likely to be true because they rest upon universal popular tradition. The work of a historian who is deprived of these advantages must necessarily be defective in many essential particulars. Now I, who belong to a small city, and who love to live in it lest it should become even smaller, when I was at Rome, and during my travels in Italy, found my time so taken up with political business and with the care of my pupils in philosophy, that I had no leisure to learn the Roman language, and have only applied myself to Latin literature at a very advanced period of life. In this reading of Latin books, singular as it may appear, I did not find that the words assisted me to discover the meaning, but rather that my knowledge of the history enabled me to find out the meaning of the words. I think that to speak the Latin language with elegance, to understand it readily, and to use its various idioms and phrases correctly, is for a literary man both useful and interesting; but the amount of study and practice which it requires is considerable and should only be undertaken by those who are younger than myself, and who have more leisure time to devote to the acquisition of such accomplishments.

III

In consequence of these considerations, in this my fifth book of Parallel Lives, which deals with the lives of Demosthenes and Cicero, I intend to describe their several characters, and to compare them with one another by means of their political acts, but I do not mean to examine minutely into their respective speeches, or to decide which of the two was the more pleasing or the more able orator. Were I to attempt such a task, I should be forgetting Ion’s proverb about a “fish out of water,” like the all-accomplished Cæcilius, who has boldly taken upon himself to write a comparison of Demosthenes with Cicero. Perhaps, however, we might begin to doubt the divine origin of the commandment “know thyself,” if we found men always ready to apply it. Indeed Heaven appears to have originally intended to form the characters of Demosthenes and Cicero on the same model, and in some instances to have implanted in them precisely the same qualities, such as great personal ambition, love of freedom,121 and want of courage in the wars, yet to have left much to chance. I think it would be difficult to find an instance of any two other orators who both rose from a humble station to great power and influence, who both opposed absolute monarchs, both lost favourite daughters, were both exiled and brought back with honour, who both when flying from their country a second time fell into the hands of their enemies, and with whose deaths the liberties of their countrymen were finally extinguished; so that it is hard to say whether their resemblance is due more to nature, which originally moulded their characters alike, or to fortune, which placed then in exactly similar circumstances. First, then, I will relate the life of the elder of the two.

IV

The father of Demosthenes was also named Demosthenes, and belonged, according to Theopompus, to the best class of Athenian citizens. He was commonly called “the sword cutler,” because he possessed a large workshop and many slaves skilled in cutlery. As for the accusation which the orator Æschines brings against his mother, that she was the daughter of one Gylon, who was banished for treason, by a foreign woman, we cannot tell whether it is true or only a calumnious imputation. Demosthenes was left an orphan at the age of seven years, and was the heir to considerable property, amounting in all to no less than fifteen talents. He was scandalously ill-used by his guardians, who appropriated much of his income, and neglected the rest so much that he was unable to pay his teachers. He grew up ignorant of much that a boy of good birth is expected to learn, partly for this reason, and partly on account of his weak health, which caused his mother to keep him away from school. He was a sickly child, and it is said that the opprobrious nickname of Batalus was bestowed upon him by his school-fellows because of his bodily weakness. Batalus, according to some writers, was an effeminate flute-player, whose habits were satirized in a comic drama written by Antiphanes. Others assert that Batalus was a poet who wrote in a drunken licentious style; and there seems also some foundation for the belief that this word was used for a certain part of the human body by the Athenians 122of that time. The other nickname of Demosthenes, Argas, either alludes to his savage and harsh temper, for some poets use the word to mean a snake; or else it refers to his speeches, as wearying those who heard them; for Argas was the name of a poet whose verses were bad and tiresome. And, as Plato says, so much for this.

V

We are told that he was first led to turn his attention, to oratory by the following incident. When Kallistratus was going to make a speech in court about the affair of Oropus1 great interest was taken in the trial because of the ability of the orator, who at that time was at the height of his reputation, and also because of the important character of the law suit. Demosthenes, hearing his teachers and attendants making arrangement to be present at the trial, persuaded his own servant by great entreaties to take him to hear the speeches. The man, who was intimate with the doorkeepers of the court, managed to obtain a place for Demosthenes, in which the boy could sit unseen by the public and hear all that was said. Kallisthenes spoke very brilliantly and was much admired. He excited the envy of Demosthenes by the honours which he received, as he was escorted home by a long train of friends who congratulated him upon his success; but the boy was even more impressed by the power of his eloquence, which enabled him to deal with everything just as he pleased. In consequence of this Demosthenes neglected all other branches of learning, neglected all the sports of childhood, and laboriously practised and exercised himself in the art of oratory, meaning some day to become an orator himself. He studied rhetoric under Isaeus, although Isokrates was giving lessons at the same time, either, according to some writers, because, being an orphan, he was unable to raise the sum of ten minæ which Isokrates demanded as a fee, or because he thought that the vigorous invective of Isaeus was more what he required to learn. Hermippus informs us that he read in some anonymous work that Demosthenes was a scholar of Plato, and learned much of the art of speaking from him, while he mentions having heard from Ktesibius that Demosthenes had been lent the 123works of Isokrates and Alkidamas by one Kallias, a Syracusan, and some others, and that he used to read and practise himself in them in secret.

VI

When he came of age he at once brought a series of actions against his guardians for malversation of his property, while they resorted to every species of legal subtlety and chicanery to avoid making restitution. By publicly pleading his cause, as Thucydides says, “he learned his trade by dangers,” and succeeded in recovering some of his paternal estate, though but a small part of that to which he was entitled. He gained, however, confidence and practice as a public speaker, and the fascinating excitement and sense of power which he experienced in these contests emboldened him to become a professional orator and to deal with political matters. We are told that Laomedon of Orchomenus, by the advice of his physicians, used to run long distances as a remedy for a disease of the spleen from which he suffered, until he not only overcame his disorder, but was able to enter for races at the games, and became one of the best long-distance runners of his time. Even so Demosthenes, who was forced by his private misfortunes to make his first appearance as a speaker, gained such skill and power by his success in the law-courts that he soon took the lead among the speakers in the public assembly. Yet when he first addressed the people he was violently coughed down, interrupted and ridiculed, because his speech was found dull and tiresome, being confused in style and strained and artificial in argument. It is said that his voice was weak, and his pronunciation indistinct, and that, as he was frequently obliged to pause for want of breath, it was difficult to follow the meaning of his sentences. At last he left the public assembly and wandered about Peiræus in despair. Here he was met by an old man named Eunomus of Thriasia,2 who reproved him and told him that he did himself great wrong, because, having a manner of speech extremely like that of Perikles, he permitted himself to be disheartened by failure, and did not face the clamour of the rabble boldly, and did not train his body to be strong enough to support the strain of such contests, but 124allowed himself to fall into a weakly and effeminate condition.

VII

After a second failure, as he was going home overwhelmed with shame hiding his face in his cloak, Satyrus the actor is said to have followed him and joined him. Demosthenes told him with tears in his eyes that although he had taken more pains than any other speaker, and had devoted all his energes to the study of eloquence, yet he could not gain the ear of the people, but that ignorant drunken sailors were listened to when they mounted the tribune, while he was treated with scorn. On hearing this Satyrus answered, “Demosthenes, what you say is very true, but I will soon apply a remedy, if you will recite to me one of the long speeches from the plays of Sophokles or Euripides.” After Demosthenes had recited a speech, Satyrus recited the same speech in turn, and so altered it and gave it so much more grace, by throwing into it the expression which the verses required, that it appeared to Demosthenes to be quite different. Having thus learned how much a speech gains by a really artistic delivery, Demosthenes perceived that it was of but little use for him to study the matter of a speech, unless he also paid attention to the form in which it was to be presented to his audience. He now built for himself an underground study, which remained entire down to the present day, where he daily practised himself in gesture and declamation, and exercised his voice, and where he sometimes spent two or three months at a time with half of his head shaved, so that even if he wished he could not go out of doors.

VIII

He took, however, his themes and subjects for declamation from the various topics of the day, which he learned from those who came to visit him. As soon as they left him he used to return to his study, and repeated aloud in the form of a speech all the news which he had heard, and made comments upon it. He also used to work up any conversations which he heard, into sentences and periods for his orations, and would alter, correct and paraphrase both his own remarks and those of his friends. This gave rise to the opinion that he was not really a man of ability, but that his power and skill 125as an orator was obtained by laborious study. A great proof of this was thought to be that Demosthenes seldom spoke on the spur of the moment, but often when he was present in the assembly and was called upon by the people to speak, he would remain silent unless he had prepared and meditated over his speech. Many of the other orators ridiculed him for this, and Pytheas in derision said that his arguments smelt of the lamp. To this Demosthenes made the bitter retort, “My lamp, Pytheas, sees very different work from yours.” In conversation with others, however, he did not altogether deny the practice, but said that although he never spoke without having made notes, yet that he often spoke without having written down everything that he was going to say. He used to say that this careful preparation of his speeches showed that he was a true lover of the people, and felt a due reverence for them; while, on the contrary, to speak without caring how the people take one’s words proves a man to be of an overbearing oligarchical disposition, who would use force rather than persuasion. Many writers allege, as a proof that Demosthenes dared not speak on the spur of the moment, that when he attacked Demades he was always immediately answered by him, but that he never so answered Demades.

IX

How then, one might ask, was it that Æschines in his orations speaks of Demosthenes as a man of unbounded impudence? or how was it that when Python of Byzantium was pouring forth a flood of invective against Athens, Demosthenes alone rose and answered him? Moreover, when Lamachus of Mytilene, who had written an encomium upon the Kings of Macedon, Philip and Alexander, which was full of abuse of the Thebans and Olynthians, read his composition in public at the Olympic festival, Demosthenes came up to him and in a fine speech proved from history how great things the Thebans and inhabitants of Chalkidike had done for Greece, and what evils had arisen from the baseness of those who flattered the Macedonians, till the audience were so much wrought upon by his eloquence that Lamachus was forced to flee for his life. The answer to this appears to be that Demosthenes, although he did not copy Perikles in 126all respects, imitated his reserve and dignity of manner, and his reluctance to speak upon every trivial occasion; and that he was not so much attracted by the credit which he might gain by engaging in these encounters, as he was unwilling rashly to place his power and reputation at the mercy of fortune. Indeed, his spoken orations had more fire and daring than the written ones, if we may trust Eratosthenes, Demetrius of Phalerum, and the comic poets. Eratosthenes tells us that in his speeches he used to rave like a Bacchanal, while Demetrius says that once, as if inspired, he recited the metrical oath:

“By earth, by fountains, and by waterfloods.”

One of the comic poets also calls him “the random talker,” while another mocks at his fondness for antithesis in the following verses:

“1st Citizen. He got it as he got it back.

2nd Citizen. Demosthenes would willingly have spoken words like these.”

Unless indeed Antiphanes meant by this to allude to the oration on Halonesus, in which Demosthenes advised the Athenians not to take that island, but to take it back from Philip.

X

Yet all admitted that Demades, by his own natural wit, without art, was invincible; and that he often, speaking on the spur of the moment, would demolish the carefully studied orations of Demosthenes. Ariston of Chios has preserved the opinion of Theophrastus about these two orators. Theophrastus, when asked what kind of orator he thought Demosthenes to be, replied, “an orator worthy of Athens.” When again asked his opinion of Demades, he replied that he thought him “Too great for Athens.” The same philosopher relates that Polyeuktus of Sphettus, one of the chief Athenian statesmen of the time, used to declare that Demosthenes was the best orator, but that Phokion was the most powerful speaker, because his speeches contained the greatest possible amount of meaning in the fewest words. Demosthenes himself, whenever Phokion rose to answer him, was wont to whisper to his friends, “Here comes 127the cleaver of my harangues.” It is not clear whether by this Demosthenes alluded to Phokion’s oratorical skill, or to his blameless life and high reputation, meaning that the slightest sign given by a man in whom the people felt such confidence carried more weight than the longest oration by anyone else.

XI

Demetrius of Phalerum has recorded the devices by which Demosthenes overcame his bodily defects, which he says he heard from Demosthenes’s own lips when he was an old man. He corrected the indistinctness of his articulation and his tendency to lisp by declaiming long speeches with pebbles in his mouth, while he strengthened his voice by running or walking up hill, talking the while, and repeating orations or verses. He also had a large mirror in his house, and used to stand before it and study oratorical gestures. We are told that once a man called upon him and asked him to act as his counsel in a lawsuit against a man by whom he had been beaten. “But,” said Demosthenes, “you have not suffered any of this ill-treatment which you complain of.” At this the man raised his voice and excitedly exclaimed, “Do you say, Demosthenes, that I have not been ill-treated?” “Yes,” answered he, “now I hear the voice of one who has really been ill-used.” So important did he think the action and the tone of voice of a speaker to be in carrying conviction to the minds of his hearers. His manner in speaking marvellously pleased the common people, though men of taste, such as Demetrius of Phalerum, thought it vulgar and affected. Hermippus informs us that Aesion,3 when asked to give his opinion about the orators of former times and those of his own day, said that the ancient orators used to address the people in a surprisingly decorous and dignified manner, but that the speeches of Demosthenes when read aloud, appeared to him to be much more carefully constructed and more forcible. It is indeed unnecessary to say that the written speeches of Demosthenes are bitter and angry compositions; but in his impromptu repartees, he often was genuinely witty and pleasant. As for example, when Demades exclaimed, “Demosthenes teach me! Will a sow teach Athena?128”

Demosthenes answered, “This Athena was caught in adultery in Kollytus4 the other day.” And when the thief who was surnamed Chalkus, that is, Brazen-face, attempted to sneer at him for sitting up late at night writing, Demosthenes answered, “I know that my habit of burning a lamp at night must disconcert you. But, men of Athens, need we wonder at the thefts which take place, when we see that our thieves are brazen, and our walls are only made of clay.” However, although I could relate several more anecdotes of this kind, I must now stop, as we ought to discover what remains of the disposition and character of Demosthenes from a survey of his political acts.

XII

He first began to take an active part in public affairs during the Phokian war, as we learn from his own words, and as we may also gather from his Philippic orations, some of which were pronounced after that war was ended, while the earlier ones touch on those matters most nearly connected with it. It is evident that when he prepared the oration against Meidias he was thirty-two years of age, and had not as yet acquired any fame or reputation. This appears to me to be the chief reason for his having made up his quarrel with Meidias for a sum of money, for he was far from being a “mild-mannered” man, but keen and savage in avenging the injuries which he received. It must have been because he saw, that to ruin a man who was so rich, so able a speaker, and so well-befriended as Meidias, was too difficult a task for a man of his political power, and so yielded to the entreaties of those who begged him to let the action drop; for I do not believe that the bribe of three thousand drachmae which he received would by itself have caused Demosthenes to lay aside the rancorous hatred which he bore to Meidias, if he had entertained any hopes of obtaining a verdict against him.

In the defence of the liberties of Greece against the encroachments of Philip, Demosthenes found a noble theme for political oratory, which he treated in a manner worthy of the subject, and soon acquired such renown by his able and fearless speeches, that he was courted by the king of

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Persia himself, and was more talked about in the court of Philip than any of the other statesmen of the time, while even his bitterest antagonists admitted that they had to deal with no mean adversary; for both Æschines and Hypereides own as much in their invectives against him.

XIII

I cannot, therefore, understand what Theopompus meant by saying that he was of an inconstant disposition, and not able to remain long associated with any party or any line of policy. It appears rather that he remained throughout the consistent advocate of the same principles, and a member of the same political party to which he originally belonged, and that he not only never changed his politics in his life, but even lost his life because he would not change them. He was not like Demades, who to excuse himself for changing sides pleaded that he had oftentimes gone against his own words, but never against the interests of the state. Still less can he be compared with Melanopus, the political opponent of Kallistratus, who was often bribed by him to allow some measure to pass, and on these occasions would say to the people, “The man is my personal enemy, but I postpone my personal feelings to the good of my country.” Nikodemus of Messene, who first took up with Kassander, and afterwards became the advocate of Demetrius, used to declare that he never was inconsistent, because it was always best to obey the strongest party. But in the case of Demosthenes, unlike these men, we can say that he never deviated either in word or deed from the one direct line of policy which he unswervingly pursued to the end. The philosopher Panætius declares that in most of his orations, as in that about the Crown, that against Aristokrates, that on behalf of the persons exempted from taxation (against Leptines), and in the Philippics, we can trace the principle that honour ought to be pursued for its own sake; for in all these he urges his countrymen not to adopt the most pleasant, the most easy, or the most profitable line of policy, but often thinks that caution and even safety should be regarded as of less importance than honourable conduct; so that if to his noble principles and high-minded eloquence he had joined warlike courage 130and clean hands from bribery, he would have been worthy to rank, not with Mœrokles, Polyeuktus, and Hypereides, but with Kimon, Thucydides, Perikles, and other great men of old.

XIV

Indeed, of his contemporaries, Phokion, although we cannot approve of the strong Macedonian bias of his policy, was nowise inferior to Ephialtes, Aristeides, or Kimon, either in courage or in just dealing; while Demosthenes, who could not be trusted, as we are told by Demetrius, to stand his ground in battle, and who was not altogether proof against the seductions of money—for though he never would receive a bribe from Philip or from Macedonia, yet he was overwhelmed by the torrent of gold which poured from Susa and Ekbatana—was better able than any one else to praise the great deeds of his ancestors, but was not equally capable of imitating them. Yet in spite of these shortcomings, his life was more virtuous than that of any statesman of his time, with the exception of Phokion. He used plainer language to the people than any one else, opposed their wishes, and sharply reproved them for their mistakes, as we learn from his orations. Theopompus has recorded that once when the Athenians called upon him to impeach some person, and became riotous when he refused, he rose and said, “Men of Athens, I will always give you my advice, whether you bid me or not; but I will not accuse men falsely because you bid me.” His mode of dealing with Antiphon also was by no means like that of a man who courts the favour of the people, for when the public assembly acquitted Antiphon, Demosthenes dragged him before the court of the Areopagus, and in defiance of the expressed opinion of the people, proved him guilty of having promised Philip that he would set fire to the dockyard. The wretched man was condemned by the court and executed. He also impeached the priestess Theoris for various evil practices, and especially for teaching slaves to cheat their masters. He obtained a verdict against her, and caused her also to be put to death.

XV

It is stated that the speech by which Apollodorus obtained sentence against the general Timotheus, and had him condemned to pay a large fine, was written for 131him by Demosthenes: and he also wrote the speeches against Phormio and Stephanus, which, as may be supposed, brought great disgrace upon him. For Phormio actually used a speech written by Demosthenes to combat Apollodorus, which was just as if out of one armourer’s shop he had sold them each daggers to kill one another with. Of his public speeches, those against Androtion, Timokrates and Aristokrates were written for other persons, as he had not at the time of their composition began to speak in public, being only twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age. The oration against Aristogeiton, he himself pronounced, as he did also that against Leptines, out of regard for Ktesippus the son of Chabrias, according to his own account of the matter, though some say that he was paying his addresses to the young man’s mother at the time. He did not, however, marry her, but married a Samian woman, as we learn from the treatise of Demetrius of Magnesia on Synonyms. It is not clear whether the oration against Æschines for the dishonest embassage was ever spoken; although we are told by Idomeneus that Æschines was only acquitted by thirty votes. This, however, cannot be true, judging from the speeches of Demosthenes and Æschines “on the Crown:” for neither of them distinctly alludes to that affair as having ever come into court. This point, therefore, I shall leave for others to determine.

XVI

Before the war broke out no one could doubt which side Demosthenes would take, as he never allowed any act of the King of Macedonia to pass unnoticed, but seized every opportunity of rousing and exciting his countrymen to oppose him. In consequence of this his name became well known at the court of Philip, and when he was sent with nine others to Macedonia on an embassy, Philip listened to the speeches of them all, but replied to his speech with the greatest care. He did not, however, pay so much attention to Demosthenes in the entertainment which he provided for the ambassadors, but took especial pains to win the favour of Æschines and Philokrates. Hence, when these men praised Philip as being more eloquent, more handsome, and to crown all, able to drink more than any one else, Demosthenes sneeringly 132 replied that the first of these qualities was excellent in a sophist, the second in a woman, and the third in a sponge, but that they were none of them such as became a king.

XVII

When war finally broke out, as Philip was unable to remain quiet, while the Athenians were urged on by Demosthenes, his first measure was to prevail upon the Athenians to recover Eubœa, which had been handed over to Philip by its local rulers. In pursuance of a decree which bore the name of Demosthenes, the Athenians crossed into the island and drove out the Macedonians. Next, as Philip was besieging Byzantium and Perinthus, Demosthenes prevailed upon his countrymen to lay aside their anger and forget the wrongs which they had received from the people of those cities in the social war, and to send them a reinforcement by which they were saved. After this he travelled through Greece, exciting a spirit of resistance to Philip by his speeches, until he succeeded in forming nearly all the Greek cities into a confederacy against Philip, organised an army of fifteen thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, besides the local forces of each city, and induced them to subscribe cheerfully for the maintenance of the mercenaries and the expenses of the war. At this time, we are told by Theophrastus that, when the allies demanded that their contributions should be limited to some fixed sum, Krobylus the Athenian orator answered that war feeds not by a fixed allowance.5 Greece was now in a flutter of expectation, and the people of Eubœa, Achaia, Corinth, Megara, Leukas and Korkyra were all in arms. Yet the hardest task of all still remained for Demosthenes to accomplish, namely, to induce the Thebans to join the alliance, because their territory bordered upon that of Athens, and their army was very important, for at that time Thebes was the most warlike state in Greece. It was no easy matter to win over the Thebans, who had just received signal assistance from Philip in their war against the Phokians, and so were inclined to take his side, besides which, their being such near neighbours to the Athenians caused perpetual jealousies and quarrels between 133the two countries, which were renewed upon the most trifling occasions.

XVIII

Yet when Philip, excited by his success at Amphissa, suddenly marched to Elatea and made himself master of Phokis, when all the Athenians were panic-stricken, and no one dared to ascend the bema, or knew what to say, Demosthenes alone came forward and advised them to stand by the Thebans; and after having, after his wont, encouraged and comforted the people, he was sent with some others as ambassador to Thebes. We learn from the historian Marsyas that Philip, too, sent the Macedonians Amyntas and Klearchus, the Thessalian Daochus, and Thrasydaeus to Thebes to argue on his behalf. The Thebans on this occasion saw clearly enough on which side their interests lay, for the sufferings they had just endured in the Phokian war were still fresh in their memories; but we read in the history of Theopompus that the eloquence of Demosthenes so roused and inflamed their courage that all cold-blooded calculation of the chances, fear of the enemy, and considerations of expediency were entirely lost sight of in the honourable enthusiasm created by his speech. So powerful did his oratory prove, that Philip at once sent an embassy to ask for terms of peace, while Greece stood erect and watchful. Not only the Athenian generals, but even the Boeotarchs took their orders from Demosthenes, and he was as powerful in the public assembly of the Thebans as in that of Athens, being beloved by both nations and possessed of a power which was not beyond his deserts, as Theopompus says, but which he well deserved.

XIX

But some fatal destiny seemed now to have brought round the hour for the extinction of the liberties of Greece, and both counteracted his efforts, and also gave many ominous indications of what was to come. The Pythia at Delphi uttered terrible predictions, and an old oracle of the Sibyls was in every one’s mouth, which ran as follows:—

“Far from the battle, on that fatal day

Beside Thermodon may I flee away,

Or view it as an eagle from the sky;

There shall the vanquished weep, the victor die.”

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It is said that the Thermodon is a little rivulet near my own town of Chæronea which runs into the Kephisus. We Chæroneans nowadays do not know of any rivulet which is so called, but we suppose that the stream which we call Hæmon was at that period called the Thermodon; for it runs past the temple of Herakles, where the Greek army encamped: and we imagine that when the battle took place this stream was filled with blood and corpses, and became known by its present name. Yet the historian Douris writes that the Thermodon was not a river at all, but that some men while digging a trench round their tent found a small stone image, with an inscription saying that it represented a man named Thermodon carrying a wounded Amazon in his arms. Concerning this there was another oracle current, as follows:—

“Watch for Thermodon’s field, thou sable crow,

There shalt thou feed on human flesh enow.”

XX

It is hard in these matters to determine the exact truth: but, be this as it may, Demosthenes was greatly encouraged to see such a force of armed Greeks at his disposal, and, elated by their confidence and eagerness for battle would not allow them to pay any attention to oracles and predictions, but hinted that the Pythia was in Philip’s pay, and reminded the Thebans of Epameinondas, and the Athenians of Perikles, both of whom regarded such considerations as mere pretexts for cowardice. Up to this point he behaved as a brave man should; but in the battle6 itself he performed no honourable exploit worthy of his speeches, but left his place in the ranks and ran away in a most shameful manner, throwing away his arms that he might run faster, and not hesitating to disgrace the motto of “Good Luck,” which Pytheas tells us was written in golden letters upon his shield. Immediately after the victory Philip, in insolent delight at his success, danced in a drunken revel among the corpses and sang the opening words of a decree of Demosthenes, which happened to form an iambic verse, as follows:—

“Demosthenes Pæanian, son of Demosthenes,” &c.

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When, however, he came to himself, and comprehended how great his danger had been, he trembled at the ability and power of an orator who had been able to force him in a few hours of one day to risk both his empire and his life. The fame of Demosthenes reached even to the King of Persia, and he sent letters to the Satraps who governed the provinces near the sea, bidding them offer money to Demosthenes, and pay him more attention than any other Greek, because he was able to effect a diversion in favour of Persia by keeping the King of Macedonia’s hands full. This was afterwards discovered by Alexander, who found at Sardis letters from Demosthenes and papers belonging to the King’s lieutenant, containing an account of the various sums of money which they had transmitted to him.

XXI

When this great misfortune befell Greece, the political opponents of Demosthenes at once impeached him for his conduct; but the people not only acquitted him of the charges which they brought against him, but continued to treat him with great honour, and to ask for his advice. When the remains of those who had fallen at Chæronea were brought home and buried, they chose him to make the funeral oration over them, and generally they bore their misfortunes with a noble spirit, not being excessively humbled and cast down, as Theopompus relates in his history, with a view to dramatic effect, but by showing especial honour and esteem for their principal adviser they proved that they did not repent of the policy which they had followed. Demosthenes pronounced the funeral oration over the fallen, but he never again proposed a decree in the popular assembly in his own name, but always in that of some one of his friends, in order to avoid the evil omen of his own unlucky name, until he again took courage at the death of Philip, which took place shortly after his victory at Chæronea. This, it seems, was the meaning of the last verse of the oracle,

“There shall the vanquished weep, the victor die.”

XXII

Demosthenes had secret intelligence of Philip’s death, before it was publicly known. In order to inspirit the Athenians, he went with a cheerful countenance into the senate, and declared that he had dreamed that 136some great good fortune was in store for them. Not long afterwards messengers arrived with the news of Philip’s death. Upon this the Athenians made sacrifices of thanksgiving to the gods, and decreed a crown to Pausanias who slew Philip. Demosthenes also came abroad in a gay dress, and wearing a garland of flowers on his head, although his daughter had only been dead seven days. This circumstance is reported by Æschines, who reviles him for his conduct, and calls him an unnatural father, though he only proves the weakness and vulgarity of his own nature by supposing that noisy demonstrations of grief show tenderness of heart, and blaming those who bear their sorrows with dignity and composure. Yet I will not say that the Athenians did right to wear garlands and make merry at the death of a king who, after his victory, had dealt so gently with them when they were at his mercy; for it deserved the anger of the gods, and was a thoroughly low-minded act to honour a man while he lived and elect him a citizen of Athens, and then when he fell by the hand of a stranger not to be able to contain themselves for joy, but to dance over his corpse and to sing pæans of victory, as if they themselves had done some great feat of arms. On the other hand, I praise Demosthenes for leaving his own home troubles to be wept for by the women of his household, and himself coming forward and doing what he imagined was best for his country. This shows a manly and patriotic spirit, which ever looks to the good of the community at large; and I think that in forcing his private grief to give way to the public joy he acted well, and even outdid those actors who represent kings and autocrats on the stage, and who laugh or wail not as their own feelings bid them, but as the argument of the play requires. Apart from these considerations, it is our duty not to forsake a man when he is in sorrow, but to administer consolation to him and to turn his thoughts to pleasanter subjects, as physicians bid weak-eyed patients turn their eyes away from a distressing glare of light and direct them to green and soothing colours; and what better means of consolation could one possibly find when one’s country is fortunate, than to bid one’s friend merge his private grief in the public joy? I have 137been led to make these reflections by observing that this speech of Æschines has had undue influence with many persons, because it makes a mistaken appeal to their tenderer feelings.

XXIII

Now Demosthenes a second time began to rouse the states of Greece and reorganise the confederacy. The Thebans attacked their Macedonian garrison, and killed many of them, with arms furnished by Demosthenes, and the Athenians began to prepare to fight as their allies. Demosthenes reigned supreme in the popular assembly, and wrote to the Persian generals in Asia endeavouring to induce them to attack Alexander, whom he scoffed at as a child, and nicknamed Margites.7 But when Alexander, after settling the affairs of his kingdom, marched with his army into Bœotia, the courage of the Athenians deserted them. Demosthenes himself quailed in terror, and the Thebans, forsaken by their allies, fought against Alexander alone, and were utterly ruined. Upon this the Athenians, in an agony of terror, sent Demosthenes and several other orators on an embassy to Alexander; but he, fearing Alexander’s fury, went no further than Mount Kithæron, and then returned home. Alexander now at once sent to Athens to demand that ten of her chief orators should be given up to him, according to the historians Idomeneus and Douris, though most of the more trustworthy writers say that he only asked for the eight following:—Demosthenes, Polyeuktus, Ephialtes, Lykurgus, Mœrokles, Demon, Kallisthenes and Charidemus. On this occasion Demosthenes told the people the fable of the sheep who gave up their watch-dogs to the wolves, explaining that he and the other orators were the watch-dogs who guarded the people, and calling Alexander the “great wolf of Macedon.” “Moreover,” said he, “by delivering us up you really deliver up yourselves also, just as you see merchants selling whole cargoes of corn by small samples of a few grains which they carry about in a cup.” This we learn from Aristobulus of Kassandrea.8 As the Athenians 138 were quite at their wit’s end, and knew not what to do, Demades at last agreed with the orators whose extradition was demanded, that in consideration of a sum of five talents he would himself go to the king of Macedonia and intercede for them, either because he trusted in the friendship which existed between him and Alexander, or because he thought that he should find him like a lion that has been satiated with slaughter. Demades succeeded in saving their lives, and arranged terms of peace between the Athenians and Alexander.

XXIV

After Alexander’s departure Demades and his party were all powerful at Athens, and Demosthenes was completely humbled. He made an effort to assist the abortive attempts of Agis9 King of Sparta, but as the Athenians would not take part in the proposed rising, and the Lacedæmonians were crushed, he again retired into obscurity. At this time also the action bought by Æschines against Ktesiphon about the Crown came on for trial. This action had been formally begun during the archonship of Chærondas, a short time before the battle of Chæronea, but it was not decided until ten years later, in the archonship of Aristophon. This, although a private action, attracted greater interest than any public one, both on account of the eloquence of the speakers on both sides and the spirited behaviour of the judges, who refused to truckle to the party in power, which had banished Demosthenes and which was slavishly subservient to Macedonia, but acquitted Demosthenes by such a splendid majority that Æschines did not obtain the fifth part of the votes. He in consequence at once left the city, and spent the remainder of his life at Rhodes and the other cities of the Ionian coast as a sophist and teacher of rhetoric.

XXV

Shortly after this, Harpalus arrived in Athens from Asia, fleeing from Alexander, whom he feared to meet, both because he had grossly misconducted himself 139while in command of a province, and because Alexander had now become a capricious tyrant, terrible even to his friends. When he sought refuge with the Athenians, and placed himself, his ships, and his treasure in their hands, the other orators, casting longing glances at his wealth, at once pleaded for him, and advised the Athenians to receive and protect the suppliant. Demosthenes at first advised them to send Harpalus away, and take care not to involve the city in war by such unjust and uncalled-for proceedings: but a few days afterwards when an inventory was being taken of Harpalus’s property, he, seeing that Demosthenes was admiring a golden Persian drinking cup and examining the sculptures with which it was enriched, bade him take it in his hands and observe the weight of the gold. Demosthenes was surprised at the weight, and asked how much it would fetch. Harpalus answered with a smile, “It will fetch you twenty talents:” and as soon as it was dark he sent the cup and the twenty talents to the house of Demosthenes. Harpalus had very cleverly fathomed the character of Demosthenes by observing the loving and eager glances with which he eyed this cup; for he received the bribe and went over to the side of Harpalus, just as if he were a city which had received a foreign garrison. Next morning he carefully bandaged his throat with woollen wrappers, and proceeded to the assembly, where, when called upon to rise and speak, he made signs that he had lost his voice. Witty men said that the orator had not caught a sore throat, but a silver quinsy during the night. Soon the whole people learned that he had been bribed, and as they would not listen to him when he rose to explain his conduct, but hooted and groaned, some one rose and said, “Men of Athens, will you not listen to a man who has such a golden tongue?” The people thereupon sent Harpalus away, and fearing that inquiry might be made after the treasure which the orators had received, they instituted a vigorous search through every man’s house, except that of Kallikles the son of Arrhenides, which they would not allow to be searched because his newly-married wife was there. These particulars we learn from the history of Theopompus.

140

XXVI

Demosthenes, wishing to put a good face on the matter, passed a decree in the assembly, that the senate of the Areopagus should enquire into the matter, and punish those who were found guilty. However he was one of the first whom the senate found guilty: and, although he came into court and pleaded his cause, he was condemned to pay a fine of fifty talents, and was imprisoned in default. Overwhelmed with shame at this disgrace, and being also in weak health, he could not bear to remain in prison, and made his escape with the secret assistance of his keepers. We read that after he had got a short distance from Athens he saw that he was being pursued by several of his political opponents, and tried to hide from them. When, however, they came up to him, addressed him by his name, and begged him to receive money for his journey from them, assuring him that they had brought it to give to him and had pursued him for no other reason, Demosthenes burst into tears and exclaimed: “I may well be sorry to leave a home where my very enemies treat me with more kindness than any friends I am likely to find abroad will do.” Demosthenes was much depressed by his banishment, and spent most of his time in Troezene or Aegina, looking towards Attica with tears in his eyes. He is said during his exile to have uttered many unmanly sentiments, very unworthy of his bold speeches when in power. On leaving the city he stretched out his hands towards the Acropolis and exclaimed: “Athena, patroness of Athens, why dost thou delight in those three savage creatures, the owl, the snake, and the people?” He used to dissuade the young men whom he met and conversed with during his travels from taking part in political life, and would say that such were the miseries, the fears, the jealousies, backbitings, and ceaseless struggles by which a public man is beset, that if at the outset of his life he had known them, and had been offered his choice between two courses, one leading to the bema and the public assembly, and the other to utter annihilation, he would unhesitatingly have chosen the latter.

XXVII

While he was in exile Alexander died, and the Hellenic confederacy was again revived under Leosthenes, a brave general, who shut up Antipater in Lauria 141and besieged him there. Now, Pytheas the orator and Kallimedon, surnamed the “crab,” who were exiled from Athens, joined Antipater, and travelled about Greece in company with his friends and ambassadors, urging the cities not to join the Athenians and revolt from Macedonia. Demosthenes, on the other hand, joined the embassy sent out by Athens and co-operated with them, striving to induce the Greeks to rise against the Macedonians and drive them out of Greece. In Arcadia, Phylarchus tells us that a wordy battle took place between Pytheas and Demosthenes at a public meeting in which Pytheas was advocating the cause of Macedonia, and Demosthenes that of Greece. Pytheas said that we may always know that there is sickness in a house if we see asses’ milk carried into it, and that a city must be in a bad way if it received an embassy from Athens. To this Demosthenes answered by turning his own illustration against him, for, he said, asses’ milk is brought into houses to cure the sick, and Athenians come into other cities to save them from ruin. The people of Athens were so delighted with the conduct of Demosthenes in this matter that they decreed his restoration. The decree was proposed by Demon, one of the township of Paeania, and a cousin of Demosthenes; and a trireme was sent to Aegina to fetch him home. When he landed at Peiræus he was met by the whole people, and by all the priests and archons, all of whom greeted him warmly. On this occasion, Demetrius of Magnesia relates that he raised his hands to heaven and congratulated himself on having returned home more gloriously than Alkibiades, because he had persuaded, not forced, his countrymen to receive him back. As the fine imposed upon him still remained in force, for the people could not alter a verdict at their pleasure, they made use of a legal fiction. It was the custom at the festival of Zeus the Preserver to pay a sum of money to those who ornamented the altar for the sacrifice: they charged Demosthenes with this office, and ordered him to execute it for the sum of fifty talents, which was the amount of his fine.

XXVIII

He did not, however, long enjoy his restoration, for the Greeks were soon utterly ruined. In 142the month of Metageitnion10 the battle of Krannon took place, in Bœdromion a Macedonian garrison entered Munychia, and in Pyanepsion Demosthenes was put to death in the following manner:—As soon as it became known that Antipater and Kraterus were marching upon Athens, Demosthenes and his party escaped out of the city, and the people, at the instance of Demades, condemned them to death. As they had dispersed to all quarters of Greece, Antipater sent men in pursuit of them, the chief of whom was Archias, who was surnamed the Exile-hunter. This man, who was a citizen of Thurii, is said once to have been a tragic actor, and to have studied his art under the celebrated Polus of Ægina. Hermippus reckons Archias among the pupils of the orator Lakritus, while Demetrius tells us that he was a student of philosophy of the school of Anaximenes. This Archias tore away from the shrine of Æakus at Ægina the orator Hypereides, Aristonikus of Marathon, and Himeræus, the brother of Demetrius of Phalerum, who had taken sanctuary there, and sent them to Antipater at Kleonæ, where they were put to death. It is even said that Hypereides had his tongue cut out.

XXIX

Hearing that Demosthenes was sitting as a suppliant in the temple of Poseidon at Kalauria,11 Archias crossed over thither in some small boats with a guard of Thracian mercenaries, and tried to persuade Demosthenes to leave the temple and accompany him to Antipater, promising that he should not be ill-treated. Demosthenes had a strange dream the night before that he was contending with Archias in acting a play, and that although he acted well and delighted his audience, yet he was beaten by Archias, who was better furnished with stage properties and appliances. Wherefore, when Archias tried to cajole him, Demosthenes looked him full in the face, and, without rising, said, “Archias, your acting never 143affected me on the stage, nor will your promises now.” Upon this Archias became angry, and savagely threatened him. “Now,” said Demosthenes, “you speak like the true Macedonian that you are; but just now you were acting a part. So now wait for a little while until I have sent a letter home.” Saying this, he retired into the inner part of the temple, took his tablets as though about to write, placed his pen in his mouth and bit it, as he was wont to do when meditating what he should write, and after remaining so for some time, covered his head with his robe and leaned it on his arms. The soldiers standing at the door of the temple jeered at him for a coward, and Archias walked up to him and bade him rise, repeating his assurance that he would make Antipater his friend. Demosthenes, as soon as he perceived that the poison was beginning to work upon him, uncovered his head, and, looking steadfastly at Archias, said, “Now, as soon as you please, you may play the part of Kreon in the play, and throw my body to the dogs without burial. But I, good Poseidon, leave thy temple while I am yet alive, and will not profane the sanctuary by my death there, though Antipater and his Macedonians have not feared to pollute it with murder.” Having spoken these words, he asked them to support him by the arms, as his strength was fast failing him, and as they were assisting him to walk past the altar he fell with a groan and died there.

XXX

As for the poison, Ariston says that it was contained in his pen,12 as has been related. But one Pappas, from whom Hermippus has borrowed his account of the scene, says that when Demosthenes fell before the altar, in his tablets were found written the opening words of a letter, “Demosthenes to Antipater,” and nothing more. All were surprised at the suddenness of his death, but the Thracian mercenaries at the door declared that they saw him take the poison out of a little cloth and put it into his mouth. They imagined that what he swallowed was gold; but a maid-servant that waited on him told Archias, in answer to his inquiries, that Demosthenes 144had for a long time carried about a packet containing poison, to be used in case of need. Eratosthenes himself writes that Demosthenes carried the poison in a hollow bracelet which he wore on his arm. It would be tedious to notice all the discrepancies to be found in the numerous accounts which have been written of the death of Demosthenes; but I will mention that Demochares, a relative of Demosthenes, states his belief that he did not die by poison, but by the provident care of the gods, who rescued him from the cruelty of the Macedonians by a swift and painless death. He perished on the sixteenth day of the month Pyanepsion, which is observed as a day of the strictest fasting and humiliation by the women who celebrate the festival of the Thesmophoria.13 The people of Athens soon afterwards bestowed on Demosthenes the honours which he deserved, by erecting a brazen statue in memory of him, and decreeing that the eldest of his family should be maintained in the Prytaneum for ever. On the base of the statue was inscribed the celebrated couplet:

“Could’st thou have fought as well as thou could’st speak,

The Macedonian ne’er had ruled the Greek.”

It is a complete mistake to suppose, as some writers do, that Demosthenes himself composed this couplet in Kalauria just before he took the poison.

XXXI

A short time before my own first visit to Athens, the following incident is said to have taken place. A soldier, being summoned by his commanding officer to be tried for some offence, placed all his money in the hands of the statue of Demosthenes, which are represented as clasped together. Beside the statue grew a small plane-tree, and several leaves of this tree, either blown there by chance, or placed there on purpose by the soldier, concealed and covered up the money, so that it remained there a long while. At last the soldier returned and found it, and as the circumstance became widely known, many literary men seized the opportunity of 145making epigrams on this striking proof of the incorruptible honesty of Demosthenes.

Demades did not long enjoy the honour which he had won, for the gods, in order to avenge Demosthenes, led him to Macedonia, where he perished miserably by the hands of those whose favour he had so basely courted. He had long been disliked by the Macedonian court, and at last a clear proof of his treasonable practices was discovered in an intercepted letter of his to Perdikkas, in which he urged him to seize the throne of Macedonia and save the Greeks, who were now hanging by an old and rotten thread (meaning Antipater). On the evidence of this letter, Deinarchus of Corinth charged him with treason, and Kassander was so infuriated at his perfidy that he first stabbed Demades’s own son while in his father’s arms, and then ordered him to be put to death. Thus, by inflicting on him the greatest misery which a man could suffer, he proved to him the truth of that saying of Demosthenes which he had never before believed, that traitors first of all betray themselves. You now, my friend Sossius, know all that I have either read or heard concerning the life of Demosthenes.

146

LIFE OF
CICERO.

I

They say that Cicero’s mother Helvia1 was of good family and conversation, but as to his father the accounts are in opposite extremes. For some say that the man was born and brought up in a fuller’s workshop; but others carry back his pedigree to Tullus Attius,2 who reigned with distinction among the Volsci and fought against the Romans with no small vigour. However, the 147first of the family who got the cognomen of Cicero3 must have been a man of note, and this was the reason why his descendants did not reject the name, but were well pleased with it, though it was a matter of jeering to many: for the Latins call a vetch Cicer, and the first Cicero had at the end of his nose a cleft or split, slightly marked as we may suppose, like the cleft in a vetch, whence he got the cognomen. Indeed Cicero himself, the subject of this Life, on his friends advising him when he was first a candidate for office and began to engage in public life, to get rid of the name and take another, is reported to have boldly replied that he would strive to make the name of Cicero more glorious than that of Scaurus and Catulus. While he was quæstor in Sicily, and causing a silver offering to the gods to be made, he had inscribed on it his first two names, Marcus and Tullius, but in place of the third he jocosely ordered the artist to cut the figure of a vetch by the side of the characters. This then is what is recorded about the name.

II

They say that Cicero’s mother gave birth4 to him, 148after a painless and easy labor, on the third day of the new calends, on which the magistrates now offer up prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the Emperor. It is said that a vision appeared to his nurse and foretold her that she was nurturing a great blessing for all Romans. Such things as these are generally considered to be mere dreams and idle talk, but in his case Cicero soon showed that it was a real prophecy when he was of age to be taught, for he was conspicuous for his natural talent and got a name and reputation among the boys, so that their fathers used to visit the schools out of desire to see Cicero, and to inquire of his famed quickness and capacity for learning; but the ill-educated part were angry with their sons when they saw them giving Cicero a place in the midst of them in the public roads by way of honour. Cicero, who had a talent, such as Plato5 requires in a nature that loves learning and loves wisdom, for embracing all knowledge and undervaluing no kind of learning and discipline, happened to show a strong inclination to poetry: and indeed a small poem of his is still preserved, which was written when he was a boy: it is entitled Pontius Glaucus,6 and is in tetrameter verse. In the course of time he applied himself to the Muse of such arts with still more versatility, and got the reputation of being not only the first orator, but also the best poet7 among the Romans. Now his oratorical reputation continues 149 to the present day, though there has been no small innovation in matters that concern eloquence; but as to his poetical reputation, owing to many poets of genius who have come after him, its fate has been to die away altogether unknown to fame and unhonoured.

III

After being released from his youthful studies, he heard Philo8 of the Academy, whom of all the scholars of Kleitomachus, the Romans admired most for his eloquence and loved most for his manners. At the same time by his intimacy with the Mucii,9 who were statesmen and leaders in the Senate, he was aided in getting some knowledge of the law; and for a time, also, he served in the army under Sulla in the Marsic war.10 But seeing that matters were coming to a civil war, and from a civil war to a pure monarchy, betaking himself to a life of quiet and contemplation, he kept company with learned Greeks and applied himself to the sciences, until Sulla had got the mastery, and the state seemed to have received a settlement. During this time Chrysogonus,11 a freedman of Sulla, having laid an information about a man’s property as being one of those who were put to death during the proscriptions, bought it for two thousand drachmæ. Roscius, the son and heir of the dead man, complained of this, and showed that the property was of 150the value of two hundred and fifty talents, on which Sulla, being convicted, was angry, and with the assistance of Chrysogonus instituted a prosecution against Roscius for parricide. No one gave Roscius help, but all were deterred through fear of the severity of Sulla, on which the young man in his desolate condition had recourse to Cicero, who was also importuned by his friends, who urged that he would never again have a more splendid opportunity of gaining a reputation nor a more honourable. Accordingly Cicero undertook the defence, and gained credit by his success; but, being afraid of Sulla, he went into Greece,12 giving out that his bodily health required care. And indeed he was lean and had little flesh, and owing to weakness of stomach, he took little food, and that of a light kind late in the day; his voice was full and good, but hard and unmanageable, and owing to the vehemence and passion of his language being continually carried through the higher notes it gave him alarm about his health.

IV

On his arrival at Athens13 he became a hearer of Antiochus of Askalon, being pleased with the easy flow of his speech and his graceful manner, but he did not like his doctrinal innovations. For Antiochus was now seceding from what is called the New Academy, and deserting the sect of Karneades; whether it was that he was influenced by the evidence and by the senses, or as some say, through rivalry and differences with the followers of Kleitomachus and the partisans of Philo, he was changing to be a cultivator of the Stoic principle in most things. But Cicero liked the other doctrines better, 151and attached himself to them in preference, intending, if he should altogether be excluded from public affairs, to remove himself to Athens from the Forum and public life and live there in tranquillity with philosophy. But when news came that Sulla was dead, and his body being strengthened by discipline was attaining a vigorous habit, and his voice being now brought under management had become pleasant to the ear and powerful, and was suitably adapted to his habit of body, and his friends from Rome were sending him many letters and exhortations, and Antiochus strongly urged him to engage in public affairs, he began anew to fashion his oratorical power, as if it were an instrument, and to rouse afresh his political capacity, by exercising himself in the proper discipline and attending the rhetoricians of repute. Accordingly he sailed to Asia and Rhodes;14 and among the Asiatic orators he attended the instruction of Xenokles of Adramyttium, and Dionysius of Magnesia, and Menippus of Caria; and in Rhodes, the rhetorician Apollonius, the son of Molo, and the philosopher Poseidonius. It is said that Apollonius, who did not understand the Latin language, requested Cicero to perform his exercises in Greek; and that Cicero readily complied, thinking that his faults would thus be better corrected. When he had finished his exercise, all the rest were amazed, and vied with one another in their praises, but Apollonius, while he was listening to Cicero, showed no approbation, and when Cicero had finished he sat for a long time wrapped in thought; and as Cicero showed his dissatisfaction, he said, “You indeed, Cicero, I commend and admire, but I pity the fortune of Greece, seeing that the only excellent things which were left to us have been transferred to the Romans by you, learning and eloquence.”

V

Now Cicero, full of hope in his course to a political career, had his ardour dulled by an oracular answer. For 152on consulting the god at Delphi15 how he might get most fame, the Pythia bade him make his own nature, and not the opinion of the many, his guide in life. At first he lived with reserve at Rome, and was slow in offering himself for magistracies, and was undervalued, being called Greek and pedant, names current among and familiar to the lowest citizens. But as he was naturally ambitious and was urged on by his father and friends, he devoted himself to assisting persons in their causes, and he did not approach the highest distinction by gradual steps, but at once blazed forth in reputation, and was far superior to those who exerted themselves in the Forum. It is said that he was as defective as Demosthenes in action, and that accordingly he carefully devoted himself first to Roscius16 the comedian, and then to Æsopus the tragedian. Of this Æsopus it is told, that when he was representing on the stage Atreus deliberating how he should revenge himself on Thyestes, and one of the servants suddenly ran past him, being transported out of his reason by his feelings he struck the man with his sceptre and killed him. Cicero derived no small power of persuasion from his action.17 He used scoffingly to say of the orators who bawled loud,18 that because of their weakness 153 they had recourse to shouting, like lame men leaping on horses. His readiness at sarcasm and other sharp sayings was considered well adapted to courts of justice and clever, but by over use of it he gave offence to many and got the character of an ill-disposed person.

VI

Being elected quæstor19 at a time of scarcity of corn, and having got Sicily as his province, he gave offence to the people at first by compelling them to send corn to Rome. But afterwards, when they had proof of his care and justice and mildness, they respected him as they never had any governor before. And when many young Romans of good repute and noble birth, who were under a charge of neglect of discipline and bad behaviour in the war, were sent up to the prætor of Sicily, Cicero pleaded for them in a remarkable manner, and gained their acquittal. Being accordingly greatly elated at all this, on his journey to Rome, as he tells us, a ludicrous incident happened to him. In Campania20 falling in with a man of rank, whom he considered to be a friend of his, he asked him what the Romans said about his conduct in Sicily, and what they thought of it, supposing that the city was full of his name and of his measures, and upon the man replying, “But where have you been all this time Cicero?” he was completely dispirited that his fame was lost in the city as in a boundless sea and had produced no glorious result to his reputation; but on reflection he abated much of his ambition, considering that he was striving for fame as for a thing indefinite and one which had no attainable limit. However all along there abided in him an exceeding love of praise and a strong passion 154for fame, which, often disturbed much of his sound judgment.

VII

But when he began to engage more actively in public concerns, he thought it a shame that artisans, who make use of inanimate instruments and tools, should be acquainted with the name of each and its place and use, and that the political man, whose public acts are effected by the agency of men, should be indolent and indifferent about the knowledge of his fellow-citizens. Accordingly he not only accustomed himself to remember persons’ names, but he also knew the place in which every man of note dwelt, and the spot where he had his property, and the friends with whom he was familiar and his neighbours; and whatever road in Italy he was traversing, Cicero could easily tell and point out the lands and houses of his friends. As he had only a small property, though sufficient and adequate to his expenses, he obtained credit by accepting neither pay nor presents for his services as an advocate, and most particularly by his undertaking the prosecution against Verres,21 who had been prætor of Sicily. Verres, who had been guilty of great malversation, was prosecuted by the Sicilians, and Cicero caused his conviction, not by speeches, but in a manner, as one may say, by not speaking at all. For as the prætors favoured Verres, and were putting off the trial to the last day by adjournments and tricks, and it was clear that the 155space of one day would not be sufficient for the speeches and the trial would not be brought to a conclusion, Cicero got up and said that the case required no speeches, and bringing forward the witnesses and taking their evidence he told the judices to give their vote. Yet many lively sayings of his at that trial are recorded. The Romans call a castrated hog “verres.” Now when a man of the class of libertini named Cæcilius, who was under the imputation of Judaism, wished to put aside the Siceliots and be the prosecutor of Verres, Cicero said “What has a Jew to do with a verres?” Verres also had a son grown up, who was reputed not to have regard to his youthful beauty as a person of free birth ought to have. Accordingly when Cicero was reviled for his effeminacy by Verres, he replied, “A man should find fault with his sons at home.”22 The orator Hortensius did not venture directly to defend the cause of Verres, yet he was induced to give him his assistance when the damages were assessed, for which he had received an ivory sphinx as his reward. Upon Cicero saying something to him in an oblique way, and Hortensius replying that he had no skill in solving ænigmas, Cicero answered, “And yet you have the sphinx23 at home.”

VIII

Verres being convicted, Cicero laid the damages at seventy-five ten thousands, and yet he fell under suspicion of having lowered the damages24 for a bribe. 156However the Siceliots were grateful, and during his ædileship25 they came and brought many things from the island, from none of which did Cicero make any gain, but he availed himself of the men’s desire to honour him so far as to cheapen the market. He possessed a fine place at Arpi,26 and he had an estate near Naples, and another near Pompeii,27 neither of them large: he had also the marriage portion of his wife Terentia28 to the amount of ten ten thousands, and a bequest which amounted to nine ten thousands of denarii. With these means he lived honourably and moderately, enjoying the company of the Greeks who were familiar with him, and of the Romans of learning: he rarely, if ever, lay down to table before sunset, and not so much because of his occupations, as because of his health, which suffered much from the stomach. He was also exact and careful in other matters that concerned the care of his body, and he employed both friction and walking a fixed number of times. By thus regulating his habit of body he maintained it free from disease, and equal to undergo many and great trials and labours. He gave up his father’s house to his brother, and he fixed his own residence on the Palatine, in order that those who paid their respects to him might not be troubled by coming a great distance; and people used to come daily to his doors to pay their respects, no fewer than those who waited on Crassus because of his wealth, and on Pompeius because of his influence with the soldiers, which two were at that time highest in repute and chief of the Romans. Pompeius 157also courted Cicero, and Cicero’s policy contributed greatly to the power and credit of Pompeius.

IX

Though there were many candidates with him for the prætorship,29 and men of note, he was proclaimed first of all; and he was considered to have discharged his judicial functions with integrity and skill. It is said that Licinius Macer, a man who of himself had great weight in the city, and who was also supported by Crassus, being tried before Cicero for peculation, was so confident in his power and the exertions made on his behalf, that while the judices were giving their votes he went home, and after cutting his hair with all speed, and putting on a clean dress, as if he had been acquitted, he was about to return to the Forum; but on Crassus meeting him near the hall door and telling him that he was condemned by all the votes, he turned back, took to his bed and died. And the circumstance brought Cicero credit for his careful administration of justice. Vatinius30 was a man whose manner was somewhat rough and contemptuous towards the magistrates when he was pleading before them, and his neck was full of swellings: on one occasion when he was before Cicero, he made a certain demand, and as Cicero did not grant it forthwith, but deliberated some time, Vatinius said that he should not hesitate about it if he were prætor, on which Cicero quickly answered, “But I have not such a neck as you.”

158

While Cicero had still two or three days in his office, some person brought Manilius31 before him on a charge of peculation; but Manilius had the goodwill of the people and their zeal in his favour, as it was considered that he was attacked on account of Pompeius, whose friend he was. On Manilius asking for time Cicero gave him only one day, which was the next; and the people were angry, inasmuch as the prætors were accustomed to allow ten days at least to those who were accused. The tribunes also brought Cicero to the Rostra and found fault with him, but he prayed to be heard, and he said that as he had always behaved to accused persons with forbearance and kindness, so far as the laws allowed, he thought it would be harsh not to do so in the case of Manilius, and accordingly he had purposely limited him to the only day which was at his disposal as prætor, for that to throw the trial into the period of another prætor’s jurisdiction was not the part of one who was willing to help another. These words wrought a wonderful change in the people, and with many expressions of goodwill they prayed him to undertake the defence of Manilius. Cicero readily undertook it, and chiefly for the sake of Pompeius who was absent, and coming before the people he again harangued them, in bold terms censuring the oligarchal faction and the enviers of Pompeius.

X

Cicero was invited to the consulship32 no less by the aristocratical party than by the many who for the interest of the state gave him their aid, and for the following reason. The changes which Sulla had introduced into the constitution at first appeared unseasonable, 159but now they seemed to the many by length of time and usage to have received a kind of settlement, and not a bad one; but there were those who sought to shake and change the present condition of affairs for the sake of their own gain and not for the public good, while Pompeius was still fighting with the kings in Pontus and Armenia, and there was no power in Rome able to resist those who were for change. These men had for their head a bold man and an ambitious and one of versatile temper, Lucius Catilina, who in addition to other great crimes had once laboured under the imputation of unlawful commerce with his virgin daughter, and of murdering his own brother,33 and being afraid of being punished for this he persuaded Sulla to proscribe his brother among those who were doomed to die, as if he were still alive. Him the evil-minded took for their leader, and they gave various pledges to one another, and among these they sacrificed a man and ate of his flesh.34 Catilina had corrupted a large part of the youth in the city by supplying every one of them with pleasure and banquets, and amours with women, and furnishing unsparingly the expense for all this. All Etruria was roused to revolt, and the greater part of Gaul within the Alps: and Rome was exposed to the greatest hazard of change, on account of the inequality in properties, for those who had most reputation and lofty bearing had impoverished themselves by theatrical expenses and entertainments, and love of magistracies and building, and the wealth had all come into the hands of men of mean birth and low persons, so that things needed only a slight inclination, and it was in the power of every man who had courage for the thing to unsettle the state, which of itself was in a diseased condition.

XI

However Catilina, wishing to secure a stronghold, was a candidate for the consulship, and he was high in hope that he should be the colleague of Caius Antonius, a man who of himself was not calculated to be a leader 160either for good or bad, but one who would add force to another who was a leader. It was from seeing this that the majority of the honourable and the good encouraged Cicero to the consulship, and as the people readily seconded them, Catilina was rejected, and Cicero and Caius Antonius were elected. And yet Cicero alone of the candidates was the son of an eques, not of a senator.

XII

Now the designs of Catilina still remained unknown to the many, but great struggles awaited the consulship of Cicero. For in the first place, those who by the laws of Sulla were excluded from magistracies, being neither weak nor few, became candidates and attempted to gain popular favour, and they made many charges against the tyranny of Sulla which were indeed true and just, but yet they were disturbing the state of affairs at an unfit time and out of season; and in the next place the tribunes brought forward measures to the same purpose, in which they proposed an administration composed of ten men35 with full powers, whose instructions were to have authority to sell the public property in all Italy and in all Syria, and all that had lately been acquired by Pompeius, to try whom they pleased, to send them into exile, to colonise cities, to take money from the treasury, and to maintain and raise as many soldiers as they might require. Accordingly others of the nobles were in favour of the law, and especially Antonius, the colleague of Cicero, who expected to be one of the ten. It was supposed also that he was acquainted with the designs of Catilina, and was not averse to them on account of the magnitude of his debts, which chiefly gave alarm to the nobles. And this was the first object that Cicero directed his attention to, and he caused the province of Macedonia36 to be given to Antonius, and Gaul, which was 161offered to himself, he declined; and by these favours he gained over Antonius like a hired actor to play a second part to himself on behalf of his country. Now when Antonius was gained and had become tractable, Cicero, being emboldened, opposed himself to those who were for making change. Accordingly, in the Senate, he made an attack upon the law, and so alarmed the promoters of it that they had nothing to say against him. When they made a second attempt, and being fully prepared invited the consuls to appear before the people, Cicero, nothing alarmed, bade the Senate follow him, and coming forward, he not only caused the rejection of the law, but made the tribunes give up even the rest of their measures and to yield to his overpowering eloquence.

XIII

For this man most of all showed the Romans what a charm eloquence adds to a good thing, and that justice is invincible if it be rightly expressed in words, and that it befits him who duly directs political affairs, always in his acts to choose the good instead of that which merely pleases, and in his speech to deprive what is useful of that which gives pain. And a sample of his persuasive eloquence was what happened in his consulship with respect to the public exhibitions. In former times those of the equestrian class were mingled with the crowd in the theatres and were spectators among the people, just as chance would have it; but Marcus162 Otho37 in his prætorship was the first who, for the sake of distinction, separated the equites from the rest of the citizens, and gave them a particular place, which they still retain. The people took this as a disparagement of themselves, and when Otho appeared in the theatre, they hissed for the purpose of insulting him, but the equites received him with loud applause. Again the people began to hiss louder, and the equites to make still greater plaudits. Upon this they fell to abusing one another, and kept the theatre in confusion. When Cicero heard of this he came, and summoning the people to the temple of Bellona both rebuked and admonished them, on which they went back to the theatre and loudly applauded Otho, and vied with the equites in doing honour to the man and showing their respect.

XIV

The conspirators with Catilina38 at first crouched and were afraid, but they recovered heart, and assembling together urged one another to take matters in hand with more courage before Pompeius returned, who was said to be now coming home with his force. Catilina was chiefly stirred up by the old soldiers of Sulla, who were planted all through Italy, but the greatest number and the most warlike of them were distributed in the Tuscan cities, and were again forming visions of robbery and plunder of the wealth that existed. These men, with Manlius39 for their leader, one of those who had served 163with, distinction under Sulla, were on the side of Catilina, and came to Rome to assist at the Comitia; for Catilina was again a candidate for the consulship, and had resolved to kill Cicero in the tumult of the elections. The dæmon also seemed to pre-signify what was going on by earthquakes and lightnings and sights. The information from human testimony was indeed clear, but not sufficient for conviction of a man of reputation and great power, like Catilina. Wherefore Cicero deferred the day of election, and summoning Catilina to the Senate questioned him about what was reported. Catilina, thinking that there were many in the Senate who were desirous of change, and at the same time wishing to make a display before the conspirators, gave Cicero an insane answer: “What am I doing so strange, if when there are two bodies, one lean and wasted, but with a head, and the other headless, but strong and large, I myself furnish it with a head?”40 This allusion of his was to the Senate and to the people, which made Cicero more alarmed, and putting on his armour he was conducted by all the nobles from his house and by many of the young men to the Campus Martius. And he purposely let the people have a glimpse of his armour by loosing his tunic from his shoulders, and he showed the spectators there was danger. The people were enraged and rallied round him, and at last by their votes they again rejected Catilina, and chose Silanus41 and Murena consuls.

XV

Not long after the men in Etruria came together to support Catilina, and were forming themselves into companies; and the appointed day for executing their 164plan was near, when there came to Cicero’s house about midnight men who were among the first and most powerful in Rome, Marcus Crassus, and Marcus Marcellus,42 and Scipio Metellus; and knocking at the door and calling the doorkeeper, they bade him rouse Cicero and tell him that they were there. And the matter was thus: after Crassus had supped, the doorkeeper gave him letters brought by some unknown man, which were addressed to different persons, and one to Crassus himself without a signature. Crassus, having read this letter only, and seeing that the letter intimated that there would be great bloodshed caused by Catilina and that it urged him to quit the city, did not open the rest, but went forthwith to Cicero in alarm at the danger, and desiring to acquit himself somewhat of the blame which he bore on account of his friendship with Catilina. Accordingly Cicero after deliberating convened the Senate at daybreak, and taking the letters gave them to the persons to whom they were directed, and bade them read the letters aloud: and all the letters alike gave notice of a conspiracy. When Quintus Arrius, a man of prætorian rank, reported the forming of armed companies in Etruria, and news arrived that Manlius with a large force was hovering about those cities expecting every moment something new from Rome, a decree of the Senate was made to put affairs in the hands of the consuls, and that the consuls on receiving this commission should administer the state as they best could, and save it. The Senate is not used to do this frequently, but only when they apprehend great danger.

XVI

Cicero upon receiving this authority intrusted affairs out of the city to Quintus Metellus; he undertook the care of the city himself, and he daily went forth guarded by so large a body of men, that when he entered the Forum those who accompanied him occupied a large part of the ground, whereupon Catilina, no longer enduring delay, resolved to make his escape to Manlius, and he commissioned 165 Marcius43 and Cethegus to arm themselves with swords, and going to Cicero’s door in the morning on pretence of paying their respects, to fall on him and kill him. Fulvia,44 a woman of rank, reported this to Cicero by night, and exhorted him to be on his guard against Cethegus and his associate. The men came at daybreak, and as they were not permitted to enter, they fell to railing and abuse at the doors, which made them still more suspected. Cicero going out called the Senate to the temple of Jupiter the Stayer, whom the Romans call Stator, which is situated at the commencement of the Sacred Road as you go up to the Palatine. Catilina also came there with the rest to make his defence, but none of the senators would sit down with him, and all moved from the bench. Catilina began to speak, but he was interrupted by cries, and at last Cicero got up and bade him leave the city; for he said it was fit that as he was administering affairs with words and Catilina with arms, there should be a wall45 between them. Accordingly Catilina immediately left the city with three hundred armed men, and surrounding himself with fasces and axes as if he were a magistrate, and raising standards he marched to Manlius; and as about twenty thousand men altogether were collected, he visited the cities and endeavoured to persuade them to revolt, so that there was166 open war, and Antonius was sent to fight with the now rebels.

XVII

Those who remained in the city of the persons who had been corrupted by Catilina were assembled and encouraged by Cornelius Lentulus Sura,46 a man of illustrious birth, but who had lived a bad life and been already expelled from the Senate on account of his licentious habits. He was then prætor for the second time, as is the custom for those who recover the senatorial dignity. It is said that he got the name Sura from the following circumstance. In the times of Sulla he was quæstor, and lost and wasted much of the public money. Sulla was angry at this, and called him to account before the Senate; but Lentulus, coming forward in a very indifferent and contemptuous way, said that he had no account to give, but he offered his leg, as boys were wont to do when they had made a miss in playing at ball. From this he got the nickname of Sura, for the Romans call the leg ‘sura.’ Again, being brought to trial he bribed some of the judices, and was acquitted by two votes only, whereon he said that what he had given to one of the judices was fairly wasted, for it was enough to be acquitted by a single vote. Such being the character of the man, and being stirred up by Catilina, he was further corrupted by the vain hopes held out by false prophets and jugglers, who recited forged verses and predictions, alleged to be from the Sibylline books, which declared that it was the law of fate that three Cornelii should be monarchs in Rome, two of whom had fulfilled their destiny, Cinna47 and Sulla, and that the dæmon was come and had brought the monarchy to him the third of the Cornelii, and he ought by all means to accept it, and not to spoil the critical opportunity by delay like Catilina.

XVIII

Accordingly Lentulus designed nothing small or trivial, but he determined to kill all the senators, and167 as many of the rest of the citizens as he could, and to burn the city, and spare nobody except the children of Pompeius, whom they intended to seize and keep in their power as securities for coming to terms with Pompeius, for already there was strong and sure report of his returning to Rome from his great expedition. A night had been fixed for the attempt, one of the Saturnalia,48 and they took and hid in the house of Cethegus swords and tow and brimstone. They also appointed a hundred men, and assigned by lot as many parts of Rome to each, in order that by means of many incendiaries the city might be in a blaze in a short time on all sides.49 Others were to stop up the water conduits and to kill those who attempted to get water. While this was going on, there happened to be at Rome two ambassadors of the Allobroges,50 a nation which especially at that time was in a bad condition and oppressed by the supremacy of Rome. The partizans of Lentulus, considering them suitable persons for stiring up Gaul to revolt, made them privy to the conspiracy. They gave these men letters to their Senate and letters to Catilina, promising liberty to the Senate, and urging Catilina to free the slaves and to march upon Rome. They also sent with them to Catilina one Titus51 of Croton to carry the letters. But inasmuch as the conspirators were unsteady men, who for the most part met one another over wine and in company with women, and Cicero followed up their designs with labour and sober consideration and unusual prudence, and had many men out of their body to keep watch and to help him in tracking out their doings, and as he had secret conversation with many of those who168 were considered to be in the conspiracy and whom he trusted, he became acquainted with their communication with the strangers, and laying an ambuscade by night he seized the man of Croton and the letters, with the secret assistance of the Allobroges.

XIX

At daybreak52 Cicero, assembling the Senate at the temple of Concord, read the letters and examined the informers. Silanus Junius also said that some persons had heard Cethegus say, that three consuls and four prætors were going to be killed. Piso, a man of consular rank, gave evidence to the same effect. Caius Sulpicius, one of the prætors, being sent to the house of Cethegus, found there many missiles and arms, and a great quantity of swords and knives newly sharpened. At length the Senate having by a vote promised a pardon to the man of Croton on condition of his giving information, Lentulus being convicted abdicated his office, for he happened to be prætor, and laying down his robe with the purple hem before the Senate assumed a dress suitable to the occasion. Lentulus and his associates were delivered up to the prætors to be kept in custody, but without chains. It was now evening, and the people in crowds were waiting about the temple, when Cicero came forth and told the circumstance to the citizens, by whom he was conducted to the house of a neighbouring friend, for his own house was occupied by the women who were celebrating the mysterious rites to a goddess whom the Romans called Bona,53 and the Greeks call Gynæceia. A sacrifice is made to the goddess annually in the house of the consul by his wife or his mother in the presence of the Vestal Virgins. Cicero, going into the house, deliberated with a very few persons what he should do with the men: for he had some scruples about inflicting the extreme punishment and that which was due to such great crimes; and he hesitated about it both from the humanity of his disposition, and because he feared that he might seem to be too much elated with his power and to be handling severely men who were of the highest rank and had powerful friends169 in the State; and if he treated them leniently, he dreaded danger from them. For he considered that they would not be well content if they were punished short of death, but would break forth in all extravagance of audacity and add fresh indignation to their old villainy; and that he should be judged a coward and a weak man, especially as the many had by no means a good opinion of his courage.

XX

While Cicero was thus doubting, there was a sign to the women who were sacrificing: for though the fire seemed to have gone out, the altar sent forth from the ashes and burnt bark a large and brilliant blaze.54 This alarmed the women, except the sacred virgins, who urged Terentia, the wife of Cicero, to go with all speed to her husband and tell him to take in hand what he had resolved on behalf of his country, for the goddess was displaying a great light to lead him to safety and honour. Terentia, who generally was not a woman of a mild temper nor naturally without courage, but an ambitious woman, and as Cicero himself says,55 more ready to share in his political perplexities than to communicate to him her domestic matters, reported this to her husband and stimulated him against the conspirators: in like manner too his brother Quintus and Publius Nigidius, one of his philosophical companions, whose advice he used in the most and chiefest of his political measures. On the following day56 there was a discussion in the Senate about the punishment of the conspirators, when Silanus, who was first asked his opinion, said that they ought to be taken to prison and suffer the extreme punishment: and170 all who spoke in succession acceded to this opinion, till it came to the turn of Caius Cæsar, who was afterwards Dictator. Cæsar, who was then a young man and in the very beginning of his rise to power, and already in his policy and his hopes had entered on that road by which he changed the state of Rome into a monarchy, though he eluded the penetration of the rest, caused great suspicion to Cicero, without however giving him any hold for complete proof; but there were some heard to say that he came near being caught and yet had escaped from Cicero. However, some say that Cicero purposely overlooked and neglected the information against Cæsar through fear of his friends and his power, for it was plain to every man, that the conspirators would rather become an appendage57 to Cæsar’s acquittal, than Cæsar would become an appendage to their punishment.

XXI

When, then, it came to Cæsar’s58 turn to deliver his opinion, he rose and expressed it against putting the men to death, but he proposed to confiscate their property and remove them to the cities of Italy of which Cicero might approve, and there keep them confined till Catilina was defeated. The proposal was merciful and the speaker most eloquent, and Cicero added to it no small weight, for when Cicero rose59 he handled the matter both ways, partly171 arguing in favour of the first opinion and partly in favour of Cæsar’s; and all his friends thinking that Cæsar’s opinion was for the advantage of Cicero, for he would be subject to less blame if he did not condemn the men to death, chose the second opinion rather, so that even Silanus himself changed and made his explanation, saying that neither had he delivered his opinion for death, for that the extreme punishment to a Roman senator was the prison. After the opinion was given, Catulus Lutatius was the first to oppose it; and he was followed by Cato, who in his speech vehemently urged suspicion against Cæsar, and so filled the Senate with passion and resolution that they passed a vote of death against the men. With respect to the confiscation of their property Cæsar made opposition, for he did not think it fair that they should reject the merciful part of his proposition and adopt the most severe part. As many of them made violent resistance, he invoked the tribunes, who however paid no attention to the call, but Cicero himself gave way and remitted that part of the vote which was for confiscation.

XXII

Cicero went with the Senate to the conspirators, who were not all in the same place, but kept by the different prætors. He first took Lentulus60 from the Palatine and led him through the Sacred Road and the middle of the Forum, with the men of highest rank in a body around him as his guards, the people the while shuddering at what was doing and passing by in silence, and chiefly the youth, who felt as if they were being initiated with fear and trembling in certain national rites172 of a certain aristocratical power. When Cicero had passed through the Forum and come to the prison, he delivered Lentulus to the executioner and told him to put him to death; he then took down Cethegus and every one of the rest in order and had them put to death. Seeing that there were still many members of the conspiracy standing together in the Forum, who did not know what had been done and were waiting for the night, supposing that the men were still alive and might be rescued, Cicero said to them in a loud voice, “They have lived.” In these terms the Romans are used to speak of death when they do not choose to use words of bad omen. It was now evening, and Cicero went up from the Forum to his house, the citizens no longer accompanying him in silence or in order, but receiving him with shouts and clapping as he passed along and calling him the saviour and founder of his country. And numerous lights illuminated the streets, for people placed lamps and torches at their doors. The women too showed lights from the roofs to honour the man and in order to see him going home, honourably attended by the nobles; most of whom, having brought to an end great wars and entered the city in triumph, and added to the Roman possessions no small extent of land and sea, walked along confessing to one another that the Roman people were indebted for wealth and spoils and power to many living commanders and generals, but for their security and safety to Cicero alone, who had removed from them so great a danger. For it was not the preventing of what was in preparation and the punishing of the doers which appeared worthy of admiration, but that he had quenched the greatest of dangers that ever threatened the State with the least evils, and without disturbance and tumult. For most of those who had flocked to Catilina61 as soon as they heard of the fate of Lentulus and Cethegus left him and went away: and Catilina, after173 fighting a battle with those who remained with him against Antonius, perished and his army with him.

XXIII

However there were some who were ready to abuse Cicero for this and to do him harm, and they had for their leader among those who were going to hold magistracies, Cæsar as prætor, and Metellus62 and Bestia as tribunes. Upon entering on office, while Cicero had still a few days in authority, they would not let him address the people, and placing their seats above the Rostra they would not permit him to come forward to speak; they told him that he might, if he chose, take the oath usual on giving up office and then go down. Upon this Cicero came forward as if he were going to take the oath, and when he had procured silence, he swore not the usual oath, but one of his own and a new oath, to the effect that he had saved his country and preserved the supremacy of Rome: and the whole people confirmed the truth of his oath. At this Cæsar and the tribunes, being still more vexed, contrived other cavils against Cicero, and a law was brought forward by them that Pompeius and his army should be recalled on the pretext of putting down the power of Cicero. But Cato, who was then tribune, was a great help to Cicero and to the whole State, and he opposed himself to Cæsar’s measures with equal authority and greater good opinion. For he easily stopped other measures, and he so extolled the consulship of Cicero in a speech to the people, that they voted to him the greatest honours that had ever been conferred and called him the father of his country; for it seems that Cicero was the first on whom this title was conferred, upon Cato having so entitled him before the people.

174

XXIV

Cicero, who had at that time the chief power in the State, made himself generally odious, not by any ill acts, but by always praising and glorifying himself to the great annoyance of many people. For there was neither assembly of Senate nor people nor court of justice in which a man had not to hear Catilina talked of and Lentulus. Finally, he filled his books and writings with his own praises, and though his oratory was most agreeable and had the greatest charm, he made it wearisome and odious to the hearers by his unseemly habit, which stuck to him like a fatality. However, though he had such unmingled ambition, he was far removed from envying others, for he was most bountiful in his praises of those before him and those of his own time, as we may see from his writings. There are also many sayings of his recorded; for instance, he said of Aristotle, that he was a river of flowing gold, and of the dialogues of Plato, that Jupiter, if it were his nature to use language, would speak like him. Theophrastus he was used to call his own special luxury. Being asked about the speeches of Demosthenes,63 which he thought the best, he answered, the longest. Yet some of those who pretend to be imitators of Demosthenes, dwell on an expression of Cicero, which is used in a letter to one of his friends, that Demosthenes sometimes nodded in his speeches; but the great and admirable praise which he often bestows on the man, and that he entitled his own orations on which he bestowed most labour, those against Antonius, Philippics, they say nothing about. Of the men of his own time who gained a reputation for eloquence and learning, there is not one whose reputation he did not increase either by speaking or writing in favourable terms of him. When Cæsar was in power he obtained from him the Roman citizenship for Kratippus64 the Peripatetic, and175 he prevailed on the Areopagus to pass a vote and to request him to stay in Athens and instruct the young, as being an ornament to the city. There are letters from Cicero to Herodes,65 and others to his son, in which he exhorts to the study of philosophy under Kratippus. He charged Gorgias66 the rhetorician with leading the young man to pleasure and drinking, and banished him from his society. This and a letter to Pelops of Byzantium are almost the only Greek letters of his which are written with any passion, in which he properly rebukes Gorgias, if he was worthless and intemperate, as he was considered to be; but his letter to Pelops is in a mean and complaining tone, and charges Pelops with having neglected to procure for him certain honours and public testimonials from the Byzantines.

XXV

All this proceeded from his ambition, and also the circumstance that he was often carried away by the impetuosity of his oratory to disregard propriety. He once spoke in favour of Munatius,67 who after being acquitted prosecuted Sabinus, a friend of Cicero, who is said to have been so transported with passion as to say, “Do you suppose, Munatius, that you were acquitted on your trial for your own merits, and not because I spread much darkness over the court when there was light?” He gained applause by a panegyric on Marcus Crassus from the Rostra, and a few days after he abused him, on which Crassus observed, “Did you not lately praise me in the same place?” to which Cicero replied, “Yes, for practice sake, exercising my eloquence on a mean subject.” Crassus having remarked on one occasion that none of the Crassi had lived in Rome to be more than sixty years of age, and afterwards denying that he had said so, and observing, What could have led him to say this? Cicero replied, “You know that the Romans would be glad to hear it and176 so you wished to get their favour.” When Crassus observed that he liked the Stoics, because they proved that the good man was rich,68 “Consider,” said Cicero, “if they do not rather prove that the wise man possesses everything.” Now Crassus was charged with being fond of money. One of the sons of Crassus who was considered to resemble a certain Axius, and so to attach ill fame to his mother in respect to Axius, had made a speech in the Senate with applause, and Cicero being asked what he thought of him said, He is Axius Crassus.69

XXVI

When Crassus70 was about to set out for Syria, he wished Cicero to be his friend rather than his enemy, and he said in a friendly manner that he wished to sup with him, and Cicero received him readily. A few days after when some of his friends spoke with him about Vatinius, and said that Vatinius sought a recollection and to be on good terms with him, for he was then at enmity with Cicero. “Surely,” said Cicero, “Vatinius too does not want to sup with me.” Such was his behaviour to Crassus. As to Vatinius, who had tumours in his neck, and was on one occasion pleading a cause, Cicero called him a tumid orator. Hearing that Vatinius was dead, and being shortly after certainly informed that he was still living, “Ill betide the man,” said he, “who lied so ill.” Many of the senators were dissatisfied with Cæsar’s carrying a measure for the distribution of the land in Campania among the soldiers, and Lucius Gellius,71 who was also one of the oldest of them, said, that it should177 never take place while he lived. “Let us wait,” said Cicero, “for Gellius asks for no long delay.” There was a certain Octavius72 who had the ill-repute of being a native of Libya, and on the occasion of a certain trial he said that he could not hear Cicero. “And yet,” said Cicero, “your ear is not without a hole in it.” Metellus Nepos observing that Cicero by giving testimony against persons had caused more to be condemned than he had caused to be acquitted by undertaking their cause, “Well,” said he, “I admit that I have more credit than eloquence.” A certain youth who was charged with giving poison to his father in a cake, spoke with great confidence, and said that he would abuse Cicero; “I would rather have this from you,” said Cicero, “than a cake.” Publius Sextius73 had Cicero with others as his advocate in a cause, but he chose to say everything himself and would let nobody else speak, and when it was plain that he would be acquitted and the judices were giving their votes, Cicero said, “Make the most of your opportunity to-day, for to-morrow you will be a mere nobody.” One Publius Consta,74 who set up for a lawyer, but was an ignorant and stupid fellow, was called as a witness by Cicero on a trial. On Consta saying that he knew nothing, “Perhaps,” said Cicero, “you suppose that you are asked about legal matters.” Metellus Nepos during a dispute178 with Cicero often repeated, “Who is your father?” on which Cicero said, “As for yourself, your mother has made this answer rather difficult for you.” Now the mother of Nepos was considered to be an unchaste woman, and himself a fickle kind of man. On one occasion he suddenly deserted his office of tribune and sailed off to join Pompeius75 in Syria, whence he returned with just as little reason. Nepos had buried his teacher Philagrus with more than usual respect, and set upon his tomb a raven of stone: “In this,” said Cicero, “you have acted wiser than your wont, for he taught you to fly rather than to speak.” Marcus Appius in a certain trial prefaced his speech with saying that his friend had prayed him to exhibit vigilance and judgment and fidelity: “Are you then,” said Cicero, “so iron-hearted as to exhibit not one of such great qualities as your friend prayed you to do?”

XXVII

Now the use of bitterish taunts against enemies or opposing advocates may be considered as belonging to the orator’s business; but the attacking of any persons whom he fell in with, for the purpose of making them ridiculous, brought great odium upon him. I will record a few instances of this also. He called Marcus Aquinius,76 Adrastus,77 because he had two sons-in-law who were in exile. Lucius Cotta,78 who held the office of censor, was very fond of wine, and it happened that Cicero during179 his canvass for the consulship was athirst, and as his friends stood around him while he was drinking, “You have good reason to be afraid,” said he, “lest the censor should deal harshly with me for drinking water.” Meeting Voconius,79 who was conducting three very ugly daughters, he said aloud:

“’Gainst Phœbus’ will his children he begat.”

Marcus Gellius,80 who was supposed not to be the son of free parents, was once reading some letters to the Senate with a clear and loud voice, when Cicero said, “Don’t be surprised; he too is one of those who have practised their voices.” When Faustus,81 the son of Sulla who had been dictator in Rome and proscribed many to the death, having got into debt and squandered most of his substance, advertised his household stuff for sale, Cicero said that he liked this proscription better than his father’s.

XXVIII

82 He thus became odious to many, and the partizans of Clodius combined against him on the following occasion. Clodius was a man of noble birth, young in years, but bold and impudent in his designs. Being in love with Pompeia, Cæsar’s wife, he got into his house secretly by assuming the dress and the guise of a lute-player; for the women were celebrating in Cæsar’s house those mysterious rites which the men were not allowed to see; and as there was no man there, Clodius being still a youth and not yet bearded hoped to slip through to Pompeia with the women. But as it was night when he got into a large house, he was perplexed by the passages; and as180 he was rambling about a female slave of Aurelia, Cæsar’s mother, saw him and asked him his name. Being compelled to speak, he said that he was looking for a servant of Pompeia, named Abra, but the woman perceiving that it was not a female voice cried out and called the women together. They shut the doors and searching every place found Clodius, who had hid himself in the chamber of the girl with whom he came into the house. The affair being noised abroad Cæsar put away Pompeia, and a prosecution83 for an offence against religion was instituted against Clodius.

XXIX

Now Cicero was a friend of Clodius, and in the affair of Catilina found him a most zealous assistant and guardian of his person; but as Clodius in answer to the charge relied on not having been in Rome at the time, and maintained that he was staying in places at a very great distance, Cicero bore testimony that Clodius had come to his house84 and spoken with him on certain matters; which was true. However people did not suppose that Cicero gave his testimony from regard to truth, but by way of justifying himself to his wife Terentia.85 For Terentia had a grudge against Clodius on account of his sister Clodia, who was supposed to wish to marry Cicero, and to be contriving this by the aid of one Tullus, who was one of the nearest companions and intimates of Cicero, and as Tullus was going to Clodia, who lived near, and paying attention to her, he excited181 suspicion in Terentia. Now as Terentia was of a sour temper and governed Cicero, she urged him to join in the attack on Clodius and to give testimony against him. Many men also of the highest character charged Clodius by their testimony with perjury, disorderly conduct, bribing of the masses, and debauching of women. Lucullus also produced female slaves to testify that Clodius had sexual commerce with his youngest sister when she was the wife of Lucullus. There was also a general opinion that Clodius debauched his other two sisters, of whom Marcius Rex had Terentia and Metellus Celer had Clodia to wife, who was called Quadrantaria, because one of her lovers put copper coins for her in a purse pretending they were silver and sent them to her; now the smallest copper coin the Romans called Quadrans. It was with regard to this sister that Clodius was most suspected. However as the people on that occasion set themselves against those who bore testimony and combined against Clodius, the judices being afraid procured a guard for their protection, and most of them gave in their tablets with the writing on them confused.86 It turned out that those who were for acquitting him were the majority, and some bribery was also said to have been used. This led Catulus to say when he met the judices, “Indeed you did ask for a guard to protect you, for you were afraid that some one should take your money from you.” Upon Clodius saying to Cicero that his evidence had no credit with the judices, Cicero replied, “However, five-and-twenty87 of the judices gave me credit, for so many of them voted against you; but thirty of them gave you no credit, for they did not vote for your acquittal till they had received their money.” Cæsar, however, when called, gave no evidence against Clodius, and he denied that he had convicted his wife of adultery, but that he had put her away, because Cæsar’s wife ought not only to be free from a shameful act, but even the report of it.

182

XXX

Clodius,88 having escaped the danger, as soon as he was elected tribune commenced his attack on Cicero, drawing together and agitating against him every thing and all persons. For he gained the favour of the people by popular laws, and caused great provinces to be assigned to each of the consuls, Macedonia to Piso and Syria to Gabinius, and he contrived to associate many of the poor citizens in his designs and kept armed slaves about him. Of the three men who then had the chief power, Crassus was openly at enmity with Cicero, and Pompeius was playing an affected part towards both; and as Cæsar was about to march into Gaul89 with his army, Cicero paying court to him, though he was not his friend, but an object of suspicion owing to the affair of Catilina, asked to accompany him as a legatus. Cæsar accepted the proposal, but Clodius, seeing that Cicero was escaping from his tribunitian power, pretended to be disposed to come to terms with him, and by laying most blame on Terentia, and always speaking of Cicero in moderate terms and using words which imported a favourable disposition, as a man who had no hatred or ill feeling towards him, but had certain reasonable grounds of complaint to be urged in a friendly way, he completely stopped Cicero’s fears, so that he declined a legation under Cæsar and again applied himself to public affairs. At which Cæsar, being irritated, encouraged Clodius against Cicero, and completely alienated Pompeius from him, and he himself declared before the people that he did not consider it right or lawful for men to be put to death without trial, like Lentulus and Cethegus. For this was the charge, and to this Cicero was called to answer. Being therefore in danger and under prosecution he changed his dress and with his hair unshorn went about supplicating the people. But Clodius met him everywhere in the streets with violent183 and audacious men about him, who, with many insolent jeers at Cicero’s reverse and attire, and after pelting him with mud and stones, hindered his suppliant applications.

XXXI

However at first nearly all the body of equites changed their dress when Cicero did, and not less than twenty thousand young men accompanied him with their hair uncut and joined in his suppliant entreaties. When the Senate had met in order to pass a vote that the people should change their dress as a public calamity,90 and the consuls opposed it, and Clodius was in arms about the Senate-house, no small number of the senators ran out tearing their clothes and calling aloud. But as this sight neither procured respect nor pity, and Cicero must either go into exile or try force and the sword against Clodius, he entreated Pompeius to aid him, who had purposely gone out of the way and was staying on his estate at the Alban hills. And first he sent his son-in-law Piso91 to entreat for him, and then he went himself. Pompeius hearing of his coming did not wait to see him, for he had a strong feeling of shame towards a man who had made great efforts on his behalf, and had carried many public measures to please him, but as he was Cæsar’s son-in-law, he gave up old obligations at his request, and slipping out by a different door evaded meeting with Cicero. Cicero being thus betrayed by him and left deserted, fled for refuge to the consuls. Gabinius still maintained his hostility, but Piso spoke92 more kindly, and advised him to go out of the way and to yield to the impetuosity of Clodius and to submit to the change in circumstances, and again to be the saviour of his country, which was involved in civil commotion and misfortune through Clodius. Having got184 this answer Cicero consulted with his friends, of whom Lucullus advised him to stay and said that he would gain the superiority; but others advised him to fly, inasmuch as the people would soon long for him when they were satiated with the madness and desperation of Clodius. This was Cicero’s own judgment; and he carried to the Capitol the statue of Athene,93 which for a long time had stood in his house, and to which he paid especial honour, and dedicated it with the inscription, “To Athene the guardian of Rome;” and receiving from his friends persons to conduct him safely, he left the city about midnight and went by land through Lucania, designing to stay in Sicily.

XXXII

When it was known that he had fled, Clodius put to the vote the question of his banishment, and issued an edict to exclude him from fire and water, and that no one should furnish him with a shelter within five hundred miles94 of Italy. Now others paid not the slightest regard to the edict, for they respected Cicero, and showed him all manner of kindness and set him on his way: but in Hipponium, a city of Lucania, which the Romans call Vibo,95 Vibius, a Sicilian, who had derived many advantages from Cicero’s friendship and had been præfect of the Fabri during his consulship, would not receive Cicero in his house, but sent him word that he would assign him a spot of ground; and Caius Vergilius,96 the prætor of Sicily, who had been most intimate with Cicero, wrote to tell185 him to keep away from Sicily. Whereat desponding he set out for Brundusium, and thence attempted to pass over to Dyrrachium97 with a fair wind; but as it began to blow against him when he was out at sea, he came back the day after, and again set sail. It is said that when he had reached Dyrrachium and was going to land, there was a shaking of the earth and a violent motion in the sea at the same time; from which the diviners prognosticated that his flight would not be lasting, for these were signs of change. And though many men visited him from good will and the Greek cities vied in sending deputations to him, yet he passed his time in despondency98 and exceeding grief, for the most part looking to Italy, like those who are desperately in love, and in his bearing became very mean and humbled by reason of his calamity, and so downcast as no one would have expected from a man who had spent his life in such philosophical pursuits. And yet he often asked his friends to call him not an orator, but a philosopher,99 for he said that he had chosen philosophy as his occupation, but that he employed oratory as an instrument for his purposes in his public life. But opinion is powerful to wash out reason from the mind as if it were dye, and to imprint the affects of the many100 by the force of186 intercourse and familiarity on those who engage in public life, unless a man be strictly on his guard and come in contact with things external in such wise as to have communion with the things themselves, not with the affects towards the things.

XXXIII

Clodius, after driving out Cicero, burnt his villas, and burnt his house, and built on the ground a temple to Liberty: the rest of Cicero’s property101 he offered for sale, and announced it daily, but nobody would buy. In consequence of these measures being formidable to the aristocratical party, and dragging along with him the people, who were let loose to great violence and daring, he made an attack on Pompeius, ripping up some of the things that were settled by him in his military command. By which Pompeius losing some of his reputation blamed himself for giving up Cicero; and changing again he used every effort in conjunction with Cicero’s friends to effect his return. As Clodius resisted this, the Senate resolved to ratify nothing in the mean time and to do no public business, unless Cicero was restored. When Lentulus102 was 187consul, and the disorder went on increasing so that tribunes were wounded in the Forum, and Quintus the brother of Cicero only escaped by lying among the bodies as if he were dead, the people began to undergo a change of opinion, and one of the tribunes, Annius Milo, was the first to venture to bring Clodius to trial for violence, and many sided with Pompeius both from among the people and the neighbouring cities. Coming forward with them and driving Clodius from the Forum, he called the citizens to the vote: and it is said that the people never confirmed any measure with so much unanimity. The Senate vying with the people passed a decree in honour of those cities which had served Cicero in his exile, and for the restoration103 at the public expense of his house and villas, which Clodius had destroyed. Cicero was restored in the sixteenth month104 after his exile, and so great was the joy of the cities and the zeal of all men to meet him, that what was afterwards said by Cicero fell short of the truth: for he said that Italy bore him on her shoulders and carried him into Rome. On which occasion Crassus also, who was his enemy before his exile, readily met him, and was reconciled to him, to please his son Publius, as he said, who was an admirer of Cicero.

XXXIV

After the lapse of no long time, watching the opportunity when Clodius was away, Cicero went with a number of persons to the Capitol and pulled down and broke the tribunitian tablets105 which contained the records of the administration. When Clodius made this a charge against him, Cicero said that Clodius had illegally passed 188from the patrician body to the tribunate, and that none of his acts were valid, at which Cato took offence and spoke against him, not indeed in commendation of Clodius, but expressing his mortification at his measures; however he showed that it was an unusual and violent measure for the Senate to vote for the rescinding of so many decrees and acts, among which was his own administration at Cyprus and Byzantium. This led to a collision between him and Cicero, which did not proceed to anything open, but the consequence was that their friendly disposition to one another was weakened.

XXXV

After this Clodius106 was killed by Milo, who being prosecuted for murder got Cicero for his advocate. But the Senate, being afraid lest there should be some disturbance in the city on the trial of Milo, who was a man of high repute and bold spirit, intrusted to Pompeius the superintendence of this and other trials, and commissioned him to provide for the security of the city and of the courts of justice. Pompeius in the night surrounded the Forum with soldiers on the heights, and Milo, fearing that Cicero might be disturbed at the unusual sight and manage his case worse, persuaded him to be carried in a litter to the Forum and to rest there till the judices met and the court was formed. But Cicero, as it appears, was not only without courage in arms, but was timid even when he commenced speaking, and hardly ceased shaking and trembling in many trials till his eloquence had reached its height and attained steadiness. When he was the advocate of Murena, on his prosecution by Cato, he was ambitious to surpass Hortensius, who spoke with great applause, and he took no rest the night before, in consequence of which exceeding anxiety and wakefulness, his powers were impaired and he was considered to have fallen short of his fame. On this occasion when he came

189
out of the litter to the trial of Milo and saw Pompeius seated on an elevated place as in a camp and arms flashing all around the Forum, he was confounded and scarcely commenced his speech for trembling and hesitation, though Milo himself bravely and courageously assisted at the trial and would not deign to let his hair grow or to change his dress for a dark one, which seems in no small degree to have contributed to his condemnation. But Cicero in all this was considered rather to have shown his attachment to his friend than any cowardice.

XXXVI

Cicero became also one of the priests, whom the Romans called Augurs,107 in place of the younger Crassus after his death among the Parthians. The province of Cilicia108 being allotted to him and an army of twelve thousand legionary soldiers and two thousand six hundred horse, he set sail with instructions to keep Cappadocia friendly and obedient to Ariobarzanes.109 He accomplished this, and arranged it without any blame and 190without war; and as he observed that the Cilicians were inclined to a rising on occasion of the defeat of the Romans by the Parthians and the movements in Syria, he pacified them by a mild administration. Nor would he receive any presents when the kings offered them, and he relieved the provincials from giving entertainments: and he himself daily received those who were agreeable to him at banquets, not in a costly way, but liberally. And there was no doorkeeper to his house, nor was he ever seen by any one lying down, but in the morning he would be standing or walking about in front of his chamber, where he received those who paid their respects110 to him. It is said that he neither punished any one with rods nor allowed any man’s garment to be rent, nor vented abuse in passion, nor inflicted any penalty accompanied with contumelious treatment. By discovering that much of the public property was embezzled he enriched the cities, and he maintained in their civil rights those who made restoration, without letting them suffer anything further. He engaged also in a war in which he defeated the robbers of Mount Amanus, for which he was saluted by his soldiers with the title of Imperator.111 When Cæcilius112 the orator requested Cicero to send him panthers from Cilicia to Rome for a certain spectacle, Cicero, who was proud of his exploits, wrote in reply that there were no panthers in Cilicia, for they had fled into Caria, indignant 191that they were the only things warred upon, while all others were enjoying peace. On his voyage back from his province he first put in at Rhodes, and next tarried at Athens with gladness out of the pleasant recollection of his former residence. After associating with men the first for wisdom, and visiting his old friends and intimates and receiving due honours from Greece, he returned to Rome at a time when affairs, as if from violent inflammation, were bursting out into the Civil War.

XXXVII

In the Senate, when they were proposing to vote him a triumph, he said that he would more gladly follow Cæsar in his triumph, if a settlement could be effected; and he privately gave much advice by writing to Cæsar, and much by entreating Pompeius, and attempting to mollify and pacify both of them. But when things were past remedy, and Cæsar was advancing, and Pompeius did not stay, but quitted the city with many men of character, Cicero did not join in this flight, and it was supposed that he was attaching himself to Cæsar. And it is plain that in his resolves he was much perplexed both ways and suffered much; for he says in his letters113 that he did not know which way to turn himself, and that Pompeius had an honourable and good cause to fight for, but that Cæsar managed things better and was better able to save himself and the citizens, so that he knew whom to fly from, but not whom to fly to. Trebatius, one of Cæsar’s friends, wrote to the purport, that Cæsar thought that before all things Cicero ought to put himself on Cæsar’s 192side and to share his hopes, but if he declined by reason of his age, he advised him to go to Greece and there to seat himself quietly out of the way of both; but Cicero, being surprised that Cæsar himself did not write, replied in passion that he would do nothing unworthy of his political life. What appears in his letters is to this effect.

XXXVIII

When Cæsar had set out to Iberia, Cicero immediately sailed to Pompeius. The rest were well pleased that he was come, but Cato on seeing him rated him in private greatly for joining Pompeius: he said it was not seemly in himself to desert that line of policy which he had chosen from the first; but that Cicero, though he could do more good to his country and his friends if he remained at Rome an indifferent spectator and shaped his conduct by the result, without any reason or necessity had become an enemy of Cæsar and had come there to share in great danger. These words disturbed the resolve of Cicero, and also that Pompeius did not employ him in anything of weight. But he was the cause of this himself, inasmuch as he made no secret of repenting of what he had done, and depreciated the resources of Pompeius, and privately showed his dissatisfaction at his plans, and abstained not from scoffing and saying any sharp thing of the allies, though he himself always went about in the camp without a smile and with sorrowful countenance; but he gave cause of laughter to others who had no occasion for it. It is better to mention a few of these things. Domitius114 was placing in a post of command a man of no warlike turn, and said, How modest he is in his manner and how prudent; “Why then,” said Cicero, “do you not keep him to take care of your children?” When some were commending Theophanes115 the Lesbian, who was a Præfectus of Fabri in the camp, for his excellent consolation of the Rhodians on the loss of their fleet, “What a huge blessing it is,” he said, “to have a Greek Præfect!” When Cæsar was successful in most things and in a manner was blockading them, he replied to the remark of Lentulus that he heard that Cæsar’s friends were dispirited, “You mean to say that they are ill-193disposed116 to Cæsar?” One Marcius, who had just arrived from Rome, said that a report prevailed in Rome that Pompeius was blockaded. “I suppose you sailed hither then,” said Cicero, “that you might see it with your own eyes and believe.” After the defeat Nonnius observed that they ought to have good hopes, for that seven eagles were left in the camp of Pompeius, “Your advice would be good,” said Cicero, “if we were fighting with jack-daws.” When Labienus was relying on certain oracular answers, and saying that Pompeius must get the victory, “Yes,” said Cicero, “it is by availing ourselves of such generalship as this that we have lost the camp.”

XXXIX

After the battle at Pharsalus, in which he was not present by reason of illness, and when Pompeius had fled, Cato, who had a large army at Dyrrachium and a great fleet, asked Cicero to take the command according to custom, and as he had the superior dignity of the consulship. But as Cicero rejected the command and altogether was averse to joining the armament, he narrowly escaped being killed, for the young Pompeius and his friends called him a traitor and drew their swords, but Cato stood in the gap and with difficulty rescued Cicero and let him go from the army. Having put in at Brundusium he stayed there waiting for Cæsar, who was delayed by affairs in Asia and in Egypt. But when news came that Cæsar was landed at Tarentum117; and was coming round by land to Brundusium, Cicero went to him, not being altogether without hope, but feeling shame in the presence of many persons to make trial of a man who was his enemy and victorious. However there was no need for him to do or say anything unworthy of himself; for when Cæsar saw Cicero coming to meet him at 194a great distance before all the rest, he got down, and embraced him and talking with him alone walked several stadia. From this time he continued to show respect to Cicero and friendly behaviour, so that even in his reply to Cicero, who had written a panegyric on Cato, he commended his eloquence and his life, as most resembling those of Perikles and Theramenes.118 Cicero’s discourse was called Cato, and Cæsar’s was entitled Anticato. It is said also that when Quintus Ligarius119 was under prosecution, because he had been one of Cæsar’s enemies and Cicero was his advocate, Cæsar said to his friends, “What hinders us listening after so long an interval to Cicero’s speech, since the man has long been adjudged a villain and an enemy?” But when Cicero had begun to speak and was making a wonderful sensation, and his speech as he proceeded was in feeling varied and in grace admirable, the colour often changed in Cæsar’s face, and it was manifest that he was undergoing divers emotions in his mind; but at last when the orator touched upon the battle at Pharsalus, he was so affected that his body shook and he dropped some of the writings from his hands. Accordingly he acquitted the man of the charge perforce.

XL

After this, as the constitution was changed to a monarchy, Cicero120 detaching himself from public affairs applied himself to philosophy with such young men as were disposed; and mainly from his intimacy with the noblest born and the first in rank, he again got very great power in the state. His occupation was to compose philosophical dialogues and to translate and to transfer into the Roman language every dialectical or physical 195term; for it is he, as they say, who first or mainly formed for the Romans the terms Phantasia, Syncatathesis, Epoche, and Catalepsis, and also Atom, and Indivisible, and Vacuum, and many other like terms, some of which by metaphor, and others by other modes of assimilation he contrived to make intelligible and to bring into common use: and he employed his ready turn for poetry to amuse himself. For it is said that when he was disposed that way, he would make five hundred verses in a night. The greatest part of his time he now spent in his lands at Tusculum, and he used to write to his friends that he was living the life of Laertes,121 whether it was that he said this in jest, as his manner was, or whether from ambition he was bursting with desire to participate in public affairs and was dissatisfied with matters as they were. He seldom went down to the city, and when he did, it was to pay court to Cæsar, and he was foremost among those who spoke in favour of the honours given to him and were eager always to be saying something new about the man and his acts. Of this kind is what he said about the statues of Pompeius, which Cæsar ordered to be set up after they had been taken away and thrown down, and they were set up again. For Cicero said that by this mild behaviour Cæsar placed the statues of Pompeius, but firmly fixed his own.

XLI

His intention being, as it is said, to comprehend in one work the history of his country and to combine with it much of Greek affairs and in fine to place there the stories and myths which he had collected, he was prevented by public and many private affairs contrary to his wish, and by troubles, most of which seem to have been of his own causing. For first of all, he divorced his wife Terentia,122 because he had been neglected by her 196during the war, so that he set out in want even of necessaries for his journey, and did not even on his return to Italy find her well-disposed to him. For she did not go to him, though he was staying some time in Brundusium, and when her daughter, who was a young woman, was going so long a journey, she did not supply her with suitable attendance, nor any means, but she even made Cicero’s house void of everything and empty, besides incurring many great debts. These are the most decent reasons for the separation which are mentioned. But Terentia denied that these were the reasons, and Cicero made her defence a complete one by marrying no long time after a maid;123
197 as Terentia charged it, through passion for her beauty, but as Tiro124 the freedman of Cicero has recorded it, to get means for paying his debts. For the young woman was very rich and Cicero had the care of her property, being left fiduciary heir. Being in debt to the amount of many ten thousands he was persuaded by his friends and relatives to marry the girl, notwithstanding the disparity of age, and to get rid of his creditors by making use of her property. But Antonius, who made mention of the marriage in reply to the Philippics, says that he put out of doors his wife with whom he had grown old, and at the same time he made some cutting jibes on the housekeeping habits of Cicero as a man unfit for action and for arms. No long time after his marriage Cicero’s daughter died in child-birth, for she had married Lentulus after the death of her former husband Piso. The philosophers from all quarters came together to console Cicero, but he bore his misfortune very ill, and even divorced his wife because he thought that she was pleased at the death of Tullia.125198

XLII126

Such were Cicero’s domestic affairs. He had no share in the design that was forming against Cæsar, though he was one of the most intimate friends of Brutus and was supposed to be annoyed at the present state of affairs and so long for the old state more than anybody else. But the men feared his temper as being deficient in daring, and the occasion was one in which courage fails even the strongest natures. When the deed was accomplished by the partisans of Brutus and Cassius, and Cæsar’s friends were combining against the conspirators, and there was fear of the city again being involved in civil wars, Antonius, who was consul, brought the Senate together and said a few words about concord; and Cicero, after speaking at length and suitably to the occasion, persuaded the Senate to imitate the Athenians and decree an amnesty127 for what had been done to Cæsar, and to give provinces to Brutus and Cassius. But none of these things came to a conclusion. For the people of themselves being transported to pity, when they saw the corpse carried through the Forum, and Antonius showed them the garments filled with blood and slashed in every part by the swords, maddened by passion sought for the men in the Forum and ran with fire in their hands to their houses to burn them. The conspirators escaped the 199danger by being prepared for it, but as they expected other great dangers, they quitted the city.

XLIII

Antonius was forthwith elated, and was formidable to all, as about to become sole ruler; but to Cicero most formidable. For Antonius seeing that Cicero’s power was recovering strength in the State, and knowing that he was closely allied with Brutus, was annoyed at his presence. And there existed even before this some ill-will between them on account of the unlikeness and difference in their lives. Cicero fearing these things, first made an attempt to go with Dolabella128 to Syria as legatus: but the consuls for the next year, Irtius and Pansa,129 who were good men and admirers of Cicero, prayed him not to desert them, and they undertook if he were present to put down Antonius. Cicero, neither distrusting altogether nor trusting gave up his design as to Dolabella, and agreed with Irtius to spend the summer in Athens, and when they had entered on their office, to come back, and he sailed off by himself. But as there was some delay about the voyage, and new reports, as the wont is, reached him from Rome that Antonius had undergone a wonderful change, and was doing and administering everything conformably to the pleasure of the Senate, and that matters only required his presence to be brought to the best arrangement, himself blaming his excessive 200caution turned back to Rome. And he was not deceived in his first expectations, so great a crowd of people through joy and longing for him poured forth to meet him, and near a whole day was taken up at the gates and upon his entrance with greetings and friendly reception. On the following day Antonius summoned a Senate and invited Cicero, who did not come, but was lying down pretending to be indisposed from fatigue. But the truth appeared to be that he was afraid of some design against him, in consequence of certain suspicions and of information which reached him on the road. Antonius was irritated at the calumny and sent soldiers with orders to bring Cicero or burn his house, but as many persons opposed Antonius and urged him by entreaties he took securities only and desisted. And henceforward they continued to pass by without noticing one another and to be mutually on their guard, till the young Cæsar130 having arrived from Apollonia took possession of the inheritance of the elder Cæsar, and came to a quarrel with Antonius about the two thousand five hundred ten thousands131 which Antonius detained of his substance.

XLIV

Upon this, Philippus132 who was married to young 201Cæsar’s mother, and Marcellus, who was married to his sister, came with the young man to Cicero, and made a compact that Cicero should lend to Cæsar both in the Senate and before the people the power that he derived from his eloquence and his political position, and that Cæsar should give to Cicero the security that could be derived from money and from arms. For the young man had about him many of those who had served under Cæsar.133 There appeared also to have been some stronger reason for Cicero readily accepting the friendship of Cæsar. For, as the story goes, while Pompeius and Cæsar were living, Cicero dreamed134 that some one summoned the sons of the senators to the Capitol, as Jupiter was going to appoint one of them chief of Rome, and that the citizens ran eagerly and placed themselves around the temple and the youths seated themselves in their prætextæ in silence. The doors opened suddenly and one by one the youths rising walked round before the god, who looked at them all and dismissed them sorrowing. But when young Cæsar was advancing towards him, the god stretched out his hand and said, “Romans, there is an end202 to civil wars when this youth becomes your leader.” They say that Cicero having had such a dream as this had imprinted on his memory the appearance of the youth and retained it distinctly, but he did not know him. The following day as he was going down to the Campus Martius, the boys who had taken their exercise were returning, and the youth was then seen by Cicero for the first time just as he appeared to him in his dream, and being struck with surprise Cicero asked who were his parents. Now his father was Octavius, not a man of very illustrious station, but his mother was Attia, a niece of Cæsar. Accordingly Cæsar, who had no children of his own, gave the youth his property and family name by his will. After this they say that Cicero took pains to notice the youth when he met him, and the youth received well his friendly attentions; for it had also happened that he was born in Cicero’s consulship.

XLV

These were the reasons which were mentioned; but his hatred of Antonius in the chief place, and then his disposition, which was governed by ambition, attached him to Cæsar in the expectation of adding to his own political influence Cæsar’s power. For the young man went so far in paying his court to Cicero as to call him father.135 At which Brutus being much annoyed blamed Cicero in his letters to Atticus, that through fear of Antonius he was courting Cæsar and was thus manifestly not procuring liberty for his country, but wooing for himself a kind master. However Cicero’s son,136 who was studying philosophy at Athens, was engaged by Brutus and employed in command in many things which he did successfully. Cicero’s power in the city was then at its 203height, and as he could do what he liked, he drove Antonius out and raised a faction against him and sent out the two consuls Irtius and Pansa137 to fight against him, and he persuaded the Senate by a vote to give Cæsar lictors and the insignia of a prætor, as if he were fighting in defence of their country. But when Antonius had been defeated and on the death of the two consuls after the battle the forces joined Cæsar, and the Senate through fear of a youth who had enjoyed splendid success was attempting by honours and gifts to call away from him the armies, and to divide his power, on the ground that there was no need of troops to defend the state now that Antonius was fled, under these circumstances Cæsar being alarmed secretly sent messengers to Cicero, to entreat and urge Cicero to get the consulship for the two, but to manage matters as he thought best, and to have the power, and to direct the young man who was only desirous of a name and reputation. And Cæsar himself admitted that it was through fear of his troops being disbanded and the danger of being left alone, that he had availed himself in a time of need of Cicero’s love of power by urging him to take the consulship, and promising that he would act with him and assist in the canvass at the same time.

XLVI

In this way indeed Cicero being very greatly pushed on, he an old man by a young one, and cajoled, assisted at the canvass of Cæsar138 and got the Senate in his favour, for which he was blamed by his friends at the time, and he shortly after saw that he had ruined himself and betrayed the liberty of the people. For when the 204youth was strengthened and had got the consulship, he gave himself no concern about Cicero, but making friends with Antonius and Lepidus139 and uniting his forces with theirs, he divided the chief power with them, just as if it were a piece of property. And a list of above two hundred men was made out, who were doomed to die. The proscription of Cicero caused most dispute among them in their discussions, for Antonius was not inclined to come to any terms unless Cicero was the first to be doomed to death, and Lepidus sided with Antonius, but Cæsar held out against both. They held their meeting by themselves in secret near the city Bononia140 for three days, and they met in a place at some distance from the camps which was surrounded by a river. It is said that during the first two days Cæsar struggled in behalf of Cicero, but that he yielded on the third and gave up the man. And the matter of their mutual surrender was thus. Cæsar was to give up Cicero, and Lepidus his brother Paulus,141 and Antonius was to give up Lucius Cæsar, who was his 205uncle on the mother’s side. So far did they through resentment and rage throw away all human feeling, or rather they showed that no animal is more savage than man when he has gotten power added to passion.

XLVII142

While this was going on, Cicero was on his lands at Tusculum, and his brother with him; and on hearing of the proscriptions they determined to remove to Astura,143 a place belonging to Cicero on the sea-coast, and thence to sail to Macedonia to Brutus, for there was already a rumour about him that he had a force. They were conveyed in litters, being worn out by grief; and halting by the way and placing their litters side by side they lamented to one another. Quintus144 was the more desponding, and he began to reflect on his needy condition, for he said that he had brought nothing from home; and indeed Cicero was but scantily provided for his journey; it was better then, he said, for Cicero to hurry on in his flight, and for him to hasten back and to provide himself from home with what he wanted. This was agreed, and embracing one another with tears they separated. Now Quintus, not many days after, was betrayed by his slaves to those who were in search of him and put to death with his son. Cicero arrived at Astura, and finding a vessel he immediately embarked, and sailed along the coast to Circæum,145 the wind in his favour.

206

When the sailors were wishing to set sail immediately from thence, whether it was that he feared the sea, or had not quite despaired of all trust in Cæsar, he landed, and went on foot about a hundred stadia on the road to Rome. But again perplexed and changing his mind he went down to the sea of Astura; and there he spent the night in dreadful and desperate reflections, so that he even formed a design to get secretly into Cæsar’s house, and by killing himself on the hearth to fasten on him an avenging dæmon. But the fear of tortures drove him from this measure also; and after perplexing himself with other schemes and shifting from one to another, he put himself in the hands of his slaves to convey him by sea to Capitæ,146 for he had lands there and a place of retreat which was very agreeable in summer, when the Etesian winds blow most softly. The place has also a temple of Apollo, a little above the sea. A flock of crows winging their flight from thence with loud cawing approached the vessel of Cicero as it was rowing to land, and settling at each end of the sail-yard some made a noise, and others gnawed the end of the ropes, and all were of opinion that the omen was bad. Cicero landed, and going to the villa he lay down to rest. But most of the crows perched themselves on different parts of the window, cawing clamorously; and one of them, going down to the couch where Cicero lay wrapped up, by degrees removed with its beak the covering from his face. The slaves seeing this, and considering it a reproach to them if they should wait to be spectators of their master’s murder, while even brute beasts came to his aid and207 cared for him in his unmerited misfortune, but they themselves were giving no help, partly by entreaty, partly using force, took him up and carried him in a litter towards the sea.

XLVIII

In the meantime the murderers with their helpers came on, Herennius147 a centurion, and Popilius a tribune, who had once been prosecuted for parricide and Cicero was his advocate. Finding the doors closed they broke them open, and as Cicero was not seen and those who were within denied that they knew where he was, it is said that a youth who had been brought up by Cicero in liberal studies and learning, and was a freedman of Cicero’s brother Quintus, Philologus by name, told the tribune that the litter was being conveyed through the wooded and shady paths to the sea. Accordingly the tribune, taking a few men with him, ran round to the outlet. And as Herennius was running along the paths, Cicero saw him and bade the slaves place down the litter there; and, as his wont was, holding his chin with his left hand he looked steadily on the murderers, being all squalid and unshorn, and his countenance wasted by care, so that most of them covered their faces while Herennius was killing him. He stretched his neck148 out of the litter and was killed, being then in his sixty-fourth year. Herennius cut off his head and the hands, pursuant to the command of Antonius, with which he wrote the Philippics. For Cicero himself entitled Philippics the speeches which he wrote against Antonius, and to the present day they are called Philippics.

XLIX

When the head and hands149 were brought to 208Rome, Antonius happened to be holding an election of magistrates, and when he heard the news and saw what had been done, he called out that the proscriptions were now at an end. He ordered the head and hands to be placed above the Rostra on the place whence the orators spoke, a sight that made the Romans shudder, who thought that they saw, not the face of Cicero, but an image of the soul of Antonius. Still he showed herein one sentiment of just dealing, for he delivered up Philologus to Pomponia the wife of Quintus, who having got him into her power, inflicted terrible vengeance upon him, and among other things compelled him to cut off his flesh bit by bit, and to roast and eat it. Thus some of the historians have told the story, but Tiro, who was Cicero’s freedman, makes no mention at all of the treachery of Philologus.150 I have heard that Cæsar a long time after once went to see one of his daughter’s sons,151 and as the youth had in his hands one of Cicero’s writings, he was afraid and hid it in his vest; the which Cæsar observing took the book and read a good part of it while he was standing, and then returning the book to the boy said, “A wise man, my boy, a wise man and a lover of his country.” As soon as Cæsar had finally defeated Antonius, he took Cicero’s son152 to be his colleague [Pg 209]
[Pg 210] in the consulship, in whose magistracy the Senate threw down the statues of Antonius and destroyed all other testimonials in honour of him, and further decreed that no Antonius should bear the name of Marcus. That the dæmon reserved for the family of Cicero the final vengeance on Antonius.

211

COMPARISON OF
DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO.

I

The above is all I have been able to find out that is worth being recorded about Demosthenes and Cicero. Without attempting to compare their different styles of oratory, I think it necessary to remark that Demosthenes devoted all his powers, natural and acquired, to the study of eloquence alone, so that he surpassed all his rivals in the law courts and public assembly in perspicuity and ability, all the writers of declamations in splendour and pomp of diction, and all the professional sophists in accuracy and scientific method. Cicero, on the other hand, was a man of great learning and various literary accomplishments. He wrote a considerable number of philosophic treatises modelled on the works of the Academic school, and in all his forensic and political speeches we can detect a desire to let his audience know that he was a man of letters. In their speeches, too, we can discern the impress of their respective characters. The eloquence of Demosthenes never stoops to jest, and is utterly without ornament, but has a terrible concentrated earnestness, which does not smell of the lamp, as Pytheas sneeringly said, but which reminds us of the ungenial, painstaking, acrimonious nature of the man: while Cicero often is carried by his love of jesting to the verge of buffoonery, and in his pleadings treats serious matters in a tone of most unbecoming levity and flippancy, as in the oration for Cæcilius he argues that in an age of such luxury and extravagance there can be nothing to wonder at if a man takes his pleasure; for not to help oneself to the pleasures which are within one’s reach is the part of a madman, seeing that the most eminent philosophers have declared the chief felicity of man to consist 212in pleasure. It is related that when Cato prosecuted Murena, Cicero, who was consul at the time, defended him, and cracked many jokes on Cato as an adherent of the Stoic philosophy, and on the absurdity of the paradoxes which it maintains. The audience, and even the judges, laughed heartily; but Cato merely remarked to those near him, with a quiet smile, “Gentlemen, what a witty consul we have.” Cicero, indeed, seems to have been fond of laughter and mirth, and his countenance was calm and smiling; while that of Demosthenes always bore the marks of gloomy, anxious thought, which caused his enemies, as he himself tells us, to call him disagreeable and ill-natured.

II

In their speeches we may observe that Demosthenes praises himself with great moderation, in a manner which can offend no one, and only when he has some more important object in view, while he is usually modest and cautious in his language; whereas Cicero’s show a ridiculous amount of egotism and craving for applause, when, he demands that “arms shall yield to the toga, and the triumphal laurel1 give place to his tongue.” At last he took to praising not only his own deeds, but even his spoken and written2 orations, as though he were engaged in some contest with professional rhetoricians like Isokrates or Anaximenes, rather than endeavouring to lead and reform the Roman people—

“Savage and rude, whose sole delight

Was with their foes to strive in fight.”

A politician must of necessity be a powerful speaker, but it is a contemptible thing for him to be too greedy and covetous of applause for his fine speeches. Wherefore, in this respect Demosthenes appears far graver, and of a nobler nature; for he himself declared that his eloquence came only by practice, and depended on the favour of his audience, and that he regarded those who boasted of their oratorical powers as vulgar and despicable characters.

III

They were both alike in their power and influence 213with the people, which caused even the commanders of armies in the field to look to them for support; for Demosthenes was courted by Chares, Diopeithes, and Leosthenes, as was Cicero by Pompeius and the younger Cæsar,3 as Cæsar himself admits in his memoirs addressed to Mæcenas and Agrippa. We cannot judge of Demosthenes by that which is said to afford the most certain test of a man’s true character—his conduct when in power—for he has not afforded us any opportunity of doing so, as he would not even take the command of the confederacy which he himself organised to oppose Philip. Now Cicero was sent to Sicily as quæstor, and to Cilicia and Cappadocia as proconsul, at a period when the love of wealth was at its height, and when the Roman generals and governors, thinking it beneath them to steal money, used to resort to open robbery. It was not thought discreditable to plunder a province, but he who did so with moderation was esteemed as an excellent governor. Cicero on these occasions gained great credit by the many proofs which he gave of indifference to money, and of goodness and kindness of heart. At Rome itself also, he was elected nominally consul, but really dictator with unlimited powers to deal with Catilina’s conspiracy, and he then proved the truth of Plato’s aphorism, that a state finds rest from its misfortunes when by good luck a powerful and able man is found to rule it with justice. Demosthenes again is said to have made money dishonourably by writing speeches for other men, as in the case of the speeches with which he secretly furnished Phormio and Apollodorus, when they were opposed to one another. He also was suspected of receiving bribes from the King of Persia, and was caught in the act of taking a bribe from Harpalus. Even if we suppose these charges, supported as they are by the testimony of so many writers, to be false, yet it is impossible to deny that Demosthenes, who trafficked in that peculiarly discreditable form of usury, marine insurances,4 would not have been able to refuse a present offered in all honour by a king, while we have already related how Cicero refused to take money 214from the Sicilians when he was quæstor,5 and from the Cappadocians when he was proconsul, and even from his friends, who pressed him to accept large sums when he was exiled from Rome.

IV

Moreover, Demosthenes was exiled in great disgrace, after he had been convicted of having received a bribe, while Cicero’s banishment was the consequence of the noblest action of his life, the ridding his country of wicked men. Wherefore, no one could plead for Demosthenes when he left the country, but the Senate publicly put on mourning for Cicero, grieved for his absence, and refused to transact any business before voting that he should be restored to Rome. Yet Cicero spent his exile idly in Macedonia, while Demosthenes carried out an important part of his policy while in exile; for, as has been related, he accompanied the Athenian embassy to the various states of Greece, discomfited the Macedonian ambassadors, and proved himself a far better citizen than Themistokles or Alkibiades under similar circumstances: moreover, after his restoration to Athens, he continued to pursue the same policy of unceasing opposition to Antipater and the Macedonians, while Lælius reproached Cicero for sitting silent in the senate-house when young Octavius Cæsar, before his beard was grown, petitioned to be allowed to sue for the consulship in spite of the law. Brutus also blamed him for having fostered a greater and harsher tyranny than that which he put down.

V

In conclusion, we must regard the death of Cicero as most pitiable, that an old man, through cowardice, should be carried hither and thither by his slaves, seeking to escape death, and hiding himself from his foes, although he could in any case have but a short time to live, and then be murdered after all; while Demosthenes, though he did beg somewhat for his life, must be admired for his forethought in providing himself with the poison, and also for the use which he made of it, to escape from the cruelty of Antipater even when surrounded by his soldiers, and to betake himself to a greater sanctuary, as that of the god was unable to protect him.

215

LIFE OF
DEMETRIUS.

I

He who first compared the arts to our senses seems to me to have especially alluded to the power which they both exhibit of dealing with objects of completely contrary qualities. In this respect they coincide; but they differ in respect of the use and purpose of the object of which they take cognisance. Our senses are influenced indifferently by things white or black, sweet or bitter, soft or hard, for the proper function of each sense is merely to receive all these impressions and to convey them to the mind. But the arts, which have been invented in order to cultivate the qualities proper to their own nature and to eschew those which are foreign to it, view some with especial favour, as partaking of their own essence, and avoid others as mere untoward accidents. Thus the art of medicine deals with diseases and the art of music deals with discord merely with a view to produce their respective opposites; while self-control, justice and wisdom, which are the most perfect of all arts, because they decide not only what is honourable, righteous and useful but likewise what is hurtful, shameful, and unjust, do not praise innocency which prides itself upon inexperience of evil, but think it to be folly and ignorance of what all who intend to live as becomes them ought to know. The ancient Spartans at their feasts used to compel their helots to drink a large quantity of wine, and then brought them into the banqueting-hall, in order to show the young Spartans what drunkenness was like. I think that to instruct one class of men by the ruin of another is neither humane nor politic, yet I conceive that it may be useful to insert among my Parallel Lives some examples of men who have been careless of their 216own reputation, and who have used their great place and power only to make themselves notorious for evil. The description of such men’s lives is not indeed an agreeable task, or a pleasant mode of employing my leisure, still, as Ismenias the Theban, when instructing his scholars how to play the flute, used to say, “Thus you should play;” and again, “Thus you should not play,” while Antigenides even thought that the young would take more pleasure in listening to good flute-players, if they had first heard bad ones, so I think that we shall be more inclined both to admire and to imitate the lives of good men, if we are well acquainted with those of bad ones. This book, then, will contain the lives of Demetrius, surnamed the City-taker, and of Antonius the Triumvir, men who bear signal witness to the truth of Plato’s remark, that great men have great vices as well as great virtues. Both alike loved passionately, drank deep, and fought bravely; both were freehanded, extravagant and arrogant. Fortune served them both alike, not only in their lives, for each of them had great successes and great disasters, each won great empire and lost it again, each unexpectedly fell and rose again; but also in their deaths, as the one was captured by his enemies, and the same fate all but befell the other.

II

Antigonus1 had two sons by Stratonike the daughter of Korragus, one of whom he named Demetrius after his brother, and the other Philip after his father. This is the account given by most historians, though some say that Demetrius was not the son, but the nephew, of Antigonus; but that, as his father died while he was still an infant and his mother at once married Antigonus, he was commonly regarded as his son. His brother Philip, who was a few years younger than himself, died soon, but Demetrius grew up to be a tall man, though not so tall as his father. His face and figure were of extraordinary beauty, which baffled all the attempts of painters and sculptors to do it justice. His expression was at once sweet, commanding and terrible; and his countenance 217showed all the eagerness and fire of youth combined with the calm dignity of a hero and a king. In like manner his disposition was one which was equally capable of inspiring terror or love. He was the pleasantest of companions, more given to wine-drinking and the enjoyment of luxurious idleness than any other king of his age, and yet he displayed remarkable energy and persistence in action; so that he emulated the fame of the god Dionysus,2 being like him a famous warrior, and when the war was over most capable of thoroughly enjoying the arts of peace.

III

He was remarkably fond of his father; and the love and respect which he paid to his father and mother seem to have been prompted by true affection, not by a wish to stand well with those in power. Once when Antigonus was receiving an embassy from some foreign state, Demetrius, who had been out hunting, came up to his father, kissed him, and sat down beside him just as he was, with his javelins still in his hand. When the ambassadors had transacted their business and were about to leave his presence, Antigonus said to them in a loud voice, “And, gentlemen, you may carry home this news about me and my son, that these are the terms on which we live,” thinking that so great a proof of his trust in his son’s loyalty would add considerable strength to his throne. So much mistrust and suspicion is bred by absolute power, and so hard a thing is it for a king to have a companion, that the eldest and greatest of the successors of Alexander publicly boasted that he was not afraid to have his own son sitting by his side with a spear in his hand. Indeed, this was the only royal family which through many generations remained unpolluted by this species of crime, for of all the successors of Antigonus only one, Philip, assassinated his son. All the records of other dynasties are full of murders of sons, mothers and wives; for the murder of brothers had grown to be considered, like an axiom in mathematics, as a necessary precaution to be taken by all kings on ascending to the throne.

IV

The following anecdote seems to prove that Demetrius when young was of a kind and loving nature. 218 Mithridates, the son of Ariobarzanes, was his friend and companion, and was a good subject of Antigonus, of thorough and unsuspected loyalty, but at length incurred the suspicion of Antigonus in consequence of a dream. Antigonus dreamed that he walked over a large and fair plain, sowing it with gold dust; and that shortly afterwards, returning that way again, he found nothing but stubble left. While grieving over this he heard some men say that Mithridates had gone away to Pontus on the Euxine, after having gathered the golden harvest. Antigonus was much disturbed at this vision, and after having compelled his son to swear that he would keep silence about it, told him of the vision, and added that he had made up his mind to make away with the man. Demetrius was greatly grieved at hearing this, and when the young man, as he was wont to do, again joined him, and spent the day with him, Demetrius dared not tell him by word of mouth what danger he was in, because of the oath; but he drew him aside into a quiet place, and there, as soon as they were alone together, he wrote on the ground with the but-end of his spear, in sight of the other, the words “Fly, Mithridates!” Mithridates understood his meaning, and ran away that very night to Cappadocia. Not long afterwards, he showed Antigonus what was the real meaning of his dream; for he made himself master of an extensive territory, and became the founder of the dynasty of the kings of Pontus, which was overthrown by the Romans in about the eighth generation after him. By this example we may perceive the noble and loyal nature of Demetrius.

V

As the elements, because of their mutual attraction and repulsion, are, according to Empedokles, always at variance with one another, and especially with those with which they happen to be in contact, so, while all the successors of Alexander were always at war, circumstances from time to time caused hostilities between two or more of them to take an especially active form. At this time Antigonus was at war with Ptolemy, and, hearing that Ptolemy had left the island of Cyprus, had landed in Syria and was ravaging that country, he himself remained in Phrygia, but sent his son Demetrius to oppose him.219 Demetrius was now two and twenty years of age, and was now for the first time entrusted with the sole management of an important campaign. As might be expected of so young and untried a commander, when pitted against a man trained to war under Alexander, and who had since his death waged many wars with success, Demetrius was defeated near the city of Gaza with a loss of fifteen thousand killed and eight thousand prisoners. He also lost his own tent, his property, and all his personal attendants. These, however, were restored to him, with all his captured friends, by Ptolemy, who sent him a kindly-worded message to the effect that they ought not to fight as mortal foes, but only for honour and empire.

Demetrius, after receiving this message and his property, prayed to the gods that he might not long remain in Ptolemy’s debt, but that he might soon recompense him in like manner. He did not behave himself like a youth who has received a check at the outset of his first campaign, but repaired his failure like an old and wary commander, enrolling fresh soldiers, providing new supplies of arms, keeping a firm hold over the cities near him and carefully drilling his new levies.

VI

Antigonus when he heard of the defeat remarked that Ptolemy had conquered beardless boys, but that he would have to fight his next battle with grown men. He yielded however to his son’s entreaty to be allowed to repair his fault by himself, and, as he did not wish to damp his spirits, left him in sole command. Soon after this Killes, Ptolemy’s lieutenant, arrived in Syria with a large force, meaning to chase Demetrius, whom he supposed to be disheartened by his defeat, quite out of Syria. But Demetrius by a sudden attack surprised his army and struck it with panic. He captured the enemy’s camp and their general, and took eight thousand prisoners and a great quantity of booty. He was overjoyed at this, not because he meant to keep what he had won, but to give it back, and did not so much value the glory and wealth which he had gained as the opportunity now offered him for repaying the courtesy of Ptolemy. He did not presume to do this on his own responsibility, but wrote first 220 to his father. On receiving permission from him to deal as he pleased with the fruits of his victory, he gave costly presents to Killes and his friends, and sent them back to Ptolemy. This battle forced Ptolemy to retire from Syria, and brought Antigonus from Kelænæ rejoicing at the victory and eager to see his son.

VII

After this Demetrius was sent to subdue the Nabathean Arabs, in performing which service he incurred great danger by journeying through waterless deserts; but his intrepid courage overawed the barbarians, and he returned loaded with plunder, having captured seven hundred camels.

Seleukus had once lost his capital city, Babylon, which Antigonus took from him; but he had since recovered it by his own arms, and at this time was marching with an army to attempt the conquest of the nations bordering upon India, and the provinces near mount Caucasus. Demetrius, hoping that he might find Mesopotamia in a defenceless condition, suddenly crossed the Euphrates, took Babylon by surprise, and made himself master of one of its two citadels, driving out the garrison placed there by Seleukus. Demetrius placed seven thousand of his own troops in the citadel, ordered his troops to enrich themselves by the plunder of the surrounding country, and then returned to the sea-coast, leaving Seleukus more firmly established on his throne than before; for by plundering the country he seemed to admit that he had no claim to it. As Ptolemy was now besieging Halikarnassus, he quickly marched thither and succeeded in saving the city.

VIII

As the glory which he won by this action was very great, he and his father Antigonus conceived a strong desire to liberate the whole of Greece from the tyranny of Ptolemy and Kassander. None of the successors of Alexander ever waged a more just or honourable war than this; for Demetrius and Antigonus, to gain themselves honour by freeing the Greeks, spent upon them the treasure which they had won in their victories over the barbarians. They determined first of all to attack Athens, and when one of the friends of Antigonus advised him, if he captured that city, to keep it in his own hands because it was the key of Greece, Antigonus 221 replied that the best key to a country was the goodwill of its people, and that Athens was the watch-tower of the world, from whence the glory of his deeds should shine like a beacon-light to all mankind.

Demetrius now set sail for Athens with five thousand talents of silver, and a fleet of two hundred and fifty vessels. At this time Demetrius of Phalerum governed the city as Kassander’s lieutenant, and a garrison was placed in Munychia. By good fortune and good management the fleet arrived on the twenty-fifth day of the month Thargelion, without anyone being aware of its coming. When the ships were seen, they were thought to form part of Ptolemy’s fleet, and preparations were made to give them a friendly reception. At last the officers in command discovered their mistake, and a scene of great confusion ensued, as they hastily made preparations to resist the enemy, who were already in the act of disembarking; for Demetrius, finding the mouths of the harbours open, sailed straight in, and could be seen distinctly by all standing on the deck of the ship, and making signs to the Athenians to be quiet and keep silence. When this was done, he bade a herald proclaim that his father Antigonus had sent him thither in an auspicious hour to liberate the Athenians, drive out their Macedonian garrison, and restore to them their own laws and ancient constitution.

IX

Upon hearing this proclamation the greater part of the people laid down their shields at their feet, clapped their hands, and shouted to Demetrius to come ashore, calling him their saviour and benefactor; while Demetrius of Phalerum thought it necessary to admit so powerful a man to the city, even though he might have no intention of performing any of his promises. He therefore sent ambassadors to make their submission. Demetrius received them graciously and sent back with them Aristodemus of Miletus, one of his father’s friends. As the Phalerean, in consequence of this sudden turn of fortune, was more afraid of his own countrymen than of the enemy, Demetrius, who admired his courage and public spirit, took care to have him conveyed in safety to Thebes, to which town he himself wished to go. Demetrius himself now declared that, although he was very eager to view the city, 222he would not do so until he had completely set it free and expelled its garrison. He therefore surrounded Munychia with a ditch and rampart, cutting it off from the rest of the city, and then sailed to attack Megara, which town was held by a garrison of Kassander’s troops.

As he heard that Kratesipolis, the wife of Alexander the son of Polysperchon, a celebrated beauty, was at Patræ, and was not unwilling to grant him an interview, he left his army encamped in the territory of Megara and proceeded thither with only a few lightly equipped followers. When he was near the place, he pitched his own tent apart from his men, that the lady might not be seen when she came to visit him. Some of the enemy discovered this, and made a sudden attack upon him. He only escaped by putting on a mean cloak and running away alone; so that his licentiousness very nearly exposed him to ignominious capture. When Megara was taken the soldiers were about to plunder the city, but the Athenians with great difficulty prevailed upon Demetrius to spare it. He drove out the Macedonian garrison and made the city independent. While he was doing this he remembered Stilpon the philosopher, who was reputed to have chosen for himself a life of retirement and study. Demetrius sent for him, and inquired whether anything had been stolen from him. “Nothing,” replied Stilpon. “I saw no one taking away any knowledge.” As, however, nearly all the slaves were stolen, after Demetrius had talked graciously to Stilpon and at length dismissed him with the words, “My Stilpon, I leave you a free city;” “Quite true,” replied Stilpon, “for you have not left us a single slave.”

X

Demetrius now returned to Munychia, encamped before it, dislodged the garrison, and demolished the fort. And now at the invitation of the Athenians he proceeded into the city, where he assembled the people and re-established the ancient constitution. He also promised that his father Antigonus would send them one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of wheat and timber enough to build a fleet of one hundred ships of war. Thus did the Athenians recover their democratic constitution fifteen years after it had been dissolved; for during the 223period between the Lamian war and the battle of Krannon their government had nominally been an oligarchy, but practically had been a despotism, on account of the great power of Demetrius of Phalerum.

The benefits which Demetrius conferred upon the Athenians rendered him indeed great and glorious; but they rendered his fame invidious by the extravagant honours which they conferred upon him. They were the first of all men who bestowed upon Antigonus and Demetrius the title of Kings, a name which they greatly disliked because of its association, and which moreover belonged at that time in an especial manner to the descendants of Philip and Alexander, being the only one of their ensigns of royalty which had not been adopted by other princes. The Athenians too were the only people who styled Antigonus and Demetrius their saviour gods, and they even abolished the ancient office of the archon from whom the year received its name, and elected in his place every year a priest to minister at the altar of the saviour gods. They also decreed that their images should be woven into the sacred peplus of Athena,3 with those of the gods. They consecrated the spot where Demetrius first set his foot on the ground when he alighted from his chariot, and built an altar upon it which was called the altar of “The Descending Demetrius.” They added two to the number of their tribes, and called them Demetrias and Antigonis; and consequently they raised the number of the senators from five to six hundred, because each tribe supplied it with fifty members.

XI

But the most outrageous of these devices of Stratokles, for it was he who invented all these new extravagancies of adulation, was a decree that ambassadors sent to Antigonus or to Demetrius should wear the same holy title which had hitherto been given to the envoys who conducted the public sacrifices to the great festivals at Olympia and at Delphi. Indeed, in all other respects Stratokles was a man of shameless effrontery and debauched life, who appeared to imitate the scurrility of Kleon in ancient times by the reckless contempt with 224which he treated the people. He publicly kept a courtesan named Phylakion; and one day when she had bought some necks and brains in the market, he said to her, “Why, you have bought us the same things for dinner which we politicians play at ball with.”

When the Athenians were defeated in the great sea-fight at Amorgos, he reached Athens before the news of the disaster, and drove though the Kerameikus with a garland on his head, telling all the people that a victory had been won. He decreed a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and had meat publicly distributed among the tribes for entertainments. Shortly afterwards the scattered ships began to arrive, coming home as well as they could after the defeat. When the people angrily turned upon him, resenting the trick which he had played them, he met their clamour with the utmost impudence, and said, “What harm have I done you, in giving you two days of happiness?” Such was the audacity of Stratokles.

XII

There were, however, other marks of servility, “hotter than fire,” as Aristophanes calls it. One Athenian surpassed Stratokles himself by passing a decree that Demetrius, whenever he visited Athens, should be received with the same divine honours which were paid to Demeter and Dionysius, and that money should be granted from the public treasury to the person who should celebrate the festival of the reception with the greatest magnificence, in order that with it he might erect some memorial of his success. At last the name of the month Munychion was changed to Demetrion, and the first day of it named Demetrias, while the name of the festival of the Dionysia was changed to Demetria.

Most of these acts produced manifest signs of the displeasure of the gods. The peplus, upon which, according to the decree, the images of Zeus and Athena were woven together with those of Antigonus and Demetrius, was rent in two by a violent gust of wind as it was being conveyed in procession through the Kerameikus, while a great quantity of hemlock grew up round the altars which were erected in their honour, although it was not a common plant in the neighbourhood. On the day of the festival of Dionysius the procession was put a 225stop to by excessive cold, which came entirely out of season, and a severe frost not only destroyed all the fig-trees and vines, but even cut off a great part of the corn in the blade. In consequence of this, Philippides, who was an enemy of Stratokles, made the following allusion to him in one of his comedies:

“Who was it caused the peplus to be rent?

Who was it caused the frost to blight our vines?

The wretch, who worships mortals like to gods,

His crimes destroy us, not my harmless rhymes?”

This Philippides was a friend of Lysimachus, who for his sake conferred many benefits on the Athenians. Lysimachus imagined that the sight of Philippides before any campaign or expedition was a certain omen of good luck; while Philippides was beloved by him on other grounds, because he gave no trouble and never veiled his thoughts in courtly periphrases. Once Lysimachus, meaning to be very civil to him said, “Philippides, which of my possessions shall I bestow upon you?” “Whichever you please,” answered he, “except your secrets.” I have mentioned these incidents in the life of Philippides, in order to mark the distinction between the comic poet and the mob-orator.

XIII

The most extraordinary of all the honours conferred upon Demetrius was the proposal made by Demokleides of Sphettus to go and ask for an oracular response from him about the consecration of the shields at Delphi. I will write down the exact words of the law as it was proposed. “In a happy hour the people decree that one man shall be chosen from the citizens of Athens, who shall go to our saviour, and after he has done sacrifice unto him, shall ask Demetrius, our saviour, in what manner the people may, with greatest holiness and without delay, make consecration of their offerings; and whatever oracle it shall please him to give them, the people shall perform it.” By this absurd flattery the intellect of Demetrius, at no time very powerful, was thrown completely off its balance.

XIV

While he was living at Athens he married Eurydike, a descendant of the ancient hero Miltiades, 226 who was the widow of Opheltas, King of Cyrene, and had returned to Athens after her husband’s death. The Athenians were greatly delighted at this marriage, which they regarded as an honour to their city; though Demetrius made no sort of difficulty about marriage, and had many wives at the same time. The chief of his wives, and the one whom he most respected, was Phila, the daughter of Antipater, and the widow of Kraterus, who was the most popular with the Macedonians of all the successors of Alexander during his life, and the most lamented by them after his death. Demetrius when very young was forced by his father to marry this woman, who was too old to be a suitable match for him. It is said that when Demetrius expressed his unwillingness to marry her, his father whispered in his ear the line of Euripides:

“To gain a fortune, marriage must be dared.”

substituting the word “marriage” for “bondage,” which occurs in the original. However, the respect which Demetrius paid to her and to his other wives did not prevent his intriguing with various courtesans and mistresses, but he had a worse reputation in this respect than any other king of his age.

XV

His father now ordered him to proceed to Cyprus, and to attack Ptolemy, who was in possession of that island. He was forced to obey this summons, but as he was very unwilling to desist from the war in defence of the liberties of Greece, a much more noble and glorious struggle, he first endeavoured to bribe Ptolemy’s lieutenant in command of the garrison of Sikyon and Corinth to evacuate those cities and render them independent. As this attempt failed he quickly set sail, collected a large force, and proceeded to Cyprus. Here he fought a battle with Menelaus, Ptolemy’s brother, and at once defeated him. Shortly afterwards Ptolemy himself came to Cyprus with an immense fleet and army. The two commanders now interchanged messages of scornful defiance. Ptolemy bade Demetrius put to sea before his own host assembled and overwhelmed him, while Demetrius offered to 227permit Ptolemy to withdraw from Cyprus on condition that he would give up Corinth and Sikyon. The battle which ensued was one of the deepest interest, not merely to the combatants themselves, but to all the other princes, since its issue would determine not only the fate of Cyprus and Syria, but would at once render the victor the most powerful man in all the world.

XVI

Ptolemy advanced with a fleet of one hundred and fifty sail, and ordered Menelaus, when the battle was at its hottest, to sally out from Salamis with his sixty ships and throw the fleet of Demetrius into disorder by attacking it in the rear. Demetrius sent ten ships to oppose these sixty, for the mouth of the harbour (of Salamis) was so narrow that this number sufficed to close it. He himself now got his land force under arms, disposed it upon several neighbouring promontories, and put to sea with one hundred and eighty ships. He bore straight down upon the enemy’s fleet, and completely defeated it. Ptolemy himself, when all was lost, escaped with only eight ships, the sole survivors of his fleet. All the rest were sunk, except seventy which were captured with their crews on board. All his numerous train of servants, friends and wives, all his arms, money and military engines, which were stationed near the fleet in transports, were captured by Demetrius, who at once conveyed them to his own camp.

Among the spoil was the celebrated Lamia, who had at first been brought into notice by her musical skill, for she was an admirable flute-player, and who had afterwards become notorious by her amours. Her beauty was at this time somewhat faded, yet, although Demetrius was much younger than herself, she so fascinated and enslaved him by her charms, that, though many other women wished for his love, he cared only for her.

After the sea-fight, Menelaus held out no longer, but surrendered Salamis to Demetrius, with all his ships, and a land army of twelve hundred cavalry and twelve thousand heavy-armed infantry.

XVII

Demetrius added to the glory of this brilliant victory by his generous and humane conduct in burying the enemy’s dead with great honour, and in setting 228free all his prisoners. He sent a present to the Athenians of twelve hundred complete suits of armour from the spoils which he had taken. He also sent Aristodemus of Miletus to bear the news of the victory to his father. Of all his courtiers, this man was the boldest flatterer, and on this occasion he surpassed himself. After his passage from Cyprus, he would not allow his ship to approach the land, but cast anchor, bade all the crew remain on board, and himself rowed ashore in a small boat. He now walked up to the palace of Antigonus, who was in a state of great excitement and impatience to learn the issue of the battle, as may easily be imagined, considering the importance of the stake. When he heard that Aristodemus was come, his anxiety reached its highest pitch. He could scarcely keep himself indoors, and sent messenger after messenger, both servants and his own friends, to learn from Aristodemus what had taken place. Aristodemus returned no answer to any of them, but walked leisurely on with immovable countenance. Antigonus could bear the suspense no longer, but came to the door of his palace to meet Aristodemus, who was now accompanied by a large crowd. When he came near, he stretched forth his right hand, and in a loud voice exclaimed, “Hail, King Antigonus. We have defeated Ptolemy in a sea-fight. We are masters of Cyprus, and have taken sixteen thousand eight hundred prisoners.” To this Antigonus answered, “Hail to you, also; but you shall pay the penalty of having tortured us so long: you shall wait long before you receive the reward for your good news.”

XVIII

After this success, the people for the first time saluted Antigonus and Demetrius with the title of kings. The friends of Antigonus at once placed a diadem upon his head, and he sent one to Demetrius, with a letter in which he addressed him as king. The Egyptians, when they heard of this, also proclaimed Ptolemy king, that they might not appear to be dispirited by their defeat. Their example was soon followed by the other successors of Alexander, out of rivalry, for Lysimachus and Seleukus now began to wear the diadem in the presence of Greeks, though Seleukus had long before adopted the royal style 229 in his dealings with Asiatics. Kassander, however, although every one both in interviews and letters addressed him as king, never used the title in his own letters, but signed them simply with his own name as he had been wont to do.

The assumption of this title produced more important results than a mere empty change of name and style. It caused its bearers to be more exalted in their ideas, more extensive in their ambition, and more pompous and stately in their demeanour, just as actors when they put on royal robes adopt also the lofty port and the haughty voice and carriage of a king. They also became more severe in their administration of justice, because they now laid aside that dissimulation by which they had hitherto concealed their power, and which had rendered them so much more lenient and gentle in their treatment of their subjects. So great was the power of the voice of one flatterer, and such great changes did it effect in the entire world.

XIX

Antigonus, elated by the successes of Demetrius at Cyprus, at once marched to attack Ptolemy. He himself led the land force, while Demetrius accompanied him along the coast with an enormous fleet. But Medius, a friend of Antigonus, was warned in a dream of what was destined to be the issue of the campaign. He dreamed that Antigonus with all his army was running a race in the circus. At first he appeared to be running strongly and fast, but soon his strength seemed to be ebbing away, and at last when he turned round the extreme point of the course and began to return, he was so weak and out of breath that he could hardly recover himself.

Indeed Antigonus by land met with many disasters, while Demetrius at sea met with a terrible storm, and narrowly escaped being driven ashore upon an iron-bound coast. He lost many ships, and returned without having accomplished anything. Antigonus was now very near eighty years of age, and was incapacitated for active service by his size and unwieldiness rather than by his age. He consequently entrusted the management of the war to Demetrius, who had already by his good fortune and skill conducted several most important campaigns with success.

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Antigonus was not alarmed at his amours, his extravagancies, or his carousals, for he knew that, although in time of peace Demetrius used to indulge unrestrainedly in these pleasures, yet that in war he was as sober as though it were natural to him to be so. It is said that, in allusion to the empire which Lamia had now gained over Demetrius, once when he affectionately embraced his father on his return from a journey, Antigonus said, “My boy, you seem to think that you are caressing Lamia.” Another time, when Demetrius spent several days in drinking, and excused himself by saying that he had been laid up with a severe cold, Antigonus answered, “So I understood, but was the cold Chian or Thasian?” Once Antigonus heard that Demetrius had a fever, and went to see him. At the door he met one of his favourites coming out. He went in, sat down by his bedside, and took him by the hand. When Demetrius said that the fever had just left him, Antigonus answered, “Yes, I met it just now at the door.” So gently did he deal with the vices of Demetrius, because of his many other good qualities. The Scythians have a custom of twanging their bows while they are drinking and carousing, as though to recall their courage while it is melting away in pleasure; but Demetrius used to give up his whole thoughts at one time to pleasure, and at another to serious work, concentrating his entire attention upon the matter in hand, so that his amusements never interfered with his preparations for war.

XX

He appears indeed to have been better able to make preparations for war than to use them, for he always liked to be more than sufficiently provided with stores of every kind, and always wished to construct larger ships, and more powerful battering engines, in the working of which he took an especial delight. He was intelligent and clever, and did not waste his mechanical ingenuity in mere pastime, like other princes, who have amused themselves by playing on the flute, painting, or working in metal. Æropus, king of Macedonia, used to employ his leisure time in making little tables and lamps; while Attalus, surnamed Philometor, amused himself by cultivating poisonous herbs, not merely hyoscyamus and hellebore, 231 but even hemlock, aconite and dorycnium.4 These he used to plant and tend with his own hands in the royal gardens, and made it his business to know their various juices and fruit, and to gather it in due season. The kings of Parthia, too, used to pride themselves upon sharpening the points of their own javelins. But the mechanics of Demetrius were always upon a royal scale, and his engines were of enormous size, showing by their admirable and ingenious construction the grand ideas of their inventor; for they appeared worthy not only of the genius and wealth, but of the hand of a king. Their size astonished his friends, while their beauty charmed even his enemies, and this praise is far from being as exaggerated as it sounds; for his enemies actually stood in crowds along the sea-shore to admire his ships of fifteen and sixteen banks of oars, while his “city-takers”5 were regarded as wonders even by the towns against which they were employed, as we may see in a notable example. Lysimachus, who of all the kings of his time was the bitterest enemy of Demetrius, when he was endeavouring to force Demetrius to raise the siege of Soli in Cilicia, sent a message to him asking to be allowed to see his siege engines and his ships of war. Demetrius indulged his curiosity, and after viewing them he retired home. The Rhodians also, after they had stood a long siege, when they came to terms with Demetrius, begged for some of his machines, which they wished to keep both as a memorial of his power and of their own courage.

XXI

Demetrius went to war with the Rhodians because they were the allies of Ptolemy, and brought up to their walls his largest “city-taker,” a machine with a square base, each side of which measured eight-and-forty cubits at the bottom. It was sixty-six cubits in height, and its upper part was much narrower than the base. Within, it was divided into many separate storeys and chambers, with windows on each storey opening towards the enemy, through which missiles of every kind could be shot, as it 232was full of soldiers armed with every kind of weapon. It never shook nor trembled, but rolled steadily onwards, upright and firm, with a regular, equable motion, which filled all spectators with terror and delight. Two steel corslets were brought from Cyprus for Demetrius to use in this war, each of which weighed forty minæ.6 The maker, Zoilus, in order to show their strength and power of resisting a blow, bade Demetrius shoot a dart out of a catapult at one of them at a distance of twenty paces. Where it struck, the iron remained unbroken, and only showed a trifling scratch, such as might be made by a stilus, or iron pen for writing on wax. This corslet Demetrius wore himself. He gave the other to Alkimus of Epirus, the bravest and most warlike man in all his army, who wore a suit of armour weighing two talents,7 while that of all the rest weighed only one talent. This man fell during the siege of Rhodes, in a battle near the theatre.

XXII

The Rhodians defended themselves with great spirit, and Demetrius was unable to accomplish anything against them; but he still continued the siege out of anger, because they had captured a ship in which his wife Phila had sent him letters, clothes and bedding, and had sent it at once to Ptolemy, just as it was. In this they were far from imitating the courtesy of the Athenians, who, when Philip was at war with them, captured a messenger and read all the letters which he carried except one written by Olympias, which they did not open, but sent it on to him with the seal unbroken. However, although Demetrius was much nettled by the conduct of the Rhodians, he did not stoop to retaliation upon them, although he soon had an opportunity of doing so. Protogenes of Kaunus happened at that time to be painting a picture of Ialysus8 for the Rhodians, and Demetrius found the picture very nearly completed in one of the suburbs of 233the city. The Rhodians sent a herald and begged him to spare the work, and not destroy it, to which he answered, that he would rather burn his father’s statues than such a precious work of art. Apelles tells us that when he saw this picture, the sight at first took Òaway his breath; and that at last he said, “Indeed this is a wonderful piece of work, and must have cost great labour.” Yet it has not that grace which gives so divine a charm to the works of Apelles himself. This picture shared the common lot of all Greek works of art, being taken to Rome, where it was destroyed by fire. As the Rhodians gallantly held their own in the war, Demetrius became weary of the siege, and gladly accepted the offer of the Athenians to act as mediators. They made peace between them on condition that the Rhodians should act as the allies of Antigonus and Demetrius, except against Ptolemy.

XXIII

The Athenians now invited Demetrius to come to their aid, as Kassander was besieging Athens. Demetrius arrived with three hundred and thirty ships, and a large land force. He not only drove Kassander out of Attica, but pursued him as far as Thermopylæ, where he defeated him in a battle, and gained possession of the city of Heraklea, which voluntarily surrendered to him. A body of six thousand Macedonians also deserted from Kassander and joined him. On his return he freed the Greeks south of Thermopylæ from Macedonian domination, formed an alliance with the Boeotians and took Kenchreæ. He destroyed the forts at Phyle and Panaktum in Attica, which had been garrisoned by Kassander’s troops, and restored them to the Athenians. They, although they appeared to have exhausted every possible form of adulation during his former visit, yet contrived to flatter him by the invention of fresh honours. They assigned the interior of the Parthenon to him for his lodging; and there he dwelt with the title of “the guest of Athena,” though he was a very ill-behaved guest to be quartered in the house of a virgin goddess. Yet once, when his father heard that his brother Philip was staying in a house where there were three young women, he said nothing to Philip, but in his presence sent for the quartermaster and said to him, “Will 234you be so good as to find some less crowded quarters for my son.”

XXIV

Demetrius, however, without paying the least respect to Athena, although he was wont to call her his elder sister, filled the Acropolis with such a series of outrages on well-born youths and women of the upper classes that the place became comparatively decent when he contented himself with holding an orgie in the society of the celebrated courtesans, Chrysis, Lamia, Demo and Antikyra. For the sake of the city I will say no more about his other debaucheries, but I cannot refrain from mentioning the virtue and chastity shown by Demokles. He was very young, and his beauty did not escape the notice of Demetrius; indeed his nickname betrayed him, for he was always spoken of as Demokles the Handsome. He turned a deaf ear to all advances, presents, or threats, and at last ceased to frequent the gymnasium and the palæstra, and used only a private bath. Demetrius watched his opportunity, and surprised him there alone. The boy, when he saw that he was caught where no one could help him, rather than suffer violence, took off the lid of the copper, leaped into the boiling water, and destroyed himself. He deserved a better fate, but the spirit which prompted the act was worthy of his country and of his beauty, and was very different to that of Kleaenetus the son of Kleomedon, who, when his father was condemned to pay a fine of fifty talents, obtained a remission of it from Demetrius, and showed a letter from Demetrius to the Athenian people signifying his pleasure in the matter; by which conduct Kleaenetus not only disgraced himself, but threw the whole city into a ferment. Kleomedon’s fine was remitted, but the people decreed that no citizen should ever again bring them a letter from Demetrius. However, as Demetrius was greatly incensed at this, and did not conceal his displeasure, the Athenians in terror not only reversed the decree, but put to death some of those who had advocated it, and banished others. Moreover, they actually decreed that “the entire people of Athens should regard anything which King Demetrius might be pleased to command as both righteous in respect of the gods, 235and legal as regards men.” When one of the better class of citizens observed that Stratokles must be mad to propose such a decree, Demochares9 of Leukonoe answered “He would be mad not to be mad,”10 for Stratokles made a great fortune by his flattery of Demetrius. This speech was reported to Stratokles, and Demochares was forced to go into exile. Such was the conduct of the Athenians when they were relieved of their Macedonian garrison and were thought to have become a free people.

XXV

Demetrius now proceeded to Peloponnesus, where he met with no resistance, as the enemy fled before him, and surrendered their cities to him. He made himself master of the district known as Akte, and of the whole of Arcadia, except Mantinea, while he set free Argos, Sikyon and Corinth, by bribing their garrisons to evacuate them with a hundred talents. At Argos he acted as president of the games at the festival of Hera, which took place whilst he was there. On this occasion he held a solemn assembly of all the Greeks, and publicly married Deidameia, a daughter of Æakides, king of the Molossi, and sister of Pyrrhus. He remarked to the people of Sikyon that they lived out of their proper city, and prevailed upon them to remove to the spot which they now inhabit. He changed the name as well as the situation of the city, and instead of Sikyon named it Demetrias.

At a largely attended meeting held at the Isthmus, Demetrius was proclaimed chief of Greece, as Philip and Alexander had been in former days; though Demetrius considered himself to be not a little superior to either of them, being elated by his good fortune and the immense force at his disposal. Alexander never deprived a king of his title, nor did he ever call himself king of kings, though he raised many to the dignity and style of kings; but Demetrius scoffed at those who called any one king, except himself and his father, and was much pleased at his carousals to hear toasts drunk to the health of Demetrius the King, Seleukus the Commander of the Elephants,

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Ptolemy the Admiral, Lysimachus the Treasurer, and Agathokles of Sicily the Lord of the Isles. The other princes laughed at these sallies of Demetrius, and only Lysimachus was angry that Demetrius should think him a eunuch; for it was a pretty general custom to appoint eunuchs to the post of treasurer. Indeed Lysimachus hated him more bitterly than all of the rest, and, sneering at his passion for Lamia, used to declare that he had never before seen a whore act in a tragedy: to which Demetrius retorted that his whore was a more respectable woman than Lysimachus’s Penelope.

XXVI

Demetrius now set out for Athens, and sent a letter to the Athenians informing them that he desired to be initiated, and that he wished to go through the whole course, including both the lesser and the greater mysteries. This is not lawful, and never took place before, as the minor initiation used to take place in the month Anthesterion, and the greater in Bœdromion. When the letter was read, no one ventured to offer any opposition except Pythodorus the torchbearer,11 and he effected nothing; for, at the instance of Stratokles, the Athenians decreed that the month Munychion should be called Anthesterion, and in it celebrated the mysteries of Demeter which are held at Agræ.12 After this the name of the month Munychion was changed again from Anthesterion to Bœdromion, and Demetrius was admitted to the second degree, and allowed the privileges of an “epoptes.” In allusion to this Philippides rails at Stratokles in his verses as the man

“Who crowds into one month the entire year.”

And, in allusion to the lodging of Demetrius in the Parthenon, he wrote

“Who treats Acropolis as t’were an inn

And makes the Virgin’s shrine a house of sin.”

XXVII

But of all the outrages and illegal acts of which Demetrius was guilty at this period, nothing seems to have enraged the Athenians so much as his ordering 237them speedily to levy a sum of two hundred and fifty talents, which, when it had been raised by a most harsh and pitiless series of exactions, was publicly presented by Demetrius to Lamia and her sisterhood to furnish their toilet-tables. It was the disgrace of the whole business and the scorn which it brought upon them, which stung them to the quick, more than the loss of the money. Some writers say that it was the people of Thessaly, not the Athenians, whom he treated in this manner. However, besides this, Lamia extorted money from many citizens on pretence of providing a supper for the king. This supper was so famous on account of the enormous sum which it cost, that a history of it was written by Lynkeus of Samos. For this reason one of the comic poets very cleverly called Lamia a “city-taker.” Demochares of Soli called Demetrius himself “Mythus,” or “Fable,” because he too had his Lamia.13

Indeed the passion of Demetrius for Lamia caused not only his wives but his friends to dislike her and be jealous of her. Some of them went on an embassy to Lysimachus, and he when at leisure showed them on his thighs and arms the scars of deep wounds caused by a lion’s claws, telling them of how King Alexander had fastened him in the same cage with the beast, and the battle he had fought with it. On hearing this they laughingly said that their master also frequently showed upon his neck the marks of a savage beast called Lamia, which he kept. The wonder was that Demetrius, who had objected to Phila as being past her first youth, should yet be so captivated by Lamia, who was now far advanced in years. Once when Lamia was playing on the flute at a banquet, Demetrius asked the courtesan Demo, who was surnamed Mania, what she thought of her. “I think her an old woman, my king,” replied she. Again when the sweetmeats were placed on the table, Demetrius said to Demo, “Do you see what fine things Lamia sends me?” “My mother,” answered Demo, “will send you many more if only you will sleep with her.” A saying of Lamia’s about the well-known judgment of Bocchoris has been recorded.

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A certain Egyptian became enamoured of the courtesan Thonis, but she set too high a price upon her favours for him. Afterwards he dreamed that he had enjoyed her, and his passion for her cooled. Upon this Thonis sued him in court for the money, and Bocchoris, having heard the case argued, ordered the man to place the exact sum which she demanded in a glass vessel, and to wave it backwards and forwards while she clutched at the shadow, because the young man’s dream had been a shadow of the reality.14 Lamia said that she did not think this decision a just one, because the woman’s desire for the gold was not satisfied by the shadow, as the young man’s passion had been by his dream.

XXVIII

But now the fortunes and deeds of the subject of our narrative force us to pass from a comic to a tragic scene, for all the other kings conspired against Antigonus, and united their forces together. Demetrius hereupon sailed away from Greece and joined his father, who was making wonderful exertions for a man of his age, and who was greatly encouraged by his son’s arrival. Yet it appears as though Antigonus, if only he would have made some small concessions and restrained his excessive love of power, might have enjoyed his supreme dignity to the end of his life, and might have bequeathed to his son his position of chief of all the successors of Alexander. Being, however, by nature haughty and disdainful, and even harsher in word than in deed, he alienated from himself and exasperated many young and powerful men; and even now he boasted that he would scatter the confederacy by which he was menaced as easily as a man scares a flock of birds away from a field. He took the field with more than seventy thousand infantry, ten thousand cavalry, and seventy-five elephants, while his enemies’ army numbered sixty-four thousand infantry, five hundred more cavalry than his own, four hundred elephants, and one hundred and twenty war-chariots. When they drew near he became less hopeful rather than less determined. He was always wont to show a lofty and boastful spirit in the hour of danger, speaking in a 239loud tone, using confident language, and after making some jest when in the presence of the enemy, to show his own assurance of success and contempt for his opponents. Now, however, he was thoughtful and silent, and presented his son to the army as his successor. But what astonished every one most of all was that he held council with Demetrius alone in the tent, although he never before had shared his secret thoughts even with his son, but had always privately formed his own plans, and publicly carried them out on his own responsibility. It is said that Demetrius, when still very young, once asked him at what hour he proposed to march, to which Antigonus angrily answered, “Do you fear, that you alone will not hear the sound of the trumpet?”

XXIX

On this occasion it appears that they were also disheartened by sinister omens. Demetrius dreamed that Alexander appeared before him in shining armour, and inquired what would be their watchword for the battle. When Demetrius answered “Zeus and victory,” Alexander replied, “I will go away now, and tell this to the enemy; for I am going over to them.” Antigonus, too, as he stepped out of his tent to see his line formed stumbled and fell heavily upon his face. When he rose, he lifted his hands to heaven and prayed to the gods that they would either grant him victory or a painless death before his army was routed.

When the battle began, Demetrius with the flower of the cavalry charged Antiochus the son of Seleukus, and brilliantly routed the enemy, but he lost the day by his headstrong eagerness to pursue too far. He was unable to rejoin the infantry, for the enemy’s elephants interposed between him and the phalanx, which was thus left without any cavalry to cover its flanks. Seeing this, Seleukus kept the rest of his cavalry ever threatening to charge, but never actually doing so, hovering near the phalanx and both terrifying it and giving the men an opportunity of changing sides, which indeed took place; for a great mass of Antigonus’s infantry came over to Seleukus, and the rest fled. Many enemies now beset Antigonus, and one of his attendants said to him, “My king, it is you whom they are making for.” “Why,” replied he, “what 240other mark could they have but me? But Demetrius will soon be here to the rescue.” While he looked round hoping in vain to see his son, a shower of darts fell, and laid him low. All his friends and attendants now fled, except one named Thorax, a native of Larissa, who remained by the corpse.

XXX

After this battle the victorious kings proceeded to divide the empire of Antigonus and Demetrius amongst them, each annexing the portion which lay nearest to his own dominions, as though they were cutting slices out of some huge slaughtered beast. Demetrius fled with five thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry, and directed his march with the utmost speed towards Ephesus. All imagined that in his distress for money he would not spare the rich temple there, and he himself, fearing lest his soldiers should do so, set sail as quickly as possible for Greece, as his chief hopes now lay in Athens. Indeed he had left there a part of his fleet, some treasure and his wife Deidameia, and imagined that he could find no surer refuge in his adversity than Athens, where he felt assured of the loyalty of the people. But while he was passing the Cyclades he met an embassy from Athens begging him not to approach that city, since the people had decreed that none of the kings should be admitted within its walls. The ambassadors added that his wife Deidameia had been escorted with due honour and respect to Megara. On hearing this, Demetrius, who had borne the rest of his misfortunes with the utmost serenity, and had never hitherto allowed an unworthy expression to escape him, became transported with anger. He was, in truth, bitterly grieved at being thus unexpectedly betrayed by the Athenians, and at finding that their apparent enthusiasm in his cause had all the while been unreal and fictitious. Apparently the bestowal of excessive honours upon kings and potentates by the people is but a poor test of their real loyalty, for the essence of these honours lies in their being freely offered, and they are worthless if prompted by fear; and men fawn upon those they fear just as they do upon those whom they really love. For this reason sensible men know how to value the erection of their statues, flattering decrees, and other public honours,241 by reflecting upon what they themselves have done for their admirers; for by this means they can discern whether these are really genuine expressions of respect, or are extorted by terror; for peoples frequently confer these very distinctions upon men whom they hate and abhor, but whom they are forced to honour against their will.

XXXI

Demetrius, although he considered that he had been very badly treated by the Athenians, was powerless to resent their conduct. He sent an embassy to Athens, gently complaining of their conduct, and requesting that they would restore his ships, one of which was a vessel of thirteen banks of oars. Having received them he coasted along as far as the Isthmus, where he found that all his garrisons had been driven out of the cities, and that the whole country had gone over to his enemies. He now left Pyrrhus to act as his lieutenant in Greece, and himself sailed to the Chersonese.15 Here he enriched his troops at the expense of Lysimachus by plundering the country, and soon found means again to collect a very considerable army. The other kings paid no regard to Lysimachus, thinking that he was no better a man than Demetrius, and more to be feared because he was more powerful.

Not long after this Seleukus sent an embassy to Demetrius to make proposals for the hand of Stratonike, the daughter of Demetrius by his wife Phila. Seleukus already had one son named Antiochus by his wife Apama, a Persian lady, but he thought that his empire would suffice for more than one heir, and he desired to form an alliance with Demetrius, because Lysimachus had recently married one of Ptolemy’s daughters himself, and taken the other for his son Agathokles. To Demetrius this offer of marriage from Seleukus was a most unexpected piece of good fortune. He placed his daughter on board ship, and sailed with his entire fleet to Syria. On his way he was forced to land several times to obtain supplies, especially on the coast of Cilicia, which province, after the battle in which Antigonus fell, had been bestowed upon Pleistarchus, the brother of Kassander. Pleistarchus took umbrage at the intrusion of Demetrius into his 242territory, and retired to Macedonia to complain to his brother that Seleukus was betraying the other kings by making terms with the common enemy of them all.

XXXII

Demetrius, when he discovered the intentions of Pleistarchus, proceeded at once to Quinda, where he found the sum of twelve hundred talents still remaining. Having made himself master of this, he quickly reembarked and put to sea. He was now joined by his wife Phila, and met Seleukus at Rhossas. Here the two princes conversed together in a truly royal style, without the least suspicion or fear of treachery. First Seleukus feasted Demetrius in his tent in the midst of his camp, and afterwards Demetrius entertained him at a banquet on board his great thirteen-banked ship. They also talked freely together for a long time, spending several days in friendly intercourse without any body-guard or arms, till at length Seleukus took Stratonike, and escorted her with great pomp to Antiocheia.16 Demetrius now made himself master of Cilicia, and sent his wife Phila to her brother, Kassander, to answer the accusations brought against him by Pleistarchus. During this time Deidameia sailed from Greece and joined Demetrius, but not long after her arrival she sickened and died. By the good offices of Seleukus, Demetrius was now reconciled with Ptolemy, and arranged to take Ptolemäis, Ptolemy’s daughter, for his wife. So far Seleukus behaved very well; but he could not prevail upon Demetrius to give up Cilicia to him for a sum of money, and when he angrily demanded the surrender of Tyre and Sidon, his conduct appears very overbearing and ungenerous, as though he, who had made himself master of all the country between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, were so poor and needy as to be obliged to squabble with his father-in-law about two cities, at a time, too, when the latter was suffering from a great reverse of fortune. How strongly does this bear out the truth of Plato’s maxim, that he who wishes to be really rich ought to lessen his desires rather than increase his property, because if a man places no bounds to his covetousness, he never will be free from want and misery.

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XXXIII

Demetrius on this occasion showed no want of spirit. He declared that not if he had lost ten thousand fields like Ipsus would he consent to buy Seleukus for his son-in-law. He strengthened the garrisons of the cities,17 and hearing that Lachares, taking advantage of the factions into which the Athenians were divided, had made himself despot of that city, he thought that if he only were to show himself before Athens he might easily obtain possession of it. He crossed the sea in safety with a large fleet, but when off the coast of Attica he encountered a violent storm, in which he lost most of his ships and a great number of his men. He himself escaped unhurt, and at once began to make war against the Athenians. As, however, he could not effect anything, he sent his lieutenants to collect another fleet, and meanwhile proceeded to Peloponnesus. Here he laid siege to Messene, and during an assault nearly lost his life, for he was struck full in the face by a dart from a catapult, which pierced through his jaw into his mouth. He recovered from his wound, received the submission of several insurgent cities, and returned to Attica, where he made himself master of Eleusis and Rhamnus, and ravaged the country. He captured a ship loaded with wheat bound for Athens, and hanged the captain and pilot, which measure terrified the other merchants so much that they avoided Athens, and a terrible famine took place there, and the want of food brought about a scarcity of everything else. A medimnus18 of salt was sold for forty drachmas, and a modius19 of corn sold for three hundred drachmas.

The Athenians gained a short respite from their sufferings by the appearance near Ægina of a fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, which was sent by Ptolemy to aid them. Soon, however, Demetrius collected from Peloponnesus and Cyprus a fleet of three hundred ships, before which those of Ptolemy were forced to retire. Upon this the despot Lachares made his escape and abandoned the city to its fate.

XXXIV

The Athenians, although they had decreed that anyone who proposed to make peace and come to 244terms with Demetrius should be put to death, now at once opened their nearest gates and sent an embassy to him; not that they expected to be well treated by him, but acting under the pressure of starvation. It was said that, among other painful incidents, it happened that a father and a son were sitting in the same room, without any hopes of surviving, when a dead mouse fell from the roof, upon which they both started up and began to fight for it. We are told that during this time the philosopher Epikurus kept his disciples alive by counting out to them a fixed allowance of beans every day. This was the condition of the city when Demetrius made his entry into it. He ordered all the Athenians to assemble in the theatre, occupied the stage with armed men, placing his own body-guard round the part usually reserved for the actors, and made his appearance, like a tragic actor, through the entrance at the back.20 The Athenians were greatly terrified at these proceedings, but the first words of his address put an end to their fears. He spoke in a mild and conciliatory tone, briefly and gently, complained of their conduct towards him, and announced his forgiveness of them. He distributed among them one hundred thousand medimni of wheat, and appointed the most popular men in the city to the vacant magistracies. Dromokleides the orator, seeing that the people could scarcely find enough means to express their delight, and that they were eager to outdo the panegyrics which were being lavished upon Demetrius from the bema, proposed that the ports of Peiræus and Munychia should be handed over to King Demetrius. When this was agreed to, Demetrius himself placed a garrison in the Museum, by which he intended to curb the people in case they should grow restive and take off his attention from his other enterprises.

XXXV

Being now master of Athens, Demetrius at once began to attack Lacedæmon. He met the King of Sparta, Archidamus, near Mantinea, defeated him, and invaded Laconia, driving the beaten army before him. He fought a second battle before the walls of Sparta itself, 245in which he killed two hundred Spartans, and took five hundred prisoners; and he very nearly took the city itself, which up to that time had never been taken. Fortune, however, seems to have introduced greater and more sudden vicissitudes into the life of Demetrius than into that of any other prince, for he was constantly rising from the most abject poverty to the highest pinnacles of wealth and power, and then being as suddenly cast down again. He himself is said, when his fortunes were at their lowest, to have quoted the verse of Æschylus,

“Thou raisest up, and thou dost bring me down.”

So at this time, when everything seemed to be succeeding, and his empire and power constantly increasing, Demetrius received the news that Lysimachus had taken all the cities in Asia which had belonged to him, and that Ptolemy had made himself master of Cyprus with the exception of Salamis, which he was besieging, in which city was the mother and the children of Demetrius. Yet, like the woman spoken of by the poet Archilochus, who deceitfully offers water in one hand, while she holds a firebrand in the other, the fortune of Demetrius, after soaring him away from the conquest of Sparta by these terrifying pieces of intelligence, at once offered him hopes of accomplishing a new and mighty enterprise, in the following manner.

XXXVI

After the death of Kassander, his eldest son Philip ascended the throne, but not long afterwards died. Upon this Kassander’s two younger sons each aspired to the crown. One of them, Antipater, murdered his mother Thessalonike, upon which the other21 invited Pyrrhus to come from Epirus, and Demetrius from Peloponnesus, to support his claims. Pyrrhus was the first to arrive, and demanded so large a portion of the kingdom of Macedonia as the price of his assistance, that he soon became an object of terror to Alexander. When Demetrius, in answer to the appeal of Alexander, arrived with his army, Alexander was even more terrified, because of his great renown. He met Demetrius near Dium, and welcomed him as an honoured guest, but gave him to understand that he no 246longer stood in need of his services. Upon this each began to suspect the other, and Demetrius, when he was proceeding to a banquet to which he had been invited by the young prince, was warned that his host intended to assassinate him while they were drinking after dinner. Demetrius was not in the least disturbed at this intelligence, but merely delayed going to the banquet for a short time, while he ordered his officers to keep their men under arms, and bade his personal followers and pages, who far out-numbered the retinue of Alexander, to enter the banqueting hall with him, and to remain there until he left the table. Alarmed by these precautions, Alexander did not venture to offer him any violence; and Demetrius soon left the room, excusing himself on the ground that his health would not permit him to drink wine. On the following day Demetrius made preparations for departure, announcing that he had received news which made this necessary. He begged Alexander to pardon him for so sudden a retreat, and promised that when he was more at leisure he would pay him another visit. Alexander was delighted at this, thinking that Demetrius was leaving the country of his own free-will, and not as an enemy; and he escorted him as far as the borders of Thessaly. When they reached Larissa, each again invited the other to a banquet, each intending to murder the other. This decided the fall of Alexander, who fell into his own trap, being loth to show any distrust of Demetrius, lest Demetrius should distrust him. He accepted Demetrius’s invitation to a banquet, during which Demetrius suddenly rose. Alexander in alarm also started to his feet, and followed Demetrius towards the door. Demetrius as he passed the door said to his body-guard, “Kill the man who follows me,” and walked on. Alexander, who followed him, was cut down by the guard, as were his friends, who rushed to his assistance. One of these men when dying is said to have remarked that Demetrius had got the start of them by one day.

XXXVII

The night was spent in tumult and alarm. At daybreak the Macedonians, who had feared an attack from the army of Demetrius, became reassured, as nothing of the kind took place; and when Demetrius 247intimated to them his wish to address them and to explain his conduct, they received him in a friendly manner. When he appeared, he had no need to make a long speech, for the Macedonians, who hated Antipater for having murdered his mother, and who knew not where to look for a better sovereign, saluted Demetrius as King of the Macedonians, and at once conducted him into Macedonia. The new reign was not displeasing to the remainder of the Macedonians, who had never forgotten the disgraceful conduct of Kassander after the death of Alexander. If any remembrance of the moderation of their old governor Antipater still remained amongst them, Demetrius reaped the benefit of it, as his wife Phila was the daughter of Antipater, and his son,22 by her, who was nearly grown up, and accompanied his father on this campaign, was now the heir to the throne.

XXXVIII

After this brilliant piece of good fortune, Demetrius received the news that his mother and children had been set at liberty by Ptolemy, who had given them presents and treated them with respect; while he also heard that his daughter, who had been given in marriage to Seleukus, was living with his son Antiochus, with the title of “queen of the native tribes of the interior.” It appears that Antiochus fell violently in love with Stratonike, who was quite a young girl, though she had already borne a child to Seleukus. After making many fruitless efforts to resist his passion, he reflected upon the wickedness of indulging a love which he was unable to restrain, and decided that he would put an end to his life. Under pretence of illness he refused to take nourishment, neglected his person, and was quietly sinking. Erasistratus, his physician, had without much difficulty perceived that he was in love, but could not guess with whom. He consequently spent the entire day in the same room with Antiochus, and whenever any young persons came to visit him, narrowly watched his countenance and those parts by which emotion is especially betrayed. He found that his condition was unaltered except when Stratonike came to see him, either alone or with her husband, Seleukus, and that then all the symptoms mentioned by

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Sappho were visible in him, such as stammering, fiery blushes, failure of eyesight, violent perspiration, disturbed and quickened pulse, and at length, as his passions gained the mastery over him, pallor and bewilderment. Erasistratus, after making these observations, reflected that it was not probable that the king’s son would starve himself to death in silence for love of any other woman than his mother-in-law. He judged it to be a perilous enterprise to explain the real state of the case, but, nevertheless, trusting to the love of Seleukus for his son, he one day ventured to tell him that love was really the disorder from which young Antiochus was suffering, and that it was a hopeless and incurable passion. “How incurable?” inquired Seleukus. “Because,” answered Erasistratus, “he is in love with my wife.” “Well, then,” said Seleukus, “will you not give her up, Erasistratus, and marry her to my son, who is your friend, especially as that is the only way out of this trouble for us?” “No,” said Erasistratus, “I will not. Why, you yourself, although you are his father, would not do this, if Antiochus were enamoured of Stratonike.” To this Seleukus replied, “My friend, I would that by any means, human or divine, his passion could be directed to her; for I would willingly even give up my crown if I could thereby save Antiochus.”

When Seleukus, in a tone of deep feeling and with tears in his eyes, made this avowal, Erasistratus took him by the hand, in token of good faith, and declared that his own services were quite useless, for that Seleukus himself was best able to heal the disorders which had arisen in his household. After this Seleukus convoked a general assembly of his people, and declared to them that he had determined to nominate Antiochus king, and Stratonike queen of all the nations of the interior, and that they were to be married. He believed, he said, that his son, who had always been accustomed to obey him, would raise no objection to the marriage; and that if his wife was discontented with it on the ground of its illegality, he begged his friends to argue with her and persuade her to regard everything as legal and honourable which the king decided upon as expedient. In this manner it is said to have come to pass that Antiochus was married to Stratonike.

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XXXIX

After obtaining Macedonia, Demetrius made himself master of Thessaly also. As he possessed the greater part of Peloponnesus, besides Megara and Athens, he now marched against Bœotia. At first the Bœotians came to terms, and formed an alliance with him, but afterwards, when Kleonymus of Sparta came to Thebes with an army, and Pisis, the most influential citizen of Thespiæ, encouraged them to recover their liberty, they revolted from Demetrius. Upon this, Demetrius brought up his famous siege train to attack their cities.23 Kleonymus was so terrified that he secretly withdrew, and the Bœotians were scared into submission. Demetrius, though he garrisoned all their cities with his own troops, levied a large sum of money, and left Hieronymus24 the historian as governor of the province, was thought to have dealt very mildly with the Bœotians, especially because of his treatment of Pisis; for he not only dismissed him unharmed when brought before him as a prisoner, but conversed with him in a friendly manner, and nominated him polemarch of Thespiæ.

Not long after these events, Lysimachus was taken prisoner by Dromichætus. Upon this, Demetrius at once hurriedly marched towards Thrace, hoping to find it unguarded. The Bœotians seized the opportunity of his absence to revolt, while news was brought to Demetrius that Lysimachus had been dismissed by his captors. Enraged at this, he speedily returned, and finding that the Bœotians had been defeated in a pitched battle by his son Antigonus, he a second time laid siege to Thebes.

XL

However, as Pyrrhus was now overrunning Thessaly, and had pushed even as far as Thermopylæ, Demetrius left Antigonus to prosecute the siege, and himself marched to attack Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus beat a hasty retreat, and Demetrius, leaving ten thousand infantry and a thousand cavalry in Thessaly, returned to press the siege of Thebes. He now brought up his great machine, called the “City-taker,” which was moved by levers with great difficulty on account of its enormous weight; so that it 250is said that in two months it hardly moved two furlongs, The Bœotians made a vigorous defence, and Demetrius frequently forced his soldiers to engage in battle with them, more out of arrogance than through any real necessity for fighting. After one of these battles, Antigonus, grieved at the number of men who had fallen, said, “My father, why do we allow all these men to perish, when there is no occasion for it?” Demetrius sharply answered, “Why do you take offence at this? Do you have to pay the dead?” Yet Demetrius, not wishing it to be thought that he was lavish of other men’s blood and not of his own, but being anxious to fight among the foremost, was wounded by a dart thrown from a catapult, which pierced through his neck. He suffered much from this wound, but still continued the siege, and at length took Thebes for the second time. When he entered the city, he inspired the citizens with the most intense terror, as they expected to be treated with the greatest severity. He was satisfied, however, with putting to death thirteen of the citizens, and banishing a few others. Thus was Thebes taken twice within less than ten years since it was first rebuilt.

As the time for the Pythian games had now come round, Demetrius took upon himself to make a most startling innovation. As the passes leading to Delphi were held by the Ætolians, he celebrated the games in Athens, declaring that it was right that especial honour should be paid there to Apollo, who is the tutelary god of the Athenians, and is said to have been the founder of their race.

XLI

Demetrius now returned to Macedonia. As he could not bear a life of repose, and found that his subjects were more easily governed on a campaign, since they were troublesome and turbulent when at home, he marched against the Ætolians. After laying waste their country he left Pantauchus there with a large portion of his army, and with the rest marched to attack Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus was equally eager to meet him, but they missed each other, so that Demetrius invaded and ravaged Epirus, while Pyrrhus25 fell in with Pantauchus and 251fought with him. He himself exchanged blows with Pantauchus and put him to flight, killing many of his followers, and taking five thousand prisoners. This did more damage to the cause of Demetrius than anything else; for Pyrrhus was not so much disliked for the harm which he had done them, as he was admired for his personal prowess. His fame became great in Macedonia after this battle, and many Macedonians were heard to say that he alone, of all the princes of the time, revived the image of Alexander’s daring courage, while the rest, and especially Demetrius, only imitated his demeanour by their theatrical pomp and trappings of royalty. Indeed, Demetrius gave himself the most extravagant airs, wearing magnificent purple robes and hats with a double crown, and even wore shoes of purple felt embroidered with gold. There was a cloak which was for a long time being embroidered for his use, a most extravagantly showy piece of work, upon which was depicted a figure of the world and of the heavenly bodies. This cloak was left unfinished when Demetrius lost his crown, and none of his successors on the throne of Macedonia ever presumed to wear it, although some of them were very ostentatious princes.

XLII

The spectacle of this unusual pomp irritated the Macedonians, who were not accustomed to see their kings thus attired, while the luxury and extravagance of Demetrius’s mode of life also gave offence to them. They were especially enraged at his haughty reserve, and the difficulty of obtaining access to him; for he either refused to grant an interview, or else treated those who were admitted to his presence with harshness and insolence. He kept an embassy of the Athenians, whom he respected beyond all other Greeks, waiting for two years for an audience; and when one ambassador arrived from Lacedæmon, he construed it as a mark of disrespect, and was angry. But when Demetrius said to the ambassador:—“What is this that you tell me? the Lacedæmonians have sent one ambassador!” “Yes,” answered he cleverly and laconically, “one ambassador to one king.”

One day when Demetrius came out of his palace he appeared to be in a more affable humour than usual, 252and willing to converse with his subjects. Upon this, many persons ran to present him with written statements of their grievances. As he received them all and placed them in the folds of his cloak, the petitioners were greatly delighted, and accompanied him; but when he came to the bridge over the Axius, he emptied them all out of his cloak into the river. This conduct greatly exasperated the Macedonians, who declared that they were insulted instead of being governed by him, and who remembered or were told by older men how gentle and easy of access Philip was always wont to be.

Once an old woman met him when he was walking, and begged repeatedly for a hearing. When he replied that he had no leisure to attend to her, she loudly cried out, “Then be king no more.” Stung by this taunt he returned to his palace, and gave audiences to all who wished it, beginning with the old woman, and so continued for many days. Indeed nothing becomes a king so much as to do justice to his subjects. As Timotheus the poet has it, Ares is a despot, but Pindar tells us that law is lord of all. Homer also says that kings have been entrusted by Zeus, not with City-takers or brazen-bound ships, but with justice, which they must keep and respect; and that Zeus does not love the most warlike or the most unjust of kings, but the most righteous, and calls him his friend and disciple. Demetrius however rejoiced in being called by a name most unlike that of the Lord of Heaven, for his title is “The Preserver of Cities,” while Demetrius was known as “The Besieger.” Thus through the worship of mere brute force, the bad gradually overcame the good side of his character, and his fame became sullied by the unworthy acts with which it was associated.

XLIII

While Demetrius lay dangerously ill at Pella, he very nearly lost his kingdom, as Pyrrhus invaded the country and briskly overran it as far as Edessa. However, on his recovery, Demetrius easily drove Pyrrhus out of Macedonia, and then made terms with him, because he did not wish to be entangled in a border warfare, which would interfere with the realisation of his more important projects. He meditated a colossal enterprise indeed, nothing less than the recovery of the whole of his father253’s empire. His preparations were on a commensurate scale, for he had collected a force of ninety-eight thousand foot soldiers and nearly twelve thousand horse, while at Peiræus, Corinth, Chalkis, and the ports near Pella he was engaged in the construction of a fleet of five hundred ships. He himself personally superintended the works, visiting each dockyard and giving directions to the artificers; and all men were astounded not only at the number, but at the size of the vessels which were being built. Before his time no one had ever seen a ship of fifteen or sixteen banks of oars, although in later times Ptolemy Philopator built a ship of forty banks of oars, which measured two hundred and eighty cubits in length, and forty-eight cubits in height. This ship was navigated by four hundred sailors, four thousand rowers, and, besides all these, had room upon its decks for nearly three thousand soldiers. But this ship was merely for show, and differed little from a fixed building, being totally useless, and only moved with great risk and labour; whereas the beauty of the ships of Demetrius did not render them less serviceable, nor was their equipment so elaborate as to interfere with their use, but they were no less admirable for speed and strength as for greatness of size.

XLIV

When this great armament, the largest ever collected since the death of Alexander, began to menace Asia, the three princes, Ptolemy, Seleukus, and Lysimachus, formed a confederation to oppose it. They next sent a joint letter to Pyrrhus, in which they urged him to attack Macedonia, and not to pay any regard to a peace by which Demetrius had not made any engagement not to go to war with him, but had merely obtained time to attack the others first. Pyrrhus agreed to this proposal, and Demetrius, before his preparations were completed, found himself involved in a war of considerable magnitude: for Ptolemy sailed to Greece with a large fleet and caused it to revolt from Demetrius, while Lysimachus from Thrace and Pyrrhus from Epirus invaded Macedonia and ravaged the country. Demetrius left his son to command in Greece, and himself marched to attack Lysimachus, in order to free Macedonia from the enemy. He shortly, however, received the news that Pyrrhus had taken 254the city of Berœa, and when the Macedonians heard this, there was an end to all discipline, for the camp was full of tears and lamentations, and abuse of Demetrius. The men no longer cared to remain with him, but became eager to go away, nominally to their homes, but really to desert to Lysimachus. Demetrius upon this determined to place the greatest possible distance between Lysimachus and himself, and accordingly marched to attack Pyrrhus; reasoning that Lysimachus was a native of Macedonia, and was popular with many of the Macedonians because he had been a companion of Alexander, while he thought that the Macedonians would not prefer a foreigner like Pyrrhus to himself. However, in this expectation he was greatly deceived: for as soon as he encamped near Pyrrhus, his soldiers had a constant opportunity of admiring his personal prowess in battle, and they had from the most ancient times been accustomed to think that the best warrior is the best king. When besides this they learned how leniently Pyrrhus had dealt with the captives, as they had long been determined to transfer their allegiance from Demetrius to some one else, they now gladly agreed that it should be to Pyrrhus. At first they deserted to him secretly and few at a time; but soon the whole camp became excited and disturbed, and at last some had the audacity to present themselves before Demetrius, and bid him seek safety in flight, for the Macedonians were tired of fighting to maintain his extravagance. Compared with the harsh language held by many other Macedonians, this appeared to Demetrius to be very reasonable advice, and so proceeding to his tent, as though he were really a play-actor and not a king, he changed his theatrical cloak for one of a dark colour, and made his way out of the camp unobserved. Most of his soldiery at once betook themselves to plundering, and while they were quarrelling with one another over the spoils of the royal tent, Pyrrhus appeared, encountered no resistance, and made himself master of the camp. Pyrrhus and Lysimachus now divided between them the kingdom of Macedonia, which had for seven consecutive years been ruled by Demetrius.

XLV

After this great disaster, Demetrius retired 255to Kassandreia. His wife Phila was greatly grieved at his fall, and could not bear to see Demetrius a miserable fugitive and exile after having been a king. Despairing of ever seeing better days, and bitterly reflecting how far her husband’s good luck was outweighed by his misfortunes, she ended her life by poison. Now Demetrius, anxious to save what he could from the wreck of his fortunes, proceeded to Greece, and there collected his generals and forces. The verses spoken by Menelaus in Sophokles’s play—

“But ever whirling on the wheel of fate

My fortune changes, like the changing moon

That never keeps her form two nights the same.

At first she comes with flattering countenance

And fills her orb; but when she is most bright

She wanes again, and loses all her light,”

seems to express very well the strange waxing and waning of the fortunes of Demetrius, who, as in the present instance, sometimes appeared to be quite extinguished, and then burst forth again as brilliant as ever, as little by little his power increased until he was able to carry out his plans. At first he visited the various cities of Greece dressed as a private man, without any of the insignia of royalty. One of the Thebans seeing him in this guise, cleverly applied to him the verses of Euripides:

“A god no more, but dressed in mortal guise,

He comes to where the springs of Dirké rise.”

XLVI

When he again hoped to regain the style of royalty, and began to gather around him the form and substance of an empire, he permitted the Thebans to remain independent. The Athenians, however, revolted from him. They erased the name of Diphilus, who was inscribed upon the rolls as “priest of the Saviours,”26 and decreed that archons should be elected after their ancestral custom; and they also sent to Macedonia to invite Pyrrhus to come and help them, as they perceived that Demetrius was becoming more powerful than they had expected. Demetrius indeed angrily marched upon Athens, and began to besiege the city, but the philosopher Krates, an able

256

Õand eloquent man, who was sent to make terms with him by the Athenian people, partly by entreaties, and partly by pointing out in what quarter his true interests lay, prevailed upon him to raise the siege. Demetrius now collected what ships he could, and with eleven thousand infantry and a few cavalry soldiers sailed to Asia, intending to detach the provinces of Lydia and Karia from Lysimachus’s dominions. At Miletus he was met by Eurydike,27 the sister of Phila, who brought him her daughter Ptolemäis, who had been long before promised to him in the treaty concluded by the mediation of Seleukus. Demetrius married her, and immediately after the wedding betook himself to gaining over the cities of Ionia, some of which joined him of their own accord, while others were forced to yield to his arms. He also captured Sardis, and several of the officers of Lysimachus deserted to him, bringing him both soldiers and money. When, however, Lysimachus’s son Agathokles came to attack him with a large force, he withdrew into Phrygia, meaning if possible to gain possession of Armenia, stir up Media to revolt, and make himself master of the provinces in the interior, among which a fugitive could easily find an abundance of places of refuge. Agathokles pressed him hard, and Demetrius, although victorious in all the skirmishes which took place, was reduced to great straits, as he was cut off from his supplies of provisions and forage, while his soldiers began to suspect him of meaning to lead them to Armenia and Media. Famine now began to distress his army, and he also lost a large body of men, who were swept away in crossing the river Lykus through mistaking the ford. Yet the men did not cease to joke; and one of them wrote before the tent of Demetrius the first verses of the play of [Oe]dipus at Kolonus, slightly altered:

“Child of Antigonus, the blind old man,

What place is this, at which we have arrived?”

XLVII

At last famine, as usually happens, produced a pestilence, because the men ate whatever they could find; and Demetrius, after losing no less than eight thousand, 257gave up his project, and led back the remainder. He proceeded to Tarsus, and would, if possible, have abstained from living on the neighbouring country which belonged to Seleukus, and so giving him an excuse for attacking him. However, this was impossible, as his soldiers were reduced to the last extremities of want, and Agathokles had fortified the passes of the Taurus range of mountains. Demetrius now wrote a letter to Seleukus, containing a long and piteous account of his misfortunes, and begging Seleukus as a relative to take pity on one who had suffered enough to make even his enemies feel compassion for him. Seleukus seems to have been touched by this appeal. He wrote to his generals, ordering them to show Demetrius the respect due to royalty, and to supply his troops with provisions; but now Patrokles, who was thought to be a man of great wisdom, and who was a friend of Seleukus, pointed out to him that the expense of feeding the troops of Demetrius was not a matter of great importance, but that it was a grievous error to allow Demetrius himself to remain in his territory. He reminded him that Demetrius had always been the most turbulent and enterprising of princes, and that he was now in a position which would urge the most moderate and peaceable of men to deeds of reckless daring and treachery. Struck by this reasoning, Seleukus started for Cilicia in person, at the head of a large army. Demetrius, astonished and alarmed at this rapid change in Seleukus’s attitude, retreated to a strong position at the foot of the Taurus mountains, and in a second letter requested Seleukus to allow him to conquer some native territory occupied by independent tribes, in which he might repose after his wanderings, or at least to let him maintain his forces in Cilicia during the winter, and not to drive him out of the country and expose him to his enemies in a destitute condition.

XLVIII

Seleukus viewed all these proposals with suspicion, and offered to let him pass two months of the winter in Cataonia, but demanded his chief officers as hostages, and at the same time began to secure the passes leading into Syria. Demetrius, who was now shut up like a wild beast in a trap, was driven to use force, overran the country, and fought several slight actions 258successfully with Seleukus. On one occasion he withstood a charge of scythed chariots, and routed the enemy, and he also drove away the garrison of one of the passes, and gained the command of the road to Syria. He now became elated by success, and perceiving that his soldiers had recovered their confidence, he determined to fight Seleukus for his kingdom. Seleukus himself was now in difficulties. He had refused Lysimachus’s offer of assistance, through suspicion, and he feared to engage with Demetrius in battle, dreading the effects of his despair and the sudden turns of his fortune. However, at this crisis Demetrius was seized by a disorder which nearly carried him off, and utterly ruined his prospects; for some of his soldiers deserted to the enemy, and some dispersed to their own homes. After forty days he was able to place himself at the head of the remaining troops, and with them marched so as to lead the enemy to suppose that he meant to return to Cilicia; but as soon as it was dark he started without any sound of trumpet in the opposite direction, crossed the pass of Amanus, and began to plunder the plain of Kyrrhestis.

XLIX

Shortly afterwards Seleukus made his appearance, and pitched his camp hard by. Demetrius now got his men under arms in the night and started to surprise Seleukus, whose army expected no attack, and was for the most part asleep. When he was informed of his danger by some deserters he leaped up in terror, and began putting on his boots and shouting to his friends that a savage beast was coming to attack them. Demetrius, observing from the noise which filled the enemy’s camp that they had notice of his attempt, quickly marched back again. He was attacked at daybreak by Seleukus, and gained some advantage by a flank attack. But now Seleukus himself dismounted, took off his helmet, and with only a small shield in his hand went up to the mercenary troops of Demetrius, showing himself to them and inviting them to join him. They knew that he had for a long time refrained from attacking them out of a wish to spare their lives, and not for the sake of Demetrius; and they all greeted him, saluted him as King, and joined his army. Demetrius, who had seen so many turns of good and ill fortune, 259felt that this blow was final. He fled towards the pass of Amanus, and with a few friends and attendants took refuge in a thick wood for the night, hoping to be able to gain the road to Kaunus and so to reach the sea, where he hoped to find his fleet assembled. But when he found that his party had not enough money to procure them provisions even for one day, he was forced to adopt other plans. Soon, however, he was joined by Sosigenes, one of his friends, who had four hundred gold pieces in his belt, and with this treasure they hoped to be able to reach the sea, and started as soon as it grew dark to make their way over the mountains. But when they saw the enemy’s watch-fires blazing all along the heights, they despaired of effecting their passage by that route, and returned to the place whence they had set out, diminished in numbers, for some had deserted, and greatly disheartened. When one of them ventured to hint that Demetrius ought to surrender himself to Seleukus, Demetrius seized his sword and would have made away with himself, but his friends stood round him, and at length talked him over into giving himself up. He sent a messenger to Seleukus, putting himself unreservedly in his hands.

L

Seleukus, when he heard what had happened, said that it was his own good fortune, not that of Demetrius, which had saved Demetrius’s life, and had given himself an opportunity of displaying his clemency and goodness as well as his other virtues. He at once sent for his servants and bade them construct a royal tent, and make every preparation for the reception of Demetrius in a magnificent fashion. There was one Apollonides at the court of Seleukus, who had been an intimate friend of Demetrius, and Seleukus at once sent him to Demetrius, to bid him be of good cheer, and not fear to meet his friend and relative Seleukus. When the King’s pleasure became known, a few at first, but afterwards the greater part of his followers, eagerly flocked to pay their court to Demetrius, who they imagined would become the second man in the kingdom. This ill-judged zeal of theirs turned the compassion of Seleukus into jealousy, and enabled mischief-makers to defeat his kindly intentions by warning him that as soon as Demetrius was seen in his camp all his troops 260would rise in mutiny against him. Apollonides had just reached Demetrius in high spirits, and others were arriving with wonderful stories about the goodness of Seleukus. Demetrius himself was just recovering his spirits after his disaster, was beginning to think that he had been wrong in his reluctance to surrender himself, and was full of hope for the future, when Pausanias appeared with about a thousand horse and foot-soldiers. He suddenly surrounded Demetrius with these troops, separated him from his friends, and, instead of bringing him into the presence of Seleukus, conducted him to the Syrian Chersonese, where, though strongly guarded, he was supplied by Seleukus with suitable lodging and entertainment, and allowed to take the air and hunt in the royal park which adjoined his dwelling. He was permitted to associate with any of the companions of his exile whom he wished to see, and many polite messages were sent to him from Seleukus to the effect that as soon as Antiochus and Stratonike arrived, they would come to some amicable arrangement.

LI

Demetrius now despatched letters to his son, and to the commanders of his garrisons at Athens and Corinth, warning them not to pay any attention to any despatches which they might receive in his name, or even to his royal signet, but to regard him as practically dead, and to hold the cities in trust for his heir Antigonus. His son was much grieved at hearing of his father’s capture, put on mourning, and sent letters to all the other kings, and to Seleukus himself, begging for his father’s liberation. He offered to give up all the places which he still held, and even proposed to surrender himself as a hostage in place of his father. Many cities and princes supported his request, except Lysimachus, who offered to give Seleukus a large sum of money if he would put Demetrius to death. But Seleukus, who had always disliked Lysimachus, now regarded him with abhorrence as a savage villain, and still continued to keep Demetrius in captivity, under the pretext that he was waiting for the arrival of his son Antiochus and Stratonike, that they might have the pleasure of restoring him to liberty.

LII

Demetrius at first bore up manfully against his misfortunes, and learned to endure captivity, taking exercise 261 as well as he could, by hunting in the park, and by running; but, little by little, he neglected these amusements, addicted himself to drinking and dicing, and thus spent most of his time; either in order to escape from the thoughts of his present condition by intoxication, or else because he felt that this was the life which he had always wished to lead, and that he had caused great suffering both to himself and to others by fighting by sea and land in order to obtain that comfort which he had now unexpectedly discovered in repose and quiet. What, indeed, is the object of the wars and dangers which bad kings endure, in their folly, unless it be this? although they not only strive after luxury and pleasure, instead of virtue and honour, but do not even understand in what real luxury and enjoyment consist. Be that as it may, Demetrius, after living in confinement in the Chersonese for three years, died of laziness, surfeit and over-indulgence in wine, in the fifty-fourth year of his age.28 Seleukus was greatly blamed for the suspicions which he had entertained about Demetrius, and greatly repented that he had not imitated the wild Thracian Dromichætes, who dealt so kindly and royally with Lysimachus when he had taken him prisoner.

LIII

Even the funeral of Demetrius had an air of tragedy and theatrical display. His son Antigonus, as soon as he heard that the ashes of his father were being brought to him, collected all his fleet and met the vessels of Seleukus near the Cyclades. Here he received the relics in a golden urn on board of his own flagship, the largest of his fleet. At every port at which they touched the citizens laid garlands upon the urn, and sent deputies in mourning to attend the funeral. When the fleet arrived at Corinth, the urn was beheld in a conspicuous place upon the stern of the ship, adorned with a royal robe and diadem, and surrounded by-armed soldiers of the king’s body-guard. Near it was seated the celebrated flute-player Xenophantus, playing a sacred hymn; and the measured dip of the oars, keeping time to the music, sounded like the refrain of a dirge. The crowds who thronged the sea-shore were especially touched by the sight of Antigonus 262himself, towed down with grief and with his eyes full of tears. After due honours had been paid to the relics at Corinth, he finally deposited them, in the city of Demetrias, which was named after his father, and which had been formed by amalgamating the small villages in the neighbourhood of Iolkos. Demetrius, by his wife Phila, left one son, Antigonus, and one daughter, Stratonike. He also had two sons named Demetrius, one, known as Leptus, by an Illyrian woman, and the other, who became ruler of Cyrene, by Ptolemais. By Deidameia he had a son named Alexander, who spent his life in Egypt. It is said, too, that he had a son named Korrhagus by Eurydike. His family retained the throne of Macedonia for many generations, until it ended in Perseus, during whose reign the Romans conquered that country. So now that we have brought the career of the Macedonian hero to a close, it is time for us to bring the Roman upon the stage.

263

LIFE OF
ANTONIUS.

I

The grandfather of Antonius was the orator Antonius,1 who belonged to the party of Sulla and was put to death by Marius. His father was Antonius, surnamed Creticus,2 not a man of any great note or distinction in political affairs, but of good judgment and integrity, and also liberal in his donations, as one may know from a single instance. He had no large property and for this reason he was prevented by his wife from indulging his generous disposition. On one occasion when an intimate friend came to him who was in want of money, and Antonius had none, he ordered a young slave to put some water into a silver vessel and to bring it; and when it was brought, he moistened his chin as if he were going to shave himself. The slave being sent away on some other business, Antonius gave the cup to his friend and bade him make use of it; but as a strict inquiry was made among the slaves, and Antonius saw that his wife was vexed and intended to torture them one by one, he acknowledged what he had done and begged her pardon.

II

His wife was Julia of the family of the Cæsars, a 264woman who could compare with the noblest and most virtuous of that day. She brought up her son Antonius, having married after his father’s death Cornelius Lentulus,3 who was one of the conspirators with Catilina and was put to death by Cicero. This appears to be the reason and the foundation of the violent enmity between Antonius and Cicero. Now Antonius says that even the corpse of Lentulus was not given up to them until his mother begged it of the wife of Cicero. But this is manifestly false, for no one of those who were then punished by Cicero was deprived of interment. Antonius was of distinguished appearance in his youth, but his friendship and intimacy with Curio4 fell upon him, as they say, like some pestilence, for Curio himself was intemperate in his pleasures, and he hurried Antonius, in order to make him more manageable, into drinking and the company of women and extravagant and licentious expenditure. All this brought on him a heavy debt, and out of all bounds for his age, of two hundred and fifty talents. Curio became security for all this, and when his father heard of it he banished Antonius from the house. Antonius for a short time mixed himself up with the violence of Clodius, the most daring and scandalous of the demagogues of the day, which was throwing every thing into confusion; but becoming soon satiated with that madness and being afraid of those who were combining against Clodius, he left Italy for Greece and spent some time there, exercising his body for military contests and practising oratory. He adopted what was called the Asiatic style of oratory, which flourished most at that time, and bore a great resemblance to his mode of life, which was boastful and swaggering and full of empty pride and irregular aspiration after distinction.

III

When Gabinius,5 a man of consular rank, was sailing for Syria, he endeavoured to persuade Antonius to join the expedition. Antonius said that he would not go out with 265him as a private individual, but on being appointed commander of the cavalry, he did go with him. In the first place he was sent against Aristobulus,6 who was stirring the Jews to revolt, and he was the first man to mount the largest of the fortifications; and he drove Aristobulus from all of them. He next joined battle with him and with the few men that he had put to flight the forces of Aristobulus, which were much more numerous, and killed all but a few; and Aristobulus was captured with his son. After this Ptolemæus7 attempted to persuade Gabinius for ten thousand talents to join him in an invasion of Egypt and to recover the kingdom for him; but most of the officers opposed the proposal, and Gabinius himself was somewhat afraid of the war, though he was hugely taken with the ten thousand talents; but Antonius, who was eager after great exploits and wished to gratify the request of Ptolemæus, persuaded Gabinius and urged him to the expedition. They feared more than the war the march to Pelusium, which was through deep sand where there was no water along the Ecregma8 and the Serbonian marsh, which the Egyptians call the blasts of Typhon9, but which really appears to be left behind by the Red Sea10 and to be caused by the filtration of the waters at the part where it is separated by the narrowest part of the isthmus from 266the internal sea. Antonius being sent with the cavalry not only occupied the straits, but taking Pelusium also, a large city, and the soldiers in it, he at the same time made the road safe for the army and gave the general sure hopes of victory. Even his enemies reaped advantage from his love of distinction; for when Ptolemæus entered Pelusium, and through his passion and hatred was moved to massacre the Egyptians, Antonius stood in the way and stopped him. And in the battles and the contests which were great and frequent, he displayed many deeds of daring and prudent generalship, but most signally in encircling and surrounding the enemy in the rear, whereby he secured the victory to those in front, and received the rewards of courage and fitting honours. Nor did the many fail to notice his humanity towards Archelaus11 after his death; for Antonius, who had been his intimate and friend, fought against him during his lifetime of necessity, but when he found the body of Archelaus, who had fallen, he interred it with all honours and in kingly fashion. He thus left among the people of Alexandria the highest reputation, and was judged by the Roman soldiers to be a most illustrious man.

IV

With these advantages he possessed a noble dignity of person; and his well-grown beard, his broad forehead and hooked nose12 appeared to express the manly character which is observed in the paintings and sculptures of Hercules. And there was an old tradition that the Antonii were Herakleidæ, being sprung from Anton, a son of Hercules. This tradition Antonius thought that he strengthened by the character of his person, as it has been observed, and by his dress. For on all occasions, when he was going to appear before a number of persons, he had his tunic girded up to his thigh, and a large sword hung by his side, and a thick cloak thrown round him. Besides, that 267which appeared to others to be offensive, his great boasting and jesting and display of his cups, and his sitting by the soldiers when they were eating, and his eating himself as he stood by the soldiers’ table—it is wonderful how much affection and attachment for him it bred in the soldiers. His amorous propensities, too, had in them something that was not without a charm, but even by these he won the favour of many, helping them in their love affairs and submitting to be joked with good humour about his own amours. His liberality and his habit of gratifying the soldiers and his friends in nothing with a stinted or sparing hand, both gave him a brilliant foundation for power, and, when he had become great, raised his power still higher, though it was in danger of being subverted by ten thousand other faults. I will relate one instance of his profusion. He ordered five-and-twenty ten thousands to be given to one of his friends; this sum the Romans express by Decies.13 But as his steward wondered thereat, and to show him how much it was, placed the money out, he asked as he was passing by, What that was. The steward replying that this was what he had ordered to be given, Antonius, who conjectured his trickery, said, “I thought a Decies was more: this is a small matter; and therefore add to it as much more.”

V

Now these things belong to a later period. But when matters at Rome came to a split, the aristocratical party joining Pompeius who was present, and the popular party inviting Cæsar from Gaul, who was in arms, Curio, the friend of Antonius,14 changing sides in favour of Cæsar, 268brought Antonius over; and as he had great influence among the many by his eloquence, and spent money lavishly, which was supplied by Cæsar, he got Antonius appointed tribune, and then one of the priests over the birds, whom the Romans call Augurs. As soon as Antonius entered on his office, he was of no small assistance to those who were directing public affairs on Cæsar’s behalf. In the first place, when Marcellus the consul attempted to give to Pompeius the troops that were already levied, and to empower him to raise others, Antonius opposed him by proposing an order, that the collected force should sail to Syria and assist Bibulus, who was warring with the Parthians, and that the troops which Pompeius was levying should not pay any regard to him: and, in the second place, when the Senate would not receive Cæsar’s letters, nor allow them to be read, Antonius, whose office gave him power, did read them, and he changed the disposition of many, who judged from Cæsar’s letters that he only asked what was just and reasonable. Finally, when two questions were proposed in the Senate, of which one was, whether Pompeius should disband his troops, and the other, whether Cæsar should do it, and there were a few in favour of Pompeius laying down his arms, and all but a few were for Cæsar doing so, Antonius arose and put the question, Whether the Senate was of opinion that Pompeius and Cæsar at the same time should lay down their arms and disband their forces. All eagerly accepted this proposal, and with shouts praising Antonius, they urged to put the question to the vote. But as the consuls would not consent, the friends of Cæsar again made other proposals, which were considered reasonable, which Cato resisted, and Lentulus, who was consul, ejected Antonius from the Senate. Antonius went out uttering many imprecations against them, and assuming the dress of a slave, and in conjunction with Cassius Quintus15 hiring a chariot269 he hurried to Cæsar; and as soon as they were in sight, they called out that affairs at Rome were no longer in any order, since even tribunes had no liberty of speech, but every one was driven away and in danger who spoke on the side of justice.

VI

Upon this Cæsar with his army entered Italy. Accordingly Cicero, in his Philippica, said that Helen16 was the beginning of the Trojan war, and Antonius of the civil war, wherein he is manifestly stating a falsehood. For Caius Cæsar was not such a light person, or so easy to be moved from his sound judgment by passion, if he had not long ago determined to do this, as to have made war on his country all of a sudden, because he saw Antonius in a mean dress and Cassius making their escape to him in a hired chariot; but this gave a ground and specious reason for the war to a man who had long been wanting a pretext. He was led to war against the whole world, as Alexander before him and Cyrus of old had been, by an insatiable love of power and a frantic passion to be first and greatest: and this he could not obtain, if Pompeius was not put down. He came then and got possession of Rome, and drove Pompeius out of Italy; and determining to turn first against the forces of Pompeius in Iberia, and then, when he had got ready a fleet, to cross over to attack Pompeius, he entrusted Rome to Lepidus, who was prætor, and the forces and Italy to Antonius, who was tribune. Antonius forthwith gained the favour of the soldiers by taking his exercises with them, and by generally living with them, and making them presents out of his means; but to everybody else he was odious. For owing to his carelessness he paid no attention to those who were wronged, and listened with ill-temper to those who addressed him, and had a bad repute about other men’s wives. In fine, Cæsar’s friends brought odium on Cæsar’s power, which, so far as concerned Cæsar’s acts, appeared to be anything rather than 270a tyranny: and of those friends Antonius, who had the chief power and committed the greatest excesses, had most of the blame.

VII

However, upon his return from Iberia, Cæsar17 overlooked the charges against him, and employing him in war because of his energy, his courage, and his military skill, he was never disappointed in him. Now Cæsar, after crossing the Ionian Gulf from Brundusium with a few men, sent his ships back, with orders to Gabinius18 and Antonius to put the troops on board and carry them over quickly to Macedonia. Gabinius was afraid of the voyage, which was hazardous in the winter season, and led his army by land a long way about; but Antonius being alarmed for Cæsar, who was hemmed in by many enemies, repulsed Libo,19 who was blockading the mouth of the harbour, by surrounding his gallies with many light boats, and embarking in his vessels eight thousand legionary soldiers he set sail. Being discovered by the enemy and pursued, he escaped all danger from them in consequence of a strong south wind bringing a great swell and tempestuous sea upon his gallies; but as he was carried in his ships towards precipices and cliffs with deep water under them, he had no hope of safety. But all at once there blew from the bay a violent south-west wind and the swell ran from the land to the sea, and Antonius getting off the land and sailing in gallant style saw the 271shore full of wrecks. For thither the wind had cast up the gallies that were in pursuit of him and no small number of them was destroyed; and Antonius made many prisoners and much booty, and he took Lissus, and he gave Cæsar great confidence by coming at a critical time with so great a force.

VIII

There were many and continuous fights, in all of which Antonius was distinguished: and twice he met and turned back the soldiers of Cæsar, who were flying in disorder, and by compelling them to stand and to fight again with their pursuers he gained the victory. There was accordingly more talk of him in the camp than of any one else after Cæsar. And Cæsar showed what opinion he had of him; for when he was going to fight the last battle and that which decided everything at Pharsalus,20 he had the right wing himself, but he gave the command of the left to Antonius as being the most skilful and bravest officer that he had. After the battle Cæsar was proclaimed dictator, and he set out in pursuit of Pompeius, but he appointed Antonius master of the horse and sent him to Rome: this is the second office in rank when the dictator is present; but if he is not, it is the first and almost the only one. For the tribuneship continues, but they put down all the other functionaries when a dictator is chosen.

IX

However Dolabella,21 who was then a tribune, a young man who aimed at change, introduced a measure for the 272annulling of debts, and he persuaded Antonius,22 who was a friend of his and always wished to please the many, to work with him and to take a part in this political measure. But Asinius and Trebellius gave him the contrary advice, and it happened that a strong suspicion came on Antonius, that he was wronged in the matter of his wife by Dolabella. And as he was much annoyed thereat, he not only drove his wife from his house, who was his cousin, for she was the daughter of Caius Antonius who was consul with Cicero, but he joined Asinius and resisted Dolabella. Dolabella occupied the Forum with the design of carrying the law by force, but Antonius, after the Senate had declared by a vote that it was needful to oppose Dolabella with arms, came upon him and joining battle killed some of the men of Dolabella and lost some of his own. This brought on Antonius the hatred of the many, and he was not liked by the honest and sober on account of his habits of life, as Cicero says, but was detested; for people were disgusted at his drunkenness at unseasonable hours, and his heavy expenditure, and his intercourse with women, and his sleeping by day, and walking about with head confused and loaded with drink, and by night his revellings and theatres and his presence at the nuptials of mimi and jesters. It is said indeed that after being present at the entertainment on the marriage of Hippias the mime, and drinking all night, when the people summoned him early in the morning to the Forum, he came there still full of food and vomited, and one of his friends placed his vest under to serve him. Sergius the mime was one of those who had the greatest influence over him, and Cytheris23 from the same school, a woman whom he loved, and whom when he visited the cities he took round with him in a litter; and there were as many attendants to follow the litter as that of his mother. People were also vexed at the sight of golden cups carried about in his excursions as in processions, 273 and fixing of tents in the ways, and the laying out of costly feasts near groves and rivers, and lions yoked to chariots, and houses of orderly men and women used as quarters for prostitutes and lute-players. For it was considered past all endurance that, while Cæsar was lodging in the open field out of Italy, clearing up the remnant of war with great labour and danger, others, through means of Cæsar’s power, were indulging in luxury and insulting the citizens.

X

These things appear also to have increased the disorder and to have given the soldiers licence to commit shameful violence and robbery. Wherefore, when Cæsar returned, he pardoned Dolabella; and being elected consul for the third time he chose not Antonius, but Lepidus for his colleague. Antonius bought the house of Pompeius when it was sold, but he was vexed when he was asked for the money; and he says himself that this was the reason why he did not join Cæsar in his Libyan expedition, having had no reward for his former successes. However Cæsar is considered to have cured him of the chief part of his folly and extravagance by not allowing his excesses to pass unnoticed. For he gave up that course of life and turned his thoughts to wedlock, taking for his wife Fulvia, who had been the wife of the demagogue Clodius, a woman who troubled herself not about domestic industry or housekeeping, nor one who aspired to rule a private man, but her wish was to rule a ruler and command a general: so that Cleopatra was indebted to Fulvia24 for training Antonius to woman-rule, inasmuch as Cleopatra received him quite tamed and disciplined from the commencement to obey women. However Antonius attempted by sportive ways and youthful sallies to make Fulvia somewhat merrier; as for example, on the occasion when many went to meet Cæsar after his victory in Iberia,

274

Antonius also went; but as a report suddenly reached Italy that Cæsar was dead and the enemy were advancing, he returned to Rome, and taking a slave’s dress he came to the house by night, and saying that he brought a letter from Antonius to Fulvia, he was introduced to her wrapped up in his dress. Fulvia, who was in a state of anxiety, asked, before she took the letter, whether Antonius was alive; but without speaking a word he held out the letter to her, and when she was beginning to open and read it, he embraced and kissed her. These few out of many things I have produced by way of instance.

XI

When Cæsar was returning from Iberia25 all the first people went several days’ journey to meet him; but Antonius was specially honoured by Cæsar. For in his passage through Italy he had Antonius in the chariot with him, and behind him Brutus Albinus and Octavianus the son of his niece, who was afterwards named Cæsar and ruled the Romans for a very long time. When Cæsar was appointed consul for the fifth time, he immediately chose Antonius for his colleague, and it was his design to abdicate the consulship and give it to Dolabella; and this he proposed to the Senate. But as Antonius violently opposed this, and vented much abuse of Dolabella and received as much in return, Cæsar, being ashamed of these unseemly proceedings, went away. Afterwards when he came to proclaim Dolabella, upon Antonius calling out that the birds were opposed to it, Cæsar yielded and gave up Dolabella, who was much annoyed. But it appeared that Cæsar abominated Dolabella as much as he did Antonius; for it is said, that when some person was endeavouring to excite his suspicions against both, Cæsar said that he was not afraid of those fat and long-haired fellows, but those pale and thin ones, meaning Brutus and Cassius, who afterwards conspired against him and slew him.

XII

And Antonius without designing it gave them a most specious pretext. It was the feast of the Lykæa 275among the Romans, which they call Lupercalia,26 and Cæsar dressed in a triumphal robe and sitting on the Rostra in the Forum viewed the runners. Now many youths of noble birth run the race, and many of the magistrates, anointed with oil, and with strips of hide they strike by way of sport those whom they meet. Antonius running among them paid no regard to the ancient usage, but wrapping a crown of bay round a diadem he ran to the Rostra, and being raised up by his companions in the race he placed it on Cæsar’s head, intimating that he ought to be King. But as Cæsar affected to refuse it and put his head aside, the people were pleased and clapped their hands; then Antonius again offered the crown, and Cæsar again rejected it. This contest went on for some time, only a few of the friends of Antonius encouraging him in his pressing the offer, but all the people shouted and clapped when Cæsar refused; which indeed was surprising, that while in reality they submitted to be ruled over with kingly power they eschewed the name of King as if it were the destruction of their freedom. Accordingly Cæsar rose from the Rostra much annoyed, and taking the robe from his neck called out that he offered his throat to any one who would have it. The crown which was placed on one of his statues certain tribunes tore off, and the people followed them with loud expressions of goodwill and clapping of hands; but Cæsar deprived them of their office.

XIII

This confirmed Brutus and Cassius, and when they were enumerating the friends whom they could trust in the undertaking, they deliberated about Antonius. The rest were for adding Antonius to their number, but Trebonius opposed it; for he said that at the time when they went to meet Cæsar on his return from Iberia, and Antonius was in the same tent with him and journeyed with him, he tried his disposition in a quiet way and with caution, and he said that Antonius understood him, though he did not respond to the proposal, nor yet did he report it to Cæsar, but faithfully kept the words secret. Upon this they again deliberated whether they should kill Antonius after they had killed Cæsar; but Brutus opposed this, urging that the act which was adventured 276in defence of the laws and of justice must be pure and free from injustice. But as they were afraid of the strength of Antonius and the credit that his office gave him, they appointed some of the conspirators to look after him in order that when Cæsar entered the Senate house and the deed was going to be done, they might detain him on the outside in conversation about some matter and on the pretence of urgent business.

XIV

This being accomplished according as it was planned and Cæsar having fallen in the Senate house, Antonius immediately put on a slave’s attire and hid himself. But when he learned that the men were not attacking any one, but were assembled in the Capitol, he persuaded them to come down after giving them his son as a hostage; and he entertained Cassius at supper, and Brutus entertained Lepidus. Antonius having summoned the Senate spoke about an amnesty and a distribution of provinces among Brutus and Cassius and their partizans, and the Senate ratified these proposals, and decreed not to alter anything that had been done by Cæsar.27 Antonius went out of the Senate the most distinguished of men, being considered to have prevented a civil war and to have managed most prudently and in a most statesmanlike manner circumstances which involved difficulties and no ordinary causes of confusion. But from such considerations as these he was soon disturbed by the opinion that he derived from the multitude, that he would certainly be the first man in Rome, if Brutus were put down. Now it happened that when Cæsar’s corpse was carried forth, as the custom was, he pronounced an oration over it in the Forum;28 and seeing that the people were powerfully led and affected, he mingled with the praises of Cæsar commiseration 277 and mighty passion over the sad event, and at the close of his speech, shaking the garments of the dead, which were blood-stained and hacked with the swords, and calling those who had done these things villains and murderers, he inspired so much indignation in the men that they burnt the body of Cæsar in the Forum, heaping together the benches and the tables; and snatching burning faggots from the pile they ran to the houses of the assassins and assaulted them.

XV

For this reason Brutus and his party left the city, and the friends of Cæsar joined Antonius; and Cæsar’s wife Calpurnia trusting to him had the chief part of the treasures transferred to Antonius from her house, to the amount in all of four thousand talents. He received also the writings of Cæsar, in which there were entries made of what he had determined and decreed; and Antonius inserting entries in them, named many to offices just as he pleased, and many he named senators, and he restored some who were in exile and released others who were in prison, as if Cæsar had determined all this. Wherefore the Romans by way of mockery named all these persons Charonitæ,29 because when they were put to the proof they had to take refuge in the memoranda of the deceased. And Antonius managed everything else as if he had full power, being consul himself, and having his brothers also in office, Gaius as prætor and Lucius as tribune.

XVI

While affairs were in this state, young Cæsar30 arrived at Rome, being the son of the niece of the deceased,278 as it has been told, and left the heir of his substance; and he was staying in Apollonia at the time of Cæsar’s assassination. He went forthwith to pay his respects to Antonius, as being his father’s friend, and reminded him of the money deposited with him; for he had to pay to every Roman seventy-five drachmæ, which Cæsar had given by his will. Antonius, at first despising his youth, said that he was not in his senses, and that being destitute of all sound reason and friends he was taking up the succession of Cæsar, which was a burden too great for him to bear; but as Cæsar did not yield to these arguments and demanded the money, Antonius went on saying and doing many things to insult him. For he opposed him in seeking a tribuneship, and when he was preparing to set up a golden chair of his father, as it had been voted by the Senate, he threatened to carry him off to prison, if he did not stop his attempts to win the popular favour. But when the youth, by giving himself up to Cicero and the rest who hated Antonius, by means of them made the Senate his friends, and he himself got the favour of the people and mustered the soldiers from the colonies,31 Antonius being alarmed came to a conference with him in the Capitol, and they were reconciled. Antonius in his sleep that night had a strange dream; he thought that his right hand was struck by lightning; and a few days after a report reached him that Cæsar was plotting against him. Cæsar indeed made an explanation, but he did not convince Antonius; and their enmity was again in full activity, and both of them roaming about Italy endeavoured to stir up by large pay the soldiers who were planted in the colonies, and to anticipate one another in gaining over those who were still under arms.

XVII

Of those in the city Cicero had the greatest influence; and by inciting everybody against Antonius he finally persuaded the Senate to vote Antonius to be an enemy, and to send Cæsar lictors and the insignia of a prætor, and to despatch Pansa and Hirtius32 to drive Antonius out of Italy. They were consuls for that year; 279and engaging with Antonius near the city of Mutina, on which occasion Cæsar was present and fought with them, they defeated the enemy, but fell themselves. Many great difficulties befell Antonius in his flight; but the greatest was famine. But it was the nature of Antonius to show his best qualities in difficulties, and in his misfortune he was as like as may be to a good man; for it is common to those who are hard pressed by straits to perceive what virtue is, but all have not strength enough in reverses to imitate what they admire and to avoid what they do not approve; but some rather give way to their habits through weakness and let their judgment be destroyed. Now Antonius in these circumstances was a powerful pattern to the soldiers, for though he was fresh from the enjoyment of so much luxury and expense, he drank foul water without complaining, and ate wild fruits and roots. Bark too was eaten, as it was said, and in their passage over the Alps they fed on animals that had never been eaten before.

XVIII

His design was to fall in with the troops there which Lepidus33 commanded, who was considered to be a friend of Antonius and to have derived through him much advantage from the friendship of Cæsar. Having arrived there and encamped near, he found no friendly signs, on which he resolved to try a bold stroke. Antonius had neglected his hair and he had allowed his beard to grow long immediately after his defeat; and putting on a dark garment he approached the lines of Lepidus and began to speak. As many of the soldiers were moved at the sight and affected by his words, Lepidus in alarm ordered the trumpets to sound all at once and so to prevent Antonius from being heard. But the soldiers pitied the more, and held communication with him by means of Lælius and Clodius, whom they secretly sent to him in the dress of women who followed the camp, and the messengers urged

280

Antonius boldly to attack the lines, for there were many, they said, would undertake even to kill Lepidus, if he wished. Antonius would not consent to their touching Lepidus, but on the next day he began to cross the river with his army. Antonius entered the river first and advanced to the opposite bank, for he saw already many of the soldiers of Lepidus stretching out their hands to him and tearing down the ramparts. When he had entered and made himself master of all, he approached Lepidus with the greatest kindness, for he embraced him and called him father; and in fact he was master of all, but he continued to preserve to Lepidus the name and honour of an Imperator. This caused also Plancus Munatius to join him, for Plancus was at no great distance with a large force. Being thus raised anew to great power he crossed the Alps into Italy at the head of seventeen legions of infantry and ten thousand cavalry; besides this he left to guard Gaul six legions with Varius, one of his intimates and boon companions, whom they called Cotylon.34

XIX

Now Cæsar no longer cared for Cicero when he saw that he clung to liberty, but he invited Antonius through the mediation of his friends to come to terms. The three met together in a small island35 in the middle of a river and sat together for three days. All the rest was easily agreed on, and they distributed the empire36 among them as if it were a paternal inheritance, but the discussion about the men who were destined to perish caused them most trouble, each claiming to get rid of his enemies and to save his relations. But at length surrendering to their passion against those whom they hated both the honour due to their kinsmen and their goodwill to their friends, Cæsar surrendered Cicero to Antonius, and Antonius surrendered to him Lucius Cæsar, who was his uncle on the mother’s side; Lepidus also was allowed to put to death his brother Paulus; but others say that

281

Lepidus gave up his brother to Cæsar and Antonius, who required his death. I think nothing could be more cruel or savage than this exchange; for by exchanging murder for murder they equally destroyed those whom they surrendered and those whom they put to death, but they acted more unjustly to their friends, whom they caused to die even without bearing them any hatred.

XX

After this settlement, the soldiers, who were around them, required that Cæsar should strengthen their friendship by marriage, and should take to wife Clodia,37 the daughter of Fulvia, the wife of Antonius. This also being agreed to, three hundred persons were by proscription put to death by them.38 When Cicero was murdered, Antonius ordered the head to be cut off and the right hand, with which Cicero wrote the speeches against him. When they were brought, Antonius looked on them with delight and broke out a laughing several times through joy; then being satiated with the sight he ordered them to be placed above the Rostra in the Forum, as if he were insulting the dead, and not showing his own arrogance in his good fortune and abusing his power. His uncle Cæsar being sought and pursued fled for refuge to his sister, who, when the assassins were standing by and trying to force their way into her chamber, fixing herself at the door and spreading out her arms, called out repeatedly, “You shall not kill Cæsar Lucius, unless you kill me first, me the mother of the Imperator.” By such her conduct she rescued and saved her brother.

XXI

The dominion of the three was in most respects hateful to the Romans; but Antonius had most of the 282blame, as he was older than Cæsar, and had more influence than Lepidus, and threw himself without restraint into his former luxurious and intemperate habits as soon as he had shaken off all trouble about affairs. There was added to his general bad repute the hatred against him on account of the house that he inhabited, which had been the house of Pompeius Magnus, a man no less admired for his temperance and his orderly and citizenlike mode of life than for his three triumphs. For they were vexed to see his house generally closed to commanders, magistrates and ambassadors, who were insolently thrust from the doors, while it was filled with mimi and jugglers and drunken flatterers, upon whom was expended most of the money which was got by the most violent and harsh means. For the three not only sold the substance of those who were murdered, bringing false charges against their kinsmen and wives, and tried all kinds of imposts; but hearing that there were deposits39 with the Vestal Virgins made both by strangers and citizens, they went and seized them. Now as nothing was enough for Antonius, Cæsar claimed to share the money with him; and they also distributed the army between them, and both went together into Macedonia to oppose Brutus and Cassius; and they intrusted Rome to Lepidus.

XXII

Crossing over the sea they commenced the campaign and encamped by the enemy, Antonius being opposed to Cassius, and Cæsar to Brutus,40 wherein no great deed was performed on the part of Cæsar, but it was Antonius who gained all the victory and had all the success. In the first battle, Cæsar, being completely routed by Brutus, lost his camp and narrowly escaped from his pursuers; but, as he says in his Memoirs, he retired before the battle in consequence of one of his friends having had a dream. But Antonius defeated Cassius; though some have written that Antonius was not in the battle, but 283came up after the battle to join in the pursuit. Pindarus, one of the faithful freedmen of Cassius, killed him at his request and order, for Cassius did not know that Brutus was victorious. After an interval of a few days they fought a second battle, in which Brutus being defeated killed himself, and Antonius carried off the chief credit of the victory, inasmuch as Cæsar was sick. Standing over the corpse of Brutus he upbraided it gently for the death of his brother Caius,41 for Brutus had put Caius to death in Macedonia to revenge Cicero; but declaring that he blamed Hortensius more than Brutus for the murder of his brother, Antonius ordered him to be massacred on his tomb; and he threw over the body of Brutus his own purple cloak, which was of great value, and commanded one of his freedmen to look after the interment. He afterwards found out that this fellow did not burn the cloak with the corpse and that he had purloined a large part of the expenditure destined for the interment, whereon he put him to death.

XXIII

After this Cæsar went back to Rome, and it was supposed that he would not live long on account of his illness. Antonius crossed over into Greece with a large army, intending to levy money in all the eastern provinces; for as they had promised to every soldier five thousand drachmæ, they required more vigorous measures for raising money and collecting contributions. Towards the Greeks his conduct was neither unusual nor oppressive at first, but his love of amusement led him to listen to the discourses of the learned and to the sight of games and religious solemnities; and in his decisions he was equitable, and was delighted at being called a Philhellen, but still more in being addressed as Philathenæus; and he made rich gifts to the city. The people of Megara also wishing to show him something fine, by way of rivalry with Athens, and requesting him to see the Senate-house, he went up and looked at it, and on their asking what he thought of it: “Small, it is true,” he said, “and yet all in decay.” He also caused the temple of the Pythian Apollo to be surveyed, as if he intended to repair it; for he made this promise to the Senate.

284

XXIV42

Leaving Lucius Censorinus43 over the affairs of Greece he crossed to Asia; and when he had touched the wealth there, and kings used to come to his door, and wives of kings vying with one another in their presents and their beauty let themselves be corrupted in order to win his favour, and while Cæsar at Rome was worn out with civil commotions and war, he enjoying perfect leisure and tranquillity was carried back by his passions to his usual habits of life, and Anaxenor44 a lute-player and Xuthus a piper and Metrodorus a dancer, and other such rout of Asiatic theatrical folks who surpassed in impudence and shamelessness the pests from Italy, had crept in and managed his residence—it was past all bearing, for everything was wasted on these extravagancies. For all Asia, like that city in Sophocles,45 at the same time was filled with incense burning,

“With pæans too ’twas filled and heavy groans.”

Thus, when he was entering Ephesus, women clothed like Bacchæ, and men and boys equipped like Satyrs and Pans led the way; and the city was filled with ivy and thyrsi and psalteries and pipes and flutes, the people calling him Dionysus, Giver of Joy and Beneficent. He was this, it is true, to some; but to the many Omestes46 and Agrionius. For he took their property from well-born men and gave it to worthless men and flatterers; and certain persons got the substance of many who were still alive by asking for it as if they were dead. He gave the house of a citizen of Magnesia to a cook, who, as it is said, 285had distinguished himself by a single entertainment. Finally, when he was imposing a second contribution on the citizens, Hybreas47 was bold enough in speaking on behalf of Asia to use these words, which were indeed such as the common folks would have in their mouths, but were not ill adapted to flatter48 the vanity of Antonius, “If thou canst take contributions twice in one year, thou canst also make for us summer twice and harvest-time twice;” but he concluded with these practical and bold words, that Asia had given twenty ten thousands of talents; and “if thou hast not had them, demand them of those who have received the money; but if thou hast received and hast them not, we are undone.” By these words he made a strong impression on Antonius, for he was ignorant of the greater part of what was going on; and not so much because he was indolent, as because in his simplicity he trusted those about him. For there was in his character simplicity and slow perception; but when he did perceive his errors, there was strong repentance, and acknowledgment to those who had been wronged, and excess both in the restitution that he made and the punishment that he inflicted. Yet he was considered to surpass the bounds of moderation rather in conferring favours than in punishing. His rudeness in mirth and bantering carried its own remedy with it; for a man might return him as good as he gave; and he took as much pleasure in being laughed at as in laughing at others. And this did him mischief in most things; for he could not believe that those who 286spoke so freely in jest, could flatter him in earnest, and as he was easily caught by praise, not knowing that some persons by mingling freedom of expression, like a sharpish sauce, with flattery, took away from flattery its nauseating insipidity, by their boldness and babbling over their cups striving to make their yielding in matters of business and their assent appear, not the way of persons who keep about a man merely to please him, but of those who are overpowered by superior wisdom.

XXV

Such was the disposition of Antonius, upon which a crowning evil the love for Cleopatra supervening, and stirring up and maddening many of the passions that were still concealed in him and lying quiet, caused to vanish and utterly destroyed whatever of goodness and of a saving nature still made resistance in him. And he was captured in this fashion. When he was preparing for the Parthian war, he sent her orders to meet him in Cilicia to give an account of the charges made against her of supplying Cassius with much money and contributions for the war. Dellius,49 who was sent, observing her person and marking her cleverness in speaking and her versatility, soon perceived that Antonius would never even think of doing such a woman any harm, but that she would have the greatest influence with him; and he applied himself to paying his court to her, and he encouraged the Egyptian, in the words of Homer,50 to go to Cilicia bedecked in her best fashion and not to be afraid of Antonius, who was the most pleasant and kindest of generals. Being persuaded by Dellius, and collecting from the proofs of her charms upon Caius Cæsar and Cnæus the son of Pompeius, she had hopes that she should more easily win over Antonius. For they knew her when she was yet a girl and inexperienced in affairs, but she was going to visit Antonius at an age in which women have the most brilliant beauty and their understanding has attained its perfection. Accordingly she got together many presents and money and ornaments, such as one might suppose that she could bring 287from the greatness of her estate and the wealth of her kingdom, but she went to Cilicia relying chiefly on herself and the seductions and charms of her own person.

XXVI

Though Cleopatra51 received many letters of summons both from Antonius52 and his friends, she so despised and mocked the man, that she sailed up the Cydnus in a vessel with a gilded stern, with purple sails spread, and rowers working with silver oars to the sound of the flute in harmony with pipes and lutes. Cleopatra reclined under an awning spangled with gold, dressed as Venus is painted, and youths representing the Cupids in pictures stood on each side fanning her. In like manner the handsomest of her female slaves in the dress of Nereids and Graces, were stationed some at the rudders and others at the ropes. And odours of wondrous kind from much incense filled the banks. Some of the people accompanied her immediately from the entrance of the river on both sides, and others went down from the city to see the sight. As the crowd from the Agora also poured forth, Antonius was finally left on the tribunal sitting alone. A rumour went abroad that Venus was coming to revel with Bacchus for the good of Asia. Now Antonius sent to invite Cleopatra to supper, but she on her part said that he should rather come to her. Antonius accordingly, wishing to display some good nature and kindness, obeyed and came. He found a preparation greater than he expected, but he was most surprised at the number of the lights: for it is said that so many lights were hung down and shewn on all sides at once and arranged and put together in such inclinations and positions with respect to one another in the form of squares and circles, that of the few things that are beautiful and worthy of being seen this sight was one.

288

XXVII

On the following day when Antonius feasted her in turn he was ambitious to surpass her splendour and taste, but he was left behind and inferior in both, and in these very things he was the first to scoff at the coarseness and rusticity of his own entertainment. Cleopatra, observing in the jests of Antonius much of the soldier and the unpolished man, adopted the same manner towards him freely and boldly. Now her beauty, as they say, was not in itself altogether incomparable nor such as to strike those who saw her; but familiarity with her had an irresistible charm, and her form, combined with her persuasive speech and with the peculiar character which in a manner was diffused about her behaviour, produced a certain piquancy. There was a sweetness also in the sound of her voice when she spoke; and as she could easily turn her tongue, like a many-stringed instrument, to any language that she pleased, she had very seldom need of an interpreter for her communication with barbarians, but she answered most by herself, as Ethiopians,53 Troglodytes, Hebrews, Arabs, Syrians, Medes, Parthians. She is said also to have learned the language of many other peoples, though the kings her predecessors had not even taken the pains to learn the Egyptian language, and some of them had even given up the Macedonian dialect.

XXVIII

Now she so captivated Antonius, that though his wife Fulvia was carrying on war at Rome against Cæsar on behalf of the interests of Antonius, and a Parthian army was hovering about Mesopotamia, of which the king’s generals had named Labienus54 Parthian 289governor, and they were about to enter Syria, he allowed himself to be carried off by her to Alexandria; and there staying and amusing himself like a young man who had leisure, he consumed and expended upon pleasure the most costly of all things, as Antiphon said, Time. They had a kind of company called Inimitable Livers; and they daily feasted one another, making an incredible profusion in their expenditure. Now Philotas of Amphissa,55 a physician, used to relate to my grandfather Lamprias, that he was then in Alexandria learning his profession, and having got acquainted with one of the royal cooks, he was persuaded by him, as was natural in a young man, to view the costliness and the preparation for the table. Accordingly he was introduced into the kitchen, where he saw everything in great abundance, and eight wild boars roasting, which made him wonder at the number of the guests. Hereupon the cook laughed and said, the party at supper was not large, only about twelve; but it was necessary that everything which was served up should be in perfection, which a moment of time would spoil. He said it might happen that Antonius should wish to sup immediately, and if it so happened, he might defer it by asking for a cup or by falling into some conversation; and accordingly, he continued, not one supper is prepared, but many, for the exact time is difficult to conjecture. This is what Philotas used to tell; and in the course of time, as he related, he was among those who attended on the eldest son of Antonius, whom he had by Fulvia, and he290 supped with him with the rest of his companions, as a general rule, when he did not sup with his father. On one occasion there was a physician present who was bragging greatly and much annoying the company at supper, but Philotas stopped him by a sophism of this kind: “If a man has fever in some degree, we must give him cold water; but every man who has fever has fever in some degree; we must therefore give cold water to every man who has fever.” The man was confounded and put to silence, whereat the youth being pleased, laughed and said, “All this, Philotas, I give you,” pointing to a table full of many large cups. Philotas acknowledged his intended kindness, though he was far from thinking that a boy of his age had authority to make such a present; but after awhile one of the young slaves took hold of the cups and bringing them in a vessel bade him put a seal on it. As Philotas made objections and was afraid to take the things. “Why, you fool,” said the man, “do you hesitate? Don’t you know that the giver is the son of Antonius, and that he has permission to give so many things of gold? If however you take my advice, you will exchange the whole with us for a sum of money; for perchance the youth’s father might call for some of the vessels, which are old and valued for their workmanship.” Such anecdotes as these my grandfather used to say that Philotas would occasionally tell.

XXIX

But Cleopatra, by distributing flattery not, as Plato56 says, in four ways, but in many ways, and by always adding some new pleasure and charm to whatever was either serious or mirthful, completely ruled Antonius, never leaving him by night nor by day. For she played at dice with him, and drank with him, and hunted with him, and was a spectator when he was exercising in arms, and by night when he was standing at the doors and windows of the common people and jesting with those within, she accompanied him in his rambles and freaks, in the dress of a female slave; for Antonius also used to dress himself in this style. Accordingly he would return home always well loaded with coarse abuse and sometimes with blows. With the greater part he was in no good 291credit; however the Alexandrines took delight in his extravagances, and joined in his follies without any lack of cleverness or humour, being pleased therewith and saying that Antonius put on the tragic mask to the Romans, but the comic mask to them. Now to relate the greater part of his follies would be mere trifling. However on one occasion when he was fishing and was vexed at his bad sport, Cleopatra also being present, he ordered the fisherman to dive under the water and secretly to fasten to the hook some fishes that had been already caught; and he pulled up two or three times, but not without being detected by the Egyptian. Pretending to admire, she spoke to her friends and invited them to come as spectators on the following day. A number of them got into the fishing boats, and when Antonius had let down his line, she ordered one of her own men to anticipate him by diving to the hook and to fasten to it a Pontic salted fish.57 Antonius thinking that he had caught something pulled up, on which there was, as was natural, great laughter, whereat Cleopatra said, “Give up the fishing-rod, Imperator, to us the kings of Pharos and Canopus; your sport is cities and kings and continents.”

XXX58

While Antonius was spending his time in such trifles and extravagances, he was surprised by intelligence from two different quarters; from Rome, that Lucius his brother and Fulvia his wife, having first been at variance with one another and then having warred with Cæsar, were completely defeated and flying from Italy; the other intelligence was in no wise more favourable, which was that Labienus at the head of the Parthians had subdued

292

Asia from the Euphrates and Syria as far as Lydia and Ionia. With difficulty then, like a man roused from sleep and a drunken debauch, he set out to oppose the Parthians, and advanced as far as Phœnice, but as Fulvia sent him letters full of lamentations he turned towards Italy, with two hundred ships. On this voyage he took up his friends who had fled from Italy, and learned from them that Fulvia had been the cause of the war, for she was naturally a busy and bold woman; but her hope was to draw away Antonius from Cleopatra, if their should be any disturbance in Italy. It happened that Fulvia, who was sailing to meet him, died at Sikyon of some disease, which rendered a reconciliation with Cæsar more easy. For when Antonius approached Italy, and Cæsar was evidently not intending to make any charge against him, and Antonius was ready to fix on Fulvia the blame of what he was charged with, their friends would not let them come to any explanation of these grounds, but brought them both to terms and distributed the empire, making the Ionian gulf the boundary, and giving the eastern parts to Antonius and the western to Cæsar; Lepidus was allowed to keep Libya; and it was settled that the friends of each in turns should be consuls, when it did not please themselves to be.

XXXI

This arrangement seemed to be good, but it required a stronger security, and fortune offered one. Octavia59 was a sister of Cæsar, older than Cæsar, but not by the same mother; for she was the daughter of Ancharia, but he was born afterwards of Atia. Cæsar was very greatly attached to his sister, and it is said she was a most admirable woman. Octavia was now a widow, for her husband Caius Marcellus had not long been dead. As Fulvia was dead, Antonius also was considered to be a widower; he did not deny that he had Cleopatra, but he did not admit that he had her as a wife, and he was still struggling in his judgment on this point against his love for the Egyptian. Everybody was proposing this marriage in the hope that Octavia, who in addition to great beauty possessed dignity of character and good sense, if she were united to Antonius and were beloved by him, as it was 293reasonable to suppose that such a woman must be, would be the conservation and cause of union between them in all respects. This being arranged between them, they went up to Rome where the marriage of Octavia was celebrated, though the law did not allow a woman to marry till ten months after her husband’s decease, but the Senate in this case remitted the time by a decree.

XXXII

As Sextus60 Pompeius was still in possession of Sicily and was ravaging Italy, and with his numerous piratical ships, of which Menas the pirate and Menekrates were commanders, had rendered the sea unsafe to vessels, and as he seemed to be in a friendly disposition towards Antonius, for he had received his mother when she had fled from Rome with Fulvia, it was resolved to come to terms with him also. They met at the promontory of Misenum and the mound, the fleet of Pompeius being anchored close by them, while the forces of Antonius and Cæsar were arranged by the side of them. Having agreed that Pompeius should have Sardinia and Sicily on condition of keeping the sea clear of pirates and sending to Rome a certain quantity of grain, they invited one another to an entertainment. They cast lots on the occasion, and it was the lot of Pompeius to feast them first. Upon Antonius asking him where they should sup, “There,” said he, pointing to the commander’s ship of six banks of oars, “for this is all the paternal residence that is left for Pompeius.” This he said to reproach Antonius, who had the house that had belonged to the father of Sextus. Fixing his ship at anchor and making a kind of bridge from the promontory, he received them with a hearty welcome. When the banquet was at its height and jokes against Cleopatra and Antonius were plentiful, Menas the pirate approaching Pompeius said to him, so that the rest could not hear, “Will 294you let me cut off the anchors of the ship and make you master not of Sicily and Sardinia, but of the Roman empire?” Pompeius, on hearing this, considered with himself for a short time, and said, “You ought to have done it, Menas, without mentioning it to me: but now let us be satisfied with things as they are; perjury is not for me.” Pompeius, after being feasted by Cæsar and Antonius in turn, sailed back to Sicily.

XXXIII

After the settlement of affairs, Antonius sent forward Ventidius61 into Asia to prevent the Parthians from advancing further, and, in order to please Cæsar, he was appointed priest of the former Cæsar; and everything else that concerned public affairs they transacted in common and in a friendly way. But their games of amusement caused annoyance to Antonius, as he always carried off therein less than Cæsar. Now there was with Antonius a man skilled in divinations, an Egyptian, one of those who cast nativities, who, whether it was to please Cleopatra, or whether he said it in good faith, spoke freely to Antonius, saying that his fortune, though most splendid and great, was obscured by that of Cæsar, and he advised him to remove as far as possible from the young man: “For thy dæmon,” he said, “is afraid of the dæmon of Cæsar, and though it is proud and erect when it is by itself, it is humbled by his dæmon when it is near, and becomes cowed.” And indeed the things which were happening seemed to confirm the Egyptian; for it is said that when they were casting lots by way of amusement, in whatever they might happen to be engaged, and throwing dice, Antonius came off with disadvantage. They frequently 295matched cocks,62 and fighting quails, and those of Cæsar were always victorious. Whereat Antonius being annoyed, though he did not show it, and paying more regard to the Egyptian, departed from Italy, leaving the management of his affairs to Cæsar; and he took with him Octavia as far as Greece, there having been a daughter born to them. While he was spending the winter in Athens, he received intelligence of the first successes of Ventidius, who had defeated the Parthians in a battle, in which Labienus lost his life and Pharnapates, the most skilful of the generals of King Hyrodes.63 On the occasion of this victory Antonius feasted the Greeks; and he acted as gymnasiarch for the Athenians, and leaving at home the insignia of his rank, he went forth with the rods of a gymnasiarch64 and the dress and white shoes; and he took the youths by the neck when he separated them.

XXXIV

As he was going to set out for the war, he took a crown from the sacred olive,65 and in conformity to a certain oracle, he filled a vessel with water from the Clepsydra, and carried it with him. In the mean time 296Pacorus,66 the king’s son, with a large Parthian army again advanced against Syria, but Ventidius engaged with him in Cyrrhestica and put his army to flight with great loss; Pacorus himself fell among the first. This exploit, which was one of the most celebrated, gave the Romans full satisfaction for the defeat of Crassus, and again confined the Parthians within Media and Mesopotamia, after being defeated in three successive battles. Ventidius gave up all intention of pursuing the Parthians further, because he feared the jealousy of Antonius, but he visited those who had revolted and brought them into subjection, and besieged Antiochus of Commagene67 in the city Samosata. The king proposed to pay a thousand talents and to obey the order of Antonius, but Ventidius told him to send his proposal to Antonius; for he had now advanced near, and he would not allow Ventidius to make peace with Antiochus, because he wished that this single exploit at least should bear his name, and that everything should not be accomplished by Ventidius. As, however, the siege was protracted, and the citizens, after despairing of coming to terms, betook themselves to a vigorous defence, Antonius, who was making no progress, but was ashamed and repented of his conduct, was glad to make peace with Antiochus and to take three hundred talents; and after settling some trifling matters in Syria, he returned to Athens, and sent Ventidius to enjoy a triumph after bestowing on him the suitable decorations. Ventidius is the only Roman to the present time who has had a triumph over the Parthians; and he was a man of obscure birth, but the friendship of Antonius gave him the opportunity of doing great deeds, of which he made the best use, and so confirmed what was generally said of Antonius and Cæsar, that they were more successful as generals through 297others than of themselves. For Sossius68 also, a legatus of Antonius, had great success in Syria; and Canidius,69 who was left by Antonius in Armenia, defeated the Armenians and the kings of the Iberians and Albanians, and advanced as far as the Caucasus. All this success increased the name and the fame of the power of Antonius among the barbarians.

XXXV

Antonius being again irritated against Cæsar by certain calumnies, sailed to Italy with three hundred vessels; but as the people of Brundusium would not receive his fleet, he sailed round and anchored at Tarentum.70 There he sent Octavia, for she accompanied him from Greece, at her request, to her brother: she was then pregnant, and had already borne him two daughters. She met Cæsar on the way, and after gaining over his friends Agrippa and Mæcenas,71 she prayed him with much urgency and much entreaty not to let her become a most wretched woman after being most happy. For now, she said, all men turned their eyes upon her, who was the wife of one Imperator and the sister of another; “but if the worse should prevail,” she continued, “and there should be war, it is uncertain which of you must be the victor and which the vanquished; but I shall be unfortunate both ways.” Cæsar, being moved by these words, came in a friendly manner to Tarentum, and those who were present saw a most noble spectacle, a large army on land tranquil, and many ships quietly holding on the shore, and the meeting and friendly salutations of the two Imperators and their friends. Antonius gave an entertainment first, which Cæsar consented to for his sister’s sake. It being agreed that Cæsar should give Antonius two legions for the Parthian war, 298 and that Antonius should give Cæsar a hundred brazen-beaked vessels. Octavia, independently of what had been agreed, asked for her brother twenty light ships72 from her husband, and for her husband a thousand soldiers from her brother. Accordingly, separating from one another, the one immediately engaged in the war against Pompeius,73 being desirous to get Sicily; and Antonius, entrusting to Cæsar Octavia and his children by her and by Fulvia, crossed over to Asia.

XXXVI

That great evil, which had long slept, the passion for Cleopatra, which appeared to be put to rest and to have been tranquillised by better considerations, blazed forth again and recovered strength as Antonius approached Syria. And finally (as Plato74 says of the stubborn and ungovernable beast of the soul), kicking away everything that was good and wholesome, he sent Fonteius Capito to bring Cleopatra to Syria. On her arrival he gave and added to her dominions nothing small or trifling, but Phœnice, Cœle Syria, Cyprus, a large part of Cilicia, and further, that part of Judæa which produces the balsam, and all the part, of Arabia Nabathæa which was turned towards the external sea.75 These donations caused the Romans the greatest vexation; though he gave tetrarchies and kingdoms of great nations to many private persons, and took kingdoms from many, as for instance Antigonus76 the Jew, whom he brought out and beheaded, though no king before had been punished in this way. But the 299scandal of the thing was that which gave more offence than all the honours conferred on Cleopatra. The evil report was increased by his acknowledging his twin children by Cleopatra, one of whom he called Alexander and the other Cleopatra; and he gave to one the surname of Sun, and the other of Moon. However, he had some dexterity in putting a good face on bad things, for he said that the greatness of the Roman power was shown not in what they received, but in what they gave; and that noble families were extended by a succession and progeny of many kings. Thus, for instance, he said, that his own ancestor was begotten by Hercules, who did not deposit his successors in a single womb, nor did he fear laws like Solon’s77 and penalties for conception, but gave nature her course to leave many beginnings and foundations of families.

XXXVII

When Phraates78 had killed his father Hyrodes and got possession of the kingdom, other Parthians fled, not few in number; and among them Monæses, a man of illustrious rank and great power, fled to Antonius, who likening the fortune of Monæses to that of Themistocles79 and comparing his own means and magnanimity to those of the Persian kings, gave him three cities, Larissa and Arethusa and Hierapolis, which was before called Bambyce. Upon the Parthian king sending to Monæses a right hand,80 Antonius gladly despatched Monæses to him, having resolved to deceive Phraates with a pretence of peace, but claiming the restoration of the standards taken in the time of Crassus and such of the prisoners as still survived. Antonius having sent Cleopatra back to Egypt, marched through Arabia81 and Armenia to a place where he reviewed 300his army, which had assembled there, and also the troops of the confederate kings; and they were many, but the greatest of all was Artavasdes,82 king of Armenia, who supplied six thousand horse and seven thousand foot soldiers. There were of the Romans sixty thousand foot soldiers, and the cavalry which was classed with the Romans was ten thousand Iberians83 and Celts; and of the other nations there were thirty thousand together with cavalry and light-armed troops. Yet so great a preparation and power, which alarmed even the Indians beyond Bactria and shook all Asia, it is said, was made of no avail to him by reason of Cleopatra. For through his eagerness to spend the winter with her, he opened the campaign before the fit time and conducted everything in a disorderly way, not having the mastery over his own judgment, but through the influence of some drugs or magic always anxiously looking towards her, and thinking more of his speedy return than of conquering the enemy.

XXXVIII

Now, in the first place, though it was his business to winter there in Armenia and to give his army rest, which was worn out by a march of eight thousand stadia, and before the Parthians moved from their winter-quarters in the commencement of spring, to occupy Media, he did not wait for the time, but immediately led forward his army, leaving Armenia on the left and touching on Atropatene,84 which he ravaged. In the next place, the engines which were necessary for sieges were carried along with the army in three hundred waggons, and among them was a ram eighty feet long; and it was not possible for any one of them, if it was damaged, to be repaired when it was wanted, because the upper country only produced wood of insufficient length and hardness: accordingly in his hurry he left all the engines behind as encumbrances to his speed, after appointing a watch and Statianus as commander over the waggons; and he commenced 301 the siege of Phraata,85 a large city, in which were the children and wives of the king of Media. But the difficulties soon proved what an error he had committed in leaving behind the engines; and as he wished to come to close quarters with the enemy, he commenced erecting a mound against the city, which rose slowly and with much labour. In the meantime Phraates came down with a great force, hearing of the waggons being left behind that carried the machines, and sent many horsemen against them, by whom Statianus was hemmed in and killed and ten thousand men with him. The barbarians took possession of the engines and destroyed them. They also took many prisoners, among whom was king Polemon.86

XXXIX

This misfortune greatly annoyed, as we may suppose, all the soldiers of Antonius, who at the commencement of the war had received this unexpected blow; and the Armenian Artavasdes despairing of the success of the Romans went off with his troops, though he had been the chief cause of the war. The Parthians now showed themselves to the besiegers in gallant array and insultingly threatened them, on which Antonius, not wishing to let despondency and dejection abide in his army by their being quiet and to increase, took ten legions and three prætorian cohorts of heavy-armed men and all the cavalry, and led them out to forage in the hope that the enemy would thus be drawn on, and that a regular battle would ensue. After advancing one day’s march, he saw that the Parthians were spreading themselves around him and seeking to attack him on the march, on which he hung out in the camp the sign of battle, but at the same time he ordered the tents to be taken down, as if his intention were not to fight but to lead off his troops; and he passed along the line of the barbarians, which was in the form of a crescent, having given orders, as soon as the first ranks of the enemy should be within reach of the 302heavy-armed soldiers, for the cavalry to ride at them. To the Parthians who stood opposed to the Romans, their discipline appeared to be something indescribable; and they observed the Romans as they marched past at equal intervals without disorder and in silence, brandishing their spears. But when the standard was raised and the cavalry facing about rushed upon the enemy, the Parthians received their onset and repelled it, though the Romans were all at once too close to allow them to use their arrows; but when the heavy-armed soldiers joined in the conflict at the same time with shouts and the clatter of arms, the Parthian horses were frightened and gave way and the Parthians fled before they came to close quarters. Antonius pressed on the pursuit, and had great hopes that he had finished the whole war or the chief part in that battle. But when the infantry had followed up the pursuit for fifty stadia and the cavalry for three times that distance, looking at those of the enemy who had fallen and were captured, they found only thirty captives and eighty corpses, which caused dismay and despondency in all the army, when they reflected that though victorious they had killed so few, and that when defeated they must sustain such a loss as they had near the waggons. On the following day they broke up their encampment and took the road towards Phraata and the camp. On their march they fell in at first with a few of the enemy, and then a greater number, and finally with all, who, as if they were unvanquished and fresh, challenged them and fell upon them from all sides, so that with difficulty and much labour they got safe to their camp. As the Medes made a sally against the mound and terrified those who were defending it, Antonius being enraged put in practice what is called decimation87 against the cowards; for he divided the whole number into tens, and put to death one out of each ten who was chosen by lot; and to the rest he ordered barley to be measured out, instead of wheat.

XL

The war was attended with great hardship to both sides, and the future was still more alarming, as Antonius was expecting famine, for it was no longer possible to get forage without many of the soldiers being wounded and 303killed. Phraates knowing that the Parthians were able to bear anything rather than to endure hardship in the winter and to encamp in the open air, was afraid lest, if the Romans held out and abided there, his troops would leave him, as the atmosphere was beginning to grow heavy after the autumnal equinox. Accordingly he planned such a stratagem as this. The chiefs of the Parthians,88 both in the forages and on other occasions when they met the Romans, made less vigorous resistance, both allowing them to take some things and commending their valour in that they were most courageous men, and were justly admired by their king. After this, riding up nearer to them, and quietly placing their horses near the Romans, they would abuse Antonius, saying that though Phraates wished to come to terms and to spare so many brave men, Antonius would not give him the opportunity, but sat there awaiting those dangerous and powerful enemies, hunger and winter, from whom it would be difficult for them to escape, even under convoy of the Parthians. Many persons reported this to Antonius, and though he was softened by hope, still he did not send heralds to the Parthians until he inquired from the barbarians who assumed this friendly demeanour, whether what they said really expressed the king’s meaning. On their saying that it was so, and urging him not to fear or distrust, he sent some of his companions to demand back the standards and the captives, that it might not be supposed that he was so eager to make his escape and get away. The Parthian told him not to trouble himself about that matter, but promised him peace and security if he would depart forthwith; whereupon in a few days Antonius got his baggage together and broke up his camp. Though Antonius had great powers of persuasion before a popular assembly, and was skilled above every man of the age in leading an army by his words, he was unable through shame and depression of spirits to encourage the soldiers, and he bade Domitius Ænobarbus89 do this. Some of the soldiers took this amiss, 304considering it as a token of contempt towards them, but the majority were affected by it, and perceived the reason, and they thought that they ought on this account the more to show their respect and obedience to the commander.

XLI

As Antonius was intending to lead the troops back by the same road, which was through a plain country without trees, a man, by nation a Mardian,90 who was well acquainted with the Parthian habits, and had already shown himself faithful to the Romans in the battle at the waggons, came up to Antonius and advised him in his flight to keep to the mountains on his right, and not to expose a force, in heavy armour and encumbered, to so numerous a cavalry and to the arrows in bare and open tracts, which was the very thing that Phraates designed when he induced him by friendly terms to raise the siege; and that he would lead them a shorter road, where he would find a better supply of necessaries. Antonius on hearing this deliberated; he did not wish to appear to distrust the Parthians after the truce, yet as he approved of the shorter road, and the line of march being along inhabited villages, he asked the Mardian for a pledge of his fidelity. The Mardian offered himself to be put in chains until he should place the army in Armenia; and he was put in chains, and he conducted them for two days without their meeting with any opposition. On the third day, when Antonius had completely ceased to think of the Parthians, and was advancing in a careless way by reason of his confidence, the Mardian observed that an embankment against the overflowing of a river had been recently305 broken, and that the stream was flowing in a great current on the road by which they had to pass, and he knew that the Parthians had done this with the intention of making the river an obstacle to the Roman march by the difficulty and delay that it would occasion; and he bade Antonius look out and be on his guard, as the enemy was near. Just while he was placing the heavy-armed men in order, and taking measures for the javelin-men and slingers to make an attack through their ranks upon the enemy, the Parthians appeared and rode round them with the design of encircling the Romans and putting them in disorder on all sides. The light-armed troops made a sally against them, and the Parthians, after inflicting some wounds with their arrows and receiving as many from the leaden bullets91 and javelins of the Romans, retreated. The Parthians then commenced a second attack, which continued until the Celtæ in a mass drove their horses against them and dispersed them; and the Parthians showed themselves no more on that day.

XLII

From this experience Antonius, learning what he ought to do, covered not only the rear, but also both flanks with many javelin men and slingers, and led his army in the form of a quadrangle; and the cavalry received orders to repel the attack of the enemy, but when they had repulsed them, not to pursue far, in consequence of which the Parthians during the four following days sustained as much damage as they inflicted, and their ardour being dulled they thought of retiring, as an excuse for which they alleged the approach of winter. On the fifth day Flavius Gallus, a man of military talent and great activity, who held a command, came and asked Antonius for more light-armed troops for the rear,92 and for some of the cavalry from the van, in the expectation of having great success. Antonius gave him the troops, and when the enemy made his attack, he fell upon them, not as on former occasions, at the same time withdrawing towards the heavy-armed soldiers and retreating, but resisting them and engaging with the enemy in a desperate way. The commanders of 306the rear seeing that he was being separated from them, sent and called him back, but he would not listen to them. They say that Titius the quæstor, seizing the standards, turned them round and abused Gallus for throwing away the lives of many brave men. But as Gallus abused him in turn, and urged those about him to remain, Titius retreated. While Gallus was pushing forwards against the enemy in front, a large body of those in the rear got round him before he perceived it. Being now attacked on all sides he sent for aid; but the commanders of the heavy-armed troops, among whom was Canidius, a man who had the greatest influence with Antonius, are considered to have committed a great mistake. For when they ought to have moved the whole line against the enemy, they sent a few at a time to help against them; and again when these were being worsted, they sent others, and thus these came near filling the whole army with defeat and flight before they were aware of it; but Antonius himself quickly came with the heavy-armed men from the van to meet the enemy, and the third legion quickly pushing through the fugitives against the enemy stopped their further pursuit.

XLIII

There fell no fewer than three thousand; and there were carried to the tents five thousand wounded, and among them Gallus, who was pierced with five arrows in front. Gallus did not recover from his wounds; but Antonius, going about, visited the rest of the wounded, and he encouraged them with tears in his eyes and deep sympathy. The men, cheerfully grasping his right hand, begged him to go and take care of his health and not to trouble himself about them, calling him Imperator, and saying that they were all secure if he was only safe. For altogether it seems that no Imperator of that age got together an army more distinguished by courage or endurance or strength; but the respect towards the commander himself, and the obedience combined with affection, and the circumstance that all alike, those of good reputation, those of bad, commanders, private soldiers, preferred honour and favour from Antonius to their own lives and safety, left nothing even for the ancient Romans to surpass, and of this there were several reasons, as we have said before; noble birth,307 powerful eloquence, simplicity, generosity and munificence, affability in his pleasures and conversation. On that occasion, by the pains that he took and his sympathy with the wounded, and by sharing with them whatever they wanted, he made the sick and wounded more full of alacrity than those who were whole.

XLIV

However the victory so elated the enemy, who were already worn out and exhausted, and they despised the Romans so much that they even passed the night93 close to the camp, expecting that they should soon plunder the deserted tents and the baggage of the Romans skulking away. At daybreak the enemy crowded upon them in still greater numbers, and there are said to have been not fewer than forty thousand horseman, as the king had sent even those who were always placed around himself, as to certain and secure success; for the king himself was never present in any battle. But Antonius, wishing to harangue the soldiers, asked for a dark garment that he might appear more piteous. But as his friends opposed him, he came forward in the purple dress of a general and addressed the troops, praising those who had been victorious, and upbraiding those who had fled. The former exhorted him to be of good cheer, and the others making their apology offered themselves to him either to be decimated or to be punished in any other way; only they prayed him to cease being troubled and grieved. Hereupon, raising his hands, he prayed to the gods, that if any reverse of fortune should follow on account of his former prosperity, it might come upon him, but that they would give safety and victory to the rest of the army.

XLV

On the following day they advanced under better protection; and when the Parthians made their attack, the result was very contrary to their expectations. For they expected to advance to plunder and booty, and not to battle; but as they were assailed by many missiles, and saw that the Romans were encouraged and fresh with alacrity, they were again completely wearied of the contest. However the Parthians again fell upon them as they were descending some steep hills, and galled them with arrows as they were slowly retreating, whereon the shield-bearers94 faced about 308and placing the light-armed troops within their ranks, dropped down on one knee and held their shields before them; those behind held their shields before the front rank, and those who were behind the second rank did the same. This form, which very much resembles a roof,95 presents a theatrical appearance, and is the safest of bulwarks against the arrows, which thus glance off. But the Parthians, who thought that the Romans bending on one knee was a sign of exhaustion and fatigue, laid aside their bows, and grasping their spears by the middle, came to close quarters. But the Romans with one shout all at once sprang up, and pushing with their javelins which they held in their hands, killed the foremost and put all the rest to flight. This took place also on the following days, the Romans making only small way. Famine also attacked the army, which could get little grain and that with fighting, and they had few implements for grinding; for the greater part were left behind, owing to some of the beasts dying, and others being employed in carrying the sick and wounded. It is said that an Attic chœnix96 of wheat was sold for fifty drachmæ; and they sold barley loaves for their weight in silver. Then they betook themselves to vegetables and roots; but they found few of the kind that they were accustomed to, and being compelled to make trial of what they had never tasted before, they ate of one herb that caused madness and then death. For he who had eaten of it recollected nothing, and understood nothing, and busied himself about nothing except one sole thing, which was to move and turn every stone, as if he were doing something of great importance. The plain was full of men stooping to the ground and digging round stones309 and moving them; and finally they vomited bile and died, for wine, which was the only remedy, failed them. As many were dying and the Parthians did not desist from their attack, they say that Antonius often cried out “O the ten thousand!”97 whereby he expressed his admiration of the ten thousand, that though they marched even a greater distance, from Babylonia, and fought with many more enemies, yet they made good their retreat.

XLVI

The Parthians, not being able to break through the Roman army nor yet to separate their ranks, and being already often defeated and put to flight, again mingled in a friendly way with those who went out for grass or corn, and pointing to the strings of their bows which were unstrung, said, that they were going back and this was the end of their attack; but that a few of the Medes would follow still one or two days’ journey without annoying them at all, and for the purpose of protecting the more distant villages. To these words were added embraces and signs of friendship, so that the Romans were again of good cheer; and Antonius hearing this resolved to keep nearer to the plains, as the road through the mountains was said to be waterless. While he was intending to do this, there came to the camp a man from the enemy, named Mithridates, a cousin of Monæses, of him who had been with Antonius and had received the three cities as a present. And he asked for some one to come near to him who could speak the Parthian or the Syrian language. Alexander of Antioch came to him, and he was an intimate friend of Antonius, whereupon Mithridates, saying who he was, and intimating that they must thank Monæses for what he was going to say, asked Alexander, if he saw in the distance a continuous range of lofty mountains. On Alexander saying that he saw them, he replied, “Under those mountains the Parthians with all their forces lie in ambush for you. For the great plains border on these mountains, and they expect that you will be deceived by them and will turn in that direction and leave the road through the mountains. The way over the mountains is attended with 310thirst and labour to which you are accustomed, but if Antonius goes by the plain, let him be assured that the fate of Crassus awaits him.”

XLVII

Having said this, he went away; and Antonius, who was troubled at these words, called together his friends and the Mardian who was their guide, and had exactly the same opinion. For even if there were no enemy, he knew that the want of roads in the plains and the mistakes in the track which they might make there were matters of hazard and difficulty; but he declared that the road over the mountains presented no other risk than the want of water for a single day. Accordingly Antonius turned aside and led his army by this route by night, having given orders to the men to take water with them. But the greater part had no vessels, and accordingly they filled their helmets with water and carried them, and others took it in skins. As soon as Antonius began to advance, the Parthians had intelligence of it, and contrary to their custom they commenced the pursuit while it was still night. Just as the sun was rising, they came up with the rear, which was in weak condition through want of sleep and fatigue: for they had accomplished two hundred and forty stadia in the night; and the enemy coming upon them so suddenly when they did not expect it, dispirited them. The contest increased their thirst, for they still advanced while they were defending themselves. Those who were in the first ranks, as they were marching onwards, came to a river,98 the water of which was cool and pellucid, but salt and of a medicinal nature; and this water, when drank of immoderately, caused pains with purging and augmentation of the thirst: and though the Mardian had warned them of this, the soldiers nevertheless forced away those who tried to hinder them and drank of the water. Antonius went round to the men and prayed them to hold out for a short time, and he said there was another river not far off, and besides this, the rest of the route was impracticable for 311horses and rough, so that the enemy must certainly turn back. At the same time he summoned those who were engaged in the fight and gave the signal for pitching the tents, that the soldiers might at least enjoy the shade a little.

XLVIII

While then the tents were being fixed and the Parthians as usual were immediately retiring, Mithridates came again, and upon Alexander going up to him, he advised him to put the army in motion after it had rested a little and to hasten to the river: for he said that the Parthians would not cross it, but would follow up the pursuit as far as the river. Alexander reported this to Antonius, and then brought out from him numerous gold cups and goblets, of which Mithridates taking as many as he could hide in his dress, rode off. As it was still daylight, they broke up their tents and advanced, without being annoyed by the enemy; but they made that night of all others the most painful and frightful to themselves. For they killed and plundered those who had silver or gold, and took the things that were carried by the beasts; and finally falling upon the baggage of Antonius, they cut in pieces and divided among them cups and costly tables, there being great disturbance and confusion through the whole army; for they thought that the enemy had fallen upon them and that flight and dispersion had ensued, Antonius called one of the freedmen, who was on his guard, named Rhamnus, and bound him by oath when he gave him the order, to push his sword through him and to cut off his head, that he might neither be taken alive by the enemy nor be recognised when dead. His friends broke out in tears, but the Mardian encouraged Antonius by telling him that the river was near; for a moist breeze blowing and a cooler air meeting them made their respiration more agreeable; and he said that the time they had been on the march confirmed his estimate of the distance, for what now remained of the night was not much. At the same time others reported that the disorder was owing to their own wrongful deeds and rapacity. Accordingly Antonius, wishing to bring the army into order from their state of disorder and confusion, commanded the signal to be given for pitching the tents.

XLIX

Day was now dawning, and as the army 312was beginning to get into certain order and tranquillity, the arrows of the Parthians fell upon the rear, and the signal for battle was given to the light-armed troops. The heavy-armed troops again covering one another in like manner as before with their shields, stood the assault of the missiles, the enemy not venturing to come near. The first ranks advancing slowly in this form, the river was seen; and Antonius drawing up his cavalry on the banks in face of the enemy, took across the weak first. Those who were fighting were now relieved from apprehension, and had the opportunity of drinking; for when the Parthians saw the river, they unstrung their bows and bade the Romans pass over in confidence, with great encomiums on their valour. Accordingly, they crossed, and recruited themselves quietly; and then they marched forwards, but yet not with full confidence in the Parthians. On the sixth day after the last battle they reached the river Araxes,99 which is the boundary between Media and Armenia. It appeared dangerous both for its depth and roughness, and a rumour went through the army that the enemy was in ambush there, and would fall on them as they were crossing. When they had safely crossed and had set foot in Armenia, as if they had just got sight of that land from the sea, they saluted it and fell to shedding of tears and embracing of one another for joy. In their progress through a fertile country, during which they used everything freely after having suffered great want, they were subject to dropsical and bowel complaints.

L

Antonius there made a review of his men, and he found that twenty thousand infantry and four thousand cavalry had perished; not all by the enemy, but above half by disease. They marched from Phraata twenty-313seven days, and they defeated the Parthians in eighteen battles; but these victories brought neither strength nor security, because their pursuits were short and ineffectual. And this mainly showed that it was Artavasdes100 the Armenian who had deprived Antonius of the means of bringing that war to an end. For if the sixteen thousand horsemen whom he drew out of Media had been present, who were equipped like the Parthians, and were accustomed to fight against them, and if, while the Romans put to flight the fighting enemy, they had overtaken the fugitives, it would not have been in their power after a defeat to recover themselves and venture again so often. All the army accordingly in passion endeavoured to incite Antonius to punish the Armenian. But Antonius upon considerations of prudence neither reproached him for his treachery nor abated of his usual friendly behaviour and respect towards him, being weak in numbers and in want of supplies. Afterwards, however, when he again broke into Armenia, and by many promises and invitations, persuaded Artavasdes to come into his hands, he seized him and took him in chains to Alexandria, where he was led in triumph. And herein chiefly he offended the Romans, by giving to the Egyptians for the sake of Cleopatra the honourable and solemn ceremonial of his native country. This however took place later.

LI

Antonius now pressed on his march, the winter having already set in with severity, through incessant snow-storms, in which he lost eight thousand men on the route. Going down to the sea-coast with a very small body of men, he waited for Cleopatra101 in a place between Berytus and Sidon, called “White village”; and as she was slow in coming, he became uneasy and restless, soon giving himself up to drinking and intoxication, but yet being unable to continue at table; for while his companions were drinking he would rise and often spring up to look out, till Cleopatra arrived there by sea bringing a quantify of 314clothes and supplies for the soldiers. There are some who say that Antonius received the clothes from her, but that the money was his own, though he distributed it as if it were a present to him from Cleopatra.

LII

A quarrel arose between the king of the Medes and Phraortes102 the Parthian, which originated, as they say, about the Roman spoils, but caused the Mede to have suspicions and fear of being deprived of his dominions. For this reason he sent to invite Antonius, and proffered to join him in a war with his own forces. Antonius accordingly being put in great hope—for the only thing as he thought which had been the cause of his failing to subdue the Parthians, his having gone against them without many horsemen and bowmen, he now saw was offered to him in such way that his part was rather to do a favour by accepting than to ask for one—was preparing again to march into the upper country through Armenia, and after joining the Mede near the Araxes, then to recommence the war.

LIII

At Rome Octavia103 was desirous of going to Antonius, and Cæsar gave her permission; as the greater part say, not with the design of pleasing her, but in order that if she were greatly insulted and neglected, he might have a specious pretext for the war. On reaching Athens she received letters from Antonius, in which he told her to stay there, and informed her of his intended expedition. Though Octavia was annoyed, and saw that this was only a pretext, she wrote to him to ask to what place he would have the things sent which she was bringing to him. And she was taking a great quantity of clothing for the army, many beasts, and money and presents for his officers and friends; and besides this, two thousand picked soldiers equipped as prætorian cohorts, with splendid armour. A certain Niger, a friend of Antonius, who was sent by Octavia, reported this to him, and he added commendation of Octavia such as she merited and was just. But Cleopatra, seeing that Octavia was entering into a contest with her, and fearing that if to the dignity of her behaviour and the power of Cæsar she added the pleasure of social 315intercourse and attention to Antonius, she would be invincible and get complete mastery over her husband, pretended to be desperately in love with Antonius, and she wasted her body by spare diet; and she put on the expression of strong passion when he approached her, and of sorrow and depression when he went away. She also contrived to be often seen in tears, which she would all at once wipe away and affect to conceal, as if she did not wish Antonius to observe it. She practised these arts while Antonius was preparing for his expedition from Syria against the Mede.104 Flatterers, too, who were busy in her behalf, abused Antonius as a hard and unfeeling man, who was causing the death of a woman who was devoted to him alone. As to Octavia, she came to meet Antonius upon business on her brother’s account, and enjoyed the name of wife of Antonius; but Cleopatra, who was the queen of so many people, was only called the beloved of Antonius, and she did not shun nor disdain this name, so long as she could see Antonius and live with him; but if she were driven away from him, she would not survive. At last they so melted and softened the man, that through fear that Cleopatra might destroy herself, he returned to Alexandria, and put off the Mede to the summer season, though the affairs of Parthia were said to be in a state of anarchy. However, he went up into the country, and brought over the king to friendly terms, and after betrothing to one of his sons by Cleopatra one of the daughters of the king, who was still a young child, he returned, being now engaged in preparing for the civil war.

LIV

When Octavia returned from Athens, as Cæsar conceived her to have been insulted, he ordered her to dwell in her own house. But she refused to leave her husband’s house, and she advised her brother, if he had not for other reasons determined to go to war with Antonius, to let her affairs alone, for it was not even decent to be said, that of the greatest Imperators, one through 316love for a woman, and the other through jealousy, brought the Romans to civil war. This she said, and she confirmed what she said by her acts; for she lived in her husband’s house, just as if he were at home, and she took care of the children, both her own and those of Fulvia, in an honourable and liberal way; she also received the friends of Antonius who were sent to Rome to get offices or on business, and assisted them in obtaining from Cæsar what they wanted. She thus unintentionally damaged Antonius, for he was hated for wronging such a woman. He was also hated for the division which he made among his children at Alexandria, which appeared to be tragical105 and arrogant, and to show hatred of the Romans. For he filled the gymnasium with a crowd, and caused to be placed on a tribunal of silver two thrones of gold, one for himself, and the other for Cleopatra, and for the children other thrones which were lower; and first of all he declared Cleopatra Queen of Egypt and Cyprus and Libya and Cœle Syria, with Cæsarion as co-regent, who was believed to be the son of the former Cæsar, who left Cleopatra pregnant; in the next place he proclaimed his sons and Cleopatra’s to be Kings of Kings; and to Alexander he gave Armenia, and Media, and Parthia, when he should have subdued it, and to Ptolemæus he gave Phœnice and Syria and Cilicia. At the same time also he led forth Alexander, dressed in a Median vest with a tiara and cittaris106 upright, and Ptolemæus in boots, and a chlamys, and a causia with a diadem attached to it; for this was the dress of the kings who followed Alexander, and the other was the dress of the Medes and Armenians. After the children had embraced their parents, a guard of Armenians was placed around the one, and of Macedonians around the other. Cleopatra, both on that occasion and on other occasions when she went out before the people, used to put on a 317dress sacred to Isis, different from her ordinary dress, and she was called the new Isis.

LV

By bringing these matters before the Senate, and often complaining of them before the people, Cæsar excited the multitude against Antonius. Antonius also sent and made recriminations against Cæsar. The chief charges which Antonius made against him were, in the first place, that though he had taken Sicily from Pompeius, he did not give him a part of the island; second, that Cæsar had borrowed ships from him for the war and had kept them; third, that after ejecting his colleague Lepidus from his authority and degrading him, Cæsar kept the army and territory and revenues that were assigned to Lepidus;107 and, finally, that he had distributed nearly all Italy in allotments among his own soldiers, and had left nothing for the soldiers of Antonius. To these charges Cæsar replied, that he had deprived Lepidus of his authority because he was abusing it, and as to what he had acquired in war, he would share it with Antonius, when Antonius should share Armenia with him. He further said that the soldiers of Antonius had no claim to any share of Italy, for that they had Media and Parthia, which they had added to the Roman possessions by their brave conduct in war under their Imperator.

LVI

Antonius heard of this while he was tarrying in Armenia; and he immediately gave orders to Canidius to take sixteen legions and to go down to the sea. Himself taking Cleopatra with him went to Ephesus. Here the navy collected from all quarters, eight hundred ships, including merchant vessels, of which Cleopatra furnished two hundred, and twenty thousand talents and supplies for the war for all the army. Antonius, being persuaded by Domitius and some others, told Cleopatra to sail to Egypt and there to wait the result of the war. But as Cleopatra feared that there would again be a reconciliation through Octavia, she persuaded Canidius by a large bribe 318to speak to Antonius about her, and to say, that it was neither just for a woman to be kept away from the war, who supplied so many large contributions, nor was it to the interest of Antonius to dispirit the Egyptians, who composed a large part of the naval force; and besides this, he did not see to which of the kings who joined the expedition Cleopatra was inferior in understanding, she who for a long time by herself had governed so large a kingdom, and had long enjoyed his company, and had learned to manage great affairs. These arguments prevailed, for it was fated that all the power should come into Cæsar’s hands; and after the forces had come together, they sailed to Samos and enjoyed themselves there. For as orders had been given to kings and rulers and tetrarchs and nations and all the cities between Syria and the Mæotis and Armenia and the Illyrians108 to send and bring their supplies for the war, so all the persons who assisted at theatrical entertainments were required to meet Antonius at Samos; and while nearly all the world around was lamenting and groaning, one island for many days resounded with pipes and stringed instruments, and the theatres were filled and the chori were vying with one another. Every city also joined in the celebration by sending an ox, and kings rivalled one another in giving entertainments and presents. So that it went abroad and was said, how will persons behave in the rejoicings after a victory, who make such costly banquets to celebrate the preparations for war?

LVII

After these amusements were over, Antonius gave to the theatrical company Priene for their dwelling; and sailing to Athens he again gave himself up to pleasure and theatres. Cleopatra, who was jealous of the honours that had been paid to Octavia in the city, for Octavia was very much beloved by the Athenians, attempted to gain the popular favour by many acts of liberality. The Athenians after voting to her honorable distinctions, sent a deputation to her residence to carry the record of the vote, and Antonius was one of them, as being an Athenian citizen; and coming before her he went through an 319harangue on behalf of the city. He sent persons to Rome to eject Octavia from his house; and it is said that when she left it, she took all the children of Antonius with her except the eldest of the children by Fulvia, for he was with his father, and that she wept and lamented that she too would be considered one of the causes of the war. And the Romans pitied not her, but they pitied Antonius, and those chiefly who had seen Cleopatra, a woman who had not the advantage over Octavia either in beauty or in youth.

LVIII

Cæsar was alarmed when he heard of the rapidity and the greatness of the preparation109 of Antonius, lest he should be compelled to come to a decisive battle during that summer. For he was deficient in many things, and the exaction of taxes vexed people; for the free men, being compelled to contribute a fourth110 of their income, and the class of freedmen to contribute an eighth part of their property, cried out against Cæsar, and tumults arising from these causes prevailed over all Italy. Accordingly the delay in the war is reckoned among the greatest faults of Antonius; for it gave time to Cæsar to make preparation, and it put an end to the disturbances among the people; for while the money was being exacted from them they were irritated, but when it had been exacted and they had paid it they remained quiet.111 Titius and Plancus, friends of Antonius and men of consular rank, being insulted by Cleopatra, for they made the most opposition to her joining the expedition, escaped to Cæsar, and they gave him information about the will of Antonius, as they were acquainted with the contents of it. The will was placed with the Vestal Virgins,112 and when Cæsar asked for it, they would not give it to him, but they told him, if he wished to have it, to come and take it himself. And he did go and take it; and first of all he read it over by 320himself, and marked certain passages which furnished ready matter of accusation; in the next place he assembled the Senate and read the will, to the dissatisfaction of the greater part; for they considered it to be altogether unusual and a hard matter for a man to be called to account in his lifetime for what he wished to be done after his death. Cæsar dwelt most on that part of the will which related to the interment; for Antonius directed that his body, even if he should die in Rome, should be carried in procession through the Forum and sent to Alexandria to Cleopatra. Calvisius, an intimate friend of Cæsar, brought forward also these charges against Antonius in reference to Cleopatra: that he had given her the libraries113 from Pergamum, in which there were two hundred thousand single books; and that at an entertainment in the presence of many people he stood up and rubbed her feet114 in compliance with a certain arrangement and agreement; and that he allowed the Ephesians in his presence to salute Cleopatra as mistress; and that frequently when he was administering justice to tetrarchs and kings on his tribunal, he would receive from her love-billets written on onyx or crystal and read them. Furnius115 also, who was a man of distinction and the most powerful orator among the Romans, said that Cleopatra was being carried in a litter through the Forum, and that Antonius when he saw her, sprung up and left the judgment-seat and accompanied her hanging on the litter.

LIX

In most of these matters Calvisius116 was supposed to be lying. But the friends of Antonius going about in 321Rome entreated the people for his sake, and they sent Geminius, one of their body, to entreat Antonius not to be regardless about being deprived of his authority by a vote and declared an enemy of the Romans. Geminius having sailed to Greece became suspected by Cleopatra of acting on the behalf of Octavia, and, though he was continually ridiculed at supper and insulted by having unsuitable places at the feast assigned to him, he submitted to this and waited for an opportunity of an interview; and when he was told at supper to say what he had come about, he replied that all his communication was to be made when he was sober, except one thing, which he knew whether he was sober or drunk; and it was this, that all would be well if Cleopatra would go off to Egypt. Antonius was irritated at this, but Cleopatra said, “You have done well, Geminius, in having confessed the truth without tortures.” After a few days accordingly Geminius made his escape to Rome. The flatterers of Cleopatra drove away also many of the other friends of Antonius, who could not endure their excesses over wine and their coarse behaviour; and among these were Marcus Silanus and Dellius the historian. Dellius says that he was also afraid of some design from Cleopatra, of which he had been informed by Glaucus the physician. He had offended Cleopatra at supper by saying that they had to drink vinegar, while Sarmentus117 at Rome was drinking Falernian. Now Sarmentus was a youth, one of Cæsar’s favourites, such as the Romans call Deliciæ.

LX

When Cæsar had made preparation sufficient, he got a vote passed for war against Cleopatra118 and for depriving Antonius of the authority which he had surrendered to Cleopatra. Cæsar also said that Antonius, owing to draughts that had been administered to him, was not in his senses, and those whom the Romans had to fight against were Mardion the eunuch, and Potheinus, and Iras 322the tire-woman of Cleopatra, and Charmion, by whom all the chief matters of administration were directed. These signs, it is said, happened before the war. Pisaurum,119 a city that had been colonised by Antonius, which was situated near the Adriatic, was swallowed up by the opening of chasms in the earth. From one of the stone statues of Antonius at Alba sweat oozed for many days, and it did not cease, though there were persons who wiped it off. While he was staying at Patræ, the Herakleium was destroyed by lightning; at Athens the Dionysius, one of the figures in the Battle of the Giants,120 was blown down by the winds and carried into the theatre. Now Antonius claimed kinship with Hercules by descent and with Dionysius by imitating his manner of life, as it has been said, and he was called young Dionysius. The same tempest also fell on the colossal statues of Eumenes and Attalus, on which the name of Antonius had been inscribed, and threw them down alone out of a large number. The admiral’s ship of Cleopatra was called Antonias, and a bad omen appeared as to it: some swallows had made their nest under the stern, but other swallows attacked and drove them out and destroyed the young.

LXI

They were now coming together for the war; and the fighting ships of Antonius were not fewer than five hundred, among which were many vessels of eight and ten banks of oars fitted out in proud and pompous style; of the land forces there were one hundred thousand, and twelve thousand horsemen. There were on his side of subject kings, Bocchus the king of the Libyans, and Tarcondemus the king of Upper Cilicia, and Archelaus, king of Cappadocia, and Philadelphus of Paphlagonia, and Mithridates of Commagene, and Sadalas of Thrace. These were with him. From Pontus Polemon sent a force, and Malchus from Arabia, and Herodes, the Jew; and besides these, Amyntas, the king of the Lycaonians and Galatians.121 There was also help sent from the king of the Medes. Cæsar had two hundred and fifty ships of war, and eighty 323thousand infantry, and about the same number of horsemen as the enemy. The dominion of Antonius extended over the country from the Euphrates to the Ionian sea and the Illyrians; and that of Cæsar from the Illyrians over the country that reached to the Western Ocean, and over the country from the ocean to the Tuscan and Sicilian sea. Of Libya Cæsar had the part which extended opposite to Italy and Gaul and Iberia as far as the pillars of Hercules; and Antonius had the part from Cyrene to Ethiopia.

LXII

Antonius was so mere an appendage to Cleopatra that though he had a great superiority in land forces, he wished the decision of the affair to depend on the navy, to please Cleopatra: and this, though he saw that through want of a crew, men were being seized by the trierarchs out of Greece, which had indeed suffered much, travellers, ass-drivers, reapers, youths, and that even by these means the ships were not manned, but the greater part were deficient and were ill manœuvred. Cæsar’s navy consisted of ships not built to a great height nor yet for the purpose of making a show, but adapted for easy and quick movement and well manned; and he kept his fleet together in Tarentum and Brundusium, and sent to Antonius to ask him not to waste the time, but to come with his forces, and that he would provide his armament with naval stations free from all hindrance, and harbours, and that he would retreat with his land forces a day’s journey for a horseman from the sea, until Antonius had safely landed and encamped. Antonius replied in like strain to this bragging language by challenging Cæsar to single combat, though he was older than Cæsar; and if Cæsar declined this, he proposed that they should decide the matter with their armies at Pharsalus, as Cæsar and Pompeius had done before. While Antonius was taking his station near Actium,122 where Nicopolis is now built, Cæsar contrived to 324cross the Ionian sea and to get possession of a place in Epirus, called Torune; and as the friends of Antonius were uneasy, because their land force had not yet come up, Cleopatra, jesting, said, “What is the harm if Cæsar is sitting by a torune?”123

LXIII

At daybreak the advance of the enemy’s fleet alarmed Antonius, lest they should seize the ships which were without crews, and accordingly he armed the rowers and placed them on the decks to make a show, and raising the ships’ oars and making them ready for plying, he kept his ships on each side in the channel near Actium, prow to prow, as if they were fit to be put in motion and prepared to fight. Cæsar, being frustrated by this manœuvre, retired. Antonius also by some well contrived works shut in the water and deprived his enemies of it; and the surrounding spots had only little water, and that was bad. He behaved with magnanimity to Domitius also, and contrary to the judgment of Cleopatra. Domitius, who was already suffering from fever, got into a small boat and went over to Cæsar, on which Antonius, though much annoyed, sent him all his baggage together with his friends and slaves. Domitius indeed, as if he were repenting after the discovery of his faithlessness and treachery, died immediately. There were also defections among the kings, for Amyntas and Deiotarus went over to Cæsar. Now as the navy was in all things unlucky and always too late to give any help, Antonius was again compelled to turn his thoughts to his land forces. Canidius also, who commanded the land forces, changed his opinion at the sight of the danger, and he advised Antonius to send Cleopatra away, and to retreat to Thrace or Macedonia, and then to decide the matter by a battle. For Dicomes, the king of the Getæ, promised to help him with a large force; and Canidius urged that there would be no disgrace, if they should give up the sea to Cæsar, who had been disciplined in the Sicilian war, but it would be a strange thing if Antonius, who was excellently versed in military operations, should not avail himself of his strength and his resources of so many heavy-armed soldiers, and 325should instead thereof distribute his troops among vessels and fritter them away. Notwithstanding this the advice of Cleopatra prevailed that the war should be decided by a naval battle, though she was already contemplating flight and making arrangements for her own position, not with a view to contribute to the victory, but to have the best place to retreat from if their cause should be ruined. Now there were long lines which extended from the camp to the naval station, and Antonius was accustomed to pass without suspecting any danger; and as a slave of Cæsar told him that it would be possible to seize Antonius as he went down through the lines, Cæsar sent men to lie in ambush for him. They came so near accomplishing their purpose as this, that by rising up too soon they seized the man who was advancing in front of Antonius; and Antonius escaped with difficulty by running.

LXIV

When it had been resolved to make a sea fight, Antonius burned all the Egyptian ships except sixty; but he manned the best and largest, from three to ten banks of oars, with twenty thousand heavy-armed soldiers and two thousand bowmen. Hereupon it is said that one of the centurions, who had already fought many battles for Antonius and was covered with wounds, wept as Antonius was passing by, and said; “Imperator, why do you distrust these wounds or this sword and rest your hopes in miserable logs of wood? Let Egyptians and Phœnicians fight on sea, but give us land, on which we are accustomed to stand and to die or to vanquish our enemies.” Without making any reply, but merely by a motion of his hand and the expression of his countenance encouraging the man to be of good cheer, Antonius passed by, without however having any good hopes himself, inasmuch as when the masters of the vessels were desirous to leave the sails behind, he ordered them to be put on board and taken with them, observing that not a single fugitive of the enemy should be allowed to escape.

LXV124

Now on that day and the three following days 326the sea was agitated by a strong wind which prevented an engagement, but on the fifth, there being no wind and the sea being quite calm, they came to an engagement. Antonius and Publicola commanded the right wing, and Cœlius the left; and in the centre were Marcus Octavius and Marcus Insteius. Cæsar placed Agrippa on the left, and reserved the right wing for himself. Canidius drew up the army of Antonius, and Taurus that of Cæsar on the shore, and remained without moving. As to the two commanders-in-chief, Antonius visited all his vessels in a row-boat and exhorted his soldiers to trust to the weight of their ships and to fight as if they were on land, without changing their position, and he urged the masters of the ships to receive the shock of the enemy with their vessels as if they were quietly at anchor, and to avoid the difficult spots about the entrance of the bay: and Cæsar, it is said, while it was still dark, left his tent, and as he was going round to the ships, he met a man driving an ass, who being asked his name and knowing Cæsar, replied, “My name is Goodluck, and my ass’s name is Victor.” For this reason when Cæsar afterwards ornamented the place with the beaks of ships, he set up a bronze figure of an ass and a man. After observing the arrangement of the other part of his fleet, he went in a boat to the right wing and was surprised to see the enemy resting quietly in the straits; for the vessels had the appearance of being moored at their anchors; and as he was for a long time convinced of this, he kept his own ships at the distance of eight stadia from the enemy. It was now the sixth hour, and a wind beginning to rise from the sea, the soldiers of Antonius were impatient at the delay, and, trusting to the height and magnitude of their ships as making them unassailable, they put the left wing in motion. Cæsar, delighted to see this, ordered his right wing to row backwards with the design of drawing the enemy still further out of the gulf and the straits, and by surrounding them with his own light vessels to come to close quarters with the enemy’s ships, which, owing to their size and the insufficiency of their crews, were cumbersome and slow.

LXVI

Though the two fleets were beginning to come together, they did not drive the ships against, nor 327strive to crush one another, for the ships of Antonius, owing to their weight, were unable to move forwards with any force, which mainly gives effect to the blows of the beaks, and those of Cæsar not only avoided meeting front to front the strong and rough brass work of the enemy, but did not even venture to strike against them on the flank. For the beaks would easily have been broken off by coming in contact with the hulls125 of the enemy’s vessels, which were protected by large square pieces of timber fastened to one another with iron. The battle therefore was like a land fight, or, to speak more exactly, like the assailing of a fortress; for three and four of Cæsar’s ships at the same time were engaged about one of the ships of Antonius, and the men fought with light shields and spears and poles and fiery missiles; the soldiers of Antonius assailed them also with catapults from wooden towers. While Agrippa was extending the left wing with a view to surround the enemy, Publicola, being compelled to advance to meet him, was separated from the centre, which fell into confusion, and was also closely engaged with Arruntius. While the sea fight was still undecided and equally favourable to both sides, all at once the sixty ships of Cleopatra were seen raising their sails for the purpose of making off, and flying through the centre of the combatants; for they were stationed behind the large vessels and they caused confusion by making their way through them. The enemy looked on with wonder, seeing them take advantage of the wind and shape their course towards the Peloponnesus. On this occasion Antonius clearly showed that he was not governed by the considerations that befit either a commander or a man, or even by his own judgment, but, as some one observed in jest, that the soul of the lover lives in another person’s body, so was he dragged along by the woman as if he had grown to her and moved together with her. For no sooner did he see her ship sailing away, than, forgetting everything, and deserting and skulking away from those who were fighting and dying in his cause, he got into a five-oared galley with only Alexas the Syrian and Skellius to attend him, and followed 328after her who had already ruined him and was destined to complete his ruin.

LXVII

Cleopatra, having recognised the vessel of Antonius, raised a signal; and Antonius accordingly, coming up to her and being taken into her ship, neither saw Cleopatra nor was seen by her, but advancing close to the prow he sat down by himself in silence holding his head with both his hands. In the meantime there were seen Liburnian ships126 from Cæsar’s fleet in pursuit; but Antonius, by ordering his men to turn his vessel’s head towards them, kept them all in check, except the ship of Eurykles, the Lacedæmonian, who proudly pressed on, brandishing a spear on the deck, as if to hurl it at Antonius. Standing on the prow of his vessel Antonius asked who it was that was pursuing Antonius? The reply was, “I am Eurykles, the son of Lachares, and by the help of Cæsar’s fortune I am avenging my father’s death.” Now Lachares had been beheaded by Antonius in consequence of being involved in a charge of robbery. However Eurykles did not fall upon the ship of Antonius, but he dashed against the other of the admiral-ships (for there were two) with the brazen beak, and made it spin round, and as the ship fell off from its course he took it, and also another ship which contained costly vessels for table use. When this assailant had retired, Antonius, again settling down in the same posture, remained without moving, and, after spending three days at the prow by himself, either because of his passion or that he was ashamed to see Cleopatra, he put in at Tænarus.127 Here the women who were in attendance on Cleopatra first of all brought them to speak to one another, and next they persuaded them to sup and sleep together. And already not a few of the transport ships and some of their friends after the defeat began to collect around them; and they brought intelligence of the destruction of the navy, but 329they supposed that the army still kept together. Antonius sent messengers to Canidius with orders for him to retreat quickly through Macedonia with his army into Asia; and as it was his intention to cross over from Tænarus to Libya, he selected one of the store-ships which conveyed much money and many royal utensils in silver and in gold of great value, and gave them to his friends, telling them to divide the things among them and to look after their safety. As they refused and wept, he comforted them with much affection and kindness, and by his entreaties induced them to depart; and he wrote to Theophilus, his steward in Corinth, to provide for the safety of the men and to conceal them until they should be able to make their peace with Cæsar. This Theophilus was the father of Hipparchus, who had the greatest influence with Antonius, and was the first of his freedmen who went over to Cæsar, and he afterwards lived in Corinth.

LXVIII

Such was the condition of affairs with Antonius. At Actium the naval force, after resisting Cæsar a long time and being very greatly damaged by the heavy sea that set against them ahead, hardly gave up the contest at the tenth hour. The dead were said not to be more than five thousand, but there were taken three hundred ships, as Cæsar has recorded. There were not many who knew that Antonius had fled, and those who heard of it could not at first believe that he had gone and left them, when he had nineteen legions of unvanquished soldiers and twelve thousand horsemen; as if he had not often experienced fortune both ways, and were not exercised in the reverses of innumerable contests and wars. The soldiers longed and expected to see him, hoping that he would soon show himself from some quarter or other; and they displayed so much fidelity and courage that, even when his flight was well known, they kept together seven days and paid no regard to Cæsar’s messages to them. But at last, when their general Canidius had stolen away by night and left the camp, being now deserted of all and betrayed by their commanders, they went over to the conqueror. Upon this Cæsar128 sailed to Athens, and having come to terms with the Greeks, he distributed the grain that remained over 330after the war among the cities, which were in a wretched condition and stripped of money, slaves and beasts of burden. Now my great-grandfather Nikarchus used to relate that all the citizens129 were compelled to carry down on their shoulders a certain quantity of wheat to the sea at Antikyra, and that their speed was quickened by the whip; they had carried, he said, one supply in this manner, and had just measured out another and were about to set out, when news came that Antonius was defeated, and this saved the city; for the agents and soldiers of Antonius immediately fled, and they divided the corn among themselves.

LXIX

When Antonius had reached the coast of Libya, and had sent Cleopatra forwards to Egypt from Parætonium,130 he had his fill of solitude, wandering and rambling about with two friends, one a Greek, Aristokrates, a rhetorician, and the other a Roman, Lucilius,131 about whom I have said elsewhere that at Philippi, in order that Brutus might escape, he had surrendered to the pursuers, pretending that he was Brutus, and his life being spared by Antonius on that account, he remained faithful to him and firm to the last critical times. When the general132 to whom he had intrusted the troops in Libya had caused their defection, Antonius made an effort to kill himself, but he was prevented by his friends and conveyed to Alexandria, where he found Cleopatra contemplating a hazardous and great undertaking. The isthmus which separates the Red Sea331 from the sea of Egypt133 and is considered to be the boundary between Asia and Libya, in the part where it is most contracted by the sea, and the width is least, is about three hundred stadia across; and here Cleopatra undertook to raise her ships out of the water and to drag them across the neck of land, and so bringing her ships into the Arabian gulf with much money and a large force, to settle beyond the limits of Egypt and to escape from slavery and war. But as the Arabs of Petra134 burnt the first ships which were drawn up, and Antonius thought that the army at Actium still kept together, Cleopatra desisted from her design and guarded the approaches to Egypt. Antonius now leaving the city and the company of his friends, built for himself a dwelling in the sea, near the Pharos,135 by throwing forward a mole into the water; and here he lived a fugitive from men, and he said that he was content with Timon’s life and admired it, considering himself in like plight with Timon; for he too had been wronged by his friends and had experienced their ingratitude, and that therefore he distrusted and disliked all men.

LXX

Timon136 was an Athenian, who lived about the time of the Peloponnesian war, as we may conclude from the plays of Aristophanes and Plato; for he is brought forward in them as peevish and misanthropical. Though he avoided and rejected all intercourse with men, yet he received in a friendly manner Alkibiades, who was a young 332audacious fellow, and showed him great affection. And when Apemantus wondered at this and asked the reason, he said that he liked the young man because he knew that he would be the cause of much ill to the Athenians. Apemantus was the only person whom he sometimes allowed to approach him, because he was like himself and imitated his mode of life. On one occasion, during the festival called Choes,137 when the two were feasting together, Apemantus said, “How delightful the entertainment is, Timon;” “Yes, if you were not here,” was the reply. It is said that when the Athenians were in public assembly, Timon ascended the bema and called for silence, which raised great expectation on account of the unusual nature of the circumstance: he then said, “I have a small plot of building-ground, men of Athens, and there is a fig-tree growing on it, on which many of the citizens have already hanged themselves. Now as I intend to build on the ground, I wished to give public notice that, if any of you choose, they may hang themselves before the fig-tree is cut down.” After his death he was buried at Halæ, near the sea; but the shore in front of the place slipped down, and the sea surrounding the tomb made it inaccessible and unapproachable. The inscription on the tomb was:

Here from the load of life released I lie:

Ask not my name: but take my curse, and die.

And they say that he wrote this inscription during his lifetime; but that which is commonly circulated as the inscription is by Callimachus:

Timon misanthropist I am. Away!

Curse, an’ thou will’t, but only do not stay.

LXXI

These are a few things out of many about Timon. Canidius himself brought intelligence to Antonius of the loss of his forces at Actium, and he heard that Herodes,138
333the Jew, who had certain legions and cohorts, had gone over to Cæsar, and that the rest of the princes in like manner were revolting, and that none of his troops out of Egypt still kept together. However, none of these things disturbed him; but, as if he gladly laid aside hope as he did care, he left that dwelling on the sea, which he called Timoneium, and being taken by Cleopatra into the palace, he turned the city to feasting and drinking and distribution of money, registering the son of Cleopatra and Cæsar among the young men, and putting on Antyllus, his son by Fulvia,139 the vest without the purple hem, which marked the attainment of full age, on which occasion banquets and revellings and feasts engaged Alexandria for many days. They themselves put an end to that famed company of the Inimitable Livers, and they formed another, not at all inferior to that in refinement and luxury and expense, which they called the company of those who would die together. For the friends of Antonius registered themselves as intending to die together, and they continued enjoying themselves in a succession of banquets. Cleopatra got together all kinds of deadly poisons, and she tried the painless character of each by giving them to those who were in prison under sentence of death. When she discovered that the quick poisons brought on a speedy death with pain, and the less painful were not quick, she made trial of animals,140 which in her presence were set upon one another. And she did this daily; and among nearly all she found that the bite of the asp alone brought on without spasms and groans a sleepy numbness and drowsiness, with a gentle perspiration on the face, and dulling of the perceptive faculties, which were softly deprived of their 334power, and made resistance to all attempts to awake and arouse them, as is the case with those who are in a deep sleep.

LXXII

At the same time they sent also ambassadors to Cæsar into Asia, Cleopatra requesting the dominion of Egypt for her children, and Antonius asking to be allowed to live as a private person at Athens, if he could not be permitted to stay in Egypt. Through the want of friends and their distrust owing to the desertions, Euphronius, the instructor of the children, was sent on the embassy. For Alexas,141 of Laodiceia, who at Rome had become known to Antonius through Timagenes, and possessed most influence of all the Greeks, who also had been the most active of the instruments of Cleopatra against Antonius, and had overthrown all the reflections which rose in his mind about Octavia, had been sent to King Herodes to keep him from changing; and having stayed there and betrayed Antonius, he had the impudence to go into the presence of Cæsar, relying on Herodes. But Herodes helped him not, but being forthwith confined and carried in chains to his own country, he was put to death there by order of Cæsar. Such was the penalty for his infidelity that Alexas paid to Antonius in his lifetime.

LXXIII

Cæsar would not listen to what was said on behalf of Antonius; but as to Cleopatra, he replied that she should not fail to obtain anything that was reasonable if she would kill Antonius or drive him away. He also sent with the ambassadors of Antonius and Cleopatra one Thyrsus,142 a freedman of his, a man not devoid of judgment, nor, as coming from a young general, one who would fail in persuasive address to a haughty woman who was wonderfully proud of her beauty. This man, having longer interviews 335 with Cleopatra than the rest, and being specially honoured, caused Antonius to have suspicions, and he seized and whipped him; and he then sent him back to Cæsar with a letter to the effect that Thyrsus, by giving himself airs and by his insolent behaviour, had irritated him, who was easily irritated by reason of his misfortunes. “But you,” he said, “if you do not like the thing, have my freedman Hipparchus. Hang him up and whip him, that we may be on equal terms.” Upon this Cleopatra, with the view of doing away with his cause of complaint and suspicions, paid more than usual court to Antonius: she kept her own birthday in a mean manner and a way suitable to her condition, but she celebrated the birthday of Antonius with an excess of splendour and cost, so that many of those who were invited to the feast came poor and went away rich. Agrippa143 in the meantime called Cæsar back, frequently writing to him from Rome, and urging that affairs there required his presence.

LXXIV

Accordingly for the time the war was suspended; but when the winter was over, Cæsar advanced through Syria and his generals through Libya. Pelusium was taken, and it was said that Seleukus gave it up, not without the consent of Cleopatra. But Cleopatra surrendered to Antonius the wife and children of Seleukus to be put to death; and as she had a tomb and a monument constructed of unusual beauty and height, which she had built close to the temple of Isis, she collected there the most precious of the royal treasures, gold, silver, emeralds, pearls, ebony, ivory, and cinnamon, and also a great quantity of fire-wood and tow; so that Cæsar, being afraid about the money, lest Cleopatra becoming desperate should destroy and burn the wealth, kept continually forwarding to her hopes of friendly treatment while he was advancing with his army against the city. When Cæsar had taken his position near the hippodrome, Antonius sallied forth 336and fought gallantly, and he put Cæsar’s cavalry to flight and pursued them to the camp. Elated with his victory, he entered the palace and embraced Cleopatra in his armour, and presented to her one of the soldiers who had fought most bravely. Cleopatra gave the soldier as a reward of his courage a golden breastplate and a helmet. The man took them, and in the night deserted to Cæsar.

LXXV

Again, Antonius sent to Cæsar and challenged him to single combat. Cæsar replied that Antonius had many ways of dying, on which Antonius, reflecting that there was no better mode of death for him than in battle, determined to try a land battle and a naval battle at the same time. And at supper, it is said, he bade the slaves to pour out and feast him cheerfully, for it was uncertain whether they would do that on the morrow or would be serving other masters, while he should lie a corpse and should be a nothing. Seeing that his friends shed tears at his words, he said that he would not lead them out to a battle from which he would seek for himself a glorious death rather than safety and victory. During this night, it is said, about the middle thereof, while the city was quiet and depressed through fear and expectation of the future, all at once certain harmonious sounds from all kinds of instruments were heard, and shouts of a crowd with Evoes144 and satyric leapings, as if some company of revellers not without noise were going out of the city; and the course of the procession seemed to be through the middle of the city to the gate leading outwards in the direction of the enemy, and at this point the tumult made its way out, being loudest there. And those who reflected on the sign were of opinion that the god to whom Antonius all along most likened himself and most claimed kinship with was deserting him.

LXXVI145

At daybreak Antonius posted his troops on the hills in front of the city, and watched his ships, which were 337put in motion and advancing against those of the enemy; and as he expected to see something great done by them, he remained quiet. But when the men of Antonius came near, they saluted with their oars Cæsar’s men, and as they returned the salute, the men of Antonius changed sides, and the fleet becoming one by the junction of all the ships, sailed with the vessels’ heads turned against the city. As soon as Antonius saw this, he was deserted by the cavalry, who changed sides, and being defeated with his infantry he retired into the city, crying out that he was betrayed by Cleopatra to those with whom he was warring on her account. Cleopatra, fearing his anger and despair, fled to the tomb and let down the folding doors which were strengthened with bars and bolts; and she sent persons to Antonius to inform him that she was dead. Antonius, believing the intelligence, said to himself, “Why dost thou still delay, Antonius? fortune has taken away the sole remaining excuse for clinging to life.” He then entered his chamber, and loosing his body armour and taking it in pieces, he said: “Cleopatra, I am not grieved at being deprived of thee, for I shall soon come to the same place with thee; but I am grieved that I, such an Imperator, am shown to be inferior to a woman in courage.” Now Antonius had a faithful slave named Eros, whom he had long before exhorted, if the necessity should arise, to kill him; and he now claimed the performance of the promise. Eros drew his sword and held it out as if he were going to strike his master, but he turned away his face and killed himself. As Eros fell at his master’s feet Antonius said, “Well done, Eros, though you are not able to do this for me, you teach me what I ought to do;” and piercing himself through the belly he threw himself on the bed. But the wound was not immediately mortal; and accordingly, as the flow of blood ceased when he lay down, he came to himself and requested the bystanders to finish him. But they fled from the chamber while he was calling out and writhing in pain, till Diomedes the secretary came from Cleopatra with orders to convey him to her to the tomb.

LXXVII146

When he learned that she was alive, he eagerly commanded his slaves to take him up, and he was 338carried in their arms to the doors of the chamber. Cleopatra did not open the doors, but she appeared at a window, from which she let down cords and ropes; and when the slaves below had fastened Antonius to them, she drew him up with the aid of the two women whom alone she had admitted into the tomb with her. Those who were present say that there never was a more piteous sight; for stained with blood and struggling with death he was hauled up, stretching out his hands to her, while he was suspended in the air. For the labour was not light for women, and Cleopatra with difficulty, holding with her hands and straining the muscles of her face, pulled up the rope, while those who were below encouraged her and shared in her agony. When she had thus got him in and laid him down, she rent her garments over him, and beating her breasts and scratching them with her hands, and wiping the blood off him with her face, she called him master and husband and Imperator; and she almost forgot her own misfortunes through pity for his. Antonius, stopping her lamentations, asked for wine to drink, whether it was that he was thirsty or that he expected to be released more speedily. When he had drunk it, he advised her, if it could be done with decency, to look after the preservation of her own interests, and to trust to Procleius147 most of the companions of Cæsar; and not to lament him for his last reverses, but to think him happy for the good things that he had obtained, having become the most illustrious of men and had the greatest power, and now not ignobly a Roman by a Roman vanquished.

LXXVIII

Just as Antonius died, Procleius came from Cæsar;148 for after Antonius had wounded himself and was carried to Cleopatra, Derketæus, one of his guards, taking his dagger and concealing it, secretly made his way from the palace, and running to Cæsar, was the first to report the death of Antonius, and he showed the blood-stained dagger. When Cæsar heard the news, he retired within 339his tent and wept for a man who had been related to him by marriage, and his colleague in command, and his companion in many struggles and affairs. He then took the letters that had passed between him and Antonius, and calling his friends, read them, in order to show in what a reasonable and fair tone he had written himself, and how arrogant and insolent Antonius had always been in his answers. Upon this he sent Procleius with orders, if possible, above all things to secure Cleopatra alive; for he was afraid about the money, and he thought it a great thing for the glory of his triumph to lead her in the procession. However Cleopatra would not put herself in the hands of Procleius; but they talked together while he was standing on the outside close to the building near a door on a level with the ground, which was firmly secured, but allowed a passage for the voice. In their conversation Cleopatra entreated that her children might have the kingdom, and Procleius bade her be of good cheer and trust to Cæsar in all things.

LXXIX

After Procleius had inspected the place and reported to Cæsar, Gallus149 was sent to have another interview with her; and having come to the door he purposely prolonged the conversation. In the meantime Procleius applied a ladder and got through the window by which the women took in Antonius; and he immediately went down with two slaves to the door at which Cleopatra stood with her attention directed to Gallus. One of the women who were shut up with Cleopatra called out, “Wretched Cleopatra, you are taken alive,” on which she turned round, and seeing Procleius, attempted to stab herself, for she happened to have by her side a dagger such as robbers wear: but Procleius, quickly running up to her and holding her with both his hands, said, “You wrong yourself, Cleopatra, and Cæsar too by attempting to deprive him of the opportunity of a noble display of magnanimity and to fix on the mildest of commanders the 340stigma of faithlessness and implacability.” At the same time he took away her dagger and shook her dress to see if she concealed any poison. There was also sent from Cæsar one of his freedmen, Epaphroditus, whose orders were to watch over her life with great care, but as to the rest to give way in all things that would make her most easy and be most agreeable to her.

LXXX

Cæsar entered the city talking with Areius the philosopher, and he had given Areius150 his right hand, that he might forthwith be conspicuous among the citizens and be admired on account of the special respect that he received from Cæsar. Entering the gymnasium and ascending a tribunal that was made for him, the people the while being terror-struck and falling down before him, he bade them get up, and he said that he acquitted the people of all blame, first on account of the founder Alexander, second because he admired the beauty and magnitude of the city, and third, to please his friend Areius. Such honour Areius obtained from Cæsar, and he got the pardon of many others; and among them was Philostratus,151 a man of all sophists the most competent to speak on the sudden, but one who claimed to be of the Academy without just grounds. Wherefore Cæsar, who abominated his habits, would not listen to his entreaties. But Philostratus, letting his white beard grow and putting on a dark vest, followed behind Areius, continually uttering this verse:

Wise save the wise, if wise indeed they be.

Cæsar hearing of this, pardoned Philostratus, wishing rather to release Areius from odium than Philostratus from fear.

LXXXI

Of the children of Antonius, Antyllus,152 the son of Fulvia, was given up by his pædagogus Theodorus and put to death; and when the soldiers had cut off his head, 341the pædagogus took the most precious stone which he wore about his neck and sewed it in his belt; and though he denied the fact, he was convicted of it and crucified. The children of Cleopatra were guarded together with those who had charge of them, and they had a liberal treatment; but as to Cæsarion, who was said to be Cleopatra’s son by Cæsar, her mother sent him to India with much treasure by way of Ethiopia; but another pædagogus like Theodorus, named Rhodon, persuaded him to return, saying that Cæsar invited him to take the kingdom. While Cæsar was deliberating about Cæsarion, it is said that Areius observed: “Tis no good thing, a multitude of Cæsars.”153

LXXXII

Now Cæsar put Cæsarion to death after the death of Cleopatra. Though many asked for the body of Antonius to bury it, both kings and commanders, Cæsar did not take it from Cleopatra, but it was interred by her own hands sumptuously and royally, and she received for that purpose all that she wished. In consequence of so much grief and pain, for her breasts were inflamed by the blows that she had inflicted and were sore, and a fever coming on, she gladly availed herself of this pretext for abstaining from food and with the design of releasing herself from life without hindrance. There was a physician with whom she was familiar, Olympus, to whom she told the truth, and she had him for her adviser and assistant in accomplishing her death, as Olympus said in a history of these transactions which he published. Cæsar suspecting her design, plied her with threats and alarms about her children, by which Cleopatra was thrown down as by engines of war, and she gave up her body to be treated and nourished as it was wished.

LXXXIII

Cæsar himself came a few days after to see her and pacify her.154 Cleopatra happened to be lying on a 342mattress meanly dressed, and as he entered she sprang up in a single vest and fell at his feet with her head and face in the greatest disorder, her voice trembling and her eyes weakened by weeping. There were also visible many marks of the blows inflicted on her breast; and in fine her body seemed in no respect to be in better plight than her mind. Yet that charm and that saucy confidence in her beauty were not completely extinguished, but, though she was in such a condition, shone forth from within and showed themselves in the expression of her countenance. When Cæsar had bid her lie down and had seated himself near her, she began to touch upon a kind of justification, and endeavoured to turn all that had happened upon necessity and fear of Antonius; but as Cæsar on each point met her with an answer, being confuted, she all at once changed her manner to move him by pity and by prayers, as a person would do who clung most closely to life. Finally she handed to him a list of all the treasures that she had; and when Seleukus, one of her stewards, declared that she was hiding and secreting some things, she sprang up and laying hold of his hair, belaboured him with many blows on the face. As Cæsar smiled and stopped her, she said, “But is it not scandalous, Cæsar, that you have condescended to come to me and speak to me in my wretched condition, and my slaves make it a matter of charge against me if I have reserved some female ornaments, not for myself forsooth, wretch that I am, but that I may give a few things to Octavia and your wife Livia, and so through their means make you more favourable to me and more mild.” Cæsar was pleased with these words, being fully assured that she wished to live. Accordingly, after saying that he left these matters to her care and that in everything else he would behave to her better than she expected, he went away, thinking that he had deceived her; but he had deceived himself.

LXXXIV

Now there was Cornelius Dolabella,155 a343 youth of rank, and one of the companions156 of Cæsar. He was not without a certain liking towards Cleopatra; and now, in order to gratify her request, he secretly sent and informed her that Cæsar himself was going to march with his troops through Syria, and that he had determined to send off her with her children on the third day. On hearing this, Cleopatra first entreated Cæsar to permit her to pour libations on the tomb of Antonius; and when Cæsar permitted it, she went to the tomb, and embracing the coffin in company with the women who were usually about her, said, “Dear Antonius, I buried thee recently with hands still free, but now I pour out libations as a captive and so watched that I cannot either with blows or sorrow disfigure this body of mine now made a slave and preserved to form a part in the triumph over thee. But expect not other honours or libations, for these are the last which Cleopatra brings. Living, nothing kept us asunder, but there is a risk of our changing places in death; thou a Roman, lying buried here, and I, wretched woman, in Italy, getting only as much of thy country as will make me a grave. But if indeed there is any help and power in the gods there (for the gods of this country have deserted us), do not deliver thy wife up alive, and let not thyself be triumphed over in me, but hide me here with thee and bury thee with me; for though I have ten thousand ills, not one of them is so great and grievous as this short time which I have lived apart from thee!”

LXXXV

After making this lamentation and crowning and embracing the coffin, she ordered a bath to be prepared for her. After bathing, she lay down and enjoyed a splendid banquet. And there came one from the country bringing a basket; and on the guards asking what he brought, the man opened it, and taking off the leaves showed the vessel full of figs. The soldiers admiring their beauty and size, the man smiled and told them to take some, whereon, without having any suspicion, they bade him carry them in. After feasting, Cleopatra took 344a tablet, which was already written, and sent it sealed to Cæsar, and, causing all the rest of her attendants to withdraw except those two women, she closed the door. As soon as Cæsar157 opened the tablet and found in it the prayers and lamentations of Cleopatra, who begged him to bury her with Antonius, he saw what had taken place. At first he was for setting out himself to give help, but the next thing that he did was to send persons with all speed to inquire. But the tragedy had been speedy; for, though they ran thither and found the guards quite ignorant of everything, as soon as they opened the door they saw Cleopatra lying dead on a golden couch in royal attire. Of her two women, Eiras was dying at her feet, and Charmion, already staggering and drooping her head, was arranging the diadem on the forehead of Cleopatra. One of them saying in passion, “A good deed this, Charmion;” “Yes, most goodly,” she replied, “and befitting the descendant of so many kings.” She spake not another word, but fell there by the side of the couch.

LXXXVI

Now it is said that the asp was brought with 345those figs and leaves, and was covered with them; for that Cleopatra had so ordered, that the reptile might fasten on her body without her being aware of it. But when she had taken up some of the figs and saw it, she said, “Here then it is,” and baring her arm, she offered it to the serpent to bite. Others say that the asp was kept in a water-pitcher, and that Cleopatra drew it out with a golden distaff and irritated it till the reptile sprang upon her arm and clung to it. But the real truth nobody knows; for it was also said that she carried poison about her in a hollow comb, which she concealed in her hair; however, no spots broke out on her body, nor any other sign of poison. Nor yet was the reptile seen within the palace; but some said that they observed certain marks of its trail near the sea, in that part towards which the chamber looked and the windows were. Some also say that the arm of Cleopatra was observed to have two small indistinct punctures; and it seems that Cæsar believed this, for in the triumph a figure of Cleopatra was carried with the asp clinging to her. Such is the way in which these events are told. Though Cæsar was vexed at the death of Cleopatra, he admired her nobleness of mind, and he ordered the body to be interred with that of Antonius in splendid and royal style. The women of Cleopatra also received honourable interment by his orders. Cleopatra at the time of her death was forty years of age save one, and she had reigned as queen two-and-twenty years, and governed together with Antonius more than fourteen. Antonius, according to some, was six years, according to others, three years above fifty. Now the statues of Antonius were thrown down, but those of Cleopatra remained standing, for Archibius, one of her friends, gave Cæsar two thousand talents that they might not share the same fate as those of Antonius.

LXXXVII

Antonius by his three wives left seven children, of whom Antyllus, the eldest, was the only one[Pg 346]
[Pg 347] who was put to death by Cæsar; the rest Octavia158 took and brought them up with her own children. Cleopatra, the daughter of Cleopatra, she married to Juba, the most accomplished of kings; and Antonius, the son of Fulvia, she raised so high that, while Agrippa held the first place in Cæsar’s estimation, and the sons of Livia the second, Antonius had and was considered to have the third. Octavia had by Marcellus two daughters, and one son, Marcellus, whom Cæsar made both his son and son-in-law, and he gave one of the daughters to Agrippa. But as Marcellus died very soon after his marriage, and it was not easy for Cæsar to choose from the rest of his friends a son-in-law whom he could trust, Octavia proposed to him that Agrippa should take Cæsar’s daughter and put away her daughter. Cæsar was first persuaded and then Agrippa, whereupon Octavia took her own daughter back and married her to Antonius; and Agrippa married Cæsar’s daughter. There were two daughters of Antonius and Octavia, of whom Domitius Ænobarbus took one to wife; and the other, who was famed for her virtues and her beauty, Antonia, was married to Drusus, the son of Livia, and step-son of Cæsar. From the marriage of Drusus and Antonia came Germanicus and Claudius, of whom Claudius afterwards ruled; and of the children of Germanicus, Caius, who ruled with distinction for no long time, was destroyed together with his child and wife; and Agrippina, who had by Ænobarbus a son, Lucius Domitius, married Claudius Cæsar; and Claudius adopting her son, named him Nero Germanicus. Nero, who ruled in my time, slew his mother, and through his violence and madness came very near subverting the supremacy of Rome, being the fifth from Antonius in the order of succession.

348

COMPARISON OF
DEMETRIUS AND ANTONIUS.

I

Since, then, great changes of fortune took place in each of their lives, let us first consider their power and renown. The position of Demetrius was inherited and already made for him, as Antigonus was the most powerful of the successors of Alexander, and, before Demetrius came of age, had overrun and conquered the greater part of Asia: while Antonius, whose father, though an excellent man, was no soldier, and left him no renown, yet dared to seize upon the empire of Cæsar, with which he was in no way connected, and constituted himself the heir of what Cæsar had won by the sword. Starting as a mere private person, he raised himself to such a height of power as to be able to divide the world into two, and to select and obtain the fairer half for his own, while, without his being even present, his lieutenants and agents inflicted several defeats upon the Parthians, and conquered all the nations of Asia as far as the Caspian Sea. Even that for which he is especially reproached proves the greatness of his power. Demetrius’s father was well pleased at getting Phila, the daughter of Antipater, as a wife for his son, in spite of the disparity of their ages, because he regarded her as his son’s superior; while it was thought to be a disgrace for Antonius to ally himself with Cleopatra, a woman who excelled in power and renown all the Kings of her age, except Arsakes himself. Antonius had made himself so great that men thought him entitled to more even than he himself desired.

II

Demetrius, however, cannot be blamed for attempting to make himself king over a people accustomed to servitude, while it appeared harsh and tyrannical for Antonius to try to enslave the people of Rome just 349after they had been set free from the rule of Cæsar: and the greatest of his exploits, the war against Brutus and Cassius, was waged with the intention of depriving his countrymen of their liberty. Demetrius, before he became involved in difficulties, used always to act as a liberator towards Greece, and to drive out the foreign garrisons from her cities, and did not act like Antonius, who boasted that he had slain the would-be liberators of Rome in Macedonia. And though Antonius is especially commended for his magnificent generosity, yet Demetrius so far surpassed him as to bestow more upon his enemies than Antonius would upon his friends. It is true that Antonius gained great credit for having caused Brutus to be honourably buried; but Demetrius buried all his enemy’s slain, gave money and presents to his prisoners, and sent them back to Ptolemy.

III

Both were arrogant when in prosperity, and set no bounds to their luxury and pleasures. Yet it cannot be said that Demetrius was ever so immersed in enjoyments as to let slip the time for action, but he only dedicated the superfluity of his leisure to enjoyment, and used his Lamia, like the mythical nightmare, only when he was half asleep or at play. When he was preparing for war, no ivy wreathed his spear, no perfume scented his helmet, nor did he go forth from his bed-chamber to battle covered with finery, but, as Euripides says, he laid the Bacchic wand aside, and served the unhallowed god of war, and, indeed, never suffered any reverse through his own carelessness or love of pleasure. But just as in pictures we often see Omphale stealing the club and stripping off the lion’s skin from Herakles, so Cleopatra frequently would disarm Antonius and turn his mind to pleasure, persuading him to give up mighty enterprises and even necessary campaigns to wander and sport with her on the shores of Canopus and beside the tomb of Osiris. At last, like Paris, he fled from battle to nestle on her breast, though Paris only took refuge in his chamber after he had been defeated in battle, while Antonius, by his pursuit of Cleopatra, gave up his chance of victory.

IV

Moreover, in marrying several wives, Demetrius did not break through any custom, for he only did 350what had been usual for the kings of Macedonia since the days of Philip and Alexander, and what was done by Lysimachus and Ptolemy in his own time; and he showed due respect to all his wives; while Antonius, in the first place, married two wives at the same time, which no Roman had ever dared to do before, and then drove away his own countrywoman and his legitimate wife to please a foreigner, and one to whom he was not legally married. Yet with all his excesses Antonius was never led by his vices into such sacrilegious impiety as is recorded of Demetrius. We are told that no dogs are allowed to enter the Acropolis,1 because these animals copulate more openly than any others; but Demetrius consorted with harlots in the very temple of the virgin goddess, and debauched many of the Athenian citizens, while, although one would have imagined that a man of such a temperament would be especially averse to cruelty, Demetrius must be charged with this in allowing, or rather compelling, the most beautiful and modest of the Athenians to suffer death in order to avoid outrage. To sum up, the vices of Antonius were ruinous to himself, while those of Demetrius were ruinous to others.

V

Yet Demetrius always behaved well to his parents, whereas Antonius allowed his mother’s brother to perish in order that he might compass the death of Cicero, which was of itself so odious a crime that we should scarcely think Antonius justified if by Cicero’s death he had saved his uncle’s life. With regard to the perjuries and breaking of their words which they both committed, the one in seizing Artabazus, and the other in murdering Alexander, Antonius has a satisfactory defence; for he himself was first deserted and betrayed by Artabazus in Media: while many writers say that Demetrius himself invented false pretexts for his treatment of Alexander, and accused a man whom he had wronged with a design on his life, instead of defending himself against one who was already his enemy. Again, the exploits of Demetrius were all accomplished by himself in person; while, on the other hand, Antonius won some of his most important battles by his lieutenants, without himself being present.

351

VI

The ruin of both was due to themselves, though in a different manner, for the Macedonians deserted from Demetrius, while Antonious deserted his own troops when they were risking their lives in his defence; so that we must blame the former for having rendered his army so hostile to him, and the latter for betraying so much loyalty and devotion. In their manner of death neither can be praised, but that of Demetrius seems the less creditable of the two, for he endured to be taken prisoner, and when in confinement willingly spent three years in drinking and gluttony, like a wild beast that has been tamed; while Antonius, though he killed himself like a coward, and in a piteous and dishonourable fashion, nevertheless died before he fell into the hands of his enemy.

352

LIFE OF
DION.

I

We are told by the poet Simonides, Sossius Senecio, that the Trojans bore no malice against the Corinthians for joining the rest of the Greeks in the siege of Troy, because Glaukus, who was himself of Corinthian extraction, fought heartily on their side. In the same manner we may expect that neither Greeks nor Romans will be able to blame the doctrines of the academy, as each nation derives equal credit from their practice in this book of mine, which contains the lives of Brutus and Dion, of whom the latter was Plato’s intimate friend, while the former was educated by his writings: so that they were both, as it were, sent forth from the same school to contend for the greatest prizes. It is not surprising, therefore, that there should be a great similarity between their respective achievements, or that they should have proved the truth of that maxim of their teacher, that nothing great or noble can be effected in politics except when a wise and just man is possessed of absolute power combined with good fortune. Just as Hippomachus the gymnastic trainer used to declare that he could always tell by their carriage those who had been his pupils, even though he only saw them from a distance when they were carrying meat home for their dinner, so we may imagine that philosophy accompanies those who have been brought up in its precepts in every action of their lives, adding a happy grace and fitness to all that they do.

II

Their lives resemble one another even more in their misfortunes than in the objects at which they aimed. Both of them perished by an untimely fate, unable, with all their mighty efforts, to accomplish the object which they had in view. The most remarkable point of all is 353that they both received a supernatural warning of their death by the appearance to them of an evil spirit in a dream. Yet it is a common argument with those who deny the truth of such matters that no man of sense ever could see a ghost or spirit but that it is only children and women and men who are wandering in their mind through sickness, who through disorder of the brain or distemperature of the body are subject to these vain and ominous fancies, which really arise from the evil spirit of superstition within themselves. If, however, Dion and Brutus, both of whom were serious and philosophic men, not at all liable to be mistaken or easy to be deceived about such matters, did really experience a supernatural visitation so distinctly that they told other persons about it, I do not know whether we may not be obliged to adopt that strangest of all the theories of the ancients that evil and malignant spirits feel a spite against good men, and try to oppose their actions, throwing confusion and terror in their way in order to shake them in their allegiance to virtue; because they fear lest if they passed their lives entirely pure and without spot of sin, they might after death obtain a higher place than themselves. This, however, I must reserve for discussion in another place; and now, in this my twelfth book of parallel lives, I will first proceed to deal with the elder man of the two.

III

Dionysius the elder, as soon as he had raised himself to the throne, married the daughter of Hermokrates of Syracuse. However, as his power was not yet firmly established, the people of Syracuse rose in revolt, and committed such shocking outrages upon the person of Dionysius’s wife, that she voluntarily put herself to death. Dionysius, after recovering and confirming his power, now married two wives at the same time, one of whom was a Lokrian, named Doris, and the other a native of Syracuse, named Aristomache, the daughter of Hipparinus, one of the first men in Syracuse, who had acted as colleague with Dionysius himself when he was appointed to the command of the army with unlimited powers. It is said that he married them both upon the same day, and that no man knew which he visited first; and of the remainder of his life he spent an equal share of his time with each,354 as he always supped in company with both of them, and spent the night with each in turn. The populace of Syracuse would fain have hoped that their countrywoman would be preferred to the stranger; but it was the stranger who first bore a son and heir to Dionysius, to counterbalance her foreign parentage; while Aristomache remained childless for a long time, although Dionysius was anxious to have a family by her, and even put to death the mother of his Lokrian wife on a charge of having bewitched her.

IV

Dion was the brother of Aristomache, and at first was treated with respect for the sake of his sister, but afterwards, when he had given proofs of his ability, he gained the favour of the despot by his own good qualities. Besides many other privileges, Dionysius ordered his treasurers to give Dion anything that he might ask for, letting him know on the same day what they had given him. He was naturally of a high minded and manly disposition, and he was greatly encouraged in the path of virtue by the providential accident of Plato’s visit to Sicily. This never could have been calculated upon according to human ideas of probability; but it seems as though some divinity, who had long been meditating how to put liberty within the reach of the Syracusans and to free them from despotism, must have brought Plato from Italy to Syracuse, and caused Dion to become his disciple. Dion at this time was very young, but was by far the most apt of Plato’s scholars, and the readiest to follow out his master’s instructions in virtue. This we learn from Plato’s own account of him, and from the circumstances of the case. Brought up as Dion had been in the humble position of a subject under a despotic ruler, his life had been full of sudden alarms and violent alternations of fortune; yet, though he was at this time accustomed to live in a state of parvenu splendour, and to regard pleasure and power as the only objects of desire, he, as soon as he had become acquainted with philosophic reasoning and exhortation to virtue, became passionately interested in it. With the guileless innocence of youth he imagined that the discourses which he had heard would produce an equally deep impression upon the mind 355of Dionysius, and took considerable pains to bring Dionysius to meet Plato and listen to his arguments.

V

When the meeting took place, Plato chose for his subject human virtue, and discussed more particularly the virtue of manly courage, proving that despots are the most cowardly of men. From this he went on to speak of justice, and as he pointed out that the life of the just is happy, and that of the unjust miserable, Dionysius, who considered the lecture as a reproach to himself, was much exasperated, especially when he observed how all the audience admired Plato and were enchanted by his rhetoric. At last in a rage he asked him why he had come to Sicily: and when Plato answered that he had come in order to find a good man, Dionysius caught up his words, and said, “You seem hitherto not to have found one.”

Dion and his friends imagined that this outburst marked the end of Dionysius’s indignation; and as Plato was now anxious to leave Sicily they obtained a passage for him on board of a trireme which was about to convey home Pollis, the Lacedæmonian envoy. Dionysius however secretly besought Pollis to put Plato to death during the voyage, or at any rate to sell him for a slave, because, he said, Plato, according to his own showing, would be none the worse off for being a slave, but would be just as happy, provided that he was just. In consequence of this we are told that Pollis took Plato to Ægina and there sold him, because the people of Ægina were at that time at war with the Athenians, and had passed a decree that any Athenian found in Ægina should be sold for a slave.1 Yet Dion was no less honoured and trusted by Dionysius in consequence of this, but was entrusted with the management of the most important negotiations, and was himself sent as ambassador to Carthage, in which capacity he gained great credit. Indeed he was almost the only person whom Dionysius allowed freely to speak his mind, as is proved by the reproof which he gave Dionysius about Gelon. It appeals that Dionysius was sneering at Gelon and his kingdom, and saying that he was the laughing-stock of 356Sicily. All the other courtiers pretended to approve of this jest, but Dion harshly answered, “Yet you have been allowed to become our despot because of the good example set by Gelon; but your example will not encourage any state to imitate us.” In truth Gelon’s conduct as an absolute monarch seems to have been just as admirable as that of Dionysius was detestable.

VI

Dionysius had three children by his Lokrian wife, and four by Aristomache. Of his two daughters, Sophrosyne married her half-brother, and Arete married Thearides, the brother of Dionysius, but on the death of Thearides Dion took Arete, who was his own niece, for his wife. In Dionysius’s last illness, when his life was despaired of, Dion wished to ask him what was to become of the children of Aristomache, but the physicians, who wished to pay their court to the heir to the throne, would not allow Dion an opportunity of doing so. Timæus even states that when Dionysius asked for a sleeping draught they gave him one which rendered him completely insensible, so that he passed from sleep into death. However, as soon as the young Dionysius assembled his friends in council, Dion made such an admirable speech upon the political situation that all the others appeared by his side to be mere children in intellect, and their words seemed to be those of slaves and grovelling flatterers of the despot when compared with his bold and fearless utterances. He impressed upon their minds the greatness of the danger by which they were menaced by Carthage, and promised that if Dionysius wished for peace he himself would at once set sail for Africa and obtain the best terms he could; or that, if he preferred to fight, he would place at his disposal a force of fifty triremes, which he would maintain at his own expense.

VII

Dionysius greatly admired his magnanimity and approved of his zeal; but the others, who thought that they were eclipsed by Dion, and were jealous of his power, at once set to work to effect his ruin, and lost no opportunity of exasperating the young despot against him by pointing out that he was plotting to obtain the supreme throne by means of the fleet, and that his object in making the offer of the ships was to place all real power in the hands 357of the children of Aristomache. Their hate and jealousy of Dion was chiefly owing to the proud reserve of his life, so different to their own: for they at once began to court the friendship of their young and ill-trained monarch by offering him all kinds of flatteries and pleasures, endeavouring to amuse his leisure by vagrant amours, drinking parties, and the like dissolute pastimes, which blunted the excessive sharpness of his tyranny, and made his subjects regard it as milder and less ferocious than before, although the alteration was due only to the laziness and not to the real goodness of their ruler. By slow degrees the extravagance and licentious life of the young monarch relaxed and broke those “chains of adamant” by which the elder Dionysius boasted that he had secured his power. We are told that he once continued drinking for ninety days in succession, and that during the whole of this time his court was a place which no respectable person could enter, and where no business could be transacted, as it was a constant scene of singing, jesting, dancing, drunkenness and debauchery.

VIII

As may easily be imagined, Dion soon lost the favour of the monarch, as he never relaxed the austerity of his life. For this reason the calumnies of infamous men were more easily believed by Dionysius, when they attacked the virtues of Dion, calling his pride arrogance, and his boldness of speech churlishness. When he gave good advice he was thought to reproach them, and because he refused to join in their excesses, he seemed to despise them. Indeed, his disposition was naturally inclined to haughtiness, and his manners harsh and forbidding. It was not only to a young man whose ears were accustomed to flatteries that he appeared so ungracious and harsh-tempered, but even those who were sincerely attached to him, and who admired the noble simplicity of his character, used to blame his discourtesy and rudeness towards those with whom he was brought in contact upon political business. Indeed, not long after this, Plato, as if prophetically, wrote to him, warning him against a stubborn and arrogant temper, the consort of a lonely life. Yet, even at that time, though Dion was regarded as the most able man in the state, and was thought to be the only 358person who could save the kingdom from the dangers by which it was menaced, he knew well that his honourable and powerful position was not due to any love which the monarch bore him, but merely to the fact that he could not do without him.

IX

As Dion imagined that this must be caused by Dionysius’s want of education, he endeavoured to interest him in literature, and to form his character by the study of philosophy and science. Indeed Dionysius was far from being a stupid ruler, but his father, fearing that if he were educated, and frequented the society of intellectual men, he would certainly plot against him and seize his throne, used to keep him shut up at home, where, through want of companionship and ignorance, he was forced, we are told, to amuse himself by making little waggons and lamps, and wooden chairs and tables; for the elder Dionysius was so distrustful and suspicious of all men, and was driven by his fears to take such precautions against assassination, that he would not even allow his hair to be cut with a barber’s tools, but a workman used to come and singe his hair with a live coal. Neither his brother nor his son was allowed to enter his house in their ordinary dress, but were obliged to take off their clothes and put on others, so that they might be seen naked by the guard. Once when his brother Leptines, describing the situation of some place, took a spear from one of the life-guards and with it drew a map upon the floor, Dionysius was furiously angry with him, and put to death the man who gave him the spear. He used to say that he suspected all his friends, because he knew that they were sensible men, who would prefer to be despots themselves rather than live under the rule of a despot. He put to death one Marsyas, whom he had himself promoted to a responsible post, because he dreamed that he was killing him; for Dionysius argued that his dream must have been suggested by some thoughts or talk in his waking hours. To such a condition of terror and misery was he reduced by his cowardice, although he was angry with Plato for not declaring him to be the bravest of men.

X

Dion, perceiving, as has been said before, that the character of the young Dionysius had been ruined by 359his want of education, begged him to educate himself, to offer all possible inducements to the first of philosophers to visit Sicily, and when he came, to place himself in his hands, in order that his character might be exalted by the contemplation of virtue, and formed upon the noblest of models, which alone can produce order out of chaos; by which means he would not only gain great happiness for himself, but would bestow great happiness upon the citizens by his mild and just paternal rule, thus becoming a true king instead of a despot. He pointed out that the “adamantine chains” by which Dionysius’s father boasted that his dominion was secured, were not terror and force, the numbers of his ships of war, or the thousands of his barbarian mercenaries, but rather the goodwill, loyalty, and gratitude engendered by virtue and justice, which, though softer than those rough defences, would nevertheless establish his rule far more securely than they. Besides these considerations he urged that it was a sorry thing, and showed a want of proper ambition for a ruler to be splendidly dressed and luxuriously lodged, but yet to be no more intellectual in his conversation and arguments than any ordinary man, and to neglect to adorn the palace of his soul as became a king.

XI

As Dion frequently urged these considerations, and quoted several of Plato’s discourses, Dionysius became passionately desirous of seeing and conversing with Plato. Many letters were at once sent to Athens by Dionysius, while Plato also received many injunctions from Dion and from several of the Pythagorean philosophers in Italy, bidding him go to Syracuse, undertake the guidance of the mind of this young and powerful ruler, and fill it with serious thoughts. Plato obeyed their invitation, chiefly, he tells us, because he feared to appear a mere man of words, unwilling to take in hand any real work, and also because he hoped that if he could purify the mind of the chief, he might through him influence for good the whole of the corrupt people of Sicily. The opponents of Dion, who feared the results of any change in the character of Dionysius, prevailed upon him to recall from exile Philistus, a man of intellectual culture and an experienced courtier, in order 360to make use of him as a counterpoise to Plato and his philosophy. Indeed, Philistus had zealously assisted in the establishment of the despotism, and for a long time had acted as chief of the garrison of the citadel. There was also a report that he had been the favoured lover of the mother of the elder Dionysius, and that, too, not altogether without the knowledge of the despot; for when Leptines, without telling Dionysius of it, gave Philistus for his wife one of the two daughters which had been born to him by a woman whom he had seduced while she was married to another man, and who afterwards lived with him, Dionysius was very angry, caused the wife of Leptines to be imprisoned in chains, and forced Philistus to leave Sicily and take refuge with some friends of his at Adria, where he is thought to have found leisure to write the greater part of his history; for he never returned to Syracuse during the life of the elder Dionysius, but it was after that prince’s death, as has been told, that the opposition to Dion brought him back as being a person more likely to agree with their views and more likely to support the monarchy.

XII

Philistus on his return at once became closely connected with the monarchy; while Dion was assailed by misrepresentations and slanders reported by others to the despot, charging him with having discussed the extinction of despotism with Theodotes and Herakleides. Dion appears to have hoped by the influence of Plato to remove from Dionysius all the arbitrary harshness of a despot, and to make him into an orderly constitutional ruler. If he resisted, and refused to be thus softened and refined, Dion had determined to set him aside, and to restore to the Syracusans their free constitution; not that he was an admirer of democracy, but because he thought that at any rate it was better than a despotism for states which were not ruled by a wise and stable oligarchy.

XIII

While affairs were in this posture, Plato arrived at Sicily and received a most kindly and magnificent welcome. One of the royal carriages, splendidly equipped, stood ready to receive him as he landed, and Dionysius offered sacrifice, as though some great good fortune 361had befallen his rule. The sobriety of the royal banquets, the refined tone of the court and the gentle manners of Dionysius himself in transacting business, all inspired the Syracusans with great hope of a change for the better. It became the fashion to take interest in philosophical matters, and it is said that so many began to study geometry that the palace was filled with the dust in which they drew their figures. In a few days’ time a hereditary sacrifice was celebrated in the palace; and when the herald, according to custom, prayed that the despotism might remain unshaken for many years, it is said that Dionysius, who stood near him, exclaimed: “Will you not cease from imprecating curses upon us?” This greatly grieved the party of Philistus, who feared that Plato’s power over Dionysius would become unassailable, if he were allowed time to become intimate with him, if after so short an acquaintance he had already wrought so great a change in the young man’s ideas.

XIV

They now no longer singly and in secret, but in a body openly assailed Dion, declaring that they could easily see through his motives in bewitching Dionysius with the eloquence of Plato, in order that Dionysius might be induced to voluntarily abdicate his throne, and hand it over to the children of Aristomache, whose uncle Dion was. Some of them even pretended to be angry that, though in former times a great Athenian naval and military force sailed thither and perished before it could effect the conquest of Syracuse, yet now the Athenians should be able, by means of one single sophist, to destroy the throne of Dionysius, and persuade him to desert his ten thousand life-guards, leave his four hundred ships of war, his ten thousand cavalry and many thousands more of infantry soldiers, in order to seek in the Academy for the ineffable good, and find real pleasure in geometry, leaving the pleasures of power, wealth and luxury to be enjoyed by Dion and Dion’s nephews. This led at first to Dion’s being regarded with suspicion, and then, when Dionysius began to show his dislike openly, he received a letter which Dion had secretly despatched to the Carthaginian commanders, warning them, when they came to treat for peace with Dionysius, not to conduct 362 the interview without his being present, as he would see that the whole matter was permanently settled. We are told by Timaeus that Dionysius, after reading this letter to Philistus and having taken counsel with him, deceived Dion by making false offers of reconciliation with him. After much friendly talk, he declared that their differences were at an end, and then, leading him alone towards the sea-shore under the walls of the citadel, showed him the letter, and upbraided him with plotting with the Carthaginians against himself. He would not listen to Dion when he tried to excuse himself, but at once placed him on board of a small vessel and ordered the sailors to land him on the coast of Italy.

XV

Upon this, as Dionysius appeared to have acted very harshly, the whole palace was plunged in grief by the women, while the city of Syracuse became much excited, expecting that the exile of Dion and the mistrust with which others regarded the despot would soon lead to some revolution. Dionysius, perceiving and fearing this, encouraged the women and friends of Dion, speaking of Dion as though he were not banished, but had left the country of his own free will, for fear that if he remained at home his quick temper might betray him into some violent collision with himself. He placed two ships at the disposal of Dion’s relatives, and bade them embark with as much of his property and servants as they pleased and go to rejoin him in Peloponnesus. Dion’s property was very extensive, and his whole household was on a magnificent, almost a royal, scale. Everything was now carried away by his friends, and much more was sent to him by his female relatives and his friends, so that his wealth and magnificence became famous throughout Greece, and the power of the despot became enhanced by the sight of the riches of the exile.

XVI

Dionysius at once removed Plato into the citadel, where, under pretence of showing him kindly respect, he was kept in an honourable captivity, in order that he might not sail away with Dion, a witness of his unjust treatment. By degrees, like a wild animal who gradually becomes used to the touch of human beings, so Dionysius accustomed himself to the society and discourses of Plato,363 and, after the manner of despots, conceived a violent passion for him. He was especially anxious that Plato should return his affection and should approve of his acts, and was even willing to entrust the government and the crown itself to him if he would only not prefer Dion’s friendship to his own. This passion of his caused great annoyance to Plato, for like all true lovers he was furiously jealous and had frequent quarrels and reconciliations with him, being very eager to hear his discourses, and engage in the study of philosophy, and yet being influenced by those who advised him to keep away from Plato, as he would be corrupted by his teaching. Meanwhile, as some war broke out, he sent Plato away, promising that in a year’s time he would recall Dion. This promise he broke at once, but he remitted to Dion the revenues of his estate, and besought Plato to pardon his breach of faith about the time, because of the war; for, as soon as peace should be made, he promised that he would at once send for Dion. He also asked Plato to beg Dion to remain quiet, and not to engage in any revolutionary schemes, and not to traduce his character to the Greeks.

XVII

Plato endeavoured to effect this, and turned Dion’s attention to philosophy, and kept him in the Academy. Dion lived at this time in the city of Athens, in the house of Kallippus, one of his friends, though he also bought an estate in the country for recreation, which, when he subsequently set sail for Sicily, he presented to Speusippus, who, of all the Athenians, was his most intimate friend. This intimacy was brought about by Plato, who hoped that the harshness of Dion’s character might be somewhat softened by the society of a well-bred and cheerful man. Such a person as this was Speusippus, whom we find spoken of in Timon’s Silli as being “good at a jest.” When Plato himself exhibited a chorus of boys, Dion both trained the chorus and defrayed all the expenses, and Plato permitted him to gain this distinction although it was likely to obtain popularity for Dion at his own expense. Dion also visited other cities, where he associated with the best and most statesmanlike of the citizens, and attended their solemn festivals, without ever betraying anything repulsive, affected, or imperious in his manner,364 but acting with manliness and discretion, and discoursing with elegance on philosophy as well as ordinary topics. By this conduct he everywhere gained good opinions, and public honours were decreed to him by various cities, The Lacedæmonians even adopted him as a Spartan, disregarding the anger of Dionysius, though he at the time was zealously assisting them in a war against the Thebans. We are told that once Dion wished to see Ptoiodorus, of Megara, and went to his house. Ptoiodorus, it seems, was a rich and powerful man; and when Dion observed the crowds at his door and the busy throng and saw how hard it was to gain an audience of him, he turned to his friends, who were vexed at this, and said: “Why should we find fault with this man? for we ourselves used to do just the same thing at Syracuse?”

XVIII

As time went on, Dionysius, feeling jealous of Dion, and fearing the popularity which he was obtaining among the Greeks, left off forwarding his revenues to him and confiscated his property. Being desirous of effacing the bad impression which he had made upon all philosophers by his treatment of Plato, he collected round him many men who had a reputation for learning. As he wished to surpass them all in argument, he was forced to make use, often improperly, of what he had very imperfectly learned from Plato. He now again began to wish for Plato, and blamed himself for not having made use of him when he was present, and for not having listened to all his noble language. Frantic in his desires, and impatient to obtain whatever he wished, as despots are, he at once set his heart upon Plato and tried every means to attract him. He induced Archytas and the other successors of the original Pythagorean philosophers to invite Plato; for it was by means of Plato that Dionysius had at first become their friend. They sent Archedemus to Plato, and Dionysius also despatched a trireme and several of his friends to entreat Plato to come: while he himself wrote a letter in which he distinctly stated that Dion would never get his rights if Plato refused to come to Sicily, but that if he would, Dion should receive them all. Many letters also reached Dion from his sister and his wife, urging him to beg Plato to accede to the 365request of Dionysius, and not afford him grounds for ill-treating them. Thus, they say, it was that Plato came to sail a third time into the straits of Scylla.

“Again the dread Charybdis to explore.”

XIX

His arrival afforded unbounded delight to Dionysius, and again filled Sicily with great hopes; for all men prayed and were eager that Plato and philosophy should get the better of Philistus and despotism. He was treated with great respect by the ladies,2 and received from Dionysius a mark of confidence which was accorded to no one else, in being allowed to come into his presence without his clothes being searched. As Dionysius frequently offered valuable presents to Plato, who never would receive them, Aristippus of Cyrene, who was present, observed that Dionysius exercised a very cheap generosity; for he gave small presents to himself and to others who wished for more, and offered great ones to Plato, who would not accept of any. When, however, after the first welcome was over, Plato began to speak of Dion, Dionysius at first put off discussing the subject, and subsequently reproaches and quarrels took place between them, of which no one else was aware, since Dionysius kept them secret, and by showing Plato assiduous attentions and marks of respect tried to win him over from his friendship for Dion. Plato, too, at first would not publish what he knew of the treachery and falsehood of Dionysius, but affected not to perceive it and endured it in silence. While they were on these terms, though they believed that no one knew it, Helikon of Kyzikus, an intimate friend of Plato, foretold an eclipse of the sun; and as it happened according to his prediction, the despot was much impressed, and gave him a talent of silver. Aristippus now in joke said to the other philosophers that he too had a remarkable event to predict; and when they begged him to tell them what it was, he said, “I predict that before long Plato and Dionysius will become foes.” At last Dionysius sold Dion’s property and kept the money, and even removed Plato from the lodgings in the gardens near his own palace, where he had hitherto dwelt, and 366quartered him among the mercenary troops, who had long disliked Plato and wished to make away with him, because they believed him to be counselling Dionysius to abdicate and to live without a body-guard.

XX

Archytas and his friends, when they heard of the danger to which Plato was exposed, at once sent a thirty-oared vessel with an embassy to Dionysius, demanding Plato from him, and alleging that he had originally come to Syracuse at their request, and that they were responsible for his safety. Dionysius concealed his dislike of Plato by feasting him and treating him kindly on his departure, but could not help saying to him, “I suppose, Plato, you will abuse me terribly to your fellow-philosophers,” or something to that effect. At this Plato smiled, and replied, “I trust that we shall never be so ill off in the Academy for subjects to discuss, as for any one to make mention of you.” Such, they say, were the terms upon which they parted; though this does not entirely agree with Plato’s own account of the matter.

XXI

Dion was much angered by these proceedings of Dionysius, and shortly afterwards was converted into an open enemy on hearing of the treatment of his wife, on which subject Plato wrote in enigmas to Dionysius. This happened as follows:—After the expulsion of Dion, Dionysius, when he sent Plato away, bade him secretly make inquiries as to whether there was anything to prevent Dion’s wife being bestowed upon another man; for there was a rumour, which may have been true or merely invented by Dion’s enemies, that the marriage had been forced upon Dion against his will, and that he and his wife had not lived happily together. Plato, as soon as he arrived at Athens conversed freely with Dion, and then wrote a letter to the despot, some of which was clearly expressed, but which in one part intimated to him, in a manner which he alone could understand, that the writer had spoken about the matter to Dion, and that he would certainly be furious if Dionysius attempted anything of the kind. At that time, as there were still great hopes of arranging their quarrel, Dionysius did nothing further, but allowed his sister to remain living with her child by Dion. When, however, they became irreconcilable 367enemies and Plato, after his second visit, was sent away bitterly disliked by Dionysius, he proceeded to give Arete in marriage, sorely against her will, to one of his friends, named Timokrates, not imitating in this respect the gentle conduct of his father; for the elder Dionysius also had for an enemy Polyxenus the husband of his sister Theste. Polyxenus, fearing for his life, escaped from Syracuse and left Sicily. Upon this Dionysius sent for his sister and blamed her for having known of her husband’s intention to take flight, and not having told him of it; but she, undismayed, answered him fearlessly, “Dionysius, do you think me so bad and cowardly a wife that, if I had known of the intention of my husband to flee, I should not have accompanied him? Indeed, I did not know of it; for it would have been more creditable to me to have been spoken of as the wife of Polyxenus the exile than as the sister of Dionysius the despot.” It is said that when Theste used this bold language the despot regarded her with admiration, and she was also so much admired by the people of Syracuse for her courage and goodness that after the fall of the dynasty they still continued to treat her with the honours due to royalty, and, when she died, all the citizens came in procession to her funeral. These circumstances have required a digression which is not without value.

XXII

Dion after this at once prepared for war. Plato would take no part in his attempts, both out of respect for Dionysius and because of his own advanced age; but Speusippus and his other companions joined Dion, and encouraged him to set free Sicily, which they said was stretching out its hands to him for help and would eagerly welcome him. It seems, indeed, that when Plato was at Syracuse, Speusippus and his friends, who mixed more with the people, discovered their real feelings. At first they were afraid to speak plainly, fearing that the despot was experimenting upon them, but at length they took courage. All told the same story, begging and encouraging Dion to come, not with ships of war and horse and foot soldiers, but to embark in an open boat, and lend merely his person and his name to the Sicilians in their struggle against Dionysius. Encouraged by these reports, which he received 368from Speusippus and his friends, Dion secretly levied a force of mercenaries, but not in his own name, and without disclosing his intention. Many statesmen and philosophers assisted him, among the later Eudemus of Cyprus, in whose honour, after his death, Aristotle composed his dialogue upon the soul, and Timonides of Leukas. They brought over to him also Miltas of Thessaly, a soothsayer and former student of the Academy. Yet, of all those men who had been banished by the despot, who were not less than a thousand in number, five-and-twenty alone took part in the expedition, and all the rest shrank from doing so. Their starting-point was the island of Zakynthus, where was assembled a force numbering less than eight hundred soldiers, all of whom, however, were men of distinction who had served in many great campaigns, and were in admirable bodily condition, and such bold and skilful warriors as would be able to excite and inspire with courage the multitude which Dion hoped would rally round him in Sicily.

XXIII

These men, when they heard that the expedition was directed against Sicily and Dionysius, were at first scared and refused to go, declaring that only the frenzy excited by some personal quarrel, or the failure of all reasonable hopes of success, could have led Dion to embark upon such a desperate enterprise, and they were incensed with their own officers and those who had enlisted them for not having at the outset informed them of the object of the war. When, however, Dion addressed them, pointing out the rottenness of the monarchy, and informing them that he was taking them, not so much as soldiers as in order to use them as leaders for the Syracusans and other peoples of Sicily, who had long been ripe for revolt, and when, after Dion’s speech, Alkimenes, one of the expedition, who was one of the most celebrated of the Achæans both by birth and merit, spoke to the same effect, they consented to go. The time was midsummer and the Etesian3 winds were blowing over the sea. The moon was at the full. Dion prepared a magnificent sacrifice to Apollo and marched in solemn procession to the temple with his soldiers, all arrayed in 369complete armour. After the sacrifice he feasted them in the stadium or race-course of the people of Zakynthus, where they had an opportunity of admiring the splendour of his gold and silver plate, and reflected that a man past middle life, as he was, and possessed of such wealth, would never attempt an extravagant enterprise without reasonable expectation of success, or unless his friends upon the spot had promised to furnish him with abundant resources.

XXIV

Just after the libations4 and customary prayers, the moon became eclipsed. Dion and his friends saw nothing remarkable in this, as they could calculate the periods of eclipses, and knew how the shadow was produced upon the moon by the interposition of the earth between it and the sun. As, however, the soldiers were alarmed at the portent and required some encouragement, Miltas the soothsayer came into the midst of them and addressed them, bidding them be of good cheer and expect the most complete success; for the gods, he declared, foretold by this sign that something brilliant would be extinguished. Now there was nothing more brilliant than the monarchy of Dionysius, whose light was fated to be quenched by them as soon as they arrived at Sicily. This interpretation Miltas told to them all; but when a swarm of bees was seen to settle on the sterns of the ships, he privately told Dion and his friends that he feared lest this might portend that at first they would be very properous, but that after blooming for a short time their prosperity would wither away. It is said, too, that many ominous signs were vouchsafed by Heaven to Dionysius. An eagle snatched up a spear from one of the life-guards, soared aloft with it, and let it fall into the sea; and one day the sea-water which washes the walls of the citadel became quite sweet and drinkable, so that all men noticed it. Swine also were born without ears, though perfect in all other parts. This was interpreted by the soothsayers to be a sign of insurrection and disobedience, and to mean that the people would no longer hearken to the commands of the despot, while the 370portent of the sea-water meant that after bitter miseries sweet and pleasant times were in store for the people of Syracuse. The eagle, they said, is the servant of Zeus, and the spear is the symbol of power and sovereignty; wherefore the greatest of the gods must intend to sink and destroy the monarchy. These incidents we are told by Theopompus.

XXV

The soldiers of Dion were contained in two merchant-ships, which were accompanied by another small vessel and two galleys of thirty oars.5 Besides the arms carried by the soldiers, Dion took with him two thousand shields, many spears and missiles, and sufficient provisions to supply them during the whole voyage, which was to be performed entirely under canvass and over the open sea, because they feared to approach the land, and had learned that Philistus was cruising off the Iapygian Cape with a squadron to intercept them. Sailing with a light and gentle wind for twelve days, on the thirteenth they reached Pachynus, the southern extremity of Sicily. Here Protus their pilot bade them make haste to disembark, warning them that if they left the land and steered away from the cape, they would be obliged to spend many days 371and nights at sea during the summer season, when a southerly gale might be expected. Dion, however, feared to disembark so near his foes, and, wishing to land further away, sailed along the coast past Cape Pachynus. Hereupon a violent northerly wind, accompanied by a high sea, drove the ships away from Sicily, while at the rising of Arcturus a storm of thunder and lightning burst upon them with furious rain. At this the sailors became dismayed, and lost their reckoning, but suddenly found that the ships were being carried by the waves towards the rockiest and most precipitous cliffs of the island Kerkina,6 off the coast of Libya. They narrowly escaped being dashed to pieces upon the rocks, but struggled along, keeping themselves off the land with punting-poles,7 until at length the storm abated and they learned from a vessel which they fell in with that they were near what are called the “Heads” of the Great Syrtis. It now fell calm and they became disheartened and quarrelled with one another; but soon an off-shore wind sprang up from the south, though they, not expecting a southerly wind, could scarcely believe in the change. The wind gradually increased in force, and they, setting all the sail they were able, and commending themselves in prayer to the gods, crossed the open sea from Libya to Sicily before the wind. They made a quick passage, and on the fifth day came to an anchor at Minoa, a small city in that part of Sicily which belonged to the Carthaginians. The Carthaginian commander, Synalus, who was a friend of Dion, happened to be present in the town. Not knowing what the expedition was, or that Dion, was with it, he attempted to prevent the soldiers from landing; but they poured out of their ships fully armed, and though in accordance with Dion’s order they killed no one, because of his friendship with the Carthaginian leader, yet they routed the Minoans, entered their city with the fugitives, and captured it. When the two chiefs met, they embraced one another, and 372Dion restored the city to Synalus without doing it any hurt, while Synalus showed hospitality to the soldiers and provided Dion with the supplies which he needed.

XXVI

What specially encouraged them was the absence of Dionysius from Syracuse, although they had no hand in bringing it about; for he had just started on a voyage to the coast of Italy with a fleet of eighty ships. Although Dion begged his soldiers to wait and recruit their strength after the hardships of their long sea voyage, they would not remain there, but in their eagerness to seize this favourable opportunity bade Dion lead them to Syracuse. Dion now left behind his surplus arms and baggage at Minoa, and, begging Synalus to send them on to him when he should have need of them, set out on his march to Syracuse. On the road, he was first joined by two hundred horsemen, citizens of Agrigentum, dwelling near Eknomon. After these, some of the people of Gela also joined his army.

The news of Dion’s march soon reached Syracuse, and Timokrates, the husband of Dion’s late wife, the sister of Dionysius, who was left in charge of the garrison, sent a messenger in great haste to Dionysius with a letter telling of Dion’s arrival. He himself endeavoured to maintain order and put down all insurrections in the city, for all the people were excited at the news, but remained quiet as yet, through fear and doubt. Meantime a strange mischance befel the bearer of the letter to Dionysius. He crossed the straits to Italy, passed through the city of Rhegium, and as he hurried on towards Kaulonia, where Dionysius was, he fell in with one of his friends, carrying a newly slaughtered victim. He was given a piece of meat by the man, and went on in haste. He walked some part of the night, but being forced by fatigue to take a little sleep, he lay down, just as he was, in a wood by the road-side. While he slept, a wolf, attracted by the smell, snatched up the meat, which he had tied to his wallet, and ran off with it, carrying away with it the wallet in which the man had placed the letter. When the man woke and discovered his loss, after much vain searching, as he could not find it, he decided not to go to the despot without the letter, but to make off and keep out of the way.

XXVII

In consequence of this Dionysius only 373heard of the war in Sicily much later and from other persons, and meanwhile Dion had been joined on his march by the people of Kamarina, and by a considerable number of the Syracusans who lived in the country. The Leontines and Campanians, who formed the garrison of Epipolæ, in consequence of Dion’s sending them a false report that he intended to attack their city first, left Timokrates, and went away thither to defend their own property. When news of this reached Dion, who was encamped near Akræ, he aroused his soldiers while it was yet night and marched to the river Anapus, which is ten stadia distant from the city. There he halted and offered sacrifice beside the river, praying to the rising sun, and at the same time the soothsayers declared that the gods would give him the victory. Observing that Dion wore a garland because he was sacrificing, all those who were present at the sacrifice with one impulse crowned themselves with flowers. No less than five thousand men had joined him on his march. They were badly armed in a make-shift fashion, but their zeal supplied the deficiencies of their equipment, and when Dion led the way they all started at a run, shouting for joy, and encouraging one another to recover their freedom.

XXVIII

Of the Syracusans within the walls, the chief men and upper classes in their most splendid raiment met Dion at the gates, while the populace attacked the friends of the despot, and seized upon the spies, a wicked and hateful class of men, who used to live among the people of the city and report their opinions and conversations to the despot. These men were the first to suffer for their crimes, as they were beaten to death by any of the citizens who fell in with them. Timokrates, unable to reach the garrison of the citadel, mounted his horse and rode away from the city, spreading alarm and confusion everywhere as he fled by exaggerating the numbers of Dion’s army, that he might not be thought to have surrendered the city through fear to a small force.

Meanwhile Dion could already be seen plainly, as he marched first of all his men, clad in splendid armour. On one side of him was his brother Megakles, and on the other the Athenian Kallippus, both crowned with garlands. Next marched a hundred of the mercenary soldiers, as 374a body-guard for Dion, while the rest of the men were led on by their officers in battle array. The entire procession was looked upon and welcomed as though it were sacred by the citizens of Syracuse, who, after forty-two years of tyranny, saw liberty and a popular constitution restored to their city.

XXIX

When Dion had entered by the Temenitid8 gate, he caused his trumpet to sound to obtain silence; and then a herald made proclamation that Dion and Megakles were come to put down the monarchy, and that they set free from the despot both the Syracusans and the other Sicilian Greeks.

As Dion wished to address the people in person, he proceeded through Achradina, while the Syracusans placed animals for sacrifice, tables and bowls of wine on each side of the street,9 and each, as Dion passed them, strewed flowers in his path and addressed prayers to him as if to a god. In front of the citadel, with its Pentapyla, or Five Gates, stood a sundial, a conspicuous and lofty work, erected by Dionysius. Dion mounted upon this, and addressed the citizens, encouraging them to hold fast the freedom which they had obtained. The people, in joy and gratitude to them, elected them both generals, with unlimited powers, and at their earnest request chose twenty more as their colleagues, half of whom were taken from the exiles who had returned with Dion. The prophets considered it to be an excellent omen that Dion, while addressing the people, should have trodden under his feet the building which the despot had reared in his pride; but they augured ill from his having been chosen general while standing upon a sundial, lest his fortunes should soon experience some revolution. After this he captured Epipolae, released the citizens who were imprisoned there and cut off the citadel by a palisade.10 On the seventh 375day after this, Dionysius returned to the citadel by sea, and waggons arrived bringing to Dion the arms and armour which he had left with Synalus. These he distributed among the citizens, and of the others, each man equipped himself as well as he was able, and eagerly offered his services as a soldier.

XXX

Dionysius at first sent ambassadors privately to Dion to endeavour to corrupt him. Afterwards, as Dion bade him speak openly to the people of Syracuse, who were now free, Dionysius through his ambassadors made them attractive offers of moderate taxation and moderate military service, subject to their own vote of consent.11 These proposals were scornfully rejected by the Syracusans. Dion told the ambassadors that he and his party could have no dealings with Dionysius unless he abdicated; but that if he did so, he himself, remembering their relationship, would answer for his personal safety, and obtain as good terms for him as could be reasonably expected. These conditions were approved by Dionysius, who again sent ambassadors to demand that some of the Syracusans should come to the citadel and arrange the terms of the surrender upon a basis of mutual concessions. Commissioners, chosen by Dion, were at once sent to him, and a report spread from the citadel that Dionysius intended to abdicate and to make himself more popular even than Dion. However, the negotiations were all a trick of the despot to take the Syracusans at a disadvantage. He imprisoned the commissioners, and at daybreak, having excited his mercenary troops with wine, sent them at a run to attack the Syracusan wall across the isthmus. This attack was unexpected, and the foreign troops boldly and with loud shouts began to destroy the works and to attack the Syracusans. No one could withstand their onset except the mercenaries of Dion, who were the first to hear the noise of the conflict and to rush to the spot. But not even these men could perceive what was to be done or obey their orders, mixed up as they were with noisy crowds376 of panic-stricken Syracusan fugitives, before Dion, finding that no one heeded his words, and wishing to show by his actions what ought to be done, was the first man to attack the foreigners. Round him a fierce and terrible battle took place, as he was recognised as well by the enemy as by his friends, and all ran towards him with shouts. He was, indeed, somewhat advanced in years to engage in such a furious combat, but yet stoutly and bravely withstood and repulsed all who attacked him. He received a wound in the hand from a spear, and had to rely upon his breastplate for protection against showers of darts and blows in close combat, for his shield was pierced through by many spears and lances. When these were broken he fell to the ground, but was snatched away by his soldiers. He appointed Timonides to take his place, and himself rode through the city on horseback, rallied the Syracusan fugitives, brought out the garrison of mercenaries from Achradina, and led these fresh and confident troops against the wearied foreigners, who had already begun to despair of victory. They had imagined that by their first attack they would be able to overrun the whole city, but having unexpectedly fallen in with men who could deal hard blows they began to retire towards the citadel. As they gave way the Greeks pressed upon them still more, until at length they were driven in confusion into the citadel, after killing seventy-four of Dion’s party, and losing many of their own men.

XXXI

After this glorious victory the Syracusans presented the mercenaries with a hundred minae, and the mercenaries presented Dion with a golden crown. Heralds from Dionysius now came from the citadel bringing letters to Dion from his female relatives. One of these bore the superscription “From Hipparinus to his father;” for this was the name of Dion’s son, although Timæus says that he was named Aretaeus after his mother Arete. But I imagine we ought rather to believe Timonides in such matters as these, since he was a friend and comrade of Dion. The other letters, those from the women, which were full of piteous supplications, were read aloud to the Syracusans, but they were unwilling that the letter from the child should be opened before them. In spite of 377their opposition, Dion opened it and read it aloud. It was from Dionysius himself, addressed nominally to Dion, but really to the people of Syracuse, and though in it Dionysius seemed to appeal to Dion and to plead his own cause with him, yet in truth it was concocted with a view to rendering him suspected by the people; for it contained allusions to his former zeal on behalf of the monarchy, and also threatened him through the persons of those dearest to him, his sister, his child and his wife. There were in the letter also pitiful entreaties, and what especially moved him to anger, supplications to him not to destroy the monarchy and set free a people which hated him and would turn and rend him, but to become despot himself, and thus to save his relatives and friends.

XXXII

When these letters were read to them, the Syracusans, instead of admiring Dion for his magnanimity in adhering to the cause of honour and right, in spite of such touching appeals as these, they rather began to suspect him and to fear him, because he had such powerful reasons for sparing the despot, and they began to look around them for some other leader. They became particularly excited on hearing that Herakleides sailed into the harbour. This Herakleides was a Syracusan exile, a military man who had gained a great reputation by the commands which he had held in the service of Dionysius and his father, but of an unsettled disposition, fickle and least of all to be relied upon when associated with a colleague in any command of dignity and honour. This man had quarrelled with Dion in Peloponnesus, and determined to make an expedition of his own to attack Dionysius. He now arrived at Syracuse with seven triremes and three other vessels,12 and found Dionysius blockaded in his citadel and the people of Syracuse in an excited condition. He at once received the popular favour, being 378naturally plausible and well able to impose upon a people who were fond of flattery. He was the more easily enabled to do this, as the Syracusans were already disgusted with the haughty demeanour of Dion, which they considered to be offensive and unfit for a statesman, being themselves grown insubordinate and insolent after their victory and requiring a demagogue even before they had become a democracy.

XXXIII

Their first act was to assemble of their own accord and elect Herakleides as admiral. When, however, Dion came forward and complained that the appointment of Herakleides was a revocation of the powers granted to himself, since he would no longer be general with unlimited powers, if another commanded by sea, the Syracusans, much against their will, annulled the election. After this Dion sent for Herakleides privately and, after bitterly reproaching him with his want of honour and right feeling in raising disputes about precedence during so momentous and dangerous a crisis, again assembled the people, appointed Herakleides admiral and prevailed upon the citizens to grant him a body-guard such as that by which he himself was attended. Herakleides now in words and in manner acknowledged Dion as his superior, obeyed his orders with humility, and owned that he owed him a debt of gratitude; but in secret he encouraged the people to revolt against him, stirred up tumults and brought Dion into a most difficult position; for if he were to permit Dionysius to retire from the citadel under a flag of truce, he feared that he should be reproached with sparing the despot and saving him from the fate he deserved, while, if he did not push the siege through a wish not to drive him to extremities, he would appear to be purposely protracting the war in order that he might the longer remain in power and have the people under his orders.

XXXIV

There was one Sosis, a man who by villainy and audacity had gained a certain reputation at Syracuse, where the citizens thought that his licence in speech must be prompted by an excessive love of freedom. This man began to intrigue against Dion, and first of all rose in the assembly and violently abused the Syracusans for 379not perceiving that they had got a sober and vigilant despot instead of a drunken and imbecile one. After this, having avowed himself Dion’s open enemy, he withdrew from the market-place and next day was seen running naked through the city with his face and head covered with blood, as though he were fleeing from some pursuers. Rushing into the market-place in this condition, he said that his life had been attempted by Dion’s mercenaries, and showed his wounded head to the people. He at once gained an audience of sympathisers, who became furious with Dion, and declared that he was acting shamefully and despotically in restraining the freedom of speech of the citizens by threats and murders. However, though a disorderly assembly took place, Dion was able to speak in his own defence, pointing out that a brother of Sosis was one of the guards of Dionysius, and that this man must have persuaded him to rebel and throw the city into confusion, since Dionysius could have no hope of safety except in the dissensions of the besiegers. At the same time the physicians examined the wound of Sosis, and found that it was the result of a superficial scratch rather than of a downward cut; for wounds by swordstrokes are deepest in the middle, because of the weight of the blow, while this wound of Sosis was shallow throughout all its length and had several beginnings, as probably he had been forced by the pain to leave off cutting his head and then had begun again. Some of the more respectable citizens also came to the assembly with a razor, and said that while they were walking they met Sosis covered with blood, saying that he was fleeing from Dion’s mercenaries and had just been wounded by them. They at once proceeded to look for them, and found no man, but saw the razor hidden under a hollow stone at the place from which Sosis had been seen coming out.

XXXV

Matters now began to look ill for Sosis; and when his slaves, after torture, declared that he left the house while it was yet night carrying a razor, Dion’s accusers withdrew their charges against him, and the people became reconciled with Dion and condemned Sosis to death. Nevertheless, they viewed the mercenaries with suspicion, especially after the great battles which 380took place at sea, when Philistus came from Iapygia with many triremes to rescue Dionysius, upon which they imagined that the mercenaries, being heavy-infantry soldiers, would be of no further use in the war, and would soon become their enemies, as they were all seafaring people, whose strength lay in their ships. They were further excited by their success in a sea-fight, in which they defeated Philistus, and treated him with the utmost barbarity. Ephorus states that Philistus killed himself as soon as his ship was captured, but Timonides, who was present with Dion throughout the whole of these events, in a letter which he wrote to the philospher, Speusippus, informs him that Philistus was taken alive from his ship which ran ashore; and that the Syracusans first stripped him of his corslet and displayed him naked, jeering at him, he being then an old man; and that after this they cut off his head and gave up the body to the boys of the town, bidding them drag it through Achradina, and cast it into the stone quarries. Timæus declares that Philistus was treated with even greater indignity, his dead body being dragged by the boys through the city by the lame leg amidst the insults of all the people of Syracuse, who were pleased to see this treatment inflicted on the man who had told Dionysius that far from requiring a swift horse to escape from his throne, he ought to remain until he was dragged from it by the leg. Philistus, however, gave this advice to Dionysius, not as having been said by himself, but by some one else.

XXXVI

Philistus doubtless laid himself open to blame by his zealous adherence to the cause of the monarchy, but Timæus takes advantage of this to satisfy his own spite by abusing him. It might, perhaps, be pardoned if those who had been wronged by him were so transported by rage as even to insult his senseless corpse; but a historian, writing an account of his actions in a later age, without having been in any way personally injured by him, ought to be restrained by feelings of honour and decency from taunting him with his misfortunes, which, indeed, might equally have befallen the best of men Neither does Ephorus show a sound judgment in praising Philistus, for, in spite of his skill in inventing 381good motives for evil conduct and actions, and the care with which his words are chosen, he cannot, with all his art, gloss over the fact that Philistus was devotedly attached to the cause of despotism, and that he, more than any one else, was dazzled and attracted by wealth, power, luxury and marriages with the daughters of absolute princes. A historian would show better taste than either of these by neither praising Philistus for his conduct nor reproaching him with his misfortunes.

XXXVII

After the death of Philistus, Dionysius sent to Dion offering to deliver up to him the citadel, the arms which it contained, the mercenary troops and five months pay for them, and demanding to be allowed to retire unmolested to Italy and live there, and also to receive the revenues of a large and fertile tract belonging to Syracuse called Gyarta, which extended from the sea-side to the interior of the island. Dion would not receive the embassy, but bade Dionysius address himself to the people of Syracuse; and they, hoping to take Dionysius alive, drove away his ambassadors. Dionysius now handed over the citadel to Apollokrates, his eldest son, and himself placed what persons and property he chiefly valued on board ship, waited for a fair wind, and then sailed away, eluding the vigilance of the admiral Herakleides. Herakleides was fiercely reproached by the citizens for his neglect, but suborned one of the popular speakers to make proposals to the people for a division of lands, pointing out that equality is the source of freedom, and that poverty reduces men to slavery. Herakleides spoke on the same side, openly opposed Dion, who led the opposite faction, and prevailed upon the Syracusans to agree to this proposal, and further to refuse to pay the mercenary troops and to rid themselves of the haughty arrogance of Dion by electing new generals. Thus, like a man who attempts to rise and walk when weakened by a long illness, the Syracusans, after ridding themselves of their despotism, at once tried to adopt the institutions of free peoples, and both failed in their undertakings and disliked Dion, because he, like a careful physician, wished to impose a strict and temperate regimen upon them.

XXXVIII

When they assembled to choose their 382new commanders the time was about midsummer, and ominous thunderstorms and portents took place for fifteen days in succession, dispersing the people and preventing their election of any other generals. When the popular leaders, by waiting and watching, had obtained a fair still day for the election of chief magistrates, a draught ox, who was quite tame and accustomed to crowds, but who was enraged with his driver, broke from his yoke and ran towards the theatre. He scattered the people in the greatest confusion and panic, and ran on prancing and causing disorder through all that part of the city which afterwards fell into the hands of the enemy. Nevertheless, the Syracusans disregarded this omen, and elected five-and-twenty generals, one of whom was Herakleides. They also made secret overtures to Dion’s mercenaries, inviting them to desert, and offering them equal rights with the other citizens. They, however, would not listen to these proposals, but faithfully and promptly got under arms, formed column with Dion in their midst, and began to march out of the city, without harming any one, but bitterly reproaching all whom they met with their ingratitude and wickedness. But the Syracusans, who despised them for their small numbers and for not having been the first to attack, had now collected in crowds, far outnumbering the mercenaries, and set upon them, expecting that in a street-fight they would easily be able to overpower them and to kill them all.

XXXIX

In this terrible dilemma, as he was forced either to fight against his fellow-countrymen or to perish with his mercenaries, Dion stretched out his hands towards the Syracusans and implored them to desist, and pointed to the citadel, full of armed enemies, who were watching them from the battlements. As, however, the excited mob could not be turned from its purpose, for the speeches of the demagogues stirred up the people as the wind stirs up the waves of the sea, Dion ordered his troops not to charge them, but to march forward with a shout and martial clash of arms. At this none of the Syracusans stood their ground, but ran away along the streets unpursued; for Dion at once wheeled round his troops and marched away to Leontini. The new chiefs of the Syracusans, 383 ridiculed by the women, and wishing to wipe out their disgrace, now again got the citizens under arms and pursued Dion. They came up with him as he was crossing a stream, and rode up to his troops in skirmishing order. When, however, they perceived that Dion was no longer willing to deal gently and paternally with their follies, but that he angrily formed his troops in line and ordered them to attack, they fled more disgracefully than before back to their city, without losing many of their number.

XL

The people of Leontini received Dion with especial honours, provided his troops with pay, and made them free of the city. They also sent ambassadors to the Syracusans, calling upon them to do the soldiers justice; to which they replied by sending ambassadors to prefer charges against Dion. When, however, all the allies held a meeting at Leontini and discussed the matter, the Syracusans were held to be in fault. But the Syracusans refused to accept this decision, as they were now full of insolent importance, having no one to rule them, but being led by generals who were the merest slaves of the people.

XLI

After this a fleet of triremes sent by Dionysius arrived at the city, under the command of Nypsius, a Neapolitan, with supplies of corn and money for the besieged. In a sea-fight which took place the Syracusans were victorious, and took four of the ships, but were so elated by their victory, and, having none to rule them, celebrated their success with such reckless excesses of drinking and feasting, that while they imagined they had taken the citadel they really lost the city as well; for Nypsius, observing that discipline was everywhere at an end, as the populace were engaged in drinking to the sound of music from daylight until late at night, and that the generals were delighted at the festivity and were unwilling to summon the drunken men to their duty, seized his opportunity and attacked the Syracusan wall of investment. His attack succeeded; he broke through the works, and at once let loose his foreign mercenaries, bidding them deal as they pleased with all whom they met. The Syracusans, though they soon learned their misfortune, 384 yet were slow to assemble, being taken by surprise; for the city was being sacked, the men slaughtered, the walls thrown down and the women and children being forced weeping into the citadel, while the generals gave up all for lost, and could make no use of the citizens, who were everywhere confusedly mixed up with the enemy.

XLII

While the city was in this condition, and the danger began to menace Achradina also, all men thought of him who was their last and only hope, but no one spoke of Dion, as they were all ashamed of the folly and ingratitude with which they had treated him. Sheer necessity, however, forced some of the auxiliary troops and the knights13 to cry out that they must send for Dion and his Peloponnesians from Leontini. As soon as any were found bold enough to raise this cry, the Syracusans shouted aloud, and rejoiced with tears, for they prayed that Dion would come, they longed to see him, and they remembered his courage and strength in time of danger, in which he not only remained calm and unmoved, but gave them confidence by his demeanour and caused them fearlessly and bravely to attack their enemies. They therefore at once sent off to him Archonides and Telesides, as representatives of the allies, and Hellanikus, with four others, of the knights. These men rode at full gallop to Leontini, arriving there late in the afternoon. When they dismounted, the first person they met was Dion, and with tears in their eyes they told him of the misfortunes which had befallen the Syracusans. Soon some of the citizens of Leontini fell in with them, and many of the Peloponnesians gathered round Dion, suspecting from the earnest and supplicatory tones and gestures of the ambassadors that something important had happened. Dion at once led the way to the public assembly, where all the people soon met together. Archonides and Hellanikus in a few words informed them of the great misfortune which had befallen the Syracusans, and besought the 385stranger mercenaries to help them and not to bear malice for the treatment which they had received, since the Syracusans had been more terribly punished for their misconduct than even the soldiers could have wished them to be.

XLIII

After they had ceased speaking, there was a great silence; and when Dion rose and began to speak, tears choked his utterance. The Peloponnesians encouraged him, and showed sympathy with him, and at length he mastered his emotion and said: “Men of Peloponnesus and Allies, I have assembled you here to deliberate about your own affairs. As for myself, I cannot with honour deliberate while Syracuse is being destroyed, but if I cannot save my country, I will share her ruin and make her flames my own funeral pyre. As for you, if you can bring yourselves even now, after all that has passed, to help us, the most ill-advised and the most ill-fated of men, restore again by your own means alone the city of Syracuse. But if you hate the Syracusans and reject their appeal, then may you be rewarded by heaven for your former brave conduct and loyalty to me, and may you remember Dion, who would not desert you when you were wronged, and would not afterwards desert his fellow-countrymen when they were in trouble.” While Dion was still speaking, the Peloponnesians leaped up with a shout, bidding him lead them as quickly as possible to the rescue, and the ambassadors from Syracuse embraced him, calling upon heaven to bless both him and the troops. When order was restored, Dion immediately began to prepare for the march, and ordered his men to go and eat their dinners at once, and then to assemble under arms in that very place; for he intended to march to Syracuse by night.

XLIV

Meanwhile at Syracuse the generals of Dionysius worked great ruin in the city while it was day, but when darkness came on retired into the citadel, having lost but few men. The popular leaders now took courage, and, expecting that the enemy would attempt nothing further, again called upon the people to have nothing to do with Dion, and, if he came with his foreign troops, not to admit him into the city and own themselves inferior to his 386men in courage, but to reconquer their city and their liberty by their own exertions. More embassies were now sent to Dion, from the generals dissuading him from coming, and from the knights and leading citizens entreating him to come quickly. This caused him to march more slowly, yet with greater determination. When day broke, the party opposed to Dion occupied the gates, in order to shut him out of the city, while Nypsius a second time led out the mercenaries from the citadel, in greater numbers and far more confident than before. He at once levelled to the ground the whole of the works by which the citadel was cut off from the main land, and overran and pillaged the city. No longer men alone, but even women and children were slaughtered, and property of every kind mercilessly destroyed; for Dionysius, who now despaired of ultimate success, and bitterly hated the Syracusans, wished only, as it were, to bury the monarchy in the ruins of the city. In order to effect their purpose before Dion could come to the rescue, the soldiers destroyed the houses in the quickest way by setting them on fire, using torches for those near at hand, and shooting fiery arrows to those at a distance. As the Syracusans fled from their burning dwellings, some were caught and butchered in the streets, while others who took refuge in the houses perished in the flames, as now a large number of houses were burning, and kept falling upon the passers by.

XLV

This misfortune more than anything else caused all to be unanimous in opening the gates to Dion. He had been marching slowly, as he heard that the enemy were shut up in the citadel; but as the day went on, at first some of the knights rode up to him and told him of the second occupation of the city; and afterwards some even of the opposite faction arrived and begged him to hasten his march. As the danger became more pressing, Herakleides sent first his brother, and afterwards his uncle Theodotus, to beseech Dion to assist them, and to tell him that no one any longer could offer any resistance, that Herakleides himself was wounded, and that the whole city was within a little of being totally ruined and burned. When these messages reached Dion he was still sixty stadia distant from the gates of Syracuse. He 387explained to his troops the danger the city was in, spoke some words of encouragement to them, and then led them on, no longer at a walk, but at a run, while messenger after messenger continued to meet them and urge them to haste. At the head of his mercenaries, who displayed extraordinary speed and spirit, Dion made his way through the gates of Syracuse to the place called Hekatompedon. He at once sent his light-armed troops to attack the enemy, and to encourage the Syracusans by their presence, while he himself formed his own heavy infantry, and those of the citizens who rallied round him in separate columns under several commanders, in order to create greater terror by attacking the enemy at many points at once.

XLVI

When, after making these preparations, and offering prayer to the gods, he was beheld leading his troops through the city to attack the enemy, the Syracusans raised a shout of joy, with a confused murmur of prayers, entreaties and congratulations, addressing Dion as their saviour and their tutelary god, and calling the foreign soldiers their brethren and fellow-citizens. All of them, even the most selfish and cowardly, now appeared to hold Dion’s life dearer than his own or that of his fellow-citizens, as they saw him lead the way to danger through blood and fire, and over the corpses which lay in heaps in the streets. The enemy, too, presented a formidable appearance, for they were exasperated to fury, and had established themselves in a strong position, hard even to approach, amidst the ruins of the rampart by which the citadel had been cut off from the town; while the progress of the mercenary troops was rendered difficult and dangerous by the flames of the burning houses by which they were surrounded. They were forced to leap over heaps of blazing beams, and to run from under great masses of falling ruins, struggling forwards through thick smoke and choking dust, and yet striving to keep their ranks unbroken. When at length they reached the enemy, only a few could fight on either side, because of the narrowness of the path, but the Syracusans, pushing confidently forward with loud shouts, forced the troops of Nypsius to give way. Most of them escaped into the citadel, which was close at hand: but all the stragglers who were left outside, were pursued and put to death by the Peloponnesians. The 388Syracusans could not spare any time to enjoy their victory and to congratulate one another after such great successes, but betook themselves at once to extinguishing their burning houses, and with great exertions put out the fire during the night.

XLVII

As soon as day broke, all the popular leaders, conscious of their guilt, left the city, with the exception of Herakleides and Theodotus, who went of their own accord and delivered themselves up to Dion, admitting that they had done wrong, and begging that he would treat them better than they had treated him. They pointed out, also, how much he would enhance the lustre of his other incomparable virtues by showing himself superior even in the matter of temper to those by whom he had been wronged, who now came before him admitting that in their rivalry with him they had been overcome by his virtue. When Herakleides and his companion thus threw themselves upon the mercy of Dion, his friends advised him not to spare such envious and malignant wretches, but to deliver up Herakleides to his soldiers, and thus to put an end to mob rule, an evil quite as pestilent as despotism itself. Dion, however, calmed their anger, observing that other generals spent most of their time in practising war and the use of arms; but that he, during his long sojourn in the Academy, had learned to subdue his passions, and to show himself superior to jealousy of his rivals. True greatness of mind, he said, could be better shown by forgiving those by whom one has been wronged, than by doing good to one’s friends and benefactors; and he desired not so much to excel Herakleides in power and generalship, as in clemency and justice, the only qualities which are truly good: for our successes in war, even if won by ourselves alone, yet can only be won by the aid of Fortune. “If,” he continued, “Herakleides be jealous, treacherous and base, that is no reason for Dion to stain his glory by yielding to his anger; for though to revenge a wrong is held to be less culpable than to commit one, yet both alike spring from the weakness of human nature: while even though a man be wicked, yet he is seldom so hopelessly depraved as not to be touched by one who repeatedly returns good for evil.”

XLVIII

After expressing himself thus, Dion 389released Herakleides. He next turned his attention to the fortification by which the citadel was cut off, and ordered each Syracusan to cut a stake and bring it to the spot. He allowed the citizens to rest during the night, but kept his mercenary soldiers at work, and by the next morning had completed the palisade, so that both the enemy and his own countrymen were astonished at the speed with, which he had accomplished so great a work. He now buried the corpses of those citizens who had fallen in the battle, ransomed the prisoners, who amounted to no less than two thousand, and summoned an assembly, in which Herakleides proposed that Dion should be appointed absolute commander by land and by sea. All the better citizens approved of this, and wished it to be put to the vote, but it was thrown out by the interference of the mob of sailors and people of the lower classes, who were sorry that Herakleides had lost his post as admiral, and who thought that, although he might be worthless in all other respects, he was at any rate more of a friend to the people than Dion, and more easily managed by them. Dion conceded so much to them as to give Herakleides command of the fleet, but vexed them much by opposing their plans for a redistribution of land and houses, and by declaring void all that they had decided upon this subject. In consequence of this Herakleides, who at once entered upon his office of admiral, sailed to Messenia, and there by his harangues excited the sailors and soldiers under his command to mutiny against Dion, who, he declared, intended to make himself despot of Syracuse; while he, in the meanwhile, entered upon negotiations with Dionysius by means of the Spartan Pharax. When this was discovered by the Syracusan nobility, a violent quarrel arose in his camp, which led to the people of Syracuse being reduced to great want and scarcity, so that Dion was at his wit’s end, and was bitterly reproached by his friends for having placed such an unmanageable and villainous rival as Herakleides in possession of power which he used against his benefactor.

XLIX

Pharax was now encamped at Neapolis, in the territory of Agrigentum, and Dion, who led out the Syracusans to oppose him, wished to defer an engagement;390 but Herakleides and the sailors overwhelmed him with their clamour, saying that he did not wish to bring the war to an end by a battle, but to keep it constantly going on in order that he might remain the longer in command. He therefore fought and was beaten. The defeat was not a disastrous one, but was due more to the confusion produced by the quarrels of his own men than to the enemy. Dion therefore prepared to renew the engagement, drew out his men in battle array, and addressed them in encouraging terms. Towards evening, however, he heard that Herakleides had weighed anchor and sailed away to Syracuse with the fleet, with the intention of seizing the city and shutting its gates against Dion and the army. Dion at once took the strongest and bravest men with him, and rode all night, reaching the gates of Syracuse about the third hour of the next day, after a journey of seven hundred stadia. Herakleides, who in spite of the exertions of his fleet was beaten in the race, was at a loss what to do, and sailed away aimlessly. He chanced to fall in with the Spartan Gæsylus, who informed him that he was coming from Lacedæmon to take command of the Sicilian Greeks, as Gylippus had done in former times. Herakleides was delighted at having met this man, and displayed him to his troops, boasting that he had found a counterpoise to the power of Dion, he at once sent a herald to Syracuse, and ordered the citizens to receive the Spartan as their ruler. When Dion answered that the Syracusans had rulers enough, and that in case they should require a Spartan to command them, he himself was a Spartan by adoption, Gæsylus gave up all claims to command, but went to Dion and reconciled Herakleides to him, making Herakleides swear the greatest oaths and give the strongest pledges for his future good behaviour, while Gæsylus himself swore that he would avenge Dion and punish Herakleides in case the latter should misconduct himself.

L

After this the Syracusans disbanded their navy, which was quite useless; besides being very expensive to the crews, and giving opportunities for the formation of plots against the government; but they continued the siege of the citadel, and thoroughly completed the 391wall across the isthmus. As no assistance arrived for the besieged, while their provisions began to fail, and their troops became inclined to mutiny, the son of Dionysius despaired of success, arranged terms of capitulation with Dion, handed over the citadel to him together with all the arms and other war material which it contained, and himself, taking his mother and sisters and their property on board of five triremes, sailed away to his father. Dion, permitted him to leave in safety, and his departure was witnessed by every one of the Syracusans, who even called upon the names of those who were absent, and were unable to see this day when the sun rose upon a free Syracuse. Indeed the downfall of Dionysius is one of the most remarkable instances of the vicissitudes of fortune known in history; and what then must we suppose was the joy and pride of the Syracusans, when they reflected that with such slender means they had overthrown the most powerful dynasty at that time existing in the world?

LI

After Apollokrates had sailed away and Dion had entered the citadel, the women could endure no longer to wait indoors till he came to them, but ran to the gates, Aristomache leading Dion’s son, and Arete following behind her in tears, and at a loss to know how she should greet her husband after she had been married to another. After Dion had embraced his sister and his child, Aristomache led Arete forward, and said, “Dion, we were unhappy while you were an exile; but now that you have returned and conquered you have taken away our reproach from all but Arete here, whom I have had the misery to see forced to accept another husband while you were yet alive. Now, therefore, since fortune has placed us in your power, how do you propose to settle this difficulty? Is she to embrace you as her uncle or as her husband also?” Dion shed tears at these words of Aristomache, and affectionately embraced his wife. He placed his son in her hands, and bade her go to his own house, where he himself also continued to live; for he delivered up the citadel to the people of Syracuse.

LII

After he had thus accomplished his enterprise, he reaped no advantage from his success, except that he conferred favours on his friends and rewarded his allies;392 while he bestowed upon his own companions, both Syracusan and Peloponnesian, such signal marks of his gratitude that his generosity even outran his means. He himself continued to live simply and frugally, while not only Sicily and Carthage, but all Greece viewed with admiration the manner in which he bore his prosperity, considering his achievements to be the greatest, and himself to be the most splendid instance of successful daring known to that age. He remained as modest in his dress, his household, and his table, as though he were still the guest of Plato in the Academy, and not living among mercenary soldiers, who recompense themselves for the hardships and dangers of their lives by daily indulgence in sensual pleasures. Plato wrote a letter to him, in which he informed him that the eyes of all the world were fixed upon him; but Plato probably only alluded to one place in one city, namely the Academy, and meant that the critics and judges of Dion therein assembled did not admire his exertions or his victory, but only considered whether he bore himself discreetly and modestly in his success, and showed moderation now that he was all-powerful, Dion made a point of maintaining the same haughty demeanour in society, and of treating the people with the same severity as before, although the times demanded that he should unbend, and though Plato, as we have said before, wrote to him bidding him remember that an arrogant temper is the consort of a lonely life. However, Dion appears to have been naturally inclined to harshness, and besides was desirous of reforming the manners of the Syracusans, who were excessively licentious and corrupt.

LIII

Now Herakleides again opposed him. When Dion sent for him to attend at the council, he refused to come, declaring that he was a mere private man, and would go only to the public assembly with the other citizens. Next he reproached Dion for not having demolished the citadel, for having restrained the people when they wished to break open the tomb of Dionysius (the elder) and cast out his body, and for having insulted his own fellow-countrymen by sending to Corinth for counsellors and colleagues. Indeed, Dion had sent to Corinth for some commissioners from that city, hoping that 393their presence would assist him in effecting the reforms which he meditated. Like Plato, he regarded a pure democracy as not being a government at all, but rather a warehouse of all forms of government: and his intention was to establish a constitution, somewhat on the Lacedæmonian or Cretan model, by a judicious combination of monarchy and oligarchy: and he saw that the government of Corinth was more of an oligarchy than a democracy, and that few important measures were submitted to the people. As Dion expected that Herakleides would most vehemently oppose these projects, and was moreover a turbulent, fickle, and facetious personage, he gave him up to those who had long before desired to kill him, but whom he had formerly restrained from doing so. These men broke into the house of Herakleides and killed him. The Syracusans were deeply grieved at his death; yet, as Dion gave him a splendid funeral, followed the corpse at the head of his army, and afterwards made a speech to the people, they forgave him, reflecting that their city could never have obtained rest while Dion and Herakleides were both engaged in political life.

LIV

One of Dion’s companions was an Athenian named Kallippus, who, we are told by Plato, became intimate with him, not because of his learning, but because he happened to have initiated Dion into some religious mysteries. This man took part in Dion’s expedition, and received especial honours, being the first of all Dion’s comrades who marched into Syracuse with him, wearing a garland on his head, and he had always distinguished himself in the combats which took place since that time. Now, seeing that the noblest and best of Dion’s friends had fallen in the war, and that by the death of Herakleides the Syracusan people were deprived of their leader, while he had greater influence than any one else with Dion’s mercenary soldiers, Kallippus conceived a scheme of detestable villainy. No doubt he hoped to obtain the whole of Sicily as his reward for murdering Dion, though some writers state that he received a bribe of twenty talents from Dion’s personal enemies. He now drew several of the mercenary soldiers into a conspiracy against Dion, conducting his plot in a most ingenious and 394treacherous manner. He was in the habit of informing Dion of any treasonable speeches, whether true or invented by himself, which he said that he had heard from the mercenary troops, and by this means gained such entire confidence with him, that he was able to hold secret meetings and plot against Dion with whichever of the soldiers he pleased, having Dion’s express command to do so, in order that none of the disaffected party might escape his notice. By this means Kallippus was easily enabled to find out all the worst and most discontented of the mercenaries, and to organise a conspiracy amongst them; while, if any man refused to listen to his proposals and denounced him to Dion, he took no heed of it and showed no anger, believing that Kallippus was merely carrying out his own instructions.

LV

When the plot was formed, Dion beheld a great and portentous vision. Late in the evening he was sitting alone in the hall14 of his house, plunged in thought. Suddenly he heard a noise on the other side of the court, and, looking up, as it was not quite dark, saw a tall woman, with the face and dress of a Fury as represented upon the stage, sweeping the house with a kind of broom. He was terribly startled, and became so much alarmed that he sent for his friends, described the vision to them, and besought them to remain with him during the night, as he was beside himself with fright, and dreaded lest if he were alone the apparition might return. This, however, did not take place. A few days after this his son, now almost grown up, took offence at some trifling affront, and destroyed himself by throwing himself headlong from the roof of the house.

LVI

While Dion was thus alarmed and distressed, Kallippus all the more eagerly carried out his plot. He spread a rumour among the Syracusans that Dion, being childless, had determined to recall Apollokrates, the son of Dionysius, 395 and to make him his heir, since he was his wife’s nephew, and his sister’s grandson. By this time Dion and the women of his household began to entertain some suspicion of the plot, and information of it reached them from all quarters. Dion, however, grieved at the murder of Herakleides, as though that crime had stained his glory, had become low-spirited and miserable, and frequently said that he was willing to die, and would let any man cut his throat, if he were obliged to live amidst constant precautions against his friends as well as his enemies. Kallippus, who perceived that the women had discovered the whole plot, came to them in great alarm, denying that he had any share in it, shedding tears, and offering to give any pledge of his loyalty which they chose to ask for. They demanded that he should swear the great oath, which is as follows:—The person who is about to swear enters the precinct of the temple of Demeter and Persephone, and after certain religious ceremonies puts on the purple robe of the goddess Persephone, and swears, holding a lighted torch in his hand. All this was done by Kallippus, and after swearing the oath he was impious enough to wait for the festival of the goddess whose name he had taken in vain, and to commit the murder on the day which was specially dedicated to her, although, perhaps, he thought nothing about the profanation of that particular day, but considered that it would be wickedness enough to murder the man whom he had himself initiated into the mysteries, on whatever day he might do it.

LVII

Many were now in the plot; and when Dion was sitting with his friends in a room furnished with several couches, some of the conspirators surrounded the house, while others stood at the doors and windows. Those who intended to do the deed were Zakynthians, and entered the house in their tunics, without swords. Those who remained outside made fast the doors, while those within rushed upon Dion, and endeavoured to strangle him. As, however, they could not accomplish this, they asked for a sword; but no one ventured to open the doors, because within the house were many of Dion’s friends, but as each of these imagined that, if he gave up Dion, he himself might get away safe, no one would help him.396 After some delay, a Syracusan, named Lykon, handed a dagger through a window to the Zakynthians, with which, as if sacrificing a victim, they cut the throat of Dion, who had long before been overpowered and had given himself up for lost. His sister and his wife, who was pregnant, were at once cast into prison, where the unhappy woman was delivered of a male child. The women prevailed upon the keepers of the prison to spare the child’s life, and obtained their request the more readily because Kallippus was already in difficulties.

LVIII

After Kallippus had murdered Dion, he at once became a person of importance, and had the entire government of Syracuse in his hands. He even sent despatches to Athens, a city which, next to the gods, he ought, especially to have dreaded, after having brought such pollution and sacrilege upon himself. However, the saying appears to be true, that that city produces both the best of good and the worst of wicked men, just as the territory of Athens produces both the sweetest honey and the most poisonous hemlock. Kallippus did not long survive to mock the justice of heaven, lest the gods might have been thought to disregard a man who, by such a crime, had obtained so great wealth and power; but he soon paid the penalty of his wickedness. He set out to capture Katana, and in doing so lost Syracuse; upon which he is said to have remarked, that he had lost a city and gained a cheese-scraper. In an attack upon Messenia he lost most of his soldiers, among whom were the murderers of Dion. As no city in Sicily would receive him, but all hated him and attacked him, he proceeded to Rhegium, where, as he was quite ruined and could no longer maintain his mercenary soldiers, he was murdered by Leptines and Polyperchon, who chanced to use the self-same dagger with which Dion is said to have been slain. It was recognised by being very short, after the Laconian fashion, and by its workmanship, for it was admirably carved with figures in high relief. Such was the retribution which befel Kallippus; while Aristomache and Arete, when they were released from prison, fell into the power of Hiketes, a Syracusan, who had been one of Dion’s friends, and who treated them at first loyally and honourably, but afterwards, 397 at the instigation of some of the enemies of Dion, sent them on board of a ship, on the pretext of sending them to Peloponnesus, and gave orders to the people of the ship to put them to death and throw their bodies into the sea. They, however, are said to have thrown them alive into the sea, and the child with them. This man also paid a fitting penalty for his crimes, for he was taken and put to death by Timoleon, and the Syracusans put to death his two daughters to avenge the murder of Dion. All of this I have already described at length in the Life of Timoleon.

398

LIFE OF
BRUTUS.

I

The ancestor of Marcus Brutus was Junius Brutus,1 whose statue of bronze the Romans of old set up in the Capitol, in the midst of the kings, with a drawn sword in his hand, thereby signifying that it was he who completely accomplished the putting down of the Tarquinii. Now that Brutus, like swords forged of cold iron, having a temper naturally hard and not softened by education, was carried on even to slaying of his sons through his passion against the tyrants: but this Brutus, about whom I am now writing, having tempered his natural disposition with discipline and philosophical training and roused his earnest and mild character by impulse to action, is considered to have been most aptly fashioned to virtue, so that even those who were his enemies on account of the conspiracy against Cæsar, attributed to Brutus whatever of good the act brought with it, and the worst of what happened they imputed to Cassius, who was a kinsman and friend of Brutus, but in his disposition not so simple and pure. His mother Servilia2 traced her descent from Ala 399Servilius,3 who when Mallius Spurius was contriving to establish a tyranny and was stirring up the people, put a dagger under his arm, and going into the Forum and taking his stand close to the man, as if he were going to have something to do with him and to address him, struck him as he bent forwards and killed him. Now this is agreed on; but those who showed hatred and enmity towards Brutus on account of Cæsar’s death, say that on the father’s side he was not descended from the expeller of the Tarquinii, for that Brutus after putting his sons to death left no descendants, but this Brutus was a plebeian, the son of one Brutus who was a bailiff,4 and had only recently attained to a magistracy. Poseidonius the philosopher says that the sons of Brutus, who had arrived at man’s estate, were put to death as the story is told, but there was left a third, an infant, from whom the race of Brutus descended; and that some of the illustrious men of his time who belonged to the family showed a personal resemblance to the statue of Brutus. So much about this.

II

Servilia the mother of Brutus was a sister of Cato the philosopher, whom most of all the Romans this Brutus took for his model, Cato being his uncle and afterwards his father-in-law. As to the Greek philosophers, there was not one, so to say, whom he did not hear or to whom he was averse, but he devoted himself especially to those of Plato’s school. The Academy5 called the New and the Middle he was not much disposed to, and he attached himself to the Old, and continued to be an admirer of Antiochus6 of Ascalon; but for his friend and companion he chose Antiochus’s brother Aristus, a man who in his manner of discourse was inferior to many philosophers, but in well-regulated habits and mildness a rival to the first. Empylus,7 whom both Brutus in his letters and his friends 400often mentioned as being in intimacy with him, was a rhetorician and left a small work, though not a mean one, on the assassination of Cæsar, which is inscribed Brutus. In the Latin language Brutus was sufficiently trained for oratory8 and the contests of the forum; but in the Greek, he practised the apophthegmatic and Laconic brevity which is sometimes conspicuous in his letters. For instance when he was now engaged in the war, he wrote to the people of Pergamum: “I hear that you have given money to Dolabella; if you gave it willingly, you admit your wrong; if you gave it unwillingly, make proof of this by giving to me willingly!” On another occasion, to the Samians: “Your counsels are trifling; your help is slow. What end do you expect of this?” And another about the people of Patara: “The Xanthians by rejecting my favours have made their country the tomb of their desperation. The people of Patara by trusting to me want nothing of liberty in the management of their affairs. It is therefore in your power also to choose the decision of the people of Patara or the fortune of the Xanthians.” Such is the character of the most remarkable of his letters.

III

While he was still a youth he went abroad with his uncle Cato, who was sent to Cyprus9 to Ptolemæus. After Ptolemæus had put an end to himself, Cato, being detained of necessity in Rhodes, happened to have sent Canidius, one of his friends, to look after the money, but as he feared that Canidius would not keep his hands from filching, he wrote to Brutus to sail as quick as he could to Cyprus from Pamphylia; for Brutus was staying there to recover from an illness. Brutus sailed very much against his will, both out of respect for Canidius, as being undeservedly deprived of his functions by Cato, and inasmuch as he was a young man and a student,10 considering such a piece of business and administration not at all fit for a free man or for himself. However, he exerted 401himself about these matters and was commended by Cato; and when the king’s substance was converted into money, he took the greatest part and sailed to Rome.

IV

But when matters came to a division, Pompeius and Cæsar having taken up arms, and the government being in confusion, it was expected that he would choose Cæsar’s side, for his father11 was put to death by Pompeius some time before; but as he thought it right to prefer the public interests to his own, and as he considered the ground of Pompeius for the war to be better than Cæsar’s, he joined Pompeius. And yet, hitherto, when he met Pompeius, he would not even speak to him, thinking it a great crime to talk with his father’s murderer; but now, placing himself under Pompeius as leader of his country, he sailed to Sicily as legatus with Sestius,12 who had got it for his province. But as there was nothing of importance to do there, and Pompeius and Cæsar had already met together to contend for the supremacy, he went to Macedonia as a volunteer to share the danger; on which occasion they say that Pompeius, being delighted and surprised at his coming, rose from his seat and embraced him as a superior man in the presence of all. During the campaign all the daytime when he was not with Pompeius he was employed about study and books; and not only at other times, but also before the great battle. It was the height of summer, and the heat was excessive, as they were encamped close to marshy ground; and those who carried the tent of Brutus did not come quickly. After being much harassed about these matters, and having scarcely by midday anointed himself and taken a little to eat, while 402the rest were either sleeping or engaged in thought and care about the future, he kept on writing till evening-time, making an epitome of Polybius.13

V

It is said that Cæsar, too, was not indifferent about the man, but gave orders to those who commanded under him not to kill Brutus in the battle, but to spare him; find if he yielded to bring him, and if he resisted being taken, to let him alone and not force him; and this, it is said, he did to please Servilia,14 the mother of Brutus. For when he was still a youth, he had, it seems, known Servilia, who was passionately in love with him, and as Brutus was born about the time when her love was most ardent, he had in some degree a persuasion that Brutus was his son. It is recorded that when the great affair of Catilina had engaged the Senate, which affair came very near overturning the State, Cato and Cæsar were standing up at the same time and disputing. While this was going on, a small letter was brought in and given to Cæsar, which he read silently, whereon Cato called out that Cæsar was doing a shameful thing in receiving communications and letters from their enemies. Many of the Senators hereon made a tumult, and Cæsar gave the letter just as it was to Cato, and it was a passionate letter from his sister Servilia, which he read and throwing it to Cæsar said, “Take it, drunkard;” and he again turned afresh to his argument and his speech. So notorious was the love of Servilia for Cæsar.

403

VI

After the defeat at Pharsalus and the escape of Pompeius to the sea, while the ramparts were blockaded, Brutus secretly got out of the gates which led to a marshy spot, full of water and reeds, and made his way by night to Larissa. From thence he wrote to Cæsar, who was pleased that he was alive and told him to come to him; and he not only pardoned Brutus, but had him about him and treated him with as much respect as any one else. No one could say where Pompeius had fled to, and there was much doubt about it; but Cæsar walking a short way alone with Brutus tried to find out his opinion on the matter; and as Brutus appeared, from certain considerations, to have come to the best conjecture about the flight of Pompeius, Cæsar leaving everything else hurried to Egypt. But Pompeius, who, as Brutus conjectured, had landed in Egypt, met his fate there; and Brutus mollified Cæsar even towards Cassius.15 When Brutus was speaking in defence of the King of the Libyans,16 he felt himself overpowered by the magnitude of the charges against him, but yet by his prayers and urgent entreaties he preserved for him a large part of his dommions. Cæsar is said, when he first heard Brutus speaking, to have remarked to his friends: “This youth, I know not what he wills, but what he does will, he wills with energy.” For the earnest character of Brutus, and his disposition not to listen unadvisedly nor to every one who asked a favour, but to act upon reflection and principle, made his efforts strong and effective towards accomplishing whatever ho turned to. But towards unreasonable prayers he was immovable by flattery, and to be overcome by those who impudently urged their suit, which some call to be shamed out of a thing, he considered to be most disgraceful to a great man, and he was wont to say that those who can refuse nothing, 404were in his opinion persons who had not well husbanded their youthful bloom. When Cæsar was going to cross over to Libya against Cato and Scipio, he intrusted Brutus with Gallia17 on this side of the Alps, to the great good fortune of the province; for while the other provinces, through the violence and rapacity of those who were intrusted with them, were harassed like conquered countries, Brutus was to the Gauls a relief and consolation for their former misfortunes; and he put all to Cæsar’s credit, so that when after his return Cæsar was going about Italy, the cities that had been under Brutus were a most pleasing sight, as well as Brutus himself, who was increasing his honour and associating with him as a friend.

VII

Now there were several prætorships, but that which conferred the chief dignity, and is called the Urban prætorship,18 it was expected that either Brutus or Cassius would have; and some say that Brutus and Cassius, who had before some slight causes of dispute, were still more at variance about this office, though they were kinsmen, for Cassius was the husband of Junia, the sister of Brutus. Others say that this rivalry was the work of Cæsar, who continued secretly to give both of them hopes, until, being thus urged on and irritated, they were brought into collision. Brutus relied on his good fame and virtues against the many splendid exploits of Cassius in his Parthian campaigns. Cæsar hearing this and consulting with his friends said: “What Cassius says has more justice, but Brutus must have the first office.” Cassius was appointed to another prætorship, but he had not so much gratitude for what he got, as anger for what he failed in getting. Brutus also shared Cæsar’s power in 405other respects as much as he chose. For if he had chosen, he might have been the first of his friends and had most power; but his intimacy with Cassius drew him that way and turned him from Cæsar, though he had not yet been reconciled to Cassius after their former rivalry; but he listened to his friends who urged him not to let himself be softened and soothed by Cæsar, and to fly from the friendly advances and the favours which a tyrant showed him, not because he respected the virtues of Brutus, but because he wished to curtail his vigour and to undermine his spirit.

VIII

Nor yet was Cæsar altogether without suspicions of Brutus, and matter of complaint against him; he feared the proud temper and the credit and friends of the man, but he trusted in his moral character. In the first place, when Antonius and Dolabella19 were said to be aiming at change, he said, it was not sleek and long-haired men who gave him trouble, but those pale and lean fellows, meaning Brutus and Cassius. Next, when some persons were making insinuations against the fidelity of Brutus and urging Cæsar to be on his guard, he touched his body with his hand and said, “What, think you that Brutus would not wait for this poor body?” thereby intimating that no person but Brutus had any pretensions to so much power after himself. And indeed it seems that Brutus might certainly have been the first man in the State, if he could have endured for a short time to be second to Cæsar, and if he had let Cæsar’s power pass its acme, and the fame got by his great exploits waste away. But Cassius, who was a violent-tempered man and rather on his individual account a hater of Cæsar than on the public account a hater of the tyrant, inflamed Brutus and urged him on. Brutus indeed is said to have been discontented with the dominion, but Cassius to have hated the dominator; and Cassius had various grievances against Cæsar and among others, the seizing of the lions, which Cassius had procured when he was going to be ædile, but Cæsar kept them after they had been found in Megara at the time when the city was taken by Calenus.20 It is said that these beasts were 406the cause of great calamity to the people of Megara: for when the enemy were getting possession of the city, the citizens forced open their dens and loosed their chains, that the beasts might oppose the enemy who were entering the city, but they rushed against the citizens themselves, and running among them rent those who were unarmed, so that the sight moved even the enemy to pity.

IX

Now they say that this was with Cassius the main cause of his conspiring; but they say so untruly. For there was from the beginning in the nature of Cassius a certain hostility and dislike to all the race of tyrants, as he showed when he was still a boy and went to the same school with Faustus,21 the son of Sulla. Faustus was one day bragging among the boys and exalting the monarchy of his father, on which Cassius got up and thumped him. The guardians of Faustus and his kinsmen were desirous to prosecute the matter and seek legal satisfaction; but Pompeius prevented this, and bringing both the boys together questioned them about the affair. Thereon it is reported that Cassius said, “Come, now, Faustus, say if you dare before Pompeius the words at which I was enraged, that I may break your mouth again.” Such was the character of Cassius. But many words from his friends and many oral and written expressions from the citizens called and urged Brutus to the deed. For they wrote on the statue of his ancestor Brutus, who had put down the dominion of the kings: “Would you were here, Brutus!” and “Would Brutus were now living!” And the tribunal of Brutus, who was prætor, was found every morning full of such writings as these: “Brutus, are you asleep?” and “You are not really Brutus!” But they who were the real cause of this were the flatterers of Cæsar, who devised various unpopular distinctions for him and placed diadems on his statues by night, as if their design was to lead on the many to salute him as king instead of dictator. But the contrary was the result, as it has been circumstantially told in the Life of Cæsar.22
407

X

When Cassius was trying to move his friends against Cæsar, they all assented, provided Brutus would take the lead; for they said that the undertaking required not hands nor yet daring, but the character of a man such as Brutus was, who should as it were begin the holy rite and confirm it by his presence: if this could not be, the conspirators would be more dispirited in the doing of the deed and more timid when they had done it, for it would be said that Brutus would not have rejected all share in the thing, if it had a good cause. Cassius, who saw the truth of this, now made the first advances to Brutus since their difference. And after their reconciliation and friendly greeting Cassius asked, if he intended to be present in the Senate on the new-moon of March, for he heard that Cæsar’s friends would then make a proposal about the kingly power. Brutus replied that he would not be present. “What then,” said Cassius, “if they summon us?” “It would be my business then,” said Brutus, “not to be silent, but to fight and die in defence of liberty.” Cassius being now encouraged said, “What Roman will endure that you die first? Brutus, do you not know yourself? Do you think it is the weavers and tavern-keepers who have written on your tribunal, and not the first and best who have done this, and who demand from the other prætors donations and shows and gladiators, but from you, as a debt that you owe your country, the destruction of the tyranny, and who are ready to suffer everything for you, if you show yourself to be such a man as they think you ought to be and they expect you to be.” Upon this he threw his arms around Brutus and embraced him, and thus separating each went to his friends.

XI

There was one Caius Ligarius,23 a friend of Pompeius, who had been accused on this ground and acquitted by Cæsar. This man, who had not gratitude for his acquittal of the charge, but was hostile to the power by 408reason of which he had been in danger, was an enemy of Cæsar, and one of the most intimate friends of Brutus. Brutus, who came to see him when he was sick, said, “Ligarius, at what a time you are sick!” Immediately supporting himself on his elbow, and laying hold of the hand of Brutus, Ligarius said, “But if you, Brutus, design anything worthy of yourself, I am well.”

XII

After this they secretly sounded their acquaintance whom they trusted, and communicated the design to them, and added them to their number; making choice not only among their intimates, but those whom they knew to be good darers and to despise death. It was for this reason that they concealed their design from Cicero, though both as to trustworthiness and goodwill he was esteemed by them among the first, lest to his natural defect of courage he should join by reason of his years senile caution, and so attempting by deliberation to bring everything singly to perfect security, should blunt their edge, which required the speed of ready action. Among his other companions Brutus omitted also Statilius24 the Epicurean, and Favonius, an admirer of Cato, because when Brutus, in conversation and philosophical disquisition, had remotely and in a circuitous way sounded them about such an attempt, Favonius answered that a civil war was worse than an illegal monarchy; and Statilius said that it was not befitting a wise man, and one who had understanding, to expose himself to danger and to trouble on account of the vile and foolish. Labeo,25 who was present, opposed both of them. Brutus, indeed, at the time kept silent, as if he considered that the matter was something hard and difficult to determine; but afterwards he communicated his design to Labeo. When Labeo had readily accepted the proposal, it was resolved to gain over 409the other Brutus, surnamed Albinus,26 who was not a man of action, nor courageous, but he was strengthened by a number of gladiators, whom he was keeping for a spectacle for the Romans, and he was also in the confidence of Cæsar. When Cassius and Labeo spoke to him he made no answer, but meeting privately with Brutus, and learning that he was the leader in the act, he agreed to co-operate zealously. The greater part, and the men of chief note among the rest of the conspirators, were also brought over by the reputation of Brutus. And without swearing any mutual oath, or taking or giving mutual pledges by sacrifice of victims, they all so kept the secret in themselves and were silent and carried it with them, that the act, though prognosticated by the gods through oracular answers and sights and victims, was considered past belief.

XIII

Brutus having now the first men in Rome, both for spirit and family and virtues, dependent upon himself, and having a view of the whole danger, in his public demeanour endeavoured to restrain within himself and to keep his designs under strict control; but at home and by night he was no longer the same man, for sometimes care roused him involuntarily from his sleep, and at other times he was sunk in thought and brooding over the difficulties; and it did not escape his wife, who was resting with him, that he was full of unusual trouble, and was revolving in himself some design hard to carry and difficult to unravel. Now Porcia,27 as it has been said, was the daughter of Cato, and Brutus, who was her cousin, had married her, not in her virgin state, but he took her after the death of her husband, while she was still a young woman, and had one little child by her husband, and the child’s name was Bibulus; and there is extant a small book of memoirs of Brutus, written by Bibulus. Porcia, who was a philosopher 410 and loved her husband, and was full of spirit and good sense, did not attempt to question her husband about his secrets before she had made trial of herself in manner following. She took a knife, such as barbers pare the nails with, and putting all her attendants out of the chamber, she inflicted a deep wound in her thigh, so that there was a large flow of blood, and, shortly after, violent pains and shivering fever came upon her in consequence of the wound. Brutus being agonised and full of trouble, Porcia spoke to him thus in the acme of her pain: “I, Brutus, Cato’s daughter, was given unto thy house, not like women, who serve as concubines, to share thy bed and board only, but to be a partner in thy happiness, and a partner in thy sorrows. Now, with respect to thy marriage, everything is blameless on thy part; but as to me, what evidence is there, or what affection, if I must neither share with thee a secret sorrow nor a care which demands confidence? I know that a woman’s nature is considered too weak to carry a secret, but, Brutus, there is a certain power towards making moral character in a good nurture and honest conversation; and I am Cato’s daughter and also Brutus’ wife, whereon hitherto I had less relied, but now I know that I am also invincible to pain.” Thus saying, she showed him the wound, and told him of the trial she had made of herself. Struck with astonishment and stretching forth his hands, Brutus prayed that the gods would permit him to succeed in the enterprise and to show himself a husband worthy of Porcia. He then consoled his wife.

XIV

When notice had been given of a meeting of the Senate, at which Cæsar was expected to be present, they resolved to make the attempt, for they would be then collected without raising any suspicion, and they would have together all the men of highest character and rank, who would be ready as soon as a great act was accomplished, forthwith to seize their freedom. The circumstance of the place, too, was considered to be a token from heaven and in their favour. For it was a portico, one belonging to the theatre,28 with an exhedra, in which there was a statue of Pompeius, which the city erected at 411the time when Pompeius adorned that site with porticoes and the theatre. Hither then the Senate was summoned about the middle of the month of March; the Romans call the day the Ides; so that some dæmon seemed to be bringing the man to the vengeance of Pompeius. When the day came, Brutus put a dagger under his vest, without any one being privy to it except his wife, and went forth; the rest assembled at the house of Cassius, to conduct down to the Forum Cassius’ son, who was going to assume the toga called virilis. From thence they all hurried to the portico of Pompeius, where they waited in expectation of Cæsar’s coming immediately to the Senate. Herein most of all would one have admired the impassiveness of the men and their presence of mind before the danger, if he had known what was going to take place—in that, being compelled by their duties of prætor to attend to the concerns of many persons, they not only listened patiently to those who came before them and had matter in dispute, like men who have plenty of leisure, but they also gave to each their decision in exact form and with judgment, carefully attending to the business. And when one person, who was unwilling to submit to the decision, was appealing to Cæsar, and calling out loud and protesting, Brutus, looking on the bystanders, said: “Cæsar does not hinder me from acting according to the laws, and he will not hinder me.”

XV

And yet many things chanced to fall out to cause them perplexity; first and chief, that Cæsar tarried while the day was getting on, and as the victims were not propitious, was kept at home by his wife, and was hindered by the priests from going abroad. In the next place, a person came up to Casca, who was one of the conspirators, and taking his hand said, “Casca, you have concealed the secret from us, but Brutus has disclosed all to me.” Casca was startled at this, whereon the other smiled and said, “How have you grown so rich all at once as to become a candidate for the ædileship?” So near did Casca come to betraying the secret, being deceived by the ambiguity of the man’s words. A senator also, Popilius Lænas,29 saluted Brutus and Cassius in a more lively way than usual, and 412whispering in a low tone, “You have my wishes,” he said, “for success in what you design, and I urge you not to tarry, for the matter is no secret.” Saying this he withdrew, putting them in great suspicion of the intended deed being known. In the meantime one came running from the house of Brutus and told him that his wife was dying. For Porcia, who was beside herself through thinking of what was going to be done, and unable to bear the weight of her anxiety, could scarce keep herself within doors, and at every noise and shout, like those possessed with bacchic frenzy, she would spring forth and question every one who came in from the Forum, what Brutus was doing, and was continually sending others out. At length, as the time began to be protracted, her bodily strength no longer held out, but she fainted and swooned away, her mind wandering by reason of her perplexity; and she could not reach her apartment before faintness and indescribable alarm seized her, where she was sitting in the midst of her attendants, and her colour changed and her voice was completely choked. Her maids at this sight shrieked aloud, and as the neighbours quickly ran to the door, a report went forth and was given out abroad, that she was dead. However she quickly recovered and was herself again, and her women took care of her. Brutus was troubled, as was natural, by this report coming upon him; yet he did not desert the public interest, nor allow himself to be carried away by his feelings to his own domestic affairs.

XVI

And now it was told that Cæsar was approaching, borne in a litter. For he had determined, in consequence of being dispirited by the sacrifices, to ratify nothing of importance at that time, but to put things off on the pretext of illness. When he had stepped out of the litter, Popilius Lænas hurried up to him, he who had a little before wished Brutus good luck and success, and he talked some time with Cæsar who was standing there and listening. The conspirators (for so we may call them) not hearing what he said, but conjecturing from their own suspicions that the conversation was a discovery of the plot, sunk in their spirits and looked at one another, by their countenances declaring to one another that they ought not to wait to 413be seized, but forthwith to die by their own hands. Cassius and some others had already laid their hands on the hilts of their daggers under their garments and were drawing them out, when Brutus observing in the attitude of Lænas the earnestness of a man who was asking a favour and not preferring an accusation, said nothing, because so many persons not of their party were mingled with them, but he encouraged Cassius by the cheering expression of his countenance. And soon after Lænas kissed Cæsar’s right hand and withdrew, by which it was plain that he had spoken with Cæsar about himself and some of his own concerns.

XVII30

The Senate having advanced to the exhedra, the conspirators surrounded Cæsar’s chair, as if they designed to have a conference with him. And it is said that Cassius, turning his face to the statue of Pompeius, invoked him as if he could hear; and Trebonius having engaged Antonius in conversation at the door kept him out. As Cæsar entered, the Senate stood up, and as soon as he sat down, the conspirators in a body surrounded him, putting forward Tillius Cimber, one of their number, to supplicate for his brother who was an exile; and they all joined in the supplication, laying hold of Cæsar’s hands, and they kissed his breast and head. Cæsar at first repulsed their intreaties, and then, as they did not intermit, he made a sudden attempt to rise up, on which Tillius, with both his hands, pulled Cæsar’s garment down from the shoulders, and Casca first of all (for he stood behind him) drew his sword and drove it into Cæsar’s body near the shoulders, but to no great depth. Cæsar, laying hold of the handle, cried out aloud in the Roman language, “Villain Casca, what are you doing!” and Casca, addressing his brother in Greek, urged him to come to his aid. Cæsar being now assaulted by many, looked around with the intention of forcing his way through them, but when he saw Brutus drawing his sword against him, he let loose his hold of Casca’s hand, and wrapping his head in his garment he offered his body 414to the blows. The conspirators, who were all mingled in confusion, and using their numerous swords against Cæsar, wounded one another, so that even Brutus received a blow on the hand while he was taking part in the slaughter; and they were all drenched with blood.

XVIII

Cæsar having been thus killed, Brutus advanced into the midst wishing to speak, and he attempted to detain the Senate by encouraging them; but the senators, through fear, fled in disorder, and there was shoving and confusion about the door, though no one pursued or pressed upon them. For it had been firmly resolved to kill no other than Cæsar, but to invite all to freedom. Now the rest, when they were deliberating about the deed, were of opinion that they should kill Antonius at the same time with Cæsar, as he was a man who aspired to monarchical power and was a violent man, and had got strength by his intercourse and familiarity with the army; and chiefly that to his natural haughtiness and daring temper he had added the dignity of the consulship, being then Cæsar’s colleague. But Brutus opposed the design, first relying on grounds of justice, and next suggesting hopes of a change. For he did not despair that Antonius, a man of generous nature, a lover of honourable distinctions and fond of fame, when Cæsar was put out of the way, would join his country in seizing hold of freedom, and be led on by them through emulation to what was good. In this way Brutus saved Antonius; but in the then alarm Antonius changed his dress for plebeian attire and fled. Brutus and his partisans went to the Capitol, their hands stained with blood, and displaying their bare swords called the citizens to liberty. Now, at first, there were shouts, and the people running this way and that, as chance would have it, after the murder, increased the confusion; but as there was no more slaughter and no plundering of the things exposed for sale, both the senators and many of the plebeians took heart and went up to the conspirators to the Capitol. The multitude being assembled, Brutus spoke in a way to please the people and suitable to the circumstances; and as the people commended him and called out for them to come down, the conspirators confidently descended to the Forum, the rest following with one another; 415 but many of the persons of distinction putting Brutus in the midst of them, conducted him with great show from the Capitol, and placed him on the Rostra. At the sight of this the many, though a mingled body and prepared to raise a tumult, were afraid, and they awaited the result in order and silence. When Brutus came forward they all listened to what he said; but that the deed was not agreeable to all, they made evident when Cinna began to speak and to bring charges against Cæsar, by breaking out in passion and abusing Cinna, so that the conspirators returned to the Capitol. Brutus, fearing to be blockaded, then sent away the chief persons of those who had gone up with him, not thinking it right that, as they had no share in the blame, they should sustain a share in the danger.

XIX

However, on the following day when the Senate met in the temple of Earth, and Antonius and Plancus31 and Cicero had spoken about an amnesty and concord, it was resolved that the conspirators should not only have impunity, but that the consuls should also propose a measure for conferring honours on them. They voted these things, and then separated. After Antonius had sent his son to the Capitol as a hostage, Brutus and the conspirators came down, and there were salutations and pressing of hands among all of them together. Antonius received Cassius and feasted him, and Lepidus entertained Brutus; and the rest were entertained by others according to the intimacy or friendship that existed between them. At daybreak the senators met again, and in the first place they conferred honours on Antonius for having stopped the beginning of civil wars; in the second place, thanks were given to Brutus and his friends who were present, and finally distributions of provinces. For to Brutus they decreed Crete, and to Cassius Libya, and to Trebonius Asia, and to Cimber Bithynia, and to the other Brutus Gallia on the Eridanus.

XX

After this a discussion arising about the will of 416Cæsar and his interment, and Antonius demanding that the will should be read, and that the body should be carried forth not secretly nor without due honours, so that this, too, might not irritate the people, Cassius violently opposed it, but Brutus gave way, wherein he was considered to have made a second mistake. For in sparing Antonius he incurred the imputation of strengthening against the conspirators a dangerous and irresistible enemy; and as to the matter of the interment, in allowing it to take place in the way in which Antonius demanded, he was considered to have altogether made a mistake. For in the first place there being given by the will to every Roman seventy-five drachmæ,32 and to the people there being left the gardens beyond the river, where the temple of Fortuna now is, a wonderful degree of affection and regret for Cæsar seized the citizens: in the second place, when the body had been carried into the Forum, and Antonius according to custom had pronounced a funeral oration in honour of Cæsar, seeing that the masses were stirred by his speech, he changed their feeling into compassion, and taking the blood-stained vest of Cæsar he unfolded it and showed the rents and the number of the wounds. Upon this there was no longer any order kept; but some called out to kill the murderers, and others, as before in the case of Clodius33 the demagogue, tearing up the benches and tables from the workshops and bringing them together made a very large pile; and placing the corpse upon it in the midst of many temples and asyla and holy places burnt it. When the fire blazed forth, men from various quarters, approaching and plucking out half-burnt pieces of wood, ran about to the houses of Cæsar’s assassins, intending to fire them. But they were already well prepared and repelled the danger. Now there was one Cinna,34 a man given to poetry, who was under no imputation in the matter, and had even been a friend of Cæsar. He dreamed in a dream that he was invited by Cæsar to supper and he refused; but Cæsar urged and forced him, and at last, laying hold of his hand, 417led him to a vast and gloomy place, he following the while unwilling and alarmed. After having this vision, it happened that he had a fever in the night. Nevertheless, in the morning, when Cæsar’s body was being carried forth he felt ashamed not to be present, and went out to the rabble, who were now in a ferocious mood. Being seen and supposed to be not the Cinna that he was, but the Cinna who had lately reviled Cæsar before the assembly, he was torn in pieces.

XXI

It was mainly through fear on account of this unlucky affair, next after the change in Antonius, that Brutus and his partisans left the city. They stayed in Antium35 at first, with the design of returning to Rome when the popular fury should have passed its height and worn itself out. And this they expected to take place as a matter of course among numbers which were subject to unsteady and rapid movements, and because they had the Senate in their favour, who without taking any notice of those that had torn Cinna to pieces, sought out and seized those who had attacked the houses of the conspirators. The people, too, already annoyed at Antonius being nearly established in monarchical power, longed for Brutus, and it was expected that he would, in person, superintend the spectacles36 which as prætor it was his duty to exhibit. But when Brutus heard that many of those who had served under Cæsar and received lands and cities from him, were forming designs against him, and were dropping into the city a few at a time, he did not venture to go, and the people saw the spectacles, which, though Brutus was absent, were furnished without any thrift and in a profuse style. For he had purchased a great number of wild beasts, and he gave orders that none should be sold or left, but that all should be killed; and he himself went down to Neapolis and engaged most of the actors. With respect to a certain Canutius who was much in favour on the theatre, he wrote 418to his friends that they should get him on the stage by persuasion, for it was not fit that any Greek should be forced. He also wrote to Cicero and urged him by all means to be present at the spectacles.

XXII

While affairs were in this state, another change was brought about by the arrival of the young Cæsar.37 He was the son of Cæsar’s niece, but by Cæsar’s testament he was left his son and heir: and he was staying at Apollonia when Cæsar was killed, being engaged with philosophical studies and waiting for Cæsar, who had resolved to march forthwith against the Parthians. As soon as he heard of Cæsar’s death he came to Rome, and by assuming Cæsar’s name as a mode of beginning to get the popular favour, and by paying among the citizens the money that was left them, he made a strong party against Antonius, and by distributing money he got together and assembled many of those who had served under Cæsar. Now when Cicero took the side of Cæsar through hatred of Antonius, Brutus38 rebuked him strongly in his letters, saying that Cicero did not dislike a master, but feared a master who hated him, and that his policy was to choose a mild servitude, as he showed by writing and saying, “How good Cæsar is!” But our fathers, he said, did not endure even mild masters. He said that for his part at this crisis he had neither quite resolved to fight nor to remain quiet, but he was resolved on one thing only, not to be a slave; but he wondered at Cicero, that he was afraid of a civil war and one attended with danger, and was not afraid of a base and inglorious peace, and that he asked as a reward for ejecting Antonius from the tyranny, to be allowed to make Cæsar a tyrant.

XXIII

Now in his first letters Brutus thus expressed himself; but when people were separating themselves, some on the side of Cæsar and some on the side of Antonius, and the armies being venal were selling themselves as it were by auction to the highest bidder, Brutus, 419altogether despairing of affairs, resolved to leave Italy, and he went by land through Lucania to Velia39 to the sea. From this place Porcia, intending to turn back to Rome, endeavoured to conceal her excessive emotion, but a painting made her betray herself though she was a noble-spirited woman. It was a subject from Grecian story, Hector accompanied by Andromache,40 who was receiving her infant son from Hector and looking upon him. The sight of the picture, in which her own feelings were portrayed, melted Porcia to tears, and she went to it many times in the day and wept. Acilius, one of the friends of Brutus, having pronounced the words of Andromache to Hector:—

“Hector, thou art to me father and mother dear,

And brother too, and husband in thy bloom:”

Brutus, smiling, said, “But it is not for me to say to Porcia as Hector said:

“‘The loom and distaff, and command the maids;’

for owing to the natural weakness of her body she is unable to perform noble deeds equally with us, but in her mind she nobly dares as we do in defence of our country.” This is recorded by Bibulus, the son of Porcia.

XXIV

Having set out thence Brutus sailed towards Athens.41 The people received him gladly with expressions of good wishes and public honours, and he lodged 420with a friend. As he attended the discourses of Theomnestus the Academic, and Cratippus42 the Peripatetic, and associated with those philosophers, it was supposed that he was altogether inactive and was unbending himself. But he was busied about preparations for war, when no one suspected it; for he sent Herostratus into Macedonia with the view of gaining over those who were with the armies there, and he attached to himself and kept with him the young men from Rome who were residing at Athens for the sake of their studies. Among them was also a son of Cicero whom Brutus particularly commends, and says, that whether he is waking or sleeping, he admires him for his noble disposition and hatred of tyrants. Having now begun openly to attend to affairs, and hearing that Roman vessels full of money were sailing over from Asia, with a commander on board who was an honest man and an acquaintance of his, he met him near Carystus;43 and having fallen in with him and persuaded him and obtained a surrender of the vessels, he prepared for a magnificent entertainment, for it was the birthday of Brutus. When they had come to drinking and were pouring out wine with wishes for the success of Brutus and the liberty of the Romans, Brutus, wishing to encourage them still more, asked for a larger cup, and taking it up, without anything moving thereto, he uttered the following verse:

“Me evil fate and Leto’s son44 have slain.”

In addition to this they report that when he went out to fight the last battle at Philippi, Apollo was the word that he gave to his soldiers. Accordingly they consider that the utterance of that verse was a sign of what was to befall him.

421

XXV

After this Antistius gave Brutus fifty ten thousands out of the money which he was taking to Italy; and all the soldiers of Pompeius who were still rambling about Thessaly gladly flocked to Brutus; and he took five hundred horsemen from Cinna who was conducting them into Asia to Dolabella.45 He then sailed against Demetrias46 and got possession of a large quantity of arms, which were going to be carried away to Antonius, and had been made at the command of the elder Cæsar for the Parthian war. Hortensius,47 the governor, also surrendered Macedonia to him, and the kings and rulers all around began to side with him and to come over; but in the meantime news arrived that Caius, the brother of Antonius, had crossed over from Italy and was marching straight against the troops which Gabinius48 had under him in Epidamnus and Apollonia. Brutus, intending to anticipate and prevent him, immediately put in motion those who were with him, and marched through a difficult country in the midst of a snow-storm; and he was far in advance of those who conveyed the provisions. As he came near Epidamnus, he began to suffer from bulimy49 through exhaustion and cold. This malady chiefly attacks both beasts and men when they are worn out and in the midst of the snow, whether it is that the heat owing to the refrigeration and condensation, when everything is internally compressed, consumes the nourishment all at once, or that a sharp and subtle 422breath arising from the snow penetrating through, cuts the body and destroys the warmth which is dispersed outwards from it. For it seems that heat causes sweats through meeting with the cold and being quenched about the surface; whereof there has been further discussion in another place.

XXVI

As Brutus was fainting, and no one in the army had anything to eat, his attendants were compelled to fly for refuge to their enemies, and approaching the gates they asked bread of the watch, who hearing of the mishap of Brutus came and brought to eat and to drink. In return for which, when Brutus got possession of the city, he not only treated them kindly, but also all the rest for their sake. Caius Antonius now came up to Apollonia and summoned the soldiers who were there; but when they went over to Brutus, and he perceived that the people of Apollonia were in favour of Brutus, he left the city and marched to Buthrotum.50 And in the first place he lost three cohorts, which were cut to pieces by Brutus on the march; and in the next place, attempting to force the posts about Byblis, which were already occupied, he came to a battle with Cicero and was defeated; for Brutus employed Cicero in command and gained many successes through him. Brutus himself came upon Caius, who was in marshy ground and far separated from the rest of his troops, but he would not let his men make an attack, and he threw his cavalry around him with orders to spare the men, saying that in a short time they would be theirs; which in fact happened, for they surrendered themselves and their general, so that there was now a large force with Brutus. Now Brutus treated Caius respectfully for some time and did not deprive him of the insignia of his office, though, as they say, many persons, and Cicero among the rest, wrote to him from Rome and urged him to do it. But as Caius began to have secret 423conferences with the officers and attempted to excite a mutiny, he had him put in a ship and guarded. The soldiers who had been corrupted fled to Apollonia and invited Brutus there, but Brutus said that this was not the custom among the Romans, and that they must come to their general, and ask pardon for their offence. They came, and Brutus pardoned them at their prayer.

XXVII

As Brutus was going to set out for Asia, news arrived of the changes at Rome. The young Caesar had been strengthened by the Senate against Antonius, whom he had driven out of Italy, and he was now formidable, and was seeking for the consulship contrary to law, and maintaining large armies of which the State had no need. But when Caesar saw that the Senate was displeased at this, and was looking abroad towards Brutus and decreeing provinces51 for him and confirming them, he became alarmed. And he sent to Antonius and invited him to friendship, and placing his troops around the city he got the consulship, being yet hardly a young man, but in his twentieth year, as he said in his Memoirs. He immediately instituted a prosecution on a charge of murder against Brutus and his partisans, for having put to death without trial the first man in the state who was filling the highest offices; and he named as the accuser of Brutus, Lucius Cornificius, and Marcus Agrippa as the accuser of Cassius. Accordingly they were condemned for default of appearance, the judices being compelled to go to the vote. It is said that when the crier, according to custom, from the tribunal summoned Brutus into court, the mass gave a loud groan, and the nobles bent their heads to the ground and kept silence; but that Publius Silicius was seen to shed tears, and for this reason was shortly after one of those who were proscribed. After this, the three, Cæsar, Antonius and Lepidus, distributed the provinces among them, and caused the slaughter and proscription of two hundred men, among whom Cicero perished.

XXXVIII

When the news of these events reached Macedonia, Brutus,52 compelled by circumstances, wrote 424to Hortensius to put Caius Antonius to death, on the ground of avenging Brutus and Cicero, the one being his friend, and the other both a friend and kinsman. This was the reason why Antonius, when he afterwards took Hortensius at Philippi, put him to death on the tomb of his brother. Brutus says that he felt more shame at the cause of Cicero’s death than sympathy at his misfortune, and that he blamed his friends in Rome, for they were slain more through their own fault than that of the tyrants, and that they submitted to see and to witness what it should have been intolerable for them even to hear. Brutus having taken his army over to Asia, which was now a considerable force, set about fitting out a naval force in Bithynia53 and in the neighbourhood of Cyzicus; and himself moving about with his troops settled the cities and had interviews with the rulers; and he sent to Cassius54 into Syria to recall him from Egypt; for he said that it was not to get dominion, but to deliver their country that they were rambling about and collecting a force with which they would put down the tyrants; that they ought therefore, remembering and keeping in mind this purpose, not to hold themselves far from Italy, but to hasten thither and to aid the citizens. Cassius obeyed, and Brutus met him on his return; and they fell in with one another near Smyrna, for the first time since they had separated in Peiraeus and set out, the one for Syria, the other for Macedonia. They had accordingly great pleasure and confidence owing to the force which each had. For they had hurried from Italy like the most despicable fugitives, without money and without arms, without a single ship, a single soldier, or a city, and yet after no very long interval they had come together with ships and troops and horses and money, able to struggle for the supremacy of the Romans.

425

XXIX

Now Cassius was desirous to have and to allow an equal share of honour, but Brutus herein anticipated him by generally going to Cassius who, in age, was his superior, and in body was not able to sustain equal toil. The opinion was that Cassius was skilled in military matters, but was violent in passion and governed mainly by fear, while towards his intimates he was too much inclined to use ridicule and was too fond of jesting. As to Brutus, they say that he was esteemed by the many for his virtues, but loved by his friends, admired by the nobles, and not hated even by his enemies, because the man was extraordinarily mild and high-minded and unmoved by anger, pleasure or love of aggrandisement, and kept his judgment upright and unbending in the maintenance of honour and justice. That which got him most goodwill and reputation was the faith which men had in his motives. For neither that great Pompeius, if he had put down Cæsar, was confidently expected to give up his power to the laws, but to retain affairs in his hands, pacifying the people with the name of consulship and dictatorship or some other title with more pleasing name; and this Cassius, who was a violent and passionate man and was often carried away from justice in quest of gain, more than any one else they thought would carry on war, and ramble about and expose himself to danger for the purpose of getting power for himself, not liberty for the citizens. For as to the men of still earlier times, the Cinnas and Marii and Carbos, they viewed their country as a prize and booty for competition, and all but in express words fought to get a tyranny. But as to Brutus, they say that not even his enemies imputed to him such a change in his purpose, but that many persons had heard Antonius say, he thought Brutus was the only person who conspired against Cæsar because of being moved by the splendour and apparent noble nature of the deed, and that the rest combined against the man because they hated and envied him. Accordingly it appears from what Brutus says that he trusted not so much in his power as in his virtues. He wrote to Atticus when he was just approaching the danger, that his affairs were in the best plight as to fortune, for that he should either get the victory 426and free the Roman people, or should die and be released from slavery; and though everything else was safe and secure for them, one thing was uncertain, whether they should live and be free or die. He says that Marcus Antonius was paying a just penalty for his folly, for while he might have been numbered with the Bruti and Cassii and Catos, he made himself an appendage to Octavius, and if he should not be defeated with him, he would shortly after have to fight against him. Now he seems, in saying this, to have well divined what was to happen.

XXX

While they were then in Smyrna, Brutus claimed a share of the money which Cassius had collected to a great amount, for Brutus alleged that he had expended all his own resources in building so great a fleet with which they would command all the internal sea.55 But the friends of Cassius were not for letting him give up the money, saying, “What you save by economy and get with odium, it is not fair that he should take and apply to gaining popularity and gratifying the soldiers.” However, Cassius gave him a third part of all. Separating again to their several undertakings, Cassius, after taking Rhodes, did not conduct himself with moderation, but made this answer at his entrance to those who addressed him as king and lord: “I am neither king nor lord, but the executioner and punisher of lord and king.” Brutus demanded of the Lycians money and men. When Naucrates the demagogue persuaded the cities to revolt, and the people occupied certain heights to prevent Brutus from passing, in the first place he sent cavalry against them when they were eating, who killed six hundred of them; and in the next place taking possession of the posts and forts, he released all the people without ransom with the view of gaining over the nation by kindness. But the people were obstinate, being enraged at what they had suffered, and despising his moderation and humanity, till at last Brutus drove into Xanthas56 the most warlike of the Lycians, and blockaded them there. Some of them attempted to escape by swimming under the river which flowed by the city: but they were caught by nets which were sunk in the channel to the bottom, and the tops of the nets had bells attached to them which gave a signal as soon as any one was caught. The Xanthians, making a sally by night, threw fire on certain engines; and when they were driven back into the town by the Romans who perceived them, and a strong wind began to blow against the battlements the flame which was laying hold of the adjoining houses, Brutus, who feared for the city, ordered his soldiers to help to extinguish the fire.

XXXI

But the Lycians were all at once seized with a horrible impulse to despair surpassing all description, which might be best likened to a passion for death; for with their wives and children, both freemen and slaves, and people of every age, they threw missiles from the walls upon the enemy who were assisting to quench the flames, and carrying reeds and wood and everything combustible, they drew the fire to the city, offering to it all kinds of material and in every way exciting and feeding it. As the flames rushed onwards and engirdling the city blazed forth with violence, Brutus, in great affliction at what was going on, rode round the walls, being eager to save the people, and stretching out his hands to the Xanthians he prayed them to spare themselves and save the city; and yet no one regarded him, but in every way they sought to destroy themselves; and not only men and women, but even the little children; with cries and shouts, some leaped into the fire and others broke their necks from the walls, and others presented their throats to their fathers’ knives, baring them and bidding them strike. After the city was destroyed, there was found a woman suspended by a rope, with a dead child hung to her neck, and firing the house with a lighted torch. This tragical sight Brutus could not endure to see, and he wept at hearing of it; and he proclaimed that a reward should be given to every soldier who could save a Lycian. They say that there were only one hundred and 428427fifty who did not escape being saved. Now the Xanthians after a long interval, as if they were reproducing a fated period of destruction, renewed the fortune of their ancestors in their desperation; for their ancestors in like manner in the time of the Persians burnt their city and destroyed themselves.

XXXII

Brutus seeing that the city of Patara was preparing to resist him was unwilling to attack it, and was perplexed because he feared the same desperation; and as he had their women captive, he let them go without ransom. These women, who were the wives and daughters of distinguished men, reported of Brutus that he was a most moderate and just man, and they persuaded the citizens to yield and to surrender the city. Upon this all the rest of the Lycians surrendered and gave themselves up to him, and they found him to be honourable and merciful beyond their expectation; for while Cassius about the same time compelled all the Rhodians to bring in the gold and silver which was their private property, and a sum of eight thousand talents was thus collected, and mulcted the commonwealth of the city in five hundred talents besides, Brutus only demanded of the Lycians a hundred and fifty talents, and without doing them any other wrong set out for Ionia.

XXXIII

Now Brutus did many deeds worthy of remembrance both in rewarding and punishing according to desert; but that with which he himself was most pleased and the best of the Romans, I will relate. When Pompeius Magnus landed in Egypt at Pelusium, what time he fled after being completely defeated by Cæsar, the guardians of the king, who was still a youth, being in counsel with their friends, were not inclined the same way in their opinions. Some were for receiving and others for driving the man from Egypt. But one Theodotus57 of Chios, who was hired to teach the king rhetoric, and was then thought worthy of a place in the council for want of better men, attempted to show that both were in error, those who advised to receive and those who advised to send away Pompeius, for there was one thing in the present circumstances 429 that was useful, and that was to receive him and put him to death. And he added, at the end of his speech, that a corpse does not bite. The council assented to his opinion, and Pompeius Magnus fell, an instance of things passing belief and expectation, and the result of the rhetorical skill and eloquence of Theodotus, as the sophist himself used to say boastingly. When Cæsar arrived shortly after, some of them paid the penalty of their guilt and perished miserably; and Theodotus, who borrowed from fortune a short period for an inglorious and poor and rambling life, did not escape Brutus when he came into Asia, but he was carried before him and punished, and thus he gained a greater name by his death than by his life.

XXXIV

Brutus invited Cassius to Sardis58 and met him with his friends on his approach; and the whole force under arms saluted both of them as Imperatores. Now as it is wont to happen in the midst of great affairs, and among many friends and commanders, causes of difference had arisen between Brutus and Cassius, and suspicions; and before they did anything else, immediately on their arrival at Sardis they entered into a room by themselves and closed the door, and no one being present they began with blaming one another, and then fell to proofs and charges. From this they came to tears and passionate expressions without restraint, so that their friends, wondering at the roughness and violence of their anger, feared lest something should happen; but it was forbidden to approach them. But Marcus Favonius, who had been a lover of Cato, and was a philosopher not so much from reason as a certain impulse and mad passion, went in to them though the slaves attempted to hinder him. But it was a hard thing to check Favonius when he had put himself in motion towards any object, for he was impetuous in all things and impatient. He made no account of being a Roman senator, but by his cynical freedom of speech he often took away the harshness and unseasonableness of his behaviour, the hearers receiving all as jest. On this occasion forcing his way against those who tried to 430stop him, he entered, and with mock solemnity uttered the words which Homer59 has made Nestor use:

“Obey: ye both are younger far than I,”

and what follows. At which Cassius laughed, but Brutus turned him out, calling him true dog and false cynic. However, they forthwith became reconciled, and this was the end of their difference for the time. Cassius gave an entertainment to which Brutus invited his friends.60 As they were just reclining, Favonius came from the bath; and, on Brutus declaring that he came without invitation and bidding him withdraw to the highest couch,61 he forced his way to the central couch and reclined there; and they made merry over the banquet, and the mirth was not without its zest nor unseasoned with philosophy.

XXXV

On the following day Lucius Pella,62 a Roman who had been prætor and trusted by Brutus, was charged by the people of Sardis with taking money unlawfully, and he was publicly condemned and declared infamous by Brutus. This affair gave Cassius no small pain. For a few days before, two of his friends who were convicted of the same offence, he privately admonished and publicly acquitted, and he still continued to employ them. Accordingly he blamed Brutus as being too strict an observer of law and justice at a time which required politic conduct and conciliatory 431 measures. But Brutus told him to remember the Ides of March on which they lulled Cæsar, who was not himself oppressing and plundering everybody, but supported others who did it, so that if there was any specious pretext for overlooking justice, it would have been better to bear with Cæsar’s friends than to allow their own friends to do wrong. For they, he said,63 have the imputation of cowardice, but we of injustice, and that too joined to danger and toil. Such were the principles of Brutus.

XXXVI64

When they were going to cross over from Asia, it is said that Brutus had a great sign. The man was naturally wakeful, and by discipline and temperance he contracted his sleep into a small space of time, never reposing in the daytime, and by night only so long as he was unable to do anything or to speak to any one because people were resting. But at that time when the war was on foot, having on his hands the general management of everything, and his thoughts being on the stretch with regard to the future, when he had taken a short repose after eating, he employed the rest of the night on affairs of urgency. And when he had finished and arranged everything that was necessary about such matters, he would read a book till the third watch, at which time the centurions and tribunes were used to come to him. Being then about to convoy his army over from Asia, it happened to be dead of night and the lamp in his tent was not very bright; and the whole camp was in deep silence. As Brutus was considering and reflecting with himself, he thought that he heard some one come in, and looking towards the entrance he saw a terrible and strange vision of a huge and frightful figure standing by him in silence. He had the courage to ask, “What man or god art thou, or with what purpose dost thou come to us?” The phantom replied to him, “I am thy evil dæmon, Brutus, and thou shalt see me at Philippi.” And Brutus without being disturbed, said, “I shall see.”

XXXVII65

When the phantom disappeared, Brutus 432called the slaves, and as they said that they had neither heard any voice nor seen anything, Brutus still kept awake; and at daybreak he betook himself to Cassius and told him his vision. Cassius, who followed the doctrines of Epicurus,433 and was accustomed to dispute about them with Brutus, said, “Our opinion, Brutus, is this, that we do not in fact feel all things nor see them, but perception is a certain flexible and deceitful thing, and the intellect is still quicker to move and change it, without there being any real thing, into all forms. For the fashioning of the form is like unto wax, and as the soul of man possesses both the thing to be fashioned and that which fashions, being the same, it has of itself the power of most easily varying itself and assuming different forms. And this is shown by the changes of our dreams in sleep, which changes the phantastic power undergoes, from slight causes assuming every kind of effect and image. It is the nature of the phantastic power to be always in motion, and motion is to it a certain phantasy or perception. In you the body being troubled naturally excites and perverts the mind. But it is neither probable that there are dæmons, nor that, if there are, they have the form of men or the voice, or that their power reaches to us; and indeed I wish it were so, that we might not put trust only in arms and horses and so many ships, but also in the help of the gods being the leaders in most upright and noble undertakings.” By such arguments as these Cassius attempted to calm Brutus. When the soldiers were embarking, two eagles descended on the first standards and were carried along with them, and accompanied the soldiers, who fed them, as far as Philippi. And there, one day before the battle, they flew away.

XXXVIII

Now Brutus had subjected to him most of the nations that lay in his way: and if any city or ruler had been passed by, they then brought over all in their progress as far as the sea opposite to Thasos. In those parts Norbanus66 and his troops happened to be encamped 434in the Straits and about Symbolum; but Brutus and Cassius getting round them compelled them to withdraw and desert the posts. They also came very near taking his force, Cæsar staying behind on account of illness; and they would have done it, if Antonius had not come to their aid with such wonderful expedition that Brutus could scarce believe it. Cæsar arrived ten days later, and pitched his camp opposite to Brutus: Antonius took his station opposite to Cassius. The plain which lay between the armies, the Romans called the Campi Philippi; and it was on this occasion that the largest Roman armies were matched against one another. Now in numbers they were not a little inferior to those of Cæsar, but in show and splendour of arms the forces of Brutus outshone the enemy. For most of their armour was of gold, and silver had been unsparingly supplied, though in other respects Brutus accustomed his officers to a simple and severe habit. But he thought that the wealth which they had in their hands and about their bodies, would give courage to the more ambitious of honour and would make those who were fond of gain still more courageous, as if the weapons which they held were their property.

XXXIX

Now Cæsar made a lustration67 within his lines, and distributed among the soldiers a small allowance of grain and five drachmæ apiece for the sacrifice; but Brutus, who considered this either as proof of Cæsar’s poverty or his meanness, first of all performed a lustration for the army under the open sky, according to the custom, and then distributed a number of victims for every cohort, and fifty drachmæ to each man, by which he had the advantage over the enemy in the goodwill and zeal of his troops. Notwithstanding this a bad omen, as Cassius considered it, happened during the lustration; for the lictor brought him his crown reversed. It is said that on a former occasion, also during a certain spectacle and435 procession, a golden Victory belonging to Cassius, which was being carried, fell down owing to the bearer slipping. Besides this many birds of prey daily appeared in the camp and swarms of bees were seen collecting about a certain spot within the lines, which the diviners enclosed in order to get rid of the superstitious fear which was gradually withdrawing even Cassius himself from the principles of Epicurus, and had completely cowed the soldiers. Owing to this, Cassius was not eager that the matter should be decided at present by a battle, and he was of opinion that they should protract the war, being strong in resources, but in amount of arms and men inferior to the enemy. But Brutus even before this was eager to settle the matter by the speediest hazard, and thus either to recover freedom for his country, or to relieve from their sufferings all the people who were oppressed by cost and military service and requisitions. And now seeing that his cavalry was successful and victorious in the skirmishes and encounters of posts, his spirit was raised: and some desertions to the enemy which took place and imputations and suspicions against others caused many of the friends of Cassius in the council to go over to the opinion of Brutus. One of the friends of Brutus, Atillius, opposed the opinion of Brutus and advised that they should wait for the winter. On Brutus asking, Wherein he thought that he would be better after a year, he replied, If in nothing else, I shall live longer. Cassius was vexed at this, and Atillius gave no small offence to the rest. Accordingly it was resolved to fight on the next day.

XL

Brutus went to rest after having been in high spirits and engaged in philosophical discourse at supper. As to Cassius, Messala68 says that he supped by himself with a few of his intimates, and appeared thoughtful and silent, though he was not naturally so; and that after supper he pressed the hand of Messala strongly and said, 436as he was wont when he was in friendly mood, in the Greek language, “I call you to witness, Messala, that I am in the same situation as Pompeius Magnus, being compelled to cast the die for my country’s safety in a single battle. However, let us have a good heart, looking to fortune, which it is not right to distrust, though we may have resolved badly.” Messala says that these were the last words that Cassius spoke to him and thereon embraced him, and that he was invited69 by him to supper for the following day, which was his birthday. At daybreak there was hung out in the lines of Brutus and of Cassius the signal for the contest, a purple vest, and they met between the two camps, and Cassius said: “Brutus, I hope we may be victorious and live together happily all the rest of our lives; but as the chief of human events are the most uncertain, and if the battle results contrary to our expectation, it will not be easy for us to see one another, what do you intend with respect to flight or death?” Brutus replied, “When I was a young man, Cassius, and inexperienced in affairs, I know not how it happened that I neglected a weighty matter in philosophy. I blamed Cato for killing himself, considering that it was not right nor befitting a man to withdraw himself from his dæmon, and not to await what happens without fear, but to skulk away. But now I am of a different mind in the circumstances, and if the deity shall not determine in our favour, I do not want to try other hopes and means, but I will withdraw content with fortune, that on the Ides of March I gave to my country my life and have lived another life for her sake free and glorious.” Whereat Cassius smiled and, embracing Brutus, said, “With such thoughts let us go against the enemy; for we shall either conquer or we shall not fear the conquerors.” After this they discussed the order of battle in the presence of their friends. Brutus asked Cassius to allow him to command the right wing, which was supposed to be more appropriate for Cassius on account of his experience and his age. 437But Cassius granted even this, and he commanded Messala with the bravest of the legions to be posted on the right. Brutus immediately led forth the cavalry equipped in splendid style, and he brought up the infantry with equal expedition.

XLI

The soldiers of Antonius happened to be driving trenches from the marshes, around which they were encamped, into the plain and cutting off the approaches of Cassius to the sea. Cæsar was on the watch, not being present himself by reason of sickness, but his troops were there, which, however, did not expect that the enemy would fight, but would merely make sallies against the works and disturb the diggers with light missiles and shouts; and as they were paying no attention to those who were opposed to them, they were surprised at the shouts about the trenches, which were indistinct and loud. In the meantime billets came from Brutus to the officers in which the word was written, and as he was advancing on horseback before the legions and encouraging them, a few had time to hear the word as it was passed along, but the greater part without waiting, with one impulse and shout rushed against the enemy. Some irregularity arose in the lines and some separation of them through this disorder, and the legion of Messala first and those which were close upon it outflanked Cæsar’s left; and having slightly touched the soldiers on the extreme left and killed no great number, but completely outflanking them, fell on the camp. Cæsar, as he says in his Memoirs, inasmuch as one of his friends, Artorius Marcus,70 had seen a vision in his sleep which bade Cæsar get out of the way and leave the camp, had just before been conveyed out of it, and he was supposed to have lost his life; for the enemy pierced his empty litter with javelins and spears. And there was a slaughter in the camp of those who were captured, and two thousand Lacedæmonians, who had lately come as allies, were cut to pieces with them.

438

XLII

They who had not surrounded the soldiers of Cæsar, but had engaged with those in front, easily put to flight the enemy who were in confusion, and destroyed at close quarters three legions, and they rushed into the camp with the fugitives, carried along by the impetuosity of success and having Brutus with them; but what the victors did not see, that the critical time showed to the vanquished. For pushing forward to the parts of the opposite line which were exposed and broken where the right wing was drawn off in the pursuit, they did not force the centre but were engaged in a violent struggle; but they put to flight the left, which was in disorder and ignorant of what had happened, and pursuing it to the camp they plundered it, neither of the Imperatores being with them. For Antonius, as they say, having at the beginning avoided the attack, retreated to the marsh, and Cæsar could nowhere be seen, as he had fled from the camp; but some showed their bloody swords to Brutus supposing they had killed him, and describing his appearance and age. And now the centre had repelled their opponents with great slaughter; and Brutus thought that he was completely victorious as Cassius thought that he was defeated. And this was the only thing which ruined their cause, that Brutus did not aid Cassius because he thought that he was victorious, and that Cassius did not wait for Brutus because he thought that he had perished; for Messala considers it a proof of victory that Brutus had taken three eagles and many standards from the enemy, and the enemy had taken nothing. Brutus now retreating after he had destroyed Cæsar’s camp, was surprised not to see the tent of Cassius standing out conspicuous, as usual, nor the rest in their place, for most of the tents had immediately been thrown down and torn in pieces by the enemy when they broke in. But those who thought they could see better than their comrades said to Brutus that they saw many helmets glittering and many silver shields moving about in the camp of Cassius, and they said it did not appear to them that it was either the number or the armour of those were left to guard the camp, but yet there did not appear to be in that direction a number of corpses such as might be expected if so many legions had been defeated. This 439 was the first thing that gave Brutus an idea of the misfortune; and leaving a guard in the camp of the enemy he recalled the pursuers and got them together to aid Cassius.

XLIII

And it had fared thus with him. He was neither pleased at seeing the first onset of the soldiers of Brutus without signal and order, nor was he pleased that when they were victorious they rushed straight to plunder and profit, taking no pains to get round and encircle the enemy. Cassius, conducting his operations rather with delay and waste of time than with vigour and judgment, was surrounded by the right wing of the enemy; and when he saw that, as soon as the cavalry broke away in flight to the sea, the infantry also were giving way, he endeavoured to stop and recall them. He also seized the standard from one of the standard-bearers who was flying, and fixed it in the ground before his feet, though even those who were placed about his person no longer remained with any spirit. In these circumstances, being pressed, he retreated with a few men to a hill which had a view towards the plain. He saw nothing in the plain, or with difficulty the plunder of the camp, for he was weak of vision; but the horsemen around him saw many approaching whom Brutus sent. Cassius conjectured that they were enemies and were in pursuit of him; yet he sent Titinius, one of those who were with him, to see. The horsemen did not fail to observe him approaching, and when they saw a man who was a friend, and faithful to Cassius, they shouted for joy, and some of his friends leaping down from their horses embraced him and took his hand, and the rest riding round him with joyful shouts and clatter by their unmeasured rejoicing produced the greatest misfortune. For Cassius was quite sure that Titinius was caught by the enemy. With these words, “Through love of life have I waited to see a friend seized by the enemy,” he retired into an empty tent dragging after him one of his freed men, Pindarus, whom, in the unfortunate affair of Crassus, he had prepared for this extremity. Cassius escaped the Parthians, but now drawing his cloak over his head and baring his neck he presented it to be cut asunder; for the head was found separated from the body. But no man saw Pindarus after the 440death of Cassius, which made some persons think that he had killed Cassius without his order. Shortly after the horsemen appeared, and Titinius crowned by them went up to Cassius. But when, by the weeping and cries of his friends who were lamenting and bewailing, he knew of the fate of the general and of his error, he drew his sword and with much upbraiding of himself for his tardiness killed himself.

XLIV

Brutus, who was acquainted with the defeat of Cassius, was now approaching, and he heard of his death when he was near the camp. After lamenting over the body and calling Cassius the last of the Romans, as if he considered that such a spirit could never again be produced in Rome, he wrapped up the corpse and sent it to Thasos, that no disorder might be produced by its being interred there. He summoned the soldiers together and consoled them; and seeing that they were deprived of all necessaries he promised them two thousand drachmæ apiece in place of what they had lost. The soldiers were encouraged by his words and admired the magnitude of his present; and they accompanied him with shouts as he went away, magnifying him as the only one of the four Imperatores who was unvanquished in battle. And the result proved that he had good reason for trusting to success in the battle; for with a few legions he put to flight all those who opposed him. But if he had employed all his forces in the battle, and the greater part had not passed by the enemy and fallen on the enemy’s baggage, it is probable that he would have left no part of the enemy’s force unvanquished.

XLV

There fell on the side of Brutus eight thousand, with the slaves who were with them in the army, whom Brutus called Briges;71 and of the enemy Messala says that he thinks more than twice the number fell. For this reason the enemy was the more dispirited, till a slave of 441Cassius, named Demetrius, came to Antonius as soon as it was evening, having taken the cloaks from the corpse, and the sword; and when these were brought, they were so much encouraged that at daybreak they led forth their force prepared for battle. But as both his armies were in an unsettled and dangerous state (for his own army being full of captives required careful watching, and the army of Cassius was troubled at the loss of their general, and they felt somewhat of envy and dislike in consequence of their defeat towards the army that had been victorious), Brutus resolved to put his troops under arms, but he would not fight. Of the captives, he ordered the slaves to be killed, as they were moving about among the soldiers in a suspicious way; but of the freemen he released some, saying that they had rather been made captives by the enemy, and were captives and slaves there, but with him were free men and citizens; and when he saw that his friends and the officers were ill-disposed towards them, he saved them by concealing them and sending them away. There were a certain Volumnius,72 a mime, and Saculio, a jester, among the prisoners, whom Brutus cared not for, and his friends bringing these to him accused them of not abstaining even now from speaking and jeering to insult them. Brutus was silent, being occupied with other thoughts, but Messala Corvinus was of opinion that they should be flogged in a tent, and given up naked to the generals of the enemy, that they might know what kind of drinking companions and intimates they wanted in their campaigns. Some of those who were present laughed; but Publius Casca, who had struck Cæsar first, said, “We offer no fit sacrifice to Cassius who is dead, by making merry and jesting; but you, Brutus,” he said, “will show what remembrance you have of the general either by punishing or protecting those who will mock and revile him.” Upon this Brutus, greatly angered, said, “Why then do you ask me, Casca, and why don’t you do what you like?” This answer of Brutus they considered as an 442assent to the punishment of the unhappy men, whom they led away and put to death.

XLVI

After this Brutus gave the soldiers their present, and blaming them mildly for not having waited for the word, and having fallen on the enemy somewhat disorderly without waiting for the order, he promised them if they were victorious to give up to them for plunder and profit two cities, Thessalonica73 and Lacedæmon. This is the only thing in the life of Brutus which he is charged with that admits of no defence, though Antonius and Cæsar paid to their soldiers a much more terrible price as the reward of their victories, for they drove the old settlers out of nearly the whole of Italy, that their soldiers might have land and cities to which they had no claim. But with Antonius and Cæsar dominion and power was the end which they proposed to themselves in the war, while Brutus, owing to his reputation for virtue, was not allowed by the many either to conquer or to save his life otherwise than by honourable and just means; and especially now that Cassius was dead, who had the imputation of urging Brutus on to some of his more violent acts. But as at sea when the helm is broken, they attempt to nail on other 443pieces of wood, and to fit them, not skilfully indeed, but as well as they can under circumstances, fighting against the necessity, so Brutus with so great a force around him, and in so hazardous a state of affairs, having no commander of equal weight with himself, was compelled to employ those who were with him, and to do and say many things according to their pleasure. And he judged it fit to do whatever he thought would improve the disposition of the soldiers of Cassius, for they were difficult to manage: in the camp being unruly for want of discipline, and towards the enemy having a feeling of cowardice by reason of their defeat.

XLVII

Affairs were no better with Cæsar and Antonius, for they were scantily supplied with provisions, and owing to the camp being pitched in a hollow, they expected a bad winter. For being among marshes and the autumnal rains coming on after the battle, they had their tents filled with mud and with water which froze immediately through the cold. While they were in this condition, news arrived of the misfortune that had befallen their forces at sea. For the ships of Brutus74 fell upon them, and destroyed a large force that was coming to Cæsar from Italy, and only a very few of the men escaped, who were compelled by famine to eat the sails and ropes. On hearing this news they were eager to settle the matter by a battle before Brutus was aware of the great good fortune that had come to him; for it happened that in the same day the battle by land and the battle by sea were determined. But by some chance rather than through the fault of the commanders of the fleet, Brutus was ignorant of the success, though twenty days had elapsed. For otherwise he would not have gone out to a second battle when he was provided with all necessaries for his army for a long time and was posted in a good position, wherein he could have maintained his army in the winter free from all suffering and safe against the attacks of the enemy, and by being master of the sea, and having defeated by land the troops opposed to him, was in high hopes and spirits. But affairs, as it appears, being no longer governable by a 444number, and requiring a monarchy, the deity wishing to lead away and to remove the only person who stood in the way of him who was able to govern, cut off the news of that good fortune, though it came exceeding near to being communicated to Brutus. For the day before that on which he was going to fight, and late in the day, there came one Clodius, a deserter from the enemy, who reported, that Cæsar was eager to come to a decisive contest because he had heard of the destruction of his armament. The man got no credit for his report nor did he come into the presence of Brutus, being altogether despised as one who had heard no well-founded news, or reported falsehood to get favour.

XLVIII

In that night it is said that the phantom again appeared to Brutus, and displaying the same appearance said nothing and went away. But Publius Volumnius,75 a philosopher and one who accompanied Brutus in his campaign from the first, says that this was not the sign; but he says that the first eagle was covered with bees, and from the arm of one of the centurions an oil of roses spontaneously burst out, and though they often rubbed it off and wiped it away, it was all to no use. Further, before the battle, two eagles met and fought in the space between the armies, and a silence past belief filled the plain while all were looking on, but at last the eagle which was on the side of Brutus gave way and fled. The Ethiopian became notorious, he who met the eagle-bearer as soon as the gate was opened, and was cut down with their swords by the soldiers, who considered it a bad omen.

XLIX

After Brutus had made the line advance, and had placed it in front of the enemy, he paused some time, for suspicions reached him and information against certain persons while he was inspecting the army; and he observed that the cavalry were not very eager to begin the battle, but were still waiting for the infantry to commence the attack. All of a sudden, a man of military skill, who had been particularly distinguished for his courage, rode past Brutus himself and passed over to the enemy: his name was Camulatus. Brutus was greatly pained at seeing this, 445and partly through passion, partly through fear of greater change and treachery, he forthwith led his men against the enemy, the sun now going down, to the ninth hour. Brutus had the advantage with his own troops, and he pushed on, pressing upon the left wing of the enemy which gave way, and the cavalry supported him by charging together with the infantry the disordered ranks; but the other wing, which the commanders extended for fear of being surrounded, was inferior in numbers, and was drawn out in the centre, and thus becoming weak, did not resist the enemy, but fled first. The enemy, having broken this wing, immediately surrounded Brutus, who displayed all the virtues of a general and a soldier, both in his personal exertions, and his prudent measures in the midst of danger to secure victory; but he was damaged by that circumstance whereby he gained advantage in the former battle. For in that battle the part of the enemy which was defeated had perished; but few perished of the troops of Cassius, though they were put to flight, and those who escaped being very timid through their former defeat, filled the chief part of the army with despondency and confusion. On this occasion also, Marcus the son of Cato,76 fighting among the noblest and bravest of the youth, though hard pressed, did not yield nor flee, but laying about him and calling out who he was, and his father’s name, he fell on a heap of the enemy’s slain. There fell, too, the bravest of the men, exposing themselves in defence of Brutus.

L

Among the intimates of Brutus was one Lucilius,77 a good man. Observing that some barbarian horsemen in their pursuit paid no regard to the rest, but rode at full speed after Brutus, he resolved at his own risk to stop them. And being a little in the rear he said that he was Brutus, and he gained belief by praying them to take him to Antonius, because he feared Cæsar, but trusted in Antonius. The barbarians delighted at their success, and considering that they had surprising good luck, conducted the man, and as it was now growing dark, sent forward some of their number as messengers to Antonius. Antonius, much pleased, went to meet those who were conducting 446Lucilius; and those who heard that Brutus was being brought alive flocked together, some pitying him for his ill fortune, and others thinking it unworthy of his fame to let himself be taken by barbarians through love of life. When they were near, Antonius stopped, being doubtful how he should receive Brutus, but Lucilius, approaching with a cheerful countenance, said, “Antonius, no enemy has taken Marcus Brutus, nor will: may fortune never have such a victory over virtue. But he will be found, whether alive or dead, in a condition worthy of himself. But I who have deceived your soldiers am come to suffer, and I deprecate no punishment, however severe, for what I have done.” When Lucilius had said this, and all were in amaze, Antonius, looking on those who conducted Lucilius, said, “I suppose, fellow soldiers, you are vexed at your mistake, and think that you have been grossly tricked. But be assured that you have taken a better prey than that which you were in search of. For while you were seeking for an enemy, you have brought us a friend; for as to Brutus, I know not by the gods, what I should have done with him if he were alive, but such men as this, I pray that I may have as friends rather than as enemies.” Saying this he embraced Lucilius and for the time placed him with one of his friends, but he afterwards employed him, and found him in everything faithful and true.

LI

Brutus, having crossed a certain stream, the banks of which were lined with wood and steep, just when it began to be dark, did not advance far, but seating himself in a hollow spot where there was a large rock spread out, with a few of his officers and friends about him, first looked up to the heavens which were full of stars, and uttered two verses, one of which Volumnius has recorded:

“Forget not,78 Jove, the author of these ills;”

447
but the other he says that he forgot. After a while naming each of his companions who had fallen in battle before his eyes, he grieved most over the memory of Flavius and Labeo. Labeo was his lieutenant, and Flavius the chief of the engineers. In the meantime one who was thirsty himself and saw that Brutus was in the same plight, took a helmet and ran down to the river. As a noise from the opposite side reached their ears, Volumnius went forward to see, and Dardanus the shield-bearer with him. Returning after a while they asked about the water; and Brutus, smiling with a very friendly expression on Volumnius, said, “It is drunk up, but some more shall be brought for you.” The same person was sent, but he was in danger of being taken by the enemy and escaped with difficulty after being wounded. As Brutus conjectured that no great number of his men had fallen, Statyllius79 undertook to make his way secretly through the enemy, for it was not possible in any other way, and to inspect the camp, and after raising a fire-signal, if he should find all safe there, to come back to him. The fire-signal was raised, for Statyllius got to the camp, but as a long time elapsed and he did not return, Brutus said, “If Statyllius is alive he will come.” But it happened that, as he was returning, he fell among the enemy and was killed.

LII80

In the course of the night, Brutus, as he sat on448 the ground, turned to his slave Kleitus and spoke to him. But as Kleitus kept silence and shed tears, Brutus drew 449to him his shield-bearer Dardanus, and privately said something to him. At last employing the Greek language he 450addressed Volumnius and reminded them of their philosophical studies and discipline, and he urged him to put 451his hand to his sword and to aid him in the thrust. Volumnius refusing, and the rest being in the same disposition, 452 and some one saying that they must not stay there, but fly, Brutus sprang up and said, “Certainly we must fly, yet not with the feet, but with the hands.” Offering his right hand to each with a cheerful countenance, he said that he felt great pleasure, that no one of his friends had deceived him, but he blamed fortune with respect to his country; as for himself, he considered that he was happier than the conquerors, in that not yesterday nor yet recently, but even now he left behind him a reputation for virtue, which those would not leave behind who gained the victory by arms or by money, nor would they make people think that unjust and vile men who had destroyed just and upright men did not rule unmeritedly. After entreating and urging them to save themselves, he retired a little farther with two or three, among whom was Strato who had become intimate with him from being his instructor in rhetoric. Putting Strato close to him, and pressing the bare sword with both hands on the handle, he fell upon it and died. Others say that it was not Brutus himself, but Strato who, at the earnest request of Brutus, held the sword under him, averting his eyes, and that Brutus throwing his breast upon it with violence, and piercing it through, quickly died.

LIII

Messala81 who was a friend of Brutus and became reconciled to Cæsar, once on a time when Cæsar was at leisure, brought this Strato to him, and with tears in his eyes said, “This, Cæsar, is the man who did the last service to my Brutus.” Cæsar received Strato and kept him about him, and Strato was one of the Greeks who showed themselves brave men in difficulties, and in the battle at Actium. They say that Messala himself being afterwards commended by Cæsar because, though he had been one of their greatest enemies at Philippi for the sake of Brutus, he had shown himself most zealous at Actium, replied, “Yes, Cæsar, I have always been on the better and453 juster side.” When Antonius found the body of Brutus,82 he ordered it to be wrapped in the most costly of his purple vests; and when he afterwards discovered that the purple vest was stolen, he put the thief to death. The ashes he sent to Servilia, the mother of Brutus. Nikolaus83 the philosopher and Valerius Maximus84 relate that Porcia the wife of Brutus being desirous to die, which none of her friends would allow, but kept close and watched her, snatched burning embers from the fire, and closing her mouth, so died. Yet there is extant a letter of Brutus85 to his friends in which he upbraids them and laments about Porcia, that she was neglected by them and had determined to die because of her sufferings from disease. Nikolaus therefore appears not to have known the time, since the letter, if it is genuine, informs us of the malady, and the love of the woman and the manner of her death.

454

COMPARISON OF
DION AND BRUTUS.

I

Among the glories of these two men’s lives, it is especially to be noticed, that each of them started from small beginnings, and yet raised himself to the highest position in the state; and this fact is peculiarly honourable to Dion. Brutus owed much of his success to the help of Cassius, who, though less trustworthy than Brutus in matters of virtue and honour, gave equal proofs of courage, skill, and energy in war, while some writers go so far as to give him the entire credit of the plot against Cæsar, and say that Brutus had no share in it. Dion on the other hand was obliged to provide himself with friends and fellow conspirators, no less than with arms, ships, and soldiers. Furthermore, Dion did not, like Brutus, gain wealth and power by the revolution and war which he began, but even gave his own money to support the war, and spent the property on which he might have lived comfortably in exile in order to make his countrymen free. We must remember, also, that Brutus and Cassius could not have remained quiet after they left Rome, for they had been condemned to death, and were being pursued, so that they were forced to fight in their own defence. When they risked their lives in battle it was for themselves that they did so more than for their countrymen, whereas Dion lived in exile more happily than the despot who banished him, and nevertheless exposed himself to so terrible a hazard in order to set Sicily free,

II

Yet it was not the same thing to free the Syracusans from Dionysius and to rid the Romans of Cæsar. Dionysius never denied that he was a despot, and had inflicted countless miseries upon Sicily: while the government of Cæsar, though its creation gave great offence, yet when 455it had been accepted and had overcome all opposition seemed to be a despotism merely in name, for Cæsar did nothing cruel or arbitrary, and rather appeared to have been sent by heaven like a physician, to establish an absolute monarchy in as mild a form as possible, at a time when that remedy was necessary for Rome. In consequence of this the people of Rome were grieved at the death of Cæsar, and showed themselves harsh and inexorable to his murderers; while the severest charges which were brought against Dion by his countrymen were that he had allowed Dionysius to escape from Syracuse, and that he had not destroyed the tomb of the former despot.

III

In actual warfare Dion proved himself a faultless general, as he succeeded brilliantly in every enterprise planned by himself, and was able to remedy the failures caused by the misconduct of others; while Brutus seems not to have been wise in engaging in the last decisive battle, and when it was lost did not attempt to retrieve his fortunes, but gave himself up to despair, showing even less confidence than Pompeius. Yet, his position was far from hopeless, for he still retained a large part of his army, and a fleet which gave him entire command of the sea. Again, Dion cannot be accused of any crime like that which is the greatest blot upon the character of Brutus, who after his life had been saved by Cæsar’s goodness, and he had been allowed to save as many as he pleased of his fellow captives, after also he had been regarded by Cæsar as his friend, and had been promoted by Cæsar above many others, murdered his benefactor. On the contrary, Dion was the relative and friend of Dionysius, and assisted him in maintaining his government, and it was not until he was expelled from his country, his wife wronged, and his property confiscated, that he openly began a most just and lawful war against the despot. Is there not, however, another view of this question? That hatred of despotism and wrong which is so highly honoured, was possessed by Brutus pure and unalloyed by personal motives, for he had no private grudge against Cæsar, and yet risked his life on behalf of the liberty of the people: while Dion would never have made war against Dionysius, if he had not been wronged by him. This we learn distinctly from Plato’s letters,456 which prove that Dion did not begin his revolt until he was banished by Dionysius, after which, he deposed the tyrant. A common object made Brutus become the friend of Pompeius, who was Cæsar’s enemy both personally and politically, for Brutus made men his friends or his enemies solely according to what he thought right: while Dion assisted Dionysius much while he was on friendly terms with him, and only made war against him out of anger at his loyalty being suspected. For this reason many even of his own friends believed that after removing Dionysius from the throne he intended to succeed him, and to reign though under some title more plausible than that of despot; while even the enemies of Brutus admitted that he alone of all the conspirators against Cæsar kept one object consistently in view, which was to restore to the Romans their ancient constitution.

IV

Apart from these considerations the struggle against Dionysius was different from that against Cæsar. Dionysius was despised even by his own associates for wasting all his time with drink, dice, and women; whereas it shows a certain magnanimity, and a spirit undismayed by any danger, to have conceived the idea of dethroning Cæsar, and not to have been overawed by the wisdom, power, and good fortune of a man whose very name made the kings of Parthia and India uneasy in their sleep. As soon as Dion appeared in Sicily, thousands joined him to attack Dionysius, while the power of Cæsar’s name even after his death rallied his friends, and enabled a helpless child to become at once the first of the Romans by assuming it, as though it were a talisman to protect him against the might and hatred of Antonius. If it be said that Dion only drove out Dionysius after many fierce battles, whereas Brutus stabbed Cæsar when he was naked and unguarded, yet it was in itself a brilliant piece of generalship to have attacked so powerful a man when he was naked and unguarded: for he did not attack him on a sudden impulse, or alone, or even with a few associates; but the plot had been laid long before, and many were concerned in it, yet none betrayed him. Either he chose only the bravest men, or else the mere fact of their having been chosen and trusted by Brutus made them brave. Dion on the other hand 457trusted worthless men; and this is discreditable to his judgment, for they must either have been villains when he chose them for his followers, or else they must have been originally good, and have become worse during their connection with him. Plato indeed blames him for choosing such men for his friends, and at last he was murdered by them.

V

No one avenged the murder of Dion; but Antonius, though Brutus’s enemy, nevertheless buried him with honour, and Cæsar (Augustus) allowed the honours which were paid to his memory to remain untouched. A brazen statue of Brutus stands in the city of Milan, in Gaul, on this side of the Alps. When Augustus saw this, which was a good likeness and a capital piece of workmanship, he passed by it, but stopped shortly afterwards, and before a large audience called for the magistrates of the city, and told them that he had caught them in the act of breaking the peace by harbouring his enemy within their walls. They at first, as may be imagined, denied the charge, and looked at one another, not knowing to whom he alluded. Augustus now turned round towards the statue, and, knitting his brows, asked, “Is not this my enemy who stands here?” At this the magistrates were even more abashed, and remained silent. Augustus, however, smilingly commended the Gauls for remaining true to their friends in misfortune, and ordered the statue to be left where it stood.

458

LIFE OF
ARTAXERXES.

I

The first Artaxerxes, who surpassed all the kings of Persia in mildness and magnanimity of character, was surnamed Longhand, because his right hand was larger than his left. He was the son of Xerxes; and Artaxerxes the Second, the subject of this memoir, who was surnamed Mnemon, was the son of the former’s daughter: for Darius and Parysatis had four children, of whom the eldest was named Artaxerxes, the next Cyrus, and the two younger ones Ostanes and Oxathres.

Cyrus was named after the ancient king of that name, who is said to have been taken from the sun; for the Persians are said to call the sun Cyrus. Artaxerxes was originally named Arsikas, although the historian Deinon states that he was named Oarses. Still Ktesias, although his writings are full of all kinds of absurd and incredible tales, must be supposed to know the name of the king at whose court he lived, acting as physician to him, his mother and his wife.

II

Cyrus from his earliest youth displayed a determined and vehement disposition, while his brother was gentler in all respects and less passionate in his desires. He married a fair and virtuous wife at his parents’ command, and kept her against their will, for the king killed her brother, and wished to put her also to death, but Arsikas, by tears and entreaties, prevailed upon his mother to spare her life, and not to separate her from him. His mother, however, always loved Cyrus more than Artaxerxes, and wished him to become king instead of his brother. For this reason, when Cyrus was sent for from the coast during his father’s last illness, he went to 459court with great expectations, imagining that she had managed to have him declared heir to the throne. Indeed, Parysatis had a good argument for doing so, which had formerly, at the suggestion of Demaratus, been acted upon by the old king Xerxes; namely, that when Arsikas was born, Darius was merely a private man, but that when Cyrus was born he was a king. However, Parysatis did not succeed in inducing the king to declare Cyrus his heir, but the eldest son was proclaimed king and his name changed to Artaxerxes, while Cyrus was appointed satrap of Lydia and ruler of the provinces on the sea coast.

III

Shortly before the death of Darius, the king Artaxerxes travelled to Pasargadæ, in order that he might be initiated into the royal mystic rites by the priests there. The temple is dedicated to a warlike goddess whom one might liken to Athena. The person to be initiated enters this temple, removes his own clothes, and puts on those which the ancient Cyrus wore before he became king. He then eats some of a cake made of preserved figs, tastes the fruit of the terebinth tree, and drinks a cup of sour milk. Whether besides this he does anything else is known only to the initiated. When Artaxerxes was about to do this Tissaphernes met him, bringing with him one of the priests, who, when both the princes were boys, had been Cyrus’s teacher in the usual course of study, had taught him to use incantations like a Magian, and had been especially grieved at Cyrus not being proclaimed king. For this reason he more easily obtained credit when he accused Cyrus; and the accusation he brought against him was that Cyrus intended to conceal himself in the temple, and when the king took off his clothes, to attack him and murder him. Some writers say that this was how Cyrus came to be apprehended, while others state that he actually got into the temple, and was there betrayed by the priest. When he was about to be put to death, his mother threw her arms round him, flung her hair over him, pressed his neck against her own, and by her tears and entreaties obtained his pardon, and got him sent back again to his government on the sea coast. He was not satisfied with this position nor was he grateful for his pardon, but remembered only how he had been taken into custody, 460and through anger at this became all the more eager to gain the throne for himself.

IV

Some writers say that he revolted because his revenues did not suffice for his daily expenses; but this is absurd, since, if he could have obtained it from no other source, his mother was always ready to supply him, and used to give as much as he wanted from her own income. His wealth also is proved by the large mercenary force which, we learn from Xenophon, was enlisted by his friends and guests in many different places: for he never collected it together, as he wished to conceal his preparations, but he kept many persons in different places who recruited soldiers for him on various pretexts. His mother, who was present at court, lulled the king’s suspicions, and Cyrus himself constantly wrote to him in dutiful terms, asking him to grant certain matters, and bringing accusations against Tissaphernes, as though it was Tissaphernes of whom he were jealous and with whom he had a quarrel. There was also a certain slowness in the disposition of the king, which was mistaken by the people for good nature. At the beginning of his reign, he seemed inclined to rival the gentleness of his namesake, as he made himself pleasant to all whom he met, distributed honours and favours even beyond men’s deserts, took no delight in insulting and torturing evil-doers, and showed himself as affable and courteous to those from whom he received favours as he was to those upon whom he bestowed them. No present was so trifling that he did not receive it gladly, but even when a man named Onisus brought him a pomegranate of unusual size, he said, “By Mithras, if this man were given the charge of a small city he would soon make it great!”

V

When during one of his journeys all men were bringing him presents, a labouring man, not finding anything else to give, ran to the river, took up some of the water in his two hands and offered it to him. Artaxerxes was pleased with the man, and sent him a gold drinking-cup and a thousand darics. When Eukleidas the Lacedæmonian had spoken his mind very freely to him, he bade his general say to him, “You may say what you please, but I may both say and do what I please.” Once 461when they were hunting, Teribazus pointed out to him that his coat was torn. Artaxerxes asked what was to be done, to which Teribazus answered, “Put on another coat, and give this one to me.” He replied, “I will give it to you, Teribazus, but I forbid you to wear it.” Teribazus, however, who was a loyal subject, but careless and flighty, immediately put on the coat, and ornamented himself with women’s necklaces belonging to the king, so that all men were disgusted with him, for it was not lawful to do so. The king, however, laughed, and said, “I allow you to wear the jewelry as a woman, and the coat as a fool.” Though no one eats at the same table with the king of Persia except his mother, who sits above him, or his wedded wife, who sits below him, Artaxerxes invited his younger brothers also, Ostanes and Oxathres, to sit at the same table. One of the sights which especially delighted the Persians was the carriage in which Statira, the wife of Artaxerxes, drove, with the curtains drawn back, for the queen allowed the people to greet her and approach her, and was much beloved by them in consequence.

VI

However, all turbulent and unsettled spirits thought that the empire required Cyrus at its head, since he was a brilliant and warlike prince, a staunch friend to his comrades, and a man of intellect and ambition, capable of wielding the enormous power of Persia. Cyrus, when he began the war, relied upon the attachment of the people of the interior of Asia as much as he did upon that of his own followers; and he wrote to the Lacedæmonians, begging them to help him and to send soldiers to him, declaring that if the soldiers came to him on foot, he would give them horses, and if they came on horseback, he would give them carriages and pairs, that if they possessed fields, he would give them villages, and if they possessed villages he would give them cities; and that his soldiers’ pay should be given them by measure, instead of being counted out to them. At the same time he boasted loudly about himself, averring that he had a greater heart than his brother, was a better philosopher, and was a more learned Magian, and also that he could drink and carry more wine than his brother, who, he declared, was so lazy and cowardly that he would not even mount a horse 462when hunting, or a throne in time of peril. The Lacedæmonians now sent a skytale1 to Klearchus, bidding him obey the bidding of Cyrus in all things. Cyrus marched against the King of Persia with a large force and nearly thirteen thousand Greek mercenary troops, whom he had engaged upon various pretences. His treason was not long undiscovered, for Tissaphernes went in person to tell the king of it, upon which there was a terrible scene of disorder in the palace, since Parysatis was blamed as being the chief instigator of the war, and her friends were all viewed with suspicion as traitors. Parysatis was especially enraged by the reproaches of Statira, who asked her loudly, “Where now are the pledges you gave us? What has come of the entreaties by which you begged off Cyrus when he plotted against his brother’s life, now that you have plunged us into war and misery?” In consequence of these reproaches Parysatis conceived a vehement hatred for Statira, and being of a fierce passionate unforgiving temper, she plotted her destruction. Deinon states that she effected her purpose during the war, but Ktesias says that she did the deed afterwards, and I shall adopt his account of the matter, for it is not probable that he, who was an eye-witness of these events, did not know the order in which they took place, or that in his history he should have had any reason for misrepresenting them, although he often departs from the exact truth with a view to dramatic effect.

VII

As Cyrus marched onwards, many rumours and reports were brought to him, that the king had determined not to fight at once, and was not anxious to meet him in battle, but that he intended to remain in Persia until his forces had assembled there from all parts of the empire. Indeed, although he had dug a trench across the plain ten fathoms wide, as many deep, and four hundred stadia long, yet he remained quiet and permitted Cyrus to cross it, and to march close to Babylon itself. Teribazus, we are told, was the first who ventured to tell the king that he ought not to avoid a battle, and retreat from Media and from Babylon, and even from Susa itself into Persia, when 463he possessed an army many times as great as that of the enemy, and numberless satraps and generals who were better generals and better soldiers than Cyrus. Upon hearing this advice, the king determined to fight as soon as possible. At first his sudden appearance with a splendidly equipped force of nine hundred thousand men caused great surprise and confusion among the rebels, who had gained such confidence that they were marching without their arms; and it was not without much shouting and disorder that Cyrus was able to rally them and place them in array. The king moved forward slowly and in silence, so that the Greeks were filled with admiration at the discipline of his army, for they had expected that in such a host there would be disorderly shouts and irregularity and intervals in the line. The strongest of the scythed chariots were judiciously posted by Artaxerxes in front of his line, in order that before the two armies engaged hand to hand they might break the enemy’s ranks by the force of their charge.

VIII

The battle2 has been described by many writers, and as Xenophon’s narrative is so clear that the reader seems almost to be present, and to see the different events in the act of taking place, it would be folly for me to do more than to mention some important particulars which he has omitted. The place where the two armies met is called Kunaxa, and is five hundred stadia distant from Babylon. Before the battle Klearchus is said to have advised Cyrus to post himself behind the ranks of the soldiers, and not to risk his life; to which Cyrus replied “What say you, Klearchus? Just when I am striving to win a kingdom, do you bid me prove myself unworthy of one?” In the action itself, though Cyrus made a great mistake in plunging so rashly into the midst of the enemy without regarding the risk that he ran, yet Klearchus was quite as much, if not more to blame for not arraying his Greeks opposite to the Persian king, and for resting his right wing upon the river for fear he should be surrounded. If he valued safety more than anything else, and cared only to avoid the slightest risk of loss, he had better have stayed 464at home; but after he had marched ten thousand stadia from the sea, under no compulsion, but solely in order to place Cyrus upon the throne of Persia, then to be solicitous, not for a post where he might win the victory for his chief and paymaster, but merely for one where he might fight without exposing himself, was to act like a man who, on the first appearance of danger, abandons the whole enterprise and gives up the object for which the expedition was made. It is abundantly clear from what took place, that if the Greeks had charged the troops who defended the king’s person, they would have met with no resistance, and if these men had been routed, and the king slain or forced to take flight, Cyrus’s victory would at once have placed him on the throne. It was, therefore, the overcaution of Klearchus more than the rashness of Cyrus which really caused the death of the latter and the ruin of his cause; for the Persian King himself could not, if he had wished, have placed the Greeks in a position where they could do him less harm, for they were so far away from him and his main body that he did not even perceive that they had routed their antagonists, and Cyrus was slain before Klearchus could reap any advantage from his victory. Yet Cyrus knew what was best, for he ordered Klearchus to post his men in the centre; but Klearchus, saying that he would manage as well as he could, ruined everything.

IX

The Greeks put the Persians to flight with the greatest ease, and pursued them for a long distance. Cyrus, as he rode forward, mounted upon a spirited, but hard-mouthed and unmanageable horse, which, we learn from Ktesias was named Pasakas, was met by Artagerses, the leader of the Kadousians, who shouted loudly, saying, “Most wicked and foolish of men, who hast disgraced the name of Cyrus, erst the noblest in Persia, and bringest thy base Greeks on a base errand, to plunder the good things of the Persians, and to slay thy brother and thy lord, who hath ten thousand times ten thousand slaves, each one better than thou art. Soon shalt thou find out the truth of this; for before thou seest the king’s face thou shalt lose thine own head.” Saying thus, he hurled his javelin against Cyrus, but his breastplate resisted the blow, 465and Cyrus was not wounded, although he reeled in his saddle from the violence of the stroke. As Artagerses wheeled round his horse, Cyrus struck him with a javelin, driving the point through his throat, beside the collar-bone. That Artagerses was slain by Cyrus nearly all historians agree, but as to the death of Cyrus himself, since Xenophon has described it very shortly, as he was not an eye-witness of it, we may as well give the accounts of it which Deinon and which Ktesias have written.

X

Deinon says that when Artagerses fell, Cyrus charged violently among the troops round the king, and wounded the king’s horse. Artaxerxes was thrown from his horse, but Teribazus quickly mounted him upon another horse, saying, “My king, remember this day, for you ought not to forget it.” Artaxerxes, he states, was again thrown from his horse by the vehement onset of Cyrus, and again mounted. At the third charge the king who was violently enraged, and cried out to those around him that it was better to die than be treated thus, rode straight against Cyrus, who rashly and heedlessly exposed himself to the missiles of his enemies. The king hurled a dart at Cyrus, and so did, all his followers. Cyrus fell, struck, some say by the king himself, but according to others he was slain by a Carian soldier, on whom the king afterwards, as a reward for this feat of arms, bestowed the honour of marching at the head of the army, carrying a golden cock upon a spear. Indeed the Persians call the Carians themselves cocks, because of the plumes with which they ornament their helmets.

XI

The story of Ktesias, reduced to a succinct form, is as follows:—Cyrus, after slaying Artagerses, rode towards the king himself, and the king rode towards him, both of them in silence. Ariaeus, the friend of Cyrus, struck the king first but did not wound him. The king hurled his spear and missed Cyrus, but struck Satiphernes, a man of noble birth and a trusted friend of Cyrus, and slew him. Cyrus hurled his javelin at the king, drove it through his breastplate, making a wound in his breast two fingers’ breadths deep, and cast him from his horse. Upon this there was much disorder, and many took to flight. The king rose, and with a few followers, among whom 466was Ktesias, took refuge on a hill hard by. Meanwhile Cyrus was carried by his horse a long distance forward into the midst of his enemies, and, as it was now growing dark, he was not recognised by his foes, and was being sought for in vain by his friends. Excited by his victory, and full of spirit and pride, he rode about through the ranks, crying, “Out of my way, wretches.” As Cyrus shouted these words in Persian, some made way for him, but the tiara fell from his head, and a young man named Mithridates, not knowing who he was, hurled a javelin and struck him on the temple near the eye. The wound bled profusely, and Cyrus became dizzy and faint, so that he fell from his horse. The horse rushed away from him and was lost, but the servant of the man who struck Cyrus took up his saddle-cloth, which fell from his horse, and which was drenched with blood.

When Cyrus began to recover from the effects of this blow, some few of his eunuchs tried to mount him upon another horse and get him safe away from the field. As, however, he could not mount, he proposed to walk, and the eunuchs supported him as he went, faint and weak in his body, but still imagining himself to be the victor as he heard the fugitives calling Cyrus their king and begging him for mercy. At this time certain men of Kaunus, of mean and low condition, who followed the king’s army to perform menial services, happened to join the party with Cyrus, supposing them to be friends. When, however, they managed to distinguish that the surcoats which they wore over their armour were purple, while all the king’s soldiers wore white ones, they perceived that they were enemies. One of them ventured to strike Cyrus from behind with a spear, not knowing who he was. The javelin struck Cyrus behind the knee, cutting the vein there, and in his fall he also struck his wounded temple against a stone, and so died. This is the story of Ktesias, in which he seems, as it were, to hack poor Cyrus to death with a blunt sword.

XII

When Cyrus was dead it happened that Artasyras, who was called the king’s eye,3 rode past. Recognising the eunuchs who were mourning over the body, he asked the most trusted of them, “Pariskas, who is this beside whom 467you sit weeping?” He answered, “Artasyras, do you not see that it is Cyrus, who is dead?” Artasyras was astonished at this news, bade the eunuch be of good courage and guard the body, and himself rode in haste to Artaxerxes, who had given up all hope of success, and was in great bodily suffering from his wound and from thirst. Artasyras, with great delight, told him that he had seen Cyrus lying dead. On hearing this Artaxerxes at first wished to go to see it himself, and bade Artasyras lead him to the spot; but as there was much talk and fear of the Greeks, who were said to be advancing and carrying all before them; he decided to send a party to view the body; and thirty men went carrying torches. Meanwhile, as the king himself was almost dying of thirst the eunuch Satibarzanes went in search of drink for him; for there was no water in the place where he was, nor indeed anywhere near the army. After much trouble the eunuch at length fell in with one of the low Kaunian camp followers, who had about four pints of putrid water in a skin, which he took from the man and carried it to the king. When the king had drunk it all, he asked him if he was not disgusted with the water; and the king swore by the gods that he never had drank either wine or the purest of water with such pleasure. “So,” added he, “if I be not able to find the man who gave you this water and reward him for it, I pray that the gods may make him rich and happy.”

XIII

While they were talking thus, the thirty men rode up in high spirits, announcing to him his unlooked-for good fortune. Artaxerxes now began to recover his courage from the number of men who began to assemble round him, and descended from the hill amidst the glare of many torches. When he reached the body, the head and right hand were cut off, in accordance with some Persian custom. He ordered the head to be brought to him, took hold of it by the long thick hair, and showed it to those who were still wavering or fleeing. They all were filled with amazement, and did homage to him, so that he soon collected a force of seventy thousand men, accompanied by whom he re-entered his camp. He had left it in the morning, according to Ktesias, with an army of four hundred thousand men; though Deinon and Xenophon 468 both estimate the forces actually engaged at a higher figure. Ktesias states that the number of the dead was returned to Artaxerxes as nine thousand, but that he himself thought that the corpses which he saw lying on the field must amount to more than twenty thousand. This point admits of discussion; but Ktesias tells an obvious untruth when he says that he was sent on an embassy to the Greeks, together with Phalinus of Zakynthus, and some other persons. Xenophon knew that Ktesias was at the king’s court, for he makes mention of him, and has evidently read his history; so that he never would have passed him over, and only mentioned Phalinus of Zakynthus, if Ktesias had really come as interpreter on a mission of such importance. But Ktesias, being a wonderfully vain man, and especially attached to the Lacedæmonians and to Klearchus, constantly in his history introduces himself, while he sings the praises of Lacedæmon and of Klearchus.

XIV

After the battle, Artaxerxes sent most splendid and valuable presents to Artagerses, the son of the man who had been slain by Cyrus, and handsomely rewarded Ktesias and the rest of his companions. He sought out the Kaunian from whom he had received the water-skin, who was a poor and humble man, and made him rich and honoured. He also took pains to appoint suitable punishments to those who had misconducted themselves. One Arbakes, a Mede, deserted to Cyrus during the battle, and when Cyrus fell again returned to his allegiance. Artaxerxes, perceiving that he had done so not from treachery but from sheer cowardice, ordered him to carry a naked courtesan about the market-place upon his shoulders for the whole of one day. Another deserter, who besides changing sides falsely boasted that he had slain two of the enemy, was condemned by the king to have his tongue pierced with three needles. As Artaxerxes believed, and wished all men to think that he had himself slain Cyrus, he sent presents to Mithridates, who was the first man that wounded Cyrus, and bade those who carried the presents say, “The king honours you with these presents, because you found Cyrus’s saddle-cloth and brought it to him.” And when the Carian, who 469had struck Cyrus under the knee, demanded a present, he bade those who carried the presents say, “The king gives you these for having been second to bring him the good news; for Artasyras first, and you next, brought him the news of the death of Cyrus.” Mithridates retired in silence, much vexed at this; but the unhappy Carian, as often happens, was ruined by his own folly. Excited by his good fortune into trying to obtain more than became him, he refused to take what was offered him for having brought good news, but remonstrated loudly, declaring that he, and no one else, slew Cyrus, and that he was most unjustly being deprived of the credit of the action. The king, when he heard this, was greatly angered, and ordered the man’s head to be struck off. His mother, Parysatis, who was present, said, “My king, do not thus rid yourself of this pestilent Carian. He shall receive from me a fitting punishment for what he has dared to say.” The king handed him over to her, and Parysatis ordered the executioners to torture him for ten days, and then to tear out his eyes and pour molten copper into his ears until he died.

XV

Mithridates also came to an evil end after a few days by his folly. He came dressed in the robe, and adorned with the ornaments which he had received from the king, to a banquet at which the eunuchs of the king and of the king’s mother were present. When they began to drink the most influential of the eunuchs of Parysatis said to him: “What a fine dress, Mithridates, and what fine necklaces and bracelet the king has given you! How valuable is your scimitar? Indeed, he has made you fortunate and envied by all men.” Mithridates, who was already in liquor, answered: “What are these things, Sparamixes? I proved myself on that day worth more than these to the king.” Sparamixes smiled and said, “I do not grudge you them, Mithridates, but come—as the Greeks say that there is truth in wine—tell us how it can be so great or brilliant an achievement to find a saddle-cloth that has fallen off a horse, and to bring it to the king.” This the eunuch said, not because he did not know the truth, but because he wished to lead Mithridates, whose tongue was loosened by wine, to expose his folly before the company. Mithridates could not 470restrain himself, and said: “You may say what you please about saddle-cloths and such nonsense; I tell you plainly, that it was by my hand that Cyrus fell. I did not hurl my javelin in vain, like Artagerses, but I just missed his eye, struck him through the temple, and felled him to the ground; and with that blow he died.” All the rest of the guests, foreseeing the miserable end to which Mithridates would certainly come, cast their eyes upon the ground; but the host said: “My good Mithridates, let us now eat and drink, adoring the fortune of the king, but let us not talk about subjects which are too high for us.”

XVI

After this, the eunuch told Parysatis what Mithridates had said, and she told the king, who was much enraged, because he was proved not to have spoken the truth, and had been deprived of the sweetest part of his victory; for he wished to persuade all men, Asiatics and Greeks alike, that in the skirmish when he and his brother met he himself had been wounded by Cyrus, but had struck him dead. He therefore condemned Mithridates to the punishment of the boat. This is as follows:—Two wooden boats are made, which fit together. The criminal is placed on his back in one of them, and then the other is placed over him, and the two are fastened so as to leave his head, feet, and hands outside, but covering all the rest of his body. They give him food, and if he refuses it, they force him to eat it by pricking his eyes. When he has eaten they pour a mixture of milk and honey into his mouth and over his face. They then keep turning his eyes towards the sun, his whole face becomes completely covered with flies. As all his evacuations are necessarily contained within the boat, worms and maggots are generated from the corruption, which eat into his body; for when the man is certainly dead, they take off the upper boat and find all his flesh eaten away, and swarms of these animals clinging to his bowels and devouring them. In this way Mithridates died, after enduring his misery for seventeen days.

XVII

The only remaining object of the vengeance of Parysatis was Masabates, the king’s eunuch who cut off the head and hand of Cyrus. As he gave no handle against himself, Parysatis devised the following plot against him.471 She was naturally a clever woman, and was fond of playing with the dice. Before the war, she had often played with dice with the king; and after the war when she became reconciled to him she took part in his amusements, played at games with him, encouraged his amours, and altogether permitted Statira to have but very little of his society; for Parysatis hated Statira more than any one else, and wished to have most influence with Artaxerxes herself. Finding Artaxerxes one day eager for amusement, as he had nothing to do, she challenged him to play for a thousand darics. She purposely allowed her son to win, and paid him the money: and then pretending to be vexed at her loss, called on him to cast the dice afresh for a eunuch. Artaxerxes agreed, and they agreed to play upon the condition that each of them should set apart five of their most trusty eunuchs, and that the winner was to have his choice of the rest. On these terms they played; and Parysatis, who gave the closest attention to her game, and was also favoured by fortune, won, and chose Masabates, who was not one of the excepted ones. Before the king suspected her purpose she had Masabates arrested, and delivered him to the executioners with orders to flay him alive, impale his body sideways upon three stakes, and hang up his skin separately. This was done; and as the king was greatly grieved at it and was angry with her, she smiled and said ironically: “How pleasant and well-mannered you are, to be angry about a miserable old eunuch, whereas I have lost a thousand darics at dice and say nothing about it.” The king, though he was sorry to have been so cheated, yet remained quiet; but Statira, who indeed often on other occasions openly braved Parysatis, was very indignant with her for so cruelly and unjustly putting the king’s faithful eunuch to death for Cyrus’s sake.

XVIII

When Tissaphernes betrayed Klearchus and the other generals, broke his plighted word, seized them and sent them away in chains, Ktesias tells us that Klearchus asked him to provide him with a comb. When Klearchus received it and combed his hair with it, he was so much pleased that he gave Ktesias his ring, to be a token to all Klearchus’s friends and relatives in Lacedæmon of his friendship for Ktesias. The device 472engraved upon the ring was a dance of Karyatides. At first the soldiers who were imprisoned with Klearchus took away the provisions which were sent to him and ate them themselves, giving him but a small part of them. Ktesias says that he remedied this also, by arranging that a larger portion should be sent to Klearchus, and that a separate allowance should be given to the soldiers. All these services Ktesias states that he rendered in consequence of the favour of Parysatis for the captives, and at her instigation. He says, also, that as he sent Klearchus a joint of meat daily in addition to his other provisions, Klearchus begged him and assured him that it was his duty to hide a small dagger in the meat, and send it to him, and not to allow him to be cruelly put to death by the king; but he was afraid, and did not dare to do it. Ktesias says that the king’s mother pleaded with him for the life of Klearchus, and that he agreed to spare him, and even swore to do so, but that he was again overruled by Statira, and put them all to death except Menon. It was in consequence of this, according to Ktesias, that Parysatis began to plot against Statira, and devised the plan for poisoning her, though it seems very unlikely that it was only for the sake of Klearchus that she dared to do such wickedness as to murder the lawful wife of her king, who was the mother of the heirs to the throne. But clearly all this was written merely for dramatic effect, to do honour to the memory of Klearchus. Ktesias writes, too, that when the generals were put to death the remains of the others were thrown away to be devoured by the dogs and fowls of the air; but that a violent storm of wind heaped much earth over the body of Klearchus, and that from some dates which were scattered around there soon sprung up a fair and shady grove above the place where he lay, so that the king sorely repented of what he had done, thinking that in Klearchus he had slain one who was a favourite of the gods.

XIX

Parysatis, who had long been jealous of Statira and hated her, and who saw that her own power depended merely on the respect with which she was regarded by the king, who loved and trusted Statira, now determined to destroy her, though at the most terrible risk to herself. She had a faithful maid-servant, named Gigis, who 473was high in her favour, whom Deinon accuses of having assisted to administer the poison, though Ktesias says that she was only privy to the plot, and that against her will. Ktesias says that the man who procured the poison was named Belitaris, but Deinon calls him Melantas. Now the two queens, leaving off their former hatred and suspicion, began again to visit one another and to dine together, but yet mistrusted each other so much that they only ate the same food from the same dishes. There is in Persia a small bird, which has no excrements, but all its entrails are filled with solid fat; it is supposed that it feeds upon air and dew; the name of it is rhyntakes. Ktesias states that Parysatis cut this bird in two with a small knife, one side of which was smeared over with the poison. As she cut it, she wiped the poison off the blade on to one piece of the bird, which she gave to Statira, while she ate the untouched portion herself. Deinon, however, says that it was not Parysatis, but Melantas, who cut off the poisoned part of the meat and gave it to Statira. As Statira perished in dreadful agonies and convulsions, she herself perceived that she had been poisoned, and directed the suspicions of the king against his mother, knowing, as he did, her fierce and rancorous disposition. He at once began to search for the author of the crime, seized all his mother’s servants and the attendants at her table, and put them to the torture, except Gigis, whom Parysatis kept for a long time at home with herself, and refused to deliver up, though afterwards, when Gigis begged to be sent to her own home, the king heard of it, laid an ambuscade, caught her, and condemned her to death. Poisoners are put to death in Persia in the following manner: their heads are placed upon a flat stone, and are then beaten with another stone until the face and skull is crushed. Gigis perished in this manner; but Artaxerxes said and did nothing to Parysatis, except that he sent her to Babylon, at her own request, saying that he himself should not see Babylon as long as she lived. Such were the domestic troubles of Artaxerxes.

XX

Though the king was as anxious to get the Greek troops, who accompanied Cyrus, into his power as he had been to conquer Cyrus himself and to save his throne, 474yet he could not do so: for though they had lost their leader, Cyrus, and all their generals, yet they got away safe after having penetrated almost as far as the king’s palace itself, proving clearly to the world that the Persian empire, in spite of all its gold and luxury and beautiful women, was mere empty bombast without any real strength. Upon this all Greece took courage and despised the Asiatics, while the Lacedæmonians felt that it would be a disgrace to them not to set free the enslaved Greeks of Asia Minor, and put a stop to the insolence of the Persians. Their army was at first commanded by Thimbron, and afterwards by Derkyllidas, but as neither of these effected anything of importance, they entrusted the conduct of the war to their king Agesilaus. He crossed over to Asia with the fleet, and at once began to act with vigour. He gained much glory, defeated Tissaphernes, and set free the Greek cities from the Persians. Artaxerxes, upon this, having carefully considered how it would be best for him to contend with the Greeks, sent Timokrates of Rhodes into Greece with a large sum of money, and ordered him to corrupt the most important persons in each city by offering bribes to them, and to stir up the Greeks to make war against Lacedæmon. Timokrates did so, and as the greatest states formed a league, and Peloponnesus was in great confusion, the government ordered Agesilaus to return from Asia. On his departure on this occasion he is said to have remarked to his friends that he was being driven out of Asia by the King of Persia with thirty thousand archers; for the Persian coins bear the device of an archer.

XXI

Artaxerxes also chased the Lacedæmonians from the sea, making use for this purpose of Konon, the Athenian, as his admiral in conjunction with Pharnabazus. Konon, after the battle of Ægospotami, had retired to Cyprus, where he remained, not so much in order to ensure his own safety as to watch for a favourable opportunity, as one waits for the turn of the tide. Observing that while he possessed skill without power, the King of Persia possessed power without an able man to direct it, he wrote a letter to the king expressing these ideas. He ordered the man who carried the letter to make it reach the king, if possible, by the hands of Zeno the Cretan, 475or of Polykritus of Mende. Of these men, Zeno was a dancer, and Polykritus a physician. If these men should be absent he ordered the man to give the letter to Ktesias the physician. It is said that Ktesias received the letter and that he added to what Konon had written a paragraph bidding the king send Ktesias to him, as he would be a useful person to superintend naval operations. Ktesias, however, says that the king of his own accord appointed him to this service. Artaxerxes, now, by means of Pharnabazus and Konon, gained the sea-fight of Knidos, deprived the Lacedæmonians of the empire of the sea, and established so great an ascendancy over the Greeks that he was able to conclude with them the celebrated peace which was known as the peace of Antalkidas. This Antalkidas was a Spartan, the son of Leon; and he being entirely in the interests of the King of Persia, prevailed upon the Lacedæmonians to allow him to possess all the Greek cities in Asia, and all the islands off the coast, as his subjects and tributaries, as the result of the peace, if that can be called a peace, which was really an insult and betrayal of Greece to the enemy; for no war could have ended more disgracefully for the vanquished.

XXII

It follows from this that Artaxerxes, who, we learn from Deinon, always disliked all other Spartans, and thought them the most insolent of mankind, when he visited Persia, showed especial favour to Antalkidas. Once, after dinner, he took a garland of flowers, dipped it in the most valuable perfume, and sent it to Antalkidas. All men wondered at this mark of favour; but, it appears, Antalkidas was just the man to receive such presents, and to be corrupted by the luxury of the Persians, as he did not scruple to disgrace the memory of Leonidas and Kalikratidas by his conduct among them. When some one said to Agesilaus, “Alas for Hellas, when the Lacedæmonians are Medising.” Agesilaus answered “Is it not rather the Medes that are Laconising.” Yet the cleverness of this retort did not take away the disgrace of the transaction, for, though the Lacedæmonians lost their empire at the battle of Leuktra by their bad generalship, yet the glory of Sparta was lost before, by that shameful treaty. While Sparta was the leading state in Greece,476 Artaxerxes made Antalkidas his guest, and spoke of him as his friend; but when after the defeat at Leuktra the Lacedæmonians were humbled to the dust, and were in such distress for money that they sent Agesilaus to Egypt to serve for hire, Antalkidas again came to the court of Artaxerxes to beg him to help the Lacedæmonians. But Artaxerxes treated him with such neglect, and so contemptuously refused his request, that Antalkidas, on his return, jeered at by his enemies, and afraid moreover of the anger of the Ephors, starved himself to death. There went also to the King of Persia Ismenias of Thebes, and Pelopidas who had just won the battle of Leuktra. Pelopidas would not disgrace himself by any show of servility; but Ismenias, when ordered to do reverence to the king, dropped his ring, and then stooped to pick it up, so that he appeared to bow to the earth before him. Artaxerxes was so much pleased with Timagoras of Athens, who gave some secret intelligence in a letter which he sent by a secretary named Beluris, that he gave him a thousand darics, and, as he was in weak health and required milk sent eighty milch cows to accompany him. He also sent him a bed with bed-clothes and attendants to make it, as though Greeks did not know how, and bearers to carry him in a litter down to the sea-coast, on account of his indisposition. When he was at court, also, the king sent him a magnificent banquet, so that the king’s brother, Ostanes, said to him, “Timagoras, remember this table; for it is not for slight services that it is so splendidly set out.” This he said rather to reproach him for his treachery than to remind him to be grateful. However, the Athenians put Timagoras to death for taking bribes from the king.

XXIII

Although many of the acts of Artaxerxes grieved the Greeks, yet they were delighted with one of them, for he put to death Tissaphernes, their bitterest enemy. This he did in consequence of an intrigue of Parysatis; for Artaxerxes did not long continue angry with his mother, but became reconciled with her, and sent for her to his court, as he felt that her understanding and spirit would help him to govern, while there remained no further causes of variance between them. Henceforth she endeavoured 477 in everything to please the king, and gained great influence with him by never opposing any of his wishes. She now perceived that he was violently enamoured of one of his own daughters, named Atossa, but that, chiefly on his mother’s account, he concealed his love and restrained himself, though some historians state that he had already had some secret commerce with the girl. When Parysatis suspected this, she caressed the girl more than ever, and was continually praising her beauty and good qualities to the king, saying that she was a noble lady and fit to be a queen. At last she persuaded him into marrying the girl and proclaiming her as his lawful wife, disregarding the opinions and customs of the Greeks, and declaring that he himself was a law to the Persians and able to decide for himself what was right and wrong. Some writers, however, amongst whom is Herakleides of Kyme, state that Artaxerxes, besides Atossa, married another of his daughters, named Amestris, of whom I shall shortly afterwards make mention. Atossa lived with her father as his wife, and was so much beloved by him, that when leprosy broke out over her body he was not at all disgusted with her, but prayed for her to Hera alone of all the goddesses, prostrating himself in her temple and grasping the earth with his hands, while he ordered his satraps and friends to send so many presents to the goddess, that all the space between the palace and the temple, a distance of sixteen stadia (two English miles) was filled with gold and silver, and horses, and purple dyed stuffs.

XXIV

He appointed Pharnabazus and Iphikrates to conduct a war against Egypt,4 which failed through the dissensions of the generals; and he himself led an army of three hundred thousand foot and ten thousand horse against the Kadousians.5 On this occasion he insensibly placed himself in a position of great peril as he entered a difficult and foggy country, which produces no crops that grow from seed, but is inhabited by a fierce and warlike race of men who feed upon apples, pears, and other fruits 478which are found upon trees. No provisions could be found in this country, nor yet be brought into it from without, and the army was reduced to slaughtering the beasts of burden, so that an ass’s head sold for more than sixty drachmas. The king’s own table was scantily furnished; and but few of the horses remained alive, all the rest having been eaten. At this crisis Teribazus, a man who had often made himself the first man in the state by his bravery, and as often fallen into disrepute by folly, and who was then in a very humble and despicable position, saved both the king and his army. The Kadousians had two kings, each of whom occupied a separate camp. Teribazus, after having explained to Artaxerxes what he was about to do, himself went to one of these camps, and sent his son to the other. Each of them deceived the king to whom he went, by saying that the other king was about to send an embassy to Artaxerxes, offering to make peace and contract an alliance with him for himself alone. “If, then, you are wise,” said they, “you will be beforehand with your rival, and I will manage the whole affair for you.” Both of the kings were imposed upon in this manner, and, in their eagerness to steal a march upon one another, one of them sent ambassadors to the Persians with Teribazus, and the other with his son. As Teribazus was a long while absent, Artaxerxes began to suspect his fidelity, and he fell into a very desponding condition, regretting that he had trusted Teribazus, and listening to his detractors. When, however, Teribazus arrived, and his son arrived also, each bringing ambassadors from the Kadousians, and a treaty of peace was concluded, Teribazus became again a great and important personage. In this campaign Artaxerxes proved that cowardice and effeminacy arise only from a depraved disposition and natural meanness of spirit, not, as the vulgar imagine, from wealth and luxury; for in spite of the splendid dress and ornaments, valued at twelve thousand talents, which he always wore, the king laboured as hard, and suffered as great privations, as any common soldier, never mounting his horse, but always leading the way on foot up steep and rugged mountain paths, with his quiver on his shoulder, and his shield on his left arm, so that 479all the rest were inspirited and encouraged by seeing his eagerness and vigour; for he accomplished every day a march of upwards of two hundred stadia.

XXV

When during cold weather the army, encamped in a royal domain, which was full of parks and fine trees, while all the rest of the country was bare and desert, he permitted the soldiers to gather wood from the royal park, and gave them leave to cut down the trees, without sparing either fir trees or cypresses. As they hesitated, and wished to spare the trees because of their size and beauty, he himself took an axe and cut down the largest and finest tree of all. After this they provided themselves with wood, lighted many fires, and passed a comfortable night.

On his return from this campaign he found that he had lost many brave men, and almost all his horses. He fancied that he was regarded with contempt because of his failure, and began to view all the great men of the kingdom with suspicion. Many of them he put to death in anger, but more because he feared them—for fear makes kings cruel, while cheerful confidence renders them gentle, merciful, and unsuspicious. For this reason, the beasts that start at the least noise are the most difficult to tame, while those which are of a more courageous spirit have more confidence and do not shrink from men’s advances.

XXVI

Artaxerxes, who was now very old, perceived that his sons were caballing with their friends and with the chief nobles of the kingdom to secure the succession. The more respectable of these thought that Artaxerxes ought to leave the crown to his eldest son Darius, as he himself had inherited it, but Ochus his younger son, who was of a vehement and fierce disposition, had a very considerable party, who were ready to support his claims, and hoped to be able to influence his father by means of Atossa; for he paid her especial attention, and gave out that he intended to marry her and make her his queen after his father’s death. It was even said that he intrigued with her during his father’s life. Artaxerxes knew nothing of this: but as he wished to cut off the hopes of Ochus at once, for fear that he might do as Cyrus 480had done, and again plunge the kingdom in wars and disorders, he proclaimed Darius his heir, and allowed him to wear his tiara erect. There is a custom among the Persians that whoever is declared heir to the throne may ask for anything that he pleases, and that the king who has nominated him must, if possible, grant his request. Darius, in accordance with this custom, asked for Aspasia, the favourite of Cyrus, who was at that time living in the harem of Artaxerxes. This lady was a native of the city of Phokæa in Ionia, born of free parents, and respectably brought up. When she was introduced to Cyrus at supper, with several other women, the others sat down beside him, permitted him to touch them and sport with them, and were not offended at his familiarities, but she stood in silence near the couch on which Cyrus reclined, and refused to come to him when he called her. When his chamberlains approached her, meaning to bring her to him by force, she said, “Whoever lays hands on me shall smart for it.” The company thought her very rude and ill-mannered, but Cyrus was pleased with her spirits, and said, with a smile, to the man who had brought her, “Do you not see that this is the only ladylike and respectable one of them all.” After this he became much attached to her, loved her above all other women, and used to call her “Aspasia the wise.” When Cyrus fell and his camp was plundered she was taken prisoner.

XXVII

Now, Darius vexed his father by asking for this lady; for the Persians are excessively jealous about their women; indeed, not only all who approach and speak to one of the king’s concubines, but even any one who drives past or crosses their litters on the high road, is punished with death. Yet, Artaxerxes, through sheer passion, had made Atossa his wife, and kept three hundred most beautiful concubines. However, when Darius made this request, he replied that Aspasia was a free woman, and said that if she was willing he might take her, but that he would not force her to go against her will. When she was sent for, as she, contrary to the king’s expectation, chose to go to Darius, the king let her go, for the law compelled him to do so, but he soon afterwards took her away from him again: for he 481appointed her priestess of the temple of Artemis, called Anäitis, at Ekbatana, in order that she might spend the rest of her life in chastity. This he considered to be not a harsh, but rather a playful way of reproving his son; but Darius was much enraged at it, either because he was so deeply enamoured of Aspasia, or because he thought that he was being wantonly insulted by his father. Teribazus, perceiving his anger, confirmed him in it, because he saw in the treatment which Darius had received the counterpart of that which had befallen himself. The king, who had several daughters, promised Apama to Pharnabazus, Rhodogoune to Orontes, and Amestris to Teribazus. He kept his word with the two former, but broke it to Teribazus by marrying Amestris himself, and betrothing his youngest daughter Atossa to him in her stead. When, as has been related, he fell in love with her also and married her, Teribazus became bitterly enraged against him, being of an unstable and fickle disposition, without any steady principles. For this reason he never could bear either bad or good fortune, but at one time he was honoured as one of the greatest men in the kingdom, and then swaggered insufferably, while when he was disgraced and reduced to poverty he could not bear his reverse of fortune with a good grace, but became insolent and offensive.

XXVIII

It may be imagined that the company of Teribazus was to Darius as fuel to fire, for Teribazus was constantly repeating to him that it was of no use for him to wear his tiara upright if he did not mean to advance his own interests, and that he was a fool if he imagined that he could inherit the crown without a struggle when his brother was bringing female influence to bear to secure his own succession, and when his father was in such a vacillating and uncertain frame of mind. He who could break the laws of the Persians—which may not be broken—out of his passion for a Greek girl, cannot be urged, be trusted, to keep the most important engagements. It was, moreover, a very different thing for Ochus not to obtain the crown, and for him to be deprived of it, for there was no reason why Ochus should not live happily in a private station, whereas he, having 482been appointed heir to the throne, must either become king or perish.

Generally speaking, perhaps we may say with Sophocles, “Swift runneth evil counsel to its goal,” for men find the path smooth and easy towards what they desire, and most men desire what is wrong, because of their ignorance and low mindedness. Yet, besides all these considerations, the greatness of the empire, and the fear with which Ochus inspired Darius, also afforded arguments to Teribazus. Nor was the goddess of Love entirely blameless in the matter, for Darius was already incensed at the loss of Aspasia.

XXIX

He, therefore, placed himself entirely in the hands of Teribazus; and many joined in their conspiracy. But the plot was betrayed to the king by a eunuch, who had a perfect knowledge of their plans, and knew that they had determined to break into the king’s chamber by night and murder him in his bed. When Artaxerxes heard this he was perplexed; for he felt that it would be wrong for him to neglect the information which he had received of so great a danger, and yet that it would be even worse to believe the eunuch’s story without any proofs of its truth. He therefore ordered the eunuch to join the conspirators, and to enter his chamber with them. Meanwhile he had a door made in the wall behind his bed, and concealed it with tapestry. When the appointed time arrived, of which he was warned by the eunuch, he lay upon his bed, and did not rise before he had seen the faces of the conspirators and clearly recognised each of them. But when he saw them draw their daggers and rush upon him, he quickly raised the tapestry, passed into the inner room, and slammed the door, crying aloud for help. The would-be murderers, having been seen by the king, but having effected nothing, rushed away through the gates of the palace, and especially warned Teribazus to fly, as he had been distinctly seen. The others dispersed and escaped, but Teribazus was surrounded, and after killing many of the king’s body guard with his own hand was at last despatched by a javelin hurled from a distance. Darius and his children were brought before a court formed of the royal judges, who were appointed by the king to 483try him. As the king himself did not appear but impeached him by proxy, he ordered clerks to write down the decision of each judge and to bring it to him. As all decided alike, and sentenced Darius to death, the officers of the court removed him into a prison hard by. The executioner now came, bearing in his hand the razor, with which the heads of criminals are cut off, but when he saw Darius he was dismayed, and ran back to the door with his face averted, declaring that he could not and dared not lay hands upon his king. As, however, he was met outside by the judges, who threatened him and ordered him to do his duty, he returned, took hold of Darius’s hair with his left hand, dragged down his head, and severed his neck with the razor. Some historians state that the king himself was present at the trial, and that Darius, when proved guilty, fell on his face and begged for mercy: at which the king sprung up in anger, drew his dagger, and stabbed him mortally. They add that Artaxerxes, after he had returned to his palace, came forward publicly, did obeisance to the sun, and then said aloud, “Men of Persia, be of good cheer, and go, tell the rest of my subjects that the great Oromasdes has executed judgment upon those who formed a wicked and treasonable plot.”

XXX

This was the end of the conspiracy; and now Ochus was encouraged by Atossa to form high hopes, though he still feared his remaining legitimate brother Ariaspes, and his natural brother Arsames. The Persians wished Ariaspes to be their king, not because he was older than Ochus, but because he was of a gentle and kind disposition; while Ochus observed that Arsames was of a keen intellect, and was especially beloved by his father. He, therefore, plotted against both of them, and as he was by nature both crafty and cruel, he indulged his cruelty in his treatment of Arsames, while he made use of his cunning to ruin Ariaspes. He kept sending to this latter eunuchs and friends of the king, who, with an affection of secrecy, continually told him frightful tales of how his father had determined to put him to death with every circumstance of cruelty and insult. These messengers, by daily communicating these fabrications to him, saying that the king was on the very eve of carrying them into operation,484 threw the unhappy man into such a terrible state of despair and excitement of mind that he ended his life by poison. The king, on hearing of the manner of his death, lamented for him, and had some suspicions about how he came by his end; but as he was unable to verify them and discover the truth, on account of his great age, he attached himself all the more warmly to Arsames, so that he was well known to trust and confide in him above all others. Yet, Ochus was not discouraged by this, but finding a suitable instrument in Arpates the son of Teribazus, induced him to assassinate Arsames. Artaxerxes, when this happened, was so old that his life hung by a mere thread; and when this last blow fell, he could bear up no longer, but sunk at once through grief and misery. He lived ninety-four years, and reigned sixty-two, and was thought to be a mild prince, and a lover of his subjects, though this was chiefly because of his successor, Ochus, who was the most savage and cruel tyrant that ever ruled in Persia.

485

LIFE OF
ARATUS.

I

It seems to me, my Polykrates, that it was in order to avoid the ill-omened sound of the old proverb, that the philosopher Chrysippus altered it into what he thought a better version:

“Who vaunt their fathers, save the best of sons?”

but Dionysodorus of Trœzene proves him to be wrong, and restores the proverb to its original form:

“Who vaunt their fathers, save the worst of sons?”

and explains that the proverb was intended to apply to those who are utterly worthless in themselves, but who shelter their own evil lives behind the virtues of their ancestors, and who pride themselves on their ancestors’ glory as though it were their own. Yet, in one who, like yourself, “by birth inherits glory from a noble race,” as Pindar has it, and who, as you do, imitates in his own life the noblest examples of his ancestry, may well take pleasure in discoursing upon the lives of well-born men, and in listening to the remarks of others about them. They do not depend for praise upon the lives of other men, because there is nothing to be admired in themselves, but they combine the glory of their ancestors with their own, and honour them both as having founded their families and as having set examples to be imitated. For this reason I have sent to you the life of Aratus, which I have compiled, not that I was not aware that you had carefully studied all his achievements and were well acquainted with them, but with the hope that your sons, Polykrates and Pythokles, might be brought up to imitate the glorious 486 example of their forefathers, and might learn to walk in their footsteps by reading and discussing the history of their exploits. Indeed, to imagine that one has already arrived at perfection, argues self-conceit rather than true greatness of character.

II

The city of Sikyon, as soon as it lost its original oligarchic Dorian constitution, became distracted by internal faction, and at last fell into the hands of a series of despotic rulers. After the last of these, named Kleon, had been put to death, the citizens placed the government in the hands of Timokleides and Kleinias, two of their most honourable and influential men. But as soon as a settled form of government began to be established, Timokleides died, and Abantidas, the son of Paseas, in order to obtain the supreme power for himself, assassinated Kleinias, and either banished or put to death all his relatives and friends. He endeavoured to kill Kleinias’s son, Aratus, who was left an orphan at the age of seven; however, during the confusion which prevailed in the house, the child wandered out into the city, and, terrified and helpless, made his way unnoticed into the house of Soso, Abantidas’s sister, whose husband was Prophantus, the brother of Kleinias. She was naturally a high-souled lady, and thought also that the child must have been directed by heaven to take refuge in her house. She hid him from his enemies, and that night sent him away to Argos.

III

This adventurous escape from so terrible a danger produced in the mind of Aratus the fiercest hatred of all despots. He was brought up by his father’s friends at Argos in a manner becoming his birth, and as he grew up tall and strong, he devoted himself to gymnastic exercises in the palaestra, and even gained a crown for success in the pentathlum. We can trace the effects of this training in his statues, which represent an intellectual and commanding countenance, and also the effects of the liberal diet and work1 with the spade practised by the professional athlete. For this reason he paid less attention to oratory than became a public man; yet he was a better 487speaker than some suppose, which is proved by the study of his hastily and plainly-written memoirs.

As time went on, Deinias and Aristotle the logician formed a plot against Abantidas, who was accustomed to come and spend his leisure time in the open market-place with them, listening to their discourse and arguing with them. They drew him into a discussion and assassinated him. He was succeeded by his father, Paseas, who was soon treacherously slain by Nikokles, who now declared himself despot of Sikyon. We are told that this man was singularly like Periander, the son of Kypselus, just as the Persian Orontes bore a striking resemblance to Alkmæon, the son of Amphiaraus, and a certain young Spartan so closely resembled Hector, that he was trampled to death by the multitudes who came to see him and satisfy their curiosity.

IV

Nikokles reigned four months, during which time he did the city much hurt, and very nearly lost it to the Aetolians, who had formed a plot to surprise it. Aratus was now nearly grown up, and possessed great influence, both on account of his noble birth, and because he was already well known to be possessed of an enterprising spirit, combined with a prudence beyond his years. In consequence of this, all the other Sikyonian exiles looked upon him as their leader, and Nikokles himself regarded him with apprehension, and quietly took precautions against him, never supposing that he would attempt so audacious an enterprise as he did, but thinking he would probably make overtures to some of the successors of Alexander, who had been guests2 and friends of his father. Indeed, Aratus did attempt to obtain assistance from some of them; but since Antigonus, though he promised his aid, temporised and hesitated to act, and his hopes from Egypt and Ptolemy were too remote, he determined to overthrow the despot alone.

V

The first persons to whom he communicated his design were Aristomachus and Ekdelus, of whom the former was an exile from Sikyon, while Ekdelus was an Arcadian of Megalopolis, a man of culture as well as of action, who had been an intimate friend of Arkesilaus, the 488Academic philosopher at Athens. As both these men readily accepted his proposals, Aratus began to discuss the project with the other exiles. Some few felt ashamed to abandon all hope of restoration to their country, and joined Aratus, but most of them tried to hinder him from making the attempt, alleging that his daring was the result of inexperience. While Aratus was meditating whether he could not seize some strong place within the territory of Sikyon, and make it the base of his operations against the despot, there came to Argos a certain Sikyonian who had escaped from prison. This man was the brother of Xenokles, one of the exiles; and when brought to Aratus by his brother, told him that the city wall, at the place where he himself climbed over it and made his escape, was very nearly level with the ground on the inside, as it was built up against high and rocky ground, while on the outside it was not so high as to be beyond the reach of scaling-ladders. Aratus, when he heard this, sent Xenokles with two of his own servants, named Seuthas and Technon, to reconnoitre the spot, for he was determined, if possible, to risk everything by one sudden and secret assault, rather than openly to engage in what might prove a long and tedious war, waged, as it would be by a private man against the despotic ruler of a state. Xenokles, on his return, reported that he had measured the height of the walls, and that the ground presented no difficulties for their attempt, but he said that it would be difficult to reach the place unobserved, because of the dogs of a gardener who dwelt near, which, though small, were peculiarly ferocious and savage. Upon hearing this, Aratus at once began to prepare for the attempt.

VI

The use of arms was, at that period, familiar to all men, because of the constant marauding incursions which each state continually made upon the territory of its neighbours. The scaling-ladders were made openly by Euphranor the carpenter, one of the exiles, whose trade enabled him to construct them without exciting suspicion.

The Argive friends of Aratus each contributed ten men from their own households; while he himself was able to arm thirty slaves of his own. He also hired from Xenokrilus, the well-known captain of robbers, a small band 489of soldiers, who were told that the object of the incursion into the Sikyonian territory was to carry off some horses belonging to King Antigonus. Most of the band were ordered to make their way in scattered parties to the tower of Polygnotus, and there to wait for their leaders. Kaphisias, in light marching order, with four others, was sent on in advance, with instructions to present himself at the house of the gardener about nightfall. Under the pretext of being wayfaring men seeking for hospitality, they were to obtain lodgings there for the night, and secure both the man and his dogs, for unless this was done it would be impossible to reach the walls. The scaling-ladders, which were made to take to pieces, were packed in chests, covered over, and sent forward in waggons. Meanwhile, as several spies sent by Nikokles had appeared in Argos, who were said to be quietly watching the movements of Aratus, he rose at daybreak, and spent the day in the open market-place, conversing with his friends. Towards evening he anointed himself in the palæstra, and then went home, taking with him several of the companions with whom he was accustomed to drink and amuse himself. Soon after this his servants were seen crossing the market-place, one carrying garlands, another buying torches, and another bargaining with the female musicians who were wont to attend at banquets. The spies, seeing all these preparations, were deceived and laughingly said to one another, “Surely there is nothing more cowardly than a tyrant, if Nikokles, with such a city and armed force at his disposal, really fears this youth, who wastes the income on which he has to subsist in exile, on amusements and on wine parties before it is even dark.”

VII

Thus the spies were thrown off their guard; but Aratus, immediately after supper, sallied forth, met his men at the tower of Polygnotus, and led them to Nemea where he explained, to most of them for the first time, what he was about to attempt. After promising them rewards in case of success, and addressing to them a few words of encouragement, he gave Propitious Apollo as the watchword, and proceeded towards the city, regulating his march according to the moon, so that he was able to make use of its light to march by, and when it was 490setting arrived at the garden outside the walls. Here Kaphisias met him, with the news that he had not been able to secure the dogs, which had run away, but that he had locked up the gardener in his house. On hearing this most of the conspirators became disheartened, and demanded to be led back again; but Aratus pacified them by promising that, if the dogs attacked them and gave the alarm, he would give up the attempt. He now sent forward a party with the scaling-ladders, under the command of Ekdelus and Mnesitheus, and himself proceeded at a leisurely pace. The dogs at once set upon the party under Ekdelus, and kept up a continuous barking; nevertheless they reached the wall and placed the ladders against it undisturbed. While the foremost were mounting, the officer who was being relieved by the morning guard passed that way carrying a bell, and there was a great flashing of lights and trampling of marching soldiers. The conspirators remained where they were, crouching upon their ladders, and without difficulty escaped the notice of this patrol, but they were terribly near being discovered by a second body of guards marching in the opposite direction. As soon as this also had passed by without noticing them, the leaders, Mnesitheus and Ekdelus, at once mounted upon the walls, secured the passage along the walls both on the right and on the left, and despatched Technon to Aratus, bidding him hasten to the spot.

VIII

At no great distance from the garden there stood a tower upon the walls, in which a great hound was kept for a watch. This hound had not noticed the approach of the escalading party, either because he was dull of hearing, or because he was tired with exercise the day before. When, however, the gardener’s little dogs roused him by their clamour at the foot of the wall, he at first set up a low growling, and then, as the party drew nearer, began to bark furiously. He made so much noise that the sentry on the next tower called out in a loud voice to the huntsman in charge of the dog, asking him at what the hound was barking so savagely, and whether anything was wrong. The huntsman replied from his tower that all was well, only that the hound had been disturbed by the lights of the patrol and the sound of their bell.491 This gave great encouragement to Aratus’s party, who imagined that the huntsman spoke thus because he had seen them and wished to screen them from observation and assist their plot, and that many others in the city might be willing to do the same. Yet, the scaling of the walls was a long and dangerous operation, as the ladders were too weak to bear the weight of more than one man mounting slowly at a time, yet time pressed, for the cocks had already begun to crow, and soon the country people might be expected to arrive, bringing their wares to market. So, now, Aratus, himself hastily mounted, after forty of his men had reached the top, and while the remainder were still mounting, he marched straight to the despot’s house, and the guard-room in which his mercenary troops passed the night. By a sudden assault he took them all prisoners without killing one of them, and at once sent messengers to summon his own friends from their houses. Day was breaking while they assembled, and soon the theatre was filled with an excited crowd without any distinct idea of what was happening, until a herald came forward and announced to the people that Aratus, the son of Kleinias, invited his fellow-citizens to regain their liberty.

IX

The people now, at last, believed that their long-looked-for deliverers had indeed come, and rushed in a body to set fire to the despot’s house. The burning house made such a prodigious blaze that it was seen as far as Corinth, where the citizens were so much astonished, that they were within a little of setting out to rescue Sikyon from the flames. Nikokles himself escaped by a subterranean passage, and got clear away from the city, and his soldiers, with the assistance of the citizens, put out the fire and plundered his house. Aratus did not attempt to stop this proceeding, and distributed the remainder of the despot’s treasure among the citizens. No one was killed or wounded, either of the attacking or defending party, but by good fortune this great exploit was accomplished without spilling a drop of blood. Aratus now restored the citizens whom Nikokles had banished, who were eighty in number, and also those who had been driven into exile by his predecessors, who amounted to 492no less than five hundred. These latter had been forced to wander from place to place for a period of nearly fifty years. They now returned, very poor for the most part, and at once laid claim to the property which had once been theirs. Their attempts to gain possession of their houses and lands caused the greatest disquietude to Aratus, who saw the city plotted against from without, and viewed with dislike by Antigonus on account of its free constitution, while within it was full of faction and disturbance. Under these circumstances he did what he thought was best, by making the city a member of the Achæan league: and the people of Sikyon, Dorians as they were, willingly adopted the name and entered into the confederacy of the Achæans, who at that time were neither famous nor powerful. Most of them dwelt in small towns, and their territory was both confined and unproductive, while the sea-shore, near which they lived, was without harbours, and for the most part exposed to a terrible surf. Yet these men, more than any others, proved that Greeks are invincible wherever they are collected into regularly organised communities, and with a capable general to lead them. They were but an insignificant fraction of the mighty Greece of former times, and had not altogether the strength of one single considerable city; yet, by wise counsel and agreement among themselves, and by following and obeying their greatest man, instead of being jealous of his power, they not only preserved their own liberties, although surrounded by so many powerful cities and despots, but were constantly able to assist the rest of the Greeks in recovering and defending their freedom.

X

Aratus was by nature a politician, and was of a magnanimous disposition, more careful of the interests of the state than of his own. He regarded all despots with a peculiarly rancorous hatred, but in respect to other persons, made his personal likes and dislikes subordinate to the good of his country. For this reason his zeal for his friends does not appear to have been so remarkable as his mild and forgiving treatment of his enemies; for he regulated his private feelings entirely by considerations of public expediency. He loved to form alliances 493between states, to connect cities into confederations, and to teach the leaders and the people alike to act together with unanimity. Singularly timid and faint-hearted in open war and in battles fought by daylight, he nevertheless was most dexterous at planning surprises, winning cities, and overthrowing despots. For this reason he often succeeded in his rashest enterprises, and often, through excessive caution, failed when success would have been comparatively easy. Some wild animals see best in the dark, and are nearly blind during the daytime, because the moist nature of their eyes cannot endure the dry and searching rays of the sun; and so, too, it appears that some men lose their courage and are easily disconcerted when they are fighting openly in broad daylight, but yet recover all their bravery as soon as they engage in secret stratagems and midnight surprises. These anomalies must be attributed to a want of philosophic reflection in noble minds, which effect great things naturally, and without acting by rule or method, just as we see good fruit produced by wild and uncultivated trees. I will now proceed to prove this by examples.

XI

Aratus, after he had joined himself and his native city to the Achæan league, served in the cavalry force, and made himself generally beloved by the ready obedience which he showed to his commanders; for he, although he had rendered the league such important services in putting his own illustrious name and the power of the city of Sikyon at its disposal, yet, as if he were a mere private man, obeyed whoever might be in command, even though he were a citizen of Dyme, or of Tritæa, or even some more insignificant city. Aratus was now presented with the sum of five-and-twenty talents by the king.3 This he received, but spent it all on relieving his destitute fellow-countrymen, and in ransoming them from slavery.

XII

As the returned exiles could not be withheld from attacking those whom they found in possession of their property, and by doing so seemed likely to bring the state to ruin, Aratus, thinking that nothing but the kindness of Ptolemy could save his country, started upon a voyage to Egypt, to beg the king to furnish him with a sum of 494money, by means of which he might persuade the contending parties to come to an amicable agreement. He started from the port of Mothone, and sailed beyond Cape Millea, meaning to cross directly over the sea to Egypt. However, the sea was very rough, and the wind contrary, which, caused the captain of the ship to bear up, and run along the coast until, with great difficulty, he reached Adria,4 which was an enemy’s country, for it was in the possession of Antigonus, who had placed a Macedonian garrison in it. Aratus contrived to keep out of the way of the garrison, and, leaving the ship, proceeded a long way inland, accompanied by one single friend, named Timanthes. They concealed themselves in a thick wood, and passed the night as best they could. Shortly afterwards the Macedonian officer in charge appeared, and endeavoured to find Aratus, but was put off the scent by the slaves of Aratus, who had been instructed to say that their master, as soon as he left them, had sailed in another vessel bound to Eubœa. However, the Macedonian declared the cargo, the vessel, and the slaves to be a lawful prize, as being enemy’s property, and detained them as such. A few days after this, when Aratus was almost at his wit’s end, by good fortune a Roman ship touched at the place where he was spending his time in looking out for means of escape by sea, and in trying to conceal himself from his enemies on land. The ship was bound for Syria, but Aratus would not sail in it until he had persuaded the captain to land him in Karia. On his voyage thither he again encountered great dangers: but at length he succeeded in obtaining a passage from Karia to Egypt, where he was warmly received by the king, who had always had a favourable opinion of him, and who had lately received 495from him many drawings and paintings by Greek artists. Aratus, who had considerable taste in these matters, constantly purchased and collected the works of the most skilful and famous painters, especially those of Pamphilus and Melanthus, and used to send them as presents to King Ptolemy.

XIII

At that time the Sikyonian school of painting was still celebrated throughout Greece, and was thought more than any other to have preserved the purity of the ancient style. Even the great Apelles, when already famous, had come to Sikyon and paid a talent for some lessons from the masters there, although by doing so he hoped to increase his reputation rather than to improve his art. When Aratus set the city free, he at once destroyed all the portraits5 of the despots, except that of Aristratus, who flourished in the time of Philip,6 about which he hesitated for a long time; for the picture in which Aristratus was represented standing beside the chariot which won him a prize in the games, was the joint work of all the pupils of Melanthus, and we are told by Polemon the geographer, that some parts of it were painted by Apelles himself. The execution was so admirable that Aratus for a moment relented, but soon afterwards his fierce hatred of all the despots made him order it to be destroyed. However, Nealkes the painter, who was a friend of Aratus, interceded for the picture with tears, and as he could not move Aratus, at last said, “We ought to make war against despots themselves, but not against their surroundings. Let us leave the chariot and the figure of Victory, and I will deliver up Aristratus to you, by wiping him out of the picture.” Aratus allowed Nealkes to do this, and he effaced the figure of Aristratus, and painted a palm tree in its place, without venturing to add anything else. It is said that after destroying the figure of Aristratus, the painter forgot his feet, and that they were still to be seen under the chariot. By presents of such paintings as these Aratus had already disposed Ptolemy to 496regard him with favour; and when they met, Aratus so charmed the king by his conversation that he received from him a present of one hundred and fifty talents for the use of his native city. Aratus carried forty talents home with him at once to Peloponnesus, and afterwards received the rest of the sum in instalments from the king.

XIV

It was a truly great action for Aratus to bestow so much money upon his fellow-countrymen, especially at a time when for much smaller sums the kings were usually able to bribe the other chiefs and popular leaders to betray their native cities and sacrifice their constitutional liberties; but it was even more admirable that by means of this money he reconciled the rich and the poor, and saved the state from all the danger of revolution, while his own conduct was marked by the greatest moderation in spite of his enormous power. When he was appointed as sole arbitrator with unlimited authority, to decide upon the claims of the exiled families to their inheritances, he refused to act alone, and associated fifteen of the other citizens with himself, with whose help, after much labour and difficulty, he restored peace and union amongst his countrymen. For these services the state bestowed upon him fitting honours, but in addition to these the exiles gave him a special mark of their regard by erecting a brazen statue, upon which was inscribed the following verses:—

“For wisdom, valour, and great deeds in war

Thy fame, Aratus, has been noised afar.

We, that unhappy exiles were of late,

Brought home by thee, this statute dedicate

To all the gods who helped thee to restore

Peace and goodwill amongst us as before.”

XV

By this important measure Aratus so thoroughly earned the gratitude of his countrymen as to be placed above the reach of party jealousy; but King Antigonus was much displeased at his success, and with the object either of making him his friend, or of causing him to be distrusted by Ptolemy, bestowed upon him several marks of favour, and when sacrificing to the gods at Corinth even sent some of the meat of the victim to Sikyon as a present for him. At dinner that evening he said aloud in the hearing of many guests: “I thought this young 497Sikyonian was merely a well-bred and patriotic youth; but it seems that he is a very shrewd judge of the lives and politics of us kings. At first he used to despise me, and looked beyond me to Egypt, because he had heard so much about the elephants and fleets of Ptolemy, and about the splendour of his court, but now that he has been admitted behind the scenes there and has discovered it to be all empty show and parade, he has thrown himself into my arms without reserve. So now I receive the youth into my own service, and shall employ him in all my affairs; and I beg you all to treat him as a friend.”

All those who were jealous of Aratus and who wished him ill, as soon as they heard these words, vied with one another in sending letters to Ptolemy, full of abuse of Aratus, until at length Ptolemy himself wrote to Aratus and reproached him for his disloyalty. So much jealousy and ill-feeling does the friendship of kings produce among those who most eagerly struggle to gain it.

XVI

Aratus, who was now for the first time elected general of the Achæans, invaded and plundered the countries of Kalydonia and Lokris on the other side of the Corinthian gulf, but though he marched with ten thousand men to help the Bœotians he came too late to take part in the battle, in which they were defeated near Chæronea by the Ætolians. In this battle a thousand Bœotians perished, amongst whom was Aboeokritus the Bœotarch himself. Next year Aratus was again chosen general, and began to arrange his plot for the capture of the Akrocorinthus, or citadel of Corinth. He made this attempt not to benefit the Achæans, or his own city of Sikyon, but solely with the object of driving out the Macedonian garrison, which was established there as the common despot over all Greece. The Athenian Chares, after gaining some success in battle over the generals of the King of Persia, sent home a despatch to the Athenian people in which he declared that he had won the sister victory to that of Marathon: and this exploit of Aratus may be most truly described as sister to those of Pelopidas the Theban and of Thrasybulus the Athenian, in which they each killed the despots of their respective cities; except that this assault was not delivered against Greeks, but against a foreign and alien sovereignty.498 Now the isthmus, which bars out the two seas, connects together the two parts of our continent; but the Acrocorinthus, which is a lofty mountain placed in the middle of Greece, if it be held by an armed force, cuts off the land beyond the isthmus from all intercourse with the rest of Greece, whether for warlike or commercial purposes, and places the whole country at the mercy of the commander of its garrison; so that the younger Philip was not in jest but in earnest when he called the city of Corinth the “key of Greece.”

XVII

The possession of this place was always coveted by all princes and rulers, but the desire of Antigonus for it became a frantic passion, and his whole thoughts were occupied with plots to obtain it by stratagem, since it was hopeless to attempt to take it by force. After the death of Alexander,7 who originally held it, and who, it is said, was poisoned by Antigonus, his wife Nikæa succeeded to his kingdom, and held the Acrocorinthus. Antigonus now at once sent his son Demetrius to her, and by holding out the dazzling prospect of a royal alliance and a handsome young husband to a woman somewhat past her prime, made a conquest of her by means of his son, whom he employed without scruple to tempt his victim. As, however, she would not give up the citadel, but kept it strongly guarded, Antigonus pretended to be indifferent to it, and prepared a wedding feast in Corinth, spending the whole day in attendance at spectacles and in wine-drinking, as if he had entirely given himself up to pleasure and enjoyment. When the time drew near for the attempt, he himself accompanied Nikæa to the theatre to hear Amœbeus sing. They were carried together in royal state in a splendidly ornamented litter, and she was delighted at the respect which he showed her, and was as far as possible from guessing his real purpose. When they arrived at the point where the road turned off towards the citadel, he begged her to proceed alone to the theatre, and without troubling himself further about Amœbeus or the marriage, ran up to the Acrocorinthus faster than one would have expected in a man of his age. Finding the gate shut, he 499knocked at it with his stick, bidding the garrison open it; and they, astounded at his audacity, threw it open. When he had thus obtained possession of the place he could no longer restrain himself, but although he was now an old man, and had experienced great vicissitudes of fortune, he drank wine and jumped for joy in the streets, and swaggered riotously across the market-place, crowned with flowers, and accompanied by singing-girls, greeting and shaking hands with every one whom he met. So true it is that unexpected joy disturbs the right balance of the mind more than either grief or terror.

XVIII

Now Antigonus, having, as above related, gained possession of the Acrocorinthus, entrusted the place to some of his most faithful officers, among whom was Persæus the philosopher. Aratus, during the life of Alexander, had begun to form a plan for surprising the citadel, but desisted from his plot when Alexander became an ally of the Achæans. He now began to form fresh schemes, in the following manner:—There were in Corinth four brothers, Syrians by birth, one of whom, named Diokles, was serving in the garrison, and quartered in the citadel. The other three, having robbed the king’s treasury, came to Sikyon to dispose of the plunder to a banker named Ægias, who was well known to Aratus from having had dealings with him. They disposed of a considerable part of their plunder at first, and afterwards, one of them, named Erginus, came quietly over from time to time with the remainder. In this way he became intimate with Ægias, and, being led on by him to talk about the citadel, said that when going up the hill to visit his brother, he had noticed a narrow path on one side, which led to the lowest part of the wall of the fortress. On hearing this, Ægias laughingly said to him, “My good sir, why do you rob the king’s treasury to gain such pitiful sums of money, when you might gain great riches in a single hour? Do you not know that burglary and treachery are alike punished with death?” Erginus smiled at this, and agreed to sound his brother Diokles upon this point; for he could not, he said, place much confidence in the other two.

In a few days he returned, undertook to lead Aratus 500to a part of the wall which was not more than fifteen feet high, and arranged that both he and his brother Diokles would do all in their power to assist him.

XIX

Aratus promised that he would give them sixty talents if successful, and that, in case of failure, if he and they survived, he would give each of them a house and a talent. As the money had to be deposited with Ægias for the satisfaction of Erginus, Aratus, who did not possess the sum necessary, and who did not wish to lead others to suspect his design by borrowing, took the greater part of his own plate and his wife’s jewels, and pledged them with Ægias for the money. Indeed, he was of so lofty a soul, and so passionately desirous of glory, that although he knew that Phokion and Epameinondas had gained the reputation of being the most just and noble of the Greeks, by refusing large bribes and not sacrificing honour to money, he preferred to expend his fortune secretly in enterprises in which he alone risked his life on behalf of the many, who did not even know what he was doing. Who, even in our own day, could refrain from admiring and longing to share the fortunes of a man who bought for himself so great a danger at so high a price, and who pawned the most valuable of his possessions in order that he might make his way into the fortress of his enemies by night and fight for his life there, gaining by his deposit the hope of glory, but nothing else?

XX

The plot, dangerous enough in itself, was rendered even more so at its very outset by a blunder. Technon, the servant of Aratus, was sent to examine the wall together with Diokles. He had never before met Diokles, but imagining that he knew his appearance from Erginus’s description of him as a man with close curly hair, a dark complexion, and no beard, went to the rendezvous, and waited outside the city, near the place called Ornis, for Erginus, who was to meet him there with his brother Diokles. In the meantime the brother of Erginus and Diokles, named Dionysius, who was not in the plot, and knew nothing of what was going on, happened to come up. He was very like Diokles, and Technon, influenced by the likeness, inquired of him if he were in any way connected with Erginus. As he answered that he was his brother,501 Technon was quite certain that he was addressing Diokles; and without asking his name or waiting for any further proof of identity he gave him his hand, spoke of the compact with Erginus, and asked him questions about it. He cleverly encouraged Technon in his error, agreed to everything that he said, and, turning round, walked with him towards the city without exciting his suspicions. When he was close to the gate, and had all but inveigled Technon through it, it chanced that Erginus met them. Perceiving the trick which his brother had played, and the danger in which Technon was placed, he warned him by a sign to make his escape, and both of them, running away at full speed, got safe back to Aratus. Yet he did not despair, but at once sent Erginus to take some money to Dionysius, and to beg him to hold his tongue. Erginus accomplished his commission, and brought Dionysius back with him to Aratus. When he arrived there they would not let him go again, but kept him a close prisoner, while they themselves prepared to make the attempt.

XXI

When all was ready, Aratus ordered the greater part of his force to pass the night under arms, and himself with a chosen body of four hundred men, few of whom were in the secret, proceeded towards the gates of Corinth, near the temple of Hera. The time was the height of summer. The moon was at the full, and as the night was clear and cloudless, they began to fear that the light gleaming from their arms would betray them to the sentinels. However, when the leading men were near to the wall a fog came up from the sea, and enveloped the whole city and its neighbourhood. Now, the men all sat down and took off their shoes; for men who mount ladders with naked feet make very little noise and are not so liable to slip. Meanwhile Erginus, with seven youths dressed as wayfaring men, made his way up to the gate unsuspected. They killed the keeper of the gate, and the guard: while at the same time the scaling-ladders were placed against the walls. Aratus hastily crossed the walls with a hundred men. Bidding the remainder follow as fast as they could, he ordered the ladders to be drawn up, and, followed by his hundred men, ran through the town to the citadel, overjoyed at having got so far without 502raising an alarm, and already certain of success. While they were still some distance off, they met a patrol of four men carrying a light. These men could not see them because they were in the shadow of the moon, but the four men were clearly visible as they marched straight towards them. Aratus now drew his force a little aside among some ruins and low walls, so as to form an ambush, and set upon the men. Three were killed on the spot, but the fourth, though wounded in the head by a blow from a sword, ran away shouting that the enemy were within the walls. Soon after this trumpets were sounded, the whole city was disturbed, and all the streets became thronged with men running to and fro, while many lights appeared, some in the lower town, and some in the citadel above, and a confused murmur of voices was heard on every side.

XXII

While this was going on, Aratus persevered in his march, and was toiling laboriously up the cliff. At first he proceeded slowly and with difficulty, without making any real progress, because he had entirely missed the path, which wound about under the shadow of the precipitous rocks by many turnings and windings up to the citadel. At this moment it is said that the moon shone through the clouds and threw her light upon the most difficult part of the ascent in a wonderful manner, until Aratus reached the part of the wall of the citadel which he wished to attack. When he was there, she again concealed and shaded her rays behind a barrier of clouds. While this was being done, the three hundred men of Aratus’s force, who had been left outside the gate near the temple of Hera, when they made their way into the city, which was now full of confusion and lights, were not able to find the same path which had been followed by the others, or any trace of the way by which they had gone, and so in a body crouched down in a dark corner in the shade of a cliff, and waited there in great anxiety and alarm: for now the party led by Aratus was being shot at by the garrison of the citadel, and was fighting with them hand to hand, and the shouts of the battle could be plainly heard below, though the echoes of the mountains made it impossible to tell from what quarter the noise proceeded. While they were at 503a loss to know which way to turn, Archelaus, the leader of the Macedonian troops, marched out with a large force, with loud shouts and trumpets sounding, to attack the party under Aratus, and marched past where the three hundred lay as it were in ambush. They rushed out, charged the Macedonians, killed the first of them, and drove Archelaus and the remainder before them panic-stricken, until they dispersed themselves about the city. No sooner had this victory been won, than Erginus arrived from the citadel, announcing that Aratus was engaged with the enemy, who were offering a stubborn resistance, that a great battle was going on at the wall itself, and that immediate assistance was required. They at once bade him lead them, and mounted the hill, shouting to their friends to let them know who they were, and to encourage them. The full moon, too, as it shone upon their arms, made their numbers appear greater to the enemy on account of the length of the path, and the midnight echoes made their shouts appear to come from a much larger party of men. At last they joined their friends above, and by a united effort drove out the enemy, won the heights, and gained possession of the citadel just as day was dawning. Soon the sun rose upon their victory, and the remainder of Aratus’s force from Sikyon came up, and was welcomed by the Corinthians, who opened their gates to them, and assisted them to capture the soldiers of the Macedonian garrison.

XXIII

When all appeared to be safe, Aratus descended from the citadel to the theatre, where an enormous multitude of persons was collected, eager to see him and to hear the speech which he was about to address to the Corinthians. He placed a guard of Achæans on each side of the stage, and himself appeared in the middle, still wearing his corslet, and pale with the labours of a sleepless night, so that the triumph and delight which he felt were weighed down by sheer bodily lassitude. His appearance was greeted with enthusiastic applause, and, shifting his spear into his right hand, and slightly leaning his body against it, he stood for a long time silent, receiving the plaudits and shouts of those who praised his courage and congratulated him on his good fortune. When they 504had ceased and resumed their seats, he drew himself up and made them a speech worthy of the occasion, on behalf of the Achæan league, in which he prevailed upon the Corinthians to join the league, and gave up to them the keys of their gates which now came into their possession for the first time since the days of king Philip. He dismissed Archelaus, who had been taken prisoner, but put Theophrastus to death because he refused to leave his post. Persæus, when the citadel was taken, escaped to Kenchreæ. Afterwards it is said that in philosophic conversation, when some one said that he thought that the philosopher was the only true general, he answered, “By heaven, this once used to please me more than any other of Zeno’s aphorisms, but I have changed my mind since the refutation of it which I received from a young man of Sikyon.” This anecdote of Persæus is related by most historians.

XXIV

Aratus now at once made himself master of the temple of Hera, and of Lechæum, where he seized a fleet of five-and-twenty ships belonging to King Antigonus, and sold five hundred horses and four hundred Syrians whom he found there. The Achæans now garrisoned the citadel of Corinth with a force of four hundred heavy-armed soldiers, and with a pack of fifty hounds and as many huntsmen, who were all kept in the citadel.8

The Romans in their admiration of Philopœmen used to call him the last of the Greeks, as though no great actions were performed in Greece after his time: but I should be inclined to say that this was both the last and the most remarkable of all the great achievements of the Greeks, for both in the daring with which it was accomplished, and the good fortune with which it was attended, it will bear comparison with the noblest of deeds, as was at once proved by its results. Megara revolted from Antigonus and joined Aratus, Troezene and Epidaurus became members of the Achæan league, and Aratus made his first campaign by an expedition into Attica, in the course of which he crossed into Salamis and laid it waste, being able to make what use he pleased of the power of the Achæan league, now that it was no longer, as it were, 505locked up in Peloponnesus. He sent back all the freemen whom he captured to Athens without ransom, hoping to rouse them to revolt against the Macedonians. He also brought Ptolemy into alliance with the Achæan league, and constituted him commander-in-chief of their forces by land and by sea. His influence with the Achæans was so great, that, since it was illegal to elect him as their chief every year, they elected him every other year, while practically they followed his advice in all their transactions; for they saw that he preferred neither wealth, nor fame, nor the friendship of kings, nor the advantage of his own native country to the furtherance of the prosperity of the Achæans. He conceived that cities which by themselves were weak might obtain safety by means of one another, bound together by their common interest, and that just as the various parts of the human body live and move when connected with one another, but waste away and perish when cut asunder, so cities are ruined by isolation, and prosper by confederation, when they form parts of one great body, and adopt a common line of policy.

XXV

Observing that the most famous of the neighbouring cities were independent, he became grieved that the Argives lived under the rule of a despot, and began to plot the destruction of Aristomachus, their ruler; wishing also to bestow its freedom upon the city to which he owed his education, and to gain it over to the Achæan league. Men were found who dared to make the attempt, chief among whom were Æschylus and Charimenes the soothsayer, but they had no swords, because the despot had prohibited the possession of arms to the citizens under severe penalties. However, Aratus prepared at Corinth a number of small daggers, which he caused to be sewn up in pack-saddles. He then placed the saddles on pack-horses and sent them to Argos, laden with ordinary merchandise.

But Charimenes the soothsayer took another person into the plot, which so enraged Æschylus and his party that they determined to act alone, and would have nothing more to do with Charimenes. In anger at this treatment he betrayed his comrades just as they were on the point 506of attacking the despot, yet most of them had time to make their way out of the market-place and escape to Corinth. Shortly afterwards Aristomachus was assassinated by his own servants, and was immediately succeeded by Aristippus, a more cruel tyrant than himself. Aratus upon hearing of this at once made a hurried march to Argos at the head of as many Achæans as he could collect, hoping to find the city ready to join him. As, however, most of the Argives were now accustomed to the loss of their liberty, and no one answered his appeal, he retired, having done no more than expose the Achæans to the charge of making a warlike invasion in time of peace. For this they were tried before the Mantineans as judges, and, as Aratus did not appear, Aristippus, who was prosecutor, won his cause and got a fine of thirty minæ laid upon the Achæans. As he both hated and feared Aratus himself, he now, with the connivance of King Antigonus, endeavoured to have him assassinated; and they soon had their emissaries everywhere, watching their opportunity. There is, however, no such certain safeguard for a ruler as the love of his people; for when both the masses and the leading men have learned not to fear their chief, but to fear for him, he sees with many eyes, hears with many ears, and soon gains intelligence of any conspiracies. And in this place I wish to stop my narrative for a moment, and describe the mode of life which Aristippus was compelled to lead in consequence of being a despot, and possessing that position of absolute ruler which men are wont so greatly to admire and envy.

XXVI

Aristippus had Antigonus for his ally, kept a large force on foot for his own protection, and left none of his enemies alive in the city of Argos. He used to make his body-guard and household troops encamp in the porticoes outside his palace, and always, after supper, sent all his servants out of the room, locked the door himself, and betook himself with his mistress to a little upper chamber which was reached by a trapdoor, upon which he placed his bed and slept, as one may expect, a disturbed and frightened sleep. His mistress’s mother used to take away the ladder by which they mounted, and lock it up in another room. At daybreak she used to bring it 507back again, and call down this glorious monarch, who came out like a snake out of his den.

Aratus, who dressed in the plainest of clothes, and was the declared enemy of despots wherever they were to be found, gained for himself a lasting command, not by force of arms, but by legal means by his own courage, and has left a posterity which even at the present day enjoys the greatest honour in Greece; whereas of all those men who seized strongholds, kept body-guards, and protected their lives with arms and gates and trapdoors, few escaped being knocked on the head like hares, and no one has left either a palace, or a family, or a monument to do honour to his memory.

XXVII

Aratus made many attempts, both by intrigues and open violence, to overthrow Aristippus, and take Argos. Once he succeeded in placing scaling-ladders against the walls, ascended them recklessly with a few followers, and killed the soldiers who came from within the city to oppose him. Afterwards, when day was breaking and the troops of the despot were attacking him on all sides, the people of Argos, just as if they were sitting as judges at the Nemean games, and the battle was not being fought on behalf of their liberty, sat by with the utmost calmness, like impartial spectators. Aratus fought bravely, and though wounded in the thigh by a spear, yet succeeded in effecting a lodgement in the city and in spite of the attacks of the enemy held his ground until nightfall. If he could have found strength to remain and fight during the night also, he would not have failed in his attempt; for the despot was already making preparations for flight and had sent on much of his property to the sea-coast: but as no one brought news of this to Aratus, and water failed him, while his wound incapacitated him for any personal exertions, he drew off his forces.

XXVIII

He now gave up this method of attack, and openly invaded the Argive country with an army and laid it waste. At the river Chares he fought a desperate battle with Aristippus, and was thought to have given up the contest too soon, and lost the victory; for when the other part of his army had decidedly won the day and forced their way a long distance forward, he himself, not 508so much overpowered by the forces opposed to him as hopeless of success and fearing disaster, lost his presence of mind, and led his men back into their camp. When the others returned from their victorious charge, and complained bitterly that, after having routed the enemy, and slain many more men than they themselves had lost, Aratus had allowed the vanquished to erect a trophy, he was stung to the quick, decided to fight rather than to allow the trophy to be erected, and after an interval of one day again led out his forces. When, however, he learned that the troops of the despot had been largely reinforced, and were full of confidence, he did not venture to risk a battle, but made a truce for the recovery of the dead, and retired. Yet he continued to repair this fault by his diplomatic skill and persuasive powers, for he won over the city of Kleonæ to the Achæan league, and held the Nemean festival at Kleonæ, declaring it to be the privilege of its citizens to do so by right of descent. The Argives also celebrated the festival, and on this occasion for the first time the right of safe-conduct of the competitors was violated, for the Achæans seized and sold for slaves all who passed through their territory on their return from the games at Argos. So stern and inexorable was Aratus in his hatred of despots.

XXIX

Shortly after this, hearing that Aristippus was meditating an attack upon Kleonæ, but feared him, because he was living at Corinth, he ordered an army to be mustered. Bidding his men collect provisions for several days, he marched as far as Kenchreæ, hoping to draw out Aristippus to attack Kleonæ during his absence, as indeed happened. Aristippus at once came from Argos with his entire force; but Aratus meanwhile returned by night to Corinth from Kenchreæ, and, having placed guards upon all the roads, led the Achæans by so swift, well-managed, and orderly a march, that while it was still dark he not only reached Kleonæ, but drew up his men in order of battle before Aristippus discovered their presence. At daybreak the city gates were thrown open, and charging with loud shouts to the sound of the trumpet, he at once routed the enemy, and pursued in the direction in which he thought Aristippus most probably was fleeing, the country being full of ways to escape pursuit. The chase was kept 509up as far as Mykenae, where the despot was overtaken and slain by a Cretan named Tragiskus, according to the historian Deinias. With him fell more than fifteen hundred of his men. Yet, Aratus, after gaining such a brilliant success without losing one of his own soldiers, did not take Argos or restore it to liberty, as Agias and Aristomachus the younger marched into the town with some Macedonian troops and seized the government.

However, by this action, Aratus pretty well silenced the ill-natured joke, which had been made about himself, and the stories, invented by the courtiers of despots; for they described the general of the Achæans as being subject to violent internal disorders during a battle, and said that as soon as the trumpeter appeared he became faint and dizzy, and that, after having arrayed his forces, given the word, and inquired of his lieutenants and officers whether they had any further need of his presence, when the die was finally cast, he used to retire and await the result at a distance. These stories had such an extensive currency, that even philosophers in their studies when discussing whether violent beating of the heart, changing of colour, and the like in time of danger be a mark of cowardice or of distemperature and of a cold habit of body, always mention Aratus as being a good general, but always being affected in this manner when in battle.

XXX

When he had slain Aristippus, he at once began to plot against Lydiades of Megalopolis, who had made himself despot of his native city. Lydiades was naturally of a noble and ambitious nature, and had not, like so many despots, been led to commit the crime of enslaving his fellow-citizens by any selfish desire of money or of pleasure; but when a young man he had become inflamed with a desire of distinguishing himself, and listening to all the vain and untrue talk about despotic power being so fine and happy a thing, he, like a high-spirited youth, made himself despot, and soon became overwhelmed with the cares of state. As he now both envied the happiness of Aratus and feared the results of his plots, he adopted a new and most glorious course, which was first to set himself free from hatred and terror and soldiers and life-guards, and next to become the benefactor of his country. He 510sent for Aratus, gave up his rule, and united the city to the Achæan league. The Achæans admired his conduct in this matter so much that they elected him general. He now at once began to strive to outdo Aratus in glory, and engaged in many unnecessary enterprises, one of which was a campaign against the Lacedæmonians. Aratus opposed him, and was therefore thought to be jealous of him; yet Lydiades was a second time elected general, in spite of the open opposition of Aratus, who used all his influence on behalf of another candidate. Aratus himself, as has been said, was general every other year. Lydiades continued in the full tide of success and was elected general alternately with Aratus up to his third year of office; but as he made no secret of his hatred for Aratus, and often attacked him in the public assembly of the Achæans, they cast him off and would not listen to him, thinking that his good qualities were but counterfeit when compared with the genuine virtues of Aratus. Just as Æsop tells us in his fables that when the cuckoo asked the little birds why they fled from him, they answered that some day he would be a hawk, so it seems that, even after he had given up his despotism, some blighting suspicion always clung to the character of Lydiades.

XXXI

Aratus gained great glory also in the Ætolian war, because when the Achæans were eager to join battle with the Ætolians on the Megarian frontier, and Agis the King of Lacedæmon had arrived with a large force and urged the Achæans to fight, he opposed it, and in spite of being reproached, abused, and jeered at as a coward, refused to be led astray by any high-flown ideas of honour from the course which he had decided upon as the best, made way for the enemy, and without striking a blow permitted them to cross Geranea and pass into Peloponnesus. When, however, they marched by him and suddenly seized Pellene, he was no longer the same man. He would not wait until his entire force was assembled, but with what troops he had with him at once marched against the enemy, who, after their victory, were easily conquered on account of their want of discipline and licentiousness. As soon as they made their way into the city of Pellene, the soldiers dispersed themselves among the various houses, driving 511each other out of them and fighting one another for the plunder, while the chiefs and generals were occupied in carrying off the wives and daughters of the citizens. They took off their own helmets and placed them on the heads of these women, in order that no one else might take them, but that the owner of each one might be known by the helmet which she wore. While they were thus engaged the news suddenly came that Aratus was about to attack. A panic took place, as one might readily expect, with such want of discipline, and before all of them heard of the danger, the foremost, meeting the Achæans near the gates and suburbs of the city, lost heart and fled away at once, and in their frantic haste threw into disorder those who were forming to come to their support.

XXXII

During this tumult one of the captive women, the daughter of an eminent citizen named Epigethus, who herself was remarkably tall and handsome, happened to be sitting in the temple of Artemis, where she had been stationed by the commander of a picked company of soldiers, who had placed upon her head his own helmet with its triple plume. She, hearing the disturbance, suddenly ran out, and as she stood at the door of the temple, looking down upon the combatants, with the triple-plumed helmet upon her head, she appeared even to her own countrymen to be something more glorious than a mere mortal, while the enemy, who imagined that they beheld an apparition, were struck with terror and affright, so that none of them attempted to offer any resistance. The people of Pellene themselves say that the wooden statue of the goddess is never touched except when it is carried out by the priestess, and that then no one dares to look upon it, but all turn their faces away; for the sight of it is not only fearful and terrible for mankind, but it even makes the trees barren and blights the crops through which it is carried. This it was, they say, which the priestess carried out of the temple on this occasion, and by continually turning the face of the figure towards the Ætolians, made them frantic and took away their reason. Aratus, however, in his memoirs makes no mention of anything of the kind, but says that he routed the Ætolians, broke into city together with the fugitives, 512and killed seven hundred of them. The exploit became celebrated as one of his most glorious actions, and the artist Timanthes has painted an admirable picture of the battle.

XXXIII

However, as many nations and princes were combining together against the Achæans, Aratus at once made peace with the Ætolians, and with the assistance of Pantaleon, the most powerful man in Ætolia, even made an alliance between that country and the Achæans. He was anxious to set free the Athenians, and was severely reproached by the Achæans because, during a cessation of arms, when they had made a truce with the Macedonians, he attempted to seize Peiræus. In the memoirs which he has left Aratus denies this, and throws the blame of it upon Erginus, with whose aid he seized the citadel of Corinth. This man, he says, attacked Peiræus on his own responsibility, and when the scaling-ladder broke and he was forced to fly, frequently called on Aratus by name as though he were present, and by this artifice deceived the enemy and escaped. This justification does not, however, seem a very credible one. There was no probability that Erginus, a private man and a Syrian, should have ever thought of such an enterprise, if he had not been urged to it by Aratus, who must have supplied him with the necessary forces and pointed out the proper opportunity for the attack. And Aratus himself proves this to be true by having not merely twice or thrice, but frequently, like a rejected lover, made attempts upon Peiræus, and not being disconcerted by his failures, but ever gathering fresh hopes by observing how nearly he had succeeded. On one of these occasions he sprained his leg in a hasty retreat across the Thriasian plain. Several incisions had to be made to cure it, and he was obliged for a long time to be carried in a litter when conducting his campaigns.

XXXIV

When Antigonus died and Demetrius9 succeeded to the throne, Aratus was more eager than ever to gain over Athens, and began to treat the Macedonians with contempt. When he was defeated in a battle which he fought against Bithys, a general of Demetrius, and many rumours were current that he had been taken 513prisoner or had been slain, Diogenes, the commander of the garrison of Peiræus, sent a letter to Corinth bidding the Achæans leave that city now that Aratus was dead. When this letter arrived Aratus himself was present in Corinth, and the messengers of Diogenes had to return after having afforded him much amusement. The King of Macedonia also sent a ship, on board of which Aratus was to be brought back to him in chains. But the Athenians, outdoing themselves in levity and servility to the Macedonians, crowned themselves with garlands when they heard the news of his death. Enraged at this Aratus at once invaded their country, and marched as far as the Academy, but there he suffered his anger to be appeased, and did no damage. The Athenians did, nevertheless, appreciate his courage, for when on the death of Demetrius, they attempted to regain their freedom, they invited him to assist them. Although Aratus was not at that time general of the Achæans, and was confined to his bed with a long illness, yet he responded to this appeal by proceeding to Athens in a litter, and prevailed upon Diogenes, the chief of the garrison, to surrender Peiræus, Munychia, Salamis, and Sunium to the Athenians for the sum of one hundred and fifty talents, twenty of which he himself contributed. The states of Ægina, and Hermione now joined the Achæan league, and the greater part of Arcadia contributed to it; for the Macedonians were engaged in wars with their neighbours, and the Achæans, with the help of their allies, the Ætolians, now gained a large accession of force.

XXXV

Aratus was still true to his original principles, and, grieving at the spectacle of a despotism established in the neighbouring state of Argos, sent to Aristomachus, and endeavoured to persuade him to give up his authority, bring the city over to the Achæan league, and imitate Lydiades by becoming the glorious and respected general of so great a people rather than remain exposed to constant danger as the hated despot of one city. Aristomachus acceded to these proposals of Aratus, but asked him for the sum of fifty talents, for the payment of the mercenaries whom he was to disband. While the money was being procured, Lydiades, who was still in office as general, and wished to gain the credit of this 514negotiation for himself, told Aristomachus that Aratus was really the bitter and implacable foe of all despots, persuaded him to intrust the management of the affair to himself, and introduced Aristomachus to the Achæan assembly. On this occasion the Achæan representatives gave Aratus a notable proof of their love and confidence in him; for when he indignantly opposed the proposition they drove away Aristomachus; and yet, when Aratus had become his friend and again brought forward the matter, they readily accepted his proposal, admitted the cities of Argos and Phlius into the league, and the following year elected Aristomachus general. Aristomachus, finding himself cordially received by the Achæans, and wishing to invade Laconia, sent for Aratus from Athens. Aratus replied by a letter in which he dissuaded him from making this campaign, being unwilling to involve the Achæans in hostilities with Kleomenes, who was a bold general and had already gained surprising successes. As, however, Aristomachus was determined to begin the war, Aratus returned, and made the campaign with him. When near Pallantium they met Kleomenes, and Aratus was reproached by Lydiades for restraining Aristomachus from joining battle. The year after, Lydiades stood against Aratus as a candidate for the office of general, when Aratus was chosen general for the twelfth time.

XXXVI

During this term of office Aratus was defeated by Kleomenes near Mount Lykaeum, and took to flight. He lost his way during the night, and was supposed to have fallen. The same rumours now again ran through Greece about him; but he got safely away, and having rallied his men was not satisfied with retiring home unmolested, but making an admirable use of his opportunity, as no one expected an attack, he suddenly fell upon the Mantineans, who were the allies of Kleomenes. He took the city, placed a garrison in it, and insisted on the resident foreigners being admitted to the franchise, thus alone gaining for the Achæans after a defeat, a success which they could hardly have obtained by a victory. When the Lacedæmonians marched against Megalopolis, Aratus came to the assistance of that city. He would not fight with Kleomenes, though the latter endeavoured to entice 515him into a battle, but he kept back the men of Megalopolis who were eager to fight; for he was at no time well-fitted for the direction of pitched battles, and on this occasion was inferior in numbers, besides being opposed to a young and daring antagonist, while he himself was past the prime of life, and inclined to fail in spirit. He thought, too, that while it was right for Kleomenes to gain glory by daring, it was best for him to be careful to keep the glory which he had already obtained.

XXXVII

Though the light-armed troops ran out to meet the Spartans, drove them back to their camp, and even fought round their tents, yet Aratus would not move on with the heavy-armed force, but halted them behind a water-course which he forbade them to cross. Lydiades, irritated at this, reproached Aratus, called upon the cavalry to follow him and reinforce the victorious light troops, and not to lose the victory or desert him when he was fighting for his country. Many brave men joined him, and with them he charged the right wing of the enemy, overthrew them, and pursued with reckless ardour until he became entangled in difficult ground, full of fruit trees and wide ditches, where he was attacked by Kleomenes, and fell fighting bravely in the noblest of causes, at the very gates of his native city. His companions fled back to the main body, where they disordered the ranks of the hoplites, and brought about the defeat of the entire army. Aratus was greatly blamed, because he was thought to have left Lydiades to perish. The Achæans angrily retired to Ægium, and forced him to accompany them. There they held a meeting, at which it was decided that he should not be supplied with any money nor any mercenary troops maintained for him, but that if he wished to go to war he must furnish them for himself.

XXXVIII

After being thus disgraced, Aratus determined at once to give up the seals10 and lay down his office of general, but after consideration he put up with the affront led out the army of the Achæans, and fought a battle with Megistonous, the step-father of Kleomenes, in which he was victorious, slew three hundred of the enemy, and took 516prisoner Megistonous himself. He had hitherto been always elected general every other year, but now, when the time for his election came round, he refused to take the office, although pressed to do so, and Timotheus was chosen general. It was thought that his anger with the people was merely a pretext for his refusal, and that the real reason was the perilous situation of the Achæan league; for Kleomenes no longer operated against it by slow degrees as before, when he was embarrassed by the other Spartan magistrates, but now that he had put the Ephors to death, redistributed the land, and admitted many of the resident aliens to the franchise, he found himself an irresponsible ruler at the head of a large force, with which he at once assailed the Achæans, demanding himself to be acknowledged as their chief. For this reason Aratus has been blamed for behaving like a pilot during a terrible storm and tempest yielded up the helm to another when it was his duty to stand by it, even against the will of the people, and save the commonwealth; or, if he despaired of the Achæans being able to resist, he ought to have made terms with Kleomenes and not to have allowed Peloponnesus to fall back into the hands of the uncivilised Macedonians and be occupied by their troops, and to have garrisoned the citadel of Corinth with Illyrian and Gaulish soldiers, thus inviting into the cities, under the name of allies, those very men whom he had passed his life in out-manœuvring and over-reaching, and whom in his memoirs he speaks of with such hatred. Even if Kleomenes were, as some might call him, a despot and a law-breaker, yet Sparta was his native country, and the Herakleidæ were his ancestors, and surely any man who respected Greek nobility of birth would have chosen the least illustrious of such a family for his chief rather than the greatest man in all Macedonia. Moreover, Kleomenes, when he asked the Achæans to appoint him as their ruler, promised that in return for that title he would do great things for them by land and sea, whereas Antigonus, when offered the title of supreme ruler by land and sea, would not accept it until he received the citadel of Corinth as a bribe, exactly like the huntsman in Æsop’s fable; for he would not mount upon the backs of the Achæans, though they begged him to do so, and offered 517themselves to him by embassies and decrees, before, by means of his garrison in Corinth and the hostages which he received, he had, as it were, placed a bit in their mouths.

Aratus makes a laboured defence of his conduct, pleading the necessities of his situation. Yet Polybius tells us that long before any such necessities existed, Aratus had felt alarm at the daring spirit of Kleomenes, and had not only been carrying on secret negotiations with Antigonus, but even had urged the people of Megalopolis to propose to the Achæans that Antigonus should be invited to assist them. It was the people of Megalopolis who were the greatest sufferers by the war, as Kleomenes constantly ravaged their territories. The historian Phylarchus gives a similar account of the transaction, though we could hardly receive his narrative with confidence if it were not supported by the testimony of Polybius; for he is so enthusiastic an admirer of the character of Kleomenes that in his history he writes as though he were pleading his cause in a court of justice, and continually disparages Aratus, and, vindicates Kleomenes.

XXXIX

The Achæans now lost Mantinea, which was recaptured by Kleomenes, and they were so dispirited by a great defeat, which they sustained near Hekatombæon, as to send at once to Kleomenes, inviting him to come to Argos and assume the supreme command. Aratus, as soon has he learned that Kleomenes had set out, and was marching past Lerna at the head of his army, became alarmed, and sent an embassy to him, begging him, to come to the Achæans as to friends and allies, with only three hundred men, and offering hostages to him, if he suspected them of treachery. Kleomenes regarded this message as a mockery and an insult to himself. He immediately retired, after writing a letter to the Achæans in which he brought many grave charges against Aratus. Aratus, in turn, wrote several letters to them assailing Kleomenes; and they abused one another so outrageously as not even to spare the reputation of each other’s wives. After this, Kleomenes sent a herald to declare war against the Achæans, and very nearly succeeded in making himself master of Sikyon by the treachery of some of its citizens. Failing in this, he turned aside, attacked Pellene, 518drove out the commander, and took the city. Shortly afterwards he took Phenes and Penteleum. Upon this the Argives at once joined him, and the citizen of Phlius admitted a Spartan garrison: so that the Achæans seemed to be in danger of losing all their conquests, and Aratus became seriously alarmed at the disturbed condition of the Peloponnesus, for he saw that in every quarter cities, encouraged by revolutionary agitators, were preparing to throw off their allegiance to the league.

XL

None were quiet or satisfied with things as they were, but many citizens of Corinth and of Sikyon itself openly corresponded with Kleomenes, and expressed the disaffection which they had long felt to the league, and their wish to obtain the supreme power for themselves. In dealing with these persons, Aratus took the law into his own hands and put to death all Sikyonians whom he found corrupted; but when he attempted to seek out and punish the Corinthian conspirators, he enraged the populace which already was disaffected, and weary of the Achæan domination. The people ran together to the temple of Apollo, and sent for Aratus, being determined either to kill him or take him prisoner, before they proceeded openly to revolt from the league. Aratus appeared before them, leading his horse, without betraying any suspicion or alarm, and when many of them leaped up and showered abusive language upon him, he, with an admirable composure of countenance and manner, quietly bade them be seated, and not stand up talking loudly and confusedly but let in also those who were outside the gates. While speaking thus he retired at a foot’s pace, as though he were looking for some one to take care of his horse. By this means he got away from them and proceeded on his way, talking unconcernedly to all the Corinthians whom he met, whom he bade go to the temple of Apollo, until he came near to the citadel. Here he sprang upon his horse’s back, gave orders to Kleopater, the commander of the garrison, to hold the place stoutly, and rode away to Sikyon, followed by only thirty soldiers, as the rest had all remained behind and dispersed.

After a short time the Corinthians discovered that he had taken to flight, and pursued, but as they could not 519overtake him, they sent to Kleomenes and delivered up their city to him. Yet Kleomenes considered that he had lost more by the escape of Aratus than he had gained by the acquisition of Corinth. Kleomenes was at once joined by the inhabitants of the sea-side district known as Akte, who surrendered their cities to him, and with their assistance he completely invested the citadel of Corinth with a rampart and palisade.

XLI

Aratus was joined at Sikyon by the representatives of most of the cities of the Achæan league. An assembly was held, at which he was elected general, with unlimited powers. He now surrounded himself with a body-guard selected from among his fellow-citizens. Aratus had conducted the affairs of the league for thirty-three years, during which he had made himself the first man in Greece, both in power and in renown, though now he was utterly ruined and cast down, forced to cling to his native city as his only chance of safety amidst the general wreck of his fortunes. For the Ætolians refused to help him when he implored their aid, and Eurykleides and Mikion held back the Athenians from offering any assistance, though they were eager to do so out of regard for Aratus. Aratus had a house at Corinth and some property, which Kleomenes refused to touch, or to let any one else meddle with, but sent for Aratus’s friends and those whom he had left in charge of his property, and bade them keep everything in good order, as they would have to answer to Aratus for their conduct. Kleomenes also sent Tripylus and his uncle Megistonous to Aratus to negotiate with him, promising him among many other advantages a yearly pension of twelve talents, thus over-bidding Ptolemy by one half: for Ptolemy paid Aratus six talents a year. Kleomenes proposed that he himself should receive the title of chief of the Achæans, and that the citadel of Corinth should be garrisoned partly by Achæans and partly by Spartan troops. To this Aratus answered that he was not able to direct events, but rather was directed by them. As this language proved that he had no intention of negotiating seriously, Kleomenes at once invaded the territory of Sikyon, ravaged the country, and encamped for three months before the walls of the city. Aratus remained quiet within the walls, 520but began to consider whether it would be necessary for him to obtain the assistance of Antigonus by surrendering the citadel of Corinth to him: for his help was not to be had on any other terms.

XLII

The Achæans now assembled at Ægium and invited Aratus thither. The journey was a dangerous one for him to make, at a time when Kleomenes was encamped outside the city of Sikyon; and his fellow-countrymen endeavoured to keep him back by entreaties and even by threatening that, when the enemy was so close, they would not permit him to leave the city; while the women and children hung upon him weeping, as though he were the common father and preserver of them all. However, after addressing a few words of encouragement to them he rode away towards the sea, accompanied by ten of his friends and by his son, who was now grown up. At the beach they embarked on board of some vessels which were riding at anchor, and proceeded by sea to the assembly at Ægium, at which it was decreed that Antigonus should be invited to aid them, and that the citadel of Corinth should be handed over to him. Aratus even sent his son to Antigonus among the other hostages. The Corinthians, disgusted with these proceedings, now confiscated his property, and presented his house to Kleomenes.

XLIII

Antigonus now approached with his army, which was composed of twenty thousand Macedonian foot soldiers, with thirteen hundred cavalry. Aratus, with the chief officers of the Achæan league, proceeded by sea to Pegæ to meet him, thus avoiding the enemy, although he had no great confidence in Antigonus, and distrusted the Macedonians. He felt that he owed his own greatness to the injuries which he had done them, and that his first rise as a politician was due to his hatred of the old Antigonus. Yet, driven by inexorable necessity, and by the exigencies of the times, to which men in authority are really slaves, he took this desperate course.

Antigonus, as soon as he learned that Aratus was approaching, met him, and welcomed his companions in a friendly manner, but showed him especial honour at their first meeting, and as he found upon trial that Aratus was a worthy and sensible man, he contracted closer 521relations with him than those of mere business. Indeed, Aratus was not only useful to Antigonus for the management of great political negotiations, but when the king was at leisure, proved a more agreeable companion to him than any one else. Antigonus, young as he was, perceived that Aratus was not spoiled by royal favour, and soon preferred him not only above all other Achæans, but even beyond his own Macedonian courtiers. Thus was the sign which the god had given him in the sacrifice brought to pass: for it is said that a short time before this, Aratus was offering sacrifice and that there appeared in the liver of the victim two gall bladders enclosed in one caul. The soothsayer explained this to portend that Aratus would shortly form an intimate friendship with his greatest enemy. At the time he disregarded this saying, for he was always more inclined to follow the dictates of common sense than to be guided by prophecies and portents. Afterwards, however, as the war proceeded successfully, Antigonus made a great feast at Corinth to which he invited many guests. Among these was Aratus, whom he placed next to himself. Presently he sent for a wrapper, and asked Aratus if he also did not feel chilly. Aratus answered that he was very cold, and Antigonus then bade him come closer to himself, so that the servants who brought the wrapper enveloped them both in it. Then Aratus, remembering the portent, burst out laughing, and told the king about the sacrifice and the prophecy. This, however, happened after the times of which I am writing.

XLIV

At Pegæ Aratus and Antigonus each plighted their faith to the other, and then at once marched against the enemy. Before Corinth several battles took place, for Kleomenes was securely entrenched there, and the Corinthians vigorously assisted him. But now one Aristoteles of Argos, a friend of Aratus, sent secretly to him to say that he could cause that city to revolt from Kleomenes, if Aratus would appear before it with some Macedonian soldiers. Aratus laid the matter before Antigonus, and hurriedly crossed over to Epidaurus by sea with a force of fifteen hundred men. The Argives rose in revolt before his arrival, attacked the troops 522of Kleomenes, and drove them to take refuge in the citadel; and Kleomenes, hearing of this, and fearing that if the enemy made themselves masters of Argos they might cut off his retreat, abandoned Corinth and marched by night to help the garrison of Argos. He arrived there before Aratus, and won a partial success, but soon afterwards, as Aratus was marching to attack him, and King Antigonus was coming on behind Aratus, he retired to Mantinea. Upon this all the cities of Peloponnesus again joined the Achæans, and Antigonus received the citadel of Corinth. The people of Argos now elected Aratus their commander-in-chief, and he persuaded them to make a present to Antigonus of all the property of their late despots and of all traitors. Aristomachus was put to the torture at Cenchreae and then drowned in the sea, a proceeding which brought great discredit upon Aratus for having allowed a man of considerable merit, with whom he had formerly been intimately connected, and whom he had persuaded to abdicate his throne and bring over Argos to the league, to be put to death in this cruel and illegal manner.

XLV

By this time also many other charges were brought against Aratus by the other cities, as, for instance, that the league had given Corinth to Antigonus just as if it were some obscure village, and that it had permitted him to sack Orchomenus and place in it a Macedonian garrison; that it had passed a decree, that no letter or embassy should be sent to any other king if Antigonus did not approve of it; that they were forced to maintain and pay the Macedonians, and that they celebrated religious services, processions, and games in honour of Antigonus, in which the fellow-citizens of Aratus took the lead, and invited him into their city where he was the guest of Aratus. All blamed Aratus for this, not considering that he had given over the reins to Antigonus, and was now compelled to follow his lead, having no longer anything except his tongue which he could call his own, and not daring to use even that with entire freedom. It was clear that much of what was being done distressed Aratus, as for instance the affair of the statues; for Antigonus restored the statues of the 523despots at Argos which had been thrown down, and threw down all the statues of the captors of the citadel of Corinth, except only that of Aratus himself: and that, too, although Aratus begged him earnestly to spare those of the others. At Mantinea, too, the behaviour of the Achæans was repugnant to Hellenic patriotism, for having by the help of Antigonus captured that city, they put to death all the leading men, and of the rest they sold some and sent others to Macedonia loaded with fetters, while they made slaves of the women and children. Of the proceeds of the sale they divided one-third among themselves, and gave two-thirds to the Macedonians. Yet this can be justified by the law of revenge; for though it is a shocking thing to deal so cruelly with men of one’s own nation, through anger, still, in great political crises, revenge is sweet and not bitter, and in the words of Simonides, soothes and relieves the angry spirit. But what happened afterwards cannot be thought honourable to Aratus, nor can it be attributed to political exigencies: for when the city was presented by Antigonus to the Achæans, and they decided upon colonising it, Aratus being chosen as its founder, and being at the time general of the Achæans, decreed that it should no longer be called Mantinea, but Antigoneia, which remains its name to this day. Thus, by his means, the lovely Mantinea, as Homer calls it,11 was wiped out of the map of Greece, and there remains in its stead a city whose name recalls its destroyer and the murderer of its citizens.

XLVI

Subsequently to this, Kleomenes was defeated in a great battle at Sellasia, left Sparta and sailed to Egypt. Antigonus, after showing every kindness to Aratus, returned to Macedonia, where, as he already was suffering from the illness which caused his death, he sent the heir to his kingdom, Philip, who was now a mere lad, into Peloponnesus, advising him to pay the greatest attentions to Aratus, and through him to negotiate with the cities, and make the acquaintance of the Achæans. Aratus welcomed Philip, and so treated him that he returned to Macedonia full of good will towards himself, and full of generous feelings and impulses towards the Greeks.

524

XLVII

When Antigonus died, the Ætolians, who regarded the Achæans with contempt because of their cowardice (for indeed they had become accustomed to be protected by others, and trusting, entirely to the Macedonian arms, had fallen into a condition of complete indolence and want of discipline), began to interfere in the politics of the Peloponnesus. During their invasion they incidentally plundered the territory of Patræ and Dyme, and then marched into the country of Messenia and began to lay it waste. Aratus, distressed at this, and seeing that Timoxenus, the general of the Achæans, was acting slowly and without spirit because his year of office had almost expired, anticipated his own election as general by five days, in order to assist the Messenians. He assembled an Achæan army: but the men were without military training and were destitute of warlike spirit. This army was defeated in a battle near Kaphyæ, and Aratus, who was reproached with having been too rash a general, now fell into the opposite extreme, and showed such apathy as often to refuse to seize opportunities for attack which were offered by the Ætolians, and to permit them to riot through Peloponnesus with every kind of wanton insult. Now, a second time, the Achæans stretched forth their hands towards Macedonia and brought Philip to interfere in the affairs of Greece. They were the more willing to take this step because they knew the regard which Philip felt for Aratus, and the trust which he placed in him, and they hoped that they should find him gentle and manageable in all respects.

XLVIII

At first the king, influenced by the slanders of Apelles, Megaleas, and some other of his courtiers against Aratus encouraged those of the opposite faction, and eagerly pressed for the election of Eperatus as general of the league. However, as he was utterly despised by the Achæans, and as nothing useful could be effected while Aratus was out of office, Philip perceived that he had made a complete mistake. He now came entirely over to the side of Aratus, and acted entirely at his dictation. As he was now gaining both renown and power, he attached himself more and more to Aratus, imagining that it was by his means that he gained his successes.525 Indeed it began to be thought that Aratus was able to school kings as well as he could free cities; for the impress of his character was to be traced in every one of Philip’s acts. Thus the lenity with which the young prince treated the Lacedæmonians after they had offended him, his personal interviews with the Cretans, by means of which he gained possession of the whole island in a few days, and his brilliantly successful campaign against the Ætolians, all gained for Aratus the credit of giving good advice, and for Philip that of knowing how to follow it. All this made Philip’s courtiers more and more jealous of Aratus. As they could effect nothing against him by secret intrigues, they proceeded to open abuse, and assailed him at wine-parties with the most scurrilous impertinence, and once when he was retiring to his tent after dinner they even sent a shower of stones after him. Philip was very indignant at these proceedings, and at once imposed upon them a fine of twenty talents. Afterwards, as they were embroiling and troubling his affairs by their intrigues, he had them all put to death.

XLIX

Now that Philip was borne along upon the full tide of success, he developed many vehement lusts, and the natural wickedness of his nature broke through all the artificial restraints by which it had been hitherto held in check, and gradually revealed him in his true colours. His first act was to seduce the wife of the younger Aratus. This intrigue he carried on for a long time unsuspected, as he lived in their house and was treated as an honoured guest. Next, he began to treat the Greeks in a much harsher fashion, and evidently intended to rid himself of Aratus. His conduct at Messene first gave rise to this suspicion. The Messenians revolted, and Aratus marched to attack them, but Philip reached Messene one day before him, and when he entered the city stirred up the passions of the citizens by asking the aristocracy of the Messenians in private whether they had no laws to keep down the populace, and then again in private inquiring of the leaders of the people whether they had no hands wherewith to quell despots. After this the chief men took heart and fell upon the popular leaders, but they, with the assistance of the people, killed all the magistrates and nearly two hundred of the other leading citizens.

526

L

After Philip had thus wickedly exasperated the Messenians against one another, Aratus arrived. He made no secret of his distress at what had happened, and did not restrain his son when he bitterly reproached and abused Philip. The young man was thought to have been Philip’s lover; and he now told Philip that after such deeds he did not any longer think him handsome, but hideous. Philip made no answer, although he was thought likely to do so, as he often had burst into a fury when thus spoken to, but, just as though he had patiently endured the reproof and was really of a moderate and statesmanlike disposition, he took the elder Aratus by the hand, led him out of the theatre, and proceeded with him as far as the summit of Ithome, to sacrifice to Zeus and to view the place, which is naturally as strong as the citadel of Corinth, and if garrisoned would become a thorn in the side of the neighbouring states, and quite impregnable. After mounting the hill and offering sacrifice, when the soothsayer brought him the entrails of the ox, he, taking them into his own hands, kept showing them first to Aratus and then to Demetrius of Pharos, alternately placing them before each, and asking what they thought was the meaning of the entrails, that he would keep possession of the citadel, or that he would restore it to the Messenians. At this Demetrius laughed and said, “If you have the soul of a soothsayer, you will give up the place; but if you have that of a king, you will clutch the ox by both horns,” alluding to Peloponnesus, which, if he held the citadels of Messene and of Corinth, would be quite tame and at his mercy.

Aratus remained silent for a long while, but when Philip begged him to say what he thought, he answered, “My king, there are many high mountains in Crete, and there are many strong positions in Bœotia and Phokis. I believe too, that there are many places of surprising strength in Acarnania, both on the sea coast and inland, yet you have not taken any of these, and nevertheless the people of those countries willingly execute your commands. Brigands cling to high cliffs and haunt precipitous places, but kings find nothing so secure as loyalty and goodwill. This it is that opened to you the Cretan sea, and 527the Peloponnesus. By these arts you, young as you are, have made yourself the master of the one, and the leader of the other.” While Aratus was yet speaking Philip gave back the entrails to the soothsayer, and, taking Aratus by the hand, said, “Come now, let us go back again,” having been, as it were, overruled by him into letting the city remain free.

LI

Aratus now began to withdraw himself from the court, and by degrees to break off his intimacy with Philip. When Philip conveyed his army across the Corinthian gulf into Epirus,12 and desired Aratus to make the campaign with him, Aratus refused and remained at home, fearing that he might share the disgrace of Philip’s operations. Philip, after his fleet had been ignominiously destroyed by the Romans, and his whole enterprise had failed,13 returned to Peloponnesus, and, as he did not succeed in a second attempt to outwit the Messenians and to gain possession of their citadel, he threw off the mask and openly wronged them by ravaging their territory. Aratus now became quite estranged from him, and was misrepresented to him. He had by this time learned the domestic dishonour which he had sustained from Philip, and grieved over it, though he kept it secret from his son; for when he had discovered it, he was powerless to avenge it. Indeed Philip’s character seems to have undergone a very great and remarkable change, as from a mild ruler and a modest youth he grew into a profligate man and an atrocious tyrant. This change was not due to any alteration of his real nature, but to the fact that he could now with impunity indulge the vices which fear had hitherto forced him to conceal.

LII

His treatment of Aratus showed that he had always regarded him with a mixture of respect and fear; for though he desired to make away with him, and considered that during Aratus’s lifetime he should not even be a free man, much less a despot or king, yet he would not openly attack him, but bade Taurion, one of his 528generals and friends, to do this secretly, by poison if possible, during his own absence. This man gained the confidence of Aratus, and administered drugs to him, whose action was not quick and sudden, but which produced slight heats in the body and a chronic cough, and so gradually undermined his strength. He did not, however, do this without being discovered by Aratus; but he, as he could gain nothing by convicting him, continued to endure his malady just as if it were some ordinary disorder. Only once when he spat blood, and one of his friends who was in the same room noticed it and expressed his concern, Aratus said, “This, Kephalon, is the return I get for my friendship for the king.”

LIII

Thus died Aratus at Aegium, when holding the office of general of the league for the seventeenth time. The Achaeans wished his funeral to take place in that city, and to raise a suitable monument over so great a man; but the people of Sikyon regarded it as a national misfortune that he should not be buried in their city, and prevailed upon the Achaeans to deliver up the body to them. As there was a law which was regarded with superstitious reverence, forbidding any one to be interred within the walls of Sikyon, they sent ambassadors to Delphi to consult the oracle. The Pythia returned the following answer:—

“Dost thou, fair Sikyon, hesitate to raise

A fitting tomb to thy lost hero’s praise?

Curst be the land, nay, curst the air or wave

That grudges room for thy Aratus’ grave.”

When this response was brought back all the Achaeans were delighted, and the Sikyonians in particular, turning their mourning into joy, put on white robes, crowned themselves with garlands, and removed the body of Aratus from Aegium to Sikyon in festal procession with songs and dances. They chose a conspicuous spot, and interred him in it with as much reverence as though he were the founder and saviour of their city. The place is called the Arateum to the present day, and on the day upon which he freed the city from its despot, which is the fifth day of the month Daisius, or Anthesterion in the Athenian calendar, a sacrifice, called the thanksgiving for safety, is offered, and also on the day of the month on which 529Aratus was born. The former sacrifice used to be conducted by the priest of Zeus the Saviour, and the latter by the priest of Aratus, who wore a headband, not all white, but mixed with purple. Songs used to be chanted to the music of the harp by the actors, called the servants of Dionysius, and the president of the gymnasiums took part in the procession, leading the boys and young men, after whom, followed the council of the city, crowned with flowers, and any of the citizens who wished to do so. Some traces of these proceedings still survive, as religious ceremonies; but the most part of the honours paid to Aratus have died out through lapse of time and change of circumstances.

LIV

This is the account which history gives us of the life and character of the elder Aratus. As for his son, Philip, who was naturally a villain, and whose disposition combined insolence with cruelty, administered drugs to him, which were not deadly, but which deprived him of his reason; so that he conceived a passion for monstrous lusts and shameful debaucheries, by which he was soon so worn out that, although he was in the flower of his age, death appeared to him to be a release from sufferings rather than a misfortune. Yet Zeus, the patron of hospitality and of friendship, exacted a notable penalty from Philip for his wickedness, and pursued him throughout his life: for he was utterly defeated by the Romans, and forced to surrender at discretion to them. He lost all his empire, was obliged to deliver up all his fleet, except five ships, had to pay a thousand talents and give up his own son as a hostage, and then only was allowed, by the pity of his conquerors to keep Macedonia itself and its dependencies. As he always put to death all the leading men of his kingdom, and all his nearest relations, he inspired the whole country with terror and hatred. Amidst all his miseries he had one piece of good fortune, in having a son of remarkable promise, and him he put to death out of jealousy and envy at the honours which were paid him by the Romans. He left his kingdom to his other son Perseus, who was said not to be legitimate, but to be the son of a sempstress named Gnathæna. Over him Paulus Æmilius triumphed, and so put an end to the dynasty of Antigonus. However, the family of Aratus survived in Sikyon and Pellene down to my own times.

530

LIFE OF
GALBA.

I

The Athenian general Iphikrates thought that a mercenary soldier ought to be fond both of money and pleasure, as in that case he would risk his life the more freely to obtain the means of procuring enjoyment. Most persons, however, are of opinion that an army, like a healthy body, should receive no impulses save from its head. Thus we are told that Paulus Æmilius, when he assumed the command of the army in Macedonia, and found that the soldiers did nothing but talk and meddle, as though each man were a general, gave them orders to keep their hands ready and their swords sharp, and leave the rest to him. And Plato likewise, seeing that a good general is useless without a disciplined and united army, thought that soldiers should be mild and gentle, as well as spirited and energetic, because those who know how to obey require a noble nature and a philosophic training as much as those who know how to command. The events which took place at Rome after Nero’s death prove most conclusively that nothing is more terrible than a military force which is guided only by its own blind and ignorant impulses. Demades, when he saw the disorderly and senseless movements of the Macedonian army after the death of Alexander, compared it to the Cyclops after he had been blinded; but the state of the Roman Empire resembled the fabled rebellion of the Titans, as it was torn asunder into several portions, which afterwards fought with one another, not so much because of the ambition of those who were proclaimed emperors, as through the avarice and licentiousness of the soldiers, who made use of one emperor to drive out another, just as one nail drives out another. When Alexander of Pheræ was assassinated, after 531reigning in Thessaly for ten months, Dionysius, sneering at the shortness of his reign, called him a mere tragedy king; but the palace of the Cæsars in a shorter time than this saw four emperors, for the soldiers brought one in and drove another out, as if they were actors on a stage. The only consolation which the unhappy Romans enjoyed was that the authors of their miseries required no avenger to destroy them, for they fell by one another’s hands, and first of all, and most justly, perished the man who had seduced the army into expecting such great things from a change of Cæsars, and who brought dishonour upon a glorious action, the dethronement of Nero, by bribing men to do it as though it were a treason.

II

Nymphidius Sabinus, who, as has been related, was together with Tigellinus, Præfect of the Prætorian Guard,1 when Nero’s cause was quite hopeless, and he was evidently preparing to escape to Egypt, persuaded the soldiers to salute Galba as emperor, as though Nero were already gone. He promised to each of the prætorians, or household troops, seven thousand five hundred drachmas, and to each of the legionary soldiers serving in the provinces twelve hundred and fifty drachmæ; a sum which it would have been impossible to collect without inflicting ten thousand-fold more misery on mankind than Nero himself had done.

This offer at once caused the downfall of Nero, and soon afterwards that of Galba; for the soldiery deserted Nero in hopes of receiving the money, and murdered Galba because they did not receive it. After this they sought so eagerly for some one who would give them as much, that before they obtained the hoped-for bribe, their own treasons and rebellions proved their ruin. To relate each event exactly as it happened belongs more properly to the professed historian; yet, those words and deeds of the Cæsars which are worthy of record ought not to be passed over even by an essayist like myself.

III

It is generally agreed that Servius Sulpicius Galba was the richest private person who ever was raised to the throne of the Cæsars. Though illustrious by birth, being descended from the noble family of the Servii, he prided 532himself even more upon his relationship with Catulus,2 who, though he shrank from taking any active part in politics, was yet one of the most virtuous and eminent men of the time. Galba was likewise related to Livia, the wife of Augustus, and by her influence he had been raised from the post which he held in the palace to the office of consul. He is said to have ably commanded the army in Germany, and to have gained especial praise by his conduct as proconsul in Libya. But when he became emperor, his simple and inexpensive mode of life was thought to be sheer meanness, while his ideas of discipline and sobriety appeared obsolete and ridiculous. Nero, before he had learned to fear the most eminent of the Romans, had appointed Galba to a command in Spain. Indeed, besides the mildness of his character, it was thought that his advanced age was a guarantee against his engaging in any rash enterprise.

IV

While Galba was in Spain, the procurators of the emperor treated the provincials with the greatest harshness and cruelty. Galba could not afford them any assistance, but he made no secret of his sympathy with them and sorrow at their wrongs, and thus afforded them some relief while they were being condemned unjustly and sold into slavery. Many scurrilous songs also were written about Nero and sung and circulated everywhere, and as Galba did not discourage this, and did not share the indignation of the procurators, he became even more endeared to the natives, with whom he was already intimately acquainted, as he was now in the eighth year of his command, during which Junius Vindex, who commanded the army in Gaul, revolted.

It is said that before Vindex committed any overt act of rebellion he wrote to Galba, and that Galba neither agreed to his proposals nor yet denounced him, as some other generals did; for many of them sent Vindex’s letters to Nero, and as far as they were able ruined his cause. Yet these men afterwards became traitors, and so proved that they could betray themselves as well as Vindex. When, however, Vindex openly raised the standard of revolt, and called upon Galba to accept the offer of empire, 533 and constitute himself the head of a strong body—namely, the troops in Gaul, a hundred thousand armed men, and many times more men capable of bearing arms—Galba called a council of his friends. Some of them advised him to temporise, and watch the progress of events at Rome; but Titus Vinius, the captain of the prætorian cohort, said, “Galba, why do you hesitate? for you cannot remain quiet, and yet think of remaining faithful to Nero. If Nero is to be your foe, you must not refuse the proffered alliance of Vindex, or else you must at once denounce him and attack him, because he wishes the Romans to have you for their chief rather than Nero for their tyrant.”

V

After this, Galba by an edict appointed a day upon which he would grant manumission to whoever might wish it, and rumour and gossip drew together on that day a great multitude of people eager for revolution. No sooner did Galba appear upon the tribune than all with one voice saluted him as emperor. Galba did not at once accept this title, but spoke in disparagement of Nero, deplored the best citizens of Rome who had been murdered by him, and promised that he would watch over his country to the best of his power, not as Cæsar or Emperor, but merely as the general of the Senate and people of Rome. That Vindex acted justly and on due reflection when he offered the empire to Galba, is proved by the conduct of Nero himself; for though he affected to despise Vindex and to regard Gaul as of no importance, yet as soon as he heard of Galba’s rising, which was when he was at breakfast after his bath, he overturned the table. However, as the Senate declared Galba a public enemy, Nero, wishing to show his courage and to jest with his friends, said that this gave him a good pretext for raising the money of which he stood in need; for when he had conquered the Gauls he would sell their spoils by public auction, and in the meantime he could at once confiscate the estate of Galba, as he had been declared a public enemy. Nero, after this, ordered Galba’s property to be sold, and Galba, when he heard of this, ordered all Nero’s property in Spain to be put up to auction and found people much more ready to purchase it.

534

VI

Many now revolted from Nero, and all these, as might be expected, declared for Galba, with the exception of Clodius Macer, in Africa, and Virginius Rufus3 who commanded the German army in Gaul, who each acted for themselves, though for different reasons. Clodius, who had plundered his province, and put many men to death from cruelty and covetousness, hesitated, because he could neither continue to hold his command nor yet give it up with safety. Virginius on the other hand, who was at the head of the most powerful force in the empire, and who was constantly saluted as emperor by his soldiers and urged to assume the purple, declared that he would neither become emperor himself nor yet allow any one else to do so without the consent of the Senate. Galba was at first much disturbed at this. Soon the two armies of Vindex and Virginius, like horses that have taken the bit between their teeth, fought a severe battle with one another. After two thousand Gauls had fallen, Vindex committed suicide; and a rumour became prevalent that after so signal a victory the whole army would either place Virginius upon the throne, or would return to their allegiance to Nero. Galba, who was now greatly alarmed, wrote to Virginius, begging him to act in concert with him, and preserve the empire and liberty of the Romans. Meanwhile he retired with his friends to Colonia, a city of Spain, where he occupied himself more in repenting of the steps which he had taken, and in regretting the loss of his usual life of ease and leisure more than in doing anything to further his cause.

VII

Summer was just beginning, when one evening, shortly before dark, there arrived Icelus, one of Galba’s 535freed men, who had travelled from Rome in seven days. Hearing that Galba was retired to rest, he proceeded at once to his chamber, forced open the door in spite of the resistance of the attendants, made his way in and told him that while Nero was still alive, first the army, and then the people and Senate had declared Galba emperor: and that shortly afterwards a report was spread of Nero’s death. The messenger said that he had not believed this rumour, and that he had not left Rome before he had seen the corpse of Nero. This news very greatly raised the credit of Galba, and a multitude of men, whose confidence in him had been restored by this message, flocked to his doors to salute him. Yet the time4 in which he received the news seemed incredibly short. But, two days afterwards Titus Vinius arrived with several other persons, who brought a detailed account of the proceedings both of the prætorians and of the Senate. He was at once promoted to a post of honour; while Icelus was presented with a gold5 ring, received the surname of Marcianus, and took the first place among the freed men of Galba.

VIII

Meanwhile at Rome Nymphidius Sabinus, not quietly and by degrees, but by one bold stroke, attempted to get all departments of the state into his own hands. He pointed out that Galba was an old man who would scarcely live long enough to be carried to Rome in a litter; and indeed Galba was in his seventy-third year. The soldiers in the provinces, he declared, had long been his friends, and they now depended on him alone because of the enormous presents which he offered them, which made them regard him as their benefactor, and Galba as their debtor. Nymphidius now at once ordered his colleague Tigellinus to give up his sword, and entertained all men of consular or prætorian rank at state banquets, although he still invited them in the name of Galba, while he suborned many of the praetorian guard to say that they 536must petition Galba to appoint Nymphidius as their præfect for life without any colleague. He was urged to even more audacious pretensions by the conduct of the Senate, who added to his fame and power by addressing him as their benefactor, by assembling daily to pay their respects to him, and by requiring him to propose and to ratify every decree: so that in a short time he became an object not only of jealousy but of terror to his supporters. When the consuls chose public messengers to carry the decrees of the Senate to the emperor, and had given them the sealed documents known as diplomas,6 at the sight of which the local authorities in all towns assist the bearer on his journey by relays of horses at each stage. Nymphidius was much vexed at their not having come to him to affix the seals and to provide messengers from the prætorian guard, and he is even said to have thought of wreaking his displeasure on the consuls; but when they begged his pardon he forgave them. In order to win the favour of the people he permitted them to massacre any of Nero’s creatures who fell into their hands: and they killed Spicillus the gladiator by throwing him under the statues of Nero when they were being dragged about the Forum; laid Aponius, one of the informers, on the ground and drove waggons loaded with stones over his body, and tore to pieces many other persons, some of whom were perfectly innocent, so that Mauriscus, who was justly held to be one of the noblest men in Rome, openly declared in the Senate that he feared they would soon wish to have Nero back again.

IX

Nymphidius, who thus began to draw nearer to the object of his hopes, did not dislike being called the son of Caius Cæsar, who was emperor after Tiberius. It seems that Caius, when a boy, did have an intrigue with the mother of Nymphidius, who was a good looking woman, the daughter of a hired sempstress and of one Callisto, a freed man of the emperor. But it appears that her intrigue 537with Caius must have taken place after the birth of Nymphidius, whose father was generally supposed to have been Martianus the gladiator, for whom Nymphidia conceived a passion because of his renown as a swordsman; and this belief was confirmed by the likeness which he bore to the gladiator. However, though he did not deny that Nymphidia was his mother, he nevertheless boasted that the dethronement of Nero was entirely his own work, and, not satisfied with having gained by it both honours and riches, and the embraces of Sporus, the favourite of Nero, whom he had fetched away from the funeral pyre of his late master and now treated as his wife, calling her Poppæa, he was intriguing to gain the throne for himself. He employed several of his friends, among whom were some ladies of rank and senators, to further his interests in Rome, and sent one Gellianus to Spain to watch the proceedings of Galba.

X

After Nero’s death all went well with Galba, though he still felt uneasy about Virginius Rufus, who had not declared his intentions, and, who, being at the head of a great and warlike army, with the glory of having overthrown Vindex and made himself master of a great part of the Roman Empire, was not unlikely to listen to the solicitations of those who wished him to assume the purple, especially as the whole of Gaul was in an excited condition and ready to revolt. No name was greater or more glorious than that of Virginius, who was credited with having saved Rome both from a cruel tyranny and from a war with Gaul. He, however, according to his original intention, referred the choice of an emperor to the Senate; though when the death of Nero was known the soldiers renewed their solicitation of Virginius to make himself emperor, and one of the tribunes who attended him in his tent drew his sword, and bade Virginius choose between the steel and the throne. But when Fabius Valens, the commander of one legion, swore allegiance to Galba, and dispatches arrived from Rome containing an account of what the Senate had decreed, Virginius, though not without difficulty, prevailed upon his soldiers to salute Galba as emperor; and when Galba sent Hordeonius Flaccus to supersede him, he received him as his successor, 538delivered up the troops to him, met Galba, who was now on the march for Rome, and joined him without receiving from him any token either of favour or resentment. Galba respected Virginius too much to injure him, and Titus Vinius and Galba’s other adherents opposed his advancement out of jealousy, though in truth they only assisted the good genius of Virginius in withdrawing him from the wars and troubles in which all the other commanders were involved, and enabling him to live in peaceful retirement to a good old age.

XI

At Narbo, a city of Gaul,7 Galba was met by envoys from the Senate, who greeted him and invited him to show himself as soon as possible to his people who were eager to behold him. Galba showed the envoys every kindness and hospitality, but at his entertainments would only use his own plate and other things, though Nymphidius had forwarded from Nero’s stores sumptuous services of everything necessary for great banquets, and the imperial household servants. By this conduct Galba gained the reputation of being a magnanimous man, above any ideas of vulgar ostentation; but Vinius presently told him that this noble and patriotic simplicity seemed merely an artifice to gain popularity with the lower classes, and that it was affectation to behave as though he were not worthy of this magnificence. By these arguments Vinius prevailed upon him to use Nero’s riches, and not to shrink from an imperial extravagance at his banquets. Indeed the old man seemed as though by degrees he would come to be altogether ruled by Vinius.

XII

This Vinius was more passionately fond of money than any one else of his time, and by no means free from blame in respect of women. When a young man, serving on his first campaign under Calvisius Sabinus, he introduced his general’s wife, a dissolute woman, into the camp disguised as a soldier, and passed the night with her in the general’s headquarters, which the Romans call the “Principia.” For this outrage Caius Cæsar imprisoned him; but on the death of Caius he was fortunate enough to obtain his release. Once when dining with the emperor Claudius he stole a silver cup. When Claudius heard of 539it he asked him to dinner on the following day, but when he came ordered the attendants to serve him entirely from earthenware, not from silver. Cæsar by this comic punishment showed that he regarded him as more worthy of ridicule than of serious anger; but when he had obtained complete control over Galba, and was the most powerful man in the empire, his passion for money led him into acts which partly caused and partly led others to bring about the most tragic scenes of sorrow.

XIII

Nymphidius, as soon as Gellianus, whom he had sent as a spy upon Galba, was returned, learned from him that Cornelius Laco was appointed præfect of the palace and of the prætorian guard, but that all real power was in the hands of Vinius.8 Gellianus also said that he had had no opportunity of meeting Galba, and of conversing privately with him. At this news Nymphidius was much alarmed. He assembled the officers of the prætorians, and addressed them, saying that Galba himself was a kind and moderate old man, but that he never acted according to his own judgment and was entirely led astray by Vinius and Laco. “Before these men, therefore,” he continued, “insensibly obtain for themselves the position and influence which was formerly enjoyed by Tigellinus, it is our duty to send an embassy from the prætorian guard to our chief, to inform him that he will be more acceptable to us and more popular if he removes these two of his friends from his court.” As this language was not approved, for indeed it seemed a strange and unheard of proceeding, to lecture an old general upon the choice of his friends, as though he were a young boy just appointed to his first command, Nymphidius tried another course, and attempted to intimidate Galba by writing letters to him, in which he at one time declared that Rome was in an excited and disaffected condition, and at another that Clodius Macer had laid an embargo on the corn-ships in African ports, and that the German legions were rising in revolt, and that he heard much the same news about the troops in Syria and Judæa. As Galba did not pay 540much attention to his letters or attach much credit to the assertions which they contained, he resolved to make his attempt before Galba’s arrival, though Clodius Celsus of Antioch, who was a sensible man and a faithful friend, dissuaded him, saying that he did not believe that there was one single family in Rome that would address Nymphidius as Cæsar. Many, however, scoffed at Galba, and Mithridates of Pontus9 in particular, sneering at his bald head and wrinkled face, said that the Romans thought a great deal of Galba, now that he was absent, but that when he came they would think him a disgrace to the age that called him Cæsar.

XIV

It was now determined that Nymphidius should be conducted to the camp of the prætorians at midnight and there proclaimed emperor. Towards evening Antonius Honoratus, the first military tribune, assembled the soldiers under his command and addressed them, beginning by blaming himself and them for having in a short time so often changed their allegiance, which they had done, not according to any fixed plan, or in order to choose the best masters, but as though they were driven to commit one treason after another by some infatuation sent by the gods. Their desertion of Nero was indeed justified by his crimes; but they could not accuse Galba of having murdered his mother or his wife; nor could they allege that he had ever disgraced the purple by appearing on the stage. “Yet,” he continued, “it was not any of these things that made us desert Nero, but Nymphidius persuaded us into doing so when Nero had already deserted us and fled to Egypt. Shall we then kill Galba as well as Nero? Shall we choose the son of Nymphidia for our emperor, and slay the son of Livia as we slew the son of Agrippina? Or shall we rather punish this fellow for his crimes, and thus prove ourselves the avengers of Nero, and the faithful guards of Galba?”

This speech of the tribune was agreed to by all his soldiers, who proceeded to their comrades, and urged them to remain faithful to Galba, and most of them promised to 541do so. Soon a shout was raised, either because, according to some writers, Nymphidius believed that the soldiers were already calling for him, or else because he wished to be beforehand with them and fix them while they were wavering and uncertain whom they should follow. Nymphidius came forward in the glare of many torches, carrying in his hand a speech written by Cingonius Varro, which he had learned by heart and intended to address to the soldiers. When, however, he saw that the gates of the camp were closed, and that the walls were covered with armed men, he was alarmed, and, coming up to the gates, asked what they wanted, and by whose orders they were under arms. They all answered with one voice that they looked upon Galba as their emperor. At this Nymphidius went up to them, applauded their resolution, and bade his followers do likewise. The soldiers at the gate let him pass in, with a few others. Presently a spear was hurled at him, which Septimius caught before him on his shield; but as many now attacked Nymphidius with drawn swords, he ran away, was pursued into a soldier’s room, and slain there. The corpse was dragged into a public place where a railing was put round it, and it was left exposed to public view the next day.

XV

When Galba heard how Nymphidius had perished, he ordered such of his accomplices as had not voluntarily made away with themselves to be put to death: among whom were Cingonius Varro who wrote the speech, and Mithridates of Pontus. In this Galba was thought to have shown himself harsh beyond all usage, if not beyond all law, and this execution of men of rank without a trial10 was a most unpopular message. Indeed, all men had expected a very different kind of rule, for they had been deceived, as is usually the case, by the reports spread at the beginning of Galba’s reign. They were still further grieved at the fate of Petronius Turpilianus, a man of consular rank and a faithful servant of Nero, whom Galba ordered to destroy himself. In Africa Macer had, it is true, been put to death by Trebonianus, and Fonteius in Germany by Fabius Valens, acting under Galba’s orders: yet in both these cases he had the excuse that he feared, 542them, as they were in open rebellion against him; but there could be no reason for refusing a trial to Turpilianus, an old and helpless man, if the emperor had any intention of carrying out in his acts the moderation of which he spoke in his proclamations. For all this, therefore, Galba was blamed by the Romans. When on his journey he arrived within five-and-twenty stadia (about three English miles) of the city, he met a disorderly mob of sailors11 who occupied the entire road. These were the men whom Nero had formed into a legion and treated as soldiers. They now wished to have their appointment confirmed, and pushed forward towards the emperor noisily demanding standards for their legion and quarters to encamp in, crowding round him in such disorder that he could neither be seen nor heard by those citizens who had come out to meet him on his arrival. When he endeavoured to put the matter off, and said that he would give them an answer at another time, they, taking his delay to mean a refusal of their demand, became indignant, and followed him with loud shouts. As some of them drew their swords, Galba ordered his cavalry to charge them. No resistance was offered, but some were cut down in the act of turning to flee, and some while they ran. It was thought to be a very bad omen that Galba should make his entry into the city in the midst of so much blood and slaughter; but all who had before jeered at him as a feeble old man now looked upon him with fear and horror.

XVI

In the giving of presents Galba wished to show a marked change from the profuse liberality of Nero: but he seems to have missed his mark, as for example, when Canus, the celebrated flute-player, performed before him at dinner, Galba praised his playing and ordered his purse to be brought. From this he took several gold pieces and gave them to Canus, telling him that the money came from his own pocket, not from the revenues of the state. He also demanded the restitution of the largesses, which Nero had bestowed on his favourite actors and athletes, leaving them only a tenth part. As he could scarcely get any part of the money back from them, for the major part 543being reckless profligates who lived only for the day’s enjoyment, had spent it all, he began to search out those who had bought anything or received any presents from them, and obliged them to refund. This investigation caused infinite trouble, for it affected so many persons; it covered Galba with disgrace and made Vinius loathed and detested for making the emperor show himself so mean and pettifogging towards his subjects, while he himself used his power recklessly, confiscating and selling every one’s property. Hesiod, indeed, bids us drink deep of—

“The end and the beginning of the cask;”

and Vinius, seeing that Galba was old and feeble took his fill of his fortune, as though it were both beginning and ending.

XVII

The old emperor received much wrong, first from the bad arrangements made by Vinius, and also because Vinius blamed or defeated his best intentions. An instance of this was his punishment of Nero’s favourites. He did, indeed, put to death many wretches, among whom were Helius, Polykleitus, Petinus, and Patrobius. The people applauded, and cried out as these men were being led through the Forum, that the sight was a fair one and pleasing to the gods, but that both gods and men demanded the punishment of Tigellinus, Nero’s tutor and instructor in wickedness. That worthy, however, had previously attached Vinius to himself by a most important pledge.12 So, they argued, Turpilianus perished though he had committed no crime except that he remained faithful and did not betray a bad master; while the man, who first made Nero unfit to live, and then deserted and betrayed him, was still alive, an evident example that anything could be obtained from Vinius by those who could pay for it. The Roman people, who would have enjoyed no spectacle so much as that of Tigellinus dragged away to execution, and who never ceased to demand his head when they assembled in the theatre or the circus, were astonished at a proclamation in which the emperor, after declaring that Tigellinus was suffering from a wasting 544 disease and could not live long, begged his people not to urge him to disgrace his reign by acts of tyranny and ferocity. In ridicule of the public exasperation Tigellinus offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the gods for the recovery of his health, and prepared a splendid banquet; while Vinius left the table of the emperor after dinner and led his widowed daughter to the house of Tigellinus in a riotous procession. Tigellinus made her a present of five-and-twenty thousand drachmas, and bade his chief concubine take off the necklace which she wore, which, was said to be worth fifteen thousand drachmas, and put it round his daughter’s neck.

XVIII

After these outrages Galba received no credit even when he acted mildly, as for instance, when he granted a remission of tribute and the Roman franchise to the Gauls who had risen in rebellion under Vindex, for it was believed that they had not received these privileges from the kindness of the emperor, but had bought them from Vinius. Thus the people began to dislike the emperor most cordially, but the prætorian guard, who had not received their looked-for donative, still cherished a hope that Galba would give them at least as much money as they had been wont to receive from Nero, if not as much as they had been promised by Nymphidius. When Galba heard of their discontent, he made that remark, so worthy of a great commander, that “he was wont to enlist his soldiers, not to buy them,” and this caused the soldiers to hate him bitterly, for they thought that, besides depriving them of what was their due, he was trying to regulate the conduct of future emperors towards them. Yet disaffection at Rome had not hitherto assumed any distinct form, for the awe inspired by the presence of Galba acted as a kind of check upon revolutionary schemes, and men concealed the dislike with which they regarded him because they did not see any distinct opportunity of effecting a change in the government. But the troops in Germany who had served under Virginius, and who were now commanded by Flaccus,13 were elated with pride at the victory which they had won over Vindex, and as they were given nothing, became quite unmanageable by their 545officers. They paid no attention whatever to Flaccus, who, indeed, besides being quite helpless from his violent attacks of gout, was entirely without military experience. Once when the army was assembled at a public spectacle, and the tribunes and officers offered prayers, as is usual among the Romans, for the prosperity of the emperor Galba, the soldiers broke into loud murmurs of dissent, and then, as their chiefs continued the prayers, shouted as a response, “If he be worthy.”

XIX

Very similar reports to these reached Galba concerning the conduct of the legions under the command of Tigellinus.14 The emperor, fearing that it was not only his age, but his want of children which brought him into contempt, now determined to adopt some noble youth as his son, and make him heir to the throne. There was one Marcus Otho, a man of illustrious family, and steeped from childhood in luxury and pleasure beyond most Romans of his time. As Homer calls Alexander the “spouse of fair-haired Helen,” celebrating him for the beauty of his wife, in default of any noble qualities of his own, so Otho was notorious at Rome in consequence of his marriage with Poppæa, with whom Nero fell in love when she was the wife of Crispinus, and, as he had still some feelings of respect for his own wife, and feared his mother, made use of Otho to obtain her for him. Otho’s extravagance made him a friend and companion of Nero, who was amused at being reproached by Otho for meanness and parsimony. It is said that once Nero scented himself with a very costly perfume, and sprinkled a little of it over Otho. On the next day Otho entertained Nero, when suddenly a number of gold and silver pipes squirted out the same perfume over them both as abundantly as if it were water. Otho seduced Poppæa for Nero, and prevailed upon her by holding out hopes of an intrigue with Nero to divorce her husband and marry him. After she became his wife, he did not like to share her 546favours, but showed great jealousy, at which it is said Poppæa was not offended, for she used sometimes to exclude Nero even when Otho was absent, either because she feared to surfeit him with her society, or according to some writers, because she did not wish to marry the emperor, though she was willing enough to have him for her lover. Otho ran a great risk of losing his life; and it is strange that Nero, who put to death his own wife and sister for Poppæa’s sake, should have spared Otho.

XX

But Seneca was Otho’s friend, and he persuaded Nero to appoint Otho to the command of the province of Further Lusitania. Otho gained the love and respect of his subjects, although he well knew that his appointment was merely intended as an honourable exile. When Galba revolted, Otho was the first to join him, brought all his silver and gold plate for Galba to coin into money, and presented him with slaves who knew how to wait upon an emperor. In everything he proved his fidelity to Galba, while he showed a rare capacity for business, and on the march to Rome he travelled for days together in the same chariot with Galba. During this journey, while he was so familiar with the emperor, he paid special court to Vinius, both by conversing with him and by giving him presents, and he firmly established his right to the second place in the emperor’s favour by always yielding the first to Vinius. He was more successful than Vinius in avoiding unpopularity, for he assisted all petitioners to obtain their demands without taking bribes from them, and showed himself easy of access and affable to all. He took special interest in the common soldiers, and obtained promotion for many of them, sometimes by applying directly to the emperor, at others by means of Vinius, or of the freedmen, Icelus and Asiaticus,15 who were the most powerful personages of the court. Whenever Otho entertained Galba, he always presented each soldier of the guard in attendance on the emperor with a gold piece, and thus corrupted the army and won their affections for himself while he appeared to be doing honour to Galba.

547

XXI

Now, when Galba was deliberating about the choice of a successor, Vinius suggested Otho to him. Vinius did not do Otho even this service gratis, but because he hoped to have him for a son-in-law, for they had made a compact that Vinius’s daughter should marry Otho if he were adopted by Galba and declared his successor on the throne. But Galba always preferred the good of the state to his own private advantage, and always looked, not to what was most pleasant for himself, but to what was best for Rome. It seems probable that he would never have chosen Otho even to be heir to his own estate, for he knew well his licentiousness and extravagance and his debts, which amounted to fifty millions.16 Wherefore Galba, after having graciously and in silence listened to Vinius, postponed his decision: only he appointed himself consul, and Vinius his colleague, and it was supposed that he would name his successor at the beginning of the new year. The soldiers eagerly hoped that this successor would be Otho.

XXII

While Galba was deliberating and hesitating, the German army broke out into open rebellion. All the soldiers alike hated Galba for not having given them their promised donative, and the troops in Germany regarded it as a special insult to themselves, that Virginius Rufus had been so discourteously deprived of his command, that those Gauls who had fought against them under Vindex had been rewarded, while those who had not joined him were punished, and that Galba should show such gratitude to Vindex and pay him such honour after his death, as though it was Vindex who had made him emperor of the Romans. This kind of language was being openly held in the camp when on the first day of the new year,17 which the Romans call the Calends of January, Flaccus assembled the army to renew the customary oath of fidelity to the emperor. The soldiers overthrew and tore down the images of Galba, swore fealty to the Senate and people of Rome, and then dispersed. After this outbreak the officers began to fear anarchy among the soldiers as much as rebellion: and one 548of them spoke as follows: “What will become of us, fellow-soldiers, if we neither remain faithful to our present emperor nor yet create another, as though we had not merely thrown off our allegiance to Galba, but refused to obey any master whatever? As for Hordeonius Flaccus we must pass him over, for he is merely a feeble shadow of Galba; but within one day’s march of us there is Vitellius, the chief of the army of Lower Germany, whose father was censor and thrice consul, and who can point to the poverty for which some reproach him as a shining proof of honesty and greatness of soul. Come, let us choose this man, and show that we know better than the Iberians or Lusitanians how to elect an emperor.” While some approved, and some rejected this advice, a standard-bearer stole quietly away and brought the news of it to Vitellius, who was entertaining a large company at supper. Soon the matter became noised abroad throughout the army, and on the following day Fabius Valens, who commanded one legion,18 rode over to Vitellius’s quarters19 with a number of horsemen and saluted him emperor. It is said that on the previous days he had refused the purple, and had shrunk from the burden of empire, but that now, excited by food and wine which he had taken at midday, he came forward and willingly heard himself addressed as Germanicus, though he declined the title of Cæsar.20 The troops under Flaccus now at once forgot their patriotic oaths of fidelity to the Senate, and swore to obey the emperor Vitellius.

XXIII

Thus was Vitellius proclaimed emperor in Germany. Galba, when he heard of the rising there, no longer postponed the choice of his successor. He knew that some of his friends desired the election of Otho, and some that of Dolabella; but as he himself approved of neither candidate, he suddenly without any warning sent for Piso, the son of Crassus and Scribonia, who perished under Nero, a young man remarkable for his virtues, and especially for the modesty and austerity of his life. Galba now at once took this youth to the camp of the prætorian guard to declare him Cæsar and heir to the empire, though 549as he left the palace he was at once met by evil omens, and when he began to address the soldiers and to read aloud a prepared speech it thundered and lightened so often, and such rain and darkness overshadowed the camp and the city, that it was impossible to doubt that Heaven did not approve of the adoption of Piso, and that no good would come of it. The soldiers were sulky and scowling, as not even on this occasion was any largesse given to them. Piso himself was admired by all who saw him, for as far as they could judge from his voice and manner he was not bewildered by his good fortune, although he was not insensible of it, while Otho’s countenance bore manifest tokens of the bitterness of his disappointment, as he thought that Galba’s refusal to appoint him after having chosen him and all but raised him to the throne was a clear proof of the emperor’s dislike and hatred for him. Otho was not without fears for the future, and went away full of hatred for Piso, blaming Galba, and angry with Vinius. The prophets and Chaldæans whom he kept about his person would not permit him to give up his hopes, and especially one Ptolemæus,21 who laid great stress upon a prophecy which he had often repeated to him, that Nero would not kill him, but would perish before him, and that he should rule over the Romans; for having proved the one part of his prophecy to be true, this man bade him not despair of the other part also coming to pass, while he was much encouraged by those who came to offer their sympathy, and treated him as an ill-used man: for many of the partizans of Nymphidius and Tigellinus, who had once been in positions of honour, and now had been dismissed and were in poverty, attached themselves to him and urged him to revolt.

XXIV

Among these were Veturius and Barbius, one of whom was an adjutant, and the other an orderly of the corps of guides22 as the Romans call the scouts and messengers of their armies. Together with them a freedman of Otho’s, named Onomastus, went about from man to 550man, and by bribes and promises induced them to stand by Otho, which they were willing enough to do, as they were thoroughly disloyal to Galba and only wanted an excuse to desert him. Indeed, a loyal army could not have been corrupted in four days, which was all the interval that elapsed between the adoption of Piso by Galba, and the murder of them both: for they perished on the sixth23 day after, which the Romans call the sixteenth before the Calends of February. Early in the morning of that day Galba was offering sacrifice in the palace, accompanied by many of his friends. The aruspex, Umbricius, as soon as he took the entrails of the victim into his hands and looked at them, said distinctly that they portended great disturbances, and danger to the emperor from a plot at headquarters. Thus was Otho all but delivered up to justice by the hand of God: for he stood close behind Galba and heard what Umbricius said as he pointed to the entrails. He was much alarmed, and turned all manner of colours through fear, when his freedman Onomastus came up to him and said that the architect was waiting for him at his house. This was the preconcerted signal of the time when Otho was to meet the soldiers. He, therefore, explaining that he had just bought an old house, and wished to point out its defects to those who had sold it, went away through what is called the house of Tiberius into the Forum, where stands a gilded column24 at which all the public roads in Italy terminate.

XXV

Here they say that he was met and saluted as emperor by the first of the conspirators, who were not more than three and twenty in number. Though the luxury and effeminacy in which he lived had not affected his courage, for he was a most daring man, yet now his heart failed him. The others, however, would not let him draw back, but drew their swords and, standing round his litter,25 ordered it to proceed, while Otho frequently urged the bearers to go faster, and often muttered to himself, “I am 551a lost man;” for several persons had heard what had passed, and looked on more in wonder than alarm, because of the small number of the conspirators. While he was being thus carried through the Forum, about as many more men joined him, and then others came up by twos and threes. At length they all faced around, and saluted him as Cæsar, brandishing their naked swords. The tribune Martialis, who was on guard at the camp of the prætorians, is said not to have been in the plot, but to have been terrified and bewildered at Otho’s sudden appearance, and let him pass in. When he was once within the camp, no one opposed him; for those who did not know what was being done found themselves enclosed in small parties of two or three together by the conspirators, and being thus cut off from one another, followed the party of Otho at first through fear, and soon, when the matter was explained to them, of their own free will.

News of the rising was brought to Galba at the palace while the aruspex still held the victim in his hands, so that even those who generally refused to believe in the omens drawn from sacrifices were astonished at the evident interposition of Heaven. As a crowd of all kinds of persons now ran up from the Forum, Vinius and Laco and a few of the emperor’s freedmen stood round him with drawn swords while Piso went forward and addressed the soldiers who were on guard at the palace, and Marius Celsus, a brave man, was sent to assure himself of the fidelity of a corps of Illyrians who were quartered in the Portico of Agrippa.

XXVI

Galba wished to go forth, but Vinius dissuaded him, while Celsus and Laco urged him to do so, and abused Vinius roundly. At this time a persistent rumour arose that Otho had been murdered in the camp of the prætorians; and presently one Julius Atticus, one of the chiefs of the emperor’s guards, came up with his sword drawn, shouting that he had slain the enemy of Cæsar. Pushing his way through the bystanders, he showed Galba his sword, which was covered with blood. Galba looked at him, and said, “Who ordered you to kill him?” As, however, the man spoke of his loyalty, and the oath of fealty which he had sworn, and as the crowd shouted that he had done well, and clapped their hands, Galba got into his litter with 552the intention of sacrificing to Jupiter and showing himself to his subjects. Just as he entered the Forum, like a change of wind there came a rumour that Otho was at the head of the soldiers. And now, while in that vast crowd some called to Galba to turn back, and some to go on, some bade him be of good courage and others warned him to beware, and the litter was frequently shaken and swayed to and fro as if it were on a stormy sea, there suddenly appeared a body of horsemen, and then some foot-soldiers, who came through the basilica of Paulus, and loudly shouted to the people to take “that citizen” away. The populace took to their heels, but did not run away in fear, but posted themselves on the tops of the porticoes and on the highest parts of the Forum as though they were spectators at a public show. The civil war was begun by Attilius Vergilio,26 who tore down, the image of Galba which he carried on his staff, and dashed it upon the ground. Many now hurled their javelins at the litter; and, missing their aim at Galba with these, they drew their swords and rushed upon him. No one remained with him or defended him except one man, the only one of all that vast multitude whom the sun beheld that day acting worthily of the Roman Empire. This was a centurion named Sempronius Densus, who had never received any especial favour from Galba, but who, prompted merely by his own honour and fidelity, stood firm in front of his litter. Raising the vine stick, which is carried by centurions to correct their men, he shouted aloud and ordered the men who rushed towards him to spare the emperor. After this, as they tried to push past him, he drew his sword and defended the emperor for a long time, until he was brought to the ground by a blow under the knee.

XXVII

Galba’s litter was overset near the place called the Lake of Curtius. As he fell to the ground, wearing a corslet,27 many ran upon him and stabbed him. He, offering his throat to them, said “Strike, if this be best 553for Rome.” He received many cuts in the legs and arms, but the mortal blow in the throat was given, according to the most common account, by one Camurius, a soldier of the fifteenth legion. Some writers say that his murderer’s name was Terentius, some, Lecanius, and some Fabius Fabulus, who is said to have cut off his head and carried it away wrapped in his toga, for being bald, it was difficult to hold with the hands. Afterwards, as those who were with him would not allow him to carry it so, but wished him to display his feat of arms, he stuck it on a spear, and ran along like a Bacchanal, brandishing aloft the aged head of one who had been a virtuous emperor, a pontiff, and a consul, often turning himself about and shaking the spear, down which the blood still ran. When the head of Galba was brought to Otho, he said, “This is nothing, my comrades; show me the head of Piso.” Before long it was brought to him: for the youth had been wounded and fled, but had been pursued by one Marcus who slew him near the temple of Vesta. Vinius also was killed, though he admitted that he had been a party to the conspiracy against Galba; for he cried out that “Otho did not mean him to be killed.” However, both his head and that of Laco were cut off and taken to Otho, from whom the bearers demanded a present. As Archilochus says,

“Though there be of us a thousand, each of whom his man hath slain,

Yet we find but corpses seven, when we come to search the plain.”

So many who took no part in these murders nevertheless dipped their hands and their swords in the blood and showed them to Otho, and sent petitions to him asking for a reward. A hundred and twenty persons were afterwards discovered to have done this by the written petitions which they sent to the emperor, all of whom afterwards Vitellius caused to be searched for and put to death. Besides these men, Marius Celsus came to the camp. Many at once accused him of having incited the soldiers to help Galba, and the mob clamoured for his execution. Otho, however, did not wish to kill him; but as he did not dare to directly oppose the soldiers, he said that 554he would not put him to death in such a hurry, for there were several questions which he wished to put to him. On this pretence he ordered him to be imprisoned, and entrusted him to his own most faithful followers.

XXVIII

The Senate was at once called together. Just as though they had become different men, or worshipped different gods, the senators took the oath of fealty to Otho, which Otho himself had just broken: and they addressed him as Cæsar and Augustus while the headless corpses, dressed in their consular robes, were still lying in the Forum. As the murderers had no further use for the heads, they sold that of Vinius to his daughter for two thousand five hundred drachmas. Piso’s head was given to his wife Verania,28 at her earnest entreaty; and that of Galba was given to the slaves of Patrobius29 and Vitellius, who subjected it to every kind of indignity, and at last threw it into the place which is called the Sessorium, where they execute those who are put to death by the emperor’s orders. Galba’s body was removed by Helvidius Priscus, with the permission of Otho: and during the night it was buried by one Argius,30 the emperor’s freedman.

XXIX

This was the fate of Galba, who was second to few of the Romans in birth or wealth, being almost the first man of his time in both. He lived through the reigns of five emperors and obtained a great reputation, by which more than by any power at his disposal he drove out Nero: for of the many pretenders of that time some were declared by all to be unfit to reign, and some of their own accord withdrew their pretensions; but Galba was offered the throne and accepted it, so that his mere name caused the rising of Vindex, which had been regarded as a mere revolt, to be called a civil war, because an emperor took part in it. As therefore he considered that he had not so much sought for the management of the empire as he had had it pressed upon him, he thought to govern the 555spoiled children of Nymphidius and Tigellinus after the fashion of Scipio, Fabricius, and Camillus of old.

Though his faculties were somewhat impaired by age he proved himself in all military matters a thoroughly capable commander of the old school; but he put himself entirely into the hands of Vinius and Laco, who, just like the greedy crew that had surrounded Nero, sold everything in the state to the highest bidder; so that no one looked back with regret to his reign, though many were grieved at his death.

556

LIFE OF
OTHO.

The young emperor1 proceeded at daybreak to the Capitol, and offered sacrifice there. Next, he ordered Marius Celsus to be brought to him, and having embraced him, spoke kindly to him, and invited him to forget the charge which had been made against him rather than to remember his acquittal. Celsus answered with dignity, yet not without appreciation of Otho’s kindness, that the crime laid to his charge, being that of fidelity to Galba, to whom he owed nothing, ought of itself to bear witness to his character. By these words both Otho and Celsus were thought to have done themselves equal honour, and were applauded by the soldiers. After this, Otho made a mild and gracious speech to the Senate. He assigned part of the time appointed for his own consulship to Virginius Rufus, and left in force all the other appointments to consulships which had been made by Nero or Galba. He gratified several persons of advanced age, or eminent in other ways, by appointing them to offices in the priesthood, and restored to those senators who had been banished by Nero, and had returned under Galba, all of their property which had not been sold. In consequence of this, many of the leading men in Rome, who had at first shuddered at Otho’s accession, regarding him as some avenging demon who had suddenly been placed upon the throne, began to look much more hopefully upon a reign by which they themselves profited.

II

At the same time nothing delighted the common people and reconciled them to Otho so much as his treatment of Tigellinus. This wretch had hitherto escaped notice, for all thoughtful men considered him sufficiently 557punished already by his fear of the punishment which the people demanded as a debt due to the public, and by the incurable bodily diseases from which he suffered, while they regarded the foul debaucheries which he still even when dying continued to lust after, as a greater misery to him than death itself. Yet many thought it shame that he should still see the light of day, of which he had deprived so many noble spirits. Otho sent a messenger to the country house near Sinuessa, where Tigellinus dwelt, and where several ships were always riding at anchor in case he should wish to flee farther from Rome. Tigellinus at first offered the messenger a vast bribe to allow him to escape; and as the man refused to do so, he gave him the money nevertheless, begged of him to wait until he had shaved, and then, taking up a razor, cut his throat.

III

The emperor, though he gratified the people by this well-deserved execution, yet bore no malice against any one else of his personal enemies. To please the people he at first allowed them to address him at public spectacles as “Nero”; and he allowed several statues of Nero to be replaced in public. Claudius Rufus states that the diplomas,2 or imperial despatches, which were sent to Spain by the hands of public couriers, were inscribed with the name of Nero as well as with that of Otho. However, as he perceived that this practice gave offence to the first and most powerful citizens, he put a stop to it. The soldiers of the prætorian guard were extremely dissatisfied with the moderate manner in which Otho began his reign, and they warned him to be on his guard, and cut off all disaffected persons, either out of a genuine anxiety for his safety, or merely as a pretext for causing disturbances and civil wars. One day Otho sent Crispinus3 to Ostia to bring back the seventeenth manipulus4 from thence. As Crispinus, while it was still dark, began to make preparations for the journey, and loaded waggons with the men’s arms, some of the most daring soldiers openly declared 558that he had come with disloyal intentions, that the Senate meditated a coup d’état, and that the arms were meant to be used against Otho, not for him. As many took up this idea and became much excited, some seized on the waggons, others killed Crispinus and their own two centurions who tried to oppose them, and all, in confusion, calling upon one another to come to the rescue of Cæsar, marched to Rome. Hearing that Otho was entertaining eighty of the senators at dinner, they rushed to the palace, exclaiming that now was the time to put to death all the enemies of Cæsar at one stroke. The city was panic-stricken, expecting at once to be pillaged by the troops; the palace was filled with confusion and alarm, and Otho himself terribly perplexed as to what to do; for while he feared for the safety of his guests, some of whom had brought their wives to the banquet, they mistrusted him, and he saw them watching his every movement in silent terror. He therefore ordered the prefects of the guard to go and pacify the soldiers, while at the same time he dismissed his guests by another door. They were scarcely gone when the soldiers burst tumultuously into the dining-hall, asking what had become of the enemies of Cæsar. Otho now mounted on a couch and addressed them; and by entreaties, and even by tears, at last prevailed upon them to retire. On the following day, having presented every soldier with twelve hundred and fifty drachmas, he entered the camp, where he praised5 their zeal on his behalf, and begged them to join him in punishing a few whose intrigues had made both his clemency and their own steady loyalty to be questioned. As all approved, and bade him do so, he, after selecting for punishment two men whose fate no one could regret, left the camp.

IV

Some of the soldiers believed that Otho’s character was really changed, and admired him for his conduct; while others bethought that he was only courting popularity perforce, because of the war which was impending. It was indeed reported that Vitellius had already assumed the imperial title and authority; and couriers were constantly arriving with the news of some fresh accession to his forces, though other messengers came who stated that 559the troops in Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Mœsia had, with their officers, declared for Otho. Soon also friendly letters reached him from Mucianus and Vespasianus, the former of whom was at the head of a great army in Syria, and the latter in Judæa. Encouraged by these, Otho wrote to Vitellius, bidding him act like a loyal soldier, and promising that he would bestow on him a great sum of money and a city in which he might dwell in the utmost peace and happiness. Vitellius replied at first with dissimulation, but soon they became irritated, and overwhelmed one another with abuse, which each well deserved, though it was ridiculous for either of them to reproach the other with vices which were common to them both.6 Indeed it was hard to say which of them was the more profligate or the more effeminate, which had the least experience of war, or which had been plunged the more deeply in debt by his former poverty.

At this time many prodigies7 and omens were reported, many of which were vague and could not be traced to any trustworthy source, though all men saw the reins fall from the hands of the figure of Victory in the capitol, who is represented driving a chariot, as though she were no longer able to hold them; and the statue of Caius8 Cæsar, which stands upon the island in the Tiber, without any wind or earthquake, was turned round, so as to face east instead of west. This is said to have taken place about the time when Vespasianus openly pretended to the throne. Many also regarded the flooding of the Tiber as an evil omen; for though it was the season of the year at which rivers usually are full of water, yet it never rose so high or did so much damage before; for it laid a great part of the city under water, especially in the corn-market, and caused great scarcity of provisions for several days.

V

About this time news was brought to Rome that Cæcina and Valens, acting as the lieutenants of Vitellius, had seized the passes of the Alps. The prætorians also conceived suspicions of the loyalty of Dolabella,9 a man 560of patrician family. Whether Otho feared him or some one else is uncertain: however, he assured him of his friendship, and sent him to reside at the city of Aquinum. Otho now selected the officers who were to company him on his campaign. Amongst these was Lucius, the brother of Vitellius, whom he neither promoted nor removed from the rank in the army which he held. He also took especial care of the mother and wife of Vitellius, that they might not have any fear for their own safety. He entrusted the government of Rome to Flavius Sabinus, either because he wished to show his respect for Nero (for Sabinus had been appointed to this post by Nero, and had been deprived of it by Galba), or because by the promotion of Sabinus he declared his good will and confidence in Vespasianus. He himself remained at Brixellum, a city of Italy situated upon the river Padus, and sent on his forces under the command of Marius Celsus, Suetonius Paullinus, and of Gallus and Spurinna, who were all generals of renown, but who, on account of the want of discipline of their troops, were unable to conduct the campaign, according to the plans which they had arranged. Indeed the soldiers of the guard refused to obey any authority except that of the emperor himself, for he alone, they declared, had the right to command them. Nor were the enemy’s troops altogether obedient and well-behaved, but the same causes rendered them also swaggering and untrustworthy. Yet they possessed experience of actual war, and were accustomed to fatigue; whereas Otho’s troops were weak from their life of unwarlike leisure, for they spent most of their time in the theatres and at public shows, or else in their quarters, and affected such a degree of insolence that they refused to perform the necessary labours of a campaign, alleging that to do so was beneath their dignity, not that it was beyond their strength. Spurinna, when he endeavoured to force them to do their duty, came within a very little of losing his life. The soldiers insulted him grossly, and set no bounds to their language, calling him a traitor to Cæsar and the ruin of his cause. Some of them actually got drunk and went to Spurinna’s tent at night to demand money for a journey; for they said they must go and impeach him before Cæsar.

561

VI

However, the cause of Otho, and Spurinna with it, received some advantage from the abusive language which these same soldiers met with at Placentia. Here the Vitellians who were besieging the city ridiculed Otho’s men whom they saw on the battlements, calling them stay-at-home soldiers, sword-dancers, and spectators of games, declaring that they had never seen or tasted of real war, but were full of pride at having cut off the head of an unarmed old man, meaning Galba, though they dared not come out and fight like men. The soldiers were so furiously exasperated by these reproaches that they eagerly besought Spurinna to employ them in whatever service he pleased, assuring him that they would not shrink from any toils or dangers. When the enemy furiously assaulted the walls, and brought up many battering engines,10 Spurinna’s men won the victory, drove back their opponents with great slaughter, and saved from ruin one of the most famous and prosperous cities of Italy.

The generals of Otho were found both by cities and by individuals to be much less offensive to deal with than those of Vitellius. Among the latter was Cæcina, a man who neither spoke nor dressed like a citizen of Rome, but was harsh and overbearing, of great stature, wearing the Gaulish trousers and sleeves, and using signs11 even when addressing Roman magistrates. He was accompanied by his wife12 who rode with him in a showy dress, escorted by a picked body of cavalry.

The other general, Fabius Valens,13 was so avaricious that neither the plunder which he took from the enemy, nor yet the thefts, which he committed or the bribes which he 562received from the allied states could satiate him; and he was even suspected of having been too late for the first battle of the war because he delayed his march to amass wealth for himself. Others blame Cæcina, because in his haste to win a victory before Valens came up, he, besides other blunders of less consequence, began a battle so unseasonably and conducted it so remissly that he very nearly brought the cause of Vitellius to ruin.

VII

After Cæcina’s repulse at Placentia he proceeded to Cremona, another large and flourishing city. Meanwhile Annius Gallus, who was on his way to Placentia to reinforce Spurinna, hearing while on the march that the troops at Placentia had been victorious, but that Cremona was in danger, changed the direction of his march towards that place, and encamped close to the enemy. Here Cæcina concealed many foot-soldiers in rough and wooded ground ordering his cavalry to ride forward and, if they fell in with the enemy, to retire little by little so as to draw them into the ambuscade. This plan was betrayed to Celsus by deserters. Celsus attacked them with the best of his cavalry, pursued them with caution, taking care to avoid the ambuscade, and then surrounded the troops in ambush, and threw them into confusion. He now sent for his infantry from the camp: and it was thought that if they had come up promptly after the cavalry, the whole army of Cæcina might have been destroyed; but as it was, Paullinus brought them up slowly and too late, and tarnished his glory as a general by overcaution. The mass of the soldiers charged him with treason, and tried to exasperate Otho against him by boasting that they had won the victory, but that their success was not followed up owing to the cowardice of their generals. Otho, though he did not believe their accusations, yet feared to be thought to disbelieve them. He accordingly sent his brother Titianus to the army, and with him Julius Proculus14, the prefect of the prætorians, who virtually had the supreme 563command, though Titianus was the nominal chief, while Celsus and Paullinus were given the titles of counsellors and friends, but were not allowed the least real power or authority.

The enemy also showed want of discipline, especially in the army of Valens. These men, when they heard of the ambuscade and the defeat to which it had led, were greatly enraged at not having been there in time to prevent so great a slaughter of their friends. Valens15 was forced to beg for his life; for the soldiers were preparing to stone him. He pacified them with difficulty, and led them to join the forces of Cæcina.

VIII

When Otho arrived at the camp at Bedriacum,16 which is a village near Cremona, he held a council of war. Proculus and Titianus were of opinion that, as the troops were full of confidence and flushed with victory, it would be best to fight a decisive battle at once, and not blunt their spirit by delay, which would also bring Vitellius down upon them from Gaul. On the other hand Paullinus argued that the enemy had already collected their entire available force, whereas Otho might expect another army as large as his present one to join him from Mœsia and Pannonia, if he would only wait until it suited him to fight, and not play into the hands of the enemy by engaging prematurely. The troops, he said, after being so largely reinforced, would be no less confident than at present, when they are but few; indeed, they would fight with a great superiority of numbers. Besides this, delay would be all in their favour, as they had abundance of supplies, while the opponents, who were in an enemy’s country, would soon be reduced to great straits by the want of provisions. Marius Celsus agreed with the views of Paullinus. Annius Gallus was not present at the council, having been disabled by a fall from his horse: but when Otho wrote a letter to him, asking his opinion, he advised the emperor not to be hasty, but to await the arrival of the 564legions which were already on their way from Mœsia. However Otho was not convinced by these arguments, but agreed with those who urged him to fight at once.

IX

Many other reasons for this decision are given by various writers, and it is evident that the prætorians, or body-guard of the emperor, who now for the first time had experience of actual warfare, were eager to return to their old haunts at Rome, and the unwarlike pleasures of the theatre and the circus, and that their eagerness for battle could not be restrained, as they imagined that they would overthrow their antagonists at the first onset. It seems, too, that Otho himself could no longer endure the uncertainty of his position, for his ignorance of war and his life of enervating luxury had unfitted him for a calm calculation of his chances of success, and, worn out as he was with anxiety, he longed to let the matter be settled whichever way chance might determine, like a man who covers his face through dizziness at looking over a precipice. This is the account which is given by the orator Secundus, who acted as private secretary to Otho. Other17 authorities relate that many efforts were made by the soldiers of both armies to combine, and agree to elect an emperor from among their own officers: or, if this proved impossible, to place the election in the hands of the senate. It seems indeed rightly probable, considering the ill-repute of both claimants of the throne, that the more sedate and thoughtful of the soldiers should have reflected that it would be a horrible and shameful thing that the Romans should be made to suffer for a second time all the miseries which they had once endured in the civil wars of Sulla and of Marius and of Cæsar and Pompeius, merely in order to provide an empire to bear the charges of the gluttony and drunkenness of Vitellius, or of the luxury and profligacy of Otho. It is suspected that Marius Celsus, knowing that this feeling was gaining ground, endeavoured to gain time, hoping that the whole matter might be decided without fighting; and that Otho, fearing this, hurried on an engagement.

X

After the council Otho again retired to Brixellum. This was a mistake, not only because the army would 565have fought with greater zeal and discipline when under the eye of the emperor, but because by taking away the best and most loyal troops, both of cavalry and infantry, to act as his body-guard, he made his army like a spear which has lost its steel point. At this time a battle took place on the bank of the Padus, across which Cæcina endeavoured to throw a bridge, while the Othonians tried to prevent him from doing so. As they did not succeed in this, they threw lighted sulphur and pitch into the boats which formed the bridge, and a wind suddenly springing up carried the fire across the stream towards the enemy. At first volumes of smoke, and then a mass of flames burst out, so that the enemy were thrown into confusion and forced to leap from the bridge into the river, upsetting the boats and exposing themselves to the missiles and the ridicule of the enemy. However, the Germans were victorious in a fight with Otho’s corps of gladiators for the possession of an island in the river, and slew many of them.

XI

As, after this, the soldiers in Otho’s camp at Bedriacum were frantically eager for battle, Proculus led them forward about six miles from that place and encamped in such an ignorant and ridiculous fashion that the men suffered from want of water, although it was spring time, and all the surrounding country was full of springs and perennial streams. On the next day he wished to lead them at least twelve miles nearer the enemy, but Suetonius Paullinus would not allow him to do so, thinking that the soldiers ought to have some rest, and not first be fatigued with a long march, and then while they were confusedly mixed up with baggage animals and camp-followers, be brought to fight against an enemy who could quietly and deliberately place themselves in order of battle. While the generals were at variance, one of the horsemen called Numidians rode up bearing a letter from Otho, in which he ordered them not to waste any time, but to march against the enemy at once. On receiving this they started. Cæcina, hearing of their march, was much disquieted, abandoned his operations by the river, and proceeded to the camp. Here after Valens had got the men under arms, and had given 566them the watchword, he sent forward the best of the cavalry while the legions were taking up their respective positions in the line of battle.

XII

For some reason or other the men of Otho’s vanguard conceived an idea that the generals of Vitellius intended to dessert to their side: and so, when they came near to one another, they saluted the Vitellians and addressed them as friends and comrades. As the Vitellians made an angry and fierce response, the Othonians were discouraged, while their opponents imagined that they intended to desert. This incident at the first onset caused some confusion among the troops of Otho: and, besides this, everything was in disorder, for the baggage train was entangled among the ranks, and the line was broken in many places by the ditches and trenches with which the ground was intersected, so that the soldiers, in trying to avoid these obstacles, were forced to attack in detail, and in disorganised crowds. Two18 legions alone, that named “Rapax” on the side of Vitellius, and “Adjutrix” on that of Otho, were able to find a level plain, upon which they deployed into a regular line of battle and fought front to front for a long time. Otho’s soldiers were active and brave, but had never been in action before, while those of Vitellius had fought many battles, but were somewhat elderly and past their prime. At the first charge the Othonians drove them back, and captured their eagle, killing almost every man in the front rank; but the Vitellians, filled with shame and rage, charged in their turn, slew Orfidius, the legate in command of the legion, and took many standards. The corps of gladiators, who were supposed to possess both courage and practice in close combat, were attacked by Alphenus Varus with the Batavians, who inhabit an island formed by the river Rhine, and who are the best horsemen in Germany. Few of the gladiators stood to receive their charge, but most of them fled towards the river, where they fell in with other bodies of the enemy, by whom they were entirely cut to pieces. The worst fight of all was made by the Prætorians, who did not even wait until the enemy 567reached them, but by their panic flight struck terror even into the unbroken troops through whose ranks they fled. Yet many of Otho’s troops, after having conquered their immediate opponents, forced their way back through their victorious enemies to their own camp.

XIII

Of the generals, neither Proculus nor Paullinus dared to return with their men, but went off another way, fearing the soldiers, who already began to throw the blame of their defeat upon the generals. Annius Gallus assumed the command of the soldiers as they assembled in the town of Bedriacum, and encouraged them by assurances that the battle had been a drawn one, and that in many cases they had beaten the enemy. Marius Celsus called a meeting of the generals, and bade them take measures for the common good. He said that after so great a disaster and so much slaughter of their countrymen not even Otho himself, if he were a right-thinking man, would wish to make any further trial of fortune; since even Cato and Scipio, although they fought in defence of the liberty of Rome, were blamed for having wasted the lives of many brave men in Africa, by not yielding to Cæsar immediately after the battle of Pharsalia. All men, he urged, are equally liable to the caprices of fortune; but they have the advantage, even when defeated, of being able to form wise resolutions. By this reasoning Celsus convinced the generals: and when, on trying the temper of the soldiers, they found them desirous of peace, and Titianus himself bade them begin negotiations for agreement, Celsus and Gallus determined to go and discuss the matter with Cæcina and Valens. On their way they were met by some centurions, who informed them that Vitellius’s army was already advancing, and that they had been sent on before by their generals to arrange terms of peace. Celsus spoke with approval of their mission, and bade them return and conduct him to Cæcina. It happened that when they drew near the army, Celsus was like to have lost his life: for the cavalry who formed the advance guard were the same who had been defeated in the ambuscade, and when they saw Celsus approaching, they set up a shout of rage and rode towards him. However the centurions stood before Celsus and kept them back; and as the other officers called to them to spare 568him Cæcina perceived that some disturbance was taking place and rode up. He quickly repressed the disorderly movement of the cavalry, greeted Celsus affectionately, and proceeded with him to Bedriacum. Meanwhile Titianus had repented of having sent the embassy. He manned the walls of the camp with those soldiers who had recovered their spirits, and was encouraging the rest to fight. However, when Cæcina rode up and held out his hand no one resisted him, but some of the soldiers greeted his troops from the walls, and others opened the gates, came out and mingled with the new-comers. No violence was done to any one, but they all fraternised and shook each other by the hand, swore fealty to Vitellius and joined his army.

XIV

The above is the account which most eye-witnesses give of the battle, though they themselves admit that they do not know all the details of it because of the confusion which prevailed and the irregularity of the ground. Some time afterwards when I was journeying across the battlefield, Mestrius Florus, a man of consular rank, who had fought under Otho not from choice but from necessity, showed me an ancient temple, and related that after the battle he came there and saw so huge a pile of corpses, that those on the top were level with the pinnacles of the roof. He said that he could not discover himself or learn from any one else the cause of this heap; for though a greater slaughter of the vanquished is made in civil wars than in any others, because no quarter is given, as no use can be made of prisoners, yet it was hard to imagine how such a mass of carcasses came to be piled together on that spot.

XV

Otho, as is usual in such cases, first heard only confused rumours of how the battle went. When however wounded men came from the scene of action bringing the news of the defeat, not only his friends, as might be expected, bade him keep up his spirits and not despair, but his soldiers were wonderfully affected. None of them left him, or deserted to the enemy, and no one consulted his own safety when his chief despaired of his. All of them alike repaired to his quarters, and called him their emperor. When he came out to them, they fell at his 569feet and caught hold of his hands with shouts, and prayers, and tears, beseeching him not to desert them, or betray them to the enemy, but to make use of them to fight for him, body and soul, until their last breath. While all besought him thus, one of the common soldiers drew his sword, and crying, “Cæsar, this is what we are all prepared to do for you,” stabbed himself. Otho, unmoved by any of these entreaties, gazed round upon them all with a calm and composed countenance, and said: “My comrades, your noble conduct and your loyal devotion make this a happier day to me than that on which you elected, me your emperor. Yet do not deprive me of the still greater happiness of dying for so many and such noble friends. If I am worthy to be an emperor of Rome, I ought not to grudge my life to my country. I am aware that our enemy’s victory is not decisive or crushing. News has reached me that the Mœsian legions have already reached the Adriatic, and are not many days’ march distant. Asia, Syria, Egypt, and the army engaged with the Jews are all on our side, while we have in our power both the senate, and the wives and children of our enemy. But we are not defending Italy from Hannibal, or Pyrrhus, or the Cimbri, but Romans are fighting against Romans, and our native land will suffer equally whichever side is victorious, for she must lose what the conqueror gains. Believe me, I pray you, that it is more to my honour to die than to reign: for I cannot imagine that if victorious I could do anything which would benefit the Romans so much as I can by giving my life to obtain peace and concord, and to save Italy from seeing another day such as this.”

XVI

After speaking thus, he tore himself away from the soldiers, who tried to hold him back and bade him take courage. He ordered his friends and such senators as were present to leave his camp: and to those who were not present he sent similar orders, and also rescripts to the magistrates of the cities through which they would have to pass, that they might accomplish their journey19 with honour and in safety. He next sent for his nephew Cocceius, who was still a youth, and bade him be of good 570cheer and not fear Vitellius, whose mother, children, and wife he himself had protected as carefully as if they had been members of his own family. He had wished, he said, to adopt the boy as his heir, but had put off doing so till the end of the war, meaning to make him his colleague if he succeeded, but not wishing to involve him in his own destruction if he failed. “My last charge to you,” he continued, “is that you neither forget altogether nor yet remember too well that you have had a Cæsar for your uncle.” Shortly after this interview Otho heard a shouting and disturbance outside his quarters; for the senators were preparing to depart, and the soldiers were threatening to murder them if they did so, and reproached them with deserting their emperor. Otho, who feared for their lives, now came out a second time, no longer in a mild and supplicatory manner, but, frowning savagely, he cast so terrible a look upon the most turbulent of the rioters that they shrank away terrified and abashed.

XVII

Towards evening he became thirsty, and drank a little water: after which he spent a long time in examining the blades of two swords. At last he rejected one of them, and hid the other in his clothes. He now called together his servants, and distributed his money amongst them, not recklessly, as though he were dealing with property not his own, but giving them each various sums, carefully apportioned according to each man’s deserts. When he sent them away he rested for the remainder of the night, and those about his bed-chamber noticed how soundly he slept. At daybreak he called to a freedman who had been entrusted with the management of the departure of the senators, and ordered him to learn what had happened to them. When he was told that they had left the camp, and had received every attention they could wish, he said, “Go now, and show yourself to the soldiers unless you wish to perish miserably at their hands; for they will suspect you of having assisted me to die.” When this man was gone, Otho held the sword upright with both his hands and fell upon it, dying with only one groan, which apprised those without of his fate. The wailing of his slaves was taken up by the whole of the camp and city. The soldiers noisily forced their way 571into his quarters and lamented over him with bitter grief, reproaching themselves for not having guarded their emperor, and prevented his dying for them. None of Otho’s body-guard deserted him, although the enemy was drawing near, but after laying out his body, and erecting a funeral pile, they bore him to it, armed at all points; and happy was the man who could find a place among the bearers. Of the rest, some kissed his wounds, some pressed his hands, and some, who could not come near him, knelt as his body passed by them. Some, who had received no especial favours from Otho, and had nothing to fear from his successor, slew themselves after they had applied the torch to his funeral pile. It seems, indeed, that no king or despot ever was possessed with so frantic a desire to rule, as these men had to be ruled by Otho and to serve him; for their love for him did not cease with his life, but remained implanted in their breasts, causing them to regard Vitellius with the bitterest hatred. Of what followed from this I shall give an account in its proper place.

XVIII

After the remains of Otho were buried they erected over him a tomb which could offend no one either by its size or by the pomp of its inscription. When I was at Brixellum I myself saw a small monument on which was written in the Latin language “In memory of Marcus Otho.”

Otho died in his thirty-seventh year, after a reign of three months. Many good men, though they blamed his life, yet could not refrain from admiring his death; for though his life had been no better than that of Nero, his end was a far nobler one. When he was dead, Pollio, one of the two prefects, offended the soldiers by requiring them at once to swear fealty to Vitellius. Some of the senators were still left in Brixellum; and the soldiers, hearing of this, let them go with the exception of Virginius Rufus, whom they greatly embarrassed by coming to his house under arms, and bidding him either take the command of them or at any rate act as ambassador on their behalf. Virginius, who had refused the crown when it was offered him by a victorious army, thought that it would be the act of a madman to accept it from a beaten one. He feared, also, to go as an ambassador to the Germans, who thought 572that in time past he had forced them to do many things against their will. Accordingly, he escaped from his house by a back door; and the soldiers, when they discovered that he was gone, took the oaths to the new emperor. They were pardoned by him, and were sent to serve with the troops under the command of Cæcina.

NOTES.

Civil Wars Preface

↑1 It has been thought desirable to give here Mr. Long’s preface to the lives published by him, under the title of “Civil Wars of Rome.” The lives will be found in subsequent volumes.

↑2 Cotton’s Translation.

Life of Plutarch

↑1 North’s ‘Plutarch,’ 1631, p. 1194.

↑2 North’s ‘Plutarch,’ 1631, p. 1198.

Theseus

↑1 Autochthones was the name by which the original citizens of Athens called themselves, meaning that they were sprung from the soil itself, not immigrants from some other country.

↑2 The first cutting of the hair was always an occasion of solemnity among the Greeks, the hair being dedicated to some god. The first instance of this is in Homer’s Iliad, where Achilles speaks of having dedicated his hair to the river Spercheius. The Athenian youth offered their hair to Herakles. The Roman emperor Nero, in later times, imitated this custom.

↑3 The Greek word λεος signifies people.

Romulus

↑1 The Greek ῥομε = strength.

↑2 The habit of erecting trophies on a field of battle in token of victory appears to have been originally confined to the Greeks, who usually, as in the text, lopped the branches off a tree, placed it in the ground in some conspicuous place, and hung upon it the shields and other spoils taken from the enemy. In later times the Romans adopted the habit of commemorating a victory by erecting some building on the field of battle. Under the emperors, victory was commemorated by a triumphal arch at Rome, many of which now exist. The Greek trophies were always formed of perishable materials, and it was contrary to their custom to repair them, that they might not perpetuate national enmities.

↑3 Chthonian gods are the gods of the world below.

↑4 The Romans termed these bundles of rods fasces. The derivation of lictor from the Greek shows the utter ignorance of etymology prevailing among the ancients.

Lykurgus

↑1 In the Spartan constitution there were two kings, who were believed to be descended from two brothers, Eurysthenes and Prokles, the two sons of Aristodemus. When the descendants of Herakles returned to Peloponnesus, and divided that country amongst them, Lacedaemon fell to the lot of Aristodemus, who left his two sons joint heirs to the monarchy. The kings of Sparta had little real power, and to this no doubt they owed the fact of their retaining their dignity when every other Hellenic state adopted a democratic form of government.

↑2 14, 2, 7, 4, 1, make by addition 28; as 3, 2, and 1 make 6.

Numa

↑1 That is, by some one who was not a Greek.

Camillus

↑1 Plutarch himself was a Boeotian.

↑2 The punishment of excessive and unbroken prosperity was assigned by the Greeks to the goddess Nemesis. The idea of too great a career of success exciting the anger of the gods is common throughout the whole of ancient literature. A well-known instance is the story of Polykrates of Samos, as told by Herodotus. Amasis the king of Egypt, observing the unbroken good fortune of Polykrates, advised him voluntarily to sacrifice some of his treasures. Polykrates, following his friend’s advice, cast his signet-ring into the sea. But the ring was swallowed by a fish, and the fish was caught and presented to the king, who thus recovered his ring. When Amasis heard of this, he refused to ally himself with Polykrates, thinking that such good fortune presaged a terrible disaster. Polykrates was put to death shortly afterwards by the Persians, who conquered his kingdom.

Perikles

↑1 Plato, Phaedrus.

↑2 The Dorians of Boeotia and Peloponnesus were accounted the best infantry soldiers of Greece.

Fabius Maximus

↑1 Liv., xxii. 8, sq.

Alkibiades

↑1 μετοικικὁν.

↑2 An office resembling that of a modern consul for a foreign nation.

↑3 The ancient trireme was not habitable, like a modern ship of war. The crew always, if possible, landed for their meals, and when stationed at any place, drew the ship up on the beach and lived entirely on shore.

↑4 The Greeks attached great importance to the burial of the dead. The usual test of which party had won a battle was, which side after it demanded a truce for the burial of the dead. Here the possession of the dead bodies of the enemy is enumerated as one of the proofs of victory.

↑5 A “harmost,” ἁρμοστες, was an officer sent from Sparta to administer a subject city. See p. 97.

↑6 Probably consisting of corn and cattle, as Clough translates it.

↑7 Peltasts were light-armed troops, so called because they carried light round shields instead of the large unwieldy oblong shield of the Hoplite, or heavy-armed infantry soldier. These light troops came gradually into favour with the Greeks during the Peloponnesian war, and afterward became very extensively used.

Coriolanus

↑1 See the article “Comitia” in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities.

Timoleon

↑1 τυραννος, here and elsewhere translated despot, means a man who had obtained irresponsible power by unconstitutional means.

↑2 Compare Tacitus, “eo immitior quia toleraverat.”

↑3 Heavy armed foot-soldiers, carrying a spear and shield.

↑4 From these words, Grote conjectures that Telekleides was also present at the death of Timophanes.

↑5 Bema, the tribune from which the orators spoke.

↑6 The shield of a General was habitually carried for him by an orderly.

↑7 The natives of Southern Italy.

↑8 About May.

↑9 A line in the Medea of Euripides. The point of the joke depends on the punctuation, but cannot be kept in translation.

↑10 Grote.

Aemilius

↑1 In Sintenis’s text the chapter with which this life usually begins is prefixed to the Life of Timoleon.

↑2 Ships of war with five banks of oars.

↑3 He had been military tribune of the second legion in Macedonia. Liv. xlv. 35.

↑4 This was a particular kind of pottery, originally made at Corinth.

↑5 Little more than £3000.

Pelopidas

↑1 Kallikratidas, the Lacedæmonian admiral, was defeated and slain by the Athenians at the battle of Arginusæ, B.C. 406.

↑2 No one seems able to identify this battle. See Grote’s History, Part II., ch. lxxvii., note, s.v. Epameinondas.

↑3 See Life of Titus Flamininus, p. 175, note.

↑4 More usually spelt ‘Leontiades.’

↑5 Kadmeia, the Acropolis of Thebes, a fortress on a lofty rock overhanging the town.

↑6 In Attica.

↑7 The chief priest who presided at the Eleusinian mysteries.

↑8 The office of Bœotarch is described at length in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of Antiquities.’ They seem properly to have been the military leaders of the confederacy of the whole of the cities of Bœotia.

↑9 This was the case in all Greek towns, namely, there were two parties, aristocratic and democratic. The democracy being now in the ascendant in Thebes, the party which favoured the Spartans, the most aristocratic state in Greece, had gone into exile.

↑10 For the number of men in a “mora,” see p. 16.

↑11 See vol. i. Life of Lykurgus, ch. vi.

[Pg 34]

Marcellus

↑1 Il. xiv. 86.

↑2 Civica corona. The civic crown was made of oak leaves, and was given only to him who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war.

↑3 Interreges were appointed when there were no consuls, to hold comitia for the election of new ones.

↑4 Vessels of five banks of oars.

↑5 Hexapylon, the place with six gates.

[Pg 64]

Aristeides

↑1 The Attic medimnus contained 12 imperial gallons, or 1½ bushels.

↑2 A circular or cyclic chorus was strictly one which danced and sang round an altar, but especially refers to the dithyrambic choruses appropriated to Bacchus.

↑3 The barathrum at Athens was a deep pit, with hooks on the sides, into which criminals were cast.

↑4 Alluding to the letter which he had sent to Xerxes. See ‘Life of Themistokles.’

↑5 See ‘Life of Themistokles.’

↑6 So in Latin “hostis” originally meant both a stranger and an enemy.

↑7 These men traced their descent to the Homeric Ajax.

↑8 This was always given before the equal division of the plunder took place. Cf. Virg. Æn. IX. 268, sqq.

↑9 Whether a cinerary urn for the ashes of the dead, or a water-pot for drawing water is meant, I am unable to determine. Clough takes the latter meaning, which is borne out by the context. On the other hand the Greek word is used by Plutarch (‘Life of Philopœmen,’ ch. xxi) in the sense of an urn to contain the ashes of the dead.

[Pg 98]

Marcus Cato

↑1 Cf. Livy, xxix. ch. 19, sqq.

↑2 See vol. i., ‘Life of Themistokles,’ ch. x.

↑3 Lictors were attendants granted to Roman magistrates as a mark of official dignity. See vol. i., ‘Life of Romulus,’ ch. xxvi.

↑4 Spain was divided by the Romans into two provinces, of which this out was that which was nearer to Rome.

↑5 The inhabitants of the town of Firmum, in Picenum; now Fermo.

↑6 On the nature of these relations, see ‘Smith’s Dict. of Ant.,’ s.v.

[Pg 128]

Flamininus

↑1 Publius Sulpicius Galba.

↑2 Publius Villius Tappulus. Cf. Livy xxxi. sqq.

↑3 The following is the account given of the Macedonian phalanx by Polybius:—

“It is easy then to demonstrate by many reasons, that, while the phalanx retains its proper form and full power of action, no force is able to stand against it in front, or to support the violence of its attack. When the ranks are closed in order to engage, each soldier, as he stands in his arms, occupies a space of three feet. The spears in their most ancient form, contained seventeen cubits in length. But, for the sake of rendering them more commodious in action, they have since been reduced to fourteen. Of these, four cubits are contained between the part which the soldier grasps in his hands, and the lower end of the spear behind, which serves as a counterpoise to the part that is extended before him; and the length of this last part from the body of the soldier, when the spear is pushed forwards with both hands against the enemy, is by consequence ten cubits. From hence it follows, that when the phalanx is closed in its proper form, and every soldier pressed within the necessary distance with respect to the man that is before him and upon his side, the spears of the fifth rank are extended to the length of two cubits, and those of the second, third, and fourth to a still greater length, beyond the foremost rank. The manner in which the men are crowded together in this method is marked by Homer in the following lines:

“‘Shield stuck to shield, to helmet helmet join’d,

And man to man; and at each nod that bow’d,

High waving on their heads the glittering cones,

Rattl’d the hair-crown’d casques, so thick they stood.’

Homer, Il. xiii., 131.

“This description is not less exact than beautiful. It is manifest, then, that five several spears, differing each from the other in the length of two cubits, are extended before every man in the foremost rank. And when it is considered likewise, that the phalanx is formed by sixteen in depth, it will be easy to conceive, what must be the weight and violence of the entire body, and how great the force of its attack. In the ranks, indeed, that are behind the fifth, the spears cannot reach so far as to be employed against the enemy. In these ranks, therefore, the soldiers, instead of extending their spears forwards, rest them upon the shoulders of the men that are before them, with their points slanting upwards; and in this manner they form a kind of rampart which covers their heads, and secures them against those darts which may be carried in their flight beyond the first ranks, and fall upon those that are behind. But when the whole body advances to charge the enemy, even the hindmost ranks are of no small use and moment. For as they press continually upon those that are before them, they add by their weight alone great force to the attack, and deprive also the foremost ranks of the power of drawing themselves backwards or retreating. Such, then, is the disposition of the phalanx, with regard both to the whole and the several parts. Let us now consider the arms, and the order of battle, of the Romans; that we may see by the comparison in what respects they are different from those of the Macedonians.

“To each of the Roman soldiers, as he stands in arms, is allotted the same space likewise of three feet. But as every soldier in the time of action is constantly in motion, being forced to shift his shield continually, that he may cover any part of his body against which a stroke is aimed, and so vary the position of his sword, so as either to push, or to make a falling stroke, there must also be a distance of three feet, the least that can be allowed for performing these motions with advantage, between each soldier and the man that stands next to him, both upon his side and behind him. In charging, therefore, against the phalanx, every single Roman, as he has two Macedonians opposite to him, has also ten spears, which he is forced to encounter. But it is not possible for a single man to cut down these spears with his sword, before they can take their effect, against him. Nor is it easy on the other hand to force his way through them. For the men that are behind add no weight to the pressure, nor any strength to the swords of those that are in the foremost rank. It will be easy, therefore, to conceive, that, while the phalanx retains its own proper position and strength, no troops, as I before observed, can ever support the attack of it in front.”

Polybius, Book xvii. Ex. iii. in Hampden’s translation, 1773.

↑4 The ‘pileum,’ a close-fitting felt cap, was given by the Romans to slaves on the occasion of their enfranchisement, as a sign of freedom.

↑5 Livy xxxix, chapter 51.

↑6 In Greek warfare, any one who killed an enemy in battle was entitled to dispose of his body and arms as he thought fit. Plutarch means that by the laws of war Hannibal belonged to Scipio, and that Flamininus had no right to interfere between them.

[Pg 177]

Pyrrhus

↑1 By ‘Kings’ throughout this ‘Life,’ Plutarch refers to the successors of Alexander the Great.

↑2 See Thirlwall’s ‘History of Greece,’ chap. lx.

↑3 Plutarch’s account of these transactions is hardly intelligible. Demetrius, it appears, was about to lay siege to Athens when Pyrrhus prevented him. See Thirlwall’s History, chap. lx.

↑4 The river Aciris, now called Agri.

↑5 Demetrius.

↑6 I have translated the above passages almost literally from the Greek. Yet I am inclined to think that Arnold has penetrated the true meaning, and shows us the reason for Fabricius’s exclamation, when he states the Epicurean philosophy, as expounded by Kineas, to be “that war and state affairs were but toil and trouble, and that the wise man should imitate the blissful rest of the gods, who, dwelling in their own divinity, regarded not the vain turmoil of this lower world.”—Arnold’s ‘History of Rome,’ vol. ii. ch. xxxvii

↑7 See an excellent note in Arnold’s ‘History of Rome,’ vol. ii. ch. xxxvii.

↑8 These were the descendants of certain Campanian mercenaries, who had seized the city of Messina, and from it made war upon the neighbourhood.

↑9 “Barbarians” here as elsewhere merely means those who were not Greeks.

↑10 On this passage Thirlwall (‘History of Greece,’ chapter lx.) has the following note: “Flathe (vol. ii. p. 94) conceives that the waggons were placed in the ditch, which I can neither understand, nor reconcile with Plutarch’s description. Clough follows Flathe, and says that ‘the waggons were sunk in the ditch, here and there along it.’ Plutarch’s description is most unfortunately brief. We do not know to what extent Sparta had been fortified during its wars with Kassander and Demetrius, or whether the ditch which was dug on this occasion covered the only gap in the walls. At any rate it is hard to understand why the Spartans, according to Clough, should dig a ditch and then sink their waggons in it, as in that case they might as well not have dug any ditch at all.”

↑11 The married women wore two pieces of dress, the unmarried one only. On this occasion the married women tied their cloaks round their waists. See the description in the ‘Life of Lykurgus.’

↑12 I have adopted Clough’s excellent version of the well-known passage in ‘Iliad,’ xii. 243, where Hector says that he cares not for the flight of birds or any other omen, but that “The best of omens is one’s country’s cause.”

↑13 Compare the games which Achilles, in the ‘Iliad,’ holds at the funeral of Patroklus.

[Pg 221]

Marius

↑1 When Plutarch wrote, the system of naming persons among the Romans had undergone some changes, or at least the old fashion was not strictly observed, and this will explain his remark at the end of the chapter. A Roman had usually three names, as Caius Julius Cæsar. The first name, which was called the Prænomen, denoted the individual: the most common names of this class were Quintus, Caius, Marcus, Lucius, and so on. The second name denoted the gens, and was called the Gentile name, as Cornelius, Julius, Licinius, Mucius, Sempronius, and so on. The same gens often contained different families; thus there were Licinii Crassi, Licinii Luculli, and so on. This third name was called the Cognomen, and was given to the founder of the family or to some member of the gens in respect of some personal peculiarity or other accidental circumstance, as Scipio, Cicero, Crassus, Lucullus, Gracchus. A fourth name, or Agnomen, was sometimes added, as in the case of Publius Cornelius Scipio, the elder, who received the name of Africanus from his conquest of Africa. This agnomen might be the third name, when there was no cognomen, as in the case of Lucius Mummius, who received the name of Achaicus because he overthrew the Achæan League in that war, of which the concluding event was the destruction of Corinth, which belonged to the League. Poseidonius means that the prænomen (Quintus, Marcus, &c.) was more used in speaking of or to an individual; but in Plutarch’s time the cognomen or agnomen was most used. We speak of the three Cæsars, Vespasianus and his two sons Titus and Domitianus, yet the gentile name of all of them was Flavius. The complete names of the first two were Titus Flavius Vespasianus, and of the third Titus Flavius Domitianus.

Women had usually one name, derived from their gens; thus all the women of the Cornelii, Julii, Licinii, were called Cornelia, Julia, Licinia; and if there were several daughters in a family, they were distinguished by the names First, Second, and so on. If there were two daughters only, they were called respectively Major and Minor. Sulla called one of his daughters Fausta. (See Cicero, Ad Div. viii. 7, Paula Valeria; and the note of P. Manutius.)

↑2 Some understand the word (εἰκών) to mean a bust here. The word is used in both senses, and also to signify a picture. When the statue of Tiberius Gracchus the father is spoken of (Caius Gracchus, c. 10), Plutarch uses a different word ( ὰνδρίας). Plutarch speaks of Ravenna as in Gaul, which he calls Galatia; but though Ravenna was within the limits of Cisalpine Gaul, the name of Italy had been extended to the whole Peninsula south of the Alps about B.C. 44.

↑3 Literally “shows:” they might be plays or they might be other amusements.

↑4 This is probably a corrupt name. The territory of Arpinum, now Arpino, was in the Volscian mountains. Arpinum was also the birth-place of Cicero. Juvenal in his rhetorical fashion (Sat. viii. 245) represents the young Marius as earning his bread by working at the plough as a servant and afterwards entering the army as a common soldier.

↑5 Lucius Aurelius Cotta and Lucius Cæcilius Metellus were consuls B.C. 119, in which year Marius was tribune. The law which Marius proposed had for its object to make the Pontes narrower. The Pontes were the passages through which the voters went into the Septa or inclosures where they voted. After passing through the pontes they received the voting tablets at the entrance of the septa. The object of the law of Marius was to diminish the crowd and pressure by letting fewer persons come in at a time. Cicero speaks of this law of Marius (De Legibus, iii. 17). As the law had reference to elections and its object was among other things to prevent bribery, Plutarch’s remark is unintelligible: the text is corrupt, or he has made a mistake.

↑6 The higher magistrates of Rome, the curule ædiles, prætors, consuls, censors, and dictator had a chair of office called a Sella Curulis, or Curule seat, which Plutarch correctly describes as a chair with curved feet (See the cut in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities, “Sella Curulis”). The name Curule is derived from Currus, a chariot, as the old writers say, and as is proved by the expression Curulis Triumphus, a Curule Triumph, which is opposed to an Ovatio, in which the triumphing general went on foot in the procession.

The Plebeian Ædiles were first elected B.C. 494, at the same time as the Plebeian tribunes. They had various functions, such as the general superintendence of buildings, the supply of water, the care of the streets and pavements, and other like matters. Their duties mainly belonged to the department of police, under which was included the superintendence of the markets, and of buying and selling. The Plebeian Ædiles were originally two in number.

The Curule Ædiles were first elected B.C. 365 and only from the Patricians, but afterwards the office was accessible to the Plebeians. The functions of the Plebeian Ædiles seem to have been performed by all the Ædiles indifferently after B.C. 368, though the Curule Ædiles alone had the power of making Edicts (edicta), which power was founded on their general superintendence of all buying and selling, and many of their rules had reference to the buying and selling of slaves (Dig. 21, tit. 1). The Curule Ædiles only had the superintendence of some of the greater festivals, on which occasions they went to great expense to gratify the people and buy popularity as a means of further promotion. (See Sulla, c. 5.)

↑7 At this time there were six Prætors. The Prætor Urbanus or City Prætor was sometimes simply called Prætor and had the chief administration of justice in Rome. The Prætor Peregrinus also resided in Rome and had the superintendence in matters in dispute between Roman citizens and aliens (peregrini). The other Prætors had provinces allotted to them to administer; and after the expiration of their year of office, the prætors generally received the administration of a Province with the title of Proprætor. It appears (c. 5) that Marius either stayed at Rome during his prætorship or had some Province in Italy. As to the meaning of the Roman word Province, see Caius Gracchus, c. 19, note.

↑8 Bribery at elections among the Romans was called Ambitus, which literally signifies “a going about;” it then came to signify canvassing, solicitation, the giving and promising of money for votes, and all the means for accomplishing this end, in which the recurrence of elections at Rome annually made candidates very expert. The first law specially directed against the giving of money (largitiones) was the Lex Cornelia Bæbia, B.C. 182; and there were many subsequent enactments, but all failed to accomplish their object. The Lex Bæbia incapacitated him who gave a bribe to obtain office from filling any office for ten years.

↑9 His alleged intemperance consisted in not being able to endure thirst on such an occasion. His real offence was his conduct which made him suspected of acting as an agent of Marius in the election. It was one of the duties of the Censors, when revising the lists of Equites and Senators, to erase the names of those whom they considered unworthy of the rank, and this without giving any reason for it.

↑10 The words Patron and Client are now used by us, but, like many other Roman terms, not in the original or proper sense. Dominus and Servus, Master and Slave, were terms placed in opposition to one another, like Patron and Client, Patronus and Cliens. A master who manumitted his slave became his Patronus, a kind of father (for Patronus is derived from Pater, father): the slave was called the Patron’s Libertus, freedman; and all Liberti were included in the class Libertini. Libertinus is another example of a word which we use (libertine), though not in the Roman sense. But the old Roman relation of Patron and Client was not this. Originally the heads of distinguished families had a number of retainers or followers who were called their Clients, a word which perhaps originally meant those who were bound to hear and to obey a common head. It was a tradition that when Atta Claudius, the head of the great Claudian Gens, who were Sabines, was admitted among the Roman Patricians, he brought with him a large body of clients to whom land was given north of the Anio, now the Teverone. (Livius, 2, c. 16; Suetonius, Tiberius, c. 1.) The precise relation of the early clients to their leaders is one of the most difficult questions in Roman History, and much too extensive to be discussed here. It was the Patron’s duty to protect his clients and to give them his aid and advice in all matters that required it: the clients owed to the Patron respect and obedience and many duties which are tolerably well ascertained. Long after the strictness of the old relation had been relaxed, the name continued and some of the duties, as we see in this sentence of Marius, where the Patron claimed to be exempted from giving evidence against his client. In the last periods of the Republic and under the Empire, Patron was sometimes simply used as Protector, adviser, defender, and Client to express one who looked up to another as his friend and adviser, particularly in all matters where his legal rights were concerned. Great men under the later Republic sometimes became the Patrons of particular states or cities, and looked after their interests at Rome. We have adopted the word Client in the sense of one who goes to an attorney or solicitor for his legal advice, but with us the client pays for the advice, and the attorney is not called his patron. A modern patron is one who patronises, protects, gives his countenance to an individual, or to some association of individuals, but frequently he merely gives his countenance or his name, that being as much as can be asked from him or as much as he will give.

The Clients must be distinguished from the Plebs in the early history of Rome, though there can be no doubt that part of the Plebeian body was gradually formed out of clients.

↑11 Robbery and piracy were in like manner reckoned honourable occupations by the old Greeks (Thucydides, i. 5). These old robbers made no distinction between robbery and war: plunder was their object, and labour they hated. So says Herodotus (v. 6). A Thracian considered it a disgrace to till the ground; to live by plunder was the mark of a gentleman. When people can live by plunder, there must be somebody worth plundering. One object of modern civilisation is to protect him who labours from the aggression of him who does not.

↑12 This fact renders it doubtful if Marius was of such mean birth as it is said. He married Julia, the sister of C. Julius Cæsar. This Cæsar was the father of C. Julius Cæsar, the dictator, who was consequently the nephew of Caius Marius.

↑13 See Penny Cyclopædia, “Veins, Diseases of.” Cicero (Tusculan. Quæst. 2. c. 22) alludes to this story of the surgical operation. He uses the word Varices.

↑14 Q. Cæcilius Metellus was consul B.C. 109 with M. Junius Silanus. He obtained the Agnomen of Numidicus for his services in the Jugurthine war.

↑15 Legatus is a participle from the verb Lego, which signifies to assign anything to a person to do; hence legatus is one to whom something is delegated. The Roman word Legatus had various senses. Here the word legatus, which is the word that Plutarch intends, is a superior officer who holds command under a Consul, Prætor, Proconsul, Proprætor.

↑16 The story of Turpillius is told by Sallustius (Jugurthine War, 66), who speaks of his execution, but says nothing of his innocence being afterwards established. The Romans had in their armies a body of engineers called Fabri, and the director of the body was called Præfectus Fabrorum. Vaga, which Sallustius calls Vacoa, was one of the chief towns in Numidia.

↑17 Sallustius, who tells the same story pretty nearly in the same way (Jugurth. War, c. 64), says that the son of Metellus was about twenty. The insult was not one to be forgiven by a man like Marius, to be told that it would be soon enough for him to be consul three-and-twenty years hence. This son is Q. Cæcilius Metellus Pius who afterwards fought against Sertorius in Spain.

↑18 The Latin word which Plutarch has translated is Imagines. These Imagines were busts of wax, marble, or metal, which the Romans of family placed in the entrance of their houses. They corresponded to a set of family portraits, but they were the portraits of men who had enjoyed the high offices of the State. These Imagines were carried in procession at funerals. Polybius (vi. 53) has a discourse on this subject, which is worth reading. Marius, who was a Novus Homo, a new man, had no family busts to show.

↑19 Lucius Calpurnius Bestia was consul B.C. 111, and Spurius Postumius Albinus B.C. 110. They successively conducted the war against Jugurtha without success. Sallustius (Jugurth. War, c. 85) has put a long speech in the mouth of Marius on this occasion, which Plutarch appears to have used.

↑20 Though much has been said on the subject, there is nothing worth adding to what Plutarch tells. He gives the various opinions that he had collected.

↑21 This passage of the Celtic Galli into Italy is mentioned by Livius (5, c. 34) and referred by him to the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. This is the first invasion of Italy from the French side of the Alps that is recorded, and it has often been repeated.

↑22 The modern Sea of Azoff.

↑23 The Greek is φυγη, which hardly admits of explanation, though Coræs has explained it. I have followed Kaltwasser in adopting Reiske’s conjecture of φύλη.

↑24 It is stated by Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und Römer, Pt. iii. 410), that the term Hercynian forest was not always used by the ancients to denote the same wooded tract. At this time a great part of Germany was probably covered with forest. Cæsar (Gallic War, vi. 24) describes it as extending from the country of the Helvetii (who lived near the lake of Geneva) apparently in a general east or north-east direction, but his description is not clear. He says that the forest had been traversed in its length for sixty days without an end being come to.

↑25 Plutarch’s description is literally translated; it shows that there was a confused notion of the long days and nights in the arctic regions. Herodotus (iv. 25) and Tacitus in his Agricola have some vague talk of the like kind.

↑26 The passage in Homer is in the 11th Book, v. 14, &c. This Book is entitled Necyia νέκυια, which is the word that Plutarch uses; it literally signifies an offering or sacrifice by which the shades of the dead are called up from the lower world to answer questions that are put to them.

↑27 In B.C. 113 the Romans first heard of the approach of the Cimbri and Teutones. Cn. Papirius Carbo, one of the consuls of this year, was defeated by them in Illyricum (part of Stiria), but they did not cross the Alps. In B.C. 109 the consul M. Junius Silanus was defeated by the Cimbri, who demanded of the Roman Senate lands to settle in: the demand was refused. In B.C. 107 the consul L. Cassius Longinus fell in battle against the Galli Tigurini, who inhabited a part of Switzerland, and his army was sent under the yoke. This was while his colleague Marius was carrying on the campaign against Jugurtha in Africa. In B.C. 105 Cn. Manlius Maximus, the consul, and Q. Servilius Cæpio, proconsul, who had been consul in B.C. 106, were defeated by the Cimbri with immense slaughter, and lost both their camps. The name of Manlius is written Mallius in the Fasti Consulares, ed. Baiter.

↑28 Scipio Africanus the younger was elected consul B.C. 147 when he was thirty-seven years of age, the law as to age being for that occasion not enforced. There was an old Plebiscitum (law passed in the Comitia Tributa) which enacted that no man should hold the same magistracy without an interval of ten full years. (Livius. 7, c. 42; 10, c. 13). The first instance of the law being suspended was in the case of Q. Fabius Maximus. One of Sulla’s laws re-enacted or confirmed the old law.

↑29 This canal of Marius is mentioned by Strabo (p. 183) and other ancient writers. The eastern branch of the Rhone runs from Arelate (Arles) to the sea, and the canal of Marius probably commenced in this branch about twenty Roman miles below Arles (which did not then exist), and entered the sea between the mouth of this branch and Maritima, now Martigues. The length of the canal of Marius might be about twelve Roman miles. Marseilles is east of Martigues. (D’Anville. Notice de la Gaule Ancienne.)

↑30 The movements of the barbarians are not clearly stated. It appears from what follows that the Cimbri entered Italy on the north-east over the Noric Alps, for their march brought them to the banks of the Adige. Florus says that they came by the defiles of Tridentum (Trento). The Teutones, if they marched through the Ligurian country along the sea to meet Marius, who was near Marseilles, must have come along the Riviera of Genoa.

↑31 Plutarch calls her a Syrian. Martha may have been a Syrian name, as well as a Jewish name. Syrians and Jews flocked to Rome in great numbers under the later Republic and the Empire, and got their living in various ways not always reputable. The Jews at Rome used to cause disturbances in the popular assemblies in Cicero’s time. (Cic. Pro Flacco, c. 28.) Jews and Syrians are often mentioned together by the Roman writers. The Jews at Rome were greatly troubled at the assassination of the Dictator Cæsar, and they crowded round the place where the body was burnt for nights in succession. Cæsar had rather favoured the nation for their services in the Alexandrine War. (Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 84, and Casaubon’s note.)

↑32 He wrote on Natural History; among other things, a History of Birds, from which this story is probably taken. There is evidently an error in the text ἠσπάζοντο τοὺς στρατιοτάς. I have adopted Reiske’s emendation.

↑33 Pessinus was in Galatia, properly a part of Phrygia, and the seat of the temple of Cybele, the Mother of the Gods or the Great Mother. In the second Punic War the Romans sent ambassadors to Pessinus, and got permission to convey to Rome the Great Mother of the Gods, who was a sacred stone. The Sibylline Books had declared that when a foreign enemy was in Italy, he could be driven out, if the Idæan mother, for Cybele was so called also, was brought to Rome. The goddess was received at Rome (B.C. 203) with great respect, and placed in the temple of Victory. (Livius, 29, c. 10, &c.) Plutarch does not explain how the goddess now happened to be in Asia and Rome at the same time, for there is no account of her leaving Rome after she was taken there. The annual celebration called Megalesia, that is, the festival of the Great Mother, was instituted at Rome in honour of the goddess, and celebrated in the spring. (Herodianus, i. 32, &c.) It was a tradition that the stone fell from the skies at Pessinus. There was another great stone in Syria (Herodianus, v. 5), in the temple of the Sun, which was worshipped: the stone was round in the lower part, and gradually tapered upwards; the colour was black, and the people Aida that it fell from heaven. It is probable that these stones were ærolites, the falling of which is often recorded in ancient writers, and now established beyond all doubt by repeated observation in modern times. (See Penny Cyclopædia, “Ærolites.”) There is a large specimen in the British Museum. The immediate cause of the Romans sending for the Great Mother was a heavy shower of stones at Rome, an occurrence which in those days was very common. One might have supposed that one of the Roman ærolites would have answered as well as the stone of Pessinus, but the stone of Pessinus had the advantage of being consecrated by time and coming from a distance, and it was probably a large stone. Cf. Plut. Lys. ch. 12.

↑34 This is Aix, about eighteen Roman miles north of Marseilles. Places which were noted for warm springs or medicinal springs were called by the Romans Aquæ, Waters, with some addition to the name. The colony of Aquæ Sextiæ was founded by C. Sextius Calvinus B.C. 120, after defeating the Salyes or Saluvii, in whose country it was. The springs of Aix fell off in repute even in ancient times, and they have no great name now; the water is of a moderate temperature.

Other modern towns have derived their name from the same word Aquæ, which is probably the same as the Celtic word Ac or Acq. There is an Aix in Savoy, and Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen) in the Rhine Province of Prussia. Sometimes the Aquæ took a name from a deity. In France there were the Aquæ Bormonis, the waters of the God Bormo (Bourbonnes-les-Bains): in England, Aquæ Sulis, the Waters of the Goddess Sulis, which by an error became Solis in our books, as if they were called the waters of the Sun. The inscriptions found at Bath name the goddess Sulia.

↑35 Plutarch means to say that the Ambrones and Ligurians were of one stock, and some writers conclude that they were both Celts. This may be so or it may not, for evidence is wanting. Of all the absurd parade of learning under which ancient history has been buried by modern critics, the weightiest and the most worthless part is that which labours to discover the relationship of people of whom we have only little, and that little often conflicting, evidence.

↑36 The Lar according to D’Anville, not the Arc.

↑37 Statements of numbers killed are not worth much, even in any modern engagements. Velleius (ii. 12) makes the number of barbarians who fell in both battles above 150,000.

↑38 The Romans called it Massilia; now Marseilles. It was an old Greek colony of the Phokæans. Strabo (p. 183) says that the people of Massilia aided the Romans in these battles and that Marius made them a present of the cut which he had formed from the Rhone to the sea, which the Massilians turned to profit by levying a toll on those who used it.

↑39 A Greek lyric poet who lived in the seventh century B.C. His fragments have often been collected.

↑40 This was an old Roman fashion. (Livius, 1, c. 37; 41, c. 16.)

↑41 Plutarch often uses the word Fortune τύcη, the meaning of which may be collected from the passages in which it occurs. Nemesis Νέμεσις is a Greek goddess, first mentioned by Hesiod, and often mentioned by the Greek Tragoedians. She is the enemy of excessive prosperity and its attendant excessive pride and arrogance; she humbles those who have been elevated too high, tames their pride and checks their prosperous career. Nemesis had a temple and statue at Rhamnus in Attica.

↑42 The Roman Athesis, the Italian Adige, the German Etsch. The extravagance of this chapter of Plutarch is remarkable.

↑43 The Eagle, Aquila, was the Roman standard in use at this time. Formerly the Romans had five symbols for their standards, the eagle, wolf, minotaur, horse, and wild boar, all of which were appropriated to respective divisions of the army. Marius in this Cimbrian war did away with all of them except the eagle. (Plinius, N.H. x. 4.)

↑44 The Sequani were a Gallic people who were separated from the Helvetii by the range of the Jura, on the west side of which their territory extended from the Rhine to the Rhone and the Saone. (Florus iii. 3) mentions Teutobocus as the name of a king who was taken by the Romans and appeared in the triumph of Marius; he was a man of such prodigious stature that he towered above his own trophies which were carried in the procession.

↑45 The object of this contrivance is explained by Plutarch, and it is clear enough. There is no reason then to imagine another purpose in the design, as some do, which moreover involves an absurdity.

↑46 Near Vercelli in Piemont on the Sesia, a branch of the Po, which the Greeks generally call Eridanus, and the Romans, Padus. The plain of Vercelli, in which the battle was fought, is called by Velleius (ii. 12) Raudii campi. The situation of the Raudii campi can only be inferred from Plutarch. Some geographers place them north of Milan.

↑47 Plutarch pays no attention to the movements of an army, and his battles are confused. He had perhaps no great turn for studying military movements, and their minute details did not come within his plans.

↑48 Plutarch alludes to Sulla’s memoirs in twenty-two books, which, he frequently refers to. Catulus wrote a history of the war and of his consulship, which Cicero (Brutus, c. 35) compares as to style with Xenophon. It appears from Plutarch’s remark that he had not seen the work of Catulus.

↑49 Διβολία is the reading that I have followed. I have given the meaning here and in the first part of the next chapter as well as I can.

↑50 This was the Roman expression for dedicating something to a sacred purpose. After the victory Catulus consecrated a temple at Rome “To the Fortune of this Day.”

↑51 Sextilis, the sixth month of the Roman year when the year began in March, was called Augustus in honour of Augustus Cæsar, as Quintilis or the fifth month was called Julius in honour of the Dictator Cæsar.

↑52 Reiske would make the ambassadors to be from Panormus (Palermo) in Sicily.

↑53 Marius was now Consul. Catulus was only Proconsul. He was consul the year before.

↑54 The allusion is to Romulus, and M. Furius Camillus, who saved Rome in the Gallic invasion B.C. 300.

↑55 L. Appuleius Saturninus was tribune in the year B.C. 100, in the sixth consulship of Marius. He was put to death in the same year (c. 30), though his death is not mentioned there by Plutarch.

C. Servilius Glaucia was prætor in this year. He lost his life at the same time with Saturninus. This Servilius was a great favourite with the people. He proposed and carried a law De Pecuniis Repetundis, or on mal-administration in a public office, some fragments of which are preserved on a bronze tablet, and have been commented on by Klenze, Berlin, 1825, 4to.

↑56 Rutilius Rufus was consul B.C. 105. He was accused of malversation in his proconsulship of Asia, B.C. 99, convicted by the judices, who at that time were taken from the Equites, and retired to Smyrna, where he spent the rest of his days. He wrote his own Memoirs in Latin, and a history of Rome in Greek. He was an honest man, according to all testimony, and innocent of the offence for which he was convicted. (Compare Tacitus, Agricola, 1; and C. Gracchus, notes, c. 5.)

↑57 The consulships of M. Valerius Corvus were comprised between B.C. 348 and B.C. 299 (See Livius, 8, c. 26.)

↑58 He was murdered at the instigation of Saturninus and Glaucia as he was leaving the place of assembly. He fled into an inn or tavern to escape, but he was followed by the rabble and killed. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 28.)

↑59 The law related to the lands which the Cimbri had taken from the Gauls in Cisalpine Gaul, and which the Romans now claimed as theirs because they had taken them from the Cimbri. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 29, &c.) gives the history of the events in this chapter.

↑60 Appian’s account is clearer than Plutarch’s. He says that Metellus withdrew before the passing; of the enactment by which he was banished. This was the usual formula by which a person was put under a ban, and it was called the Interdiction of “fire and water,” to which sometimes “house” is added, as in this case. The complete expression was probably fire, water, and house. Cicero had the same penalty imposed on him, but he withdrew from Rome, like Metellus, before the enactment was carried. There is no extant Life of Metellus Numidicus by Plutarch.

↑61 The story of the death of Saturninus and Glaucia is told by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 32). These men committed another murder before they were taken off. They set men upon Memmius, who was the competitor of Glaucia for the consulship, and Memmius was killed with clubs in the open day while the voting was going on. The Senate made a decree that Marius should put down these disturbers, but he acted unwillingly and slowly. The supply of water, according to Appian, was cut off by others, before Marius began to move. These turbulent times are spoken of by Cicero in his oration for C. Rabirius, c. 11. Marius put the men who surrendered into the Senate-house, but the people pulled the tiles off the roof and pelted the prisoners with the tiles till they died.

↑62 The return of Metellus was mainly due to the exertions of his son, who thence obtained the name of Pius. He was restored B.C. 99 by an enactment (lex) which was necessary in order to do away with the effect of the Interdict. Cicero was restored in like manner. One Publius Furius, a tribune, the son of a man who had once been a slave, successfully opposed the return of Metellus during his year of office. In the next year Furius was out of office, and Caius Canuleius, a tribune, prosecuted him for his conduct before the people (populi judicium), who had not patience enough to listen to his defence; they tore him in pieces in the Forum. Metellus was detained a whole day at the gates of Rome with receiving the congratulations of his friends on his return. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 33.)

↑63 See the Life of Sulla.

↑64 The Social, called also the Marsic, war, from the warlike nation of the Marsi who were active in it, commenced B.C. 91 and was not completely ended till B.C. 88. The immediate cause of the Social war, or the war of the Italian Allies (Socii) of the Romans, was the rejection of a measure proposed by the tribune M. Livius Drusus, which was to give to the Italian allies the rights of Roman citizens. The Allies were subject States of Rome, which supplied the Romans with men and money for their wars and contributed to their victories. They claimed to have the political rights of Romans as a compensation for their burdens; and they succeeded in the end. The war was at first unfavourable to the Romans. In the consulship of L. Julius Cæsar, B.C. 90, a Lex Julia was proposed which gave the Roman citizenship to all the Italians who had continued faithful to Rome, if they chose to accept it. A Lex Plautia Papiria of the following year extended the Lex Julia and gave the Roman citizenship to all the allies except the Samnites and Lucanians. Sulla finished the war. (See Life of Sulla.)

↑65 The MSS. of Plutarch vary in this name. His true name was Pompædius Silo: he was the leader of the Marsi. He fell in battle against Metellus Pius.

↑66 Publius Sulpicius Rufus was tribune B.C. 88 in the first consulship of Sulla. Cicero had heard many of the speeches of Sulpicius. “He was,” says Cicero, “of all the orators that ever I heard, the most dignified, and if one may use the expression, the most tragic: his voice was powerful, sweet, and clear; his gesture and every movement graceful; and yet he seemed as if he were trained for the Forum and not for the stage; his language was rapid and flowery, and yet not redundant or diffuse.” (Brutus, c. 55.) Yet this great orator was no writer, and Cicero had heard him say that he was not accustomed to write and could not write. The fact of his inability to write is sufficiently explained by the fact that he did not try. Cicero has made Sulpicius one of the speakers in his Book on the Orator, where (iii. 3) he admits that he was a rash man. (See Penny Cyclopædia, “P. Sulpicius Rufus,” by the author of this note; and as to his end, see Sulla, c. 10.)

↑67 Baiæ on the north side of the Bay of Naples, and near Puteoli (Pozzuoli), was a favourite residence of the wealthy Romans, who came for pleasure and to use the warm baths. The promontory of Misenum is near Baiæ.

↑68 Plutarch means drachmæ. (See Tiberius Gracchus, c. 2.)

↑69 The history of this affair is given somewhat more clearly by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 55). Marius gave the Italians who had lately obtained the franchise, hopes that they would be distributed among the other tribes, and thus they would have a preponderance, for they were more numerous than the old citizens. Sulpicius accordingly proposed a law to this effect, which was followed by a great disturbance, upon which the consuls Pompeius and Sulla proclaimed a Justitium such as was usual on festivals. A Justitium signifies a stopping of all legal proceedings: during a Justitium nothing could be done; and the consuls adopted this measure to prevent the proposed law of Sulpicius from being carried. Appian says that Sulpicius carried this law, and the tribes in which the new citizens now had the majority appointed Marius to the command in the war against Mithridates. But Sulla and Pompeius afterwards got all the laws of Sulpicius repealed on the ground of being earned by unconstitutional means. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 59).

↑70 This act is sufficient to stamp Marius with infamy; and it is not the only time that he did it. Octavius, an honest man, refused to arm the slave against his master. (Marius, c. 42). The last British governor of Virginia closed his inglorious career by the same unsuccessful act of cowardice. (November, 1775). “In November Lord Dunmore proclaimed martial law in the colony, and executed his long-threatened plan of giving freedom to all slaves who could bear arms and would flock to his standard. But these measures, though partially annoying, had the effect of irritating and rousing the people rather than breaking their spirit.” (Tucker’s Life of Jefferson, vol. i. p. 78). Before the middle of the next year Dunmore made his escape from Virginia, after setting fire to the town of Norfolk.

↑71 The site of this place is unknown. Cramer (Ancient Italy, ii. 31) says that the place is only mentioned by Dionysius (ii. 37).

↑72 Appian calls this Marius the adopted son of Caius Marius.

↑73 The port of Rome at the mouth of the Tiber.

↑74 Circeii is a promontory which contains a solitary elevation, now Monte Circello. Terracina or Anxur is about twelve miles east of it, and the Pomptine marshes lie between. This tract is now very thinly inhabited, being used for pasturage, and it was apparently in the same state in the time of Marius. Yet this desolate tract where a house is now rarely seen was once full of Latin towns, in the earlier period of Rome.

↑75 This is the older Greek poet of the name. It is unknown when he lived, but he belongs to a period earlier than that of authentic history. Aristotle (Hist. of Animals, vi. 5) quotes this line, and in Bekker’s edition the last word is ἀλεγίζει, which I have translated. Sintenis reads ἀλυβάζει, and Kaltwasser says that ἀλεγίζει cannot have the meaning which I and others have given to it.

↑76 Minturnæ is near the mouth of the Liris, now the Garigliano, and in a swampy district. The lower course of the Garigliano is through a flat, marshy, unhealthy region. If Marius landed near Circeii he could not well have passed Teracina without being seen. It in probable therefore that he landed south of Terracina.

↑77 Ænaria, now Ischia, is forty miles south of the mouth of the Liris.

↑78 Marius and his adherents had been declared enemies to the State; and in the declaration it was not forgotten that Marius had attempted to excite the slaves to rebellion. The head of Sulpicius was already stuck up in the Forum (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 60; Velleius, ii. 19).

↑79 A divorce at Rome was effected by the husband or wife giving a written notice. In the time of Cicero, at least, either party might effect the divorce. If the divorce was owing to the adultery of the wife, the husband was entitled to retain a part of the marriage-portion; a sixth, according to Ulpian (Frag. vi.). The marriage-portion or Dos (which Plutarch translates by the Greek word φέρνη) was that property which on the occasion of a woman’s marriage was transferred to the husband by the woman or by another, for the purpose of enabling the husband to bear the additional burden of a wife and family. All the woman’s property which did not become dos, remained her own, except in one of the forms of marriage (conventio in manum), when, pursuant to the nature of the union by which the wife came into her husband’s power and assumed towards him the relation of a daughter, all her property became her husband’s; as is distinctly asserted by Cicero (Topica, 4; compare Ulpian, Frag. xix. 18). As the dos was given to the husband for a particular purpose, it was consistent that it should be returned when the marriage was dissolved. The means of recovering the dos was by action. The liability to restore the dos would be one check on the husband lightly separating from his wife. When Cicero’s brother Quintus divorced his wife Pomponia, he had a good deal of trouble in finding means to return her portion. (Cicero, Ad Attic. xiv. 13). The law of dos comprised a great number of rules, and is a difficult subject. Rein (Das Römische Privatrecht, p. 204) has given a sketch of the Roman Law of Divorce that is useful to scholars; and he has in another place (p. 193, &c.) treated of the Law of Dos. It is difficult to avoid, error in stating anything briefly on the subject of Divorce and Dos.

↑80 Plutarch does not say what the copper coins were; nor is it important. The penalty was merely nominal, but it was accompanied by what the Romans called Infamia. Fannia showed on this occasion that she was a better woman than Marius took her to be. Tinnius is perhaps not a Roman name. There are many errors in proper names in Plutarch’s text. Perhaps the true reading is Titinius. (See the note of Sintenis).

↑81 All or nearly all of the Italian cities had a municipal constitution. The chief magistrates were generally two, and called Duumviri. The Council was called the Decuriones or Senate.

↑82 This is the island of Gerba in the regency of Tunis, close to the shore and to the town of Gabs or Cabes. It is now a large and populous island inhabited by an industrious manufacturing population. It is about 200 miles south of Tunis, which is near the site of Carthage. Cercina is a group of smaller islands above 50 miles north of Meninx, now called the Karkenna islands. These distances show that Marius must have been rambling about for some time this coast. (Penny Cyclopædia, art. “Tunis.”)

↑83 Cn. Octavius Nepos and L. Cornelius Cinna were consuls B.C. 87. Cinna had sworn to maintain the interests of the Senate (Sulla, c. 10), but when Sulla had left Italy for the Mithridatic war, Cinna declared himself in favour of the new citizens, and attempted to carry the measure for incorporating them with the old tribes. It is said that he received a considerable sum of money for undertaking this. The parties of Cinna and Octavius armed for the contest which was expected to take place when this measure was proposed. Octavius drove his opponents out of the Forum with great slaughter, and Cinna left the city. He was joined by great numbers of the new citizens and then formed an army. The Senate passed a decree that Cinna was neither consul nor a citizen, inasmuch as he had deserted the city, and offered freedom to the slaves if they would join him. L. Cornelius Merula, who was elected consul in place of Cinna, was flamen dialis, or Priest of Jupiter. He put himself to death by opening his veins, after Marius and Cinna entered Rome. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 74).

↑84 Now Talamone, on the coast of Tuscany near Orbitello.

↑85 Rome had long before this derived supplies of corn from Sicily and other parts out of Italy. Perhaps this may prove that the cultivation in the Campagna of Rome and the countries south of Terracina had not improved with the increase of Rome. But other countries are better suited for grain than the low lands of this side of Italy, and so far as concerns the cost of transport, grain might be brought from Sardinia and Sicily as cheaply as from many parts of Italy, and cheaper than from the plains of Apulia, which is a good corn country.

↑86 Metellus Pius was now carrying on the war against the Samnites, who were still in arms. He came to Rome at the invitation of the Senate. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 68.)

↑87 The Roman writers often mention the Chaldæans. They were adventurers from Asia who made their living in the great superstition market of Rome by foretelling future events. Whether they were really Chaldæans does not appear. The death of Octavius is told somewhat differently by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 71). His head was cut off and placed on the Rostra, and many other heads also. He was the first consul whose head was exposed on the Rostra. Other atrocities are mentioned by Appian, c. 72, &c. It was the fashion in England less than a hundred years back to place traitors’ heads on Temple Bar, London. “I have been this morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar; where people make a trade of letting spy-glasses at a halfpenny a look” (Horace Walpole, Letter to George Montague, Aug. 16, 1746).

↑88 Marcus Antonius, sometimes called the Orator, was the grandfather of Marcus Antonius the Triumvir. His head was fixed on the Rostra. Cicero, who has left on record a testimony to his great talents, and deplored his fate (De Oratore, iii. 3), had the same ill-luck from the hands of Antonius the Triumvir. M. Antonius the orator filled many high posts, and was consul B.C. 99. But his title to remembrance is his great oratorical skill. Cicero says that Antonius and his contemporary Lucius Licinius Crassus were the first Romans who equalled the great orators of Greece. The judicious remarks of Antonius on the conduct of a cause are preserved by Cicero (De Oratore, ii. 72). Antonius left no writings. (See “Antonius, Marcus,” in Biog. Dict. of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.)

↑89 Marius was elected Consul for the seventh time B.C. 86. His colleague was Cinna. On the death of Marius, Valerius Flaccus was elected in his place, and sent to Asia. On the death of Flaccus, Carbo was elected in his place.

↑90 One MS. has Licinius, which is the right name. Licinius was a Senator. (Livius, Epit. lib. 80: Dion, Frag. 120.)

↑91 The same person who is mentioned above (c. 1). He was of Rhodes and a Stoic. Poseidonius was one of Cicero’s teachers, and survived Cicero’s consulship, as we see from a letter of Cicero (Ad Attic. ii. 1), which also shows that he knew how to flatter his old pupil’s vanity. Cicero (De Natura Deorum, ii. 38) speaks of a Sphere of Poseidonius which represented certain phenomena of the sun’s and moon’s motions and those of the five stars (planets). Nothing is known about this embassy.

↑92 It is not known who is meant. (See Krause, Fragment. Historicorum Romanorun, p. 139.)

↑93 See the note, Sulla (c. 6).

↑94 He was a Stoic and the master of Panætius. His age is determined approximatively by the facts mentioned in the Life of Tiberius Gracchus (c. 5). (See “Antipater of Tarsus,” in Biog. Dict. of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.)

↑95 See Life of Sulla (c. 28-32). Marius was consul with Cn. Papirius Carbo, B.C. 82. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 87) says that this Marius was the nephew of the distinguished Marius. There seems to be some confusion about this younger Marius. (See c. 35.)

[Pg 285]

Lysander

↑1 A Persian gold coin, first coined by Darius the son of Hystaspes, worth £1 1s. 10d. English money.

↑2 All ancient ships were managed with two rudders.

↑3 Alluding to the cruelties practised by Philokles on the Andrians and Corinthians, and the decree for the mutilation of the captives, of which Philokles was the author.

↑4 Golden crowns, at this period of Greek history, was the name applied to large sums of money voted by cities to men whose favour they hoped to gain.

↑5 A spit is called obelus in Greek.

↑6 Probably of each of the Spartan admirals who had commanded during the war. It should be remembered that Lysander was nominally admiral when he won the battle of Ægospotami.

↑7 The Greek word probably means papyrus. Clough translates it “parchment.”—cf. Aulus Gellius, xvii. 9.

↑8 Ulysses.

↑9 An Egyptian divinity, represented with ram’s horns, and identified by the Romans with Jupiter, and by the Greeks with Zeus. He possessed a celebrated temple and oracle in the oasis of Ammonium (Siwah) in the Libyan desert.—Smith’s Classical Dict. s.v.

↑10 Megara was always treated by the Greeks with the utmost contempt, as possessing no importance, political or otherwise.

↑11 Agesilaus offered sacrifice at Aulis, in imitation of Agamemnon, before starting for Asia. But before he had completed the rite, the Bœotarchs sent a party of horse to enjoin him to desist, and the men did not merely deliver the message, but scattered the parts of the victim which they found on the altar.—Thirlwall’s History of Greece, ch. xxxv.

↑12 The name of this fountain should probably be corrected from Strabo and Pausanias, and read Tilphusa, or Tilphosa,—Langhorne.

↑13 Strabo tells us, Haliartus was destroyed by the Romans in the war with Perseus. He also mentions a lake near it, which produces canes or reeds, not for shafts of javelins, but for pipes or flutes. Compare Plutarch’s Life of Sulla, ch. xx. ad fin.

↑14 The Greeks attached great importance to the burial of the dead, and after a battle, that party which demanded a truce for collecting and burying its dead was thought to have admitted itself to have been defeated. Naturally, therefore, the proposal was regarded as humiliating by the Spartans of 395 B.C.

↑15 It should be remembered that Chæronea was Plutarch’s own city, and that he was a priest at Delphi, and, consequently, was especially familiar with the country here described.

↑16 Hoplites, in Greek, usually means a warrior fully armed.

[Pg 317]

Sulla

↑1 Many distinguished families belonged to the Cornelii, as the Scipiones, Lentuli, Dolabellæ, and others. The Patricians were the old Roman noble families, whom Plutarch compares with the Athenian Eupatridæ, or men of noble family, who formed in the older periods of Athenian history the first class in the State.

The origin of the word Sulla is uncertain. This Sulla was not the first who bore it. P. Cornelius Rufinus, Prætor B.C. 212, the grandfather of this Sulla, also bore the name. The various conjectures on the origin of the name Sulla are given by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, ii. p. 426. The name should be written Sulla, not Sylla. The coins have always Sulla or Sula. (Rasche, Lex Rei Numariæ; Eckhel, Doctrina Num. Vet. v. 189.) L. Cornelius Sulla was the son of L. Cornelius Sulla, and born B.C. 138.

↑2 P. Cornelius Rufinus was consul B.C. 290. He was also Dictator, but in what year is uncertain. He was ejected from the Senate by the Censor C. Fabricius B.C. 275 for violating one of the sumptuary laws of Rome, or those which limited expense. The story is mentioned by Gellius (iv. 8; xvii. 21). Plutarch has translated the Latin word Libræ by the Greek Litræ.

The Romans made many enactments for limiting expense in dress, entertainments, funerals (Sulla, c. 35), amount of debt to be incurred, and so forth, all of which were unavailing. The notion of regulating private expenditure was not peculiar to the Romans among the states of antiquity; and our own legislation, which in its absurd as well as its best parts has generally some parallel in that of the Romans, contains many instances of sumptuary laws, which prescribed what kind of dress, and of what quality, should be worn by particular classes, and so forth. The English Sumptuary Statutes relating to Apparel commenced with the 37th of Edward III. This statute, after declaring that the outrageous and excessive apparel of divers people against their estate and degree is the destruction and impoverishment of the land, prescribes the apparel of the various classes into which it distributes the people; but it goes no higher than knights. The clothing of the women and children is also regulated. The next statute, 3rd of Edward IV., is very minute. This kind of statute-making went on at intervals to the 1st of Philip & Mary, when an Act was passed for the Reformation of Excessive Apparel. These Apparel Statutes were repealed by the 1st of James I.

↑3 This word does not convey the exact notion, but it is sufficient. The original is Gephyrists ( γεφυρισταί). There was, they say, a bridge (Gephyra) on the road between Athens and Eleusis, from which, during the sacred processions to Eleusis, the people (or, as some authorities say, the women) were allowed the liberty of joking and saying what they pleased; and hence the name of such free speakers, Bridgers, Bridge-folk. (See Casaubon’s note on Strabo, p. 400.) Hence the word came to signify generally abusive people. Sulla did not forget these insults when he took Athens (c. 13). Plutarch alludes to this also in his Treatise on Garrulity, c. 7.

↑4 Mimus is a name given by the Romans both to an actor and to a kind of dramatic performance, which probably resembled a coarse farce, and was often represented in private houses. Its distinguishing character was a want of decency. The word Mimus is of Greek origin, and probably derived its name from the amount of gestures and action used in these performances. The Greeks also had their Mimi.

↑5 This passage is apparently corrupt. But the general meaning is tolerably clear. (See Sulla, c. 36.)

↑6 See Marius, c. 10.

↑7 Tribunus Militum, a military tribune. Plutarch translates the term by Chiliarchus, a commander of a thousand. At this time there were six tribunes to a Roman legion.

↑8 The Tectosages were a Celtic people who lived at the foot of the Pyrenees west of Narbo (Narbonne).

↑9 Mannert (Geographie der Griechen und Römer, Pt. iii. p. 216) wishes to establish that these Marsi were a German nation, who lived on both sides of the Lippe and extended to the Rhine, and not the warlike nation of the Marsi who inhabited the central Apennines south-east of Rome. This is the remark of Mannert as quoted by Kaltwasser; but I do not find it in the second edition of Mannert (Pt. iii. 168), where he is treating of the German Marsi.

↑10 The passage is in the Phœnissæ of Euripides, v. 531 &c.:

Why seek the most pernicious of all dæmons,

Ambition, O my son? Not so; unjust the goddess,

And houses many, many prosperous states

She enters and she quits, but ruins all.

↑11 The exhibition of wild animals in the Roman games was now become a fashion. In the latter part of the Republic it was carried to an enormous extent: the elephant, the rhinocerous, the lion, and other wild animals, were brought from Africa to Rome for these occasions. When Sulla was prætor B.C. 93, he exhibited one hundred lions in the Circus, which were let loose and shot with arrows by archers whom King Bocchus sent for the purpose. (Plinius, N.H. viii. 16, Seneca, De Brevitate Vitæ, c. 13.) There was an old decree of the Senate which prohibited the importation of African wild beasts, but it was repealed by a measure proposed by the tribune Cn. Aufidius so far as to render the importation legal for the games of the Circus.

Plutarch speaks of Sulla as immediately canvassing for the prætorship after his return to Rome. The dates show that at least several years elapsed before he succeeded.

↑12 Probably Sextus Julius Cæsar, consul B.C. 91, and the uncle of the Dictator, C. Julius Cæsar.

↑13 Ariobarzanes I. called Philoromæus, or a lover of the Romans, was elected king of Cappadocia B.C. 93, but he was soon expelled by Tigranes, king of Armenia, the son-in-law of Mithridates. Ariobarzanes applied for help to the Romans, and he was restored by Sulla B.C. 92. He was driven out several times after, and again restored by the Romans.

↑14 The name is written Mithradates on the Greek coins. The word Mithradates occurs in various shapes in the Greek writers; and it was a common name among the Medes and Persians. The first part of the name (Mithra) is probably the Persian name Mitra or Mithra, the Sun. This Mithridates is Mithradates the Sixth, king of Pontus in Asia, who succeeded his father Mithridates V. B.C. 120, when he was about eleven years of age. He was a man of ability, well instructed in the learning of the Greeks, and a great linguist: it is said that he could speak twenty-two languages. He had already got possession of Colchis on the Black Sea, and placed one of his sons on the throne of Cappadocia. He had also strengthened himself by marrying his daughter to Tigranes king of Armenia. Other events in his life are noticed in various parts of the Lives of Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompeius. (See Penny Cyclopædia, “Mithridates VI.”)

↑15 This name was common to a series of Armenian, and to a series of Parthian kings. One Arsaces is considered to be the founder of the dynasty of the Parthian kings, which dynasty the Greeks and Romans call that of the Arsacidæ. This Arsaces is reckoned the ninth in the series, and was the son and successor of Arsaces the Eighth. He is placed in the series of Parthian kings as Arsaces IX. Mithridates II. (On the series of Parthian Arsacidæ, see “Arsaces,” in Biograph. Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.) From the time of this interview of Sulla to a late period under the Roman Empire, the Romans and Parthians were sometimes friends, oftener enemies. No name occurs so frequently among the Roman writers of the Augustan period as that of the Parthians, the most formidable enemy that the Romans encountered in Asia, and who stopped their victorious progress in the East.

↑16 The MSS. have “a native of Chalkis” ( Χαλκιδεύς), a manifest blunder, which has long since been corrected.

↑17 Censorinus was a family name of the Marcii. This appears to be C. Censorinus, whom Cicero (Brutus, c. 67) speaks of as moderately versed in Greek Literature. He lost his life in the wars of Sulla B.C. 81.

↑18 Timotheus distinguished himself during the period of the decline of the power of Athens. In the year B.C. 357 he and Iphicrates were sent with a fleet to reduce to obedience the Athenian subject states and especially the island of Samos. The expedition was unsuccessful, and Timotheus and other generals were brought to trial on their return home. Timotheus was convicted, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine, but as he was unable to pay it, he withdrew to Chalkis in Eubœa, where he died B.C. 354. (Penny Cyclopædia, art. “Timotheus.”) This story of the painting is told by Ælianus, Var. Hist. xiii. 43.

↑19 The original has “the dæmon” ( δαιμόνιον), which is Fortune, as the context shows. It is not very easy to unravel all the ancient notions about Fortune, Nemesis, and the like personifications. The opinion that the deity, or the dæmon, looks with an envious eye on a man’s prosperity and in the end pays him off with some equivalent loss, is very common in the Greek writers. One instance of it occurs in the letter of Amasis, the cunning King of Egypt, to Polykrates the tyrant of Samos. (Herodotus, iii. 40.) The Egyptian King tells Polykrates plainly that his great good luck would certainly draw upon him some heavy calamity, for “the dæmon (τὸ θεῖον) is envious;” and so it was, for Polykrates died a wretched death. Timotheus, according to Plutarch, provoked Fortune by his arrogance.

↑20 This word (δαίμων) often occurs in Plutarch. In order to understand it, we must first banish from our minds the modern notions attached to the word Dæmon. A little further, Sulla speaks of what the dæmon (το δαιμόνιον) enjoins during the night. People in ancient times attached great importance to dreams, because they were considered as a medium by which the gods communicated with men. There is great difficulty in translating an ancient writer on account of the terms used in speaking of superhuman powers.

Apuleius, who lived in the second century of our æra and was consequently nearly a contemporary of Plutarch, has explained this doctrine of dæmons in his treatise On the God of Sokrates. “Moreover there are certain divine middle powers, situated in this interval between the highest ether and earth, which is in the lowest place, through whom our desires and deserts pass to the gods. These are called by a Greek name dæmons, who being placed between the terrestrial and celestial inhabitants, transmit prayers from the one and gifts from the other. They likewise carry supplications from the one and auxiliaries from the other as certain interpreters and saluters of both. Through these same dæmons, as Plato says in the Banquet, all denunciations, the various miracles of enchanters, and all the species of presages, are directed. Prefects, from among the number of these, providentially attend to everything, according to the province assigned to each; either by the formation of dreams, or causing the fissures in entrails, or governing the flight of some birds, and instructing the song of others, or by inspiring prophets, or hurling thunder, or producing the coruscations of lightning in the clouds, or causing other things to take place from which we obtain a knowledge of future events. And it is requisite to think that all these particulars are effected by the will, the power, and authority of the celestial gods, but by the compliance, operations, and ministrant offices of dæmons.”—T. Taylor’s Translation: he adds, “For a copious account of dæmons, their nature, and different orders, see the notes on the First Alkibiades in vol. i. of my Plato, and also my translation of Iamblichus on the Mysteries.” A little further on Apuleius says: “It is not fit that the supernal gods should descend to things of this kind. This is the province of the intermediate gods, who dwell in the regions of the air, which border on the earth, and yet are no less conversant with the confines of the heavens; just as in every part of the world there are animals adapted to the several parts, the volant being in the air and the gradient on the earth.”

As to the expression “the god” (ὁ θεός), which often occurs in Greek writers, Taylor observes (note a.) “According to Plato one thing is a god simply, another on account of union, another through participation, another through contact, and another through similitude. For of super-essential natures, each is primarily a god; of intellectual natures, each is a god according to union; and of divine souls, each is a god according to contact with the gods; and the souls of men are allotted this appellation through similitude.” He therefore concludes that Apuleius was justified in calling the dæmon of Sokrates a god; and that this was the opinion of Sokrates appears, as he says, from the First Alkibiades, where Sokrates says, “I have long been of opinion that the god did not as yet direct me to hold any conversation with you.”

Apuleius further says, “There is another species of dæmons, more sublime and venerable, not less numerous, but far superior in dignity, who, being always liberated from the bonds and conjunction of the body, preside over certain powers. In the number of these are Sleep and Love, who possess powers of a different nature; Love, of exciting to wakefulness, but Sleep of lulling to rest. From this more sublime order of dæmons, Plato asserts that a peculiar dæmon is allotted to every man who is a witness and a guardian of his conduct in life, who, without being visible to any one, is always present, and who is an arbitrator not only of his deeds, but also of his thoughts. But when, life being finished, the soul returns [to the judges of its conduct], then the dæmon who presided over it, immediately seizes and leads it as his charge to judgment, and is there present with it while it pleads its cause. There, this dæmon reprehends it, if it has acted on any false pretence; solemnly confirms what it says, if it asserts anything that is true; and conformably to its testimony passes sentence. All you therefore who hear this divine opinion of Plato, as interpreted by me, so form your minds to whatever you may do, or to whatever may be the subject of your meditation, that you may know there is nothing concealed from those guardians either within the mind or external to it; but that the dæmon who presides over you inquisitively participates of all that concerns you, sees all things, understands all things, and in the place of conscience dwells in the most profound recesses of the mind. For he of whom I speak is a perfect guardian, a singular prefect, a domestic speculator, a proper curator, an intimate inspector, an assiduous observer, an inseparable arbiter, a reprobator of what is evil, an approver of what is good; and if he is legitimately attended to, sedulously known, and religiously worshipped, in the way in which he was reverenced by Sokrates with justice and innocence, will be a predicter of things uncertain, a premonitor in things dubious, a defender in things dangerous, and an assistant in want. He will also be able, by dreams, by tokens, and perhaps also manifestly, when the occasion demands it, to avert from you evil, increase your good, raise your depressed, support your falling, illuminate your obscure, govern your prosperous, and correct your adverse circumstances. It is not therefore wonderful, if Sokrates, who was a man exceedingly perfect, and also wise by the testimony of Apollo, should know and worship this his god; and that hence, this his keeper, and nearly, as I may say, his equal, his associate and domestic, should repel from him everything which ought to be repelled, foresee what ought to be noticed, and pre-admonish him of what ought to be foreknown by him, in those cases in which, human wisdom being no longer of any use, he was in want not of counsel but of presage, in order that when he was vacillating through doubt, he might be rendered firm through divination. For there are many things, concerning the development of which even wise men betake themselves to diviners and oracles.” I have adopted Taylor’s translation of this eloquent passage, because he was well acquainted with the theological systems of antiquity. The whole passage is a useful comment on this chapter of Plutarch and many other passages in him, and may help to rectify some erroneous notions which people maintain of the philosophical systems of antiquity, people who, as Bishop Butler expresses it, “take for granted that they are acquainted with everything.” The passage about conscience contains, as Taylor observes, a dogma which is only to be found implicitly maintained in the Scholia of Olympiodorus on the First Alkibiades of Plato. Olympiodorus says that we shall not err if we call “the allotted dæmon conscience;” on which subject he has some further remarks. This doctrine of the sameness of conscience and the internal dæmon seems to be that of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (ii. 13): “It is sufficient to attend only to the dæmon within us and to reverence it duly,” and he goes on to explain wherein this reverence consists. In another passage (ii. 17) he says that philosophy consists “in keeping the dæmon within us free from violence and harm, superior to pleasures and pains, doing nothing without a purpose, and yet without any falsehood or simulation, without caring whether another is doing so or not; further, taking what happens and what is our lot as coming from the same origin from which itself came; and finally, waiting for death with a tranquil mind, as nothing else than the separation of the elements of which every living being is composed. And if there is nothing to fear in the elemental parts constantly changing one into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of the whole? for it is according to Nature, and nothing is bad that is according to Nature.” Bishop Butler remarks (Preface to his Sermons): “The practical reason of insisting so much upon the natural authority of the principle of reflection or conscience is, that it seems in a great measure overlooked by many who are by no means the worst sort of men. It is thought sufficient to abstain from gross wickedness, and to be humane and kind to such as happen to come in their way. Whereas, in reality, the very constitution of our nature requires, that we bring our whole conduct before this superior faculty; wait its determination; enforce upon ourselves its authority; and make it the business of our lives, as it is absolutely the whole business of a moral agent, to conform ourselves to it. This is the true meaning of that ancient precept, reverence thyself.”

This note does not apply to any particular case, when dæmons are mentioned by Plutarch, but to all cases where he speaks of dæmons, divination, dreams, and other signs.

↑21 Quintus Cæcilius Metellus Pius, the son of Metellus Numidicus, was consul with Sulla in his second consulship B.C. 80.

↑22 The place is unknown, unless it be the place near the altar of Laverna, the goddess of thieves, which was near the Porta Lavernalis, as Varro says (Ling. Lat. v. 163). Horatius (1 Ep. xvi. 60) represents the rogue as putting up a prayer “to the Fair Laverna,” that he may appear to be what he is not, an honest man, and that night and darkness may kindly cover his sins. The phænomenon which Sulla describes appears to have been of a volcanic character; and if so, it is the most recent on record within the volcanic region of the Seven Hills.

↑23 Apparently Aulus Postumius Albinus, who was consul with Marcus Antonius B.C. 99. Valerius Maximus tells the story (ix. 8, 3).

↑24 This was Sulla’a first consulship, B.C. 88. If he was now fifty, he was born B.C. 138. His colleague was Quintus Pompeius Rufus, who was killed in this same year at the instigation or at least with the approbation of Cn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of Pompeius Magnus. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 63.)

↑25 Cæcilia Metella was the fourth wife of Sulla. The other three are mentioned in this chapter. Ilia is perhaps a mistake for Julia. Sulla’s fifth and last wife was Valeria, c. 35.

↑26 Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Cæcilii) has shown that Plutarch is mistaken in supposing Cæcilia to be the daughter of Metellus Pius, who was consul with Sulla B.C. 80. She was the daughter of L. Metellus Dalmaticus, who was the brother of Metellus Numidicus and the uncle of Metellus Pius. Her first husband was M. Scaurus, consul B.C. 115, by whom she had several children, and among them the Scaurus whom Cicero defended. Metella had children by Sulla also. (See c. 36, notes.)

↑27 The historian of Rome. These events belonged to the seventy-seventh book of Livius, which is lost. The Epitome shows what this book contained.

↑28 This word occurs three times in this chapter. In the first instance, the word is the dæmonium; in the second it is the god (ὁ θεός); in the third, it is the dæmonium again.

↑29 The Senate often met in the temple of Duellona or Bellona, the goddess of War. Duellona and Bellona are the same. Compare the Bacchanalian Inscription, and Livius (28, c. 9, &c.).

The last sentence of this chapter is corrupt, and the precise meaning is uncertain.

↑30 See Marius, c. 35.

↑31 A man might be manumitted so as either to have the complete citizenship or not. If Plutarch’s account is true, the citizenship was sold to those libertini who were of the class Dediticii or Latini. (Gaius, i. 12, &c.)

↑32 See the note on the Sumptuary Laws, c. 1.

↑33 Plutarch here uses the same word (ἀπράξιαι) which I have elsewhere translated by the Roman word Justitium. (Marius, c. 35.)

↑34 Appian (Civil Wars, i. 57) says that all Sulla’s officers left him, when he was going to march to Rome, except one quæstor. They would not serve against their country.

↑35 That is Moon, Athena (Minerva), and Enyo (Bellona). It is difficult to conjecture what Cappadocian goddess Plutarch means, if it be not the Great Mother. (Marius, c. 17.)

↑36 The place is unknown. There are some discrepancies between the narrative of these transactions in Plutarch and Appian. Appian’s is probably the better (i. 58, &c.). The reading Pictæ has been suggested. (Strabo, p. 237.)

↑37 The Roman word is Tellus. (Livius, 2, c. 41.) The temple was built on the ground occupied by the house of Spurius Cassius, which was pulled down after his condemnation. (Livius, 2, c. 41.)

↑38 Appian (Civil Wars, i. 60) mentions the names of twelve persons who were proscribed. The attempt to rouse the slaves to rebellion was one of the grounds of this condemnation, and a valid ground.

↑39 L. Cornelius Cinna and Cn. Octavius were consuls B.C. 87. the year in which Sulla left Italy to fight with Mithridates. Apuleius (On the God of Sokrates) thus alludes to the kind of oath which Cinna took—“Shall I swear by Jupiter, holding a stone in my hand, after the most ancient manner of the Romans? But if the opinion of Plato is true, that God never mingles himself with man, a stone will hear me more easily than Jupiter. This however is not true: for Plato will answer for his opinion by my voice. I do not, says he, assert that the gods are separated and alienated from us, so as to think that not even our prayers reach them; for I do not remove them from an attention to, but only from a contact with human affairs.”

↑40 Appian (Civil Wars, i. 63, 64) gives another reason. Sulla was alarmed at the assassination of his colleague Quintus Pompeius Rufus, and left Rome by night for Capua, whence he set out for Greece.

↑41 This was the country on the west coast of Asia Minor, of which the Romans had formed the province of Asia. Mithridates took advantage of the Romans being busied at home with domestic troubles to advance his interests in Asia, where he was well received by the people, who were disgusted with the conduct of the Roman governors. He had defeated the Roman generals L. Cassius, Manius Aquilius, and Q. Oppius. (Appian, Mithridatic War, c. 17, &c.) He also ordered all the Romans and Italians who were in Asia, with their wives and children, to be murdered on one day; which was done.

↑42 The kingdom of Bosporus was a long narrow slip on the south-east coast of the peninsula now called the Crimea or Taurida. The name Bosporus was properly applied to the long narrow channel, now called the Straits of Kaffa or Yenikalé, which unites the Black Sea and the Mæotis or Sea of Azoff. Bosporus was also a name of Pantikapæum, one of the chief towns of the Bosporus. There was a series of Greek kings of the Bosporus, extending from B.C. 430 to B.C. 304, whose names are known; and there may have been others. In the time of Demosthenes, in the fourth century before the Christian æra, the Athenians imported annually a large quantity of corn from the Bosporus. This was the country that now belonged to Mithridates. (Penny Cyclopædia, article “Bosporus.”)

↑43 Kaltwasser conjectures that the son who is first mentioned was Mithridates, and he remarks that Appian (Mithridatic War, c. 64) calls him also Mithridates. But in place of the name Ariarathes, he reads Aciarathes, whom he makes to be the same as the Arcathias of Appian (c. 35). Ariarathes however was a son of Mithridates (Mithridatic War, 15); and according to Appian, it was a son Mithridates who held Pontus and the Bosporus. Ariarathes and Arcathias assisted their father in the war in Asia.

↑44 This Archelaus was a native of Cappadocia, and probably of Greek stock. His name often occurs afterwards. (See “Archelaus,” Biograph. Dict. of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.)

↑45 The promontory of Malea, now Cape St. Angelo, is the most south-eastern point of the Peloponnesus. The expression of Plutarch is, “all the islands situated within Malea,” by which he means all the islands of the Archipelago which are east of Malea, including the Cyclades, or the group which lies in somewhat of a circular form round the small rocky island of Delos.

↑46 His name is Brettius in the MSS. of Plutarch. His Roman name is Bruttius, as Appian (Mithridat. War, i. 29) writes it. He took the island of Skiathus, where the enemy deposited their plunder; he hanged the slaves that he found there, and cut off the hands of the freemen. Cæsar, when he was in Gaul, cut off the hands of all the persons who had assisted in the defence of Uxellodunum against the Romans, according to the author of the eighth book of the Gallic War (viii. 44).

↑47 See the Life of Lucullus.

↑48 He is called Athenion by Athenæus. His father was an Athenian citizen; his mother was an Egyptian woman. His political career began with his being sent by the Athenians on an embassy to Mithridates, and he ultimately persuaded the Athenians to join the king. This is the account of Posidonius as quoted by Athenæus (v. 211, &c. ed. Casaub.) Appian (Mithridatic War, 28, &c.) gives an account of his making himself a tyrant in Athens, which is somewhat different. He appears to have established himself in B.C. 88; and his power only lasted till B.C. 86. This Aristion was a philosopher, which gives occasion to some curious remarks by Appian (Mithridatic War, c. 28), who says, speaking of his enormities: “and all this he did though he was a follower of the Epicurean philosophy. But it was not Aristion only at Athens, nor yet Kritias before him, and all who were philosophers with Kritias and tyrants at the same time; but in Italy also, those who were Pythagoreans, and in Greece the Seven Sages as they are called, as many of them as engaged in public affairs,—all were chiefs and tyrants more cruel than tyrants who were not philosophers. So that one may doubt as to other philosophers, and have some suspicion, whether it was for virtue’s sake, or merely to console them for their poverty and having nothing to do with political matters, that they adopted philosophy. There are now many philosophers in a private station and poor who consequently wrap themselves up in philosophy out of necessity, and bitterly abuse those who are rich or in power; and thereby do not so much get a reputation for despising wealth and power as being envious of them. But those whom they abuse act much more wisely in despising them.” There was at least one exception to these philosophers, Marcus Antoninus, who was the head of the Roman State, and required in his exalted station all the comfort that philosophy could give.

↑49 The Peiræus, one of the chief ports of Athens, is often used to express the maritime city generally and the lower city, as opposed to Athens, which was called the Upper City. The two cities were united by the Long Walls, about four miles in length.

↑50 The Academia, one of the suburbs of Athens, was planted with trees, among others with the olive. It was on the north-west side of the city. In the Academia there was a Gymnasium, or exercise place, and here also Plato delivered his lectures; whence the name Academy passed into use as a term for a University (in the sense of a place of learning) in the Middle Ages, and has now other significations. The Lycæum was another similar place on the east side of Athens.

↑51 This was Epidaurus on the east coast of Argolis in the Peloponnesus, which contained a temple of Æsculapius, the god of healing. Olympia on the Alpheius, in Elis, contained the great temple of Jupiter and immense wealth, which was accumulated by the offerings of many ages. This and other temples were also used as places of deposit for the preservation of valuable property. Pausanias (v. 21, vi. 19, and in other passages) has spoken at great length of the treasures of Olympia. These rich deposits were a tempting booty to those who were in want of money and were strong enough to seize it. At the commencement of the Peloponnesian war (B.C. 431) it was proposed that the Peloponnesian allies should raise a fleet by borrowing money from the deposits at Olympia and Delphi (Thucydides, i. 121), a scheme which the Athenians, their enemies, appear to have looked upon as a mode of borrowing of which repayment would form no part. (i. 143. είτε καὶ κινήσαντες, &c.). Many of the rich churches in Italy were plundered by the French during their occupation of Italy in the Revolutionary wars; their search after valuables extended to very minute matters. The rich stores of the Holy House of the Virgin at Loreto were nearly exhausted by Pope Pius VI. in 1796 to satisfy the demands of the French. It is said that there is a new store got together for the next invader.

↑52 The history of this ancient body cannot be given with any accuracy except in detail. (See the article “Amphictyons,” Penny Cyclopædia.) The “royal presents” were the gifts of Crœsus, king of Lydia (in the sixth century B.C.) the most munificent of all the donors to the temple. Among his other presents Herodotus (i. 51) mentions four of these silver casks or jars, and he uses the same word that Plutarch does. The other three had probably been taken by some previous plunderer. In the Sacred war (B.C. 357) the Phokians under Philomelus took a large part of the valuable things at Delphi for the purpose of paying their troops. (Diodorus, xvi. 30.)

↑53 Flamininus, whose life Plutarch has written under the name of Flaminius, defeated Philip V. king of Macedonia B.C. 197. Manius Acilius Glabrio, who was consul B.C. 191, defeated in that year Antiochus III. king of Syria, commonly called the Great, at Thermopylæ in Greece. Antiochus afterwards withdrew into Asia. Æmilius Paulus defeated Perseus, the last king of Macedonia, at Pydna B.C. 168, upon which Macedonia was reduced into the form of a Roman Province (Livius, 45, c. 18.). Plutarch has written the Life of Paulus Æmilius.

↑54 See the Life of Marius, c. 42.

↑55 See c. 20, 21. C. Flavius Fimbria was the legatus of the consul L. Valerius Flaccus. Cicero (Brutus, 66) calls him a madman.

↑56 The Medimnus was a dry measure, reckoned at 11 gallons 7.1456 pints English. It was equivalent to six Roman modii. (Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities.)

↑57 This plant may have had its name from the virgin (parthenos) goddess Athene, whom the Romans call Minerva. Plinius (N.H. 22, c. 20) has described it. It is identified with the modern feverfew by Smith in Rees’ Cyclopædia,—a plant of the chamomile kind; rather unpleasant for food, as one might conjecture. The oil-flasks were of coarse leather. In Herodotus (ix. 118) we read of a besieged people eating their bedcords, which we may assume to have been strips of hides, or leather at least.

↑58 For all matters relating to the topography of Rome and Athens, the reader must consult a plan: nothing else can explain the text. The gate called Dipylum or Double-Gate was the passage from the Keramicus within the walls to the Keramicus outside of the walls on the north-west side of Athens.

↑59 Teius is not a Roman name. It is conjectured that it should be Ateius.

↑60 The road from Athens to Eleusis was called the Sacred (Pausanius, i. 36): it led to the sacred city of Eleusis. The space between the Peiræic gate and the Sacred is that part of the wall which lay between the roads from Athens to the Piræus and Eleusis respectively.

↑61 A Greek Agora corresponds to a Roman Forum.

↑62 The description of the capture of Athens is given by Appian. (Mithridatic War, c. 30.) Plutarch here alludes to the deluge in the time of Deucalion, which is often mentioned by the Greek and Roman writers. In the time of Pausanias (i. 18), in the second century of our æra, they still showed at Athens the hole through which the waters of the deluge ran off. A map of the Topography of Athens has been published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Leake’s Topography of Athens, K.O. Müller, in Ersch und Gruber, Encyclop. art. “Attika,” p. 223, and P.W. Forchhammer, Topographie von Athen, 1841, should be consulted.

↑63 See Strabo, p. 395.

↑64 One of the ports of the maritime town of Athens. The events mentioned in this chapter should be compared with Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 41).

↑65 His name was Lucius, and he was probably a brother of the great Hortensius. L. Hortensius had to pass through a difficult country to reach Bœotia. His route lay through the straits of Thermopylæ; but he probably took some other line, and he was conducted by Kaphis over the heights of the great mountain mass of Parnassus. Kaphis appears to be the person of the same name who has been mentioned before (c. 12), though he is there called a Phokian. In this chapter Plutarch calls him a Chæroneian. Tithora or Tithorea was in the time of Herodotus (viii. 32) the name of that summit of Parnassus to which the Phokians of the neighbouring town of Neon fled from the soldiers of Xerxes B.C. 480. Pausanias (x. 32) remarks that the city Neon must have taken the name of Tithorea after the time of Herodotus. But Plutarch means to say that the Tithora of which he speaks was the place to which the Phokians fled; and therefore Neon, the place from which they fled, cannot be Tithora, according to Plutarch; and the description of Tithorea by Herodotus, though very brief, agrees with the description of Plutarch. Pausanias places Tithorea eighty stadia from Delphi.

↑66 Elateia was an important position in Phokis and near the river Kephisus. It was situated near the north-western extremity of the great Bœotian plain, and commanded the entrance into that plain from the mountainous country to the north-west. The Kephisus takes a south-east course past Elateia, Panopeus, Chæronea, and Orchomenus, and near Orchomenus it enters the Lake Kopais. Bœotia is a high table-land surrounded by mountains, and all the drainage of the plain of which those of Elateia and Orchomenus are part is received in the basin of the lake, which has no outlet.

↑67 This city was burnt by Xerxes in his invasion of Greece B.C. 480. (Herodotus, viii. 33.) Pausanias (x. 33) says that it was not rebuilt by the Bœotians and Athenians: in another passage (x. 3) he says it was destroyed by Philip after the close of the Sacred or Phokian war B.C. 346; and therefore it had been rebuilt by somebody.

↑68 The soldiers who had shields of brass.

↑69 This was Aulus Gabinius, who was sent by Sulla B.C. 81 with orders to L. Licinius Murena to put an end to the war with Mithridates. Ericius is not a Roman name: perhaps it should be Hirtius.

↑70 This is Juba II., king of Mauritania, who married Cleopatra, one of the children of Marcus Antonius by Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. Juba was a scholar and an author: he is often quoted, by Strabo, Plinius (Nat Hist.), and other writers.

↑71 “Our city” will explain why Plutarch has described the campaign in the plains of Bœotia at such length. Plutarch’s battles are none of the best; and he has done well in making them generally short.

↑72 The cave of Trophonius was at Lebadeia in Bœotia. Pausanias (ix. 39) has given a full account of the singular ceremonies used on consulting the deity.

↑73 The word is ὀμφῆς, literally “voice,” which has caused a difficulty to the translators; but the reading is probably right.

↑74 This was Lucius Licinius Murena, who conducted the war against Mithridates in Asia B.C. 83 as Proprætor. He was the father of the Lucius Murena in whose defence we have an extant oration of Cicero.

↑75 The old story is well told by Ovidius (Metamorphoses, iii. 14, &c.)

↑76 A temple of the Muses.

↑77 Kaltwasser has followed the reading “Gallus” in his version, though, as he remarks in a note, this man is called Galba by Appian (Mithridat. War, 43), and he is coupled with Hortensius, just as in Plutarch.

↑78 This clumsy military contrivance must generally have been a failure. These chariots were useless in the battle between Cyrus and his brother Artaxerxes B.C. 401. (Xenophon, Anabasis, i. 8.) Appian (Mithridatic War, c. 42) mentions sixty of these chariots as being driven against the Romans, who opened their ranks to make way for them: the chariots were surrounded by the Roman soldiers in the rear and destroyed.

↑79 A Circus was a Roman racecourse. The chief circus was the Circus Maximus, which was used also for hunts of wild beasts. See the article “Circus” in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities.

↑80 I have kept the Greek word (ὁπλίτης), which means a soldier who was equipped with defensive armour for close fighting.

↑81 The Saturnalia were a kind of Carnival at Rome in the month of December, when people indulged themselves in feasting and revelry, and the slaves had the license of doing for a time what they pleased, and acting as if they were freemen. The original “freedom of speech” may mean a little more than these words convey. The point of the centurion’s remark, like many other jokes of antiquity, seems rather blunt. He simply meant to express surprise at seeing slaves in an army serving as soldiers—they whose only freedom, so far as he knew, was to have a little license once a year at the Saturnalia.

↑82 A town in Eubœa on the strait of the Euripus which separates the island of Eubœa from the mainland. The smallness of the Roman loss is incredible. Appian considerately add one to the number, and makes it fifteen (Mithridatic War, c. 42, &c.) Sulla was a braggart, though he was brave.

↑83 This stream is called Morius (c. 17). Pausanias, who made his tour through Greece in the first half of the second century of our æra, saw the trophies (ix. 40).

↑84 L. Valerius Flaccus was elected consul B.C. 86 in the place of C. Marius, who died at the beginning of the year.

↑85 The name given by the Greeks and Romans to that part of the Mediterranean which lay between Dyrrachium (Durazzo) and the opposite coast of Italy. Thucydides (i. 24) makes the Ionian Sea commence about Epidamnus (which was the old name of Dyrrachium), and probably he extended the name to all the Adriatic or modern Gulf of Venice.

↑86 A town in Phthiotis, a district which is included in Thessalia in the larger sense of that term. It was on the river Enipeus, a branch of the Peneus. (Strabo, p. 452.) Thucydides (iv. 78) means the same place, when he speaks of Meliteia in Achæa.

↑87 A mountain in Bœotia and a spring (Tilphussa) about fifty stadia from Haliartus. (Pausanias, ix. 33.) Haliartus is on the south side of the Lake Kopais.

↑88 Orchomenus, one of the oldest towns in Bœotia and in Greece, is situated near the point where the Kephisus enters the great Lake. Plutarch speaks again of the Melas in the Life of Pelopidas (c. 16). Pausanias (ix. 88) says that the Melas rises seven stadia from Orchomenus, and enters the lake Kephisus, otherwise called Kepais.

↑89 If we assume that it was exactly two hundred years, Plutarch wrote this passage about A.D. 114, in the reign of Trajanus. This battle was fought B.C. 86. Hadrianus became emperor A.D. 117. (See Preface, p. xiv.)

↑90 Cn. Papirius Carbo was the colleague of Cinna in the consulship B.C. 85 and 84.

↑91 A Deliac merchant This might be a merchant of Delium, the small town in Bœotia, on the Euripus, where Sulla and Archelaus met. But Delos, a small rocky island, one of the Cyclades, is probably meant Delos was at this time a great slave-market. (Strabo, p. 668.)

↑92 Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 50) says that Archelaus hid himself in a marsh, and afterwards made his escape to Chalkis. Sulla’s arrogance is well characterized by his speech. The Cappadocians were considered a mean and servile people, and their character became proverbial.

↑93 The Roman Province of Asia. Compare Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 54, 55) as to the terms of the peace.

↑94 The death of Aristion is mentioned by Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 39); but he does not speak of the poisoning.

↑95 Mædike appears to be the right name. Thucydides (ii. 98) calls the people Mædi: they were a Thracian people. Compare Strabo (p. 316). Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 55) speaks of this expedition as directed aguinst the Sinti, who wore neighbours of the Mædi, and other nations which bordered on Macedonia, and annoyed it by their predatory incursions. Sulla thus kept his soldiers employed, which was the practice of all prudent Roman commanders, and enriched them with booty at the same time.

↑96 This is the old town called Krenides, or the Little Springs, which King Philippus, the father of Alexander the Great, restored and gave his name to. It was near Amphipolis on the river Strymon. (See Life of Brutus, c. 38.)

↑97 The Troad is the north-west angle of Asia Minor, which borders on the Hellespont and the Ægean Sea (the Archipelago). The name of the district, Troas in Greek, is from the old town of Troja. Strabo (lib. xiii.) gives a particular description of this tract.

The narrative of this affair in Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 56, &c.) differs in some respects from that of Plutarch, and this may be observed of many other events in this war. Appian is perhaps the better authority for the bare historical facts; but so far as concerns the conduct and character of Sulla on this and other occasions, Plutarch has painted the man true to the life.

Sulla left L. Lucullus behind him to collect the money. (See Life of Lucullus, c. 4.) The story of Fimbria in Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 69, 70) differs from that of Plutarch in some respects, but it is near enough to show that though these two writers apparently followed different authorities, Plutarch has given the facts substantially correct.

When Sulla was within two stadia of Fimbria, he sent him orders to give up the army, which he was illegally commanding. Fimbria sent back an insulting message to the effect that Sulla also had no right to the command which he held. While Sulla was throwing up his intrenchments, and many of Fimbria’s soldiers were openly leaving him, Fimbria summoned those who still remained to a meeting, and urged them to stay with him. Upon the soldiers saying that they would not fight against their fellow-citizens, Fimbria tore his dress, and began to intreat them severally. But the soldiers turned a deaf ear to him, and the desertions became still more numerous, on which Fimbria went round to the tents of the officers, and bribing some of them, he called another meeting, and commanded the soldiers to take the oath to him. As those who were hired by him called out that he ought to summon the men by name to take the oath, he called by the crier those who had received favours from him, and he called Nonius first who had been his partner in everything. Nonius refused to take the oath, and Fimbria drew his sword and threatened to kill him, but as there was a general shout, he became alarmed and desisted. However he induced a slave by money and the promise of his freedom to go to Sulla as a deserter, and to attempt his life. The man as he came near the act was alarmed, and this gave rise to suspicion, which led to his being seized, and he confessed. The army of Sulla, full of indignation and contempt, surrounded the camp of Fimbria, and abused him, calling him Athenion, which was the name of the fellow who put himself at the head of the rebel runaway slaves in Sicily, and was a king for a few days. Fimbria now despairing came to the rampart, and invited Sulla to a conference. But Sulla sent Rutilius; and this first of all annoyed Fimbria, as he was not honoured with a meeting, which is granted even to enemies. On his asking for pardon for any error that he might have committed, being still a young man, Rutilius promised that Sulla would allow him to pass safe to the coast, if he would sail away from Asia, of which Sulla was proconsul. Fimbria replied that he had better means than that, and going to Pergamum and entering the temple of Æsculapius, he pierced himself with his sword. As the wound was not mortal, he bade his slave plunge the sword into his body. The slave killed his master, and then killed himself on the body. Thus died Fimbria, who had done much mischief to Asia after Mithridates. Sulla allowed Fimbria’s freedmen to bury their master; adding that he would not imitate Cinna and Marius, who had condemned many persons to death at Rome, and also refused to allow their bodies to be buried. The army of Fimbria now came over to Sulla, and was received by him and united with his own. Sulla also commissioned Curio to restore Nicomedes to Bithynia and Ariobarzanes to Cappadocia, and he wrote to the Senate about all these matters, pretending that he did not know that he had been declared an enemy.

↑98 Thyateira was a town in Lydia about 45 miles from Pergamum.

↑99 The original is simply “after being initiated;” but the Eleusinian mysteries are meant. The city of Eleusis was in Attica, and the sacred rites were those of Ceres and Proserpine (Demeter and Persephone). Those only who were duly initiated could partake in these ceremonies. An intruder ran the risk of being put to death. Livius (31, c. 14) tells a story of two Akarnanian youths who were not initiated, and during the time of the Initia, as he calls them, entered the temple of Ceres with the rest of the crowd, knowing nothing of the nature of the ceremonies. Their language and some questions that they put, betrayed them, and they were conducted to the superintendents of the temple; and though it was clear that they had erred entirely through ignorance, they were put to death as if they had committed an abominable crime. Toleration was no part of the religious system of Antiquity; that is, nothing was permitted which was opposed to any religious institution, though there was toleration for a great variety. Many illustrious persons were initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, which were maintained until Christianity became the general religion of the Empire. Marcus Aurelius, when he visited Athens, was initiated. The ceremonial of the temple may be collected to a certain extent from the ancient writers, but no one has yet succeeded in divining what were the peculiar doctrines of this place.

↑100 Much has been written about this story, which cannot be literally true. The writings of Aristotle were not unknown to his immediate followers. If there is any truth in this story as told by Plutarch and Strabo (p. 608) it must refer to the original manuscripts of Aristotle. Part of the text of Plutarch is here manifestly corrupt. The subject has been examined by several writers. See art. “Aristotle,” Biog. Dict. of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and Blakesley, Life of Aristotle, Cambridge 1839.

↑101 This is Strabo the Geographer, but the passage is not in the Geography, and probably was in an historical work Ὑπομνήατα ἱστορικά, Strabo, p. 13) which he wrote, and which is cited by Plutarch in his Life of Lucullus, c. 28.

↑102 These warm springs, which still exist, are on the west coast of Eubœa, opposite to the mainland. They were much resorted to in Plutarch’s time, as appears from his Symposium (iv. Probl. 4). The place is named Galepsus in Wyttenbach’s edition, but in a note the editor admits that the true name is Ædepsus. Demetrius Calatianus (quoted by Strabo, p. 60), who had recorded all the earthquakes in Greece, says that the hot springs at Thermopylæ and at Ædepsus once ceased to flow for three days owing to an earthquake, and those of Ædepsus, when they flowed again, broke out in a fresh place. The hot springs near Cape Therma in Eubœa are supposed to be those of Ædepsus. They are more copious than the springs of Thermopylæ on the opposite mainland, but of the same kind. “The water rushes down in a copious stream into the sea, the vapour from which is visible at a considerable distance.” (Penny Cyclopædia, art. “Eubœa.”)

↑103 Halæae should probably be written Halæ. It was near the Euripus, within Bœotia and on the borders of Phokia. (Pansaunias, ix. 24.)

↑104 The usual passage from Italy to Greece and Greece to Italy was between Brundisium and Dyrrachium. Compare Appian, Civil Wars, c. 79.

↑105 This phenomenon is mentioned by Strabo (p. 316), Dion Cassius (41, c. 45), and Ælian (Various History, 13, c. 16). I do not know if this spot has been examined by any modern traveller. It is a matter of some interest to ascertain how long a phenomenon of this kind has lasted. The pitch-springs of Zante (Zakynthus), which Herodotus visited and describes (iv. 195), still produce the native pitch. Strabo, who had not seen the Nymphæum, describes it thus after the account of Poseidonius: “In the territory of Apollonia is a place called the Nymphæum; it is a rock which sends forth fire, and at the base of it are springs of warm asphaltus, the asphaltic earth, as it appears, being in a state of combustion: and there is a mine of it near on a hill. Whatever is cut out, is filled up again in course of time, as the earth which is thrown into the excavations changes into asphaltus, as Poseidonius says.” We cannot conclude from this confused description what the real nature of the phenomenon was. Probably the asphaltus or bitumen was occasionally set on fire by the neighbouring people. (See the art. “Asphaltum,” Penny Cyclopædia.)

↑106 The Cohors was the tenth part of a Roman Legion. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 82) says that on this occasion the opponents of Sulla made their cohorts contain 500 men each, so that a legion would contain 5000 men. According to this estimate there were 90,000 men under arms in Italy to oppose Sulla, who had five legions of Italian soldiers, six thousand cavalry and some men from Peloponnesus and Macedonia; in all forty thousand men. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 79.) Appian says that he had 1,600 ships.

↑107 This passage is explained by the cut p. 287 in Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities, art. “Corona.”

↑108 Caius Junius Norbanus and L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus were now consuls B.C. 83.

↑109 Silvium is a town in Apulia on the Appian road, on the Apennines. As to the burning of the Capitol, see Appian, Civil Wars, i. 86.

↑110 Fidentia was in North Italy not far from Placentia (Piacenza): it is now Borgo San Donnino. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 92) speaks of this battle near Placentia, which Lucullus gained over some of Carbo’s troops, not over Carbo himself, as is stated by some modern writers. Carbo was now in Central Italy.

↑111 Sulla, with Metellus Pius, who had joined him (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 80), met L. Scipio near Teanum in Campania. Sertorius was with Scipio. The circumstances are told by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 86) as usual with more minuteness and very clearly. The main story is correct in Plutarch.

↑112 Signia, now Segni, is in the Volscian mountains, 35 miles south-east of Rome. It was a Roman colony as old us the reign of Tarquinius Superbus, according to Livius (1, 55). This battle was fought B.C. 82, when Cn. Papinus Carbo was consul for the third time with the younger Marius. It appears that Sulla’s progress towards Rome was not very rapid. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 87) places the battle at Sacriportus, the situation of which is unknown.

↑113 Cn. Cornelius Dolabella was consul B.C. 81. He was afterwards Proconsul of Macedonia, and had a triumph for his victories over the Thracians and other barbarian tribes. C. Julius Cæsar, when a young man (Cæsar, c. 4), prosecuted B.C. 77 Dolabella for mal-administration in his province. Dolabella was acquitted.

↑114 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.

↑115 A Roman historian of the age of Augustus, who wrote Annals, of which there were twenty-two books.

↑116 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.

↑117 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.

↑118 It is uncertain who he was. See Drumann, Geschichte Roms, ii. Claudii No. 26.

↑119 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.

↑120 Antemnæ was a few miles from Rome, near the junction of the Tiber and the Anio (Teverone).

↑121 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:

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.

↑122 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.”

↑123 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.

↑124 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.

↑125 L. Sergius Catilina, who formed a conspiracy in the consulship of M. Tullius Cicero B.C. 63. (Life of Cicero.)

↑126 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.

↑127 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.

↑128 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.)

↑129 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.)

↑130 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.”

↑131 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.

↑132 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.

↑133 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.

↑134 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.

↑135 The Greek word (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.

↑136 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.

↑137 Plutarch has translated the Roman word Imperator by the Greek Autocrator (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.)

↑138 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.

↑139 The original is λυσιοδός, which is explained by Aristoxenus, quoted by Athenæus (p. 620), as I have translated it.

↑140 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 (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.

↑141 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.

↑142 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.

↑143 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).

↑144 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.

[Pg 386]

Kimon

↑1 In Greece, where there were no permanent family names, it was usual for a family to repeat the same name in alternate generations. Thus we find that the kings of Cyrene were named alternately Battus and Archelaus for eight generations, and many other examples might be quoted.

↑2 The Greek lamp was movable, and used to be set upon a tall slender lamp-stand or candelabrum.

↑3 A Thessalian tribe.

↑4 See vol. i. ‘Life of Theseus,’ ch. xxxvi.

↑5 It has been conjectured from certain inscriptions that this name should be spelt Apsephion. But we know that Aphepsion was a Greek name, while the other form appears unmeaning. The passage is quoted in Clinton, ‘Fasti Hell.,’ but both forms are there used.

↑6 The daric was a Persian coin, named after King Darius.

↑7 The Kyanean or Black Islands were at the junction of the Bosporus with the Euxine, or Black Sea. The Chelidonian or Swallow Islands were on the south coast of Lycia.

↑8 The office of proxenus corresponds most nearly to the modern consul. He was bound to offer hospitality and assistance to any persons of the state which he represented; but it must be remembered that he was always a member of a foreign state.

↑9 A seaport town in Cyprus.

[Pg 414]

Lucullus

↑1 The complete name of Lucullus was L. Licinius Lucullus. The Licinii were a Plebeian Gens, to which belonged the Luculli, Crassi, Murænæ, and others. Lucius Licinius Lucullus, the grandfather of Plutarch’s Lucullus, was the son of L. Licinius Lucullus, who was curule ædile B.C. 202, and the first who gave nobility to his family. This grandfather of Lucullus was consul B.C. 151 with P. Postumius Albinus. He conquered the Vaccæi, Cantabri, and other nations of Spain, hitherto unknown to the Romans. Appian (Iberica, c. 52) gives an instance of his cruelty and perfidy in his Spanish wars. L. Licinius Lucullus, the father, was prætor B.C. 103. In B.C. 102 he went to take the command against the slaves who were in rebellion in Sicily under Athenion. He conducted the war ill, and on his return he was prosecuted for peculation and convicted. His punishment was exile. It is not known what the offence was that Servilius was charged with.

↑2 This Metellus was the conqueror of Jugurtha; he was consul B.C. 109. See the Life of Marius, c. 7. His sister Cæcilia was the wife of L. Licinius Lucullus, the father of Plutarch’s Lucullus; she was also the mother of Marcus the brother of Lucius Lucullus.

↑3 See Life of Sulla, c. 6.

↑4 This line is also quoted by Plutarch in his Treatise ‘De Sera Numinis Vindicta,’ c. 10.

↑5 I should have translated the Greek word ( δικολόγος) “orator.” Jurist in Plutarch is νομοδείκτης (Plutarch, Tib. Gracchus, c. 9) or νομικός. Quintus Hortensius Ortalus, the orator, was a friend and rival of Cicero, who often speaks of him. He began his career as a pleader in the courts at the age of nineteen, and continued his practice for forty-four years. (Brutus, c. 64, and the note in H. Meyer’s edition.)

↑6 L. Cornelius Sisenna, a man of patrician family, was prætor, B.C. 119, and in the next year he was governor of Sicily. He and Hortensius defended C. Verres against Cicero. He wrote the history of the Marsic war and of the war of Sulla in Italy, which he continued to the death of Sulla. The historical work of Sallustius began where that of Sisenna ended. Cicero (De Legg. i. 2) says that Sisenna was the best historical writer that had then appeared at Rome. He wrote other works also, and he translated into Latin the lewd stories of Aristides the Milesian (Plutarch, Crassus, c. 32; Ovidius, Tristia, ii. v. 443).

See Cicero, Brutus, c. 64, and the notes in Meyer’s edition; Krause, Vitæ et Frag. Vet. Histor. Roman. p. 299.

↑7 It appears from this that the History of the Marsic war by Lucullus was extant in the time of Plutarch. Cicero (Ad Attic. i. 19) mentions this Greek history of Lucullus.

↑8 This Marcus was adopted by M. Terentius Varro, whence after his adoption he was called M. Terentius Varro Lucullus. The curule ædileship of the two brothers belongs to the year B.C. 79, and the event is here placed, after Plutarch’s fashion, not in the proper place in his biography, but the story is told incidentally as a characteristic of Lucullus. I have expressed myself ambiguously at the end of this chapter. It should be “that Lucullus in his absence was elected ædile with his brother.” (Cicero, Academ. Prior. ii. 1.)

↑9 See Life of Sulla, c. 13, &c.

↑10 Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Licinii Luculli, p. 121, n. 80) observes that this winter expedition of Lucullus was “not after the capture of Athens, as Plutarch, Lucullus, c. 2,” states, and he refers to Appian (Mithridat. c. 33). But Plutarch’s account is not what Drumann represents it to be. This expedition was in the winter of B.C. 87 and 86. Ælian (Var. Hist. ii. 42) tells a similar story of Plato and the Arcadians, and Diogenes Lærtius (iii. 17) has a like story about Plato and the Arcadians and Thebans.

↑11 This can only be Ptolemæus VIII., sometimes called Soter II. and Lathyrus, who was restored to his kingdom B.C. 89-8. The difficulty that Kaltwasser raises about Lathyrus being in Cyprus at this time is removed by the fact that he had returned from Cyprus. As to Plutarch calling him a “young man,” that is a mistake; or Plutarch may have confounded him with his younger brother Alexander.

↑12 Plutarch is alluding to the Pyramids, and to the great temples of Memphis.

↑13 Pitane was one of the old Greek towns of Æolis, situated on the coast at the mouth of the Evenus, and opposite to the island of Lesbos, now Mytilene.

↑14 See Life of Sulla, c. 12.

↑15 See Life of Sulla, c. 21.

↑16 This was the consul L. Valerius Flaccus. See the Life of Sulla, c. 20.

↑17 Lektum is a promontory of the Troad, which is that district of Asia Minor that took its name from the old town of Troja or Troia, and lay in the angle between the Hellespont (the Dardanelles), and the Ægean or Archipelago. It is fully described by Strabo, lib. xiii.

↑18 Kaltwasser has translated this passage differently from his predecessors: “turned his ship aside by a quick movement and made all his men crowd to the stern.” But his version is probably wrong. The expression ἐπὶ πρύμναν ώασθαι is perhaps equivalent to πρύμνον κρούεσθαι. (Thucydides, i. 50.)

↑19 See Life of Sulla, c. 24, 25.

↑20 It is conjectured by Leopoldus that there is an error here, and that the name should be Manius, and that Manius Aquilius is meant, whom, together with others, the Mitylenæans gave up in chains to Mithridates. (Vell. Paterc. ii. 18.)

↑21 This is a place on the coast of the mainland, and east of Pitane.

↑22 Lucullus was consul B.C. 74, with M. Aurelius Cotta for his colleague.

↑23 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 20, and the Life of Sertorius, c. 21.

↑24 P. Cornelius Cethegus originally belonged to the party of Marius, and he accompanied the younger Marius in his flight to Africa B.C. 88 (Life of Marius, c. 40). He returned to Rome B.C. 87, and in the year B.C. 83 he attached himself to Sulla after his return from Asia and was pardoned. After Sulla’s death he had great influence at Rome, though he never was consul. Cicero (Brutus, c. 48), speaks of him as thoroughly acquainted with all the public business and as having great weight in the Senate.

↑25 He is commemorated by Cicero (Brutus, c. 62) as a man well fitted for speaking in noisy assemblies. He was a tribune in the year of the consulship of Lucullus.

↑26 This was L. Octavius, who was consul with C. Aurelius Cotta B.C. 75.

↑27 Q. Cæcilius Metellus Pius. See the Life of Sertorius.

↑28 This is the closed sea that lies between the two channels, by one of which, the Thracian Bosporus or the channel of Constantinople, it is connected with the Euxine or Black Sea, and by the other, the Hellespontus or Dardanelles, it is connected with the Ægean Sea or the Archipelago. This is now the Sea of Marmora. Part of the southern and eastern coast belonged to Bithynia. The city of Kyzikus was within the Propontis.

↑29 See the Life of Sulla, c. 25.

↑30 The sophists of Plutarch’s time were rhetoricians, who affected to declaim on any subject, which they set off with words and phrases and little more. One of the noted masters of this art, Aristides of Bithynia, might have been known to Plutarch, though he was younger than Plutarch. Many of his unsubstantial declamations are extant. Plutarch in his Life of Lucullus, c. 22, has mentioned another of this class.

↑31 The Romans carried on a thriving trade in this way in the provinces. In Cicero’s period we find that many men of rank did not scruple to enrich themselves in this manner; and they were unsparing creditors.

↑32 The word (τελώναι) which I have elsewhere translated by the Roman word Publicani, means the men who farmed the taxes in the provences. The Publicani at this period belonged to the order of the Equites. A number of them associated themselves in a partnership (societas) for the farming of the taxes of some particular province. These associations had their agents in the provinces and a chief manager (magister) at Rome. The collection of the taxes gave employment to a great number of persons; and thus the Publicani had at their disposal numerous places in the provinces, which gave them great influence at Rome. (Cicero, Pro Cn. Plancio, c. 19.) The taxes were taken at some sum that was agreed upon; and we find an instance mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. i. 17) in which their competition or their greediness led them to give too much and to call on the Senate to cancel the bargain. The Romans at this time derived little revenue from Italy, and the large expenditure had to be supplied out of the revenue raised in the provinces and collected by the Publicani. The Publicani thus represented the monied interest of modern times, and the state sometimes required their assistance to provide the necessary supplies.

It seems probable that the Publicani who farmed the taxes of a province, underlet them to others; which would be one cause of oppression. These Collectors (τελώναι) are called Publicans in the English version of the New Testament, where they are no doubt very justly coupled with sinners.

↑33 Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 71) states that Mithridates invaded Bithynia, for King Nikomedes had just died childless and left his kingdom to the Romans. Cotta fled before him and took refuge in Chalkedon, a city situated on the Asiatic side of the Thracian Bosporus opposite to the site of Constantinople. The consul would not go out to meet the enemy, but his admiral Nudus with some troops occupied the strongest position in the plain. However, he was defeated by Mithridates and with difficulty got again into the city. In the confusion about the gates the Romans lost three thousand men. Mithridates also broke through the chain that was thrown across the harbour and burnt four ships and towed the other sixty off. His whole loss was only twenty men.

↑34 See the Life of Sulla, c. 11. Mithridates was much dissatisfied with the terms of the peace that had been brought about by Archelaus, who fearing for his life went over to Murena, who was left by Sulla in the command in Asia. At the instigation of Archelaus, Murena attacked and plundered Comana in Cappadocia, which belonged to Mithridates, and contained a temple of great sanctity and wealth. Mithridates in vain complained to Murena, and then sent an embassy to Rome. Appian considers this conduct of Murena as the commencement of the Second Mithridatic War, B.C. 83. The Third commenced B.C. 74 with the league of Mithridates and Sertorius. (Appian, Mithridat. 64-68; Life of Sertorius, c. 24.)

↑35 Kyzikus. The ruins of this ancient city, now Bal Kiz, that is Palæa Kyzikus, lie near to the east of the sandy isthmus which now connects the peninsula of Kyzikus with the mainland. Hamilton (Researches in Asia Minor, &c., London, 1842, ii. 102), says that “the loose and rubbly character of the buildings of Kyzikus little accords with the celebrity of its architects; and although some appear to have been cased with marble, none of them give an idea of the solid grandeur of the genuine Greek style.” Yet Strabo (p. 575) describes this city as among the first of Asia. In his time the present peninsula was an island, which was connected with the mainland by two bridges: the city was near the bridges, and had two harbours that could be closed. Under the Romans in Strabo’s time, Kyzikus was a Free City (Libera Civitas).

↑36 This range is described by Strabo as opposite to Kyzikus, on the mainland. Kaltwasser states that Strabo called the Adrasteia of Plutarch by the name Dindymus; but this is a mistake, in which he is not singular. Dindymus was a solitary hill, and on the peninsula near the town of Kyzikus.

↑37 This is a small lake near the coast of the Propontis, at the back of which and more inland are two larger lakes, called respectively by ancient geographers, Miletopolitis (now Moniyas) and Apollonias (now Abullionte). The lake Daskylitis is not marked in the map which accompanies Hamilton’s work.

↑38 Persephassa, or Persephone, whom the Romans call Proserpina, was the patron goddess of Kyzikus. Compare Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 75).

↑39 What he was I don’t know. Kaltwasser translates the word (γραμματιστῇ) “the public schoolmaster;” but he is inclined to take Reiske’s conjecture γραμματεῖ because the grammateus was an important functionary in the Greek towns, and a “public schoolmaster” is not mentioned as an ordinary personage at this period. But Kaltwasser has not observed that γραμματιστής signifies a clerk or secretary in various passages (Herodotus, iii. 123, 128; vii. 100). If γραμματιστής could only signify a schoolmaster, it would be necessary to alter the reading. One cannot suppose that the goddess would reveal herself to a schoolmaster; or that a schoolmaster could venture to announce that he had received the honour of such a communication. When Romulus after his sudden disappearance again appeared to assure the anxious citizens, Julius Proculus was selected by him as the person to whom he showed himself; or Julius Proculus was one of the few who could claim to have the story of such an appearance believed. (Liv. i. 16.)

↑40 I have kept the Greek word (στήλη), for no English word exactly expresses the thing. It was a stone placed upright, with an inscription on a flat surface, the summit of which sometimes ended with an ornamental finish. There are several in the British Museum.

↑41 This river enters Lake Apollonias on the south side of the lake, and issues from the north side of the lake, whence it flows in a general north direction into the Propontis. Apollonia, now commonly called Abullionte, though the Greeks still call it by its ancient name, is situated on a small island which is on the east side of Lake Apollonias and is now connected with the mainland by a wooden bridge. If the battle was fought on the river, the women must have gone a considerable distance for their plunder. (Hamilton, Researches, &c. ii. 88, &c.)

↑42 Kaltwasser remarks that Livius (37, c. 40) mentions camels as being in the army of Antiochus. The passage of Sallustius must have been in his Roman History.

↑43 This river is to the west of Kyzikus and enters the Propontis by a general north course. On the banks of this river Alexander won his first victory in his Persian Campaign. (Arrian, Anab. i. 14.) Appian, in his account of the defeat of the army of Mithridates (Mithridat. War, c. 76) places it on the Æsepus, a river which lies between Kyzikus and the Granikus, and also flows into the Propontis. He also adds that the Æsepus was then at its greatest flood, which contributed to the loss of Mithridutes. But it appears from Appian that the remnant of the army of Mithridates crossed the Granikus also, for they reached Lampsakus.

↑44 The Troad is a district, but Plutarch expresses himself as if he meant a town. It appears that Lucullus was near Ilium. The Achæan harbour, or harbour of the Achæans, is near the promontory Sigeium.

↑45 Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 77) simply says that Lucullus ordered Varius (the Marius of Plutarch) to be put to death.

↑46 This town was at the eastern extremity of the long inlet of the Propontis, called the Gulf of Astakus. Mithridates according to Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 76) fled in his ships from Kyzikus to Parium, which is near the western extremity of the Propontis and west of the Granikus. From Parium he sailed to Nikomedia, a fact omitted by Plutarch, which explains the other fact, which he does mention, of Voconius being ordered to Nikomedia to look after the king.

↑47 This island lies in the Archipelago off the coast of Thrace. It was noted for certain religious rites in honour of the gods called Kabeiri. (Strabo, p. 472.)

↑48 This place was on the coast of Bithynia. Appian (c. 78) says that Mithridates landed at Sinope (Sinab), a large town considerably east of Heraklea, on the coast of the Black Sea; and that from Sinope he went along the coast to Amisus. See c. 23.

↑49 This notion is common in the Greek writers; the gods brought misfortune on those whose prosperity was excessive, and visited them with punishment for arrogant speaking and boasting. Among instances of those whose prosperity at last brought calamity on them was Polykrates, tyrant of Samos (Herodotus, iii. 125); a notorious instance of the danger of prosperity. See vol. i. Life of Camillus, ch. 37, note.

↑50 Artemis was so called from a town Priapus, which is on the south coast of the Propontis, and is placed in the maps a little west of the outlet of the Granikus. Strabo (p. 587) says that the Granikus flows between the Æsepus and Priapus; and that some say that Priapus was a Milesian colony, others a colony of Kyzikus. It derived its name from the god Priapus, who was in great repute here and in Lampsakus. The soldiers of Mithridates seem to have committed the excesses spoken of by Plutarch in their march through Priapus to Lampsakus.

The word for wooden statue is ξόανον which is sometimes simply translated statue. I am not aware that it is ever used by Pausanias, who often uses the word, in any other sense than that of a statue of wood.

↑51 The Thermodon is a river of Asia Minor which flows through the plain of Themiskyra into the Black Sea. There is now a small town, Thermeh, on the left bank of the river. Plutarch might be supposed to be speaking of a town Themiskyra, and so some persons have understood him; but perhaps incorrectly, for no town Themiskyra is mentioned by any other writer.

↑52 Amisus, now Samsun, is on the coast of the Black Sea, between the Halys, Kizil Ermak, and the Iris, Yechil Ermak. The ruins of the old town are about a mile and a half N.N.W. of the modern town. “The pier which defended the ancient harbour may be distinctly traced, running out about 300 yards to the S.E., but chiefly under water. It consists of large blocks of a volcanic conglomerate, some of which measure nineteen feet by six or eight, and ten feet in thickness; whilst a little farther north another wall extends E.N.E. to a natural reef of rocks.” (Hamilton, Researches in Asia Minor, &c. i. 290.)

↑53 These tribes were in the neighbourhood of the Thermodon. They were encountered by the Ten Thousand in their retreat (Anab. v. 5). The Chaldæans, whom Xenophon names Chalybes, were neighbours of the Tibareni: but he also speaks of another tribe of the same name (iv. 5, &c.) who lived on the borders of Armenia.

↑54 The great mountain region between the Black Sea and the Caspian.

↑55 The position of Kabeira is uncertain. Strabo (p. 556) says that it is about 150 stadia south of the Paryadres range; but he does not say that it is on the Lykus. It may be collected from the following chapter of Plutarch that it was near the Lykus. Pompeius made Kabeira a city and named it Diopolis. A woman named Pythodoris added to it and called it Sebaste, that is, in Latin, Augusta, and it was her royal residence at the time when Strabo wrote.

↑56 The reign of Tigranes in Armenia began about B.C. 96. Little is known of his early history. He become King of Syria about B.C. 83, and thus he supplanted the kings, the descendants of Seleukus. He lost Syria after his defeat by Lucullus, B.C. 69; and he was finally reduced to the limits of his native kingdom by Pompeius, B.C. 66. (See the Life of Pompeius, c. 23.)

↑57 Some writers read Dardarii. The Dandarii are mentioned by Strabo (p. 495) as one of the tribes on the Mæotis or Sea of Azoff. Mithridates held the parts on the Bosporus. Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 79) has this story of Olthakus, whom he names Olkades, but he calls him a Scythian.

↑58 The strange panic that seized Mithridates is also described by Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 81). He fled to Comana and thence to Tigranes.

↑59 Phernakia or Pharnakia, as it is generally read, is a town in Pontus on the coast of the Black Sea. It is generally assumed that Pharnakia was the same as Kerasus mentioned by Xenophon in the Retreat of the Ten Thousand, and the place being now called Kerasunt seems to establish this. Arrian in his Periplus of the Euxine states that it was originally named Kerasus. A difficulty is raised on this point because Xenophon says that the Greeks reached Kerasus in three days from Trebizond, and the country is difficult. Hamilton observes (i. 250): “Considering the distance and the difficult nature of the ground, over a great part of which the army must have marched in single file, Xenophon and his 10,000 men would hardly have arrived there in ten days.” But it is more probable that there is an error in the “three” days, either an error of Xenophon or of the MSS., than that the site of Phernakia should have got the name of Kerasunt though Kerasus was not there. “The town of Kerasunt, which represents the Pharnakia of antiquity, is situated on the extremity of a rocky promontory connected with the main by a low wooded isthmus of a pleasing and picturesque appearance.—The Hellenic walls are constructed in the best isodomous style. Commencing near the beach on the west, they continue in an easterly direction over the hill, forming the limits of the present town. Near the gateway they are upwards of twenty feet high, and form the foundation of the Agha’s konak; a small mosque has also been raised upon the ruins of a square tower; the blocks of stone, a dark green volcanic breccia, are of gigantic size.” (Hamilton, Researches, &c. i. 262, &c.)

↑60 Appian (c. 82) calls him Bacchus; he tells the same story. These Greek women of western Asia were much in request among the Asiatic kings. (Compare Life of Crassus, c. 32). Cyrus the younger had two Greek women with him when he fell at Cunaxa, and one of them was a Milesian. (Xenophon, Anab. i. 10.)

↑61 I have kept the Greek word. The description shows what it was. The diadem was a mark of royal rank among the Asiatic nations. Aurelian is said to have been the first Roman Emperor who adopted the diadem, which appears on some of his coins. (Rasche, Lex. Rei Numariæ.)

↑62 The site of this place is unknown. Mithridates (Appian, Mithridat. War, c. 115) kept his valuables here.

↑63 See the Life of Sulla, c. 14. L. Mummius after defeating the army of the Achæan confederation totally destroyed Corinth B.C. 146.

↑64 Strabo (p. 547) quotes Theopompus, who says that the Milesians were the original founders of Amisus, and that after the Athenian colonization it was called Peiræus. King Mithridates Eupator (the opponent of Lucullus) added to the city. It was a flourishing place when Strabo was writing his Geography.

↑65 See the Life of Sulla, c. 14.

↑66 See the Life of Sulla, c. 26. Tyrannio is often mentioned by Cicero. He arranged Cicero’s library (Ad Attic. iv. 4 and 8), and he was employed as a teacher in Cicero’s house (Ad Quint. Frat. ii. 4).

In alluding to Tyrannio being manumitted, Plutarch means to say that by the act of manumission it was declared that Tyrannio had been made a slave, and the act of manumission gave Murena the patronal rights over him. This Murena was the son of the Murena who is mentioned in Plutarch’s Life of Sulla (c. 17). Cicero defended him against a charge of Ambitus or bribery at his election for the consulship, and in his oration, which is extant, he speaks highly of him. This Murena was Consul B.C. 62, the year after Cicero was Consul.

↑67 This passage is very obscure. Some critics think that Plutarch is speaking of torture. But it is more likely that he is speaking of the debtors being in attendance at the courts and waiting under the open sky at all seasons till the suits about the debts were settled.

↑68 This is the Centesimæ usuræ of the Romans, which was at this time the usual rate. It was one per cent. per month, or twelve per cent. per annum. Cæsar (Life of Cæsar, c. 12) made a like settlement between debtor and creditor in Spain.

↑69 P. Appius Clodius or Claudius belonged to the Patrician Gens of the Claudii. He was a clever, unprincipled fellow, and the bitter enemy of Cicero, whom during his tribunate he caused to be banished. There is more about him in the Life of Cæsar, c. 10. He was killed by T. Annius Milo.

This wife of Lucullus, named Clodia, had several sisters of the same name, as usual among the Romans. (Life of Marius, c. 1.) The sister who married Q. Metellus Celer, is accused of poisoning him.

↑70 A name formed like Alexandreia from Antiochus, the name by which most of the Greek kings of Syria were designated. Antiocheia, now Antakia, was on the Orontes, the chief river of Syria, and near the small place Daphne, which was much resorted to as a place of pleasure by the people of Antiocheia. (Strabo, p. 749.)

↑71 This was a country on the upper part of the Tigris. It probably contains the same element as the modern Kurdistan.

↑72 The Skenite Arabians are the nomadic Arabs who live in tents. Strabo (p. 747) speaks of them thus: “The parts of Mesopotamia which are towards the south and at some distance from the mountains, and are waterless and sterile, are occupied by the Skenite Arabs, who are robbers and shepherds, and readily remove to other parts when the pastures fail and booty is scarce,” &c.

↑73 The embassy of Appius to Tigranes was in B.C. 71. See c. 14, notes.

↑74 Compare Appian, Mithridat. War, c. 82.

↑75 He is often mentioned by Cicero, De Orat. ii. 88, 90; and elsewhere. He was celebrated for his powerful memory, and he is said to have perfected a certain artificial system which was began by Simonides.

↑76 Though Amphikrates intended to say that Seleukeia was small, it was in fact a large city. This Seleukeia on the Tigris was built by Seleukus Nikator. It was about 300 stadia or 36 miles from Babylon, which declined after the foundation of Seleukeia. In Strabo’s time, Babylon was nearly deserted and Seleukeia was a large city.

↑77 Bacchides, according to Strabo, commanded in the city. Sinope is described by Strabo (p. 545) as one of the chief towns of Asia in his day. It was a Milesian colony. It was the birth-place of this Mithridates, surnamed Eupator, who made it his capital. It was situated on an isthmus which joined the mainland to the Chersonesus (peninsula) which is mentioned by Plutarch in this chapter. There were harbours and stations for ships on each side of the isthmus. The present condition of the town is described by Hamilton (Researches, i. 306, &c.): “The population and prosperity of Sinope are not such as might be expected in a place affording such a safe harbour between Constantinople and Trebizond. I observed also a general appearance of poverty and privation throughout the peninsula.”

In Strabo’s time Sinope had received a Roman colony, and the colonists had part of the city and of the territory. The word Colonia in Greek (κολονεια) appears on a sarcophagus which was seen by Hamilton in a small village near Sinope.

↑78 Sthenis was a native of Olynthus and a contemporary of Alexander the Great. He is mentioned by Plinius (34, c. 19) and by Pausanias (vi. 17). Strabo says that Lucullus left everything to the Sinopians except the statue of Autolykus and a sphere, the work of Billarus, which he carried to Rome.

↑79 This is the word which the Greeks use for a peninsula. Plutarch here means the Chersonesus, on the isthmus of which Sinope was built. Hamilton says that “the peninsula extends about five miles from east to west and strictly coincides with the description given of it by Polybius (iv. 50).”

↑80 Socius et Amicus: this was the title which the Romans condescended to give to a king who behaved towards them with due respect and submission. (Livius, 31, c. 11.)

↑81 Lucullus appears to have crossed the Euphrates at a more northern point than Zeugma, where the river was crossed by Crassus. Sophene is a district on the east side of the river between the mountain range called Masius and the range called Antitaurus: the capital or royal residence was Carcathiocerta. (Strabo, p. 527.)

↑82 The great mountain range to which this name was given by the ancient geographers commences according to Strabo (p. 651) on the south-east coast of Lycia. The name Taurus was not very exactly defined, but it comprehended the mountain region which runs eastward from the point above mentioned in a general parallel direction to the south coast of Asia Minor; and the name was extended to the high lands of Armenia east of the Euphrates. Its eastern limit was very vaguely conceived, as we may collect from Strabo (p. 519).

↑83 This is the Greek word which I have sometimes kept. Plutarch means the soldiers of the Roman legion.

↑84 This termination Certa or Cirta is common to many Asiatic towns (See chapter 21). It is probably the same termination as in the Persian Parsagarda; and signified town or inclosure. The site of Tigranocerta is not certain. There appears to be no reason for identifying it with Sert except the resemblance of name. St. Martin contends that Amida on the east bank of the Tigris, occupied the site of Tigranocerta. The modern Diyarbeker is on the west bank of the Tigris opposite to Amida. (London Geog. Journal, viii. 77). Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 84) speaks of the foundation of Tigranocerta.

↑85 The Adiabeni occupied a tract that was apparently a part of the old Assyria on the east side of the Tigris. The element diab perhaps exists in the Zab, one of the rivers which flow in the Tigris.

↑86 The same name occurs in the Life of Sulla, c. 15. See Life of Alexander, c. 59, note.

↑87 This is the river now generally called the Aras, which flows into the Caspian on the south-west side. Before it enters the sea, it is joined by the Cyrus, now the Cur.

↑88 See the Life of Sertorius, c. 3. The rout of this large army of Tigranes is described by Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 85). The day was the 6th of October, and the year B.C. 69. The loss that is reported in some of these ancient battles seems hardly credible; but it is explained here. There was in fact no battle: the enemy were struck with a panic and fled. An immense multitude if seized with alarm requires no enemy to kill them. The loss of life that may occur in a frightened crowd is enormous.

↑89 See chapter 42.

↑90 See Life of Sulla, c. 26, Notes.

↑91 This part of Livius is lost; but it belonged to the ninety-eighth book, as we see from the Epitome.

↑92 The capture is described by Appian (Mithridat. War, c, 86), and by Dion Cassius (35, c. 2).

↑93 Compare Appian, c. 87, and Dion Cassius (35, c. 3). Sallustius in the fourth book of his History has given a long letter, which we may presume to be his own composition, from Mithridates to Arsakes, this Parthian king, in which he urges him to fight against the Romans. (Fragmenta Hist. ed. Corte.)

↑94 Lucullus was marching northward, and he had to ascend from the lower country to the high lands of Armenia, where the seasons are much later than in the lower country. He expected to find the corn ripe. Nothing precise as to his route can be collected from Plutarch. He states that Lucullus came to the Arsanias, a river which he must cross before he could reach Artaxata. Strabo (p. 528) describes Artaxata as situated on a peninsula formed by the Araxes (Aras) and surrounded by the stream, except at the isthmus which joined it to the mainland; the isthmus was defended by a ditch and rampart. The ruins called Takt Tiridate, the Throne of Tiridates, which have been supposed to represent Artaxata, are twenty miles from the river, and the place where they stand owed its strength solely to the fortifications. Below the junction of the Zengue and Aras, which unite near Erivan, “the river (Aras) winds very much, and at least twenty positions nearly surrounded by the river presented themselves.” Colonel Monteith, who makes this remark (London Geog. Journal, iii. 47), found no ruins on the banks of the river which answered to the description of Artaxata; for what he describes as near the remains of a Greek or Roman bridge over the Aras do not correspond to the description of Strabo. The remains of Artaxata, if they exist, must be looked for on some of the numerous positions which are nearly surrounded by the river.

The Arsanias is described by Plinius (Hist. Nat. v. 24) as flowing into the Euphrates, and, it appears, into the Murad or eastern branch which rises at no great distance S.W. of Ararat. It is probable that Lucullus entered Armenia by some of the passes west of Lake Van; but his route can hardly be conjectured.

↑95 The Mardi were a nation that lived south of the Caspian and bordered on the Hyrkani. As to the Iberians of Asia, see the Life of Tiberius Gracchus, c. 7, Notes. It is incorrectly stated there that Lucullus invaded the country of the Iberians.

↑96 This word is probably corrupted. See the note of Sintenis. The simplest correction is “Atropateni.”

↑97 Appian (Mithridat. War, c. 87) gives a very confused account of this campaign. It is briefly described by Dion Cassius (35, c. 5).

↑98 This is the modern Nisibin in 37° N. lat. on the Jakhjakhah, the ancient Mygdonius. The Mygdonius is a branch of the Chaborras, which flows into the Euphrates. Nisibin is now a small place with “about a hundred well-built houses, and a dozen shops kept by Christians” (Forbes, London Geog. Journal, ix. 241). Two tall columns of marble and the church of St. James, which is built from fragments of Nisibis, are the only remains of a city which is often mentioned in the ancient history of the East.

The town is mentioned by Tacitus (Annal. xv. 35) under the name of Nisibis, and he places it thirty-nine Roman miles from Tigranocerta. Nisibis is also the name in Ammianus Marcellinus. Dion Cassius (36, c. 6, 7) describes the siege and capture of Nisibis. This event belongs to the year B.C. 68.

↑99 Compare Dion Cassius (36, c. 16) as to the behaviour of Lucullus. He was too strict a disciplinarian for soldiers who were accustomed to licence; and he did not even attempt to win the love of his men by kindness. The mutinous army that he could not control was quiet and obedient to Pompeius.

↑100 This is the same person who is mentioned in c. 5. The Roman name is Quinctius, which is corrupted in the MSS. of Plutarch. This Lucius was tribune of the Plebs B.C. 74, the year of the consulship of Lucullus. In this chapter Plutarch calls him one of the Prætors (ἑνα τῶν στρατηγῶν), which Kaltwasser has translated “one of the tribunes of the people.”

↑101 This, I think, is the sense of the passage, to which Reiske gives a very different meaning. I have given the same meaning that Kaltwasser and Coræs have. See the note in Schæfer’s edition.

↑102 Manius Acilius Glabrio, consul B.C. 67, was first appointed to succeed Lucullus; but Pompeius contrived to get the command given to himself B.C. 66. “Plutarch, who refers elsewhere to the appointment of Glabrio (Pomp. c. 30) has not here (c. 33, 34) sufficiently distinguished it from that of Pompey, which he has anticipated. For Pompey was not appointed till the following year” (Clinton, Fasti Hellen.).

↑103 Compare Dion Cassius, 35, c. 10, &c.; and Appian, c. 88, &c.

↑104 When a country was conquered and it was intended to make of it a Roman province, commissioners were sent out, usually Senators, to assist the general in organizing the provincial government. Compare Livius, 45, c. 17.

↑105 Pompeius was appointed by a Lex Manilia, in favour of which Cicero spoke in an oration, which is still extant, Pro Lege Manilia. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 30.

↑106 This is the Greek δάφνη, and the Roman Laurus, which is incorrectly translated “laurel.”

↑107 Compare Life of Pompeius, c. 31, Dion Cassius, 36, c. 29. and Velleius Patercules, ii. 33.

↑108 The Caspian Lake was sometimes so called from the Hyrkani, who occupied the country on the south-east side of this great lake.

↑109 See the Life of Crassus.

↑110 This Caius Memmius was tribune of the Plebs in the year B.C. 66, in which year Lucullus returned to Rome. Memmius was not satisfied with prosecuting M. Lucullus; he revenged himself for his failure by debauching his wife, to which Cicero alludes in the following passage (Ad Attic. i. 18): “C. Memmius has initiated the wife of M. Lucullus in his own sacred rites. Menelaus (M. Lucullus) did not like this, and has divorced his wife. Though that shepherd of Ida insulted Menelaus only; this Paris of ours has not considered either that Menelaus or Agamemnon should be free.” Cicero is here alluding to the opposition which Memmius made to the triumph of L. Lucullus. Memmius was a man of ability, but of dissolute habits. He was accused of bribery at the consular election, and being convicted, retired to Athens. Several letters of Cicero to him are still extant. Lucretius dedicated his poem to Memmius. See the Note of Manutius on Cicero, Ad Familiares, xiii. 1.

Orelli (Onomastic. C. Memmius Gemillus) refers to Cicero, Pro Balbo, c. 2, to show that this Memmius was quæstor under Pompeius in his Spanish campaign. But according to Plutarch, a Memmius fell in battle in this war (Life of Sertorius, c. 21).

↑111 Lucullus triumphed B.C. 63, in the consulship of Cicero. (Cicero, Academ. Prior, ii. 1.)

↑112 Servilia was the half sister of M. Porcius Cato the younger. Livia, the daughter of M. Livius Drusus, who was consul B.C. 112 and the sister of the tribune M. Livius Drusus B.C. 91, was married to M. Porcius Cato, by whom she became the mother of M. Porcius Cato the younger, or of Utica. She was divorced from Cato, and then married Q. Servilius Cæpio, the brother of the Cæpio who was defeated by the Cimbri. Some critics made Cæpio her first husband. She had by Cæpio a daughter Servilia, who married L. Lucullus, and another Servilia, who married M. Junius Brutus and was the mother of M. Junius Brutus, one of the assassins of C. Julius Cæsar. Plutarch in various passages clearly distinguishes these two women, though some critics think there was only one Servilia. Cæsar was a lover of the mother of Brutus, and he gave her an estate at Naples. (Cicero, Ad Attic, xiv. 21.)

↑113 This is the word of Plutarch ( τῆς ἀριστοκρατιᾶς), which he seems to use here like the Roman “Nobilitas” to express the body of the Nobiles or Optimates, as they were called by a term which resembled the Greek άριστοι. (See Tiberius Gracchus, c. 10, notes.)

↑114 The original is made somewhat obscure by the words ὥσπερ οὐ, which introduce the concluding sentence; it is not always easy to see in such cases whose is the opinion that is expressed. Plutarch means to say that Lucullus thought that luxury was more suitable to his years than war or affairs of state, and that Pompeius and Crassus differed from him on this point. Compare the Life of Pompeius, c. 48.

↑115 These gardens in the reign of Claudius belonged to Valerius Asiaticus. Messalina the wife of Claudius, coveted the gardens, and Valerius, after being charged with various offences was graciously allowed by the emperor to choose his own way of dying. In these same gardens Messalina was put to death. (Tacitus, Ann. xi. 1. 37.)

↑116 There is the tunnel near Naples, called Posilipo, which is a Roman work, and is described by Strabo (p. 246); but its date is unknown.

↑117 Tubero the Stoic was Q. Ælius Tubero, who was Tribune of the Plebs B.C. 133 and opposed Tiberius Gracchus. He was also an opponent of Caius (Cicero, Brutus, c. 31, and Meyer’s notes). But this cannot be the contemporary of Lucullus, and Plutarch either means Q. Ælius Tubero the historian, or he has mistaken the period of Tubero the Stoic. Ruhnken proposes to read in the text of Plutarch “historian” for “stoic,” but it is better to suppose that Plutarch was mistaken, about the age of the Stoic. The ownership of good sayings is seldom undisputed. Velleius Paterculus (ii. 83) attributes this to Pompeius Magnus. The allusion is to Xerxes the Persian, who dug a canal through the flat isthmus which connects the rocky peninsula of Athos with the mainland (Herodotus, vii. 22), which still exists.

↑118 There is some corruption in the text; but the general meaning is clear enough.

↑119 This is the story which Q. Horatius Flaccus tells in his Epistolæ, Lib. i. Ep. 6.

↑120 This is one of many like indications in Plutarch of his good opinion of his countrymen. Compare the life of Crassus, c. 8, where he is speaking of Spartacus.

↑121 Plutarch’s allusion would be intelligible to a Greek, but hardly so to a Roman, unless he was an educated man. A prytaneum in a Greek city was a building belonging to the community, on the altar of which was kept the ever-burning fire. In the prytaneum of Athens, entertainments were given both to foreign ambassadors and to citizens who had merited the distinction of dining in the prytaneum, a privilege that was given sometimes for life, and sometimes for a limited period. As the town-hall of any community is in a manner the common home of the citizens, so Plutarch compares the house of Lucullus, which was open to all strangers, with the public hall of a man’s own city.

↑122 Plato established his school in the Academia, a grove near Athens; whence the name of the place, Academia, was used to signify the opinions of the school of Plato and of those schools which were derived from his. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, was his successor in the Academy, and he was followed by Xenokrates, and other teachers who belong to the Old Academy, as it is called, among whom were Polemo, Krates, and Krantor. The New Academy, that is, the philosophical sect so called, was established by Arcesilaus; who was succeeded by several teachers of little note. Karneades, a native of Cyrene, the man mentioned by Plutarch, was he who gave to the New Academy its chief repute. Philo was not the immediate pupil of Karneades. He was a native of Larissa, and during the war with Mithridates he came to Rome, where he delivered lectures. Cicero was one of his hearers, and often mentions him. Philo according to Cicero (Academ. i. i) denies that there were two Academies. Antiochus, of Askalon, was a pupil of Philo, but after he had founded a school of his own he attempted to reconcile the doctrines of the Old Academy with those of the Peripatetics and Stoics; and he became an opponent of the New Academy. Antiochus was with Lucullus in Egypt. (Cicero, Academ. Prior. ii. c. 4.) The usual division of the Academy is into the Old and New; but other divisions also were made. The first and oldest was the school of Plato, the second or middle was that of Arkesilaus, and the third was that of Karneades and Kleitomachus. Some make a fourth, the school of Philo and Charmidas; and a fifth, which was that of Antiochus. (Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 220.)

↑123 This is the Second Book of the Academica Priora, in which Lucullus, Catulus, Cicero, and Hortensius arr represented as discussing the doctrines of the Academy in the villa of Hortensius at Bauli.

↑124 Plutarch’s word is κατάληψις, the word that was used by the Academics. Cicero translates κατάληψις by the Latin word Comprehensio. The doctrine which Lucullus maintains is that the sensuous perception is true. “If all perceptions are such, as the New Academy maintained them to be, that they may be false or cannot be distinguished from what are true, how, it is asked, can we say of anyone that he has come to a conclusion or discovered anything?” (Academ. Prior, ii. c. 9.) The doctrine as to the impossibility of knowing anything, as taught by Karneades, is explained by Sextus Empiricus (Advers. Mathematicos, vii. 159). The doctrine of the incomprehensible nature of things, that there is nothing certain to be collected either from the sense or the understanding, that there is no κατάληψις (comprehensio), comprehension, may be collected from the passages given in Ritter and Preller, Historia Philosophiæ Græco-Romanæ, p. 396, Academic Novi.

↑125 Dion Cassius (37, c. 49) states that during the consulship of Lucius Afranius and Q. Metellus Celer B.C. 60, Pompeius, who had brought about their election, attempted to carry a law for the distribution of lauds among his soldiers and the ratification of all his acts during his command. This is the Agrarian Law which was proposed by the tribune Flavius, but opposed by the Senate. (Cicero, Ad Attic. i. 19.) Afranius was, if we may trust Cicero, a contemptible fellow; and Metellus now quarrelled with Pompeius, because Pompeius had divorced Mucia, the sister of Metellus, as Dion calls her, for incontinence during his absence. Cicero says that the divorce was much approved. Mucia was not the sister of Metellus; but she was probably a kinswoman. The divorce, however, could only have been considered a slight affair; for Mucia was incontinent, and divorces were no rare things at Rome. The real ground of the opposition of Metellus to Pompeius was fear of his assumption of still further power. From this time Horatius (Carm. ii. 1, “Motum ex Metello Consule civicum”) dates the beginning of the Civil Wars of his period. See Life of Pompeius, c. 46, and of Cato the Younger, c. 31.

↑126 It is Brettius in the text of Plutarch, which is evidently a mistake for Bettius, that is, Vettius. This affair of Vettius cannot be cleared up. He had been an informer in the matter of Catiline’s conspiracy, and he had attempted to implicate C. Julius Cæsar in it: which of the two parties caused him to be assassinated is doubtful. This affair of Vettius is spoken of by Cicero, Ad Attic. ii. 24, Dion Cassius, 38, c. 9, Appian, Civil Wars, ii. 12. The history of this affair of Vettius is given by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, ii. 334, P. Clodius.

↑127 Kaltwasser translates it “he put himself to death:” perhaps the words may have either meaning.

↑128 See the Life of Cicero, c. 31, and Life of Cato, c. 34.

Cicero was banished B.C. 58, and Cato was sent to Cyprus in the same year. Lucullus probably did not survive beyond the year B.C. 56. He was older than Cn. Pompeius Magnus, who was born B.C. 106.

The character of Lucullus may be collected from Plutarch. He was a man of talent and of taste, a brave soldier, a skilful general and a man of letters. Cicero in the first chapter of the second book of the Academica Priora has passed a high eulogium on him. He was fond of wealth and luxury, but humane and of a mild temper. He was no match for the cunning of Pompeius, or the daring temper of Cæsar; and he was not cruel enough to have acted with the decision which the troublesome times required that he just lived to see. The loss of his History of the Marsic War is much to be lamented. It is singular that Sulla’s Memoirs which he revised, and his own work, have not been preserved, for we must suppose that copies of them were abundant; and they were extant in Plutarch’s time.

The history of the campaigns of Lucullus in Asia would have been interesting. It is worth recording that we are indebted to him for the cherry, which he brought from Cerasus (Plin. Hist. Nat. xv. 30) into Europe; the name of the fruit still records the place from which it was brought. As a collector of books, a lover of ornamental gardening and parks stocked with animals, and a friend to all the arts and sciences, Lucullus was of all the luxurious Romans the most magnificent and the most refined. He left a son by Servilia, whose name was probably Lucius. This son joined the party of Cato and M. Brutus. After the battle of Philippi B.C. 42, he was overtaken in the pursuit, and put to death at the command of M. Antonius. No children of this son are mentioned.

Marcus, the brother of Plutarch’s Lucius Licinius, was consul B.C. 73. It is not known how long he survived his brother, but he died before the commencement of the second Civil War (Vell. Paterc. ii. 49), that which broke out between Cæsar and Pompeius B.C. 50.

[Pg 483]

Nikias

↑1 In North Africa, the modern oasis of Siwah.

↑2 Plemmyrium on one side, and the city of Syracuse on the other, command the entrance of the gulf known as the Great Harbour, inside of which lay the Athenian fleet and camp.

↑3 Grote.

↑4 Grote, Part II. ch. lx, points out that there is no real contradiction between the statement cited from Timæus, and the accounts gives of the transaction by Thucydides and Philistus.

Crassus

↑1 Crassus belonged to the Licinia Gens. His name was M. Licinius Crassus Dives. He was the son of P. Licinius Crassus Dives, who was consul B.C. 97, and afterwards governor of the nearer Spain. In B.C. 93 P. Crassus had a triumph. He was afterwards employed in the Marsic war; and in B.C. 89 he was censor with L. Julius Cæsar, who had been consul in B.C. 90.

M. Licinius Crassus, whose life Plutarch has written, was the youngest son of the Censor. The year of his birth is uncertain; but as he was above sixty when he left Rome for his Parthian campaign B.C. 55, he must have been born before B.C. 115. Meyer (Orator. Roman. Fragment.) places the birth of Crassus in B.C. 114.

↑2 Kaltwasser makes this passage mean that Crassus merely took his brother’s wife and her children to live with him; which is contrary to the usual sense of the Greek words and readers the following sentence unmeaning.

Kaltwasser observes that we do not know that such marriages were in use among the Romans. I know no rule by which they were forbidden. (Gaius, i. 58, &c.)

↑3 The punishment of a Vestal Virgin for incontinence was death. She was placed alive in a subterranean vault with a light and some food. (Dionysius, ix. 40: Liv. 8. c. 15; Juvenal, Sat. iv. 8.) The man who debauched a Vestal was also put to death. The Vestal Virgins had full power of disposing of their property; they were emancipated from the paternal power by the fact of being selected to be Vestal Virgins (Gaius, i. 130); and they were not under the same legal disabilities as other women (Gaius, i. 145; according to Dion Cassius, 49. c. 38, Octavia and Livia received privileges like those of the Vestals).

Another Licinia, a Vestal, had broken her vow, and was punished B.C. 113.

↑4 See the Life of Crassus, c. 12; and the Life of Sulla, c. 35.

↑5 This may hardly be a correct translation of ἀργυρογνωμόνας: but it is something like the meaning.

↑6 King Archidamus of Sparta, the second of the name, who commanded the Peloponnesian war, B.C. 431. Plutarch (Life of Demosthenes, c. 17) puts this saying in the mouth of one Krobylus, a demagogue.

↑7 Cicero (Brutus, c. 66) speaks of the oratory of Crassus, and commends his care and diligence; but he speaks of his natural parts as not striking. Crassus spoke on the same side as Cicero in the defence of Murena, of Caelius, and of Balbus (Meyer, Orator. Roman. Fragmenta, p. 382).

↑8 A Roman who aspired to the highest offices of the State, prepared his way by the magnificence of his public entertainments during his curule ædileship, and by his affable manners. An humble individual is always gratified when a great man addresses him by name, and a shake of the hand secures his devotion. Ovidius (Ars Amat. ii. 253) alludes to this way of winning popular favour, and judiciously observes that it costs nothing, which would certainly recommend it to Crassus. If a man’s memory was not so good as that of Crassus, he had only to buy a slave, as Horatius (1 Epist. i. 50) recommends, who could tell him the name of every man whom he met. Such a slave was called Nomenclator. If the nomenclator’s memory ever failed him, he would not let his master know it: he gave a person any name that came into his head.

↑9 The Greek is στέγαστρου, ‘something that covers;’ but whether cloak or hat, or covered couch, or sedan, the learned have not yet determined.

↑10 These words may not be Plutarch’s, and several critics have marked them as spurious. The Peripatetics, of whom Alexander was one, did not consider wealth as one of the things that are indifferent to a philosopher; the Stoics did.

↑11 This is Plutarch’s word; but the father of Crassus was Proconsul in Spain. When Cinna and Marius returned to Rome, B.C. 87, Crassus and his sons were proscribed. Crassus and one of his sons lost their lives: the circumstances are stated somewhat differently by different writers. (Florius, iii. 21; Appian, Civil Wars, i. 72.)

Drumann correctly remarks that Plutarch and other Greek writers often use the word στρατηγός simply to signify one who has command, and that στρατηγός is incorrectly rendered ‘Prætor’ by those who write in Latin, when they make use of the Greek historians of Rome. But Plutarch’s στρατηγός sometimes means prætor, and it is the word by which he denotes that office; he probably does sometimes mean to say ‘prætor,’ when the man of whom he speaks was not prætor. Whether στρατηγός in Plutarch is always translated prætor or always Commander, there will be error. To translate it correctly in all cases, a man must know whether the person spoken of was prætor or not; and that cannot always be ascertained. But besides this, the word ‘Commander’ will not do, for Plutarch sometimes calls a Proconsul στρατηγός, and a Proconsul had not merely a command: he had a government also.

↑12 So the name is written by Sintenis, who writes it Paccianus in the Life of Sertorius, c. 9. Some editions read Paciacus; but the termination in Paciacus is hardly Roman, and the termination in Pacianus is common. But the form Paciacus is adopted by Drumann, where he is speaking of L. Junius Paciacus (Geshichte Roms, iv. p. 52).

Drumann observes that the flight of Crassus to Spain must have taken place B.C. 85, for he remained eight months in Spain and returned to Rome on the news of Cinna’s death, B.C. 84.

↑13 The MSS. have αὖραν, ‘breeze,’ which Coræs ingeniously corrected to λαύπαν, ‘path,’ which is undoubtedly right.

↑14 If Fenestella died in A.D. 19 at the age of seventy, as it is said, he would be born in B.C. 51, and he might have had this story from the old woman. (Clinton, Fasti, A.D. 14.) See Life of Sulla, c. 28.

↑15 Malaca, which still retains its name Malaga, was an old Phœnician settlement on the south coast of Spain. Much fish was salted and cured there; but I know not on what ground Kaltwasser concludes that the word ‘Malach’ means Salt. It is sometimes asserted that the name is from the Aramaic word Malek, ‘King;’ but W. Humboldt (Prüfung der Untersuchungen über die Urbewohner Hispaniens) says that it is a Basque word.

↑16 The son of Metellus Numidicus. See the Lives of Marius and Sertorius. Sulla lauded in Italy B.C. 83. See the Life of Sulla, c. 27.

↑17 This is the town which the Romans called Tuder. It was situated in Umbria on a hill near the Tiber, and is represented by the modern Todi.

↑18 See the Life of Sulla, c. 29.

↑19 There is nothing peculiar in this. It is common enough for a man to blame in others the faults that he has himself.

↑20 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 1. 2. and 11.

↑21 M. Porcius Cato, whose Life Plutarch has written.

↑22 Cn. Sicinius was Tribunus Plebis B.C. 76. He is mentioned by Cicero (Brutus, c. 60) as a man who had no other oratorical qualification except that of making people laugh. The Roman proverb to which Plutarch alludes occurs in Horatius, 1 Sat. 4. 34:—

“Foenum habet in cornu, longe fuge.”

↑23 The insurrection of the gladiators commenced B.C. 73, in the consulship of M. Terentius Varo Lucullus, the brother of Lucius Lucullus, and of C. Cassius Longinus Verus. The names of two other leaders, Crixus and Oenomaus, are recorded by Floras (iii. 20) and by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 116). The devastation caused by these marauders was long remembered. The allusion of Horatius (Carm. ii. 14) to their drinking all the wine that they could find,is characteristic.

↑24 This Clodius is called Appius CloDius Glaber by Florus (iii. 20). Compare the account of Appian (i. 116). Spartacus commenced the campaign by flying to Mount Vesuvius, which was the scene of the stratagem that is told in this chapter (Frontinus, Stratagem, i. 5) Drumann (Geschichte Roms, iv. 74. M. Licinius Crassus, N. 37) has given a sketch of the campaign with Spartacus.

↑25 P. Varinius Glaber who was prætor; and Clodius was his legatus. He seems to be the same person whom Frontinus (Stratagem, i. 5) mentions under the name of L. Varinus Proconsul.

↑26 The place is unknown. Probably the true reading is Salinæ, and the place may be the Salinæ Herculeæ, in the neighbourhood of Herculaneum. But this is only a guess.

↑27 The consuls were L. Gellius Publicola and Cn. Lentulus Clodianus B.C. 72.

↑28 This was C. Cassius Longinus Verus, proconsul of Gaul upon the Po (see c. 8). Plutarch calls him στρατηγός. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 117) says that one of the consuls defeated Crixus, who was at the head of 30,000 men, near Garganus, that Spartacus afterwards defeated both the consuls, and meditated advancing upon Rome with 120,000 foot soldiers. Spartacus sacrificed three hundred Roman captives to the manes of Crixus, who had fallen in the battle in which he was defeated; 20,000 of his men had perished with Crixus.

Cassius was defeated in the neighbourhood of Mutina (Modena) as we learn from Florus (iii. 20).

↑29 Appian (i. 118) gives two accounts of the decimation, neither of which agrees with the account of Plutarch. This punishment which the Romans called Decimatio, is occasionally mentioned by the Roman writers (Liv. ii. 59).

↑30 Kaltwasser with the help of a false reading has mistranslated this passage. He says that Spartacus sent over ten thousand men into Sicily. Drumann has understood the passage as I have translated it.

↑31 If the length is rightly given, the ditch was about 38 Roman miles in length. There are no data for determining its position. The circumstance is briefly mentioned by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 118). Frontinus (Stratagem., i. 5) states that Spartacus filled up the ditch, where he crossed it, with the dead bodies of his prisoners and of the beasts which were killed for that purpose.

↑32 This lake, which Plutarch spells Leukanis, is placed by Kaltwasser in the vicinity of Paestum or Poseidonia, but on what grounds I do not know. Strabo indeed (p. 251) states that the river makes marshes there, but that will not enable us to identify them. Cramer (Ancient Italy, ii. 366) places here the Stagnum Lucanum, where Plutarch “mentions that Crassus defeated a considerable body of rebels under the command of Spartacus (Plut. Vit. Crass.)”: but nothing is given to prove the assertion. He adds, “In this district we must also place the Mons Calamatius and Mons Cathena of which Frontinus speaks in reference to the same event (Stratagem, ii. 4); they are the mountains of Capaccio.” This is founded on Cluverius, but Cluverius concludes that the Calamatius of Frontinus (ii. 4, 7), or Calamarcus as the MSS. seem to have it, is the same as the Cathena of Frontinus (ii. 5, 34); for in fact Frontinus tells the same story twice, as he sometimes does. It is a mistake to say that Frontinus is speaking “of the same event,” that is, the defeat of the gladiators on the lake. He is speaking of another event, which is described farther on in this chapter, when Crassus attacks Cannicius and Crixus, and “sent,” as Frontinus says (ii. 4, 7), ” twelve cohorts round behind a mountain.”

↑33 This was Marcus Lucullus, the brother of Lucius.

↑34 ‘To the Peteline mountains’ in the original. Strabo speaks of a Petelia in Lucania (p. 254), which some critics suppose that he has confounded with the Petilia in the country of the Bruttii. The reasons for this opinion are stated by Cramer (Ancient Italy, ii. 367, 390).

↑35 ‘Quintus’ in the text of Plutarch, which is a common error. ‘L. Quintius’ in Frontinus (ii. 5, 34).

↑36 The same thing is told in the Life of Pompeius, c. 21.

↑37 In the Life of Marcellus, c. 22, Plutarch describes the minor triumph, called the Ovatio, which name is from the word ‘ovis’ a sheep; for a sheep only was sacrificed by the general who had the minor triumph; he who had the greater triumph, sacrificed an ox. In an ovatio the general walked in the procession, instead of riding in a chariot drawn by four horses, as in the Triumphus Curulis; and he wore a crown of myrtle, instead of a crown of bay which was worn on the occasion of the greater triumph. But Plinius (Hist. Nat. xv. 29) says that Crassus wore a crown of bay on the occasion of this ovation.

↑38 The first consulship of M. Licinius Crassus and Cn. Pompeius Magnus belongs to B.C. 70.

↑39 The story is told again in the Life of Pompeius, c. 23, where Aurelius is called Caius Aurelius, which is probably the true name.

↑40 Crassus was censor with Lutatius Catulus in B.C. 65. The duties of the censors are here briefly alluded to by Plutarch. One of the most important was the numbering of the people and the registration of property for the purposes of taxation. This quarrel of the censors is mentioned by Dion Cassius (37. c. 9).

↑41 The conspiracy of Catiline was in B.C. 63, the year when Cicero was consul. See the Life of Cicero.

There seems to be no evidence that Crassus was implicated in the affair of Catiline. Dion Cassius (37. c. 31) speaks of anonymous letters about the conspiracy being brought to Crassus and other nobles; and Plutarch states on the authority of Cicero that Crassus communicated the letters to Cicero. Dion Cassius in another passage (37. c. 35) mentions the suspicion against Crassus, and that one of the prisoners informed against him, “but there were not many to believe it.” If Dion did not believe it, we need not; for he generally believes anything that is to a man’s discredit. Sallustius (Bellum Catilin. c. 48) has given us a statement of the affair, but his own opinion can scarcely be collected from it. He says, however, that he had heard Crassus declare that Cicero was the instigator of this charge. The orations of Cicero which Plutarch refers to are not extant.

↑42 The text is corrupt, though the general meaning is plain. See the note of Sintonis.

↑43 The son of Crassus, who is introduced abruptly in Plutarch’s fashion.

↑44 After Cæsar had been prætor in Spain he was elected consul B.C. 59, with M. Calpurnius Bibulus (see the Life of Cæsar, c. 14). After his consulship Cæsar had the Gauls as his province. The meeting at Luca (Lucca), which was on the southern limits of Cæsar’s province, took place B.C. 56; and here was formed the coalition which is sometimes, though improperly, called the first Triumvirate.

↑45 The second consulship of Pompeius and Crassus was B.C. 55. Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus was one of the consuls of the year B.C. 56, during which the elections for the year 55 took place. This Domitius, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was consul B.C. 54. In the quarrel between Pompeius and Cæsar, he joined Pompeius, and after various adventures finally he lost his life in the battle of Pharsalus B.C. 48.

↑46 The first ‘house’ (οἰκία) is evidently the house of Domitius. The second house (οἴκημα), which may be more properly rendered ‘chamber,’ may, as Sintenis says, mean the Senate-house, if the reading is right. Kaltwasser takes the second house to be the same as the first house; and he refers to the Life of Pompeius, c. 51, 52, where the same story is told.

In place of οἴκημα some critics have read βῆμα the Rostra.

↑47 Appian (Civil Wars, ii. 18) says that Pompeius received Iberia and Libya. The Romans had now two provinces in the Spanish peninsula, Hispania Citerior or Tarraconensis, and Ulterior or Bætica. This arrangement, by which the whole power of the state was distributed among Pompeius, Crassus and Cæsar, was in effect a revolution, and the immediate cause of the wars which followed.

Appian (Civil Wars, ii. 18) after speaking of Crassus going on his Parthian expedition in which he lost his life, adds, “but the Parthian History will show forth the calamity of Crassus.” Appian wrote a Parthian History; but that which is now extant under the name is merely an extract from Plutarch’s Life of Crassus, beginning with the sixteenth chapter: which extract is followed by another from Plutarch’s Life of Antonius. The compiler of this Parthian History has put at the head of it a few words of introduction. The extract from Crassus is sometimes useful for the various readings which it offers.

↑48 This wife was Cæsar’s daughter Julia, whom Pompeius married in Cæsar’s consulship (Vell. Paterc. ii. 44). She was nearly twenty-three years younger than Pompeius. Julia died B.C. 54, after giving birth to a son, who died soon after her. She possessed beauty and a good disposition. The people, with whom she was a favourite, had her buried in the Field of Mars. See the Lives of Pompeius and Cæsar.

↑49 That is the Lex which prolonged Cæsar’s government for five years and gave Iberia (Spain) and Syria to Pompeius and Crassus for the same period. The Lex was proposed by the Tribune Titus Trebonius (Livius, Epitome, 105; Dion Cassius, 39. c. 33).

↑50 C. Ateius Capito Gallus and his brother tribune P. Aquillius Gallius were strong opponents of Pompeius and Crassus at this critical time. Crassus left Rome for his Parthian campaign at the close of B.C. 55, before the expiration of his consulship (Clinton, Fasti, B.C. 54).

↑51 We learn that Crassus sailed from Brundisium (Brindisi), the usual place of embarkation for Asia, but we are told nothing more of his course till we find him in Galatia, talking to old Deiotarus.

↑52 Zenodotia or Zenodotium, a city of the district Osrhoene, and near the town of Nikephorium. These were Greek cities founded by the Macedonians. I have mistranslated the first part of this passage of Plutarch from not referring at the time to Dion Cassius (40. c. 13) who tells the story thus:—“The inhabitants of Zenodotium sent for some of the Romans, pretending that they intended to join them like the rest; but when the men were within the city, they cut off their retreat and killed them; and this was the reason why their city was destroyed.” The literal version of Plutarch’s text will be the true one. “But in one of them, of which Apollonius was tyrant, a hundred of his soldiers were put to death, upon,” &c.

↑53 This was his son Publius, who is often mentioned in Cæsar’s Gallic War.

↑54 See Life of Lucullus, c. 22.

↑55 Hierapolis or the ‘Holy City’ was also called Bambyke and Edessa. Strabo places it four schoeni from the west bank of the Euphrates. The goddess who was worshipped here was called Atargatis or Astarte. Lucian speaks of the goddess and her temple and ceremonial in his treatise ‘On the Syrian Goddess’ (iii. p. 451, ed. Hemsterhuis). Lucian had visited the place. Josephus adds (Jewish Antiq. xiv. 7) that Crassus stripped the temple of Jerusalem of all its valuables to the amount of ten thousand talents. The winter occupation of the Roman general was more profitable than his campaign the following year turned out.

↑56 This was a general name of the Parthian kings, and probably was used as a kind of title. The dynasty was called the Arsakidæ. The name Arsakes occurs among the Persian names in the Persæ of Aeschylus. Pott (Etymologische Forschungen, ii. 272) conjectures that the word means ‘King of the Arii,’ or ‘the noble King.’ The prefix Ar or Ari is very common in Persian names, as Ariamnes, Ariomardus, and others.

Plutarch in other passages of the Life of Crassus calls this Arsakes, Hyrodes, and other authorities call him Orodes. He is classed as Arsakes XIV. Orodes I. of Parthia, by those who have attempted to form a regular series of the Parthian kings.

Crassus replied that he would give his answer in Seleukeia, the large city on the Tigris, which was nearly pure Greek. The later Parthian capital was Ktesiphon, in the neighbourhood of Seleukeia, on the east bank of the Tigris and about twenty miles from Bagdad. The foundation of Ktesiphon is attributed by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. 6, ed. Gronov.) to Bardanes, who was a contemporary of the Roman emperor Nero, if he is the Arsakes Bardanes who appears in the list of Parthian kings. But Ktesiphon is mentioned by Polybius in his fifth book, in the wars of Antiochus and Molon, and consequently it existed in the time of Crassus, though it is not mentioned in his Life. Ktesiphon is mentioned by Dion Cassius (40. c. 14) in his history of the campaign of Crassus, but this alone would not prove that Ktesiphon existed at that time.

↑57 The Greek word here and at the beginning of ch. xix., translated ‘mailed’ by Mr. Long, always refers to cuirassed cavalry soldiers.

↑58 C. Cassius Longinus, the friend of M. Junius Brutus, and afterwards one of the assassins of the Dictator Cæsar.

↑59 He is afterwards called Artavasdes. He was a son of the Tigranes whom Lucullus defeated, and is called Artavasdes I. by Saint-Martin. He is mentioned again in Plutarch’s Life of M. Antonius. c. 39, 50.

↑60 Zeugma means the Bridge. Seleukus Nikator is said to have established a bridge of boats here, in order to connect the opposite bank with Apameia, a city which he built on the east side of the Euphrates (Plinius, Hist. Nat. v. 24). Zeugma afterwards was a usual place for crossing the river; but a bridge of boats could hardly be permanently kept there, and it appears that Crassus had to construct a raft. Zeugma is either upon or near the site of Bir, which is in about 37° N. Lat.

↑61 Probably these great hurricanes are not uncommon on the Euphrates. In the year 1831 a gale sent Colonel Chesney’s “little vessel to the bottom of the river;” but a still greater calamity befel the Tigris steamer in the Euphrates expedition which was under the command of Colonel Chesney, in May 1836. A little after one P.M. a storm appeared bringing with it clouds of sand from the west-north-west. The two steam-boats the Tigris and the Euphrates were then passing over the rocks of Es-Geria, which were deeply covered with water. The Euphrates was safely secured; but the Tigris, being directed against the bank, struck with great violence; the wind suddenly veered round and drove her bow off; “this rendered it quite impossible to secure the vessel to the bank, along which she was blown rapidly by the heavy gusts; her head falling off into the stream as she passed close to the Euphrates, which vessel had been backed opportunely to avoid the concussion.” The Tigris perished in this violent hurricane and twenty men were lost in her. The storm lasted about eight minutes. Colonel Chesney escaped by swimming to the shore just before the vessel went down: he was fortunate “to take a direction which brought him to the land, without having seen anything whatever to guide him through the darkness worse than that of night.”—“For an instant,” says Colonel Chesney after getting to land, “I saw the keel of the Tigris uppermost (near the stern); she went down bow foremost, and having struck the bottom in that position, she probably turned round on the bow as a pivot, and thus showed part of her keel for an instant at the other extremity; but her paddle beams, floats, and parts of the sides were already broken up, and actually floated ashore, so speedy and terrific had been the work of destruction.” (Letter from Colonel Chesney to Sir J. Hobhouse, 28th May, 1836; Euphrates Expedition Papers printed by order of the House of Commons, 17th July, 1837.)

Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiv. 1) speaks of a violent storm at Anatha (Annah) on the Euphrates, during the expedition of the Emperor Julian. It blew down the tents and stretched the soldiers on the ground.

↑62 A place struck with lightning was considered religious (religiosus), that is, it could no longer be used for common purposes. “The deity,” says Festus (v. Fulguritum), “was supposed to have appropriated it to himself.”

Dion Cassius (40. c. 17, &c.) gives the story of the passage of the river. The eagle, according to him, was very obstinate. It stuck fast in the ground, as if it was planted there; and when it was forced up by the soldiers, it went along very unwillingly.

The Roman eagle was fixed at one end of a long shaft of wood, which had a sharp point at the other end for the purpose of fixing it in the ground. The eagle was gold, or gilded metal; and, according to Dion Cassius, it was kept in a small moveable case or consecrated chapel. The eagle was not moved from the winter encampment, unless the whole army was put in motion. The Vexilla (σημεῖα of the Greek writers) were what we call the colours.

(See the note of Reimarus on Dion Cassius, 40. c. 18.)

↑63 Dion Cassius (40. c. 20), who tells the story, names the man Augarus. See the note of Reimarus.

↑64 This is the translation of Plutarch’s word πελάτης, which word πελάτης is used by the Greek writers on Roman history to express the Latin Cliens. It is not here supposed that Parthian clients were the same as Roman clients; but as Plutarch uses the word to express a certain condition among the Parthians, which was not that of slavery, it is proper to retain his word in the translation.

↑65 This “very Hyrodes” and his brother Mithridates are said to have murdered their father Arsakes XII. Phraates III., who is spoken of in the Life of Lucullus. The two brothers quarrelled. Mithridates is mentioned by some authorities as the immediate successor of his father under the title of Arsakes XIII. Mithridates III. Mithridates was besieged in Babylon by Hyrodes; and Mithridates, after surrendering to his brother, was put to death. (Dion Cassius, 39. c. 56; Appian, On the Affairs of Syria, c. 51; Justinus, xlii. 4.)

↑66 This river is probably the same as the Bilecha, now the Belejik, a small stream which joins the Euphrates on the left bank at Racca, the old Nikephorium. This river is mentioned by Isidorus of Charax and by Ammianus Marcellinus (xxiii. c. 3), who calls it Belias.

↑67 Plutarch seems to mean something like drums furnished with bells or rattles; but his description is not very clear, and the passage may be rendered somewhat differently from what I have rendered it: “but they have instruments to beat upon (ῥόπτρα), made of skin, and hollow, which they stretch round brass sounders” (ἠχείοις, whatever the word may mean here). The word ῥόπτρον properly means a thing to strike with; but it seems to have another meaning here. (See Passow’s Greek Lexicon.) The context seems to show that a drum is meant.

↑68 Margiana was a country east of the Caspian, the position of which seems to be determined by the Murg-aub river, the ancient Margus. Hyrcania joined it on the west. Strabo (p. 516) describes Margiana as a fertile plain surrounded by deserts. He says nothing of its iron. Plinius (Hist. Nat. vi. 16) says that Orodes carried off the Romans who were captured at the time of the defeat of Crassus, to Antiochia, in Margiana.

↑69 So Xenophon (Cyropædia, i. 3. 2) represents King Astyages. The king also wore a wig or false locks.

↑70 The peculiarity of the Parthian warfare made a lasting impression on the Romans; and it is often alluded to by the Latin writers:—

Fidentemque fuga Parthum versisque sagittis.

Virgil, Georgic iii. 31.

↑71 In reading the chapter, it must be remembered that Publius is young Crassus. If there is any apparent confusion between the father and son, it will be removed by reading carefully. I have chosen to translate Plutarch, not to mend him.

↑72 The reading of this passage in Appian (Parthica, c. 29) is τέλμασιν ἐντυχόντες, which Sintenis has adopted. The common reading is συντάγμασιν ἐντυχόντες, which various critics variously explain.

↑73 In the old Latin translation of Guarini, the name Cn. Plancus occurs in place of Megabacchus. Kaltwasser conjectures that Megabacchus was a Greek, but the context implies that he was a Roman. Orelli (Onomastic. C. Megaboccus) takes him to be the person mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. ii. 7), which Gronovius had already observed, and again by Cicero, Pro Scauro, c. 2.

↑74 Censorinus was a cognomen of the Marcia Gens, and several of the name are mentioned in the history of Rome; but this Censorinus does not appear to be otherwise known.

↑75 Carrhæ was a Mesopotamian town, south of Orfa or Edessa, and about 37° N. lat. It is supposed to be the Haran of Genesis (xi. 31).

↑76 Ichnæ was a town on the Bilecha, south of Carrhæ. Dion Cassias (40. c. 12) calls it Ichniæ, and adds that Crassus before taking Nikephorium had been defeated by Talymenus Eilakes. Eilakes is probably a blunder in the copies of Dion; and it is conjectured that he is the Sillakes mentioned by Plutarch (c. 21), Appian, and Orosius (vi. 3).

↑77 The death of young Crassus, and the subsequent misfortunes of the Romans, are described by Dion Cassius, 40. c. 21, &c.

↑78 Or Egnatius. He is called Gnatius by Appian.

↑79 Cassius escaped to Syria, which he successfully defended against the invading Parthians, who lost their commander, Osakes. (Dion Cassius. 40. c. 28, 29; Cicero, Ad Attic. v. 20; Orosius, vi. 13.)

Cicero was proconsul of Cilicia during the Parthian invasion of Syria B.C. 51.

↑80 Sinnaca is mentioned by Strabo p. 747, but he says nothing which enables us to fix its position. If Plutarch’s narrative is correct; it was not far from Carrhæ; and Carrhæ was considered by the Romans to be the scene of the death of Crassus, probably because it was the nearest known place to the spot where he fell.

↑81 ‘The river’ is the Euphrates.

↑82 The stories about the death of Crassus varied, as we might suppose. Dion Cassius (40. c. 27) remarks that, according to one version of the story, Crassus was badly wounded, and was killed by one of his own people to prevent him from being taken alive. He adds that the chief part of the army of Crassus made their escape.

↑83 The story of molten gold being poured into the mouth of the head of Crassus is given by Dion Cassius as a report. Floras (iii. 11) has the same story; and he says that it was the right hand of Crassus which was sent to the king, as we might conjecture it would be, if only one was sent.

↑84 Kaltwasser asks, “Was this perchance intended as an allusion to the avarice of Crassus, as the female dress was intended to refer to his cowardice?” The probable answer is Yes.

↑85 As this was a Greek town, it had a Greek constitution, and was governed by a body which the Romans called a Senate. The Senate of Seleukeia is mentioned by Tacitus (Annal. vi. 42): “Trecenti opibus, aut sapientia delecti, ut Senatus: sua populo vis; et quoties concordes agunt, spernitur Parthus.”

↑86 This Aristeides wrote lewd stories called Milesiaca, of which there were several books. They were translated into Latin by the historian L. Cornelius Sisenna, a contemporary of Sulla. It is not said whether the original or the translation formed a part of the camp furniture of this unworthy Roman soldier. The work of Aristeides was known to Ovidius (Tristia, ii. 413, 443), who attempts to defend his own amatory poetry by the example of Sisenna, who translated an obscene book.

↑87 Probably there is an error in the name: Roscius has been proposed as the probable reading.

↑88 Plutarch is alluding to the fable of the two wallets, which every man carries, one in front with his neighbours’ faults in it, and the other behind containing his own. Phædrus (iv. 10, ed. Orelli) has pithily told the apologue:—

Peras imposuit Iuppiter nobis duas:

Propriis repletam vitiis post tergum dedit,

Alienis ante pectus suspendit gravem.

Hac re videre nostra mala non possumus:

Alii simul delinquunt, censores sumus.

Two wallets Juppiter has placed upon us:

Our own faults fill the bag we bear behind,

Our neighbour’s heavy wallet hangs in front.

And so we cannot see our own ill deeds;

But if another trips, forthwith we censure.

↑89 This word means a thick stick; and a snake of like form.

↑90 Greek adventurers were always making their way to the courts of these barbarous Asiatic kings to serve in the capacity of physicians, mountebanks, or impostors of some kind. Several instances are mentioned by Herodotus. Tralles was a considerable town near the west coast of Asia Minor, from which this actor came.

↑91 Pentheus, king of Thebes, son of Agave; would not recognise the divinity of Bacchus, whereupon Bacchus infuriated the women, and among them Agave, who killed her own son. She is introduced in the Bacchæ with his head in her hand, exulting over the slaughter of the supposed wild beast.

The passage which is cited is from the Bacchæ of Euripides, v. 1168, ed. Elmsley. The exact meaning of the word ἕλικα in the passage is uncertain. See Elmsley’s note.

↑92 The word is Exodium (ἐξόδιον), a kind of entertainment common among the Romans, though it is a Greek word. Plutarch means that this exhibition before the kings was like the farce which is acted after a tragedy. It seems as if Jason was first playing the part of Agave, and was then going to play that of Pentheus; but on seeing the head he put aside the mask and dress of Pentheus, and recited the words of the frantic mother. Plutarch sometimes leaves things in a kind of mist: he gives his reader opportunity for conjecture.

↑93 Pacorus was completely defeated B.C. 38 near the Euphrates by P. Ventidius Bassus, who was the legatus of M. Antonius. Pacorus lost his life in the battle (Dion Cassius, 49. c. 20; Plutarch, Life of Antonius, c. 34). It is said that Pacorus fell on the same day on which Crassus lost his life fifteen years before, the 9th of June (Dion Cassius, 49. c. 21, and the note of Reimarus).

↑94 He began his reign under the name of Arsakes XV. Phraates IV., according to some authorities, B.C. 37. He was not satisfied with murdering his father: he murdered his brothers, and many distinguished Parthians. His name occurs again in Plutarch’s Life of Antonius. Phraates delivered up to Augustus, B.C. 20, the Roman soldiers, eagles, and standards which had been taken by Crassus; an event which is commemorated by extant medals, and was recorded by Augustus among his other exploits in the Monumentum Ancyranum.

↑95 This is the Greek word (ὰκόνιτον): the same name is now given to Monkshood or Wolfsbane, a genus of Ranunculaceae. Aconite is now used as a medicine; “The best forms are either an alcoholic extract of the leaves, or an alcoholic tincture of the root made by displacement.” It is a poisonous plant, and death has followed from the careless use of it (“Aconite,” Penny Cyclopædia and Supplement to the P. Cyc.).

With this farce, as Plutarch remarks, the history of Crassus terminates. If Plutarch designed to make Crassus contemptible, he has certainly succeeded. And there is nothing in other authorities to induce us to think that he has done Crassus injustice. With some good qualities and his moderate abilities, he might have been a respectable man in a private station. But insatiable avarice, and that curse of many men, ambition without the ability that can ensure success and command respect, made Crassus a fool in his old age, and brought him to an ignominious end.

[Pg 89]

Nikias Crassus

↑1 I cannot find that Nikias took any part in the massacre of the people of Melos in 416 B.C.

[Pg 94]

Sertorius

↑1 If this is obscure, the fault is Plutarch’s. His word for Fortune is τύχη which he has often used in the Life of Sulla. The word for Spontaneity is τὸ αὐτόματον, the Self-moved. The word for Elemental things is τὰ ὑποκειμένα. The word ὑποκειμένον is used by Aristotle to signify both the thing of which something is predicated, the Subject of grammarians, and for the Substance, which is as it were the substratum on which actions operate. Aristotle (Metaphys. vi. vii. 3) says “Essence (οὐσία) or Being is predicated, if not in many ways, in four at least; for the formal cause (τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι), and the universal, and genus appear to be the essence of everything; and the fourth of these is the Substance (τὸ ὑποκειμένον). And the Substance is that of which the rest are predicated, but it is not predicated of any other thing. And Essence seems to be especially the first Substance; and such, in a manner, matter (ὕλη) is said to be; and in another manner, form; and in a third, that which is from these. And I mean by matter (ὕλη), copper, for instance; and by form, the figure of the idea; and by that which is from them, the statue in the whole,” &c. I have translated τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι by “formal cause,” as Thomas Taylor has done, and according to the explanation of Trendelenburg, in his edition of Aristotle On the Soul, i. 1, § 2. It is not my business to explain Aristotle, but to give some clue to the meaning of Plutarch.

The word “accidentally” (κατὰ τύχην) is opposed to “forethought” (προνοία), “design,” “providence.” How Plutarch conceived Fortune, I do not know; nor do I know what Fortune and Chance mean in any language. But the nature of the contrast which he intends is sufficiently clear for his purpose.

↑2 As to Attes, as Pausanias (vii. 17) names him, his history is given by Pausanias. There appears to be some confusion in his story. Herodotus (i. 36) has a story of an Atys, a son of Crœsus, who was killed while hunting a wild boar; and Adonis, the favourite of Venus, was killed by a wild boar. It is not known who this Arcadian Atteus was.

Actæon saw Diana naked while she was bathing, and was turned by her into a deer and devoured by his dogs. (Apollodorus, Biblioth. iii. 4; Ovidius, Metamorph. iii. 155.) The story of the other Actæon is told by Plutarch (Amator. Narrationes, c. 2).

↑3 The elder Africanus, P. Cornelius Scipio, who defeated Hannibal B.C. 202, and the younger Africanus, the adopted son of the son of the elder Africanus, who took Carthage B.C. 146. See Life of Tib. Gracchus, c. 1, Notes.

↑4 Ios, a small island of the Grecian Archipelago, now Nio, is mentioned among the places where Homer was buried. The name Ios resembles that of the Greek word for violet, (ίον). Smyrna, one of the members of the Ionian confederation, is mentioned among the birth places of Homer. It was an accident that the name of the town Smyrna was the same as the name for myrrh, Smyrna (σμύρνη),x which was not a Greek word. Herodotus (iii. 112) says that it was the Arabians who procured myrrh.

↑5 This Philippus was the father of Alexander the Great. He is said to have lost an eye from a wound by an arrow at the siege of Pydna Antigonus, one of the generals of Alexander, was named Cyclops, or the one-eyed. He accompanied Alexander in his Asiatic expedition, and in the division of the empire after Alexander’s death he obtained a share and by his vigour and abilities he made himself the most powerful of the successors of Alexander. It is said that Apelles, who painted the portrait of Antigonus, placed him in profile in order to hide the defect of the one eye. Antigonus closed his long career at the battle of Ipsus B.C. 301, where he was defeated and killed. He was then eighty-one years of age.

↑6 Plutarch’s form is Annibas. I may have sometimes written it Hannibal. Thus we have Anno and Hanno. I don’t know which is the true form. [I prefer to write it Hannibal.—A.S.]

↑7 Plutarch has written the Life of Eumenes, whom he contrasts with Sertorius. Eumenes was one of the generals of Alexander who accompanied him to Asia. After Alexander’s death, he obtained for his government a part of Asia Minor bordering on the Euxine, and extending as far east as Trapezus. The rest of his life is full of adventure. He fell into the hands of Antigonus B.C. 315, who put him to death.

↑8 Nursia was in the country of the Sabini among the Apennines, and near the source of the Nar. It is now Norcia. The MSS. of Plutarch have Nussa.

↑9 The date is B.C. 105. See the Life of Marius, c. 10, and Notes.

↑10 Titus Didius and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos were consuls B.C. 98. In B.C. 97 Didius was in Spain as Proconsul, and fought against the Celtiberi. Gellius (ii. 27) quotes a passage from the Historiæ of Sallustius, in which mention is made of Sertorius serving under Didius in Spain, and the character of Sertorius is given pretty nearly in the terms of Plutarch, who may have used Sallustius as one of his authorities. Didius is mentioned by Cicero, Pro Cn. Plancio, c. 25; and by Frontinus, i. 8. 5; ii. 10. 1; and by Appian (Iberica, c. 99). The passage in the text should be translated, “he was sent out under Didius as commander, and wintered in Iberia, in Castlo,” &c. Plutarch has used the word στρατηγός, which means prætor; but to make the statement correct, we must translate it Proconsul, or commander. See Life of Crassus, c. 4, Notes.

↑11 Castlo, Castalo, or Castulo, is placed on the north bank of the Bætis, the Guadalquivir.

↑12 See the Life of Marius, c. 32, Notes. The events that are briefly alluded to at the end of this chapter are described in the Lives of Marius and Sulla. The battle in the Forum is spoken of in the Life of Marius, c. 41.

↑13 The same story is told in the Life of Marius, c. 44, where it is stated that Cinna and Sertorius combined to put these scoundrels out of the way; but the number that were massacred is not stated there.

↑14 Compare the Life of Marius, c. 45, and of Sulla, c. 28, &c. Cinna was murdered by his soldiers two years after the death of Marius, and in his fourth consulship, B.C. 84. The younger Marius was Consul in B.C. 82, with Cn. Papirius Carbo for his colleague. This was Carbo’s third consulship. According to Plutarch, Sertorius left Italy after the younger Marius was consul, and therefore not earlier than B.C. 82, unless we understand the passage in Plutarch as referring to the election of Marius, and not to the commencement of his consulship. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 86) places the departure of Sertorius in the year B.C. 83.

↑15 Sertorius had not been Consul, and therefore he was not now Proconsul. It is true that a man, who had not been Consul, might receive the government of a Province with the title of Proconsul. (See c. 7.) Sertorius may have assumed the title.

↑16 If Sertorius stayed at Rome till the younger Marius was elected Consul, as Plutarch states in the sixth chapter, he probably saw what he is here represented as hearing.

↑17 This Annius, surnamed Luscus, served under Q. Metellus in the Jugurthine War B.C. 107. (Sallust, Jug. War, c. 77.) Sulla gave him the command in Spain with the title of Proconsul B.C. 81. An extant medal seems to have been struck in honour of his Proconsulship. (Eckhel, Doct. Num. Vet. v. 134.)

↑18 This town, which the Romans called Nova Carthago, was built by the Carthaginians at the close of the first Punic War B.C. 235, and so long as they kept possession of Spain it was their chief city. Livius (26. c. 42), describes the situation of New Carthage, now Cartagena, and one of the best harbours in Spain. Its position on the S.E. coast is favourable for communication with Africa.

↑19 The maritime towns of Cilicia were for a long time the resort of a bold set of seamen and adventurers who scoured the Mediterranean and were as formidable to the people of Italy as the Barbary Corsairs were in the middle ages. It was one of the great merits of Cn. Pompeius Magnus that he cleared the seas of these scoundrels. See Lucullus, c. 37.

↑20 The two islands of Yviça or Ibiça and Formentera, which belong to the Balearic group, were sometimes comprehended under the name of the Pityussæ or the Pine Islands (Strabo, 167, ed. Casaub.). The Greeks and Romans called Yviça, Ebusus. Iviça is hilly, and the high tracts are well covered with pine and fir.

↑21 This is the old name of the Straits of Gibraltar, which is still retained in the modern form Cadiz. Gadeira, which the Romans called Gades, was an old Phœnician town, on the island of Leon, where Cadiz now stands. Strabo (p. 168, ed. Casaub.) says that Gades in his time (the beginning of the reign of Tiberius) was not inferior in population to any city except Rome, and was a place of great trade, as it is now.

↑22 This river, now the Guadalquivir, gave the name of Bætica to one of the three provinces into which the Spanish Peninsula was ultimately divided by the Romans for the purposes of administration.

↑23 This was the name for so much of the ocean that washes the west coast of Europe and Africa as the Greeks and Romans were acquainted with. The Greeks and Romans had no name for the Mediterranean.

↑24 The only islands in the Atlantic that correspond to this description are Madeira and Porto Santo, but Porto Santo is forty miles north-east of Madeira. The distance of Madeira from the coast of Africa is about 400 miles or about 4000 stadia. The climate of Madeira is very temperate: the thermometer seldom sinks below 60°, though it sometimes rises as high as 90° of Fahrenheit. On the high and mountainous parts there are heavy dews, and rain falls at all seasons. Owing to the variety of surface and elevation the island produces both tropical products and those of temperate countries. The fame of this happy region had spread to all parts of the ancient world, though we cannot safely conclude that the islands were known by report to Homer. Horace in his 16th Epode is probably alluding to these islands when he is speaking of the Civil Wars and of flying from their horrors in those beautiful lines:

Nos manet Oceanus circumvagus; arva beata

Petamus arva divites et insulas, &c.

↑25 The passage is in the fourth book of the ‘Odyssey,’ v. 563, and is quoted by Strabo (p. 31):

And there in sooth man’s life is easiest;

Nor snow, nor raging storm, nor rain is there,

But ever gently breathing gales of zephyr

Oceanus sends up.

Strabo in another passage expresses an opinion that the Elysian fields were in the southern parts of Spain. That would at least be a good place for them.

↑26 This region is the Mauritania of the Roman Geographers, the modern Marocco, and the town of Tigennis is the Roman Tingis, the modern Tangier, which is on the Atlantic coast of Africa, south-south-east of Gades. The circumstance of Tingis being attacked shows that the African campaign of Sertorius was in the north-western part of Marocco. Strabo mentions Tinga (p. 825). See also Plin. H.N. v. 1.

↑27 The story of this giant is in the mythographers. Tumuli are found in many parts of the old and new world, and it seems probable that they were all memorials to the dead. The only surprising thing in this story is the size of the body; which each man may explain in his own way. There are various records in antient writers of enormous bones being found. Those found at Tegea under a smithy, which were supposed to be the bones of Orestes, were seven cubits long (Herodotus, i. 68), little more than the ninth part of the dimensions of Antæus: but Antæus was a giant and Orestes was not. See Strabo’s remarks on this story (p. 829).

↑28 See Life of Sulla, c. 17. I am not sure that I have given the right meaning of this passage. Plutarch may mean to say that he has said so much on this matter in honour of Juba.

↑29 I have translated this passage literally and kept the word dæmon, which is the best way of enabling the reader to judge of the meaning; of the text. If the word “dæmon” is here translated “fortune,” it may mislead. A like construction to the words τῶ δαιμόνι συμμεταβαλεῖν τὸ ἧθος occurs in the Life of Lucullus, c. 39. The meaning of the whole passage must be considered with reference to the sense of dæmon, which is explained in the notes of the Life of Sulla, c. 6.

↑30 The Lusitani occupied a part of the modern kingdom of Portugal.

↑31 This story of the deer is told by Frontinus (Stratagem, i. 11, 13), and by Gellius (xv. 22).

↑32 He was of the Aurelia Gens.

↑33 Is a small town on the coast, east of the mouth of the Bætis (Guadalquivir) and near the Straits of Gibraltar. The channel must be the Straits of Gibraltar.

↑34 This is undoubtedly the right name, though it is corrupted in the MSS. See the various readings in Sintenis, and Sulla (c. 31), to which he refers. However, the corrupt readings of some MSS. clearly show what the true reading is.

↑35 Sintenis reads Domitius Calvisius. But it should be Calvinus: Calvinus was a cognomen of the Domitii. (See Livius, Epitome, lib. 90.) The person who is meant is L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. He fell in this battle on the Guadiana, where he was defeated by Hirtuleius. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Ahenobarbi, 19.)

↑36 That is the province which the Romans called Tarraconensis, from the town of Tarraco, Tarragona. The Tarraconensis was the north-eastern part of the Spanish peninsula. The true name of Thoranius is Thorius.

↑37 This was Q. Metellus Pius, the son of Numidicus, who was banished through the artifices of C. Marius. (Life of Marius, c. 7, &c.) He was Proconsul in Spain from B.C. 78 to 72, and was sent there in consequence of the success of Sertorius against Cotta and Fufidius.

↑38 Some critics read Lucius Lollius. See the various readings in Sintenis: his name was L. Manilius.

↑39 I should rather have translated it “Gaul about Narbo.” Plutarch means the Roman Province in Gaul, which was called Narbonensis, from the town of Narbo Martius.

↑40 Commonly called Pompey the Great, whose name occurs in the Lives of Sulla, Lucullus, and Crassus. Plutarch has written his Life at length.

↑41 Probably the philosopher and pupil of Aristotle.

↑42 Some writers would connect this name of a people with Langobriga, the name of a place. There were two places of the name, it is said, and one is placed near the mouth of the Douro. It is useless to attempt to fix the position of the Langobritæ from what Plutarch has said.

↑43 Or Aquinus or Aquilius. Cornelius Aquinus was his name.

↑44 Osca was a town in the north-east of Spain, probably Huesca in Aragon. Mannert observes that this school must have greatly contributed to fix the Latin language in Spain. Spain however already contained Roman settlers, and at a later period it contained numerous Roman colonies: in fact the Peninsula was completely Romanized, of which the Spanish language and the establishment of the Roman Law in Spain are the still existing evidence. The short-lived school of Sertorius could not have done much towards fixing the Latin language in Spain.

↑45 The Bulla was of a round form. See the copy of one from the British Museum in Smith’s ‘Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities.’ Kaltwasser refers to Plutarch’s Life of Romulus, c. 20, and his ‘Roman Questions,’ Part 3, in which he explains what the Bulla is.

↑46 The Greek word κατάσπεισις signifies a “pouring out.” Kaltwasser refers to a passage in Cæsar’s ‘Gallic War,’ iii. 22, in which he speaks of the “devoted” (devoti), whom the Aquitani called Soldurii. As the Aquitani bordered on the Pyrenees, it is not surprising that the like usage prevailed among them and the Iberians.

↑47 The orthography is Perperna, as is proved by inscriptions. M. Perperna, the grandfather of this Perperna, was consul B.C. 130. (see Life of Tib. Gracchus, c. 20, Notes.) The son of M. Perperna also was consul B.C. 92: he did not die till B.C. 49, and consequently survived his son, this Perperna of Plutarch. Perperna Vento had been prætor. He associated himself with Lepidus after the death of Sulla, and was like M. Lepidus driven from Rome (Life of Sulla, c. 34, Notes).

↑48 This is the Ebro, which the Romans called Iberus, the large river which flows in a south-east direction and enters the Mediterranean.

It seems that Plutarch here means the nations between the Ebro and the Pyrenees, or the modern Aragon, Navarre, and Catalonia.

↑49 The story is told by Frontinus, Stratagemata, i. 10, as Kaltwasser observes, and again, in iv. 7, in the very same words. It has been often remarked that Horatius probably alludes to this story (ii. Epist. I, 45).

↑50 The Tagonius is either the Tagus (Tajo), or a branch of that large river, on the banks of which the Carpetani are placed by geographers, who also mark Caraca, a position on the Henares, a branch of the Tagus. If Caraca represents the country of the Charicatani, the Tagonius is the Nares or Henares, on which stood Complutum, the modern Alcalá de Henarea. But all this is merely conjecture.

↑51 Lauron is placed near the coast, and near the outlet of the Sucro river, the modern Xucar. There was also a town Sucro near the mouth of the Sucro. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 109) says that when the city was captured, a soldier attempted violence on a woman (παρὰ φύσιν), who tore out his eyes with her fingers. Sertorius, who knew that the whole cohort was addicted to infamous practices, put them all to death though they were Romans. Frontinus (Stratagem. ii. 5) has a long account of this affair at Lauron, for which he quotes Livius, who says that Pompeius lost ten thousand men and all his baggage.

Pompeius began his Spanish campaign B.C. 76.

↑52 These names are very uncertain in Plutarch. Tuttia may be the Turia, now the Guadalaviar, the river of Valencia, the outlet of which is about twenty-five miles north of the outlet of the Sucro. Other readings are Duria and Dusia (see the notes of Sintenis). If these rivers are properly identified, this campaign was carried on in the plains of the kingdom of Valencia. Tutia is mentioned by Florus (iii. 22) as one of the Spanish towns which surrendered to Pompeius after the death of Sertorius and Perperna.

Kaltwasser refers to Frontinus, who speaks of one Hirtuleius, or Herculeius in some editions, as a general of Sertorius who was defeated by Metellus (Stratagem, ii. 1). In another passage (ii. 7) Frontinus states that Sertorius during a battle being informed by a native that Hirtuleius hod fallen, stabbed the man that he might not carry the news to others, and so dispirit his soldiers. Plutarch (Life of Pompeius c. 18) states that Pompeius defeated Herennius and Perperna near Valentia, and killed above ten thousand of their men. This is apparently the same battle that Plutarch is here speaking of.

↑53 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 19; and Appian (Civil Wars, i. 110), who states that the battle took place near the town of Suero (which would be the more correct translation of the text of Plutarch), and that the wing which Perperna commanded was defeated by Metellus.

↑54 This L. Afranius is the man whom Cicero calls “Auli filius” (Ad Attic, i. 16), by which he meant that he was of obscure origin. He was consul with Q. Metellus Celer B.C. 60. Afranius and Petreius commanded for Pompeius in Spain B.C. 49, but C. Julius Cæsar compelled them to surrender, and pardoned them on the condition that they should not again serve against him. Afranius broke his promise and again joined Pompeius. He was in the battle of Thapsus in Africa B.C. 46, and after the defeat he attempted to escape into Mauritania, but was caught and given up to Cæsar, and shortly afterwards put to death by the soldiers.

↑55 Appian (Civil Wars, i. 110) has the same story about the dear being found.

↑56 Seguntum, or Saguntia, as it is written in Appian (i. 110). It is not certain what place is meant. Some critics would read “in the plains of the Saguntini,” by which might be meant the neighbourhood of Saguntum, a town on the east coast between the mouths of the Ebro and the Xucar, which was taken by Hannibal in the second Punic War (Liv. 21, c. 15). The maps place a Segontia on the Tagonius, another on the Salo (Xalon), a branch of the Ebro, and a Saguntia in the country of the Vaccæi on the northern branch of the Douro. Pompeius in his letter to the Senate speaks of the capture of the camp of Sertorius near Sucro, his defeat on the Durius, and the capture of Valentia. If the Durius be the Douro, this Segontia may be one of the towns called Segontia in the north-west of Spain. But the Durius may be the Turia, the river of Valentia, and Segontia may be Saguntum. The fact of Pompeius wintering among the Vaccæi is perhaps in favour of a north-west Segontia; but still I think that Saguntum was the battle-field. This battle is mentioned by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 110), who says that Pompeius lost six thousand men, but that Metellus defeated Perperua, who lost about five thousand men.

↑57 The Vaccæi occupied part of the country immediately north of the Durius (Douro); but the limits cannot be accurately defined.

↑58 Compare the Life of Lucullus, c. 5, and the Life of Crassus, c. 11. The letter of Pompeius to the Senate is in the third book of the Fragments of the Roman History of Sallustius. The letter concludes with the following words, which Plutarch had apparently read: “Ego non rem familiarem modo, verum etiam fidem consumpsi. Reliqui vos estis, qui nisi subvenitis, invito et praedicente me, exercitus hinc et cum eo omne bellum Hispaniae in Italiam transgredientur.”

↑59 This appears to be the event which is described in the fragment of the Second Book of the History of Sallustius, which is preserved by Macrobius, Saturnalia, ii. 9, in the chapter “De Luxu.”

↑60 Compare the Life of Sulla, c. 11.

↑61 See the Life of Sulla, c. 24.

↑62 Kaltwasser quotes Reiske, who observes that Plutarch, who wrote under the Empire, expresses himself after the fashion of his age, when the Roman Cæsars lived on the Palatine.

↑63 The treaty with Mithridates was made B.C. 75. This Marius is mentioned in the Life of Lucullus, c. 8. Appian (Mithridatic War, c. 68) calls him Marcus Varius, and also states that Sertorius agreed to give Mithridates, Asia, Bithynia, Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Galatia. In the matter of Asia the narratives of Plutarch and Appian are directly opposed to one another.

↑64 This may be literally rendered “Marcus Marius together with whom Mithridates having captured some of the Asiatic cities;” Kaltwasser renders it, “in connection with him (Marcus Marius) Mithrdates conquered some towns in Asia.” But the context shows that Marcus Marius was to be considered the principal, and that the towns were not conquered in order to be given to Mithridates.

↑65 Compare the Life of Lucullus, c. 20.

↑66 Appian (Civil Wars, i. 112) does not mention this massacre of the Iberian boys; but he states that Sertorius had become odious to the Romans whom he now distrusted, and that he employed Iberians instead of the Romans as his body-guard. He also adds that the character of Sertorius was changed, that he gave himself up to wine and women, and was continually sustaining defeats. These circumstances and fear for his own life, according to Appian, led Perperna to conspire against Sertorius (i. 113).

↑67 Perhaps Octavius Gracimus, as the name appears in Frontinus (Stratagem. ii. 5, 31).

↑68 τῆ βραδυτῆτι τῆς λαλιᾶς The meaning of these words may be doubtful; but what I have given is perhaps consistent with the Greek and with the circumstances. There was some hesitation about beginning the attack, and the flagging of the conversation was a natural consequence.

Sertorius was murdered B.C. 72, in the consulship of L. Gellius Publicola and Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus, in the eighth year of his command in Spain. (Livius, Epitom. 96.) Accordingly this places the commencement of his command in B.C. 80; but he went to Spain in B.C. 82, or at the end of B.C. 83. See Notes on c. 6. Appian (Civil Wars, i. 114) states that when the will of Sertorius was opened it was discovered that he had placed Perperna among his heredes, a circumstance which throws doubt on the assertion of Appian that Perperna was afraid that Sertorius intended to take his life. Appian adds that when this was known, it created great enmity against Perperna among his followers.

Plutarch’s estimate of Sertorius may be a favourable one; yet he does not omit to mention that act of his life which was most blamable, the massacre of the youths at Osca. From the slight indications in Frontinus, who found some material for his work on Military Stratagems in the campaigns of Sertorius, and from other passages, we may collect that, however mild the temper of Sertorius was, circumstances must often have compelled him to acts of severity and even cruelty. The difficulties of his position can only be estimated when we reflect on the nature of a campaign in many parts of Spain and the kind of soldiers he had under him. Promptitude and decision were among his characteristics; and in such a warfare promptitude and decision cannot be exercised at the time when alone they are of any use, if a man is swayed by any other considerations than those of prudence and necessity in the hour of danger. A general who could stab one of his own men in the heat of battle, to prevent him dispiriting the army by news of a loss, proved that his judgment was as clear as his determination was resolved.

Plutarch’s narrative is of no value as a campaign, and his apology must be that he was not writing a campaign, but delineating a man’s character. Drumann Geschichte Roms, Pompeius, p. 350, &c.) has attempted to give a connected history of this campaign against Sertorius, and he has probably done it as well as it can be done with such materials as we possess. The map of Antient Spain and Portugal published by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, will be useful for reading the sketch in Drumann. Plutarch had no good map, and, as already observed, he was not writing a campaign. Some modern historical writers, who have maps, seem to have made very little use of them; and their narrative of military transactions is often us confused as Plutarch’s.

The nature of Guerilla warfare in Spain may be learned from the history of the Peninsular War. The difficulties of a campaign in Navarre and the Basque provinces are well shown in the campaigns of Zumalacarregui, the Carlist chief, a modern Sertorius, whose extraordinary career was cut short by a chance ball before the walls of Bilbao, in 1835. (Henningsen, The most striking Events of a Twelve-month’s Campaign with Zumalacarregui, London, 1836.)

↑69 Metellus marched to another part of Spain, and left Pompeius to deal with Perperna. According to Appian’s narrative the decisive action between Pompeius and Perperna took place “on the tenth day,” probably the tenth from the death of Sertorius. Pompeius would not see Perperna after he was taken, and prudently put him to death. “The death of Sertorius,” says Appian, “was the end of the Spanish war, and it is probable that if Sertorius had lived, it would not have been terminated so soon, or so easily.”

[Pg 130]

Eumenes

↑1 Trebisond.

↑2 Alexander.

↑3 Plutarch tells us nothing of how Kleopatra came to Sardis. See Thirlwall’s ‘History of Greece,’ chap. lvii.

↑4 Thirlwall’s ‘History,’ chap. lvii.

[Pg 150]

Agesilaus

↑1 This passage has been admirably paraphrased by Grote, ‘History of Greece,’ Part II. ch. lxxiii.:—

“Combined with that ability and energy in which he was never deficient, this conciliatory policy ensured him more real power than had ever fallen to the lot of any king of Sparta—power, not merely over the military operations abroad, which usually fell to the kings, but also over the policy of the state at home. On the increase and maintenance of that real power, his chief thoughts were concentrated; new dispositions generated by kingship, which had never shown themselves in him before. Despising, like Lysander, both money, luxury, and all the outward show of power, he exhibited, as a king, an ultra-Spartan simplicity, carried almost to affectation in diet, clothing, and general habits. But like Lysander, also, he delighted in the exercise of dominion through the medium of knots or factions of devoted partizans, whom he rarely scrupled to uphold in all their career of injustice and oppression. Though an amiable man, with no disposition to tyranny and still less to plunder, for his own benefit—Agesilaus thus made himself the willing instrument of both, for the benefit of his various coadjutors and friends, whose power and consequence he identified with his own.” See also infra, ch. xiii. et al.

↑2 We see here the beginning of that tendency of the Neoplatonic school to find a sanction for all their theories in some perversion of the plain meaning of Homer’s words.

↑3 Compare Life of Lysander, ch. xxiii.

↑4 In Sintenis’s text of Plutarch this prince’s name is spelt as above. Xenophon, however, in his Life of Agesilaus, spells it Otys; and this reading has been adopted by Grote. It must be remembered that Xenophon was probably an eye-witness of the proceedings which he records, and that Plutarch lived several centuries later.

↑5 The Greek word here translated “guest” is explained by Liddell and Scott, s.v., to mean “any person in a foreign city with whom one has a treaty of hospitality for self and heirs, confirmed by mutual presents and an appeal to Ζεὺς ξένιος.”

↑6 He sought to compose the dissensions and misrule which had arisen out of the Lysandrian Dekarchies, or governments of ten, in the Greco-Asiatic cities, avoiding as much as possible the infliction of death or exile.—Grote, part ii. ch. lxxiii.

↑7 Nothing is known of this tribe. There is a city, Tralles, in Asia Minor, which Clough conjectures may possibly have been connected with them. Liddell and Scott speak of “Trallians” as “Thracian barbarians employed in Asia as mercenaries, torturers, and executioners.”

↑8 The people living about Pharsalia.

↑9 Mora, a Spartan regiment of infantry. The number of men in each varied from 400 to 900, according as the men above 45, 50, &c., years were called out.

↑10 The most aristocratic city in Bœotia, now allied with the Spartans. During the Theban supremacy it was utterly destroyed.

↑11 That is, the aristocratic or pro-Laconian party, who had been driven out by the other side.

↑12 To Medise was a phrase originally used during the great Persian invasion of Greece under Xerxes, B.C. 480, when those Greek cities who sided with the Persians, were said to Medise, that is, to take the side of the Medes. See Life of Artaxerxes, vol. iv. ch. 22, and Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. ch. lxxvi.

↑13 See ante, ch. xiii., note.

↑14 This name is spelt Leontiades by most writers.

↑15 I extract the following note from Grote’s ‘History of Greece.’ “Plutarch gives this interchange of brief questions, between Agesilaus and Epameinondas, which is in substance the same as that given by Pausanias, and has every appearance of being true. But he introduces it in a very bold and abrupt way, such as cannot be conformable to the reality. To raise a question about the right of Sparta to govern Laconia was a most daring novelty. A courageous and patriotic Theban might venture upon it as a retort against those Spartans who questioned the right of Thebes to her presidency of Bœotia; but he would never do so without assigning his reasons to justify an assertion so startling to a large portion of his hearers. The reasons which I here ascribe to Epameinondas are such as we know to have formed the Theban creed, in reference to the Bœotian cities; such as were actually urged by the Theban orator in 427 B.C., when the fate of the Platæan captives was under discussion. After Epameinondas had once laid out the reasons in support of his assertion, he might then, if the same brief question were angrily put to him a second time, meet it with another equally brief counter-question or retort. It is this final interchange of thrusts which Plutarch has given, omitting the arguments previously stated by Epameinondas, and necessary to warrant the seeming paradox which he advances. We must recollect that Epameinondas does not contend that Thebes was entitled to as much power in Bœotia as Sparta in Laconia. He only contends that Bœotia, under the presidency of Thebes, was as much an integral political aggregate, as Laconia under Sparta—in reference to the Grecian world.”—Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. ch. lxvii.

[Pg 195]

Pompeius

↑1 This line is from the Prometheus Loosed (λυόμενος) of Aeschylus which is lost. Prometheus Bound (δεσμώτης) is extant. Hermann is of opinion that the Prometheus Loosed did not belong to the same Tetralogy as the Prometheus Bound.

↑2 The Gens to which Pompeius belonged was Plebeian. Cn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of Pompeius Magnus, was consul B.C. 89. Strabo, a name derived like many other Roman names from some personal peculiarity, signifies one who squints, and it was borne by members of other Roman Gentes also, as the Julia, and Fannia. It is said that the father of Pompeius Magnus had a cook Menogenes, who was called Strabo, and that the name was given to Cn. Pompeius because he resembled his cook. However this may be, Cn. Pompeius adopted the name, and it appears on his coins and in the Fasti. He had a bad character and appears to have deserved it. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 306.) Compare the Life of Sulla, c. 6. Notes.

The latter part of this chapter is somewhat obscure in the original. See the note of Coræs.

↑3 L. Marcius Philippus, Consul B.C. 91 with Sextus Julius Cæsar, was a distinguished orator.

↑4 Some of the commentators have had strange opinions about the meaning of this passage, which Kaltwasser has mistranslated. It is rightly explained in Schaefer’s note, and the learned Lambinus has fully expounded it in a note on Horatius (Od. i. 13): but in place of ἀδήκτος he has a wrong reading ἀδήκτο. Flora was not the only courtesan who received the distinction mentioned in the text. The gilded statue of Phryne, the work of Praxiteles, was placed in the temple at Delphi, presented by the lady herself. (Pausanias, x. 15).

↑5 Pompeius Magnus was born B.C. 106. He was younger than Marcus Crassus, of the same age as Cicero, and six years older than the Dictator Cæsar. The event mentioned in the chapter belongs to the year B.C 87, in which his father fought against L. Cinna. Pompeius Strabo died in this year.

↑6 This town, now Ascoli on the Tronto, in Picenum, was taken by Pompeius Strabo B.C. 89 in the Marsic war, and burnt. The inhabitants, who had killed the proconsul P. Servilius and other Romans, were severely handled; and Pompeius Strabo had a triumph (December 89) for his success against the Asculani and other inhabitants of Picenum. (Velleius, ii. 21.)

↑7 P. Antistius was prætor B.C. 86, the year after the death of Pompeius Strabo.

↑8 Compare the Life of Romulus, c. 14.

↑9 Cinna was killed in his fourth consulate, B.C. 84. Appianus (Civil Wars, i. 78) states that he was massacred by his soldiers, but his account may be true and that of Plutarch also, which is more particular, (See also Livius, Epit. 83.)

↑10 The father of Pompeius had enriched himself during the Social wars.

↑11 Now Osimo, was one of the cities of Picenum, south of Ancona. It was a Roman colony.

↑12 The three commanders were C. Albius Carinnas, C. Cœlius Caldus and M. Junius Brutus. The word Clœlius in Plutarch may be a mistake of the copyists. Brutus was the father of M. Brutus, one of Cæsar’s assassins.

↑13 L. Cornelius Scipio, consul B.C. 83. Plutarch speaks of the same event in the Life of Sulla, c. 28, where he states that the soldiers of Scipio came over to Sulla. The two statements are contradictory, Appianus (Civil Wars, i. 85) tells the story of Scipio’s army going over to Sulla.

↑14 A mistake for Æsis (Esino, or Finmesino), a river which formed the boundary between Umbria and Picenum, and enters the sea north of Ancona. Appianus (Civil Wars, i. 87) states that Metellus defeated Carinnas, the legatus of Carbo, on the Æsis (B.C. 82).

↑15 This was Q. Metellus Pius who afterwards commanded in Iberia against Sertorius. See the Life of Sertorius.

↑16 The Greek writers often employ similes and metaphors derived from the athletic contests. There were contests both for boys and full-grown men. Compare the Life of Agesilaus, c. 13.

↑17 The marriage arrangements mentioned in this chapter took place after the capture of Præneste, B.C. 82. See the Life of Sulla, c. 33. Sulla attempted to make Cæsar also part with his wife (Cæsar, c. 1): but Cæsar would not. Sulla, who was a cunning man, wished to gain over to his side all the young men of promise.

Antistius had been murdered in the Senate-house, by the order of the consul, the younger Marius, who was then blockaded in Præneste. Q. Mucius Scævola, the Pontifex, was murdered at the same time. (Appianus, Civil Wars, i. 88.)

↑18 His true name is Perperna. See the Life of Sertorius.

↑19 Cn. Papirius Carbo was put to death, B.C. 82, in his third consulship. Compare Appianus, Civil Wars, i. 96, and Life of Sulla, c. 28, Notes. Valerius Maximus, ix. c. 13, gives the story of his begging for a short respite, with some other particulars.

↑20 Caius Oppius, an intimate friend of Cæsar. Some persons believed that he was the author of the Books on the Alexandrine, African, and Spanish campaigns, which are printed with the Gallic War of Cæsar. (Suetonius, Cæsar, 56.) Hs wrote various biographies. Oppius is often mentioned by Cicero. There is extant a letter of Cicero to him Ad Diversos, xi. 29); but it is entitled in some editions of Cicero ‘To Appius.’

↑21 This was Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the father-in-law of Cinna. He had been consul B.C. 96 with C. Cassius Longinus.

↑22 C. Memmius, according to Drumann, the same who afterwards fell in the war against Sertorius. (Life of Sertorius, c. 21.)

↑23 The expedition of Pompeius to Africa was in B.C. 81. Iarbas is said to have been a descendant of Massinissa. He escaped from the battle. The scene of the battle and the subsequent movements of Pompeius cannot be collected from Plutarch’s narrative, which here, as in the case of military operations generally, is of no value. As to the age of Pompeius, see the note in Clinton’s Fasti B.C. 81.

↑24 The lion is a native of North Africa, but it is doubtful if the elephant is. The Carthaginians employed many elephants in their armies, which they probably got from the countries south of the great desert. Plutarch evidently considers the elephant as a native of North Africa, or he would not speak of hunting it; yet in chapter 14 he speaks of the elephants as the King’s, or the King’s elephants, as if the elephants that Pompeius took were merely some that belonged to Iarbas or some of the African kings, and had got loose. Plinius (N.H. viii. 1) speaks of elephants in the forests of Mauritania. They are enumerated by Herodotus (iv. 191) among the beasts of North Africa.

↑25 Drumann discusses at some length the question as to the time and occasion on which Pompeius received the appellation: those who are curious may consult his work, Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 335.

↑26 M. Valerius Maximus, a brother of Publicola. The allusion is to the secession of the Plebs to the Mons Sacer, B.C. 494, which was followed by the institution of the Tribunitian office. Cicero (Brutus, 14) mentions this Valerius, and the secession to the Mons Sacer. See Livius, ii. 30.

↑27 Q. Fabius Maximus Rullus, who was five times consul, and for the last time in B.C. 295. (Livius, x. 22.) He was afterwards Dictator and Censor. It was in his capacity of Censor that he ejected these persons from the Senate, B.C. 304. Compare the Life of Fabius Maximus, c. 1.

↑28 Kaltwasser observes that it was not so much a law (lex) as a usage: but Plutarch’s words by no means imply that he thought there was a Lex to this effect. Livius (xxxi. c. 20) states that only a dictator, consul, or prætor could have a triumph. The claim of Pompeius was an impudent demand: but he felt his power. The ‘first Scipio’ is the elder Africanus. See Life of Tiberius Gracchus, c. 1, Notes.

↑29 Plutarch may mean that Pompeius really attempted to enter the gate in a chariot drawn by elephants, and finding that he could not do it, he got out and mounted a chariot drawn by horses. This is perhaps nearer the literal version of the passage, and agrees better with Plinius (N. H. viii. 1).

↑30 P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus, consul for B.C. 79. Pompeius triumphed B.C. 81, or in the beginning of 80 B.C., the first of the class of Equites who ever had this honour. The review of the Equites, which is spoken of at the end of this chapter, is explained by c. 22.

↑31 Compare the Life of Sulla, c. 31, &c. Sulla died in the consulship of M. Æmilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus, B.C. 78.

↑32 This is the Roman expression, which Plutarch has rendered by οἱ άριστοι. Compare Life of Tib. Gracchus, c. 10.

↑33 On the site of Modena. The events of the consulship of Lepidus are very confused. Drumann observes (Pompeii, p. 345) that Plutarch incorrectly tells the story as if Pompeius was not present at the attack of Lepidus on Rome (Appianus, Civil Wars, i. 107; Floras, iii. 23): but Plutarch’s narrative does not of necessity imply that Pompeius was not there.

↑34 See the Life of Brutus.

↑35 See the Life of Sertorius, and as to the conduct of Pompeius in the war more particularly, chapter 12, &c.

↑36 Pro Consule was the title of a Roman general who was sent to a province with consular authority. It was not unusual to appoint a man Pro Consule who had not been ‘consul.’ The point of the reply lies in the form of the expression ‘Pro Consule,’ which was a title, as contrasted with ‘Pro Consulibus,’ which means ‘instead of the consuls, to displace the consuls.’ The expression of L. Philippus is recorded by Cicero (Pro Lege Manilia, c. 21). Pompeius went to Iberia B.C. 76.

↑37 The death of Sertorius took place B.C. 72. As to the death of Perperna, see the Life of Sertorius, c. 26. The allusion to Sicily will be explained by referring to c. 10; but there is nothing there stated for which Pompeius needed to show any gratitude to Perperna. We may assume that Perperna left the island, because he could not safely stay.

↑38 The war in Spain was not quite settled by the death of Perperna. There was still some work left to do. Several towns held out, particularly in the country of the warlike Arevaci, who were on the east coast of Spain. Pompeius burnt Uxama; and L. Afranius conducted the war with unsparing severity against the Calaguritani who made a desperate resistance. (Floras, iii. 22.) The capture of their town ended the war. Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 376.

↑39 The history of the Servile war is in the Life of Crassus, c. 11, &c.

↑40 This was in B.C. 71. In B.C. 70 Pompeius was consul for the first time with M. Licinius Crassus.

↑41 Sulla had not abolished the tribunitian office, but he had deprived the tribunes of the chief part of their power. It does not seem exactly certain what Sulla did. Appianus (Civil Wars, i. 100) says ‘that he weakened it very much and carried a law by which no man after being tribune could hold any other office.’ Cicero (De Legibus, iii. 9) considers the extension of the tribunitian power as unavoidable, and as effected with the least mischief by being the work of Pompeius.

↑42 A Cornelia Lex, passed in the time of Sulla, made the Judices in the Judicia Publica eligible only out of the body of Senators. That the Senators had acted corruptly in the administration of justice, we have the authority of Cicero in one of his Verrine orations (In Verr. A 1, 13 and 16). The measure for restoring the Equites to a share in the judicial functions was proposed by the prætor L. Aurelius Cotta, the uncle of C. Julius Cæsar, with the approbation of Pompeius and Cæsar, who were now acting in concert. The charges of corruption which Cotta made against the Senate are recorded by Cicero (In Verr. iii. 96). The proposed law (rogatio), which was carried, made the Judices eligible out of the Senators, Equites, and Tribuni Ærarii, which three classes are mentioned by Cicero (Ad Atticum, i. 16) as represented by the Judices who sat on the trial of Clodius. The purity of the administration of justice was not hereby improved. Cicero, on the occasion of the trial of Clodius, speaks of all these classes having their dishonest representatives among the judices.

↑43 Compare the Life of Crassus, c. 12.

The remarks at the end of the chapter may be useful to some men who would meddle with matters political, when their only training has been in camps. Pompeius was merely a soldier, and had no capacity for civil affairs.

↑44 The history of piracy in the Mediterranean goes as far back as the history of navigation. The numerous creeks and islands of this inland sea offer favourable opportunities for piratical posts, and accordingly we read of pirates as early as we read of commerce by sea. (Thucydides, i. 5.) The disturbances in the Roman State had encouraged these freebooters in their depredations. Cæsar, when a young man, fell into their hands (Life of Cæsar, c. 1); and also P. Clodius. The insecure state of Italy is shown by the fact of the pirates even landing on the Italian coast, and seizing the Roman magistrates, Sextilius and Bellienus. Cicero in his oration in favour of the Lex Manilia (c. 12, c. 17, &c.) gives some particulars of the excesses of the pirates. Antonia, whom they carried off, was the daughter of the distinguished orator, Marcus Antonius (Life of Marius, c. 44), who had been sent against the Cilician pirates B.C. 102, and had a triumph for his victory over them. If Cicero alludes (Pro Lege Manilia) to the capture of the daughter of Antonius, that probably took place before B.C. 87, for in that year Antonius was put to death. But Cicero speaks of the daughter of ‘a prætor’ being carried off from Misenum, and it is not improbable that he alludes to M. Antonius Creticus, prætor B.C. 75. If this explanation is correct, the Antonia was the grand-daughter of the orator Antonius.

↑45 στυλίδες. The meaning of this word is uncertain. Στυλίς is a diminutive of στῦλος, and signifies a small pillar, or pole. It may be that which carried the colours. But I do not profess to have translated the word, for I do not know what is meant.

↑46 From the places enumerated it appears that the pirates had carried their ravages from the coast of Asia Minor to the shores of Greece and up the Ionian Sea as far as the entrance of the Gulf of Ambracia, now the Gulf of Arta, near the entrance of which Actium was situated on the southern coast, and even to the Italian shores. The temple of Juno Lacinia was on the south-eastern coast of Italy on a promontory, now called Capo delle Colonne, from the ruins of the ancient temple. The noted temples of antiquity were filled with works of art and rich offerings, the gifts of pious devotees. Cicero (Pro Lege Manilia), c. 18) speaks of the pirates as infesting even the Via Appia.

↑47 Not the mountain of that name, Kaltwasser remarks, but a town of Lycia in Asia Minor, one of the headquarters of the pirates. Strabo (p. 671) places Olympus in Cilicia. There was both a city and a mountain named Olympus there; and I have accordingly translated ‘on Olympus.’ (Beaufort, Karamania, p. 46.)

↑48 Mithras was a Persian deity, as it appears. The name occurs in many Persian compounds as Mithridates, Ithamitres, and others. Mitra is a Sanscrit name for the Sun. (Wilson, Sanscrit Dictionary.)

↑49 The Mediterranean. See the Life of Sertorius, c. 8, note. As to the limits of the command of Pompeius, compare Velleius Paterculus, ii. 31.

↑50 Aulus Gabinius, one of the tribunes for the year B.C. 67, proposed the measure. The consuls of this year were C. Calpurnius Piso and M. Acilius Glabrio.

↑51 L. Roscius Otho, one of the tribunes, and the proposer of the unpopular law (B.C. 67) which gave the Equites fourteen separate seats at the theatre. (Velleius, ii. 32; Dion Cassius, 36, c. 25.)

↑52 Compare the Life of Flaminiaus, c. 10.

↑53 ἐκόμιζεν in the text. The reading is perhaps wrong, and the sense is doubtful. Reiske conjectured that it should be ἐκόλαζε.

↑54 This place is on the coast of the Rough or Mountainous Cilicia, on a steep rock near the sea. (Strabo, p. 668; Beaufort’s Karamania, p. 174.)

↑55 Soli was an Achæan and Rhodian colony. After being settled by Pompeius, it received the name of Pompeiopolis, or the city of Pompeius. It is on the coast of the Level Cilicia, twenty miles west of the mouth of the river Cydnus, on which Tarsus stood. Soli was the birthplace of the Stoic Chrysippus, and of Philemon the comic writer. (Strabo, p. 671; Beaufort’s Kar., p. 259.)

↑56 Compare the Life of Lucullus, c. 26.

↑57 One of the towns of Achæa in the Peloponnesus, near the borders of Elis. Pausanias (vii. 17).

As to the number of the pirates who surrendered, see Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 96).

↑58 Q. Cæcilius Metellus Creticus is stated by some modern writers to have been a son of Metellus Dalmaticus; but it is unknown who his father and grandfather were. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms.) He had been consul B.C. 69. (Compare Velleius Paterculus, ii. 32.)

↑59 The passage is in the Iliad, xxii. 207.

↑60 Or as Plutarch writes it Mallius. The tribune C. Manilius is meant, who carried the Lex Manilia, B.C. 66, which gave Pompeius the command in the Mithridatic war. Cicero supported the law in the speech which is extant, Pro Lege Manilia. It has been proposed to alter Mallius in Plutarch’s text into Manilius, but Sintenis refers to Dion Cassius (36. c. 25, 26, 27).

↑61 This was Glabrio the consul of B.C. 67 (see note on c. 25), who had been appointed to supersede Lucullus. (Life of Lucullus, c. 34, notes.)

↑62 The allusion is to the secession of the Plebs to the Mons Sacer, which is recorded in Livius (2. c. 32).

↑63 See the Life of Tib. Gracchus, c. 12, and the note.

↑64 Pompeius was appointed to the command in the Mithridatic war B.C. 66, when he was in Cilicia. (Appianus, Mithridatic War, c. 97.)

↑65 Compare the Life of Lucullus, c. 35, &c.

↑66 As to the events in this chapter, compare Appianus, Mithridatic War, c. 98, &c.

↑67 Probably a Greek woman, as we may infer from the name. The king seems to have had a liking for Greek women.

↑68 This is probably a corrupted name. It is Sinorega in Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 101). Coræs proposes Sinora. (Strabo, p. 555.) The place is mentioned by Ammianus (quoted by Sintenis) under the name of Sinhorium or Synorium. Strabo places Sinoria (as it is written in Casaubon’s text) on the borders of the Greater Armenia.

↑69 Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 101) describes the course which Mithridates took in his flight. He spent the winter in Dioscuri, as Appianus calls it, or Dioscurias on the east coast of the Euxine; and afterwards entered the countries bordering on the Mæotis or sea of Azoff. (Compare Strabo, p. 555.)

↑70 He was the third son of Tigranes by the daughter of Mithridates. The other two had been put to death by their father. The young Tigranes appeared in the triumph of Pompeius at Rome and then was put to death. (Appianus, Mithridatic War, c. 104, 5.)

↑71 See the Life of Lucullus, c. 26, notes.

↑72 Probably Artaxata is meant, for Appianus (c. 104) says that Pompeius had advanced to the neighbourhood of Artaxata.

Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 104) places these transactions with Tigranes after the battle with the Iberians which Plutarch describes in c. 34.

↑73 Probably a Persian word, with the same meaning as Tiara, the head-dress of the Persians and some other Oriental nations. The kings wore it upright to distinguish them from other people. (Herodotus, vii. 61.)

↑74 A part of Armenia between the Antitaurus and the mountain range of Masius. (Strabo, p. 527.)

↑75 Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 104) states that Pompeius received 6000 talents (of silver?) from Tigranes; and he seems to understand it as if the money was for Pompeius. In the other sums he agrees with Plutarch, except as to the tribunes, who received 10,000 drachmæ, or one talent and 4000 drachmæ, or 40 minæ.

On the value of the drachma, see Life of Tib. Gracchus, c. 2.

↑76 e., to sup with.

↑77 This great mountain system lies between the Euxine and the Caspian, and was now entered for the first time by the Roman troops. Colchis was on the west side of the mountains.

↑78 The Saturnalia were celebrated in Rome on the 19th of December at this time. (Macrobius, Sat. i. 10; and the Life of Sulla, c. 18.) It was accordingly in the winter of B.C. 66 that Pompeius was in the mountains of the Caucasus. (Dion Cassius, 36. c. 36, 37.)

↑79 I have kept the name Cyrnus, as it stands in the text of Plutarch, though it is probably, an error of the transcribers. The real name Cyrus could not be unknown to Plutarch. In the text of Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 103) the name is erroneously written Cyrtus; in Dion Cassius, it is Cyrnus. The Cyrus, now the Cur, flows from the higher regions of the Caucasus through Iberia and Albania, and is joined by the Araxes, Aras, above the point where the united stream enters the Caspian on the west coast. The twelve mouths are mentioned by Appianus (c. 103). Compare Strabo, p. 491.

↑80 In fact the Persians never subdued any of the mountain tribes within the nominal limits of their dominions; and the Caucasus was indeed not even within the nominal limits.

It is true that Alexander soon quitted Hyrkania, which lies on the south-east coast of the Caspian; but when he was in Hyrkania he was still a considerable distance from the Iberians. (Arrianus, iii. 23, &c.)

↑81 This is the Faz, or Reone, which enters the south-east angle of the Euxine in the country of the Colchi.

↑82 The Abas river is conjectured by some writers to be the Alazonius, which was the boundary between Iberia and Albania, The Abas is mentioned by Dion Cassius, 37. c. 3.

↑83 ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ θώρακος ἐπιπτυχήν Apparently some part of the coat of mail where there was a fold to allow of the motion of the body. As to the battle see Dion Cassius, 37. c. 3, &c.

↑84 Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 103) says “Among the hostages and the captives were found many women, who were wounded as much as the men; and they were supposed to be Amazons, whether it is that some nation called Amazons borders on them, and they were then invited to give aid, or that the barbarians in those parts call any warlike women by the name of Amazons.” The explanation of Appianus is probably the true explanation. Instances of women serving as soldiers are not uncommon even in modern warfare. The story of a race of fighting women occurs in many ancient writers. The Amazons are first mentioned by Herodotus (iv. 110-116). There is a story of a hundred armed women being presented to Alexander (Arrian, vii. 13, &c., who gives his opinion about them). Strabo (p. 503) says that Theophanes, who accompanied Pompeius in this campaign, places the Gelæ and Legæ between the Albanians and the Amazons. It is probable that the women of the mountain tribes of the Caucasus sometimes served in the field, and this at least may explain the story here told by Plutarch. The chief residence of the Amazons is placed in the plains of Themiscyra on the Thermodon in Cappadocia. Plutarch in his confused notions of geography appears to consider the Thermodon as a Caucasian river. He also places them near the Leges, a name which resembles that of the Lesghians, one of the present warlike tribes of the Caucasus. On antient medals the Amazons are represented with a short vest reaching to the knee, and one breast bare. Their arms were a crescent shield, the bow and arrow, and the double axe, whence the name Amazonia was used as a distinctive appellation for that weapon (Amazonia securis, Horat. Od. iv. 4).

↑85 The Caspian sea or lake was also called the Hyrkanian, from the province of Hyrkania which bordered on the south-east coast. The first notice of this great lake is in Herodotus (i. 203).

↑86 The Elymæi were mountaineers who occupied the mountainous region between Susiana and Media. Gordyene was in the most south-eastern part of Armenia. Tigranocerta was in Gordyene. Appianus says that in his time Sophene and Gordyene composed the Less Armenia (Mithridatic War, c. 105). In the territory of Arbela, where the town of Arbil now is, Alexander had defeated Darius, the last king of Persia.

↑87 Another Greek woman, as we may infer from the name. The story of the surrender of the fort by Stratonike is told by Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 107) with some additional particulars. Dion Cassius (37. c. 7) names this fort Symphorium.

The narrative of Plutarch omits many circumstances in the campaigns of Pompeius, which Appianus has described (c. 105, 106) a happening between the arrangement with Tigranes and the surrender of the fort by Stratonike. Among these events was the war in Judæa and the capture of Jerusalem. Pompeius entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple, into which only the high priest could enter, and that on certain occasions. Jerusalem was taken B.C. 63 in the consulship of Cicero. The events of this campaign are too confused to be reduced into chronological order. Drumann has attempted it (Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 451, &c.)

↑88 Plutarch means the fort which he has mentioned in the preceding chapter without there giving it a name; the Symphorium of Dion. It was on the river Lycus, not quite 200 stadia from Cabira (Strabo, 556), and was an impregnable place.

↑89 Ὑπομνήματα: probably written in Greek, with which Mithridates was well acquainted. These valuable memoirs were used by Theophanes in his history of the campaigns of Pompeius. Theophanes was a native of Mitylene in Lesbos and accompanied Pompeius in several of his campaigns. He is often mentioned by Cicero (Cicero, Ad Attic., ii. 4, and the notes in the Variorum edition).

↑90 The character of Mithridates is only known to us from his enemies. But his own memoirs, if the truth is here stated, prove his cruel and vindictive character. He spared neither his friends nor his own children. Among others he put to death his son Xiphares by Stratonike to revenge himself on the mother for giving up the fort Kænum.

↑91 See the Life of Sulla, c. 6. The registration of dreams and their interpretation, that is the events which followed and were supposed to explain them, were usual among the Greeks. There is still extant one of these curious collections by Artemidorus Daldianus in five books, entitled Oneirocritica, or The Interpretation of Dreams. The fifth book of ‘Results’ contains ninety-five dreams of individuals and the events which happened.

↑92 See the Life of Lucullus, c. 18.

↑93 Publius Rutilius Rufus was consul B.C. 105. He was exiled in consequence of being unjustly convicted B.C. 92 at the time when the Judices were chosen from the body of the Equites. He was accused of Repetundæ and convicted and exiled. He retired to Smyrna, where he wrote the history of his own times in Greek. All the authorities state that he was an honest man and was unjustly condemned. (Velleius Paterculus, ii. 13; Tacitus, Agricola, c. 1: and the various passages in Orelli, Onomasticon, P. Rutilius Rufus.)

↑94 See the Life of Lucullus, c. 14.

↑95 The strait that unites the Euxine to the Mæotis or Sea of Azoff, was called the Bosporus, which name was also given to the country on the European side of the strait, which is included in the peninsula of the Crimea.

↑96 See Dion Cassius, 37. c. 5.

↑97 This is the Indian Ocean. The name first occurs in Herodotus. It is generally translated the Red Sea, and so it is translated by Kaltwasser. But the Red Sea was called the Arabian Gulf by Herodotus. However, the term Erythræan Sea was sometimes used with no great accuracy, and appears to have comprehended the Red Sea, which is a translation of the term Erythræan, as the Greeks understood that word (ἐρυθρός, Red).

↑98 Triarius, the legatus of Lucullus, had been defeated three years before by Mithridates. See the Life of Lucullus, c. 35; and Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 89).

↑99 This mountain range is connected with the Taurus and runs down to the coast of the Mediterranean, which it reaches at the angle formed by the Gulf of Scanderoon.

↑100 This campaign, as already observed in the notes to c. 36, is placed earlier by Appianus, but his chronology is confused and incorrect. The siege of Jerusalem, which was accompanied with great difficulty, is described by Dion Cassius (37. c. 15, &c.), and by Josephus (Jewish Wars, xiv. 4). There was a great slaughter of the Jews when the city was stormed.

↑101 This country was Gordyene. (Dion Cassius, 37. c. 5.)

↑102 This city, the capital of Syria, was built by Seleucus Nicator and called Antiocheia after his father Antiochus. It is situated in 36° 12’ N. lat. on the south bank of the Orontes, a river which enters the sea south of the Gulf of Scanderoon.

↑103 The meaning of the original is obscure. The word is τὸ ιμάτιον, which ought to signify his vest or toga. Some critics take it to mean a kind of handkerchief used by sick persons and those of effeminate habits; and they say it was also used by persons when travelling, as a cover for the head, which the Greeks called Theristerium. The same word is used in the passage (c. 7), where it is said that “Sulla used to rise from his seat as Pompeius approached and take his vest from his head.” Whatever may be the meaning of the word here, Plutarch seems to say that this impudent fellow would take his seat at the table before the guests had arrived and leave his master to receive them.

↑104 Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 53) observes that “Plutarch does not say that Pompeius built his house near his theatre, but that he built it in addition to his theatre and at the same time, as Donatus had perceived, De Urbe Roma, 3, 8, in Græv. Thes. T. 3, p. 695.” But Drumann is probably mistaken. There is no great propriety in the word ἐφόλκιον unless the house was near the theatre, and the word παρετεκτήνατο rather implies ‘proximity,’ than ‘in addition to.’

This was the first permanent theatre that Rome had. It was built partly on the model of that of Mitylene and it was opened in the year B.C. 55. This magnificent theatre, which would accommodate 40,000 people, stood in the Campus Martius. It was built of stone with the exception of the scena, and ornamented with statues, which were placed there under the direction of Atticus, who was a man of taste. Augustus embellished the theatre, and he removed thither the statue of Pompeius, which up to that time had stood in the Curia where Cæsar was murdered. The scena was burnt down in the time of Tiberius, who began to rebuild it; but it was not finished till the reign of Claudius. Nero gilded the interior. The scena was again burnt in the beginning of the reign of Titus, who restored it again. The scena was again burnt in the reign of Philippus and a third time restored. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 521; Dion Cassius 39. c. 88, and the notes of Reimarus.)

↑105 Petra, the capital of the Nabathæi, is about half way between the southern extremity of the Dead Sea and the northern extremity of the Ælanitic Gulf, the more eastern of the two northern branches of the Red Sea. The ruins of Petra exist in the Wady Musa, and have been visited by Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles, and last by Laborde, who has given the most complete description of them in his ‘Voyage de l’Arabie Pétrée,’ Paris, 1830. The place is in the midst of a desert, but has abundance of water. Its position made it an important place of commerce in the caravan trade of the East; and it was such in the time of Strabo, who states on the authority of his friend Athonodorus that many Romans were settled there (p. 779). It contains numerous tombs and a magnificent temple cut in the rock, a theatre and the remains of houses.

The king against whom Pompeius was marching is named Aretas by Dion Cassius (37. c. 15).

↑106 The Pæonians were a Thracian people on the Strymon. (Herodotus, v. 1.) It appears from Dion Cassius (49. c. 36) that the Greeks often called the Pannonians by the name of Pæonians, which Sintenis considers a reason for not altering the reading here into Pannonians. Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 102) uses the name Pæonians, though he means Pannonians.

↑107 This is the Roman word. Compare Tacitus (Annal. i. 18): “congerunt cespites, exstruunt tribunal.”

↑108 The circumstances of the rebellion of Pharnakes and the death of Mithridates are told by Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 110) and Dion Cassius (37. c. 11). Mithridates died B.C. 63, in the year in which Cicero was consul.

The text of the last sentence in this chapter is corrupt; and the meaning is uncertain.

↑109 τὸ νεμέσητον.

↑110 The body of Mithridates was interred at Sinope. Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 113) says that Pharnakes sent the dead body of his father in a galley to Pompeius to Sinope, and also those who had killed Manius Aquilius, and many hostages Greeks and barbarians. There might be some doubt about the meaning of the words ‘many corpses of members of the royal family’ πολλα σώματα τῶν βασιλικῶν but Plutarch appears from the context to mean dead bodies. Two of the daughters of Mithridates who were with him when he died, are mentioned by Appianus (c. 111) as having taken poison at the same time with their father. The poison worked on them, but had no effect on the old man, who therefore prevailed on a Gallic officer who was in his service to kill him. (Compare Dion Cassius, 39. c. 13, 14.)

↑111 He made it what the Romans called Libera Civitas, a city which had its own jurisdiction and was free from taxes. Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 48.

↑112 He was a native of Apamea in Syria, a Stoic, and a pupil of Panætius. He was one of the masters of Cicero, who often speaks of him and occasionally corresponded with him (Cicero, Ad Attic. ii. 1). Cicero also mentions Hermagoras in his treatise De Inventione (i. 6, and 9), and in the Brutus (c. 79).

↑113 See the Life of Sulla, c. 6.

↑114 She was the daughter of Q. Mucius Scævola, consul B.C. 95, and the third wife of Pompeius, who had three children by her. She was not the sister of Q. Metellus Nepos and Q. Metellus Celer, as Kaltwasser says, but a kinswoman. Cn. Pompeius and Sextus Pompeius were the sons of Mucia. Cicero (Ad Attic. i. 12) speaks of the divorce of Mucia and says that it was approved of; but he does not assign the reason. C. Julius Cæsar (Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 50) is named as the adulterer or one of them, and Pompeius called him his Ægisthus. After her divorce in the year B.C. 62 Mucia married M. Æmilius Scaurus, the brother of the second wife of Pompeius. Mucia survived the battle of Actium (B.C. 31), and she was treated with respect by Octavianus Cæsar (Dion Cassius, 51. c. 2; Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 557).

↑115 Here and elsewhere I have used Plutarch’s word μοναρχία, ‘The government of one man,’ by which he means the Dictatorship, in some passages at least.

↑116 He landed in Italy B.C. 62, during the consulship of D. Junius Silanus and L. Licinius Murena. The request mentioned at the beginning of c. 44 is also noticed in Plutarch’s Life of Cato (c. 30). M. Pupius Piso was one of the consuls for B.C. 61.

↑117 This was L. Afranius, one of the legati of Pompeius, who has often been mentioned. He was consul with Q. Metellus Celer B.C. 60 (compare Dion Cassius, 37. c. 49). Cicero, who was writing to Atticus at the time (Ad Attic. i. 17), speaks of the bribery at the election of Afranius, and accuses Pompeius of being active on the occasion. From this consulship Horatius (Od. ii. 1) dates the commencement of the civil wars, for in this year was formed the coalition between Cæsar, Pompeius, and Crassus. See the remark of Cato, c. 47.

↑118 Compare Appianus (Mithridatic War, c. 116) and Dramann, Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 485. When particular measures of money are not mentioned, Plutarch, as usual with him, means Attic drachmæ.

↑119 The triumph of Pompeius was in B.C. 61 on his birthday (Plinius 37. c. 2). Pompeius was born B.C. 106, and consequently he was now entering on his forty-sixth year—Xylander (Holzmann) preferred to read ‘fifty’ instead of ‘forty.’

↑120 Cicero went into exile B.C. 58, and after the events mentioned in chapter 47. Cæsar returned from his province of Iberia in B.C. 60.

↑121 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 14, as to the events mentioned in this chapter and the following. Cæsar was consul B.C. 59.

↑122 L. Calpurnius Piso and A. Gabinius were consuls B.C. 58, in the year in which Clodius was tribune and Cicero was exiled.

↑123 As to this remark of Pompeius, compare the Life of Lucullus, c. 38.

↑124 Compare the Life of Cato, c. 34.

↑125 A mark of an effeminate person. Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 4, which explains this passage.

↑126 This event is told by Dion Cassius (39. c. 19), but as Kaltwasser remarks he places it in B.C. 56, when Clodius was ædile and Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus and M. Marcius Philippus were consuls. The trial was that of Milo De Vi, B.C. 56. Compare Cicero (Ad Quintum Fratrem, ii. 3) and Rein (Criminalrecht der Römer, p. 758, note).

↑127 Q. Terentius Culleo was a tribunus plebis B.C. 58. He is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. iii. 15) and elsewhere.

↑128 Cicero returned to Rome B.C. 57 in the consulship of P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos. See the Life of Cicero, c. 33. He had returned to Rome before the trial mentioned at the end of c. 48.

↑129 Pompeius was made Præfectus Annonæ for five years. There was a great scarcity at Rome, which was nothing unusual, and dangerous riots (see the article CORN TRADE, ROMAN, ‘Political Dictionary,’ by the author of this note). The appointment of Pompeius is mentioned by Dion Cassius (39. c. 9, and the notes of Reimarus). Cicero (Ad Atticum, iv. 1) speaks of the appointment of Pompeius.

↑130 Ptolemæus Auletes had given large bribes to several Romans to purchase their influence and to get himself declared a friend and ally of the Romans; which was in fact to put himself under their protection. His subjects were dissatisfied with him for various reasons, and among others for the heavy taxes which he laid on them to raise the bribe money. He made his escape from Egypt and was now in Rome. The story is told at some length in Dion Cassius (39. c. 12, &c.), and the matter of the king’s restoration is discussed by Cicero in several letters (Ad Diversos, i. 1-7) to this Spinther. The king for the present did not get the aid which he wanted, and he retired to Ephesus, where he lodged within the precincts of the temple of Artemis, which was an ASYLUM. (See ‘Political Dictionary,’ art. Asylum; and Strabo, p. 641.)

↑131 A Greek historian of the time of Augustus. He was originally a captive slave, but he was manumitted and admitted to the intimacy of Augustus Cæsar. He was very free with his tongue, which at last caused him to be forbidden the house of Augustus. (Seneca, De Ira, iii. 23.) He burnt some of his historical writings, but not all of them, for Plutarch here refers to his authority. Horatius (1 Ep. 19. v. 15) alludes to Timagenes. (See Suidas, Τιμαγένης.)

↑132 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 15, and as to the conference at Luca, c. 21. The conference took place B.C. 56, when Marcellinus (c. 48, notes) was one of the consuls. Compare also the Life of Crassus (c. 14, 15), and Dion Cassius, 39. c. 30, as to the trouble at Rome at this time, and Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 17).

↑133 This is the meaning of the word πολιτικώτερον, which is generally mistranslated here and in other parts of Plutarch. It is the translation of the Roman term ‘civiliter.’ (Tacitus, Annal. i 33, iii 76.)

↑134 Life of Crassus, c. 15, notes.

↑135 P. Vatinius, often mentioned by Cicero. (See Orelli, Onomasticon, Vatinius.) Cicero’s extant oration In Vatinium was delivered B.C. 56.

↑136 C. Trebonius, a friend of Cicero, several of whose letters to him are extant. (Cicero, Ad Divers. x. 28; xii. 16; xv. 20, 21.) He was one of the conspirators against Cæsar; and Cicero tells him (x. 28) that he was somewhat vexed with him that he saved Antonius from the same fate. Trebonius was treacherously put to death at Smyrna by Dolabella with circumstances of great cruelty B.C. 43. (Dion Cassius, 47. c. 29.) In the notes to the life of Crassus, c. 16, I have incorrectly called this Tribune Titus.

↑137 Plutarch must mean that Crassus left Rome before the expiration of his consulship B.C. 55; but the words ἀπαλλαγεὶς τῆς ὑπατείας are in themselves doubtful. (Life of Crassus, c. 16.)

↑138 Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Pompeii, p. 524) has diligently collected all the circumstances of this magnificent exhibition. (See also Dion Cassius, 39. c. 38, and the references in the notes of Reimarus.) The elephant-fight (ἐλφαντομαχία) was a fight between the elephants and armed Gætulians. There were eighteen elephants. The cries of the animals when they were wounded moved the pity of the spectators. The elephants would not enter the vessels when they were leaving Africa, till they received a promise from their leaders that they should not he injured; the treacherous treatment of them at the games was the cause of their loud lamentations, in which they appealed to the deity against the violation of the solemn promise. (Dion Cassius.) Cicero, who was not fond of exhibitions of the kind, speaks with disgust of the whole affair (Ad Diversos, vii. 1). The letter of Cicero, written at the time, is valuable contemporary evidence. Various facts on the exhibition of elephants at Rome are collected in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, Menageries, Elephant.

A rhinoceros was also exhibited at the games of Pompeius; and an actress was brought on the stage, who had made her first appearance in the consulship of C. Marius the younger, and Cn. Carbo B.C. 82, but she made her appearance again in the time of Augustus, A.D. 9, in the consulship of Poppæus, when she was 103 years old, 91 years after her first appearance. (Plinius, H.N. vii. 49.) Drumann says, when speaking of the games of Pompeius, “a woman of unusually advanced age was brought forward;” but the words of Plinius “anus pro miraculo reducta,” apply to her last appearance. A woman of one-and-forty was no uncommon thing then, nor is it now. The pointing in the common texts is simply the cause of the blunder.

↑139 See the Life of Crassus, c. 16, notes, Julia died B.C. 54, in the consulship of L. Domitius Ahenobarbus and Ap. Claudius Pulcher (See the Life of Cæsar. c. 23.) Crassus lost his life B.C. 53.

↑140 A quotation from the Iliad, xv. 189.

↑141 Cn. Domitius Calvinus and M. Valerius Messala, the consuls of B.C. 53, were not elected till seven months after the proper time, so that there was during this time an anarchy ἀναρχία, which is Plutarch’s word). This term ‘anarchy’ must be taken in its literal and primary sense of a time when there were no magistrates, which would be accompanied with anarchy in the modern sense of the term. Dion Cassius (40. c. 45) describes this period of confusion. The translation in the text may lead to a misunderstanding of Plutarch’s meaning; it should be, “he allowed an anarchy to take place.” Kaltwasser’s translation: “so liess er es zu einer Anarchie kommen,” is perfectly exact.

↑142 In the year B.C. 52 in which year Clodius was killed.

↑143 She was the daughter of Q. Cæcilius Metellus Pius Scipio, who was the son of P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica and of Licinia, the daughter of the orator L. Crassus. He was adopted (B.C. 64 or 63) by the testament of Q. Cæcilius Metellus Pius, who fought in Spain ngainst Sertorius; but his daughter must have been born before this, as she bore the name Cornelia. Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Cæcilii, p. 49) thinks that the story of her attempting to destroy herself when she heard of the death of her husband (Life of Pompeius, c. 74) is suspicious, because she married Pompeius the year after. If Cornelia were the only woman that was ever said to have done so, we might doubt the story; but as she is not, we need not suspect it on that account.

↑144 Corruption is δοροδοκία in Plutarch, ‘gift receiving,’ and it ought to correspond to the Roman Peculatus. But δοροδοκία also means corruption by bribes. Bribery is δεκασμός in Plutarch, which is expressed generally by the Roman Ambitus, and specially by the verb ‘decuriare.’ (See Cicero’s Oration Pro Cn. Plancio, Ed. Wunder.) The offence of Scipio was Ambitus. (Dion Cassius, 40. c. 51, &c.; Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 24.) As to Roman Bribery, see the article BRIBERY, ‘Political Dictionary,’ by the author of this note, whose contribution begins p. 416.

↑145 These 360 Judices appear to have been chosen for the occasion of these trials. (Velleius Pater. ii. 76; Goettling, Roemische Staatsverfassung, p. 482.)

↑146 T. Munatius Plancus Bursa, a tribune of the Plebs. In B.C. 52 Milo and Clodius with their followers had an encounter in which Clodius was killed. Tho people, with whom he was a favourite, burnt his body in the Curia Hostilia, and the Curia with it. (Dion Cassius, 40, c. 48.) Plancus was charged with encouraging this disorder, and he was brought to trial. Cicero was his accuser; he was condemned and exiled. (Cicero, Ad Diversos, vii. 2.)

↑147 Plautius Hypsæus was not a consular. He had been the quæstor of Pompeius. He and Scipio had been candidates for the consulship this year, and were both charged with bribery. (Dion Cassius, 40, c. 53.) Hypsæus was convicted.

↑148 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 29. Pompeius had lent Cæsar two legions (c. 52). Compare Dion Cassius, 40. c. 65, and Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 29. The illness of Pompeius and the return of the legions from Gaul took place in the year B.C. 50. Appius Claudius (c. 57) was sent by the Senate to conduct the legions from Gaul. Dion Cassius (40. c. 65) says that Pompeius had lent Cæsar only one legion, but that Cæsar had to give up another also, inasmuch as Pompeius obtained an order of the Senate that both he and Cæsar should give a legion to Bibulus, who was in Syria, for the Parthian war. (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 29; Bell. Gall. viii. 54.) Thus Pompeius in effect gave up nothing, but Cæsar parted with two legions. The legions were not sent to Syria, but both wintered in Capua. The consul C. Claudius Marcellus (B.C. 50) gave both these legions to Pompeius.

↑149 L. Æmilius Paulus was consul B.C. 50, with C. Claudius Marcellus a violent opponent of Cæsar. He built the Basilica Pauli (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 26). Basilica is a Greek word (βασιλική); a basilica was used as a court of law, and a place of business for merchants. The form of a Roman basilica is known from the description of Vitruvius (v. 1), the ground-plan of two Basilicæ at Rome, and that of Pompeii which is in better preservation. Some of the great Roman churches are called Basilicæ, and in their construction bear some resemblance to the antient Basilicæ. (‘Penny Cyclopædia,’ Basilica.)

↑150 C. Scribonius Curio. Compare the Life of M. Antonius, c. 2. He was a man of ability, but extravagant in his habits (Dion Cassius, 40. c. 60):—

“Momentumque fuit mutatus Curio rerum,

Gallorum captus spoliis et Cæsaris auro.”—

Lucanus, Pharsalia, iv. 819

As to the vote on the proposition of Curio, Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 30) agrees with Plutarch. Dion Cassius (40. c. 64: and 41. c. 2) gives a different account of this transaction.

↑151 C. Claudius Marcellus and L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus were consuls for the year B.C. 49, in which the war broke out, This Marcellus was the cousin of the consul Marcellus of the year B.C. 50, who (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 30) presented Pompeius with a sword when he commissioned him to fight against Cæsar. Plutarch appears (c. 58, 59) to mean the same Marcellus; but he has confounded them. The Marcellus of c. 58 is the consul of B.C. 49; and the Marcellus of c. 59 is the consul of B.C. 50, according to Dion Cassius (40. c. 66 41. c. 1, &c.) and Appianus.

↑152 Cicero returned from his government of Cilicia B.C. 50.

↑153 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 32.

↑154 L. Volcatius Tullus who had been consul B.C. 66 (‘Consule Tullo’), Horatius (Od. iii. 8).

↑155 The reply of Pompeius is given by Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 37). As to the confusion in Rome see Dion Cassius (42. c. 6-9); and the references in Clinton, Fasti, B.C. 49.

↑156 Plutarch here omits the capture of Corfinium, which took place before Cæsar entered Rome. See Dion Cassius (41. c. 10), and the Life of Cæsar, c. 34.

↑157 L. Metullus, of whom little is known. Kaltwasser makes Cæsar say to Metellus, “It was not harder for him to say it than to do it;” which has no sense in it. What Cæsar did say appears from the Life of Cæsar, c. 35. Cæsar did not mean to say that it was as easy for him to do it as to say it. He meant that it was hard for him to be reduced to say such a thing; as to doing it, when he had said it, that would be a light matter. Sintenis suspects that the text is not quite right here. See the various readings and his proposed alteration; also Cicero, Ad Attic. x. 4.

↑158 Cæsar (Civil War, i. 25, &c.) describes the operations at Brundisium and the escape ot Pompeius. Compare also Dion Cassius (41. c. 12); Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 39). The usual passage from Italy to Greece was from Brundisium to Dyrrachium (Durazzo), which in former times was called Epidamnus (Thucydides, i. 24; Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 39).

↑159 This does not appear in Cæsar’s Civil War.

↑160 This opinion of Cicero is contained in a letter to Atticus (vii. 11). When Xerxes invaded Attica (B.C. 480), Themistokles advised the Athenians to quit their city and trust to their ships. The naval victory of Salamis justified his advice. In the Peloponnesian War (B.C. 431) Perikles advised the Athenians to keep within their walls and wait for the Cæsar invaders to retire from Attica for want of supplies; in which also the result justified the advice of Perikles. Cicero in his letters often complains of the want of resolution which Pompeius displayed at this crisis.

↑161 Plutarch means that Cæsar feared that Pompeius had everything to gain if the war was prolonged.

In his Civil War (i. 24) Numerius is called Cneius Magius, ‘Præfectus fabrorum,’ or head of the engineer department. Sintenis observes that Oudendorp might have used this passage for the purpose of restoring the true prænomen in Cæsar’s text, ‘Numerius’ in place of ‘Cneius.’

↑162 These vessels took their name from the Liburni, on the coast of Illyricum. They were generally biremes, and well adapted for sea manœuvres.

↑163 A town in Macedonia west of the Thermaic Gulf or Bay of Saloniki. It appears from this that Pompeius led his troops from the coast of the Adriatic nearly to the opposite coast of Macedonia (Dion Cassius, 41. c. 43). His object apparently was to form a junction with the forces that Scipio and his son were sent to raise in the East (c. 62).

↑164 The Romans were accustomed to such exercises as these in the Campus Martius.

———“cur apricum

Oderit campum patiens pulveris atque solis?

———sæpe disco

Sæpe trans finem jaculo nobilis expedito.”—Horatius, Od. i. 8.

Compare the Life of Marius (34).

The Romans maintained their bodily vigour by athletic and military exercises to a late period of life. The bath, swimming, riding, and the throwing of the javelin were the means by which they maintained their health and strength. A Roman commander at the age of sixty was a more vigorous man than modern commanders at the like age generally are.

↑165 Pompeius passed the winter at Thessalonica (Saloniki) on the Thermaic Gulf and on the Via Egnatia, which ran from Dyrrachium to Thessalonica, and thence eastward. He had with him two hundred senators. The consuls, prætors, and quæstors of the year B.C. 49 were continued by the Senate at Thessalonica for the year B.C. 48 under the names of Proconsuls, Proprætors, Proquæstors. Cæsar and P. Servillus Isauricus were elected consuls at Rome for the year B.C. 48 (Life of Cæsar, c. 37). The party of Pompeius could not appoint new magistrates for want of the ceremony of a Lex Curiata (Dion Cassius, 41. c. 43).

↑166 His name is Titus Labienus (Life of Cæsar, c. 34). ‘Labeo’ is a mere blunder of the copyists. Dion Cassius (41. c. 4) gives the reasons for Labienus passing over to Pompeius. Labienus had served Cæsar well in Gaul, and he is often mentioned in Cæsar’s Book on the Gallic War. He fell at the battle of Munda in Spain B.C. 45. (See the Life of Cæsar, c. 34, 56.)

↑167 M. Junius Brutus. See the Life of Brutus.

↑168 Cicero was not in the Senate at Thessalonica, though he had come over to Macedonia. (See the Life of Cicero, c. 38.)

↑169 Tidius is not a Roman name. It should be Didius.

↑170 The defeats of Afranius and Petreius in Iberia, in the summer of B.C. 49, are told by Cæsar in his Civil War, i. 41-81.

Cæsar reached Brundisium at the close of the year B.C. 49. See the remarks on the time in Clinton, Fasti, B.C. 49. Oricum or Oricus was a town on the coast of Epirus, south of Apollonia.

↑171 L. Vibillius Rufus appears to be the person intended. He is often mentioned by Cæsar (Civil War, i. 15, 23, &c.); but as the readings in Cæsar’s text are very uncertain (Jubellius, Jubilius, Jubulus) Sintenis has not thought it proper to alter the text of Plutarch here.

‘On the third day.’ Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 10) says ‘triduo proximo,” and the correction of Moses du Soul, ἡμέρα ῥητῆ, is therefore unnecessary. Pompeius had moved westward from Thessalonica at the time when Rufus was sent to him, and was in Candavia on his road to Apollonia and Dyrrachium (Cæsar, Civil War, iii. 11).

↑172 Pompeius returned to Dyrrachium, which it had been the object of Cæsar to seize. As he had not accomplished this, Cæsar posted himself on the River Apsus between Apollonia and Dyrrachium. The fights in the neighbourhood of Dyrrachium are described by Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 34, &c.).

↑173 The Athamanes were on the borders of Epirus and Thessalia. In place of the Athamanes the MSS. of Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 78) have Acarnania, which, as Drumann says, must be a mistake in the text of Cæsar.

↑174 Q. Metellus Scipio, the father-in-law of Pompeius, who had been appointed to the government of Syria by the Senate. Scipio had now come to Thesaalia (Cæsar, Civil War, iii. 33, and 80).

↑175 Cato was left with fifteen cohorts in Dyrrachium. See the Life of Cato, c. 55; Dion Cassius (12. c. 10).

↑176 Or Tusculanum, as Plutarch calls it, now Frascati, about 12 miles S.E. of Rome, where Cicero had a villa.

↑177 Lentulus Spinther, consul of B.C. 57, and L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul B.C. 54. This affair is mentioned by Cæsar himself (Civil War, iii. 83, &c.). We have the best evidence of the bloody use that the party of Pompeius would have made of their victory is the letters of Cicero himself (Ad Atticum, xi. 6). There was to be a general proscription, and Rome was to see the times of Sulla revived. But the courage and wisdom of one man defeated the designs of these senseless nobles. Cæsar (c. 83) mentions their schemes with a contemptuous brevity.

↑178 The town of Pharsalus was situated near the Enipeus, in one of the great plains of Thessalia, called Pharsalia. Cæsar (iii. 88) does not mention the place where the battle was fought. See Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 75.

↑179 Pompeius had dedicated a temple at Rome to Venus Victrix. The Julia (Iulia) Gens, to which Cæsar belonged, traced their deecent from Venus through Iulus, the son of Æneas. (See the Life of Cæsar, c. 42.)

↑180 Cæsar does not mention this meteor in his Civil War. See Life of Cæsar, c. 43, and Dion Cassius, 41. c. 61.

↑181 A place in Thessalia north of Pharsalus where Titus Quinctius Flaminius defeated King Philip of Macedonia, B.C. 197.

↑182 τὸν φοινικοῦν χιτῶνα. Shakspere has employed this in his Julius Cæsar, Act V. Sc. 1:

“Their bloody sign of battle is hung out.”

Plutarch means the Vexillum. He has expressed by his word (προθεῖναι) the ‘propono’ of Cæsar (Bell. Gall. ii. 20; Bell. Hispan. c. 28, Bell. Alexandr. c. 45). The ‘hung out’ is a better translation than ‘unfurled.’

↑183 Plutarch in this as in some other instances places the Prænomen last, instead of first which he ought to do; but immediately after he writes Lucius Domitius correctly. The error may be owing to the copyists.

The order of the battle is described by Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 89). Plutarch here and in the Life of Cæsar (c. 44) says that Pompeius commanded the right, but Cæsar says that he was on the left. Domitius, that is, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (Consul B.C. 54), may have commanded under him. Cn. Domitius Calvinus (Consul B.C. 53), whom Plutarch calls Calvinus Lucius, commanded Cæsar’s centre. The account of Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 76) does not agree with Cæsar’s.

↑184 See Cæsar B.C. (iii. 88), and Appianus (ii. 79), who quotes Cæsar’s letters.

↑185 The whole number of Italian troops on both sides was about 70,000, as Plutarch says in the next chapter. There were also other troops on both sides (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 70). The battle was fought on the ninth of August, B.C. 48, according to the uncorrected calendar.

↑186 Dion Cassius has some like reflections (41. c. 53-58); and Appianus (ii. 77), who says that both the commanders-in-chief shed tears; which we need not believe.

↑187 Lucan, i. 6.

↑188 Crassinius, in the Life of Cæsar, c. 44. Cæsar (iii. 91, 99) names him Crastinus. Compare Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 82). Crastinus received an honourable interment after the battle.

↑189 The passage is from the Iliad, xi. 544.

↑190 C. Asinius Pollio was a soldier, a poet, and an historical writer. His history of the Civil Wars was comprised in seventeen books. Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 79) quotes this circumstance from Pollio. Horatius (Od. ii. 1) addresses this Pollio, and Virgilius in his fourth Eclogue. The first part of the ode of Horatius contains an allusion to Pollio’s historical work.

↑191 Cæsar (iii. 96) describes the appearance of the camp of Pompeius, and adds that his hungry soldiers found an entertainment which their enemies had prepared for themselves.

↑192 Pompeius passed by Larissa, the chief town of Thessalia, on his road to the vale of Tempe, in which the river Peneius flows between the mountain range of Olympus and Ossa. In saying that Pompeius “let his horse go,” I have used an expression that may be misunderstood. Cæsar(iii. 96) will explain it—“protinusque equo citato Larissam contendit,” and he continued his flight at the same rate.

↑193 These were L. Lentulus Spinther, Consul B.C. 57, and Lentulus Crus, Consul B.C. 49. Deiotarus was king or tetrarch of Galatia in Asia Minor, and had come to the assistance of Pompeius with a considerable force. Pompeius had given him Armenia the Less, and the title of King. Cæsar after the battle of Pharsalus took Armenia from him, but allowed him to retain the title of King.

↑194 The verse is from Euripides. It is placed among the Fragmenta Incerta CXIX. ed. Matthiæ.

↑195 This town was near the mouth of the Strymon, a river of Thrace, and out of the direct route to Lesbos. The reason of Pompeius going there is explained by Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 102). Cornelia was at Mitylene in Lesbos with Sextus, the younger son of Pompeius.

↑196 Kratippus was a Peripatetic, and at this time the chief of that sect. Cicero’s son Marcus afterwards heard his lectures at Athens (Cicero, De Officiis, i. 1), B.C. 44.

The last sentence of this chapter is somewhat obscure, and the opinions of the critics vary as to the reading. See the note of Sintenis.

↑197 This city was on the coast of Pamphylia. It took its name from Attalus Philadelphus, the king of Pergamum of that name, who built it.

Lucanus (viii. 251) makes Pompeius first land at Phaselis in Lycia.

↑198 Dion Cassius (43. c. 2) discusses this matter. He thinks that Pompeius could never have thought of going to Parthia. Compare Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 83).

↑199 This is the King Juba mentioned in the Life of Cæsar, c. 52.

↑200 This is Ptolemæus Dionysius, the last of his race, and the son of the Ptolemæus Auletes mentioned in c. 49. Auletes had been restored to his kingdom through the influence of Pompeius by A. Gabinius B.C. 55.

↑201 This Arsakes is called Hyrodes or Orodes in the Life of Crassus (c. 18). Arsakes seems to have been a name common to the Parthian kings, as the representatives of Arsakes, the founder of the dynasty. Orodes had already refused his aid to Pompeius in the beginning of the war, and put in chains Hirrus, who had been sent to him. The Parthian demanded the cession of Syria, which Pompeius would not consent to.

↑202 Probably Seleukeia in Syria at the mouth of the Orontes.

↑203 He was now thirteen years of age, and according to his father’s testament, he and his sister Kleopatra were to be joint kings and to intermarry after the fashion of the Greek kings of Egypt. The advisers of Ptolemæus had driven Kleopatra out of Egypt, and on the news of her advancing against the eastern frontiers with an army, they went out to meet her. Pelusium, on the eastern branch of the Nile, had for many centuries been the strong point on this frontier. (Cæsar, Civil War, iii. 103; Dion Cassius, 42. c. 3, &c.) Pompeius approached the shore of Egypt with several vessels and about 2000 soldiers.

As to the circumstances in this chapter, compare Dion Cassius (42. c. 3), Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 84), and Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 104). Cæsar simply mentions the assassination of Pompeius. He says no more about it.

↑204 The death of Pompeius is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Atticum, xi. 6). As to his age, Drumann observes, “He was born B.C. 106, and was consequently 58 years old when he was killed, on the 29th of September, or on the day before his birthday, about the time of the autumnal equinox according to the unreformed calendar.” (Lucanus, viii 467.)

↑205 He is called Cordus by Lucanus (viii. 715), and had formerly been a quæstor of Pompeius.

[Pg 295]

Alexander

↑1 On the subject of serpent worship, see in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ art.: ‘Serpent,’ and ‘Brazen Serpent.’

↑2 The Greek month Hekatombæon answers to the last half of our July and the first half of August.

↑3 Cf. Horace, Carm. iii. 22.

↑4 Reciters of epic poems, the cantos of which were called ‘rhapsodies.’

↑5 The same indifference to athletic sports, as practised in Greece, is mentioned in the Life of Philopœmen. The pankratium is sometimes called the pentathlum, and consisted of five contests, the foot-race, leaping, throwing the quoit, hurling the javelin, and wrestling. No one received the prize unless he was winner in all. In earlier times boxing was part of the pentathlum, but hurling the javelin was afterwards substituted for it.

↑6 In Greek, this word is properly applied to the slave whose duty it was to attend a boy to and from school, and generally to keep him out of mischief. He was not supposed to teach him.

↑7 The literal meaning of this word is “bull’s head.” It is conjectured that this refers to the mark with which the horse was branded, not to his appearance.

↑8 I believe that the seal here mentioned was Philip’s own, and in no sense the “great seal of the kingdom,” although Strabo speaks of the public seal of a state.

↑9 A tribe in the eastern part of Macedonia.

↑10 Near Chæronea.

↑11 It must be remembered that the ancients, although they possessed chairs, always ate and drank reclining upon couches.

↑12 The Karians, ever since the siege of Troy, were regarded by the Greeks with the greatest contempt Cf. Il. ix. 378.

↑13 Bacchus. Compare the Bacchæ of Euripides, passim.

↑14 For a description of the Macedonian phalanx, see life of Titus Flaminius, ch. viii., note.

↑15 This inscription was no doubt written over such spoils as were placed in the Greek temples. Compare Virgil’s “Æneas hæc de Danais victoribus arma.”

↑16 When the wind blew from the south, this road was covered by such a depth of water as to be impracticable: for some time before he reached the spot the wind had blown strong from the south—but as he came near, the special providence of the gods (so he and his friends conceived it) brought on a change of wind to the north, so that the sea receded and left an available passage, though his soldiers had the water up to their waists. Grote’s History of Greece, Part II. ch. xcii.

↑17 See Smith’s ‘Biographical Dictionary’ s.v.

↑18 This dye was probably made from the murex or purple fish, caught in the Hermionic gulf, in Argolis, which produced a dye only second to that of Tyre.

↑19 “No certainty is attainable about the ancient geography of these regions. Mr. Long’s Map of Ancient Persia shows how little can be made out.” (Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. chap. cxiii., note.)

↑20 Lykus in Greek signifies a wolf.

↑21 In Persepolis, the capital of the district called Persis.

↑22 The ancients, whose bodies were anointed with oil or unguents, used dust when wrestling, to enable them to hold one another.

↑23 The Sea of Azof.

↑24 Antipater had been left by Alexander as his viceroy in Macedonia.

↑25 The word which I have translated ‘striped’ is mentioned by Xenophon in the Cyropædia as one of the ensigns of royalty assumed by Cyrus.

↑26 Probably Cabul or Ghuznee. The whole geography of Alexander’s Asiatic campaigns will be found most exhaustively discussed in Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. ch. xcii., s. 99.

↑27 The same name occurs in the Life of Sulla, c. 15, and Life of Lucullus, c. 26.

↑28 The river Jhelum in the Punjaub.

↑29 A cubit is the space from the point of the elbow to that of the little finger: a span is the space one can stretch over with the thumb and the little finger.

↑30 As distinguished from the Mediterranean. The ancients gave the name of ocean to the sea by which they believed that their world was surrounded.

↑31 δάκτυλος, the shortest Greek measure, a finger’s breadth, about 7/20 of an inch. The modern Greek seamen measure the distance of the sun from the horizon by fingers’ breadths. Newton’s ‘Halicarnassus.’ (Liddell & Scott, s.v.)

↑32 So called from their habit of going entirely naked. One of them is said by Arrian to have said to Alexander. “You are a man like all of us, Alexander—except that you abandon your home like a meddlesome destroyer, to invade the most distant regions; enduring hardships yourself, and inflicting hardships on others.” (Arrian, vii, 1, 8.)

↑33 To recompense his soldiers for their recent distress, the king conducted them for seven days in drunken bacchanalian procession through Karmania, himself and all his friends taking part in the revelry; an imitation of the jovial festivity and triumph with which the god Dionysus had marched back from the conquest of India. (Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. ch. xciv.)

↑34 The straits of Gibraltar.

↑35 Her daughter, Alexander’s sister.

↑36 The district known to the ancients as Persis or Persia proper, corresponds roughly to the modern province of Fars. Its capital city was Persepolis, near the modern city of Schiraz.

↑37 The capital of Macedonia, Alexander’s native city.

↑38 χοῦς a liquid measure containing 12 κοτύλαι of 5.46 pints apiece.

↑39 The Greek word hero means a semi-divine personage, who was worshipped, though with less elaborate ritual than a god.

↑40 £2,300,000. Grote, following Diodorus, raises the total even higher, to twelve thousand talents, or £2,760,000. “History of Greece,” part ii. ch. xciv.

↑41 The Greek text here is corrupt. I have endeavoured to give what appears to have been Plutarch’s meaning.

[Pg 379]

Caesar

↑1 It has been remarked by Niebuhr (Lectures on the History of Rome, ii. 33) that the beginning of the Life of Cæsar is lost. He says, “Plutarch could not have passed over the ancestors, the father, and the whole family, together with the history of Cæsar’s youth, &c.” But the reasons for this opinion are not conclusive. The same reason would make us consider other lives imperfect, which are also deficient in such matters. Plutarch, after his fashion, gives incidental information about Cæsar’s youth and his family. I conceive that he purposely avoided a formal beginning; and according to his plan of biography, he was right. Niebuhr also observes that the beginning of the Life of Cæsar in Suetonius is imperfect; “a fact well known, but it is only since the year 1812, that we know that the part which is wanting contained a dedication to the præfectus prætorio of the time, a fact which has not yet found its way into any history of Roman Literature.” It is an old opinion that the Life of Cæsar in Suetonius is imperfect. The fact that the dedication alone is wanting, for so Niebuhr appears to mean, shows that the Life is not incomplete, and there is no reason for thinking that it is.

C. Julius Cæsar, the son of C. Julius Cæsar and Aurelia, was born on the twelfth of July, B.C. 100, in the sixth consulship of his uncle C. Marius. His father, who had been prætor, died suddenly at Pisa when his son was in his sixteenth year.

↑2 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 9, and notes.

↑3 Cæsar was first betrothed to Cossutia, the daughter of a rich Roman Eques, but he broke off the marriage contract, and married Cornelia, B.C. 83.

↑4 A different story is told by Suetonius (Cæsar, c. 1), and Velleius Paterculus (ii. 43).

↑5 Cornelius Phagita (Suetonius, c. 1, 74.) The words of Sulla are also reported by Suetonius (c. 1).

↑6 Nicomedes III. Cæsar was sent to him by Thermus to get ships for the siege of Mitylene. Suetonius, a lover of scandal, has preserved a grievous imputation against Cæsar, which is connected with this visit to Nicomedes (Cæsar, c. 2, 49). Cæsar in a speech for the Bithynians (Gellius, v. 13) calls Nicomedes his friend. He felt the reproach keenly, and tried to clear himself (Dion Cassius, 43, c. 20). But it is easier to make such charges than to confute them.

M. Minucius Thermus, Proprætor. Cæsar served his first campaign under him at the siege and capture of Mitylene B.C. 80. Cæsar gained a civic crown. See the note in Burmaun’s edition of Suetonius.

↑7 This island was near Miletus. Stephan. Byzant., Φαρμακοῦσσα.

↑8 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 26. Cæsar served a short time against the Cilician pirates under P. Servilius Isauricus (Sueton. Cæsar, 2) B.C. 77, or perhaps later.

↑9 He was now in Bithynia according to Vell. Paterculus (ii. 42). This affair of the pirates happened according to Drumann in B.C. 76. Plutarch places it five years earlier.

↑10 Plutarch should probably have called him only Molo. He was a native of Alabanda in Caria. Cicero often mentions his old master, but always by the name of Molo only. He calls the rhetorician, who was the master of Q. Mucius Scævola, consul B.C. 117. Apollonius, who was also a native of Alabanda.

↑11 See c. 54.

↑12 See the first chapter of the Life of Lucullus.

↑13 Cn. Cornelius Dolabella, consul B.C. 81, afterwards was governor of Macedonia as proconsul, in which office he was charged with maladministration. Cicero (Brutus, c. 71, 92) mentions this trial. Drumann places it in B.C. 77. Cicero (Brutus, c. 72) gives his opinion of the eloquence of Cæsar. (Suetonius, Cæsar, 4; Vell. Paterculus, ii. 42.)

↑14 His name was Caius. He was consul B.C. 63 with Cicero. The trial, which was in B.C. 76, of course related to misconduct prior to that date. The trial was not held in Greece. M. Lucullus was the brother of L. Lucullus, and was Prætor in Rome at the time of the trial.

↑15 Some amplification is necessary here in order to preserve Plutarch’s metaphor. He was fond of such poetical turns.

Nec poterat quemquam placidi pellacia ponti

Subdola pellicere in fraudem ridentibus undis.

Lucretius, v. 1002.

↑16 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 48.

↑17 The military tribunes, it appears, were now elected by the people, or part of them at least. Comp. Liv. 43, c. 14.

↑18 His aunt Julia and his wife Cornelia died during his quæstorship, probably B.C. 68.

↑19 The Roman word is Imagines. There is a curious passage about the Roman Imagines in Polybius (vi. 53, ed. Bekker)—“Viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatæ sunt.” Tacit. Annal. iii. 76.

↑20 The origin of this custom with respect to women is told by Livius (5. c. 50). It was introduced after the capture of the city by the Gauls, as a reward to the women for contributing to the ransom demanded by the enemy.

↑21 Antistius Vetus (Vell. Paterculus, ii. 18) was Prætor of the division of Iberia which was called Bætica. His son C. Antistius Veius was Quæstor B.C. 61 under Cæsar in Iberia.

↑22 She was a daughter of Q. Pompeius Rufus, the son-in-law of Sulla, who lost his life B.C. 88, during the consulship of his father. See the Life of Sulla, c. 6 notes. The daughter who is here mentioned was Julia, Cæsar’s only child.

↑23 This was the road from Rome to Capua, which was begun by the Censor Appius Claudius Cæcus B.C. 312, and afterwards continued to Brundisium. It commenced at Rome and ran in nearly a direct line to Terracina across the Pomptine marshes.

The appointment as commissioner (curator) for repairing and making roads was an office of honour, and one that gave a man the opportunity of gaining popular favour.

↑24 Cæsar was Curule Ædile B.C. 65.

↑25 Q. Metellus Pius, Consul B.C. 80. Cæsar’s competitors were P. Servilius Isauricus, consul B.C. 79, under whom Cæsar had fought against the pirates, and Q. Lutatius Catulus, consul B.C. 78, the son of the Catulus whom Marius put to death. Cæsar was already a Pontifex, but the acquisition of the post of Pontifex Maximus, which places him at the head of religion, was an object of ambition to him in his present position. The office was for life, it brought him an official residence in the Via Sacra, and increased political influence.

↑26 The conspiracy of Catiline happened B.C. 63, when Cicero was consul. See the Life of Cicero, c. 10, &c. Sallustius (Catilina, c. 51, &c.) has given the speeches of Cæsar and Cato in the debate upon the fate of the conspirators who had been seized. If we have not the words of Cæsar, there is no reason for supposing that we have not the substance of his speech. Whatever might be Cæsar’s object, his proposal was consistent with law and a fair trial. The execution of the conspirators was a violent and illegal measure.

↑27 This circumstance is mentioned by Sallustius (Catilina, 49), apparently as having happened when Cæsar was leaving the Senate, after one of the debates previous to that on which it was determined to put the conspirators to death. Sallustius mentions Catulus and C. Piso as the instigators. He also observes that they had tried to prevail on Cicero to criminate Cæsar by false testimony. (See Drumann, Tullii, § 40, p. 531.)

↑28 C. Scribonius Curio, consul B.C. 76, father of the Curio mentioned in the Life of Pompeius, c. 58, who was a tribune B.C. 50.

↑29 Cicero wrote his book on his Consulship B.C. 60, in which year Cæsar was elected consul, and it was published at that time. Cæsar was then rising in power, and Cicero was humbled. It would be as well for him to say nothing on this matter which Plutarch alludes to (Ad Attic. ii. 1).

Cicero wrote first a prose work on his consulship in Greek (Ad Attic. i. 19), and also a poem in three books in Latin hexameters (Ad Attic. ii. 3).

↑30 Attic drachmæ, as usual with Plutarch, when he omits the denomination of the money. In his Life of Cato (c. 26) Plutarch estimates the sum at 1250 talents. This impolitic measure of Cato tended to increase an evil that had long been growing in Rome, the existence of a large body of poor who looked to the public treasury for part of their maintenance. (See the note on the Life of Caius Gracchus, c. 5.)

↑31 Cæsar was Prætor B.C. 62. He was Prætor designatus in December B.C. 63, when he delivered his speech on the punishment of Catiline’s associates.

↑32 Some notice of this man is contained in the Life of Lucullus, c. 34, 38, and the Life of Cicero, c. 29. The affair of the Bona Dea, which made a great noise in Rome, is told very fully in Cicero’s letters to Atticus (i. 12, &c.), which were written at the time.

The feast of the Bona Dea was celebrated on the first of May, in the house of the Consul or of the Prætor Urbanus. There is some further information about it in Plutarch’s Romanæ Quæstiones (ed. Wyttenbach, vol. ii.). According to Cicero (De Haruspicum Responsis, c. 17), the real name of the goddess was unknown to the men; and Dacier considers it much to the credit of the Roman ladies that they kept the secret so well. For this ingenious remark I am indebted to Kaltwasser’s citation of Dacier; I have not had curiosity enough to look at Dacier’s notes.

↑33 The divorce of Pompeia is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. i. 13).

↑34 Clodius was tried B.C. 61, and acquitted by a corrupt jury (judices). (See Cicero, Ad Attic. i. 16.) Kaltwasser appears to me to have mistaken this passage. The judices voted by ballot, which had been the practice in Rome in such trials since the passing of the Lex Cassia B.C. 137. Drumanu remarks (Geschichte Roms, Claudii, p. 214, note) that Plutarch has confounded the various parts of the procedure at the trial; and it may be so. See the Life of Cicero, c. 29. There is a dispute as to the meaning of the term Judicia Populi, to which kind of Judicia the Lex Cassia applied. (Orelli, Onomasticon, Index Legum, p. 279.)

↑35 Cæsar was Prætor (B.C. 60) of Hispania Ulterior or Bætica, which included Lusitania.

↑36 A similar story is told by Suetonius (Cæsar, 7) and Dion Cassius (37. c. 52), but they assign it to the time of Cæsar’s quæstorship in Spain.

↑37 The Calaici, or Callaici, or Gallæci, occupied that part of the Spanish peninsula which extended from the Douro north and north-west to the Atlantic. (Strabo, p. 152.) The name still exists in the modern term Gallica. D. Junius Brutus, consul B.C. 138, and the grandfather of one of Cæsar’s murderers, triumphed over the Callaici and Lusitani, and obtained the name Callaicus. The transactions of Cæsar in Lusitania are recorded by Dion Cassius (37. c. 52).

↑38 Many of the creditors were probably Romans. (Velleius Pat. ii 43, and the Life of Lucullus, c. 7.)

↑39 Cæsar was consul B.C. 59.

↑40 The measure was for the distribution of Public land (Dion Cassius, 38. c. 1, &c. &c.) and it was an Agrarian Law. The law comprehended also the land about Capua (Campanus ager). Twenty thousand Roman citizens were settled on the allotted lands (Vell. Pater, ii. 44; Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 10). Cicero, who was writing to Atticus at the time, mentions this division of the lands as an impolitic measure. It left the Romans without any source of public income in Italy except the Vicesimæ (Ad Attic. ii. 16, 18).

The Romans, who were fond of jokes and pasquinades against those who were in power, used to call the consulship of Cæsar, the consulship of Caius Cæsar and Julius Cæsar, in allusion to the inactivity of Bibulus, who could not resist his bolder colleague’s measures. (Dion Cassius, 38. c. 8.)

↑41 The marriage with Pompeius took place in Cæsar’s consulship. Life of Crassus, c. 16.

This Servilius Cæpio appears to be Q. Servilius Cæpio, the brother of Servilia, the mother of M. Junius Brutus, one of Cæsar’s assassins. Servilius Cæpio adopted Brutus, who is accordingly sometimes called Q. Cæpio Brutus. (Cicero, Ad Divers. vii. 21; Ad Attic. ii. 24.) Piso was L. Calpurnius Piso, who with Aulus Gabinius was consul B.C. 58.

↑42 Q. Considius Gallus. He is mentioned by Cicero several times in honourable terms (Ad Attic. ii. 24).

↑43 Cicero went into exile B.C. 58. See the Life of Cicero, c. 30.

Dion Cassius (38. c. 17) states that Cæsar was outside of the city with his army, ready to march to his province, at the time when Clodius proposed the bill of penalties against him. Cicero says the same (Pro Sestio, c. 18). Cæsar, according to Dion, was not in favour of the penalties contained in the bill; but he probably did not exert himself to save Cicero. Pompeius, who had presided at the comitia in which Clodius was adrogated into a Plebeian family, in order to qualify him to be a tribune, treated Cicero with neglect (Life of Pompeius, c. 46). Cæsar owed Cicero nothing. Pompeius owed him much. And Cicero deserved his punishment.

↑44 Cæsar’s Gallic campaign began B.C. 58.

He carried on the war actively for eight years, till the close of B.C. 51. But he was still proconsul of Gallia in the year B.C. 50. Plutarch has not attempted a regular narrative of Cæsar’s campaigns, which would have been foreign to his purpose (see the Life of Alexander, c. 1); nor can it be attempted in these notes. The great commander has left in his Commentary on the Gallic War an imperishable record of his subjugation of Gaul.

↑45 Plutarch here, after his fashion, throws in a few anecdotes without any regard to the chronological order.

↑46 Massalia, an ancient Greek settlement, now Marseilles, was called Massilia by the Romans. The siege of Massalia is told by Cæsar (Civil War, ii. 1, &c.). It took place after Pompeius had fled from Brundisium.

↑47 The story of Scæva is told by Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 53). The missiles were arrows. As to the exact number of arrows that the brave centurion Scæva received in his shield, see the note in Oudendorp’s Cæsar. Scæva was promoted to the first class of centurions (Suetonius. Cæsar, 68).

↑48 Cordoba or Cordova in Hispania Bætica. Cæsar must therefore have been subject to these attacks during his quæstorship, or at least his prætorship in Spain.

Of Cæsar’s endurance and activity, Suetonius also (Cæsar, 57) has preserved several notices.

↑49 Kaltwasser translates this: “He travelled with such speed that he did not require more than eight days to reach the Rhone after leaving Rome;” as if this was his habit. But Kaltwasser is mistaken.

↑50 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 10.

In the time of Gellius (xvii. 9) there was extant a collection of Cæsar’s letters to C. Oppius and Cornelius Balbus, written in a kind of cipher. (See Suetonius, Cæsar, 56.) Two letters of Cæsar to Oppius and Balbus are extant in the collection of Cicero’s letters (Ad Atticum, ix. 8, 16), both expressed with admirable brevity and clearness. One of them also shows his good sense and his humanity.

↑51 The story is also told by Suetonius (Cæsar, 54). Instead of using plain oil, Leo thought he should please his guests by mixing it with a fragrant oil (conditum oleum pro viridi). He was an ill-bred fellow for his pains; but a well-bred man would affect not to notice his blunder.

↑52 This campaign belongs to B.C. 58. The Helvetii occupied the country between the Rhine, the Jura, the Rhone, and the Rhætian Alps. The history of the campaign is given by Cæsar (Gallic War, i. 2-29; Dion Cassius, 38, c. 31). The Arar is the Saone, which joins the Rhone at Lyons.

↑53 This German chief had been acknowledged as king and ally (rex et amicus) during Cæsar’s consulship, B.C. 59. What territory the Romans considered as belonging to his kingdom does not appear. The campaign with Ariovistus and the circumstances which preceded it are told by Cæsar (Gallic War, i. 31, &c.).

The speech of Cæsar in which he rated the men for their cowardice is reported by himself (Gallic War, i. 40). The pursuit of the Germans was continued for five miles according to the MSS. of Cæsar; but some editors in place of ‘five’ have put ‘fifty.’ Plutarch’s 400 stadia are equal to 50 Roman miles.

↑54 Cæsar (Gallic War, i. 54). The army wintered in the country between the Jura, the Rhone and Saone, and the Rhine; which was the country of the Sequani. Cæsar says that he went into Citerior Gallia, that is, North Italy, ’ad conventus agendos,’ to make his circuits for the administration of justice and other civil business. He may be excused for not saying anything of his political intrigues.

↑55 The rising of the Belgæ is the subject of Cæsar’s Second Book. This campaign was in B.C. 57. It was not a rebellion of the Belgæ, for they had not been conquered, but they feared that the Romans would attack them after completing the subjugation of the Galli. The Belgæ were defeated on the Axona, the Aisne, a branch of the Seine (Gallic War, ii. 9-11). There is no mention in Cæsar of lakes and rivers being filled with dead bodies.

↑56 The Nervii considered themselves of German origin. They occupied Hainault in Belgium, and the modern cities of Cambray and Tournay in France were within their limits. The Nervii were on the Sabis, the Sambre. Cæsar (ii. 25) speaks of seizing a shield and restoring the battle. Plutarch has taken from Cæsar (c. 29) the amount of the enemy’s loss. See Dion Cassius (39. c. 1, &c.)

↑57 “Ob easque res ex litteris Cæsaris dies xv subplicatio decreta est, quod ante id tempus accidit nulli.” (Cæsar, Gallic War, ii. 35.)

↑58 See the Life of Crassus, c. 14; Life of Pompeius, c. 51. The meeting at Luca was at the end of B.C. 56, and Plutarch has omitted the campaign of that year, which is contained in Cæsar’s Third Book of the Gallic War.

↑59 Csasar (iv. 1) names them Usipetes and Tenetheri. The events in this chapter belong to B.C. 55, when Cn. Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus were consuls for the second time.

↑60 Cæsar, iv. c. 12. Plutarch here calls the Commentaries ἐφημερίδες, which means a Diary or Day-book. The proper Greek word would be ὑπομνήματα. Kaltwasser accordingly concludes that Plutarah appears to have confounded the Ephemerides and the Commentarii, or at least to have used the word ἐφημερίδες improperly instead of ὑπομνήματα. There is no proof that Cæsar kept a diary. That kind of labour is suited to men of a different stamp from him. Plutarch means the Commentarii. It is true that Servius (Ad Æneid. xi. 743) speaks of a diary (Ephemeris) of Cæsar, which records his being once captured by the Gauls. But see the note of Davis on this passage (Cæsar, ed. Oudendorp, ii. 999). Suetonius, who enumerates Cæsar’s writings (Cæsar, 55, 56), mentions no Ephemeris. There were abundant sources for anecdotes about Cæsar. The Roman himself wrote as an historian: he was not a diary keeper.

↑61 Tanusius Geminus wrote a history which is mentioned by Suetonius (Cæsar, 9). Cato’s opinion on this occasion was merely dictated by party hostility and personal hatred. His proposal was unjust and absurd. Cæsar had good reason for writing his Anticato.

↑62 Or Sigambri, a German tribe on the east bank of the Lower Rhine. They bordered on the Ubii, and were north of them. The name probably remains in the Sieg, a small stream which enters the Rhine on the east bank, nearly opposite to Bonn.

↑63 Cæsar describes the construction of this bridge (iv. 17) without giving any particulars as to the place where it was made. The situation can only be inferred from a careful examination of the previous part of his history, and it has been subject of much discussion, in which opinions are greatly divided. The narratives of Dion Cassius (39. c. 48) and Florus (iii. 10) give some assistance towards the solution of the question. Professor Müller, in an excellent article in the ‘Jahrbücher des Vereins von Alterthumsfreunden im Rheinlande’ (vii. 1845), has proved that the bridge must have been built near Coblenz. Cæsar defeated the Germans in the angle between the Moselle and the Rhine. He must have crossed the Moselle in order to find a convenient place for his bridge, which he would find near Neuwied. The bridge abutted on the east bank on the territory of the Ubii, who were his friends. The narrative of Cæsar, when carefully examined, admits of no other construction than that which Müller has put upon it; and if there were any doubt, it is removed by Cæsar himself in another passage (Gallic War, vi. 9) where he speaks of his second bridge, which gave him a passage from the territory of the Treviri into that of the Ubii, and he adds that the site of the second bridge was near that of the first.

In the Gallic War (iv. 15) Cæsar speaks of the junction (ad confluentem Mosæ et Rheni) of the Mosa and the Rhine, where Müller assumes that he means the Moselle, as he undoubtedly does. Either the reading Mosa is wrong, or, what is not improbable, both the Moselle and the Maas had the same name, Mosa. Mosella or Mosula is merely the diminution of Mosa. At this confluence of the Moselle and Rhine the town of Coblenz was afterwards built, which retains the ancient name. Cæsar indicates which Mosa he means clearly enough by the words ’ad confluentem.’ There was no ‘confluens’ of the Great Mosa and the Rhenus.

↑64 The first expedition of Cæsar to Britain was in the autumn of B.C. 55, and is described in his fourth book of the Gallic War, c. 20, &c. He landed on the coast of Kent, either at Deal or between Sandgate and Hythe. His second expedition was in the following year B.C. 54, which is described in the fifth book, c. 8 &c. He crossed the Thamesis (Thames) in face of the forces of Cassivelaunus, whose territories were bounded on the south by the Thames.

There has been some discussion on the place where Cæsar crossed the Thames. Camden (p. 882, ed. Gibson) fixes the place at Cowey Stakes near Oatlands on the Thames, opposite to the place where the Wey joins the Thames. Bede, who wrote at the beginning of the eighth century, speaks of stakes in the bed of the river at that place, which so far corresponds to Cæsar’s description, who says that the enemy had protected the ford with stakes on the banks and across the bed of the river. Certain stakes still exist there, which are the subject of a paper in the Archæologia, 1735, by Mr. Samuel Gale. The stakes are as hard as ebony; and it is evident from the exterior grain that the stakes were the entire bodies of young oak trees. Cæsar places the ford eighty miles from the coast of Kent where he landed, which distance agrees very well with the position of Oatlands, as Camden remarks.

Cassivelaunus had been appointed Commander-in-chief of all the British forces. This is the king whom Plutarch means. He agreed to pay an annual tribute to the Romans (Gallic War, v. 22), and gave them hostages. Compare Cicero, Ad Attic. iv. 17.

Cæsar wrote two letters to Cicero while he was in Britain. He wrote one letter on the 1st of September, which Cicero received on the 28th of September (Ad Quintum Fratrem, iii. 1). Cicero here alludes to Cæsar’s sorrow for his daughter’s death, of which Cæsar had not received intelligence when he wrote to Cicero; but Cicero knew that the news had gone to him. On the 24th of October, Cicero received another letter written from the British coast from Cæsar, and one from his brother Quintus who was with Cæsar. This letter was written on the 26th of September. Cæsar states (Gallic War, v. 23) that it was near the time of the equinox when he was leaving Britain.

↑65 See the Life of Crassus, c. 16, and the Life of Pompeius, c. 53.

↑66 L. Aurunculeius Cotta and Q. Titurius Sabinus were sent into the country of the Eburones, the chief part of which was between the Maas and the Rhine, in the parallels of Namur and Liege. This king, who is called Abriorix, is named Ambiorix by Cæsar (Gallic War, 24, &c.) The Gauls, after an unsuccessful attempt on the camp, persuaded the Romans to leave it under a promise that they should have a safe passage through the country of the Eburones. Ambiorix made them believe that there was going to be a general rising of the Gauls, and that their best plan was to make their way to the camp of Q. Cicero or Labienus. When they had left their camp, the Gauls fell upon them in a convenient spot and massacred most of them.

↑67 Quintus Cicero was encamped in the country of the Nervii in Hainault. The attack on his camp is described by Cæsar (Gallic War, v. 39, &c.) Cæsar says, when he is speaking of his own camp (v. 50), ‘Jubet … ex omnibus partibus castra altiore vallo muniri portasque obstrui, &c…. cum simulatione terroris;’ of which Plutarch has given the meaning.

↑68 Kaltwasser remarks that Plutarch passes over the events in Cæsar’s Sixth Book of the Gallic War, as containing matters of less importance for his purpose.

↑69 Cæsar (vii. 4) calls him Vercingetorix. He was of the nation of the Arverni, whom Plutarch (as his text stands) calls Arvenni in c. 25, and Aruveni in c. 26. The Arverni were on the Upper Loire in Auvergne. The Carnunteni, whom Cæsar calls Carnutes, were partly in the middle basin of the same river. Orleans (Genapum) and Chartres (Autricum) were their headquarters.

↑70 ταῖς αὐταῖς ὁδοῖς in the MSS., which gives no sense. I have adopted Reiske’s alteration αὐταῖς ταῖς ὁδοῖς. Cæsar (vii. 8) describes his march over the Cevenna, the Cevennes, in winter. He had to cut his road through snow six feet deep. The enemy, who considered the Cevennes as good a protection as a wall, were surprised by his sudden appearance.

↑71 So Plutarch writes it. It is Ædui in Cæsar’s text, or Hædui. The Ædui, one of the most powerful of the Gallic tribes, were situated between the Upper Loire and the Saone, and possessed the chief part of Burgundy. The Saone separated them from the Sequani on the east.

↑72 The Lingones were on the Vosges, which contain the sources of the Marne and the Moselle. The Saone separated them from the Sequani on the south-east. The account of this campaign is unintelligible in Plutarch. It is contained in Cæsar’s Seventh Book.

↑73 A small matter in itself; but if true, a trait in Cæsar’s character. Schaefer has the following note: “Aliter facturus erat Cyrneus, omnino inferior ille Romano.” The Corsican is Napoleon. Cæsar was the magnanimous man, whom Aristotle describes (Eth. Nicom. iv. 7); Napoleon was not.

↑74 Alise, or rather the summit of Mont Auxois, west of Dijon in Burgundy, represents the Alesia of Cæsar. A stream flowed along each of two sides of the city. Alesia belonged to the Mandubii, who were dependants of the Ædui. The siege and capture of Alesia, B.C. 52, are told by Cæsar (Gallic War, vii. 68, &c.)

The assembling of the Gallic nations was a last great effort to throw off the yoke.

Dion Cassius (40. c. 41) says Vercingetorix was put in chains. Seven years after he appeared in Cæsar’s triumph, after which he was put to death.

Cæsar passed the winter of B.C. 51 at Nemetocenna, Arras, in Belgium. The final pacification of Gaul is mentioned (viii. 48). Cæsar left Gaul for North Italy in the early part of B.C. 50, and having visited all the cities in his province on the Italian side of the Alps, he again returned to Nemetocenna in Belgium, and after finally settling affairs in those parts, he returned to North Italy, where he learned that the two legions, which had been taken from him for the Parthian war, had been given by the consul C. Marcellus to Pompeius, and were kept in Italy.

In nine years Cæsar completed the subjugation of all that part of Gaul which is bounded by the Saltus Pyrenæus, the Alps and the Cevennes, the Rhine and the Rhone; and it was reduced to the form of a province. (Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 25.) With the capture of Alesia the Seventh book of the Gallic War ends. The Eighth book is not by Cæsar.

↑75 As to the disturbances at Rome mentioned in this chapter, see the Life of Pompeius, c. 54, &c., notes.

↑76 Life of Pompeius, c. 52.

↑77 M. Claudius Marcellus, consul B.C. 51, with S. Sulpicius Rufus.

↑78 Novum Comum or Novocomum; north of the Padus, had been settled as a Colonia Latina by Cæsar. (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 26.)

The government of the colonia was formed on a Roman model: there was a body of Decuriones or Senators.

↑79 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 58; Appianus, Civil Wars, ii, 26; Dion Cassius, 40. c. 59.

↑80 L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, whom Cæsar took in Corfinium, c. 34.

↑81 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 52.

↑82 Cæsar (Civil War, i. 1) mentions this letter; but it was read in the Senate after great opposition. The consuls of the year B.C. 49 were L. Cornelius Lentulus and C. Claudius Marcellus.

Cæsar, in the first few chapters of the Civil War, has clearly stated all the matters that are referred to in c. 30 and 31. The “letters” mentioned in c. 31 as coming before Curio and Antonius left Rome, are not mentioned by Cæsar. Plutarch might have confounded this with another matter. (Civil War, i. 3.)

↑83 Cæsar was at Ravenna when the tribunes fled from Rome, and he first saw them at Ariminum, Rimini, which was not within the limits of Cæsar’s province. (Civil War, i. 6; Dion Cassius, 41. c. 3.)

↑84 Q. Hortensius Hortalus, a son of the orator Hortensius. He was an unprincipled fellow.

↑85 Cæsar says nothing of the passage of the Rubico, but his silence does not disprove the truth of the story as told by Plutarch. The passage of the Rubico was a common topic (locus communis) for rhetoricians. Lucanus (Pharsalia, i. 213) has embellished it:—

“Fonte cadit modico parvisque impellitur undis

Puniceus Rubicon, cum fervida canduit æstas—

Tunc vires præbebat hiems.”

This small stream does not appear to be identified with certainty. Some writers make it the Fiumicino.

Ariminum was not in Cæsar’s province, and Plutarch must have known that, as appears from his narrative. Kaltwasser thinks that he may mean that it was originally a Gallic town, which was true.

↑86 In Plutarch’s time the system of naming the Romans was greatly confused, and he extended the confusion to earlier times. C. Asinius Pollio, who was with Cæsar at the Rubico and at the battle of Pharsalia, wrote a history of the Civil Wars. He was also a poet. (Horatius, Od. ii. 1.) His work, as we may collect from c. 46, furnished materials for anecdotes about Cæsar.

↑87 This dream according to Suetonius (Cæsar, c. 7) and Dion Cassius (41. c. 24) he had at Cades (Cadiz) in Spain during his quæstorship. The time of the dream is not unimportant, if the interpretation of it was that he was destined to have the dominion of the world. Cæsar has not recorded his dream. Sulla recorded his dreams. He was superstitious and cruel. Cæsar was not cruel, and there is no proof that he was superstitious.

↑88 Pompeius went to Capua, where he thought of making a stand, but he soon moved on to Brundisium. On the confusion in the city see Dion Cassius (41. c. 5-9).

↑89 The author of the Eighth book of the Gallic War (c. 52) speaks of Labienus being solicited by Cæsar’s enemies. Cæsar had put him over Gaul south of the Alps. In the Civil War, Book 1, he is merely mentioned as having fortified Cingulum at his own cost. Cicero (Ad Attic. vii. 7) says that he was indebted to Cæsar for his wealth. His defection is mentioned by Cicero several times, and it gave a temporary encouragement to the party of Pompeius. (Ad Attic. vi. 12, 13.) Labienus joined Pompeius and the Consuls at Teanum in Campania on the 23rd of January.

↑90 Corfinium three miles from the river Aternus. Cæsar (Civil War, i. 16-23) describes the siege of Corfinium. L. Domitius Ahenobarbus was treated kindly by Cæsar. He afterwards went to Massalia and defended it against Cæsar. This most excellent citizen, as Cicero calls him, met the death he so well deserved at the battle of Pharsalia, and as Cicero says (Phillipp. ii. 29), at the hand of M. Antonius.

↑91 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 62.

↑92 From this it appears that the Life of Pompeius was written after the Life of Cæsar.

↑93 Cæsar (Civil War, i, 32) has reported his own speech.

↑94 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 62.

↑95 This was the “sanctius ærarium” (Cæsar, Civil War, i. 13), which Lentulus had left open; in such alarm had he left the city. This money, which was kept in the temple of Saturn, was never touched except in cases of great emergency. Vossius remarks that to save his own character, Cæsar says that he found this treasury open. But Cæsar does not say that he found it open. He says that Lentulus left it open. There was time enough for Metellus to lock the door after Lentulus ran away. Cæsar would have been a fool not to take the money; and if he wanted it, he would of course break the door open, if he found it shut. But whether the door was open or shut was unimportant; the wrongful act, if there was any, consisted in taking the money, and he would not have been excused for taking it simply because the door was unlocked. I believe Cæsar broke it open (Cicero Ad Attic. x. 4; Dion Cassius, 41. c. 17; and the authorities quoted by Reimarus). I also believe Cæsar when he says that Lentulus left the door unlocked. The Senate had supplied Pompeius with money for the war out of the ordinary treasury. When Cæsar took Corfinium, he gave to Domitius all the money that he found there, which was to a large amount, though this was public money and had been given to Domitius by Pompeius to pay his soldiers with. (Appianus, ii. 28; Cæsar, Civil War, i. 23.) When “that man of greatest purity and integrity,” as Cicero calls him, M. Terentius Varro, commanded for Pompeius in Spain (B.C. 48), he carried off the treasure from the temple of Hercules at Cadiz. That man, on whom Cicero vents every term of abuse that his fear and hatred could supply, restored the stolen money to the god. (Cæsar, Civil War, ii. 18, 21.)

↑96 The Spanish campaign against Afranius is contained in the Civil War, 34, &c. The legati of Pompeius in Spain were L. Afranius, consul B.C. 60, M. Petreius, and M. Terentius Varro, better known for his learning and his numerous works than for his military talents. After the surrender of Afranius and Petreius, Cæsar marched to the south of Spain, for Varro, who was in Lusitania, was making preparations for war. Varro, after some feeble efforts, surrendered to the conqueror at Cordova. Varro was treated kindly like all the rest who fell into Cæsar’s hands, and he had the opportunity of placing himself against Cæsar at Dyrrachium.

On his return from the successful close of his Spanish campaign, Massalia surrendered to Cæsar after an obstinate resistance. (Cæsar, Civil War, ii. 22.)

It was on his return to Massalia from the south of Spain that Cæsar heard of his appointment as Dictator (Civil War, ii. 21).

↑97 (Cæsar, Civil War, iii. 1; Dion Cassius, 41. c. 37.) Cæsar does not speak of those who had suffered in Sulla’s time; nor does Dion.

↑98 Cæsar and P. Servilius Isauricus (son of the consul Isauricus, B.C. 79) were elected Consuls for B.C. 48. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 54, notes; and of Cæsar, c. 57, Dictator.

When Cæsar had left Rome, the boys formed themselves into two parties, Pompeians and Cæsarians, and had a battle without arms, in which the Cæsarians were victorious. (Dion Cassius, 41, c. 39.)

As to Cæsar’s forces, see Civil War, iii. 2.

↑99 Dion Cassius (41. c. 45) tells this story of the boat adventure; and (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 57) Cæsar was uneasy at the delay of M. Antonius and his legions, and he feared that Antonius might desert him. Cæsar says nothing of this attempt to cross the sea. He very seldom mentions his personal risks. He left this to the anecdote collectors.

↑100 The river appears to be the Anas of Dion (41. c. 45) which is near Apollonia, though he does not mention the river in his account of Cæsar’s attempted voyage. This is the river which Strabo calls Æas, and Hekatæus calls Aous (Strabo, p. 316).

For the events in these three chapters see the Life of Pompeius, c. 65, &c., and the references in the notes.

↑101 Cæsar calls the root Chara (Civil War, iii. 48. Comp. Plinius, N.H. 19, c. 8). These facts are mentioned in Cæsar. The events in the neighbourhood of Dyrrachium and Apollonia must be studied in Cæsar, Dion Cassius, Book 41, and Appianus, Book ii.

↑102 Cæsar mentions the capture of Gomphi (Civil War, iii. 80), but he says nothing of the wine. Cæsar let his men plunder Gomphi. The town had offered him all its means and prayed him for a garrison, but on hearing of his loss at Dyrrachinm the people shut their gates against him and sent to Pompeius for aid. The town was stormed on the first day that it was attacked.

↑103 As Kaltwasser observes, there was no bad omen in the dream, as it is here reported. We must look to the Life of Pompeius, c. 68, for the complete dream. Perhaps something has dropped out of the text here. Dacier, as Kaltwasser says, has inserted the whole passage out of the Life of Pompeius.

↑104 This is an error. The name is Q. Cornificus. See the note of Sintenis. He was a quæstor of Cæsar. Calenus is Fulvus Calenus, who had been sent by Cæsar into Achaia, and had received the submission of Delphi, Thebæ, and Orchomenus, and was then engaged in taking other cities and trying to gain over other cities. (Cæsar, Civil War, iii. 55.)

↑105 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 71.

↑106 I have omitted the unmeaning words ἢ διὰ θείας ἥττης τεθαμβημένος. See the note of Sintenis.

↑107 These words of Cæsar are also reported by Suetonius (Cæsar, 30), on the authority of Pollio. They are: Hoc voluerunt: tantis rebus gestis C. Cæsar condemnatus essem, nisi ab exercitu auxilium petissem. These words are more emphatic with the omission of ‘they brought me into such a critical position,’ and Casaubon proposes to erase them in Plutarch’s text, that is, to alter and improve the text.

↑108 A rich town of Lydia in Asia Minor on the north side of the Mæander. This miracle at Tralles and others are enumerated by Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 105; Dion Cassius, 41. c. 61). The book of Livius, in which this affair of Patavium (Padua) was mentioned (the 111th), is lost. See the Supplement of Freinsheim, c. 72.

↑109 See life of Pompeius, c. 42, notes; and Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 88).

↑110 Cæsar crossed the Hellespont, where he met with C. Cassius Longinus going with a fleet to aid Pharnakes in Pontus. Cassius surrendered and was kindly treated, in consideration of which he afterwards assisted to murder Cæsar. (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 88.)

↑111 Of Knidus. The same who is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. xiii. 7) as a friend of Cæsar, and by Strabo, p. 48, &c.

Asia is the Roman province of Asia.

↑112 Cæsar (Civil War, iii. 106) speaks of his arrival on the coast of Egypt. The Egyptians were offended to see the Roman fasces carried before him.

↑113 Cæsar had the head of Pompeius burnt with due honours, and he built a temple to Nemesis over the ashes. The temple was pulled down by the Jews in their rising in Egypt during the time of Trajanus. (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 90.)

As to the seal ring see the Life of Pompeius, c. 80, and Dion Cassias (42. c. 18).

↑114 The Alexandrine war, which is confusedly told here, is recorded in a single book entitled De Bello Alexandrino and in Dion Cassius (42. c. 34-44). The origin of it is told by Cæsar at the end of the third Book of the Civil War. The history of the Alexandrine war by Appianus was in his Ægyptiaca, which is lost. Dion Cassius, a lover of scandal, mentions that Cæsar’s attachment to Kleopatra was the cause of the Alexandrine war (42. c. 44). But it could not be the sole cause. Cæsar landed with the insignia of his office, as if he were entering a Roman province, and it might be reasonably suspected by the Egyptians that he had a design on the country. Instead of thanking them for ridding him of his rival, he fixed himself and his soldiers in one of the quarters of Alexandria. Cæsar went to get money (Dion, 42. c. 9). Kleopatra kept him there longer than he at first intended to stay.

↑115 Ptolemæus Auletes through Cæsar’s influence had been declared a friend and ally of the Romans in Cæsar’s consulship B.C. 59. (Cic. Ad Attic. ii. 16.) Ptolemæus had to spend money for this: he both gave and promised. It does not appear that this money was promised to Cæsar: it is more probable that it was promised to the Roman State and Cæsar came to get it.

↑116 The story of Kleopatra coming to Cæsar is also told by Dion Cassius (42. c. 34). Cæsar mentions his putting Pothinus to death (Civil War, iii. 112). Cæsar had at first only 3200 foot soldiers and 800 cavalry to oppose to the 20,000 men of Achillas, who were not bad soldiers. Besides these 20,000 men Achillas had a great number of vagabonds collected from all parts of Cilicia and Syria.

↑117 Alexandria had no springs, and it was supplied from the Nile, the water of which was received into cisterns under the houses. This supply was (Bell. Alex. 5, &c.) damaged by Ganymedes the Egyptian drawing up salt water from the sea and sending it into the cisterns. Cæsar supplied himself by digging wells in the sand.

↑118 As to the destruction of the library see Dion Cassius (42. c. 38) and the notes of Reimarus. The destruction is not mentioned by Cæsar or the author of the Alexandrine war. Kleopatra afterwards restored it, and the library was famed for a long time after. Lipsius (Opera iii. 1124, Vesal 1675) has collected all that is known of this and other ancient libraries.

↑119 The Pharos is a small island in the bay of Alexandria, which was connected with the mainland by a mole, and so divided the harbour into two parts. The story of the battle of the Pharos is told by Dion Cassius (42. c. 40), with the particulars about Cæsar’s escape. See the notes of Reimarus.

The modern city of Alexandria is chiefly built on the mole which joined the old city to the mainland. (Article Alexandria, ‘Penny Cyclopædia,’ by the author of this note.)

↑120 The King, the elder brother of Kleopatra, was drowned in the Nile. (Dion Cassius, 42. c. 43, and the notes of Reimarus.) His body was found. (Florus, ii. 60.)

↑121 Cæsar did not add Egypt to the Roman Empire. He married Kleopatra to her younger brother, who was a boy. Dion says that he still continued his commerce with Kleopatra. Cæsar was nine months in Egypt, from October 48 to July 47 of the unreformed Kalendar.

Cæsarion, a Greek form from the word Cæsar, may have been Cæsar’s son, for there is no doubt that Cæsar cohabited with Kleopatra in Egypt. There is more about this Cæsarion in Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 52, where the reading is doubtful; Cæsar Octavian. c. 17. When Cæsar Octavianus took Egypt he put Cæsarion to death.

↑122 He had been acknowledged by Pompeius as king of the Bosporus after the death of his father. He was now in Asia Minor, where he had taken Amisus and had castrated all the male children. Cæsar after hearing of the defeat of Domitius Calvinus, his legatus, by Pharnakos, advanced against him and routed his army. Zela is eight hours south of Amasia, the birthplace of Strabo, and about 40° 15’ N. lat. Pharnakes was afterwards murdered by Asander, one of his generals. (Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 91; Dion Cassius, 42, 46; Bell. Alexandria, c. 72.)

The modern town of Zilleh, which contains 2000 houses, stands on the site of Zela. A hill rises abruptly above the plain near the centre of the present town, and occupies a commanding position. The appearance of the place corresponds very well with Strabo’s description (p. 561), in whose time it was the capital of Zelitis. (Hamilton’s Asia Minor, i. 361.)

↑123 This is the best MS. reading, not Amintius; the true name is probably C. Matius. He was an intimate friend of Cæsar, and he is well spoken of by Cicero. He remained faithful to the cause of Cæsar after his death, and he attached himself to Octavianus. There is a letter of Cicero to Matius, with the answer of Matius (Cicero, Ad Diversos, xi. 27, 28) written after Cæsar’s death, which shows him to have been a man of honour and courage, and worthy of the name of Cæsar’s friend.

This letter of Cæsar’s is probably a forgery of the anecdote-makers. Davis (note to Oudendorp’s Cæsar, ii. 992) has indicated the probable source of this supposed letter. (Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 37.) The battle was a smart affair of several hours, and was not won without some loss.

↑124 He was named Dictator for B.C. 47 by the Senate in Rome immediately after the battle of Pharsalia: he was at Alexandria when he received this news. He appointed M. Antonius his Master of the Horse and sent him to Rome. (Dion Cassius, 42. c. 21-33.)

↑125 It broke out during his dictatorship. (Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 70; Dion Cassius, 42. c. 52.) The story is told very circumstantially by Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 92). The soldiers demanded of Cæsar release from service (missio), and he granted it to them in a single word, Mitto. The soldiers having got what they asked for were no longer soldiers, but citizens; and Cæsar in the subsequent part of the conference properly addressed them as Quirites, just as Cicero addresses the Roman people by this name in one of his orations against Rullus. The soldiers at last prevailed on him to restore them to their former condition; and he set out with them for his African war. This affair is alluded to by Tacitus. (Annal. ii. 42; Lucanus, v. 357.)

↑126 P. Cornelius Dolabella, a devoted adherent of Cæsar. His turbulent tribunate is recorded by Dion Cassius (42. c. 29, &c.). He was consul with M. Antonius B.C. 44. The name Amantius occurs here again. It is Amintius in some editions of Plutarch. Kaltwasser observes that nothing is known of Amintius and Corfinius. But Corfinius should be Cornificius; and Amantius should probably be C. Matius.

↑127 Cato was not in the battle of Pharsalus. After the battle Cato, Scipio, Afranius, and Labienus went to Corcyra, whence they sailed to Africa to join Juba. (Life of Cato, c. 55; Dion Cassius, 42. c. 10; Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 95, &c.)

The history of the African War is contained in one book, and is printed in the editions with the Gallic War of Cæsar. Cæsar landed at Hadrumetum, because Utica was strongly guarded. (Dion Cassius, 42. c. 58.)

↑128 Comp. the African War, c. 1.

↑129 Dion Cassius (42. c. 58) calls him Salatto. Suetonius (Cæsar, c. 59) also tells the same story. The African campaign is told by Dion Cassius, 43. c. 1, &c.

↑130 Scipio avoided fighting as long as he could. Thapsus was situated on a kind of peninsula, south of Hadrumetum, as Dion Cassius states. But his description is not clear. There were salt-pans near it, which were separated from the sea by a very narrow tract. Cæsar occupied this approach to Thapsus, and then formed his lines about the town in the form of a crescent. Scipio came to relieve Thapsus, and this brought on a battle. (African War, 80.) Cæsar could not stop the slaughter after the battle was won.

↑131 Petreius, Cæsar’s former opponent in Spain, fled with Juba to Zama, where Juba had his family and his treasures. But the people would not receive Juba into the place. On which, after rambling about for some time with Petreius, in despair they determined to fight with one another that they might die like soldiers. Juba, who was strong, easily killed Petreius, and then with the help of a slave he killed himself. (African War, 94; Dion Cassius, 43, c. 8.)

Scipio attempted to escape to Spain on ship-board. Near Hippo Regius (Bona) he was in danger of falling into the hands of P. Silius, on which he stabbed himself. Afranius and Faustus Sulla, the son of the dictator, were taken prisoners and murdered by the soldiers in Cæsar’s camp.

↑132 As to the death of Cato, see the Life of Cato, c. 65.

↑133 The work was in two books, and was written about the time of the battle of Munda, B.C. 45. (Suetonius, c. 56; Cicero, Ad Attic, xii. 40; Dion Cassius, 43. c. 13, and the notes of Reimarus about the “Anticato.”)

↑134 Cæsar made the kingdom of Juba a Roman province, of which he appointed C. Sallustius, the historian, proconsul. He laid heavy impositions on the towns of Thapsus and Hadrumetum. He imposed on the people of Leptis an annual tax of 3,000,000 pounds weight of oil (pondo olei), which Plutarch translates by the Greek word litræ. On his voyage to Rome he stayed at Carales (Cagliari) in Sardinia. He reached Rome at the end of July, B.C. 46. (African War, 97, &c.)

Dion Cassius (43. c. 15, &c.) gives us a speech of Cæsar before the Senate on his return to Rome.

↑135 As Kaltwasser remarks, Plutarch has omitted the triumph over Gaul. (Dion Cassius, 43. c. 19; Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 101.) After the triumph Vercingetorix was put to death. Arsinœ, the sister of Kleopatra, appeared in the Egyptian triumph in chains.

↑136 See the Life of Sulla, c. 16 notes; and Dion Cassius, 51. c. 15.

↑137 Plutarch has the word τρίκλινος. The Latin form is triclinium, a couch which would accomodate three persons at table. The word is of Greek origin, and simply means a place which will allow three persons to recline upon it. As triclinia were placed in eating-rooms, such a room is sometimes called triclinium. It is sometimes incorrectly stated that triclinium means three couches, and that a dining-room had the name of triclinium because it contained three couches; which is absurd. Vitruvius describes œci(dining-rooms) square and large enough to contain four triclinia, and leave room also for the servants (vi. 10). It may be true that three couches was a common number in a room.

↑138 There was no census this year, as Rualdus quoted by Kaltwasser shows. Augustus had a census made in his sixth consulship, B.C. 28; and there had then been none for twenty-four years. That of B.C. 42 was in the consulship of M. Æmilius Lepidus and Munatius Plancus. It has been remarked that Plutarch gives the exact numbers that are given in Suetonius (Cæsar, 41), when he is speaking of the number of poor citizens who received an allowance of corn from the state, which number Cæsar reduced from 320,000 to 150,000. This passage, compared with Dion Cassius (43. c. 21), seems to explain the origin of Plutarch’s statement. Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 102) also supposed that it was a census. See Clinton, Fasti, Lustra Romana, B.C. 50. (See the Life of Caius Gracchus, c. 5, notes.)

↑139 Cæsar was sole consul in the year B.C. 45. He was still dictator.

↑140 Munda was in Bætica, west of Malaca (Malaga). The battle was fought on the day of the Liberalia, the feast of Liber or Bacchus, the 17th of March. Pompeius, B.C. 49, left Brundisium on the Ides of March, the 15th.

The Spanish campaign is contained in a book entitled “De Bello Hispaniensi,” which is printed with the “Commentaries of Cæsar:” thirty thousand men fell on the side of Pompeius, and three thousand equites (c. 31). See also Dion Cassius, 43, c. 36; and Appianus, Civil Wars, ii. 104.

↑141 Cneius Pompeius, the elder of the two sons of Pompeius Magnus, was overtaken after he had for some time eluded the pursuit of the enemy. His head was carried to Hispalis (Seville) and exhibited in public. Cæsar, who was then at Gades (Cadiz), came shortly after to Hispalis, and addressed the people in a speech. Sextus Pompeius was at Corduba during the battle, and he made his escape on hearing the news of his brother’s defeat.

↑142 C. Didius. According to Dion, Cn. Pompeius was killed by another set of pursuers, not by Didius. The author of the Spanish War (c. 40) does not mention Didius as having carried the head of Pompeius to Hispalis. After the death of Pompeius, Didius fell in a battle with some Lusitani who had escaped from Munda.

↑143 Cæsar celebrated his Spanish triumph in October, B.C. 45.

↑144 Cæsar was appointed Dictator for Life, and consul for ten years, (Appianus, ii. 106.)

Dictatorship was properly only a temporary office, and created in some great emergency, or for a particular purpose. The first dictator was T. Lartius, who was appoined, B.C. 501. The original period of office was only six months (Livius, ix. 34), and many dictators abdicated, that is, voluntarily resigned the dictatorship before the end of the six months. The Dictator had that authority within the city which the consuls, when in office, only had without. During his term of office there were no consuls. Under the Dictator there was a Magister Equitum, who was sometimes appointed probably by the Dictator. The whole question of the dictatorship is one of considerable difficulty. No dictator had been appointed for one hundred and twenty years before the time when Sulla was appointed; and his dictatorship and that of Cæsar must not be considered as the genuine office. Cæsar was the last Roman who had the title of Dictator. The subject of the Dictatorship is discussed by Niebuhr, Roman History, vol. i. 552, English Transl.

↑145 The honours decreed to Cæsar in the year before are mentioned by Dion Cassius (43. c. 14). Among other things a large statue of him was made which was supported on a figure of the earth (probably a sphere); and there was the inscription—“Semideus, Half-God.” The further honours conferred on Cæsar in this year are recorded by Dion Cassius (43. c. 44, &c.). A statue of the Dictator was to be placed in the temple of Quirinus (Romulus), which was equivalent to calling Cæsar a second founder of Rome. Cicero (Ad Attic. xii. 45, and xiii. 28)

Jokes Atticus on the new neighbour that he was going to have: Atticus lived on the Quirinal Hill, where the temple of Quirinus stood.

The Senate also decreed that Cæsar should use the word Imperator as a title prefixed to his name—Imperator Caius Julius Cæsar. The old practice was to put it after the name, as M. Tullius Cicero Imperator. The title Imperator prefixed to the name does not occur on the medals of Cæsar. But this decree of the Senate was the origin of the term Imperator being used as a title by the Roman Emperors. (Dion Cassius, 43. c. 44.)

↑146 I do not find what particular honours Cicero proposed. His correspondence with Atticus during this period shows that he was dissatisfied with the state of affairs, and very uneasy about himself, though, as far as concerned Cæsar, he had nothing to fear.

↑147 Carthage was destroyed B.C. 146; and Corinth in the same year by L. Mummius. Colonies were sent to both places in B.C. 44. (Dion Cassius, 43. c. 50.) Many Romans were sent to settle in both places. (Strabo, p. 833; Pausanias, ii. 1.) The colonization of Carthage had been attempted by Caius Gracchus. (Life of C. Gracchus, c. 11, notes.)

↑148 In B.C. 45 Cæsar was consul for the fourth time and without a colleague. But he laid down the office before the end of the year, and Quintus Fabius Maximus and C. Trebonius were appointed consuls; the first instance of consuls being appointed for a part of the year, which afterwards became a common practice. (Dion Cassius, 43. c. 46.) The appointment of C. Caninius is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Diversos, vii. 30), who remarks that nobody dined in that consulship, and that the consul was so vigilant that he did not sleep during his term of office: in fact he was consul for only part of a day. An inscription records the consulships of this year. (Note to Cicero in the Variorum edition.)

↑149 On the intended Parthian expedition of Cæsar, see Dion Cassius, 43. c. 51.

↑150 This design of Cæsar is mentioned by Dion Cassius (44. c. 5), Suetonius (Cæsar, 441), and Plinius (H.N. iv. 4).

↑151 This scheme is not mentioned by any other author that I can find. Circæum, or Circeii, as the Romans called it, is the mountain promontory, now Circello or Circeo, between which and Tarracina lies the southern part of the Pomptine marshes. The intended cut must therefore run nearly in the direction of the Via Appia and to the west of it. But considerable cuttings would be required on that more elevated part of the Campagna which lies between the mountains of Alba and the nearest part of the coast. The basin of the Pomptine marshes is bounded by the offsets of the Alban mountains, the Volscian mountains, and the sea. In the central part it is only a few feet above the sea-level, and in some parts it is below it. When a violent south-west wind raises the sea on the coast between Tarracina and Circeo, the water would be driven into the basin of the Pomptine marshes instead of flowing out. There would therefore be no sufficient fall of water to keep the channel clear, even if the head of the cut, where it originated in the Tiber, were high enough; and that is doubtful. The scheme was probably a canal, which with some locks might be practicable; but if the work could be accomplished, it would probably have no commercial advantages.

↑152 Pometia is the common Roman form, from which comes the name of the Pometinæ, or Pomptinæ Paludes, now the Pontine Paludi; the site of Pometia is uncertain. That Cæsar intended to accomplish the drainage of this tract is mentioned by Dion Cassius and Suetonius.

Setia (Sezza), noted for its wine, is on the Volscian hills (the Monti Lepini), and on the eastern margin of the marshes. The physical condition of this tract is described by Prony, in his “Description Hydrographique et Historique des Marais Pontins,” 4to. Paris, 1822; the work is accompanied by a volume of plans and sections and a map of the district. A sketch of the physical character of this district, and of the various attempts to drain it, is also given in the ‘Penny Cyclopædia,’—art. Pomptine Marshes. See also Westphal’s two valuable maps of the Campagna di Roma, and his accompanying Memoir, Berlin and Stettin, 1829.

↑153 Ostia, the old port of Rome, on the east bank of the Tiber near the mouth of the river. The present Ostia is somewhat farther inland, and was built in the ninth century by Pope Gregory the Fourth. There are extensive remains of the old town, but they are in a very decayed condition. “Numerous shafts of columns, which are scattered about in all directions, remains of the walls of extensive buildings, and large heaps of rubbish covered with earth and overgrown with grass, give some, though a faint, idea of the splendour, of the ancient city, which at the time of its greatest splendour, at the beginning of our era, had eighty thousand inhabitants.” (Westphal, Die Römische Kampagne, p. 7.)

↑154 The reformation of the Kalendar was effected in B.C. 46. Dion Cassius (43. c. 26) says that Cæsar was instructed on this subject during his residence at Alexandria in Egypt. The Egyptians had a year of 365 days from a very early date (Herodotus, ii. 4). In this year (B.C. 46) Cæsar intercalated two months of 67 days between November and December, and as this was the year in which, according to the old fashion, the intercalary month of 23 days had been inserted in February, the whole intercalation in this year was 90 days. Cæsar made the reformed year consist of 365 days, and he directed one day to be intercalated in every fourth year (quarto quoque anno) in order that the civil year, which began on the 1st of January, might agree with the solar year. The old practice of intercalating a month was of course dropped. The year B.C. 46 was a year of 445 days. By this reformation, says Dion Cassius, all error was avoided except a very small one, and he adds, that to correct the accumulations of this error, it would only be necessary to intercalate one day in 1461 years. But this is a mistake; for in 1460 years there would be an error of nearly eleven days too much. Ten days were actually dropped between the 4th and 15th of October, 1582, by Gregory XIII., with the sanction of the Council of Trent.

A curious mistake was soon made at Rome by the Pontifices who had the regulation of the Kalendar. The rule was to intercalate a day in every fourth year (quarto quoque anno). Now such expressions are ambiguous in Latin, as is shown by numerous examples. (Savigny, System des heut. Röm. Rechts, iv. 329.) The expression might mean that both the year one and the year four were to be included in the interpretation of this rule; and the Pontifices interpreted it accordingly. Thus, after intercalating in year one, they intercalated again in year four, instead of in year five. In the time of Augustus, B.C. 8. the error was corrected, and the civil year was set right by dropping the three intercalary days which came next after that year, three being the number of days in excess that had been intercalated. For the future the rule of Cæsar was correctly interpreted. Dion Cassius in expressing the rule as to intercalation uses the phrase, διὰ πέντε ἐτῶν.

The subject of Cæsar’s reformation is explained in the notes to Dion Cassius (43. c. 26), ed. Reimarus, and in the article Calendar (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities) by Professor Key.

↑155 The Romans had a large collection of these writings (libri Sibyllini) which were kept in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus under the care of particular functionaries (duumviri sacrorum). On this curious subject the reader will find sufficient information in the Penny Cyclopædia,—art. Sibyl.

↑156 Dion Cassius (44. c. 8), who tells the story, says that he was seated in the vestibule of the Temple of Venus; and he mentions another excuse that Cæsar had for not rising.

↑157 L. Cornelius Balbus was a native of Gades. Pompeius Magnus gave him the Roman citizenship for his services in Spain against Sertorius, which was confirmed by a lex passed B.C. 72, in the consulship of Cn. Cornelius Lentulus. Probably to show his gratitude to the consul, Balbus assumed the Roman name Cornelius. Balbus is often mentioned in Cicero’s correspondence. After Cæsar’s death he attached himself to Cæsar Octavianus, and he was consul B.C. 40. He left a journal of the events of his own and Cæsar’s life. He also urged Hirtius (Pansa) to write the Eighth Book of the Gallic War (Preface addressed to Balbus), Suetonius, Cæsar, 81.

↑158 The Lupercalia are described in the Life of Romulus, c. 21. The festival was celebrated on the 15th of February. It was apparently an old shepherd celebration; and the name of the deity Lupercus appears to be connected with the name Lupus (wolf), the nurturer of the twins Romulus and Remus. Shakspere, who has literally transferred into his play of Julius Cæsar many passages from North’s Plutarch, makes Cæsar say to the consul Antonius—

Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,

To touch Calphurnia; for our elders say,

The barren, touched in this holy chase,

Shake off their sterile curse.

Act i. Sc. 2.

↑159 Dion Cassius (44. c. 9) speaks of the honours conferred on Cæsar and his supposed ambitious designs.

↑160 The Latin word “brutus” means “senseless,” “stupid.” The Cumæi, the inhabitants of Cume in Æolis, were reckoned very stupid. Strabo (p. 622) gives two reasons why this opinion obtained; one of which was, that it was not till three hundred years after the foundation of the city that they thought of making some profit by the customs duties, though they had a port.

↑161 Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 1, Dion Cassius (44. c. 12), and Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Junii, p. 2. This Brutus was not a descendant of him who expelled the last king.

↑162 Plutarch means the office of Prætor Urbanus, the highest of the offices called prætorships. There was originally only one prætor, the Prætor Urbanus. There were now sixteen. The Prætor Urbanus was the chief person engaged in the administration of justice in Rome; and hence the allusion to the “tribunal” (βῆμα) where the Prætor sat when he did business.

↑163 I have translated this according to the reading of Sintenis. Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 8. Cæsar was very lean. As to the writings compare Dion Cassius (44, c. 12).

↑164 See the Life of Brutus, c. 89.

↑165

Cæsar. Let me have men about me that are fat;

Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o’ nights:

Yond’ Cassius has a lean and hungry look;

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Shakespere, Julius Cæsar, Act i. Sc. 2.

↑166 The passage was in the Historical Memoirs. See the Life of Sulla, c. 26; and the Life of Lucullus, c. 28. Notes.

↑167 The Ides of March were the 15th, on which day Cæsar was murdered.

↑168 Compare Dion Cassius (44. c. 17). Cæsar also had a dream.

↑169 I have kept Plutarch’s word, which is Greek. Suetonius (Cæsar, c. 81) expresses it by the Latin word “fastigium,” and also Florus (iv. 2), Cicero (Philipp. ii. 43), and Julius Obsequens (c. 127), who enumerates the omens mentioned by Plutarch. The passage of Livius must have been in the 116th Book, which is lost. See the Epitome. The word here probably means a pediment. But it also signifies an ornament, such as a statue placed on the summit of a pediment.

↑170 Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus was the son of Decimus Junius Brutus, Consul B.C. 77, and grandson of Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus, Consul B.C. 138. He was adopted by Aulus Postumius Albinus, Consul, B.C. 99, whence he took the name Albinus. He served under Cæsar in Gaul, during which campaign he destroyed the fleet of the Veneti. (Gallic War, iii. 12, &c.) Decimus Brutus was a great favourite with Cæsar, who by his will placed him in the second degree of succession; he also gave him the province of Cisalpine Gaul, which Brutus held after Cæsar’s death, and appointed him to be consul for B.C. 42. In the year B.C. 43, after M. Antonius had united himself with M. Lepidus, the governor of Gallia Narbonensis, and L. Munatius Plancus and Asinius Pollio had also joined M. Antonius, Decimus Brutus attempted to make his escape into Macedonia to Marcus Brutus; but he was overtaken in the Alps by the cavalry of Antonius, and put to death after abjectly praying for mercy. This was the just punishment of a treacherous friend who helped Cæsar to the supreme power and then betrayed him (Vell. Paterculus, ii. 61). Like many other men, he did well enough when he was directed by others, but when he was put in command, he lost his head and threw away the opportunities that he had. There are extant several of his letters to Ciecro and letters of Cicero to him. (Dion Cassius, 43. c. 53, and the references in the notes; Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Junii.)

↑171 It was usual for the Romans in their wills to substitute an heres, one or more (in the Roman sense), to take the property in case the person who was first named in the will for any reason did not take it. Cæsar’s first heres was his great nephew, C. Octavius, afterwards Augustus.

↑172 It was the general opinion that some roll or writing was put into Cæsar’s hands, which informed him of the conspiracy; but, as is usual in such cases, there were different statements current about the particulars of this circumstance. Compare Dion Cassius, 44. c. 18.

↑173 According to Dion Cassius (41. c. 52) the Senate was assembled in the curia (συνέδριον), which Pompeius had built.

↑174 The two sects of Greek philosophy that had most adherents among the Romans were those of the Epicureans and the Stoics. Cassius, as an Epicurean, would have no faith in any superhuman powers; but in the moments of danger a man’s speculative principles give way to the common feelings of all mankind. I have kept Plutarch’s word “enthusiasm,” which is here to be understood not in our sense, but in the Greek sense of a person under some superhuman influence.

↑175 This is a mistake of Plutarch, who has stated the fact correctly in his Life of Brutus (c. 17). It was Caius Trebonius who kept Antonius engaged in talk, as we learn from Dion Cassius (44. c. 10), Appianus (Civil War, ii. 117), and Cicero, who in a Letter to Trebonius (Ad Diversos, x. 28) complains that Trebonius had taken Antonius aside, and so saved his life.

↑176 Some would write Tullius Cimber. See the note of Sintenis. Atilius may be the true name.

↑177 P. Servilius Casca was at this time a tribune of the Plebs (Dion Cassius, 44. c. 52).

↑178 Dion Cassius adds (44. c. 19) that Cæsar said to M. Brutus, “And you too, my son.” Probably the story of Cæsar’s death received many embellishments. Of his three and twenty wounds, only one was mortal according to the physician Antistius (Suetonius, Cæsar, 82): but though the wounds severally might not have been mortal, the loss of blood from all might have caused death. Suetonius (c. 82) adds, that Cæsar pierced the arm of Cassius (he mentions two Cassii among the conspirators) with his graphium (stylus). See the notes in Burmann’s edition of Suetonius.

The circumstances of the death of Cæsar are minutely stated by Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Julii, p. 728, &c. The reflections of Dion Cassius (44. c. 1, 2) on the death of Cæsar are worth reading. He could not see that any public good was accomplished by this murder; nor can anybody else.

↑179 Cicero was among them. He saw, as he says himself (Ad Attic. xiv. 10), the tyrant fall, and he rejoiced. In his letters he speaks with exultation of the murder, and commends the murderers. But he was not let into the secret. They were afraid to trust him. If he had been in the conspiracy, he says (Philipp. ii. 14) he would have made clean work; he would have assassinated all the enemies of liberty; in other words, all the chief men of Cæsar’s party. He had abjectly humbled himself before Cæsar, who treated him with kind respect. Like all genuine cowards he was cruel when he had power.

↑180 M. Æmilius Lepidus, son of M. Lepidus, consul B.C. 78. He afterwards formed one of the Triumviri with M. Antonius and Octavianus Cæsar. This was the Lepidus with whom Cæsar supped the day before he was murdered. He was a feeble man, though something of a soldier. Shakspere has painted him in a few words:

Antony. This is a slight unmeritable man,

Meet to be sent on errands.

Julius Cæsar, Act iv. Sc. 1.

There is more of him in the Lives of Brutus and Antonius.

↑181 I do not know who this Caius Octavius is. There is probably some mistake in the name. Lentulus was the son of P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther, consul B.C. 57. He had, like many others, experienced Cæsar’s clemency. Plutarch is mistaken in saying that this Spinther was put to death, though he was probably included in the proscription. (See Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Lentuli, p. 545.) The Lentulus who is mentioned as having been put to death in Egypt (Life of Pompeius, c. 80) was L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul B.C. 49.

The disturbances which followed Cæsar’s death are more particularly described in the Lives of Brutus and Antonius.

↑182 Cæsar made Caius Octavius, his sister’s grandson, his first heres. He left a legacy to every Roman citizen, the amount of which is variously stated. He also left to the public his gardens on the Tiber. (Suetonius, Cæsar, c. 83); Dion Cassius (44. c. 35).

Shakspere has made a noble scene of the speech of Antonius over Cæsar’s body on the opening of the will:

Ant. Here is the will, and under Cæsar’s seal;

To every Roman citizen he gives,

To every several man, seventy-five drachmas:

Moreover he hath left you all his walks,

His private arbours and new planted orchards,

On this side Tiber; he hath left them you

And to your heirs for ever; common pleasures,

To walk abroad, and recreate yourselves.

Here was a Cæsar. When comes such another?

Julius Cæsar, Act iii. Sc. 2.

Antonius, according to Roman fashion, made a funeral speech over the body of Cæsar (Life of Antonius, c. 14; of Brutus, c. 20). Dion Cassius (44. c. 36-49) has put a long speech in the mouth of Antonius, mere empty declamation. Appianus (Civil Wars, ii. 144-6) gives one which is well enough suited to the character of Antonius. (Oratorum Romanorum Fragmenta, ed. Mayer, p. 455.) It is probable that the speech of Antonius was preserved, and was used as materials by the historians.

↑183 This man, who unluckily bore the name of Cinna, was C. Helvius Cinna, a tribune of the plebs, a poet, and a friend of Cæsar. (Dion Cassius, 44. c. 50, and the notes of Reimarus.) The conspirator Cinna was the son of L. Cornelius Cinna, who was a partisan of Marius, and was murdered in his fourth consulship (Life of Pompeius, c. 5). Cæsar’s wife Cornelia, the mother of his only child Julia, was the sister of the conspirator Cinna, as Plutarch names him. But probably he was not one of the conspirators, though he approved of the deed after it was done. (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, Cinnæ, p. 591, notes, and also as to Helvius Cinna.)

↑184 And also in the Life of Antonius.

↑185 Suetonius (Cæsar, c. 89) observes that scarce any of his assasins survived him three years; and they all came to a violent end.

↑186 This town was on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont. Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 36. 48, and Appianus (Civil Wars, iv. 134). Dion Cassius does not mention the ghost story.

↑187 It has been already remarked that Niebuhr is of opinion that the introduction to the Life of Cæsar is lost. This opinion will not appear well founded to those who have got a right conception of the dramatic form in which Plutarch has cast most of his Lives, and more particularly this of Cæsar. He begins by representing him as resisting the tyrant Sulla when others yielded, and then making his way through a long series of events to the supreme power, which he had no sooner attained than he lost it. But his fortune survived him, and the faithless men, his murderers, most of whom owed to him their lives or their fortunes, were pursued by the avenging dæmon till they were all hunted down.

A just estimate of the first of all the Romans is not a difficult task. We know him from the evidence of his contemporaries, both friends and enemies. The devoted attachment of his true friends is beyond doubt; and his enemies could not deny his exalted talents. Cicero, who has in various places heaped on him every term of abuse that his copious storehouse contained, does not refuse his testimony to the great abilities and generous character of Cæsar. Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Julii) has given an elaborate examination of Cæsar’s character. His faults and his vices belonged to his age, and he had them in common with nearly all his contemporaries. His most striking virtues, his magnanimity, his generosity, his mercy to the vanquished, distinguished him among all the Romans of his period. Cæsar was a combination of bodily activity, intellectual power, of literary acquirements, and administrative talent that has seldom appeared. As a soldier he was not inferior in courage and endurance to the hardiest veteran of his legions; and his military ability places him in the first rank of commanders who have contended with and overcome almost insurmountable obstacles. Cicero ranks him in the first class of orators; and his own immortal work, his History of the Gallic Campaign and the Civil War, is a literary monument which distinguishes him among all other commanders. As a speaker and a writer he had no superior among his contemporaries. His varied talents are further shown by his numerous literary labours, of which some small notices remain. His views were large and enlightened, his schemes were vast and boundless. His genius deserved a better sphere than the degenerate republic in which he lived. But the power which he acquired did not die with him. A youth of tender age succeeded to the name and the inheritance of Cæsar, and by his great talents and a long career of wonderful success consolidated that Monarchy which we call the Roman Empire.

Shakspere has founded his play of Julius Cæsar on Plutarch’s Life of Cæsar and the Lives of Brutus and Antonius. The passages in North’s version which he has more particularly turned to his purpose are collected in Mr. Knight’s edition of Shakspere (8vo. edition). Shakspere has three Roman plays, Coriolanus, Julius Cæsar, and Antony and Cleopatra. As a drama the first is the best. The play of Julius Cæsar has been estimated very differently by different critics. Mr. Knight has many valuable remarks on these Roman plays (vol. xi.), and he has shown the way, as he conceives, in which they should be viewed. The Julius Cæsar is so constructed as to show the usurpation and death of Cæsar, and the fall of Brutus, the chief of the assassins, at the battle of Philippi. With Brutus the hopes of his party fell. The play should therefore rather be entitled Marcus Brutus than Julius Cæsar; and it is deficient in that unity without which no great dramatic effect can be produced. The name and the fame of Cæsar,

the noblest man,

That ever lived in the tide of time,

obscure the meaner talents of Brutus; and that death which in Plutarch forms a truly tragical catastrophe, here occurs in the middle of the action, which would appropriately terminate with it. But we have to follow the historical course of events; we follow Brutus to his fate at the battle of Philippi, and witness the vengeance of which Cæsar’s ghost forewarns the false friends. Shakspere may have meant to represent Brutus as the last of the Romans, and the Republic as dying with him; but he also represents him as haunted by the ghost of his murdered benefactor, and losing heart before the final contest. The “great dæmon” of Cæsar avenged him on his enemies; and in this point of view the play has a unity. Brutus dies like a Roman, and that murder to which he was led by the instigation of others, only renders the Monarchy inevitable and necessary. But if the play is faulty in construction, as I venture to think it is, it has other merits of the highest order, which place it in some respects among the best works of the great master of dramatic art.

[Pg 465]

Phokion

↑1 Cic. ad Att. ii. 1. Dicit enim tanquam in Platonis πολιτέιᾳ non tanquam in fæce Romuli sententiam. I have translated Plutarch literally, though I have no doubt that the occasion to which he alludes (which is not mentioned by Cicero, l.c.) is that of the election to the prætorship, B.C. 55, when the worthless adventurer Vatinius was preferred to Cato. M. Cato in petitione præturæ, prælato Vatinio, repulsam tulit. Liv. Epit. cv. See also Val. Max. vii. 5, and Merivale’s ‘History of the Romans,’ vol. i. ch. ix.

The word ὑπατεία is always used by Plutarch as the Greek equivalent for the Roman title of consul.

↑2 This saying of his is mentioned in the ‘Life of Demosthenes,” c. 10.

↑3 He was elected no less than forty-five times to the annual office of Strategus or General of the city—that is, one of the Board of Ten so denominated, the greatest executive function at Athens.—Grote, ‘Hist. of Greece,’ Part ii. ch. lxxxvii.

↑4 Meaning, why do you affect to be a Spartan, and yet speak like an Athenian? See vol. iii. ‘Life of Kleomenes,’ ch. ix.

↑5 Grote observes, in commenting on this passage, that “Plutarch has no clear idea of the different contests carried on in Eubœa. He passes on, without a note of transition, from this war in the island (in 349-348 B.C.) to the subsequent war in 341 B.C. Nothing indeed can be more obscure and difficult to disentangle than the sequence of Eubœan transactions.”—‘Hist. of Greece,’ Part ii., ch. lxxxviii.

↑6 From Plutarch’s narrative one would imagine that the “enemy” must mean the Macedonians: but we find that they really were the native Eubœans, led by Kallias of Chalkis, with only a detachment of Macedonians and some Phokian mercenary troops.

↑7 Disregarding Phokion’s order, and acting with a deliberate treason which was accounted at Athens unparalleled, Plutarchus advanced out of the camp to meet them; but presently fled, drawing along in his flight the Athenian horse, who had also advanced in some disorder. —Grote, l.c.

↑8 The battle of Chæronea, which took place in August, B.C. 338.

↑9 The Greek is “to offer sacrifice,” with the implied idea of feasting on the animal offered. In the first chapter of this Life we learn that it was only the less eatable parts of the victim which were burned. Thus the idea of offering sacrifice always suggested merry-making and feasting to the Greek mind. Grote says, “We cannot doubt that the public of Athens, as well as Demosthenes, felt great joy at an event which seemed to open to them fresh chances of freedom, and that the motion for a sacrifice of thanksgiving, in spite of Phokion’s opposition, was readily adopted.”

↑10 This speech of Phokion is given at greater length by Diodorus, xvii. 15.

↑11 A quarter of Athens, probably south of the Acropolis. See Lieut.-Col. Leake’s ‘Topography of Athens,’ sect. iv.

↑12 The original is ἀποβάτης, which corresponds to the Latin desultor, meaning one who rode several horses, leaping from one to the other.

↑13 Plutarch’s narrative here is misleading, as it seems to imply that Harpalus gave this money to Charikles after his arrival in Athens. We know from Theopompus (Fr. 277) that the monument had been finished some time before Harpalus quitted Asia. Plutarch treats it as a mean structure, unworthy of the sum expended on it; but both Dikæarchus and Pausanias describe it as stately and magnificent. Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ Part II. ch. xcv., note.

↑14 See Life of Demosthenes, ch. xxv.; and Grote, Hist. of Greece, Part II., ch. xcv.

↑15 The Lamian war, so called from the siege of Lamia, in which Leosthenes perished.

↑16 Ἥβη, the word here used, means the time just before manhood, from about fourteen to twenty years of age; at Sparta it was fixed at eighteen, so that of οἱ δέκα ἀφ’ ἥβης were men of twenty-eight, οἱ τετταράκοντα ἀφ’ ἥβης men of fifty-eight, &c. Xen. Hell. 3. 4, 23. Liddell and Scott. Here, therefore, οἱ ἄχρι ἑκσήκοντα ἀφ’ ἥβης must mean all citizens under about seventy-five years of age.

↑17 Rhamnus was a demus of Attica, situated on a small rocky peninsula on the east coast of Attica, sixty stadia from Marathon.

↑18 In Thessaly. The action was fought B.C. 322. Menon with his Thessalian horse defeated the Macedonian cavalry, but the Greek infantry were beaten back by the phalanx, with a loss of 120 men.

↑19 Plutarch speaks as if Leonnatus had effected his junction with Antipater before the action was fought. But the real truth was that Leonnatus advanced to raise the siege of Lamia, and that Antiphilus, who was not strong enough to continue the blockade and fight the relieving force, raised the blockade and moved by rapid marches to attack Leonnatus apart from Antipater. Through the superior efficiency of the Thessalian cavalry under Menon, he gained an important advantage in a cavalry battle over Leonnatus, who was himself slain. On the very next day Antipater came up, bringing the troops from Lamia, and took command of the defeated army.

↑20 See Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities, s.v. Graphé Paranomon.

↑21 Demades, although Plutarch does not mention it, accompanied Phokion on his first visit to Antipater.

↑22 The successor of Plato and Speusippus as presiding teacher in the school of the Academy.

↑23 The expression in the text is vague, but we learn from other sources that the surrender of at least two other anti-Macedonian orators was demanded.

↑24 Grote.

↑25 See vol. i., Life of Alkibiades, ch. 34.

↑26 The three sub-divisions of Port Peiræus were named Kantharus, Aphredisium and Zea. See Leake, ‘Topography of Athens,’ and Schol. in Ar. Pac. 144.

↑27 The upright threads of the loom are meant, not a large rope.

↑28 Philip Arrhidæus.

↑29 Another of the accused.

↑30 May.

↑31 These words, which I borrow from Clough, express the meaning to English ears, though the Greek merely is “piled up a mound.”

[Pg 500]

Cato

↑1 Cato was a cognomen of the Porcia Gens, which was Plebeian. The name Cato was first given to M. Porcius Cato Censorius, who was consul B.C. 195 and censor B.C. 184. The father of the Cato whose life is here written was M. Porcius Cato, a Tribunus Plebis, who married Livia, a sister of the tribune M. Livius Drusus. This Cato, the tribune, was the son of M. Porcius Cato Salonianus, who was the son of Cato the Censor. Cato the Censor was therefore the great-grandfather of the Cato whose life is here written. See the Life of Cato the Censor by Plutarch, c. 24. 97. This Cato was born B.C. 95.

↑2 The text of Plutarch says that Livius Drusus was the uncle of Cato’s mother, but this is a mistake, and accordingly Xylander proposed to read θείο μὲν ὄντι πρὸς τῆς μητρός. But Sintenis supposes that Plutarch may have misunderstood the Roman expression “avunculus maternus.” Cato’s father had by his wife Livia a daughter Porcia, who married J. Domitius Ahenobarbus. Livia’s second husband was Q. Servilius Cæpio, by whom she had a son Q. Servilius Cæpio, whom Plutarch calls Cato’s brother, and two daughters, named Servilia, one of whom married M. Junius Brutus, the father of the Brutus who was one of Cæsar’s assassins, and the other married L. Licinius Lucullus (Life of Lucullus. c. 38).

↑3 The word is ἀναμνηστικούς. The meaning of Plutarch is perhaps not quite clear. See the note in Schaefer’s edition.

↑4 These were the Roman Socii, or Italian states, which were in a kind of alliance with and subordination to Rome. They had to furnish troops for the wars, and to share the burdens of the Roman State in return for which they claimed the citizenship (Life of Marius, c. 32).

↑5 Or Silo (Life of Marius, c. 33).

↑6 There is obviously an error here in Plutarch’s text, as Sintenis observes. The real meaning of what Pompædius said appears from the context, and from a passage of Valerius Maximus (3. 1, 2), who tells the same story.

↑7 This sham fight was according to an old tradition established by Æneas. It is described by Virgil, Æneid, v. 553, &c. See Tacitus, Annal. xi. 11; and Dion Cassius, 43. c. 23, and 49. c. 43. These games (ludi) were also celebrated under the early Emperors.

↑8 The text is literally “a place for the impious,” not the place. But Plutarch may allude to the tortures of the wicked in the regions below, according to the popular notions.

↑9 The possession of a priestly office by a person who also discharged the functions of civil life was common among the Romans. The effect of this political institution was more extensive than at first sight may appear, but the examination of such a question belongs, as Plutarch sometimes observes, to another place.

↑10 He is mentioned by Cicero (De Offic. ii. 24), but some suppose that there were two Tyrian philosophers of that name.

↑11 See Plutarch’s Life of Cato the Censor, c. 19. This, the first Roman Basilica, was erected B.C. 182 (Livy, 39. c. 44). A basilica was a place for law business and the meeting of traders and the like.

↑12 The highest cast with four dice of six sides was twenty-four points, and it was called Venus. The lowest cast was four points, and it was called Canis. This is one explanation. But the Venus is also explained to be the throw which resulted in all the dice turning up with different faces. See the notes in Burmann’s edition of Suetonius, Octav. Augustus, c. 71. It is said that sometimes they played with four-sided dice, sometimes with six-sided. The subject is somewhat obscure, and the investigation not suited to all people.

↑13 Probably C. Memmius Gemellus, tribune of the Plebs, B.C. 66. See the Life of Lucullus, c. 37.

↑14 This was Q. Cæcilius Metellus Pius Scipio, the son of P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, prætor B.C. 94. He was the adopted son of Q. Metellus Pius, consul B.C. 80, who is mentioned in the Life of Sulla, c. 28. This rival of Cato was the Metellus who was defeated by Cæsar at the battle of Thapsus, and is often mentioned in this Life. It is not said what legal process Cato could have instituted for the loss of his promised marriage.

↑15 This Greek poet, who was probably born about the close of the eighth century B.C. at Paros, was noted for his biting Iambics, which became proverbial.

“Archilochum proprio rabies armavit iambo.”

HORAT. Ars Poet., v. 79.

↑16 This was of course a gentile name. The name Soranus should be Seranus or Serranus.

↑17 C. Lælius, the friend of the elder Scipio Africanus, is probably meant.

↑18 The history of this insurrection of Spartacus is told in the Life of Crassus, c. 8, &c. As to Gellius, see the Life of Crassus, c. 9.

↑19 Nomenclators, literally, “persons who called or addressed others by name,” were slaves and sometimes perhaps other persons, whose business it was to know every man’s name, to attend a candidate in his canvass, and to inform him of the names of those whom he was going to address, in order that he might appear to be acquainted with them; for in accordance with a feeling, which all men have in some degree, a desire to be known, a voter was pleased to find himself addressed by a candidate as if his face and name were familiar. This kind of notice from people who are above another in rank and station is peculiarly gratifying to those who are conscious that they have no real merit, and the pleasure which such attention gives to those who receive it is the exact measure of their own real opinion of their insignificance. I say their real opinion, for such persons have a true opinion of themselves, though they attempt to conceal it from themselves, and also to conceal it from others, in neither of which attempts are they quite successful. It makes no difference if a man knows that the great man who affects to know him really does not know him, for he knows that the great man does not know everybody and cares for very few; but the mere pretence of knowing, the mere show of knowing and recognising, which the great man assumes, he is willing to take for what he knows that it is not, a mark of respect; and mainly, that others, as he hopes, may be deceived by the false appearance, and take him to be what he knows that he is not.

Cato’s tribuneship was a military tribuneship (tribunus militum).

↑20 He was a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, and at the time of Cato’s visit to him he had the care of the library at Pergamus. Strabo (p. 674, ed. Casaub.) says that he died in Cato’s house at Rome.

↑21 Ænus was a small town at the mouth of the river Hebrus, now the Maritza. The island of Thasos, now Thaso, contains marble. The monument was a costly memorial, if the Attic talent was meant, which we must presume. Talents of silver are of course intended.

↑22 The allusion is to the Anticato of Cæsar (Life of Cæsar, c. 54). How the matter really was, no one can tell; but such a story is not likely to be a pure invention.

↑23 He is mentioned as being an old man in B.C. 54 (Life of Crassus c. 17). Deiotarus was a friend of the Romans in their Asiatic wars against Mithridates, and the senate conferred on him the title of king. He knew what kind of people he had to deal with when he showed such attention to Cato’s train (c. 15). His history is closely connected with that of Cæsar, and of Cicero, who made a speech in his defence before Cæsar at Rome B.C. 45 (Pro Rege Deiotaro).

↑24 The story about Demetrius, the contemptible favourite of Pompeius, is told by Plutarch in his Life of Pompeius, c. 40. Plutarch makes the visit to Asia precede Cato’s quæstorship, upon which see the remarks of Drumann, Geschichte Roms, v. 157. The narration of Plutarch is evidently confused as will appear from the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters.

↑25 Either C. Scribonius Curio who was consul B.C. 76, or his son the tribune, an adherent of Cæsar; but probably the father is meant.

↑26 See the Life of Marius, c. 17.

↑27 Cato’s quæstorship was in the year B.C. 65.

↑28 Lutatius Catulus, censor B.C. 65, was the son of Catulus who with Marius defeated the Cimbri at Vercellæ B.C. 101. (Life of Marius, c. 25.)

↑29 This pasange, which has been supposed by some translators to mean that Catulus ran the risk of being degraded from his office, is correctly translated and explained by Kaltwasser. Cato hinted that the officers of the Court would turn Catulus out, if he continued to act as he did. Plutarch has told the same story in his treatise περὶ δυσοπίας, De Vitioso Pudore c. 13, to which Kaltwasser refers.

↑30 He may be C. Claudius Marcellus afterwards consul B.C. 50, or his cousin of the same name who was consul B.C. 49.

↑31 The parentage of Terentia, Cicero’s wife, is unknown. The mother of Terentia must have married a Fabius, by whom she had this Fabia, the half sister of Terentia. Fabia was a woman of rank. Though a vestal virgin, she did not escape scandal, for she was tried B.C. 73 for sexual intercourse with Catilina: Fabia was acquitted (Drumann, Geschichte Roms, v. 392).

There is a mistake in the text: “charges” (p. 25) is a misprint, and should be “changes;” in place of “Cicero’s wide, he was in great danger, but he involved Clodius,” it should be “Cicero’s wife, and she was in great danger, he involved Clodius.”

Therefore in place of “he was,” line 10 from bottom, read “and she was;” and in the same line omit “but.” In line 13 from the bottom read “changes” for “charges.”

↑32 Probably the name is corrupted. The expression is attributed to Cato, in the Life of Lucullus, c. 40.

↑33 Q. Metellus Nepos was serving under Pompeius in Asia in B.C. 64. He came to Rome in B.C. 63 to be a candidate for the tribuneship.

↑34 D. Junius Silanus, who was consul with Licinius Murena, B.C. 62, was now the husbaud of Servilia, who had been the wife of D. Junius Brutus.

↑35 He was the son of L. Licinius Murena, who served under Sulla in Greece. The son served under his father in B.C. 83 against Mithridates. After the consular election in B.C. 63 he was prosecuted for bribery (ambitus). Cicero’s speech in defence of Murena is extant.

↑36 The affair of Catiline is spoken of in the Life of Cæsar, c. 17, and in the Life of Cicero, c. 10, &c.

↑37 This Servilia was now the wife of Silanus the consul. Lucullus the husband of the other Servilia had his triumph in the year of Cicero’s consulship B.C. 63 (Life of Lucullus, c. 37). He was probably the husband of Servilia at this time.

↑38 Short-hand writers were called by the Romans “actuarii” and “notarii,” of which last word Plutarch’s word (σημειόγραφοι) is a translation. It is not likely that short-hand writing was invented for the occasion, as Plutarch says. Under the empire short-hand writers are often mentioned.

↑39 L. Marcius Philippus, consul in B.C. 56 with Cn. Cornelius Lentulus.

↑40 L. Thrasea Pætus, a Latin writer, a native of Padua, who was put to death by Nero (Tacitus, Annal. xvi. 34, 25). His authority for the Life of Cato was, as it appears, Munatius Rufus, who accompanied Cato to Cyprus (c. 37).

↑41 Quintus Hortensius was consul B.C. 69, a distinguished orator and a man of refined and luxurious habits. Bibulus is M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the colleague of Cæsar in his consulship B.C. 59. He had three sons by Porcia, Cato’s daughter by Atilia.

This transfer of Marcia is oddly told by Plutarch. It was not a mere case of lending the woman for the purpose of procreation, for the child of Hortensius could not be his legal child, unless Marcia became his legal wife. Cato must accordingly have divorced his wife, which was done at Rome without any trouble. The only thing then that is peculiar in the affair is, that Cato did not divorce his wife because he was dissatisfied with her on good grounds, nor for such grounds as Cicero divorced his wife, but for the reason mentioned in the text. Marcia continued to be the wife of Hortensius till his death. The marriage with Hortensius probably took place about B.C. 56.

This affair has caused the critics much difficulty. But as we may assume that Hortensius wished to have a child that would be his own, which is in fact Plutarch’s statement, and one that would be in his paternal power, he must have married Marcia, and Cato must have divorced her in proper form. The fact of Philippus giving his daughter away shows that she was then at his disposal. Cato married her again, and his conduct proved that he trusted her. The notion of Cato lending his wife would have been as inconsistent with legal principle and morality in Rome as such a transaction would be in England.

↑42 Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 8.

↑43 Pompeius was now in Asia. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 42, 43.

↑44 Castor and Pollux. See the Life of Tiberius Gracchus, c. 2. The temple was on the south side of the Forum Romanum. The steps are those which led to the Rostra.

↑45 This is the translation of the reading οίκοθεν, which is probably incorrect. Solanus proposes αὐτόθεν, and Kaltwasser proposes ἀπόθεν, “from a distance,” which he has adopted in his version, “und liess die bewaffneten, die von fern standen, mit furchbarem Geschre* anrücken.”

↑46 Lucullus returned B.C. 66. He triumphed B.C. 63. See the Life of Lucullus, c. 37. Plutarch has here confused the order of events. Kaltwasser translates this passage as if Lucullus had returned to Rome after Metellus left it in B.C. 62.

↑47 He returned B.C. 62. The consuls who were elected for the year B.C. 61, were M. Pupius Piso, who had been a legatus of Pompeius in Asia, and M. Valerius Messalla. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 44.

↑48 Probably Munatius Rufus, who is mentioned again in c. 36. Drumann (Porcii, p. 162) says it was Munatius Plancus.

↑49 This was in B.C. 61, at the election of the consuls L. Afranius and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Celer, the consuls of B.C. 60. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 44.

↑50 Cæsar returned B.C. 60, and was consul B.C. 59. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 13, 14, for the events alluded to in this 31st chapter; and the Life of Pompeius, c. 47.

↑51 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 14.

↑52 Numidicus. The story is told in the Life of Marius, c. 29. The matters referred to in this and the following chapter are told circumstantially by Dion Cassius (38, c. 1-7). See Life of Cæsar, c. 14.

↑53 L. Calpurnius Piso, the father of Calpurnia the wife of Cæsar, and Aulus Gabinius were consuls B.C. 58. Aulus Gabinius, when Tribunus Plebis B.C. 67, proposed the law which gave Pompeius the command against the pirates. The meaning of the obscure allusion at the end of the chapter, which is literally rendered, may be collected from the context; and still more plainly from the abuse which Cicero heaps on Gabinius for his dissolute life after he had been banished in the consulship of Gabinius (Drumann, Gabinii, p. 60).

↑54 This Ptolemæus, the brother of Ptolemæus Auletes, King of Egypt, was now in possession of Cyprus, and the mission of Cato, which could not be to his taste, was to take possession of the island for the Romans. When Clodius had been made prisoner by the pirates nine years before, Ptolemæus was asked to contribute to his ransom but he only sent two talents, for which ill-timed saving he was mulcted in his whole kingdom by this unprincipled tribune (Drumann, Claudii, p. 263).

↑55 He is called Caninius in the Life of Brutus, c. 3.

↑56 The feeble king had not spirit to attempt a resistance, which indeed would have been useless. He put an end to himself by poison (c. 36), and the Romans took the island. A more unjustifiable act of aggression than the occupation of Cyprus, hardly occurs even in the history of Rome.

↑57 The priesthood of such temples as Paphos was a valuable thing. These temples had lands and slaves.

↑58 This was Auletes, the father of Cleopatra. He was restored to his kingdom by A. Gabinius B.C. 55, while he was governor of Syria.

↑59 This is the meaning of the passage. The interview was ludicrous enough, but Dacier makes it still more so, by seating Cato on a close-stool; and Kind and Schirach, two German translators, make him receive the king in the same way (Kaltwasser’s note).

↑60 This was M. Junius Brutus, afterwards Cæsar’s friend and assassin. Cato could not have found a better man for his purpose; at least for laying his hands on all that came in his way. Brutus took the opportunity of helping himself to some of the plunder in his uncle’s absence. At a later time he had large sums out at interest in Cyprus and partly in other persons’ names. He was a merciless usurer. (Cicero, Ad Attic., v. 18 and 21; vi. 21; and the Life of Cicero, c. 36, notes.)

↑61 Plutarch explains in a general way what is meant. The Roman word “pignus,” which Plutarch translates by ἐνέχυρα, means a thing pawned and delivered as a security to the pawnee. To take pledges, “pignora capere,” was to seize something that belonged to a man in order to compel the discharge of a duty. It was like a distress for a service. Instances occur in Livy (3. c. 38, 37. c. 51; Cicero, De Oratore, 3. c. 1).

↑62 The Greek nominative would be Barcas. The name does not appear to be Roman and is probably corrupted. Bursa is a Roman name. See c. 48.

↑63 There is no suspicion that Cato got anything for himself. He was above that. He honestly discharged his dishonest mission.

↑64 This was a port of Corinth on the east side of the Isthmus.

↑65 The amazement of the people at the quantity of the plunder, and the thanks of the Senate for the faithful discharge of their order to pillage, might seem regular enough if it had been booty gotten in war. But the robbery was not gilded with this false show. It was pure, simple robbery without the accessories of war.

↑66 This means a prætorship before the age at which a man could regularly hold the office. Cato returned from Cyprus in B.C. 56. He was now thirty-eight years of age, for he died B.C. 46, when he was forty-eight.

↑67 The order of the words in the original makes the meaning appear somewhat ambiguous. The passage might be translated, as it is by Dacier, “for the colleague of Philippus paid no less respect to Cato on account of his merit, than Philippus did on account of his relationship.”

↑68 Cicero returned from exile B.C. 57, in the month of September of the unreformed calendar.

↑69 This was the meeting at Luca in B.C. 56. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 51; and the Life of Cæsar, c. 21.

↑70 This was the second consulship of each, and was in B.C. 55. Cato lost the prætorship, and Vatinius was elected instead of him (Dion Cassius (39, c. 32).

↑71 As to Caius Trebonius, see the Life of Pompeius, c. 52.

↑72 One would suppose that a less time would have been more than enough, though not for Cato. Dion Cassius (39. c. 31) says that Favonius spoke for an hour before Cato did, and took up all the time in complaining of the shortness of his allowance. It would be a fair inference that he had little to say against the measure itself.

↑73 Dion Cassius (39. c. 35) tells us more particularly how it happened that P. Aquilius Gallus was in the senate house. Gallus was afraid that he should be excluded from the Forum the next day, and accordingly he passed the night in the senate house, both for safety’s sake and to be ready on the spot in the morning. But Trebonius, who found it out, kept him shut up for that night and the greater part of the following day.

↑74 Cato was prætor in B.C. 54. It does not appear that he ever was prætor before, and it is not therefore clear what is meant by the “extraordinary prætorship” (c. 39). In place of the word “Rostra,” in the fifth line of this chapter, read “tribunal.” Plutarch uses the same word (βῆμα) for both, which circumstance is calculated occasionally to cause a translator to make a slip, even when he knows better. The “tribunal” was the seat of the prætor, when he was doing justice. But lower down (line 8 from the bottom) Rostra is the proper translation of Plutarch’s word (ἐπιλαβέσθαι τῶν ἐμβόλον) and it was the place from which Cato spoke, after he had got up. In c. 43, when Cato gets up to speak, Plutarch makes him mount the Bema (βῆμα), by which he means the place when the orators stood at the Rostra. The Rostra were the beaks of the Antiate galleys, with which, it is said, this place was ornamented at the close of the Latin war (Livy, 8, c. 14).

↑75 The reason according to Plutarch why people envy the man who has a high reputation for integrity, is because of the power and credit which it gives. Whatever then gives power and credit should be also an object of envy, as wealth; and so it is. The notion of envy implies a desire to see the person who is the object of it humbled and cast down. The Greeks attributed this feeling to their gods, who looked with an evil eye on great prosperity, and loved to humble it. But the feeling of envy, if that is the right term, towards him who has power and credit by reason of his high character for integrity, is not the same feeling as envy of the wealthy man. The envious of wealth desire to have the wealth both for itself and for its uses. The envious of character desire to have the opinion of the character, because of the profit that is from it, but they may not desire to have that which is the foundation of the character. If they did, their desire would be for virtue, and the envious feeling would not exist. Courage and wisdom are less objects of envy than good character or wealth, and perhaps, because most men feel that they are not capable of having the one or the other. The notion of envy implies that the person has, or thinks he has, the same capability as another who has something which he has not. A man who is not a painter does not envy a great painter; a man who is a painter may envy a great painter. The mass may admire the honest man who is of higher rank than themselves, even if they have no regard for honesty; but they do not envy; they wonder as at something which is above them. But if the honest man is of their own station in life, and has a character of integrity, they may envy him for his superiority. It appears that if there is a number of people who are generally on a footing of equality, any superiority which one may acquire over the rest, makes him an object of envy. If high character for integrity brings power and credit with it, there must be some persons with whom the power and the credit prevail, but these are the persons who are farthest removed from rivalry with him who has the credit. Those who are nearer to him are the persons who envy, who feel that the superiority of one man makes their inferiority. Plutarch assumes the existence of a class who love the just and give them credit, and of a class who envy them; but the two classes of persons are not the same.

↑76 This name recurs in the Symposium and Phædon of Plato. The second sentence in this chapter is very corrupt in the original, and the translation is merely a guess at the meaning. Favonius was ædile in B.C. 53 (Dion Cassius, 40. c. 45).

↑77 Some apology is necessary for translating “pears ” (ἀπίους, in the original said to mean “pears”) into “parsley.” The context shows clearly enough that pears are not meant. Kaltwasser has made the “pears” into “celery,” and there is just as good reason for making “parsley” of them. Plutarch may have misunderstood the Roman word “apium” or confounded it with the Greek.

↑78 Scipio was the father-in-law of Cornelia, the last wife of Pompeius (Life of Pompeius, c. 55). As to P. Plautus Hypsæus, see the Life of Pompeius, c. 55. Titus Annius Milo afterwards killed Clodius, and Cicero defended him on his trial (Life of Cicero, c. 35).

↑79 Pompeius was sole consul B.C. 53, for seven months, after which he had his father-in-law Scipio as his colleague.

↑80 T. Munatius Plancus Bursa was a tribune in B.C. 52. When Clodius was killed by Milo, the populace, who loved Clodius, took the dead body into the Curia Hostilia, at the instigation of Bursa and his colleague Rufus, and making a pile of the benches, burnt the body and the Curia with it (Dion Cassius, 40. c. 49, 55). Bursa was tried for his share in this matter and convicted, to the great joy of Cicero, who was his accuser. Cicero speaks of this affair in a letter to Marius (Ad Diversos, vii. 2).

↑81 Servius Sulpicius Rufus, a friend of Cicero, who has recorded his great talents, and a distinguished Jurist. He was consul in B.C. 51 with M. Claudius Marcellus.

↑82 Kaltwasser refers to the Life of Cæsar, c. 22, for an explanation of the first part of this chapter; and to the Life of Cæsar, c. 29, and to that of Pompeius, c. 58, for the transactions which are mentioned in the latter part of this chapter.

↑83 Cæsar took Ariminum (Rimini) in B.C. 49. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 33, and the Life of Pompeius, c. 60.

↑84 In South Italy, now Calabria Ultra. This Munatius was probably Munatius Rufus.

↑85 In Cæsar’s Anticato, which has often been mentioned. It seems that Cæsar raked up all that he could in Cato’s life that was against him, and this affair of Marcia furnished him with plausible matter. Hortensius died B.C. 50. Drumann remarks (Porcii, p. 198), “that she lived, after the year 56, in which she reconciled Cato with Munatius Rufus, with the consent of Cato, with Hortensius, after whose death in the year 50 she returned into her former relation,” that is, she became again the wife of Cato. If so, Cato must have married her again (see note, c. 25), as Plutarch says that he did. Drumann speaks as if Cato had a reversion of her, which became an estate in possession after the estate of Hortensius was determined by her death.

↑86 The quotation is from the Hercules Ἡρακλῆς μαινόμενος of Euripides (v. 173), one of the extant plays.

↑87 See Life of Cæsar, c. 72.

↑88 Another allusion to the Anticato. It is difficult to see what probable charge Cæsar could make of this circumstance. The meaning of Plutarch may easily be conjectured (Drumann, Porcii, p. 192).

↑89 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 65; and the Life of Cæsar, c. 39.

↑90 Cn. Pompeius, the elder son of Pompeius Magnus is meant. It is conjectured that the word “young” (νέον) has fallen out of the text (compare c. 58). He had been sent by his father to get ships, and he arrived with an Egyptian fleet on the coast of Epirus shortly before the battle of Pharsalus. On the news of the defeat of Pompeius Magnus, the Egyptians left him (Dion Cassius, 42. c. 12).

↑91 He must also have seen Cornelia, for Sextus was with her. Life of Pompeius, c. 78.

↑92 These people are described by Herodotus (iv. 173) as having been all destroyed by the sands of the deserts, and their country, which was on the Syrtis, being occupied by the Nasamones.

Lucan (Pharsalia, ix. 891) has made the Psylli occupy a conspicuous place in the march of Cato.

“Gens unica terras

Incolit a sævo serpentum innoxia morsu,

Marmaridæ Psylli: par lingua potentibus herbis,

Ipse cruor tutus, nullumque admittere virus

Vel cantu cessante potest.”

Seven days is much too little for the march from Cyrene to the Carthaginian territory, and there is either an error in Plutarch’s text or a great error in his geography.

↑93 The name Libya occurs four times in this chapter. Libya was the general name for the continent, but the term did not include Egypt. In the first two instances in which the name occurs in this chapter, the word is used in the general sense. In the other two instances it means the Roman province of Africa. Kaltwasser has used the term Africa in all the four instances. It is immaterial which is used, if rightly understood in both cases.

↑94 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 53, 54, 55, and the references in the notes.

↑95 See the Life of Antonius, c. 81.

↑96 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 52, and Dion Cassius, 42, c. 57. This Scipio was unworthy of the name and unequal to the times.

↑97 The Greek writers represent the name in different ways. Plutarch writes Ἰτύκη. Dion Cassius writes it Οὐτική. This old Phœnician city was on the coast near the mouth of the river Bagradas; but its supposed remains are some distance inland. (Shaw’s Travels in Barbary, &c., p. 79, 4to. edition.)

↑98 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 53, and Dion Cassius, 43, c. 7. The battle was fought in B.C. 46.

↑99 The son of Cn. Octavius, who was consul B.C. 76. Marcus was Curule Ædile B.C. 50. (Drumann, Octavii, p. 225.)

↑100 He was the son of L. Julius Cæsar, consul B.C. 64. The son was pardoned by Cæsar (Bell. Afric. c. 88, 89). Dion Cassius (43, c. 12) says that Cæsar first brought him to trial, but as he was unwilling to condemn him by his own authority, he privately got him put to death. The statement of Dion is deficient in precision, incredible by reason of Cæsar’s well-known clemency, and the insignificance of Lucius as an enemy, and not altogether reconcilable with other authorities. (Drumann, Julii, p. 125.)

↑101 The Phædon which contains the last conversation of Socrates, and his death. The incident of the reading of the Dialogue, and the reflections which it suggested, have been used by Addison in his frigid and bombastic tragedy of Cato.

↑102 Kaltwasser quotes a note of Dacier who cannot conceive how Cato could read so long a Dialogue through twice in so short a time. It is equally a matter of wonder how any body could know that he read it through once. The fact that he had the book and was reading it is all that could be known. Another difficulty that is suggested by Dacier is, that the Dialogue contains the strongest arguments against suicide; but perhaps this difficulty is removed by the suggestion that in one passage it is said that a man should not kill himself till the deity has sent a kind of necessity; and Cato might conceive, as he did conceive, that the necessity had come to him.

The suicide of Cato was a peculiar case and hardly belongs to the more general cases of suicide. His position, if he had lived under the domination of Cæsar, would have been intolerable to a man of his principles; for that he might have lived by Cæsar’s grace, if he had chosen, can hardly be doubted notwithstanding Cæsar wrote his Anticatones.

↑103 This was P. Licinius Crassus Junianus, a Junius who had been adopted by a Crassus, as the name shows.

↑104 ήδη δ’ ὄρνιθες ηδον. The translators do not agree about these words. Dacier and others translate them literally, as I have done. Kaltwasser translated them, “and already the cocks crowed.” He adds that the other translation is wrong, because it is said immediately after, that it was still night. But what follows as to the night does not prove that it was dark; it rather implies that there was not much sleeping time that remained before morning. Cocks sometimes crow in the night, it is true, but Plutarch evidently means to show by the expression that the morning was dawning, and so the birds might be singing, if there were any birds in Utica. The matter is appropriate for a dissertation, which would be as instructive as many other dissertations on matters of antiquity.

↑105 Appian (Civil Wars, ii. 98, &c.) tells the story of his death differently. He says that the wound was sewed up, and that being left alone, he tore his bowels out. But it is improbable that, if the wound had been sewed up, he would have been left alone. The story of Dion Cassius (43, c. 11) is the same. See Florus, iv. 2, 71, who says that he killed himself “circa primam vigiliam.”

↑106 As he died in B.C. 46, he was in the forty-ninth year of his age. His chatacter requires no comment; it has been fully delineated by Plutarch. A single letter of Cato to Cicero is extant (Ad Diversos, xv. 5); and a letter of such a man is worth reading, though it be short. His speech against the conspirators, which Sallust has given, may contain the matter, but not the words of Cato.

↑107 He had his father’s property. After Cæsar’s death he joined M. Brutus, the husband of his sister Portia, and fell at Philippi B.C. 42. This son of Cato had a younger brother (c. 52), whose mother was Marcia, but nothing more is known of him. The death of the wife of Brutus is told in the Life of Brutus, c. 13, 53.

Agis

↑1 More properly Mandyria. This battle was fought in August B.C. 338, the same day as that of Chæronea. “Not long before the battle of Chæronea, the Tarentines found themselves so hard pressed the Messapians, that they sent to Sparta, their mother city, to entreat assistance. The Spartan king, Archidamus, son of Agesilaus, perhaps ashamed of the nullity of his country since the Sacred War, complied with their prayer, and sailed at the head of a mercenary force to Italy. How long his operations there lasted we do not know; but they ended by his being defeated and killed, near the time of the battle of Chæronea. B.C. 338.”—Grote, ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. chap, xcvii.

↑2 See vol. ii., Life of Lysander, chap. xxx.

↑3 See vol. ii., Life of Pyrrhus, chap. xxvi.

↑4 See vol. i., Life of Lykurgus, chap, viii.

↑5 Cf. note, vol. ii., Life of Lucullus, chap, xxxvi.

↑6 Probably the celebrated temple of Poseidon at Tænarus. [Cape Matapan.]

Kleomenes

↑1 Borysthenes, also called Olbia, Olbiopolis, and Miletopolis, was a town situated at the junction of the Borysthenes and Hypania, near the Euxine sea. It was a colony of Miletus, and was the most important Greek city north of the Euxine.

↑2 In Cyprus. Zeno was the founder of the Stoic school of Philosophy.

↑3 The allusion is to a saying of Agis II., that “The Lacedæmonians never ask how many their enemies are, but where they are.”

↑4 Called Ladokea by Polybius, ii. chap. 3; and Pausanias viii. 44 1.

↑5 μόθακες seem to have been children of Helots brought up as foster-brothers of young Spartans, and eventually emancipated, yet without acquiring full civic rights.—Liddell and Scott, s.v.

↑6 The ancients always reclined at meals. See the article Triclinium in Smith’s ‘Dictionary of Antiquities.’

↑7 The western harbour of Corinth.

↑8 Who these Leukaspids were I do not know. White was the Argive colour, and in earlier times men with white shields are always spoken of as Argives. The celebrated Argyraspids, the silver-shielded regiment of Alexander, was destroyed by Antigonus I. after their betrayal of Eumenes; but this may have been a corps raised by Antigonus Doson in imitation of them.

↑9 κρυπτεία meant at Sparta a duty or discipline of the young men, who for a certain time prowled about, watching the country, and enduring hardships: intended to season them against fatigue, and, unless they are much belied, to reduce the number of the helots by assassination.—Liddell and Scott, s.v.

↑10 This conversation Thirlwall conjectures to have been drawn from some sophistical exercise. ‘History of Greece,’ chap. lxii.

↑11 Ptolemy Euergetes I.

↑12 Ptolemy Philopator succeeded his father, Ptolemy Euergetes, B.C. 222.

↑13 The sacred bull of Memphis was worshipped as a god by the Egyptians. There were certain signs by which he was recognised to be the god. At Memphis he had a splendid residence, containing extensive walks and courts for his amusement. His birthday, which was celebrated every year, was a day of rejoicing for all Egypt. His death was a season of public mourning, which lasted till another sacred bull was discovered by the priests.—Dr. Smith’s Classical Dictionary, s.v. Agis.

Tiberius Gracchus

↑1 Plutarch calls the Lives of Agis and Kleomenes a History, though he says in his Life of Alexander (c. 1) that his object is not to write Histories (ἱστορίαι) but Lives (βίοι). But the Lives of the two Spartan reforming kings may consistently enough be called a History, when contrasted with the Lives of the two Roman reforming tribunes. Plutarch’s notion of History as contrasted with Biography appears pretty plainly from the first chapter of his Life of Alexander. A complete view of the events in the Lives of Alexander and Caius Julius Cæsar would have formed, according to his notion, a History; but he does not aim at this completeness: he selects out of the events of their lives such as best show the character of the men, whether the events be of great political importance or of none at all, and this method of treating the subject he calls a Life. I believe the word Biography is a modern invention. The distinction between History and Annals, though the words have sometimes been used indiscriminately (c. 3, notes), is clearly expressed by the Roman historian Sempronius Asellio, as quoted by Aulus Gellius (v. 18).

↑2 Most of Plutarch’s extant Lives run in parallels, whence they are entitled Parallel Lives. He compares a Greek with a Roman: thus he compares Alexander with Caius Julius Cæsar, and Demosthenes with Cicero. The beginning of the Life of Tiberius Gracchus is somewhat abrupt, after Plutarch’s fashion. He had no regular plan for beginning and ending his stories, and thus he avoids the sameness which is so wearisome in a Dictionary of Biography. The career of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus was the same, and accordingly Plutarch considers their lives as one; and he has found a parallel to them in two Spartan kings, who were also reformers, Agis IV. and Kleomenes III.

Agis became king of Sparta B.C. 244, and reigned only four years: his colleague in the first part of his reign was Leonidas II., and afterwards Kleombrotus. Agis attempted to restore the old institutions of Lykurgus which had fallen into disuse. Wealth had become accumulated in a few hands. He proposed to adjust the disputes between debtor and creditor by the short method of abolishing debts; and he proposed to restore the spirit of the old institutions by dividing all the lands in equal lots among the Spartan citizens, the chief class in the state; and by assigning lots also to the Periœki, who were in the relation of subjects. He carried the project for the abolition of debts, but before he could accomplish the rest of his reforms, he was thrown into prison and strangled there. His grandmother and mother, both of whom had favoured his schemes of reform, were strangled at the same time. He was about twenty-four years of age when he died. His reform was not a revolution, but an attempt to restore the old constitution.

Kleomenes III., King of Sparta, reigned from B.C. 236 to B.C. 220. In the first part of his reign, the infant son of Agis IV., and afterwards Archidamus V., the brother of Agis IV., were his colleagues. Leonidas II., who had been deposed by Agis, had returned to Sparta during the absence of Agis on a military expedition, and he was most active in bringing about the death of Agis. Leonidas compelled the widow of Agis to marry his son Kleomenes, who was instructed by his wife in the views and designs of Agis. Thus Kleomenes also became a reformer, and attempted to restore the institutions of Lykurgus. But his measures were violent. He is charged with poisoning his infant colleague, the son of the widow whom he married, and with other wrongful acts. He was defeated at the head of the Spartan army by Antigonus in the great battle of Sellasia B.C. 222, and fled to Egypt, where he was kindly received by Ptolemæus III. (Euergetes) the king. Ptolemæus IV. (Philopator) the successor of Euergetes, put Kleomenes in prison, but he contrived to get out and attempted to make a revolution in Alexandria. Failing in the attempt Kleomenes killed himself. “In this manner,” says Polybius, “fell Kleomenes; a prince whose manners were dexterous and insinuating, as his capacity in the administration of affairs was great: and who, to express his character in a word, was most admirably formed by nature both for a general and a king” (Polybius, v. c. 39; Hampton’s Translation, v. chap. 4). Plutarch in his comparison of Agis and Kleomenes with Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, concludes that “Tiberius in virtue surpassed the rest, that the youth Agis was guilty of the fewest faults, and that in doing and daring Caius was much inferior to Kleomenes;” which appears to be a correct judgment.

↑3 His complete name was Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. The Sempronia gens contained the families of the Atratini, Gracchi, and Pitiones. The Gracchi were plebeians, and the Atratini patricians: the order of the Pitiones is uncertain. The name of the Gracchi is best known from the political career of the two brothers, whose measures were the immediate cause of the civil disturbances which ended in the establishment of the Imperial power. Tiberius Gracchus, the father, was tribune of the plebs B.C. 187, consul B.C. 177 and a second time in B.C. 163: he was censor B.C. 169. Tiberius Gracchus had his first triumph in B.C. 178 for his victories over the Celtiberians in Spain while he was proprætor of Hispania Citerior, or that division of the Peninsula which was nearer to the Pyrenees (Liv. 41, c. 11). In his first consulship Gracchus had Sardinia assigned for his province, and he defeated the Sardinians in a great battle. He was continued in his province as proconsul, and he completely subdued the island (Liv. 41, c. 21), for which he had a triumph which appears to be commemorated by an extant medal (Rasche, Lexicon Rei Numariæ). Cicero numbers Tiberius among the Roman orators (Brutus, c. 20).

↑4 Publius Cornelius Scipio defeated Hannibal at the battle of Zama in the territory of Carthage B.C. 202. He died B.C. 183 in his retirement at Liternum in Campania. Though Tiberius Gracchus, the father, was not on friendly terms with Scipio, yet during his tribunate B.C. 187 he prevented Scipio from being tried on certain frivolous charges brought against him by the tribunes, and owing to this interference of Gracchus, the greatest commander that Rome had yet seen, was allowed to spend the remainder of his days in quiet privacy. (Liv. 38, c. 50, &c.; Cicero, De Provinciis Consularibus, c. 8.)

↑5 This story of the snakes is told by Cicero in his treatise on Divination (i. 18, ii. 29). He says that Tiberius died a few days after he had let the female snake go, and he refers as his authority to a letter of Caius Gracchus to M. Pomponius:—“I wonder,” says Cicero, “if the letting loose the female was to cause the death of Tiberius, and letting loose the male was to cause the death of Cornelia, that he let either of them go. For Caius does not say that the haruspices said any thing of what would happen if neither snake was let go.” To the objection, that the death of Gracchus did follow the letting loose of the female snake, Cicero replies that he supposes he must have died of some sudden attack, and he adds that the haruspices are not so unlucky but that their predictions sometimes happen to come true.

↑6 I do not know if this offer of King Ptolemæus is noticed by any other writer. It is not certain whether it was Ptolemæus VI. Philometor or his younger brother Ptolemæus VII. Euergetes II. Their two reigns lasted 64 years from B.C. 181 to B.C. 117. Philometor died B.C. 146 and was succeeded by Euergetes who died B.C. 117. The death of Tiberius Gracchus the father is not ascertained. He married his wife Cornelia after B.C. 183 and he was consul B.C. 163. His son Tiberius, who was killed B.C. 133, was not thirty years old at the time and therefore was born about B.C. 163. Caius, who was nine years younger, was born about B.C. 154. It is not known whether Caius was the youngest child of Cornelia. Ptolemæus Philometor went to Rome B.C. 163, being driven out of his kingdom by his younger brother Euergetes, and he was well received by the senate. His brother also made a journey to Rome in the following year, B.C. 162. In B.C. 154 Ptolemæus Euergetes was at Rome for the second time, and he obtained the aid of the senate against his brother. Both the brothers may have seen Cornelia at Rome, but probably during the lifetime of her husband. Scipio Africanus, the son-in-law of Cornelia, was sent on an embassy to Alexandria to Euergetes B.C. 143. An Egyptian king might wish to strengthen himself at Rome by an alliance with the illustrious families of the Gracchi and the Scipios; but it is impossible to determine which of these two kings was the suitor. Philometor is spoken of as a mild and generous prince: Euergetes, who was also called Physcon, or Big-belly, was a cruel sensualist. The daughter of Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, might well decline a marriage with him, and any Egyptian alliance would have been viewed as a degradation to a noble Roman matron. The portrait of Physcon is given in Rosellini’s work on Egypt, from the ancient monuments, and he is very far from looking like a winning suitor. Kaltwasser assumes that it was Ptolemæus Philometor who made the offer to Cornelia; and he adds that he was also called Lathyrus; but this is a mistake; Lathyrus was the surname of Ptolemæus VIII. Soter II., the son of Physcon. He has not examined the chronology of these two kings.

↑7 This was Publius Cornelius Scipio Æmilianus Africanus Minor. He was the son of L. Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of Macedonia, and he was the adopted son of P. Cornelius Scipio, the son of the conqueror of Hannibal. According to the Roman usage in case of adoption, the son of Æmilius Paulus took the name of his adopted father, P. Cornelius Scipio, to which was added, according to the usage, the name of Æmilianus, which marked the gens to which he belonged by birth. It was after the destruction of Carthage that he acquired the additional name or title of Africanus, like his adoptive grandfather, from whom he is usually distinguished by the addition of the name Minor or younger. The daughter of Cornelia, whom he married, was named Sempronia. She was ugly and bore her husband no children, and they did not live harmoniously together. (Appian, Civil Wars, i. 20.) As to the Roman names see the note on Marius, c. 1.

↑8 The Greek name for Castor and Pollux, who were the sons of Jupiter and Leda. Pollux was a boxer, and Castor distinguished for his management of horses and as a runner. Their statues were generally placed side by side with their appropriate characters, to which Pluturch alludes.

↑9 Plutarch uses the Greek word Bema (βῆμα), which is the name for the elevated stone station in the Pnyx from which the Athenian orators addressed the public assemblies. The place from which the Roman orators addressed the public assemblies was called the Rostra, or the beaks, because it was ornamented with the beaks of the ships which the Romans took from the people of Antium. (Liv. 8, c. 14.) The Rostra were in the Forum, and in a position between the Comitium and that part of the Forum which was appropriated to the meeting of the Roman tribes. (See Caius Gracchus, ch. 5.)

↑10 The history of this Athenian demagogue is in Thucydides, ii. &c. The play of Aristophanes called “The Knights” (Ἱππῆς) is directed against him. By his turbulent oratory he acquired some distinction at Athens during the Peloponnesian war, after the death of Perikles. (See Plutarch, Nikias, c. 2, 3.)

↑11 The MSS. have δελφῖνας, dolphins, which some critics would change to δελφικάς, tables made at Delphi or in Delphic fashion. Plinius (Nat. Hist. 33, c. 11) speaks of these dolphins, though he does not say what they were. The alteration in the text is quite necessary. The dolphins were probably ornaments attached to some piece of furniture. Plutarch gives the value in drachmæ, the usual Greek silver coin, and the money of reckoning: the usual Roman money of reckoning was the sestertius. Plinius mentions the value of these dolphins at 5000 sestertii a pound, which would make 4 sestertii equivalent to a drachma. The drachma is reckoned at about 9-3/4d. and the sestertius at 2-1/4d. under the Republic.

↑12 The original is literally “an instrument for practising the voice by which they raise sounds.” Perhaps a musician may be able to interpret the passage, without explaining the instrument to be a pitch-pipe as some have done. Cicero (De Orat. iii. 60) tells the same story somewhat differently. He says that this Licinius was a lettered man (literatus homo), and that he used to stand behind Caius Gracchus, yet so as to be concealed, with an ivory pipe (fistula), when Gracchus was addressing the public assemblies; his duty was to produce a suitable note either for the purpose of rousing his master when his tone was too low or lowering his tone when it was too vehement. (See also Dion, Fragmenta, p. 39, ed. Reimarus.)

↑13 An augur was one who ascertained the will of the gods by certain signs, but more particularly the flights of birds. The institution of augurs was coeval with the Roman state, and as the augural ceremonial was essential to the validity of all elections, the body of augurs possessed great political influence. The college of augurs at this time consisted of nine members, who filled up the vacancies that occurred in their body. A member of the college held his office for life, and the places were objects of ambition to all the great personages in the state. They were not appropriated to a class of priests: they were held by persons who had no other priestly character. Cicero, for instance, was an augur. The Roman system of placing the highest religious offices not in the hands of a priestly class, but in the hands of persons who had held and might still hold civil offices, perhaps possessed some advantages. There are many valuable remarks on the Roman Auguria and Auspicia in Rubino, Untersuchungen über Römische Verfassung.

↑14 Appius Claudius Pulcher was a member of the Claudia gens, and belonged to an old patrician family, which had long been opposed to all the pretensions of the plebeian order. He was consul B.C. 143. He did not long survive his son-in-law. Cicero (Brutus, 28) enumerates him among the orators of Rome; he observes that he spoke fluently, but with rather too much heat.

↑15 The rank of Princeps Senatus was given at one time by the censors to the oldest of those who had filled the office of censor (Liv. 27, c. 11), but after the election of Q. Fabius Maximus mentioned in the passage of Livius, it was given to any person whom the censors thought most fit; and it was for the same person to be reappointed at each successive lustrum, that is, every five years. It was now merely an honorary distinction, though it had once been a substantive office. The title was retained under the Empire by the Emperors; and Princeps is the title by which Tacitus designates Augustus and his successor Tiberius. The title has come down to us through the French language in the form of Prince.

Plutarch sometimes gives the Roman words in a Greek form, but he more usually translates them as well as he can, which he has done in this instance. The titles consular, censorian, prætorian, were the Roman names for designating a man who had been consul, censor, or prætor.

↑16 Livius (38, c. 57) is one of those who tell the story of Scipio Africanus the elder giving his daughter Cornelia to Tiberius Gracchus the father. Plutarch has done best in following Polybius, who was intimate with the younger Africanus and had the best means of knowing the facts.

↑17 I have retained this name for Africa as it is in Plutarch. The Greek name for the continent of Africa was Libya (Λιβύη), which the Romans also used. In the Roman writers Africa properly denotes the Roman province of Africa, which comprehended Carthage and a considerable territory; but it was common enough for the Romans to designate the whole continent by the name of Africa.

↑18 Plutarch is here alluding to the campaign of Scipio in which he destroyed Carthage B.C. 146, whence he got the name of Africanus. It was usual for the Roman commanders to have with them a number of youths of good family who went to learn the art of war, and were trained under the eye of the general, to whose table and intimacy they were admitted according to their deserts. Thus Agricola, during his early service in Britain, was attached to the staff of Suetonius Paullinus. (Tacitus, Agricola, c. 5.) Those who were admitted to the intimacy and tent of the commander, were sometimes called Contubernales.

↑19 Caius Fannius Strabo was quæstor in the consulship of Cn. Calpurnius Piso and M. Popilius Lænas B.C. 139, and two years after he was prætor. He served in Africa under the younger Scipio Africanus, and in Spain under Fabius Maximus Servilianus. He was the son-in-law of Lælius, surnamed Sapiens, or the Prudent. He wrote an historical work which Cicero sometimes calls a History (Brutus, c. 26), and sometimes Annals (Brutus, c. 21; De Oratore, ii. 67). It is unknown what period his work comprised, except that it contained the history of the Gracchi. Cicero does not speak highly of his style, but Sallustius seems to commend his veracity (Lib. i. Historiarum).

Tiberius would be entitled to a mural crown (muralis corona), which was the reward of the soldier who first ascended the enemy’s wall. Plutarch appears to mean that Fannius also received one. Livius (26, c. 48) mentions an instance of two mural crowns being given by Scipio (afterwards Africanus) at the capture of Nova Carthago (Carthagena) in Spain.

↑20 It appears that at this time the quæstors had their provinces assigned by lot, and this was the case under the Empire. (Tacitus, Agricola, c. 6.) The functions of a quæstor were of a civil kind, and related, in the provinces, to the administration of the public money. He was a check on the governor under whom he served when he was an honest man: sometimes the quæstor and governor agreed to wink at the peculations of each other.

↑21 Caius Hostilius Mancinus was consul with Marcus Æmilius Lepidus B.C. 137. Numantia, which gave the Romans so much trouble, was situated in Old Castile on the Douro, but it is not certain what modern site corresponds to it.

↑22 The Romans used the words Iberia and Hispania indifferently to denote the Spanish Peninsula. From the word Hispania the Spaniards have formed the name España, the French Espagne, and the English Spain. The river Ebro, which the Romans called Iberus, is a remnant of this old name. The Iberi originally occupied a part of Southern Gaul (the modern France) as far east as the Rhone, where they bordered upon the Ligurians. They were a different people from the Celtæ, who in the time of C. Julius Cæsar occupied one of the three great divisions of Gaul. (Gallic War, i. 1.) The Celtæ, at some unknown time, crossed the Pyrenees and mingling with the Iberi, formed the Celtiberi, a warlike race with whom the Romans had many wars, and over whom Tiberius, the father of Tiberius Gracchus, gained a victory. (Note, c. 1.) It is maintained by William Humboldt in his work on the original inhabitants of Spain (Prüfung der Untersuchungen über die Urbewohner Hispaniens) that the present Basque is a remnant of the Iberian language, which he supposes not to have been confined to Spain, but to have spread over part of Italy, the south of France, and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica. Thucydides (vi. 2) says that the Sicani, or old inhabitants of Sicily, were Iberi who were driven from the river Sicanus in Iberia by the Ligurians.

The name Iberia was also given by the Greeks and Romans to a part of that mountainous region, commonly called the Caucasus, which lies between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Albani and Iberi were the two chief nations that occupied this tract; the Albani were between the Caspian Sea and the Iberi, who were their neighbours on the west. The great river Cyrus (Kur) flowed through Albania into the Caspian. Iberia was partly surrounded by the mountains of the Caucasus and it bordered on Armenia and Colchis: the river Cyrus was the chief river (Strabo, 499, ed. Casaub.). There is no evidence that these Iberi of the Caucasus were related to the western Iberi. The country was invaded by the Romans under L. Lucullus and Pompeius Magnus.

↑23 The allusion is to a memorable event in the Samnite war. The consuls Spurius Postumius Albinus and Titus Veturius Calvinus B.C. 321, with their army, were caught by the Samnites in the pass called Furculæ Caudinæ, and they were compelled, in order to save themselves, to submit to the ignominy of passing under the yoke. The Roman senate rejected the terms which had been agreed on between the consuls and the officers of the army on the one side, and the Samnites on the other. It was not a treaty (fœdus) as Livius shows, for such a treaty could not be made without the consent of the Populus nor without the proper religious ceremonies. (Liv. 9, c. 5.) The senate, upon the proposition of Postumius himself, sent to the Samnites all the persons who were parties to the agreement and offered to surrender them, but the Samnites would not receive them and they upbraided the Romans for want of good faith.

Mancinus also supported the proposition for his own surrender to the Numantines, and he was offered to them in due form by the officer called the Pater Patratus, but the Numantines declined accepting him. (Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 30.) The principle that a general could not formally make a treaty, and that all treaties required the sanction of the senate or in earlier times perhaps of the patrician body in their assembly, appears to be well established. Those who made the treaty with a Roman general might not know this constitutional rule, but the principle on which the Romans acted in such cases was sound, and the censure that has been directed against them as to their conduct in such transactions, proceeds from ignorance of the Roman constitution and of the nature of the power which a sovereign state delegates to its ministers. Delegated power or authority never authorises the persons to whom it is delegated to do an act which is inconsistent with the constitution or fundamental principles on which the sovereign power is based.

Mancinus returned to Rome and ventured to appear in the senate, but a question was raised as to his right to be there, for it was argued that a man who had been so surrendered ceased to be a citizen and could not recover his civic rights by the fiction of postliminium, as a man who had escaped from the enemy could. (Cicero, De Oratore, 40.) But the subtlety of the Romans found a solution of the difficulty in the case of Mancinus: there can be no surrender, if there is nobody to receive the surrender; therefore Mancinus was not surrendered; therefore he was capable of recovering his civil rights. (Cicero, Topica 1.)

↑24 The war of Numantia was prolonged to their disgrace, as the Romans considered it, and they at last elected Scipio consul B.C. 134, and sent him to Spain. He took Numantia after a siege of fifteen months, and totally destroyed it, B.C. 133, the same year in which his brother-in-law Tiberius Gracchus lost his life. (Velleius Paterc. ii. 4.) Caius Gracchus, the brother of Tiberius, served under Scipio at Numantia, and also Jugurtha, afterwards king of the Numidians, and Caius Marius, the conqueror of Jugurtha.

↑25 Plutarch’s account of the Roman public land is brief and not satisfactory. A clearer statement, which differs from Plutarch’s in some respects, is given by Appian. (Civil Wars, i. 7, &c.) The Roman territory (Romanus Ager) was originally confined to a small circuit, as we see from the history of the early wars of Rome. Even Aricia (La Riccia) about fifteen miles south-east of Rome, was a city of the Latin confederation in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus. (Liv. 1, c. 50.) The Romans extended their territory by conquest, and they thus acquired large tracts of land in Italy, which were made the property of the state under the name of Ager Publicus. This public land was enjoyed originally by the patricians, and perhaps by them only, on payment of a certain rent to the treasury (Ærarium). The rents of the public land were a large part of the public income, and intended to defray a portion of the public expenditure. The plebs soon began to lay claim to a share in these lands, and a division of some tracts was made among the plebeians in the reign of Servius Tullius. The lands divided among the plebeians were given to them in ownership. The tracts of public land which were enjoyed by the patricians on the terms above mentioned, were considered, as they, in fact, were, public property; and the interest of the patricians in such lands was called a possession (possessio). Those who enjoyed the public land as a possessio were said to possess it (possidere), and they were called possessores, a term which often occurs in the first six books of Livius, and which Plutarch has attempted to translate by a Greek word (κτηματικοί). It is likely enough that the patricians abused their right to the use of the land by not always paying the rent; as we may collect from the passages in Dionysius (Antiq. Rom. viii. 70, 73, ix. 51, x. 36). Their enjoyment of extensive tracts also prevented the public land from being distributed among the plebeians to the extent that they wished. The disputes between the two orders in the state, the aristocracy or nobles and the plebeians, or, as Livius generally calls them, the patres and the plebs; (the padri and the plebe of Machiavelli, Discorsi, &c.), about the public land, commenced with the agitation of Spurius Cassius, B.C. 486, the history of which is given by Livius in his Second Book (c. 41). The contest was continued at intervals to B.C. 366, when a law was passed which is commonly called one of the Licinian Rogations, which forbade any man to have a possession in the public lands to the amount of more than 500 jugera. This is the law to which Plutarch alludes.

The extent and difficulty of the subject of the public land makes it impossible to examine it fully in a note. I propose to treat of it at length in an appendix in a future volume.

↑26 The words in Plutarch literally signify “barbarian prisons,” but I have used the word ergastula, which was the Roman name, though it is a word of Greek origin, and signifies “working-places.” The ergastula were places generally under ground and lighted from above: they were used both as places to work in and as lodging-places for slaves who cultivated the fields in chains. (Plinius, N.H. 18, c. 3; Floras, iii. 19.) They were also places of punishment for refractory slaves. The object of these places of confinement was also to prevent slaves from running away, and rising in insurrection. The slaves were placed at night in separate cells to prevent all communication between them. When the slaves broke out in rebellion in Sicily under Eunus, who is mentioned by Plutarch (Sulla, c. 36), the ergastula were broken open, and a servile army of above sixty thousand men was raised. The Roman master had full power over his slave, who was merely viewed as an animal; and these ergastula, being in the country and out of sight, would give a cruel master full opportunity of exercising his tyranny. They were abolished by the Emperor Hadrian (Spartianus, Hadrianus, 18).

↑27 C. Lælius, the father, was an intimate friend of Scipio Africanus the Elder. C. Lælius, the son, the Wise or the Prudent, was also an intimate friend of the younger Africanus. Cicero’s treatise on Friendship is entitled Lælius in honour of Lælius the Prudent.

↑28 Tiberius Gracchus was elected Tribune B.C. 133, and he lost his life the same year.

↑29 Cicero (Brutus, c. 27) calls the Greek Diophanes a teacher of Tiberius Gracchus. Blossius is mentioned by Cicero (Lælius, c. 11) as one of those who urged Tiberius to his measures of reform. Antipater of Tarsus was a Stoic. The two sons of Cornelia had a learned education and were acquainted with the language and philosophy of the Greeks, and it is probable that the moral and political speculations with which they thus became familiar, and their associating with Greeks, had considerable influence on their political opinions. Tiberius Gracchus the father was also well enough acquainted with Greek to speak the language. His oration to the Rhodians was spoken in Greek.

↑30 It does not seem certain what Postumius is intended. Sp. Postumius Albinus Magnus was consul B.C 148, and is supposed by Meyer (Orat. Rom. Fragmenta, 197) to be the orator alluded to by Cicero (Brutus, 25). But this Postumius was too old to be a rival of Gracchus. Another of the same name was consul B.C. 110, and conducted the war against Jugurtha unsuccessfully; but he was perhaps too young to be a rival of Gracchus. (Cicero, Brutus, 34.)

↑31 This was P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus Dives, the son of P. Mucius Scævola, and the adopted son of P. Licinius Crassus Dives, as appears from Cicero (Academ. 2, c. 5), who mentions him with his brother P. Scævola as one of the advisers of Tiberius Gracchus in his legislation. Crassus was consul with L. Valerius Flaccus B.C. 131. He was a soldier, a lawyer, and an orator. He lost his life in the war against Aristonikus in the Roman province of Asia B.C. 131. It is remarked that he was the first pontifex maximus who went beyond the limits of Italy, for he was consul and pontifex maximus when he went to carry on the war against Aristonikus. (Livius, Epitome, 59.) The pontifex maximus, as the head of religion, had important duties which required his presence at Rome.

↑32 The illustrious family of the Scævolæ produced many orators and jurists. This Scævola was P. Mucius Scævola, the brother of P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus. He was consul B.C. 133, the year in which Tiberius Gracchus attempted his reform. He attained the dignity of pontifex maximus in B.C. 131 on his brother’s death. Scævola was probably a timid man. Cicero states that his brother openly favoured the measures of Tiberius; and Scævola was suspected of doing so. After the death of Tiberius he approved of the conduct of Scipio Nasica, who was the active mover in this affair, and assisted in drawing up several decrees of the Senate in justification of the measure and even in commendation of it. (Cicero Pro Domo, c. 34; Pro Plancio, 36.) He was a great orator, but his chief merit was as a jurist. He was the father of a son still more distinguished as a jurist, Quintus Mucius Scævola, who also became pontifex maximus, and was one of the teachers of Cicero. He is considered to be one of those who laid the foundations of Roman law and formed it into a science (Dig. 1, tit. 2, s. 2). Quintus Mucius Scævola, commonly called the augur, also a distinguished jurist, was a cousin of P. Mucius Scævola, the pontifex, and a teacher of Cicero before Cicero became a hearer of the pontifex.

↑33 The eloquence of Tiberius Gracchus is commemorated by Cicero (Brutus, c. 27), who had read his orations. He describes them as not sufficiently ornate in expression, but as acute and full of judgment. The specimens of the orations of Tiberius (c. 9. 15) and those in Appian (Civil Wars, 9. 15) fully bear out the opinion of Cicero as to his acuteness. Some German writers assert that these speeches in Plutarch are either fabricated by him or taken from other writers; but assertions like these, which are not founded on evidence, are good for nothing. Plutarch gives the speeches as genuine: at least he believes them to be so, and therefore he did not fabricate them. And it is not likely that any body else did. These two fragments (c. 9. 15) bear no resemblance to the style of most writers who have fabricated speeches. They are in a genuine Roman style. If any man could fabricate them, it was Livius, and Plutarch may have taken them from him.

↑34 The same expression occurs in Horace (1 Carm. 1), which there also applies to the Romans, and not to the gods, as some suppose.

↑35 Marcus Octavius, who was one of the tribuni plebis B.C. 133, was a descendant of Cneius Octavius, quæstor B.C. 230. Caius Octavius, better known as Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus and as the Emperor Augustus, was a descendant of Caius the second son of Cneius. Cicero, whose opinion about the Gracchi changed with the changed circumstances of his own life, commends the opposition of Marcus Octavius to the measures of Gracchus. (Brutus, c. 25.) He also says that Octavius was a good speaker.

The institution of the tribuni plebis is one of the most important events in the history of Rome, and the struggle between the plebeians headed by their tribunes, and the nobility, is the development of the constitutional history of Rome. Though there were tribunes in the kingly period, the establishment of the tribuni plebis as the guardians of the plebs is properly referred to the year B.C. 494, when the plebs seceded to the Mons Sacer or the Sacred Mount. On this occasion the patricians consented to the election of two tribunes from the plebs. (Livius, 2, c. 33: compare Livius, 2, 56. 58.) The number was afterwards increased to ten, and this number continued unaltered. Only a plebeian could be elected tribune. The persons of the tribunes were declared to be sacred (sacrosancti). Their powers were originally limited, as above stated, to the protection of the rights of the plebs and of the individuals of the plebeian body against the oppression of the patrician magistrates. It is not possible within the compass of a note to trace the history of the gradual increase of the tribunitian power (tribunitia potestas): such a subject is a large chapter in the history of Rome. Incidental notices often appear in Plutarch’s Lives, which will help a reader to form a general notion of the nature of the magistracy, and the effect which it had on the development of the Roman constitution. The article Tribuni in Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities gives an outline of the functions of the tribuni plebis.

Very soon after the institution of the tribunate, the nobles learned the art of destroying the power of the college of tribunes by gaining over one or more of the members; for, as Plutarch states, the opposition (intercessio) of a single tribune rendered the rest of his colleagues powerless.

↑36 As this is the first time that I have used this word, it requires explanation. The origin of the Roman state is a matter involved in great obscurity; but its history after the expulsion of the kings B.C. 509 is the history of a struggle between a class of nobles, an aristocracy, and the people. The old nobility of Rome were the patricians, whom Livius calls indifferently patres (father) and patricii. In his early History patres and plebs are opposed to one another, as we should now oppose the terms nobles or aristocracy, and commonalty or people; not that nobles and aristocracy are among us exactly equivalent, but in the history of Rome there is no distinction between them. Livius frequently uses the term patres and plebs as comprehending all the Roman citizens (ii. 33). The word populus was originally and properly not the people in our sense; it signified the superior and privileged class and was equivalent to patricians. The plebs were originally not a part of the populus. In later times the word populus was often used loosely to express generally the Roman people, and the style and title of the Roman state was Senatus Populusque Romanus—The Senate and the Roman populus, which term populus in the later republic certainly included the plebs, though the plebs is still spoken of as a class. As the plebeians gradually obtained access to the higher honours of the state and to the consulship by a law of Licinius Stolo B.C. 366, a new class of nobles was formed out of those persons who had enjoyed those honours and out of their descendants. This class was called nobiles by the Romans; the word nobilitas denoted the rank or title of the class, but it was also used like our word nobility to express the body of nobiles. Livius uses this term even in the earlier books of his History, but perhaps not with strict correctness, for in some cases at least he makes the term nobility equivalent to the patricians. He wrote in the reign of Augustus, and he has not always applied his terms in the earlier periods with perfect accuracy. Still we may trace the meaning of political terms in the Roman writers with great clearness, for no nation ever stuck more closely to old forms and expressions, and there is a wonderful precision in the use of political terms by Roman writers of all ages and of all classes. The name patricians still existed after the term nobilis was introduced: a noble might be either a patrician or a plebeian, but the distinction was well understood between an old patrician family and a plebeian family, however distinguished the plebeian family might become. Under the Emperors it was not uncommon for them to promote a man to the rank of patrician for eminent services, which under the monarchy was equivalent to the conferring of a title of dignity in modern times, and nothing more. (Tacit. Ann. xi. 25.)

In Cicero we find the aristocratical order often spoken of as the optimates (the class of the best), a term which corresponds to the Greek aristi (ἄριστοι), whence we have the word aristocracy, which, however, the early Greek writers, at least, only used to express a form of government and not a class of persons. Cicero on one occasion (Pro P. Sestio, c. 45) attempts to give to the word optimates a much wider signification; to make it comprehend all good and honest people: but this is a mere piece of rhetoric. When a poor plebeian heard the optimates spoken of, he never imagined that it was intended to place him among them, were he as honest as the best man among the optimates. Cicero also says the populares were those who merely spoke and acted to please the multitude; which shows that populus must now have changed its meaning: the optimates were those who wished to act so as to get the approbation of all honest men.

Plutarch’s perception of the early periods of Roman history was perhaps not strictly exact; but he comprehended very clearly the state of the parties in the age of the Gracchi. On the one side were the nobles and the rich, some of whom were noble and some were not; on the other side were the people, the mass, the poor. The struggle was now between rich and poor, and the rich often became the leaders of the poor for the purpose of political distinction and influence, and hence the name populares. Probably few states have ever presented the spectacle of the striking contrast between wealth and poverty which the Roman state exhibited from the time of the Gracchi; a class of rich, rich by hereditary wealth and by all the modes of acquiring wealth which the possession of office and the farming of the public revenues offered to them; a class of poor who were born poor, who had little industry and few means of exercising it. To this we must add, that though there were many cultivators in the country who might enjoy a moderate subsistence from their small estates, there was a city crowded with poor who had votes, and by their union and numbers mainly determined the elections and the acceptance or rejection of legislative measures. Rome, in fact, was the centre of all political agitation, and the result of a revolution in the city generally determined the dispute between two rival factions. We have still to take into the account a very numerous class of slaves. It is probable that in the earlier periods of Roman history the slaves were comparatively few; in the later republic they became very numerous. They formed a large part of the wealth of the rich, and they were always a dangerous body to the state. The effect of employing slaves generally in agriculture and other occupations was, as it always must be, unfavourable to industry among free men. Slaves, also, were often manumitted, and though the son of a manumitted slave was in all respects on the same footing as a complete Roman citizen, if his father was made such by the act of manumission, yet persons of this condition, and especially those who had been liberated from slavery, were looked upon as a somewhat inferior class. Their connection with the powerful families to which they had belonged, also gave such families great influence in all elections; and as we see in various instances, the class of libertini, manumitted slaves, was viewed as a dangerous body in the state. The equites at Rome can scarcely be called a middle class: they were generally rich and the farmers of the revenues, under the name of publicani. They were often opposed to the senate, but it was an opposition of pure interest, and their wealth made them rather the partisans of the aristocratical than of the popular body. Such were the political elements with which Tiberius Gracchus had to deal, when he attempted a reform which perhaps the times did not render practicable, and for which he certainly did not possess the courage or the judgment or the inflexible resolution which were necessary to secure success. The word in Plutarch which I have here translated nobles is δυνατοί, the powerful. In other places he calls them the rich (πλούσιοι), the possessors [of public land] (κτηματικοί), the aristocratical body (ἀριστοκρατικοί); and perhaps other terms. He calls the plebs, or people as opposed to this class, by various names, of which δῆμος is the most common: he also calls them the multitude (πλῆθος), the many (πολλοί), and other like names.

It is impossible to attain perfect precision in the use of political terms in a translation of Plutarch; and in order to be critically exact, it would be necessary to load these notes continually with remarks. But this critical exactness is not required here: the opposition of the two orders in the state is intelligible to everybody. The contests in Rome from the time of the Gracchi to the establishment of the monarchy under Augustus, were contests in which the rich and the powerful were constantly struggling among themselves for political supremacy; there was an acknowledged aristocratical and an acknowledged popular party. But the leaders of both parties, with perhaps some few exceptions, were mainly bent on personal aggrandisement. The aristocratical class had a clearer object than the leaders of the popular party: they wished to maintain the power of their order and that of the senate, which was the administering body. The leaders of the popular party could have no clear object in view except the destruction of the power of the senate: the notion of giving the people more power than they possessed would have been an absurdity. Accordingly the depression of the aristocratical body had for a necessary consequence the elevation of an individual to power, as in the case of Cæsar the dictator. Sulla, it is true, was an aristocrat, and he destroyed so far as he could the popular party; but he made himself dictator, and to the last day of his life he ruled all parties with a rod of iron.

The existence of a numerous and needy class who participated in political power without having any property which should be a guarantee for their honest use of it, was the stuff out of which grew the revolutions of Rome. There was a crowded city population, clamorous, for cheap bread, for grants of land, for public shows and amusements, averse to labour, constantly called into political activity by the annual elections, always ready to sell their votes to the best bidders; and a class always ready to use this rabble as a tool for their political and personal aggrandisement. Machiavelli observes (Istor. Fiorent. iii.) that the natural enmity which exists between the men of the popular party and the nobles (gli uomini Populari e i Nobili), proceeds from the wish of the nobles to command and of the others not to obey, and that these are the causes of all the evils that appear in states. He adds (iv.) that states, and especially those that are not well constituted, which are administered under the name of republics, often change their government and condition, but the fluctuation is not between liberty and servitude, as many suppose, but between servitude and licence. It is only the name of liberty which is in the mouths of the ministers of licence who are the popular leaders, and the ministers of servitude who are the nobles; both of them wish to be subject neither to the laws nor to men. These remarks, which are peculiarly applicable to Florence and the so-called republics of Italy of that time, apply equally to the Roman state. There are governments, however, to which the name republic can be properly applied, and that of Great Britain is one, which owing to the possession of certain elements have a more stable character. Still the general character of a popular and of an aristocratical party is correctly sketched by Machiavelli.

↑37 Plutarch, who is fond of allusions to the Greek poets, here alludes to a passage in the Bacchæ of Euripides, l. 387:

“for e’en in Bacchus’ orgies

She who is chaste will never be corrupted.”

See Bacchæ, ed. Elmsley, 1. 317, 834, and the notes.

↑38 The temple of Saturn was now used, among other purposes, as the treasury of the state, the Ærarium.

↑39 A dolo is described by Hesychius, v. Δόλωνες, in one sense, as a dagger contained in a wooden case, a kind of sword-stick. (See Facciolati, Lexicon.) Kaltwasser describes it as a walking-stick containing a dagger, and translates the passage, “he provided himself with a robbers’ dagger, without making any secret of it.” I think that he wore it concealed, but made no secret of it, which agrees better with the whole context; and Amyot has translated it so.

↑40 The word in Plutarch is water jars, hydriai (ὑδρίαι), the Roman sitellæ, urnæ or orcæ. The sitellæ were a kind of jar with a narrow neck: they were filled with water so that the wooden lots (sortes) would float at the top, and only one could be there at a time. These lots were used for the purpose of determining in what order the tribes or centuries should vote, for the names of the several tribes or centuries were on the several lots. The vessel into which the voters put their votes (tabellæ), when the order of voting had been fixed for the tribes and centuries, was called cista; and it was a basket of wicker-work or something of the kind, of a cylindrical shape. If Plutarch has used the proper word here, the preliminary proceedings were disturbed by the rich seizing or throwing down the vessels, out of which were to be drawn the lots for determining in what order the tribes should vote. The business had not yet got so far as the voting, which consisted in the voters depositing in a cista one of the tablets (tabellæ), which were distributed among them for this purpose, and which were marked with an appropriate letter to express acceptance of a measure or rejection of it. There is a Roman denarius which represents a man going to put a tabella into a cista: the tabella is marked A, which means Absolvo, I acquit. The letter C (Condemno, I condemn) was marked on the tabella of condemnation. (Eckhel, Doctr. Num. Vet. V. 166.) The coin was struck to commemorate the carrying of a law by L. Cassius Longinus B.C. 137, by which the voting in criminal trials (judicia populi) except for perduellio (treason) should be by ballot and not as before by word of mouth.

These remarks are taken from an essay by Wunder (Variæ Lectiones &c. ex Codice Erfurtensi), in which he has established the meaning of sitella and cista respectively to be that which Manutius long ago maintained. He observes that in the Roman comitia one sitella would be sufficient, as it was only used for receiving the names of the tribes or centuries, which were put in for the purpose of determining by drawing them out, in what order the tribes or centuries should vote. And accordingly he says that when comitia are spoken of, we never find urns or sitellæ spoken of in the plural number. But he has not mentioned the passage of Plutarch. It may be difficult to determine if Plutarch considered that the preliminary lot-drawing had been gone through, and the people were voting. If he considered the voting to be going on, he has used the wrong word. With this explanation, I leave the word “voting-urns” in the text, which is not the correct Roman word but may be what Plutarch meant. It seems as if he thought that the voting had commenced.

↑41 Plutarch writes it Mallius, for the Greeks never place n before l.

↑42 From this it appears that the vote of each tribe counted as one, and the vote of the tribe was determined by the majority of voters in each tribe. It seems to follow that each tribe had a cista to receive its votes. It is said, the practice was to count the votes when all was over; but they must have been counted as each tribe voted, according to this story. The narrative of Appian is the same (Civil Wars, i. 12).

↑43 The names of various Roman officers and functionaries were derived from their number, as duumviri (two men), triumviri (three men), decemviri, and so on. Some description was added to the name to denote their functions. There were triumviri agro dando or dividendo, triumviri for the division of public land; duumviri juri dicundo, for administering justice, and so forth.

↑44 Appian (Civil Wars, i. 13) calls him Quintus Mummius.

↑45 Plutarch and other Greek writers translate the Roman word, cliens, by Pélates (πελάτης). (See Marius, c. 5, notes.)

↑46 Plutarch generally uses Attic coins. Nine oboli were a drachma and a half, or about six sestertii. (See c. 2, note.)

↑47 See c. 21.

↑48 This Attalus III., the last king of Pergamum, left his kingdom to the Romans on his death B.C. 133, the year of the tribunate of Gracchus. His kingdom comprised the best part of that tract out of which the Romans formed the province of Asia. Pergamum was the name of the capital. This rich bequest was disputed by Aristonikus. (See c. 20.)

↑49 Perhaps Q. Pompeius Rufus who was consul B.C. 141, and disgraced himself by a treaty with the Numantines and his subsequent behaviour about it. (Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 30; De Finibus, ii. 17; Appian, Iberica, c. 79.)

↑50 Quintus Cæcilius Metellus Macedonicus, who was consul B.C. 143. Kaltwasser says, that Plutarch without doubt means Balearicus, the son of Metellus Macedonicus, which son was consul B.C. 123. Without doubt he means the father, who is mentioned by Cicero as an opponent of Tiberius Gracchus, and he states that an oration of his against Gracchus was preserved in the Annals of Fannius. (Brutus, 21.)

↑51 Titus Annius Luscus was consul with Q. Fulvius Nobilior B.C. 153. (Cicero, Brutus, c. 20; Livius, Epitome, 58.)

↑52 It is clear that Plutarch believed this to be a genuine speech of Tiberius. It is not an argument that he could have made, nor is it likely that it is a fabrication of any professed speech-writer. It is true that there were many speeches extant among the Romans, which, though mere rhetorical essays, were attributed to persons of note and passed off as genuine speeches. But this is either not one of them, or it has been managed with consummate art. The defence of Tiberius is a blot on his character. He could not avoid knowing that his arguments were unsound. To abdicate, which means to resign a Roman magistracy, was a different thing from being deprived of it. The Tribunes were elected at the Comitia Tributa, but they derived their powers by uninterrupted succession from the consecrated act (Lex Sacrata) done on the Holy Mount and confirmed after the overthrow of the Decemviral power. (Livius, 2, c. 33; 3, c. 55.) On this subject, see Bubino, Untersuchungen über Röm. Verfassung, p. 32.

↑53 See Caius Gracchus, c. 5. Appian does not mention these measures of Tiberius.

↑54 The elections of Tribunes in the time of Cicero were on the 17th of July (Ad Attic. i. 1). According to Dionysius the first Tribunes entered on their office on the 10th of December. Kaltwasser suggests that as it was now the summer season, the country people were busy in their fields and could not come to the election, which thus would be in the hands of the townspeople. If Tiberius was killed in July and entered on his office in the previous December, this will agree with what Cicero says of him, “he reigned a few months.” (Lælius, c. 12.)

↑55 A cage, the Roman cavea. This was one of the modes of ascertaining the will of the gods. It was a firm belief among the nations of antiquity that the gods did by certain signs and tokens give men the opportunity of knowing their will. The determination of these signs was reduced to a system, which it was the duty of certain persons, augurs and others, to learn and to transmit. The careful reader will find many other notices of this matter in Plutarch and some in these notes. (See Sulla, c. 6, notes.)

P. Claudius Pulcher, who was consul B.C. 249, and in the command of the Roman fleet off Sicily, despised the omens. The fowls would not eat, which portended that his projected attack on the Carthaginians would be unfavourable; but Claudius said that if they would not eat, they should drink, and he pitched the sacred fowls into the sea. He lost most of his ships in the engagement that followed. (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, ii. 3.) The “birds” of Plutarch are “fowls,” “pulli.”

↑56 His name was Fulvius Flaccus; the name of Flaccus belongs to the Fulvii. As he was a friend of Tiberius, it is probable that a Marcus Fulvius Flaccus is meant, who is mentioned in the Life of Caius.

↑57 This was P. Mucius Scævola. His colleague L. Calpurnius Piso was conducting the war in Sicily against the slaves who had risen. The Senate, according to Appian (Civil Wars, i. 16), was assembled in the Temple of Fides on the Capitol. The circumstances of the death of Tiberius are told by Appian (Civil Wars, i. 15. 16), who states that there was a fight between the partisans of Tiberius and the other party before the Senate met.

↑58 To make Plutarch consistent, we must suppose that Caius had returned to Rome. (See c. 13.)

↑59 I can find nothing more about him. This strange punishment was the punishment for parricide.

↑60 Cicero (Lælius, c. 11) and Valerius Maximus (4, c. 7) make Lælius ask these questions.

↑61 Aristonikus was an illegitimate son of Eumenes II. King of Pergamum. He disputed the will of Attalus III. and seized the kingdom. Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus Dives, who was sent against him B.C. 131, was unsuccessful, and lost his life; but Aristonikus was defeated by the consul M. Perperna B.C. 130, and taken to Rome, where he was strangled in prison.

↑62 This is P. Licinius Crassus Mucianus Dives, c. 9. 20.

↑63 This does not appear in the extant Lives which bear the name of Nepos; but what we have under his name is a spurious work of little value except the Life of Atticus.

↑64 D. Junius Brutus Gallæcus was consul with P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio B.C. 138. He completely subdued the Gallæci (people of Galicia) and the Lusitani who occupied a part of modern Portugal, and carried the Roman arms to the western extremity of the Spanish peninsula.

↑65 He was the colleague of Brutus B.C. 138, as just stated, and Pontifex Maximus in the year of the death of Tiberius. He must have died soon after going to Asia; for Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus Dives was Pontifex Maximus B.C. 131 (c. 9); but the remark in the Epitome of Livius (lib. 59) that he was the first Pontifex Maximus who went beyond the limits of Italy is not true. The Pontifex Maximus, who was the chief of the college of Pontifices, was chosen for life. He could not be deprived of his office, nor, it seems, could he give it up. Augustus allowed his old rival Lepidus to keep his dignity of Pontifex Maximus till his death. (Dion Cassius, 49, c. 15.)

↑66 The line is from Homer’s Odyssey, i. 47.

↑67 This is lost, and also Plutarch’s Life of Scipio Africanus Major.

Caius Gracchus

↑1 The word by which Plutarch has translated Forum is Agora (ἀγορά). A Forum was an open place or area, and is often generally used for Public Place, such as almost every town has. The Forum at Rome was the Forum Romanum, which was situated between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills; it was surrounded by buildings and was the chief place for the administration of justice and for the public assemblies. To keep away from the Forum here means to take no share in public affairs. Sometimes, Forensic (forensis), a term comprehending all that relates to public business and the proceedings in the courts, is opposed to Domestic (domesticus), private, as we see in Cicero (Ad Attic. i. 5, &c.).

↑2 As thirty-one was the age at which according to a law (Lex Annalis Villia) a man could become Quæstor, Tiberius, who was Quæstor before he was tribune, must have been older than Plutarch says that he was; unless he was elected Quæstor before the legal age.

↑3 The island of Sardinia was made a Roman province B.C. 235.

↑4 Lucius Aurelius Orestes and M. Æmilius Lepidus were consuls B.C. 126.

↑5 This dream is mentioned by Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 26. C. Gracchus told his dream to many persons, before he was elected tribune. It happened while he was a candidate for the quæstorship.

↑6 Micipsa, King of Numidia, was the son of Massinissa, who was the firm ally of the Romans in their contest with the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War. At the close of this war, his territory was greatly enlarged by the addition of the dominions of Syphax and a large part of the Carthaginian territory. He was succeeded by Micipsa, who died B.C. 118. The Carthaginian territory which subsequently formed a large part of the Roman province of Africa was a rich corn country, and one of the granaries of Rome under the latter Republic and the Empire.

↑7 Gracchus made his defence before the Censors Cn. Servilius Cæpio and L. Cassius Longinus B.C. 124. Gracchus belonged to the class of Equites, and as such he had a Public horse. The censors summoned him to account for leaving his province, and, if he was not able to justify himself, he would be deprived of his horse and marked with the Nota Censoria, in the lists of the Censors, the consequence of which was what the Romans called Ignominia, or temporary civil incapacity.

If Caius was born B.C. 154 and had now (B.C. 124) served twelve years, he entered the army B.C. 136, when he was eighteen. It is true as he here says, that he was only required to serve ten years. This fragment of his speech is preserved by Aulus Gellius (xv. 12), and it is expressed with all the vigour of the best Roman style. A comparison of this fragment with the passages from the speeches of Tiberius Gracchus, which are given by Plutarch, is sufficient to show that Plutarch’s extracts are genuine. There appears to be an error in Plutarch as to the “three years.” Gellius makes Caius say: “Biennium fui in Provincia;” “I was two years in the province:” and one MS. is said to have “two years” (διετία), which Coraes has adopted in his edition of Plutarch.

↑8 Fregellæ was a subject city in the territory of the Volsci. The people wished to have the Roman citizenship, and as it was refused they rebelled. Fregellæ was destroyed by L. Opimius the Prætor B.C. 125. Caius Gracchus was tried B.C. 124 before the Prætor Opimius on the charge of conspiring with the people of Fregellæ. (Velleius, 2, c. 6.)

↑9 Plutarch simply says the Plain (τὸ πέδιον): but he means the Campus Martius, or Field of Mars. Compare Marius c. 34. The Roman writers often call the Campus Martius simply Campus.

The people did not mount on the house-tops to vote, as Amyot and Kaltwasser say, if I understand them right. Crowds came to Rome, who had no votes; they came to see and to affect the elections if they could. Caius was elected tribune B.C. 123, just ten years after his brother’s tribunate. The consuls were Quintus Cæcilius Metellus Balearicus, a son of Metellus Macedonicus, an opponent of Tiberius Gracchus, and Titus Quinctius Flamininus. (See Tiberius Gracchus, c. 14 notes.)

↑10 Cicero, in Brutus, c. 33, and in other passages, bears testimony to the powerful eloquence of Caius Gracchus. Up to the time of Cicero, the orations of Gracchus were the models of oratory which all Romans studied. Cicero says that his speeches did not receive the finishing touch; he left behind him many things which were well begun, but not perfected. The practice of revising speeches for the purpose of publication was common among the Athenian and Roman orators. In manly and vigorous oratory we may doubt if Caius Gracchus ever had his equal among the Romans; and if not among the Romans, where shall we look for his equal?

↑11 I have here allowed a word to stand by something of an oversight, to which however there is no objection. Plutarch uses the word “law;” but the Roman word is “Rogatio,” which means a Bill, a proposed Law, so called because the form of passing a law was to ask (rogare) the assembly if they would have it. The form of voting was to reject (antiquare) by the formula A., or to confirm (jubere) by the formula U.R. (Uti Rogas), “as you propose,” which were marked on the tabellæ or voting-tablets. (Cicero, Ad Attic. i. 14.)

To Promulgate a law, or more properly a Rogation, signified among the Romans, to make public (for promulgare is only another form of Provulgare) a proposed law; to give notice of a proposed measure and its contents. To promulgate a law in modern times means to make known a law which is already a law; but the expression is not much used.

↑12 P. Popillius Lænas was also consul with P. Rupilius B.C. 132. He returned to Rome after the death of Caius Gracchus.

↑13 The erecting of statues to their great men was probably more common at Rome after the conquest of Greece, when they became acquainted with Greek art. Rome at a later period was filled with statues. Though most of the great Romans were distinguished by their military talents, it was not only in respect of military fame that statues were erected; nor were they confined to men as we see in this instance. The daughter of him who conquered Hannibal, the wife of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a successful general, a prudent politician and an honest man, the mother of two sons who died in the cause of the people—the memory of such a woman was perpetuated in the manner best suited to the age by an imperishable monument.

↑14 A complete view of the legislation of Gracchus is beyond the limits of a note. Part of the subject has been referred to already. (Tiberius Gracchus, c. 8, note.)

The Roman allies (Socii) were subjects of the Roman State, subject to the sovereign power of Rome, a power which was distributed among many members. They bore heavy burdens, particularly in the form of supplies of men and money for war; and they claimed as an indemnification the citizenship (civitas), or admission to the sovereign body, as members of it. The claim was finally settled by the Marsic or Social war. (See Marius and Sulla.)

The law about the price of grain belonged to the class of Laws which the Romans called Frumenteriæ Leges, or Corn Laws; the object of these laws was not to keep up the price of grain, but to furnish it to the poor at a low rate. This low rate however was not effected in the only way in which such an object could profitably be effected, by allowing corn to come to Rome from all parts free of duty, but by buying grain with the Public money and selling it to the poor at a lower rate. This law of Gracchus proposed that corn should be sold to the people (plebs) monthly at the rate of 5/6 of the As for a modius. This is the first recorded instance in Roman History of the poor being relieved in this manner. The city was crowded with poor who had few or no means of subsistence, but had votes in the annual elections and were members of the sovereign body. The consequences of such a measure might be easily foreseen: the treasury became exhausted, and the people were taught to depend for their subsistence, not on their industry, but on these almost gratuitous distributions of grain. This allowance, which was made monthly, added to the sale of their votes at the annual elections and the distributions on extraordinary occasions, of corn and oil (Dion Cassius, 43, c 31) helped a poor Roman to live in idleness. This system of distributions of corn, sometimes free of cost, being once established was continued all through the Republic and under the Empire. It was impossible to stop the evil, when it had been rooted, and in the crowded city of Rome under the Empire, it was an important duty of the adminstration to prevent famine and insurrection by provisioning the city. C. Julius Cæsar reduced the number of those who received this corn relief from 320,000 to 150,000. The number of receivers must have increased again, for Augustus reduced the number to 200,000. This subject of the distribution of corn among the poor is an important element in the history of the later Republic. Dureau de la Malle (Économie Politique des Romains, ii. 307) has compared it with the English mode of providing for the poor by the Poor Laws; but though there are some striking points of resemblance between the two systems, there are many differences, and the matter requires to be handled with more knowledge and judgment than this writer has shown in order to exhibit it in its proper light.

Plutarch’s account of the changes made by Gracchus in the body of the Judices is probably incorrect. The law of Gracchus related to trials for offences, such as bribery at elections (ambitus), and corruption in the administration of offices (repetundæ), which belong to the class of trials called at a later time judicia publica or public trials. In the trials for these offences, those who had to decide on the guilt or innocence of the accused, were called judices; and the judices were taken only from the senators. But as the persons accused of offences, of the kind above mentioned generally belonged to the senatorian order, it was found very difficult to get a man convicted. Some notorious instances of acquittals of persons, who had been guilty of corruption, had occurred just before Gracchus proposed his law. According to Appian, his law gave the judicial power solely to the equites, who formed a kind of middle class between the senators and the people. But the equites were not a safe body to intrust with this power. To this body belonged the publicani, or publicans as they are called in our translation of the Gospels (Matt., ch. v., v. 47), who farmed the revenues in the provinces. A governor who winked at the extortion of the farmers of taxes would easily be acquitted, if he was tried for maladministration on his return to Rome. The equites at Rome had an interest in acquitting a man who favoured their order. Cicero remarks (In Verrem, Act Prima, 13) that the judices were selected out of the equites for near fifty years until the functions were restored to the senate. He is alluding to the change Sulla made B.C. 83; but it appears that there were some intermediate changes. Cicero adds that during all this time there was never the slightest suspicion of any eques taking a bribe in the discharge of his functions as judex. Appian says that they soon became corrupt; and Cicero, who is in the habit of contradicting himself, says in effect the same thing (In Verrem, lib. iii. 41; Brutus, c. 34). The judices of Gracchus condemned Opimius, whose character Cicero admired. (See c. 18, notes.) The condemnation was either honest or dishonest: if honest, Cicero is a dishonest man for complaining of the sentence (Pro Plancio, c. 29): if dishonest then Cicero here contradicts what he has said elsewhere. (See also In Pisonem, c. 39.)

I have used the Roman word judices, which is the word that Plutarch has translated. These judices were selected out of the qualified body by lot (at least this was the rule sometimes) for each particular trial. A judge, generally the prætor, presided, and the guilt or innocence of the accused was determined by the judices by a majority of votes; the votes were given by ballot at this time.

This law of Gracchus about the judicia is a difficult subject, owing to the conflicting evidence.

↑15 The character of the Roman roads is here accurately described. The straight lines in which they ran are nowhere more apparent than in England, as may be seen by inspecting the Ordnance maps. That from Lincoln to the Humber is a good example. It is conjectured that some of the strong substructions at La Riccia (Aricia) on the Appian Road near Rome may be the work of Caius; but I do not know on what this opinion rests. (See Classical Museum, ii. 164.)

The Roman mile is tolerably well ascertained. It is variously estimated at 1618 and 1614 yards, which is less than the English mile. The subject of the stadium, which was the Greek measure of length, is fully examined by Colonel Leake, London Geographical Journal, vol. ix.

↑16 Caius Fannius Strabo must not be confounded with the historian of the same name. He was consul B.C. 122 with C. Domitius Ahenobarbus. Cicero speaks of an excellent speech of his against the proposal of Gracchus to give the Latins the full citizenship, and the suffrage to the Italian allies. (Cic., Brutus, c. 26.)

↑17 M. Fulvius Flaccus was consul B.C. 125, and during his year of office he defeated the Transalpine Ligurians. He was an orator of no great note, but an active agitator. He perished with Caius Gracchus (c. 16): his house was pulled down, and the ground made public property.

↑18 Plutarch’s Life of the younger Scipio Africanus is lost. Scipio died B.C. 159, six years before Caius was tribune. He had retired to rest in the evening with some tablets on which he intended to write a speech to deliver before the people on the subject of the Agrarian Law of Tiberius Gracchus and the difficulties of carrying it into effect. He was found dead in the morning, and it was the general opinion that he was murdered. His wife Sempronia was suspected, and even Cornelia his mother-in-law, as well as C. Gracchus. C. Papirius Carbo, one of the triumviri for dividing the land with Caius and Fulvius Flaccus is distinctly mentioned by Cicero as one of the murderers. As to him, there is no doubt that he was believed to be guilty. It is also admitted by all authorities that there was no inquiry into the death of Scipio; and Appian adds that he had not even a public funeral.

↑19 This was the first Roman colony that was established beyond the limits of the Italian Peninsula, which Velleius reckons among the most impolitic measures of Gracchus. The colony of Gracchus appears to have been neglected, and the town was not built. At the destruction of Carthage heavy imprecations were laid on any man who should restore the city. The colony was established by Cæsar the Dictator.

The foundation of a Roman colony was accompanied with solemn ceremonials, to which Plutarch alludes. The anniversary day of the foundation was religiously observed. On some Roman coins there is a representation of a man driving a yoke of oxen and a vexillum (standard), which are the symbols of a Roman colony.

↑20 Plutarch has here used the word oligarch (ὀλιγαρχικός), one who is a friend to the party of the Few as opposed to the Many. The meaning of an oligarchy, according to Aristotle (Politik, 4, c. 4), is a government in which the rich and those of noble birth possess the political power, being Few in number. But the smallness of the number is only an accident: the essence of an oligarchy consists in the power being in the hands of the rich and the noble, who happen in all countries to be the Few compared with the Many.

↑21 This was a proverbial expression, of which different explanations were given. Sardinia, it is said, was noted for a bitter herb which contracted the features of those who tasted it. Pausanias (x. 17) says it is a plant like parsley, which grows near springs, and causes people who eat it to laugh till they die; and he supposes that Homer’s expression (Odyssey xx. 302), a Sardanian laugh, is an allusion to this property of the plant: but this is not a probable explanation of the expression in Homer.

↑22 Some fragments of the Letters of Cornelia are extant, but there is great difficulty in determining if they are genuine, and opinions are divided on the subject. Gerlach, in his essay on Tiberius and Caius Gracchus (p. 37), maintains their genuineness against the opinion of Spalding and Bernhardy. The Fragments are collected by Roth.

↑23 The story in Appian (Civil Wars, i. 25) is somewhat different.

↑24 The Roman stilus, which Plutarch translates by graphium (γραφεῖον), “a writing instrument,” was of metal, iron or brass, sharp at one end and flat at the other. The point was used for writing on tablets which were smeared with wax: the other end was used for erasing what was written and making the surface even again. The word was often used by the best Roman writers in a metaphorical sense to express the manner and character of a written composition, and from them it has passed into some of the modern languages of Europe, our own among the rest: thus we speak of a good style, a bad style of writing, and so on.

↑25 The form of the decree was, Videant consules ne quid respublica detrimenti capiat (Livius, 3, c. 4), which empowered the consuls or consul, as the case might be, to provide that the commonwealth sustained no damage. The word detrimentum, which signifies damage caused by rubbing off, had a tacit reference to the majestas of the Populus Romanus. The majestas (majesty) of the state is its integrity, its wholeness, any diminution of which was an offence; and under the Emperors the crime of majestas, that is majestas impaired, was equivalent to high treason. The decree here alluded to was only adopted, as Livius expresses it, in the utmost extremity, when the state was in danger; its effect was to proclaim martial law, and to suspend for the time all the usual forms of proceeding.

↑26 This was one of the hills or eminences in Rome: it was the plebeian quarter.

↑27 This is the Roman term which corresponds to the kerukeion (κηρύκειον) of Plutarch, or the staff which ambassadors or heralds carried in time of war when they were sent to an enemy.

↑28 The Cretans were often employed as mercenaries in the Roman army, as we see from passages in Livius (37, c. 41).

↑29 This is not Plutarch’s word, but it expresses his meaning, and he uses the word elsewhere. Amnesty is Greek and was used by the later Greek writers in a sense the same or nearly the same as in modern times, to express a declaration on the part of those who had the sovereign power for the time that they would pardon those who had in any way acted in opposition to such power.

↑30 The Pons Sublicius as it was called, the oldest bridge over the Tiber at Rome.

↑31 As usual in such cases, there is a dispute about the person or at least his name. Velleius (ii. 6,) and Aurelius Victor called him Euporus. Both names are Greek, and the faithful slave was doubtless a Greek, of whom there were now many at Rome. They were valued for their superior acquirements and dexterity, and filled the higher places in great families. The slaves from barbarous nations, that is, nations not Greek, were used for meaner purposes.

↑32 Kaltwasser remarks that Aurelius Victor (De Viris Illustribus, c. 55) says that Caius died in the grove of Furina, the goddess of thieves, whose sacred place was beyond, that is on the west side of the Tiber, and that Plutarch appears to have confounded this with the name of the Furies, the Greek Erinnyes. This may be so; or Victor may have made a mistake, which he often has done.

↑33 Opimius must have been as great a knave as Septimuleius, for the fraud was palpable. Stories of this kind are generally given with variations. Plinius (N. H. 33, c. 14) says it was the mouth that was filled with lead, and that Septimuleius had been a confidential friend of Caius. This was the first instance in Rome of head money being offered and paid; but the example was followed in the proscriptions of Sulla, and those of the triumviri Lepidus, M. Antonius, and Cæsar Octavianus.

↑34 I have followed Kaltwasser in translating the Greek word ἀπονοία, which signifies madness, desperation, or a desperate deed, by discord, for the sake of maintaining something like the opposition between the two words which exists in the original.

↑35 Caius Opimius was consul with Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, B.C. 121, the year of the death of Caius. The history of his conduct in Libya is told by Sallustius in the Jugurthine war. He was one of ten commissioners who were sent, B.C. 112, to settle the disputes between Adherbal, the son of Micipsa, and Jugurtha, the illegitimate son of Micipsa’s brother. The commissioners were bribed by Jugurtha and decided in his favour. Opimius and the rest of them were tried for the offence, B.C. 109, and banished. Opimius died in great poverty at Dyrrachium (Durazzo) in Epirus. (Sallustius, Jugurthine War, c. 134; Velleius, ii. 7.) Cicero thinks that Opimius was very hardly used after his services in crushing the insurrection at Fregellæ and putting down the disturbances excited by Caius Gracchus and Fulvius Flaccus: he calls him the saviour of the state, and laments his condemnation. (Cicero, Pro Plancio, c. 28, &c.; Brutus, c. 34; &c.)

↑36 M. Fulvius Flaccus was consul, B.C. 125, during which year he defeated the Transalpine Ligurians.

↑37 The legislation of the Gracchi, particularly of Caius Gracchus, comprehended many objects, the provisions as to which are comprehended under the general name of Semproniæ Leges, for it was the fashion to name a law after the gentile name of him who proposed it. The most important of the measures of Caius have been mentioned by Plutarch, with the exception of a law about the provinces. At the outbreak of the Social War, B.C. 91, the Roman provinces comprehended Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, the Spanish Peninsula, the whole of which, however, was not subdued, Cisalpine Gaul, Asia, Macedonia, Achæa, Transalpine Gaul, and some others of less note.

The original sense of the word provincia had no reference to a territory, though this is the later sense of the word and the common usage of it. The functions of the prætor urbanus who stayed at Rome were called his provincia, that is, the administration of justice was his provincia or business. The word is used in the sense of a function or office by Livius with reference to a time when there was no provincia in the later sense of the word. In the time of Cicero, provincia signified a territory out of Italy, which was administered by a Roman governor. The term Italy, at this time, did not comprise the whole peninsula, but only that part which was south of the rivers Rubico and Macra. The primary meaning of the word is confirmed by its etymology; provincia is a shortened form of providentia, which also appears in the shape prudentia. Providentia signifies “foresight,” “superintending care,” and so forth; and it is formed on the same principle as beneficentia, benevolentia, and other Latin words which are of a participial character. The etymology of Niebuhr (proventus) is untenable, and that which I have partly adopted (Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities, art. “Provincia”) is no better. Since writing that article, I saw that the word is only another form of providentia, and a friend has pointed out to me that Mr. G. C. Lewis first suggested this as the origin of the word in his Essay on the Government of Dependencies, London, 1841, Note H. p. 353. If this explanation of the word is correct, the true orthography is provintia, but I have not yet been able to find it on an inscription.

The old practice was for the Senate, after the elections of the Consuls and Prætors, to name two provinces which should be given to the consuls after the consulship was expired. The two consuls settled by lot or by agreement which province of the two they should have. As the consuls were chosen before the two consular provinces were determined by the senate, it was in the power of the senate to give what provinces they pleased to the consuls, and so make the appointment either a favour or not. A law of Gracchus enacted that the two consular provinces should be determined before the election of consuls, and that the senate should not have the power, which they had formerly exercised, of prolonging a man’s government in a province beyond the year. This law manifestly limited the power of the Senate, though some writers conceive that it was enacted for the advantage of that body as some compensation for their loss of the judicial power.

Plutarch has treated the subject of the Gracchi with perfect impartiality. He has given them credit for good motives, and approved of their measures in general, but he has not disguised their faults. Appian considered that the measures of Tiberius were for the public good, but that his conduct was not judicious. Sallustius also admits that the Gracchi did not conduct themselves with sufficient moderation (Jugurthine War, c. 46); but Sallustius belonged to the popular party, and he approved of their measures. Most of the other Roman writers express an unfavourable opinion of the Gracchi. Florus however gives them credit for good intentions, but disapproves of the means by which they attempted to carry their measures into effect. That part of the work of Livius which treated of this period is lost, but we may collect his opinions of the Gracchi from the Epitomes of the lost books, and the general tenor of his History. The measures of the Gracchi were estimated by the rule of party spirit. The judgment of Cicero, who often mentions the Gracchi, is both for and against. His expressed opinion, whatever might be his real opinion, varied with circumstances. If we only knew his opinion from the second oration against the Agrarian Law of Rullus (ii. 5), we should consider him as approving of all the measures of the Gracchi. When he delivered that oration, Cicero had just been elected Consul: he was a Novus homo, a new man as the Romans called him, who was the first of his family to attain to the high honours of the State, and he had obtained the consulship as a friend of the people, as a popular man (Popularis). In his treatise on Friendship and other of his writings, he gives a contradictory judgment of the Gracchi; he says that Tiberius Gracchus aimed at the kingly power, or rather in fact was king for a few months; he calls the two Gracchi degenerate sons of their father; he extols the murderers of Tiberius Gracchus; he commiserates the hard fate of Opimius after saving the state by putting Caius Gracchus to death. All this was written or said after he was consul, after he had done what the murderers of the Gracchi had done, after he had put to death Catilina and his accomplices without trial contrary to the constitution, contrary to a special law which Caius Gracchus had carried that no Roman citizen should be put to death without a duly constituted trial; after he had, like Nasica and Opimius, made himself a murderer by putting men to death without letting them be tried according to law; whether they were guilty or not, is immaterial; they were put to death without trial, contrary to a principle of justice which, before he became guilty himself, Cicero had maintained and defended. The acts of the Gracchi were on record and well understood; but Cicero made his opinion of their acts depend not on his convictions, but on his interests; it is to him mainly that we may trace the common notion that the Gracchi were merely a couple of designing demagogues. The Gracchi were not wise enough or firm enough to be good reformers, but few reformers in so difficult a situation have left behind them so fair a reputation for honest intention. There was a great mass of contemporary materials for the history of the Gracchi, consisting of the speeches of the two brothers, of the numerous speeches made against them, the history of Polybius, who could not have overlooked the Gracchi in his account of the Numantine war, the history of Fannius, and other materials which Gerlach has enumerated in his Essay on the Gracchi. It is plain from Plutarch’s narrative, that he used these authorities; and if we consider how far removed he was from the time of the Gracchi, and his character, we may conclude that he has given as impartial a view of the times as he could collect from contemporary evidence. He may have made mistakes, and some mistakes we cannot help considering that he has made; but he can hardly have made any mistake in his representation of the nature of the reforms which the two brothers attempted, of the opposition that they encountered, and of their general character.

Misenum. Misenum was on the coast of Campania near Cape Miseno, a favourite residence of the wealthy Romans, who built villas there. The house of Cornelia had many occupants. It became the property of Caius Marius (c. 34), then of Lucius Lucullus, and finally of the Emperor Tiberius, who died here. It was seated on a hill which commanded an extensive sea-view.

In the last sentence of this chapter I have adopted the reading of Sintenis (φυλαττομένης), which is necessary for the sense.

Gracchi Agis Kleomenes

↑1 Alluding to the fight of Herakles with the Lernæan hydra which had nine heads. Herakles struck off its heads with his club, but in the place of the head he cut off, two new heads grew forth each time.

Demosthenes

↑1 This was a frontier town, whose possession was disputed by the Athenians and Bœotians.

↑2 An Athenian of the township of Thriasia, near Eleusis.

↑3 A fellow-scholar of Demosthenes.

↑4 A low quarter of Athens.

↑5 See Life of Crassus, ch. 2.

↑6 The battle of Chæronea, B.C. 338, in which Philip defeated the Athenians and Bœotians, and crushed the liberties of Greece.

↑7 The hero of a mock-heroic poem supposed to have been written by Homer.

↑8 Kassander built a new city on the site of Potidæa, on the narrow isthmus of the promontory of Pallene. Potidæa had been destroyed by Philip, B.C. 356. The new city of Kassandrea soon became the most flourishing city in Macedonia.

↑9 This was Agis III. who at the time of the battle of Issus, B.C. 333, was communicating with the Persian naval commanders in the Ægean, to obtain supplies for the war against the Macedonians. He was killed in action, about the time of the battle of Arbela, B.C. 331.

↑10 The second month of the Attic year, the latter half of August and first of September. The two next months mentioned in the text correspond to the latter half of September and the first of October and the latter half of October and first of November respectively.

↑11 A small island in the Saronic Gulf off the coast of Argolis and opposite Troezen, where was a celebrated temple of Poseidon which was regarded as an inviolable asylum. Hither Demosthenes fled to avoid Antipater, and here he took poison, B.C. 322.

↑12 The Greek word signifies a reed, in the upper part of which poison might easily be placed.

↑13 A festival in honour of Demeter. For details see Smith ‘Dict. of Antiq.’

Cicero

↑1 The Helvia Gens was plebeian. It becomes historical from the time of the second Punic war, and became ennobled (nobilis) by M. Helvius being elected prætor B.C. 197, the first year in which six prætors were elected (Liv. 32. c. 27). It is said that Cicero never mentions his mother in his writings, but an anecdote of her careful housekeeping is recorded by her son Quintus (Cic. Ad Diversos, xvi. 26).

The allusion is to the Volscian with whom Coriolanus took refuge when he left Rome (Plutarch, Life of Coriolanus, c. 22; Livy, 2, c. 35).

↑2 Cicero himself did not claim any illustrious descent. The family had been long settled at Arpinum, now Arpino, a Volscian town. The first person who is mentioned as bearing the name of Cicero is C. Claudius Cicero, a tribunus plebis, B.C. 454 (Liv. 3. c. 31). M. Tullius Cicero, the grandfather of the orator, was born B.C. 140, and nothing is known of the orator’s family before him. Arpinum received the limited Roman civitas in B.C. 303 (Liv. 10. c. 1), that is, probably Commercium and Connubium, for the suffrage (suffragii latio) was not given to the people of Arpinum till B.C. 188 (Liv. 38. c. 36). The orator’s grandfather lived to see his grandson born B.C. 106. Cicero’s father belonged to the class of Equites. He spent the greater part of his life on his lands at Arpinum, near the junction of the Fibrenus with the Liris (Garigliano). He afterwards removed to Rome to educate his sons Marcus and Quintus, and had a house in the Carinæ. Among his friends were the orators M. Antonius and Lucius Crassus, and Q. Scævola the Augur, a distinguished Jurist. His sons had accordingly the advantage of being acquainted in their youth with some of the most distinguished of the Romans. He is said to have died B.C. 64, the year before his son was consul. A letter of Cicero to Atticus (i. 6) is generally supposed to speak of his father’s death, but the true reading is undoubtedly “pater a nobis discessit;” and it is plain that Cicero is simply speaking of his father leaving Rome for a time (Drumann, Tullii, p. 213).

↑3 The cognomen Cicero, as already observed, occurs early in Roman history. Many of the Roman cognomina were derived from some particular plant which a man cultivated, or from some personal peculiarity, or from some other accidental circumstance. The mark on the nose is just as likely to be the origin of the name as the cultivation of the cicer; for if the name Fabius comes from faba, “a bean,” and Lentulus, from lens, “pulse;” yet Catulus means “a whelp,” and Scaurus means “knock-knee’d,” or something of the kind.

The words διαστόλη, διαφύη mean what I have translated them. Kaltwasser has translated the passage thus, according to Reiske’s explanation:—“Jener hatte an der spitze der nase einen kleinen anwuchs oder warze in form einer solchen erbse, woven er den beinamen erhielt.” But this is not a translation. Plutarch does not say that he had a wart at the end of his nose, but that the end of his nose was like a vetch, because there was a kind of split or cleft in it. There is no reason for misrepresenting even a man’s nose.

↑4 The “third day of the new calends” is the third of January of the unreformed Roman calendar. Pompeius Magnus was born in the same year, B.C. 106. Cicero himself mentions his birthday (Ad Attic. vii. 5; xiii. 42). Plutarch’s stories of his aptitude for learning might be collected from the mass of anecdotes that existed in his time about all the great Romans of Cicero’s period. The story shows at least what were the traditional stories about Cicero’s youth.

↑5 Kaltwasser refers to the passage in Plato’s Republic, book v. p. 56, of the Bipont edition.

↑6 Glaucus was a fisherman of Anthedon in Bœotia. After eating of a certain herb he jumped into the sea and became a sea-god with the power of prophecy (Pausanias, ix. 22). Strabo (p. 405, ed. Casaub.) says that he became a fish of some kind (κῆτος), a change more appropriate to his new element, though perhaps not to his new vocation. Æschylus made a drama on the subject, which Cicero may have used.

↑7 Cicero translated the poem of Aratus into Latin verse. He also wrote an epic poem, the subject of which was his countryman Caius Marius; and one on his own consulship, which was always a favourite topic with him. Of the translation of the ‘Phænomena’ of Aratus, which was made when he was a youth, about four hundred lines remain. The fragments of these poems, and of others not here enumerated, are in Orelli’s edition of Cicero, vol. iv.

↑8 Philo, a pupil of the Carthaginian Clitomachus, fled from Athens to Rome in B.C. 88, at the time when the troops of Mithridates were in possession of Athens (Cicero, Brutus, c. 89, and Meyer’s note).

↑9 The elder of these Mucii was Q. Mucius Scævola, Consul B.C. 117, commonly called the Augur. After his death Cicero attached himself to Q. Mucius Scævola, Pontifex Maximus, who was a distinguished jurist. The Pontifex was assassinated in the consulship of the younger Marius, B.C. 82, in the temple of Vesta (Florus, iii. 21). Cicero has in several places commemorated his virtues and talents (De Orat. i. 39; iii. 3).

Cicero, in his Brutus, c. 88, &c., has given an account of his own early studies.

↑10 In B.C. 89 Cicero served under Cn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of Pompeius Magnus (Life of Pompeius, c. 1. notes). Cicero speaks of this event of his life in his twelfth Philippic, c. 11.

↑11 L. Cornelius Chrysogonus was probably a Greek. His name Cornelius was derived from his patron (Life of Sulla, c. 31, notes). Cicero’s speech for Sextus Roscius Amerinus was spoken B.C. 80; it is still extant. Cicero’s first extant speech, pro P. Quintio, was spoken B.C. 81.

↑12 Cicero went to Greece B.C. 79. The reasons for his journey are stated by himself in his Brutus (c. 91). He speaks of his leanness and weakness, and of the length and slenderness of his neck. His physicians recommended him to give up speaking for a time. When he left Rome he had been engaged for two years in pleading causes.

↑13 Cicero stayed six months at Athens. The New Academy was founded by Arkesilaus. The school taught that certainty was not attainable in anything, and that the evidence of the senses was deceptive. The words “by the evidence and by the senses” are the exact copy of the original. Schaefer proposes to omit “and” (καὶ), in which case the passage would stand thus—“by the evidence of the senses.” Sintenis retains the conjunction (καὶ), and refers to Cicero, Academ. 2. 6 and 7.

↑14 Cicero was at Rhodes in B.C. 78 (compare his Brutus, c. 91). Cicero calls this “Apollonius the son of Molo,” simply Molo (see the Life of Cæsar, c. 3, notes). Molo had the two most distinguished of the Romans among his pupils, C. Julius Cæsar and Cicero.

Poseidonius was the chief Stoic of his time.

↑15 Cicero never mentions this visit to Delphi in his writings, and Middleton thinks the visit is improbable, because Cicero (De Divinatione, ii. 56) shows that he knew what was the value of the oracle. But a man who despises a popular superstition may try to use it for his purposes, and may be disappointed if he cannot. Perhaps the soundness of the oracle’s advice may be a good reason for disbelieving the story.

Cicero returned to Rome in B.C. 77.

↑16 This was Q. Roscius, in whose behalf Cicero made a speech in B.C. 76, before C. Piso as judex. The subject of the cause is stated in the arguments to the oration.

Claudius Æsopus, the great tragic actor, whom Cicero considered a perfect master of his art, was probably a Greek and a freedman of some member of the Claudia Gens. He was liberal in his expenditure, and yet he acquired an enormous fortune, which his son spent.

↑17 ἐκ τοῦ ὑποκρίνεσθαι, that is, from “acting.” One Greek word for actor is ὑποκριτής. Oratorical action was therefore viewed as a part of the histrionic art; and so it is. But oratorical acting requires to be kept within narrower limits.

↑18 Bawling is properly viewed as an effort to accomplish by loudness of voice what ought to be accomplished by other means. It is simply ridiculous, and misses the mark that it aims at. “If you mouth it,” says Hamlet to the players, “as many of your players do, I had as lief the town crier had spoke my lines.”—“Let your discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, and the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature.”

↑19 Cicero was elected quæstor B.C. 76, when he was thirty years of age. He discharged the duties of his office during B.C. 75. He speaks well of his own quæstorship in his oration for Cn. Plancius (c. 26).

↑20 Cicero tells the story himself in his oration for Cn. Plancius (c. 26). The place of the adventure was Puteoli (Pozzuoli), B.C. 74, a place to which the Romans used to resort to enjoy the natural hot springs and the agreeable neighbourhood.

↑21 Verres during his prætorship in Sicily, B.C. 73-71, had greatly misconducted himself. He was prosecuted in B.C. 70, in which year Pompeius Magnus and M. Licinius Crassus were consuls (Life of Crassus, c. 12). Hortensius, the orator, defended Verres. The object of Hortensius and of these praetors was to prolong or defer the trial to the next year, for which Hortensius was elected consul.

There are extant seven orations of Cicero on the matter of Verres, of which two only were delivered; that against Cæcilius (De Divinatione), who claimed to conduct the prosecution, his object being to get Verres off, and the Actio Prima, which is an opening of the whole case. Before the other speeches were delivered, Verres gave up his defence and went into exile. Cicero, however, published the speeches, or probably even wrote them entire after the affair was over.

This Cæcilius was Q. Cæcilius Metellus, a Sicilian by birth, and probably the descendant of a freedman of one of the Metelli. It seems that he was suspected of being of Jewish origin. Cicero’s allusion to the hog, and many other passages in the Roman writers, show that the Jews were well known in Rome at this time.

↑22 ἐντὸς θυρῶν, “within doors.” Kaltwasser has translated the passage: “So solltest du hinter der thür mit deinen söhnen schmälen.” The repartee does not admit or need explanation.

↑23 The story of the monster sphinx and her ænigma which Œdipus solved is well known. This work of art was of metal, according to Pliny (Hist. Nat. 34. c. 18).

↑24 There is probably some error in Plutarch as to the amount. In the Divinatio (c. 5) the peculations of Verres were estimated at “millies HS.,” or one hundred millions of sesterces; but in the Actio Prima (c. 18), which was spoken after Cicero had been in Sicily to collect evidence, he put the amount at forty millions of sesterces, or two-fifths of the first sum. If Plutarch’s drachmæ are Roman denarii, his 750,000 drachmæ will make only three millions of sesterces.

Verres continued in exile, and he remained quiet during the civil wars. Though an unprincipled scoundrel, he showed his taste in stealing: he had kept many valuable objects of art, and he would not part with them. The story is that M. Antonius put his name in the proscription list, B.C. 43, because he would not give up his Corinthian vessels. He was put to death, but he died, it is said, with great resolution; and he had the satisfaction of hearing that his old enemy Cicero had gone before him (Drumann, Tullii, p. 328). But all this story is very improbable.

↑25 Cicero was Curule Ædile in B.C. 69, with M. Cæsonius for his colleague.

↑26 This is evidently a mistake in Plutarch’s text. Arpinum is meant.

↑27 This is what Cicero calls his Pompeianum. Middleton, in his Life of Cicero, has mentioned all Cicero’s country residences in Italy, which were very numerous.

↑28 See the Life of Cato, c. 19. The time of Cicero’s marriage is uncertain. Drumann conjectures that he married her about B.C. 80 or 79, before his journey to Asia.

↑29 Cicero was Prætor in the year B.C. 66, and it fell to his lot to preside at the trials for Repetundæ. This Macer was C. Licinius Macer. After he had been prætor he had a province, and during his administration he was guilty of illegal practices, for which he was tried and convicted (Cic. Ad Attic. i. 4). Crassus, who also belonged to the Licinia Gens, felt some sympathy for a man whose crime was getting money by unlawful means. Macer was an orator and a writer. A few fragments of his Annals (Krause, Vitæ et Fragm. Vet. Histor. Rom.) are preserved.

↑30 P. Vatinius was afterwards consul B.C. 47. There is extant a speech of Cicero against him, in which of course he has a very bad character given to him. Kaltwasser says that a thick neck was considered by the Romans as a sign of a shameless man, and he refers to the Life of Marius, c. 29, where a like expression is used. Cicero’s neck, according to his own account, was very thin, and he thought it no good sign of his strength. However this may be as to the thickness of the neck of Vatinius, it was clearly not a thing that he could alter.

↑31 C. Manilius, a Tribunus Plebis, had in this same year proposed and carried the law which gave Pompeius the command in the Mithridatic war, and Cicero had supported the measure in a speech which is extant (Life of Pompeius, c. 30). This story of the accusation and defence of Manilius is unintelligible. C. Orchinius presided at the trials for peculatus, and Manilius should have been brought before him (Cic. Pro Cluentio, c. 53). See Dion Cassius, 36. c. 27; and Drumann’s remarks, Tullii, p. 375.

↑32 Cicero wes consul in B.C. 63 with C. Antonius. As to the affair of Catiline, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes; and Drumann, Tullii, p. 385, &c.

↑33 See the Life of Sulla, c. 32.

↑34 Sallust (Bell. Catilin. c. 22) tells a story somewhat to the same effect, of the conspirators drinking of human blood, but he does not believe the story, and perhaps few people will.

↑35 The measure to which Plutarch alludes was the Agrarian Law of the tribune P. Servilius Rullus. Cicero made three speeches against the proposal, which are extant, and he defeated the scheme.

↑36 C. Antonius went as governor to Macedonia in B.C. 62, where he took the opportunity of getting all the money that he could. He gave it out that Cicero was to have a share of it. The evidence of such an unprincipled man is not worth much; but one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus (i. 12), which he never expected would be read by anybody else, shows that he knew there was such a rumour; and the manner in which he treats it is perfectly incomprehensible. A certain Hilarus, a freedman of Cicero, was then with Antonius in Macedonia, as Cicero was informed, and Cicero was also informed that Antonius declared that Cicero was to have some of the money that he was getting, and that Hilarus had been sent by Cicero to look after his share. Cicero was a good deal troubled, as he says, though he did not believe the report; yet, he adds, there was certainly some talk. Cn. Plancius was named to Cicero as the authority for the report. Atticus is requested to examine into the matter, and—not to apply to Antonius or to Plancius—but to get the rascal (Hilarus) out of those parts, if in any way he can. This is a mode of proceeding that is quite inconsistent with perfect innocence on the part of Cicero. There was something between him and Antonius. Cicero says that if Antonius should be recalled, as was expected, he could not for his character’s sake defend the man; and what is more, he says, he felt no inclination; and then he proceeds to tell Atticus about this awkward report. Yet Cicero did defend Antonius (B.C. 59) and Antonius was convicted.

↑37 It appears from Cicero’s oration for Murena, c. 19, that his name was Lucius Roscius Otho, and he was not Prætor, but Tribunus Plebis. This Lex Roscia was enacted B.C. 67, in the consulship of M. Acilius Glabrio and C. Calpurnius Piso (Don Cassius, 36. c. 25). His law gave to the equites and those who had the equestrian census a select place of fourteen rows at the public spectacles, which were next to the seats of the senators. This unpopular measure was that which Cicero now spoke in favour of (Ad. Attic. ii. 1). Cicero’s oration is lost, but a passage is preserved, says Kaltwasser, by Macrobius (Saturnalia ii. 10). Some also suppose, as Kaltwasser says, that Virgil alludes to it in the passage in the Aeneid (i. 152). There is no extract from this oration in Macrobius, who appears to suppose that Cicero made an oration to rebuke the people for making a disturbance while Roscius, the player, was acting.

↑38 As to the conspiracy, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes.

↑39 His name was C. Manlius Acidinus. There is no reason for saying that his true name was Mallius: that was merely a Greek form of Manlius. He fell in the battle in which Catiline’s troops were defeated.

↑40 Cicero has recorded this answer of Catiline in his oration for Murena, c. 25: “duo corpora esse in republica, unum debile, infirmo capite, alterum firmum, sine capite: huic, cum ita de se meritum esset, caput se vivo non defuturum.” Cicero makes Catiline say that the weak body had a weak head. Cicero’s version of what he said is obviously the true one.

↑41 Decimus Junius Silanus and L. Licinius Murena were consuls for the year B.C. 62. As to the trial of Murena for bribery at the elections (ambitus), see the Life of Cato, c. 21.

↑42 This affair is not mentioned by Sallustius in his history of the conspiracy of Catiline. The usual form in which the Senate gave this extraordinary power is mentioned by Sallustius (c. 29): “dent operam consules nequid Res Publica detrimenti capiat.”

↑43 The assassins, according to Sallustius, were C. Cornelius and L. Vargunteius. See the note of Drumann, Tullii, p. 457: “Plutarch hunted in his authorities only after anecdotes and traits of character in order to paint his heroes: the names of the subordinate persons were indifferent to him; with such frivolous and one-sided views he could not fail to confound persons.” “Frivolous,” is perhaps hardly the translation of Drumann’s “leichtsinnig,” but it comes pretty near to it. And yet the fact of the design to assassinate is the main feature in the history: the actors in the intended assassination are subordinate to the design. A painstaking compiler is entitled to grumble at such a blunder, but Plutarch does not merit reproach in these terms.

↑44 She was a mistress or something of the kind of one Q. Curius. Whether Curius sent her to Cicero or she went of her own accord is doubtful. Perhaps she expected to get something for her information. Sallustius, c. 23. 28, speaks of this affair; and Cicero, Catilin. i. c. 9.

↑45 Plutarch, as Kaltwasser observes, appears to refer to the words of Cicero (Catilin. i. c. 5): “magno me metu liberabis, dum modo inter me atque te murus intersit.” Catiline left Rome on the night of the 8th of November.

↑46 L. Cornelius Lentulus Sura was consul B.C. 71. He had been put out of the Senate by the censors for his irregular life. His restoration to his rank and the matter of the prætorship are mentioned by Dion Cassius (37, c. 30, and the note of Reimarus). The meaning of the story about the ball is obvious enough; but Lentulus was not the first who had the name Sura, and Plutarch’s story is so far untrue. See Drumann’s note on the name Sura, Cornelii, p. 530.

↑47 See the Lives of Marius and Sulla.

↑48 It was a period of festivity, and considered suitable for the purpose of the conspirators. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 34, notes.

↑49 The narrative of Sallustius, as to the proposed burning of the city, is somewhat different (Bell. Catil. c. 43).

↑50 The Allobroges were a Celtic tribe of Gallia, on the Rhone. They belonged to the division of Gallia which under Augustus was called Gallia Narbonensis. Their chief town was Vienna, now Vienne. According to Cæsar’s description (Bell. Gall. i. 6.) the Rhodanus in the upper part of its course separated the Helvetii from the Allobroges. The remotest town of the Allobroges, on the side of the Helvetii, was Geneva. Cæsar describes the Allobroges as recently (B.C. 58) brought to friendly terms with the Romans.

↑51 This Titus of Croton is named Titus Volturcius by Sallustius.

↑52 The Senate met on the third of December of the unreformed calendar in the temple of Concord, on the Capitoline Hill.

↑53 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 9, and the notes.

↑54 Compare Dion Cassius, 37, c. 35. Fabia, the sister of Terentia, was one of the Vestals, and Drumann supposes that this fact confirms his supposition that Cicero had arranged all this affair with his wife, in order to work on the popular opinion. Middleton made the same supposition a long time ago. It requires no great penetration to make such a conjecture; but it may not be true.

↑55 It is said that this does not appear in any of Cicero’s extant writings.

↑56 The Senate assembled on the fourth of December in the temple of Concord; and again on the fifth to pass judgment on the conspirators. As to the speeches delivered on the occasion, see the Lives of Cæsar and Cato, and the notes. The whole matter of the conspiracy is treated with great minuteness and tedious prolixity by Drumann (Tullii, under the year B.C. 63).

↑57 I believe that I have translated this correctly. I suppose that Plutarch means to say, that if Cæsar had been accused as a member of the conspiracy, he would have been acquitted, and the conspirators would have had a chance of escaping also. There was no chance of securing the condemnation of the conspirators and involving Cæsar in their fate. On the contrary, if Cæsar was accused, all might escape. It was better, therefore, not to touch him. Kaltwasser has made the passage unintelligible. The explanation of Coraës, as corrected by Schäfer, is right.

↑58 Sallustius (Bell. Cat. c. 51, &c.) states Cæsar’s proposal to have been the confiscation of the property of the conspirators and their perpetual confinement in the chief municipia of Italy, and that the Senate should make a declaration that any man who proposed to set them at liberty, or to mitigate their punishment, should be considered an enemy of the State. Cicero (In Catilin. iv. 5) states the opinion of Cæsar to the same effect. Cæsar had urged the illegality of condemning Roman citizens to death without a trial, and this was provided by a Lex Sempronia of C. Gracchus. But Cicero replies that Cææar’s measure was as severe.

↑59 The speech which he delivered on the occasion is the fourth oration against Catiline. Some critics maintain that it is not genuine. Drumann, who maintains that it is, has a long note on the subject (Tullii, p. 512).

↑60 Plutarch likens the feelings of the youth at the sight of the prisoners being led to execution to the solemn ceremonies of initiation in some mysterious rites. The conspirators were taken to the only prison that Rome then had, the Tullianum, where they were strangled. Five men were put to death. Nine had been condemned to death, but four had escaped being seized. Appian (Civil Wars, ii. 6) seems to say that Cicero saw the men put to death. If he did not see the execution, we may safely assume that he took care to see that the men really were dead. Their bodies were delivered to their kinsfolk for interment.

↑61 Antonius did not command in the battle. He was ill, or pretended to be ill. His legatus, Petreius, an able officer, commanded the troops. The battle was fought early in B.C. 62, probably near Pistoria (Pistoia) in Etruria. It was a bloody struggle, hand to hand, and the loss on the victorious side was great. Dion says that Antonius sent the head of Catilina to Rome. According to Roman usage, he was entitled to the honour of the victory, because Petreius was his inferior officer.

↑62 Metellus Nepos and the other tribunes began to exercise their functions on the tenth of December. The consuls began to exercise their functions on the first of January. The oath that Cicero had to swear was, that he had obeyed the laws. He alludes to the oath that he did swear on the last day of December on giving up his office, in a letter to Q. Metellus Celer, the brother of Nepos (Ad Diversos, v. 2), and in his oration against Piso, c. 3. Manutius (Comment. in Cic. Ep. Ad Divers. v. 2) shows that Bestia was a tribune during Cicero’s consulship, and as he had gone out of office on the ninth of December he could not have acted with Metellus on the thirty-first of December.

As to Metellus Nepos, see the Life of Cato, c. 20.

↑63 It is said that this does not occur in the extant letters of Cicero.

↑64 In the beginning of his treatise De Officiis, which is addressed to his son, then at Athens (B.C. 44), Cicero speaks of the youth having then been a year under the instruction of Kratippus. Kratippus was a native of Mitylene, and he was living there when Pompeius touched at the island after the battle of Pharsalia (Life of Pompeius, c. 75). Cicero’s son was attached to his master, and in an extant letter to Tiro (Cic. Ad Diversos, xvii. 21) he expresses his affection for him. Kratippus was more than a philosopher: he was a pleasant companion, and perhaps young Cicero liked his table-talk as much as his philosophy.

↑65 He is mentioned by Cicero in his Letters to Atticus (xiv. 16, 18, and xv. 16).

↑66 Cicero, in the letter to Tiro (xvi. 21) above referred to, says that Gorgias was useful to him in his declamatory exercises, but he had dismissed him in obedience to his father’s positive command.

↑67 It does not appear which of the Munatii this was.

↑68 Crassus could not well misunderstand the Stoical doctrine, but he appears to have purposely expressed himself as if the Stoics considered “rich” and “good” as convertible terms. Cicero’s repartee implies that “good” is the more comprehensive term: Crassus therefore was not “good,” because he was “rich.”

↑69 This is a frigid joke. Axius in Greek (ἄξιος) signifies “worthy;” and Cicero’s words literally translated are, he is “worthy of Crassus,” if we take Axius as a Greek word. They can also mean, he is “Axius son of Crassus.” The wit lay in associating the name of Axius and Crassus; but the joke is only made duller by the explanation.

A Roman Senator named Axius is mentioned by Cicero (Ad Attic. iii. 15, and elsewhere).

↑70 See the Life of Crassus, c. 16.

↑71 L. Gellius Publicola was consul with Cn. Cornelius Lentulus, B.C. 72.

↑72 It is uncertain who this man was. The allusion to the hole in his ear signifies that his ears were bored to carry pendants or earrings after the fashion of some nations at that time. Cicero meant to imply that he was not of genuine Italian stock. Juvenal alludes to a man’s foreign origin being shown by his ears being bored, in the following terms:—

“——quamvis

Natus ad Euphratem, molles quod in aure fenestræ

Arguerint, licet ipse neges.”

Sat. i. 103, and the note of Heinrichs.

↑73 Publius Sextius or Sestius was the name of a tribunus plebis who exerted himself to accomplish the recall of Cicero. There is extant an oration of Cicero entitled Pro P. Sestio, in defence of Publius, who was tried in the year after Cicero’s return on a charge of raising a tumult (de vi) at the popular meeting in which Cicero’s recall was proposed. Cicero speaks of the acquittal of Publius in a letter to his brother Quintus (ii. 4).

↑74 This obscure man’s name is also incorrectly written.

↑75 See the Life of Cato, c. 29.

↑76 Kaltwasser conjectures that the name should be Manius Aquilius, who acted as Proconsul in the Servile war in Sicily B.C. 100. In B.C. 88 he conducted the war against Mithridates in Asia. He fell into the hands of Mithridates, who put him to death.

But this cannot be the person meant by Plutarch, who evidently means a person who may be called a contemporary of Cicero. A certain M. Aquinius is mentioned in the Book on the African War (De Bell. Afric. 57).

↑77 Adrastus, king of Argos, gave his two daughters in marriage to Tydeus and Polynices, both of whom were exiles from their native country.

↑78 L. Aurelius Cotta was consul B.C. 65, and censor B.C. 64, the year in which Cicero was elected consul. In his prætorship, B.C. 70, he proposed the Lex Aurelia, which determined that the judices for public trials should be chosen from the Senators, Equites and Tribuni Ærarii. Notwithstanding this joke, Cotta was a friend of Cicero, and Cicero often speaks in high terms of praise of him.

↑79 It is uncertain who this Voconius was. The verse, which is apparently from some Greek tragedian, is conjectured to allude to Laius, who begat Œdipus contrary to the advice of the oracle of Apollo.

↑80 Cicero means that he had acted as a public crier (præco). Such persons were often of servile descent.

↑81 See the life of Sulla, c. 34. The Roman word “Proscriptio” means putting up a public notice, as a sale and the like. The term was also applied to the public notices, now commonly called proscriptions, by which Sulla and the Triumviri declared the heads of their enemies and their property to be forfeited. (See the Life of Sulla, c. 31, and the notes.) This saying of Cicero had both truth and point.

↑82 This story of the intrigue of Clodius is told in the Life of Cæsar, c. 9.

↑83 There is something wanting in the Greek text; but the meaning is not obscure. See the note of Sintenis.

↑84 Of course on the day on which Clodius pretended that he was not at Rome. Kaltwasser has inserted the words “on that day;” but they are not in the original.

↑85 So it is in the MSS., though it should probably be Tertia. A confusion may easily have arisen between the name Terentia, which has already been mentioned in this chapter, and the name Tertia (third), though the wife of Q. Marcius Rex is said to have been the oldest of the three sisters. Quadranteria is a misprint for Quadrantaria. This lady was the wife of Q. Metellus Celer, and was suspected of poisoning him. Cicero vents unbounded abuse upon her; and he also preserved the name Quadrantaria (Or. Pro Cælio, c. 26). The Roman word Quadrans, a fourth, signified a fourth part of a Roman as, and was a small copper coin. The way in which one of her lovers is reported to have paid her in copper coin seems to have circulated in Rome as a good practical joke.

↑86 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 10, and the notes.

↑87 The number twenty-five agrees with the common text in Cicero’s Letter to Atticus (i. 16): the other number in the common text of Cicero is thirty-one. See the note in the Variorum edition.

↑88 Clodius was tribunus plebis in B.C. 58. The consuls of the year were L. Calpurnius Piso, the father of Calpurnia, Cæsar’s wife, and Aulus Gabinius, a tool of Pompeius.

↑89 Dion Cassius (38, c. 15) says that Cæsar proposed to Cicero to go to Gaul with him; and Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (i. 19), speaks of Cæsar’s proposal to him to go as his legatus. It is difficult to imagine that Cæsar made such a proposal, or at least that he seriously intended to take Cicero with him. He would have been merely an incumbrance.

↑90 Read “as in a public calamity.” Cicero speaks of this affair in his oration for Cn. Plancius, c. 35; in the latter part of which oration he speaks at some length of the circumstances that attended his going into exile.

↑91 This was C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, the first husband of Tullia. She was his wife at least as early as B.C. 63, and she was his widow before the end of B.C. 57.

↑92 Cicero, in the oration which he subsequently spoke against this Piso, gives (c. 6) a strange account of his reception by Piso.

Cato and Hortensius advised Cicero to go (Dion Cassius, 38, c. 17).

↑93 Compare Cicero De Legibus, ii. 17, ed. Bakius; and Ad Attic. vii. 3. Cicero left Rome in the month of March, B.C. 58.

↑94 Cicero, in a letter to Atticus (iii. 4) says that he was required to move four hundred Roman miles from the city. Compare Dion Cassius, 38, c. 17.

↑95 Cicero received the news of his sentence when he was near Vibo, a town in the country of the Brutii, now Bivona, on the gulf of Sta. Eufemia. He had written to Atticus (iii. 3) to meet him at Vibo, but his next letter informed Atticus that he had set out to Brundusium. Cicero names the person, Sica, who had shown him hospitality near Vibo. Plutarch calls him Οὐίβιος Σικελὸς ἀνήρ, as if he had mistaken the name Sica.

↑96 Cicero mentions this circumstance in his oration for Cn. Plancius, c. 40 (ed. Wunder, and the Notes). He was well received by the municipia which lay between Vibo and Brundusium. He did not enter the city of Brundusium, but lodged in the gardens of M. Lænus Flaccus.

↑97 Cicero did not remain at Dyrrachium. His movements are described in his own letters, and in his oration for Cn. Plancius. He went to Thessalonica in Macedonia, where Plancius then was in the capacity of quæstor to L. Apuleius, Prætor of Macedonia. He reached Thessalonica on the 23rd of May (x. Kal. Jun.), and there is a letter extant addressed to Atticus (ii. 8), which is dated from Thessalonica on the 29th of May (Dat. iiii. Kal. Jun. Thessalonicae).

↑98 His unmanly lamentations are recorded in his own letters and in his own speech for Cn. Plancius, c. 42.

↑99 Cicero was not a practical philosopher. Like most persons who have been much engaged in public life, he lived in the opinion of others. He did not follow the maxim of the Emperor Antoninus, who bids us “Look within; for within is the source of good, and it sends up a continuous stream to those who will always dig there” (vii. 59). Cicero did not reverence his own soul, but he placed his happiness “in the opinion of others” (i. 6). Perhaps however he was not weaker than most active politicians, whose letters would be as dolorous and lachrymose as his, if they were banished to a distant colony.

↑100 This is not obscure, if it is properly considered, and it contains a serious truth. A man must view things as they are, and he must not take his notions of them from the affects of the many. “Things touch not the soul, but they are out of it, and passive; perturbations come only from the opinion that is within a man” (M. Antoninus, iv. 3).

The philosophic emperor and the unphilosophic statesman were very different persons. The emperor both preached and practised. The statesman showed his feebleness by his arrogance in prosperity and his abjectness in adversity.

↑101 These proceedings are described by Cicero in his oration (Pro Domo, c. 24). The marble columns were removed from his house on the Palatine to the premises of the father-in-law of the consul Piso, in the presence of the people. Gabinius, the other consul, who was Cicero’s neighbour at Tusculum, removed to his own land the stock that was on Cicero’s estate and the ornaments of the house, and even the trees.

↑102 In B.C. 57, P. Cornelius Lentulus Spinther and Q. Cæcilius Metellus Nepos were consuls. Cicero alludes to the disturbance which preceded his recall in his oration for P. Sextius, c. 35: “Caedem in foro maximam faciunt, universique destrictis gladiis et cruentis in omnibus fori partibus fratrem meum, virum optimum, fortissimum, meique amantissimum oculis quaerebant, voce poscebant.” Cicero adds that his brother being driven from the Rostra lay down in the Comitium, and protected himself “with the bodies of slaves and freedmen;” by which Cicero seems to mean that his slaves and freedmen kept watch over him till he made his escape at night. Plutarch appears to have misunderstood the passage or to have had some other authority. In this dreadful tumult “the Tiber was filled with the dead bodies of the citizens, the drains were choaked, and the blood was wiped up from the Forum with sponges.” This looks somewhat like rhetorical embellishment.

↑103 Cicero in a letter to Atticus (iv. 2) gives an account of the compensation which he received. The valuation of his house at Rome (superficies aedium) was fixed at HS. vicies, or two million sesterces. He seems not to have objected to this, but he complains of the valuation of his Tusculanum and Formianum.

↑104 In the seventeenth month according to Clinton (Fasti Hellen. B.C. 57). The passage that Plutarch refers to is in the Oration to the Senate after his return (c, 15): “Cum me vestra auctoritas arcessierit, Populus Romanus revocarit, Respublica implorarit, Italia cuncta paene suis humeris reportarit.”

↑105 See the Life of Cato, c. 40, and Dion Cassius, 39, c. 21.

↑106 Clodius was killed B.C. 52, the year in which Pompeius was chosen sole consul. Cicero’s speech for Milo is extant, or at least a speech which he wrote after the trial. Milo was condemned and went an exile to Massilia. His property was sold and it went cheap. Cicero was under some suspicion of being a purchaser; but the matter is quite unintelligible (Drumann, Annii, p. 49, and the references). There could be no reason why Cicero should write in such obscure terms to Atticus, if his conduct in this matter was fair.

↑107 Crassus perished B.C. 54. See the Life of Crassus.

↑108 His province also comprehended Pisidia, Pamphylia, and Cyprus. The proconsulship of Cicero was in B.C. 51, though he had been consul in B.C. 63. Cicero went to Cilicia against his will (Ad Diversos, iii. 2). Pompeius had got the Senate (B.C. 52) to pass an order that no person should hold a province within five years after being consul or prætor. This was aimed at Cæsar, if he should get a second consulship. Pompeius also wished to have Cicero out of the way, and the provinces were to be supplied with governors from among those who did not come within the terms of the new rule: and Cicero was one of them (Cicero, Ad Diversos, iii. 2; Ad Attic. vi. 6).

↑109 He was the third Cappadocian king of this name. This unlucky king was a debtor of Cn. Pompeius and M. Junius Brutus, the most distinguished Roman money-lender of his day (Cicero, Ad Attic. vi. 1-3). Both Pompeius and Brutus were pressing the king for money. Deiotarus also sent to Ariobarzanes to try to get some money out of him for Brutus. The king’s answer was that he had none, and Cicero says that he believed he told the truth, for that no country was in a more impoverished state and nobody more beggared than the king. Cicero dunned the king continually with letters, but he was not particularly well pleased with his commission (Ad Attic. vi. 2). The end was that the king provided for the payment of about one hundred talents to Brutus during Cicero’s year of government. He had promised Pompeius two hundred in six mouths, which, as a judicious commentator remarks, is not worth so much as a security for one hundred. These money doings of the supposed patriot Brutus should be well examined by those who still retain an opinion of the virtues of this Republican hero.

↑110 There seems no reason to doubt that Cicero’s administration of his province was just and mild. Plutarch has apparently derived some of the facts here mentioned from Cicero himself (Ad Attic. vi. 2): “Aditus autem ad me minime provinciales; nihil per cubicularium: ante lucem inambulabam domi, ut olim candidatus.”

↑111 Cicero’s exploits were such as would not have been recorded, if he had not been his own historian. In a letter to Cato (Ad Diversos, xv. 4), he gives a pretty full account of his operations; and he asks Cato to use his influence to get him the honour of a Supplicatio or Public Thanksgiving. Cato’s short reply, which he says is longer than his letters usually are, is a model in its way.

↑112 So it is in Plutarch’s text: it may be the blunder of Plutarch, or the blunder of his copyists. The true name is M. Cælius (Cic. Ad Diversos, ii. 11), who was curule ædile B.C. 51. The saying about the panthers is in this letter of Cicero, who had set the panther-hunters to work.

Cicero returned to Rome in B.C. 50. He mentions (Ad Attic. vi. 7) his intention to call at Rhodes.

↑113 The events of this chapter, which belong to B.C. 49, are told at length in the Lives of Pompeius and Cæsar. Cicero’s irresolution is well marked in his own letters; in one of which (Ad Attic. viii. 7, referred to by Kaltwasser) he says:—“Ego quem fugiam habeo, quem sequar non habeo.”

There are no letters extant of Trebatius to the purport which Plutarch states, but Cæsar wrote to Cicero and begged him to stay at Rome. Cicero (Ad Attic. ix. 16) has given a copy of Cæsar’s letter; and a copy of another letter from Cæsar (Ad Attic. x. 8), in which he urges Cicero to keep quiet. There seems to be no doubt that Trebatius had been employed by Cæsar to write to Cicero and speak to him about remaining neutral at least. Cicero had an interview with Cæsar at Formiæ, after Cæsar’s return from Brundusium (Ad Atticum, ix. 18, 19; Ad Diversos, iv. 1). The letter last referred to is addressed to Servius Sulpicius.

↑114 L. Domitius Ahenobarbus. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 34.

↑115 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 37, notes.

↑116 Smart sayings are not generally improved by explanation, and they ought not to require it. Cicero apparently meant to say that it was as absurd to talk of men being dispirited after a victory, as if one were to say that Cæsar’s friends disliked him.

↑117 After defeating Pharnaces Cæsar landed in Italy, in September, B.C. 47, of the unreformed calendar. Cicero had received a letter from Cæsar before Cæsar’s arrival in Italy. The letter was written in Egypt (Cicero, Ad Diversos, xiv. 23; Pro Q. Ligario, c. 3). Compare Dion Cassius, 46, c. 12, 22, as to the conduct of Cicero to Cæsar. Before the end of the year Cicero was in Rome.

↑118 It is difficult to see what was the resemblance between Perikles and Cicero. Theramenes was somewhat more like him, for he tried to be on more sides than one, and met with the usual fate of such people. He was one of the so-called Thirty Tyrants of Athens, and he was sacrificed by his colleagues.

↑119 The speech of Cicero is extant. The allusion of Plutarch is particularly to the third chapter.

↑120 Cicero in a letter to L. Papirius Pætus (Ad Diversos, ix. 18) alludes to his occupations at Tusculum. He compares himself to Dionysius, who after being driven from Syracuse is said to have opened a school at Corinth. Cicero’s literary activity after B.C. 47 is the most remarkable passage in his life. He required to be doing something.

↑121 The allusion is to the story of Laertes in the Odyssey, i. 190, and xxiv. 226.

↑122 She was divorced some time in B.C. 46. The latest extant letter to Terentia is dated on the first of October, B.C. 47, from Venusia. Cicero was then on his road from Brundusium to Tusculanum. He orders his wife to have everything ready for him; some friends would probably be with him, and they might stay some time. The bath was to be got ready, and eatables, and everything else. A gentleman would write a more civil letter to his housekeeper.

In a letter to Cn. Plancius (Ad Diversos, ix. 14), who congratulates Cicero on his new marriage, he says that nothing would have induced him to take such a step at such a time, if he had not found on his return his domestic affairs even worse than public affairs. According to his own account he was hardly safe in his own house, and it was necessary to strengthen himself by new alliances against the perfidy of old ones. Terentia may have been a bad housekeeper, and her temper was not the sweetest. She could not have any feeling for her husband except contempt, and he repaid it by getting rid of her. Cicero had to repay the Dos of Terentia, but she never got it back, so far as we can learn.

It is not known what was the age of Terentia when she was divorced, but she could not be young. Yet there are stories of her marrying Sallustius, the historian, and after him Messala Corvinus, but the authority for these marriages is weak. She is said to have attained the age of one hundred and three. Terentia had a large property of her own. There is no imputation on her character, which, for those times, is much in her favour. She had courage in danger and firmness of purpose, both of which her husband wanted. “Her husband,” says Drumann, “who always looked for and needed some support, must often have acted under her influence: for him it was a fortunate thing to have such a woman by his side, and a scandal that he put her away.”

↑123 Her name was Publilia. Cicero was now sixty years of age. Various ladies had been recommended to Cicero. He would not marry the daughter of Pompeius Magnus, the widow of Faustus Sulla, perhaps for fear that it might displease Cæsar; another who was recommended to him was too ugly (Ad Attic. xiv. 11). Publilia was young and rich: her father had left her a large fortune, but in order to evade the Lex Voconia, which limited the amount that a woman could take by testament, the property was given to Cicero in trust to give it to her. The marriage turned out unhappy. In a letter to Atticus (xiv. 32), written when Cicero was alone in the country, he says that Publilia had written to pray that she might come to him with her mother; but he had told her that he preferred being alone, and he begs Atticus to let him know how long he could safely stay in the country without a visit from his young wife. Tullia died in B.C. 45, and Cicero had now no relief except in his studies; his new wife was a burden to him, and he divorced her. He had the Dos of Publilia now to repay, and Terentia was not settled with; thus, in addition to his other troubles, he was troubled about money (Ad Attic., xiv. 34, 47).

Dion Cassius (57. 15) says that Vibius Rufus, who was consul A.D. 22, in the time of Tiberius, married Cicero’s widow, and Middleton supposes that Terentia is meant, but this is very unlikely; Dion must mean Publilia.

↑124 Tiro was a freedman of Cicero, and had been brought up in his house. He had a good capacity and his master was strongly attached to him. Cicero’s letters to him are in the sixteenth book of the Miscellaneous Collection. It is said that Tiro collected the letters of Cicero after Cicero’s death, by doing which he has rendered a great service to history, and little to his master.

↑125 Tullia’s first husband was C. Calpurnius Piso Frugi, who died probably early in B.C. 57. In B.C. 56 Tullia married Furius Crassipes, from whom she was divorced, but the circumstances are not known. Her third husband was P. Cornelius Dolabella, a patrician. It seems that she was separated from Dolabella before she died. Tullia did not die in Rome, but at her father’s house at Tusculum, in February, B.C. 45. Tullia left one son by Dolabella, who was named Lentulus. His father, Dolabella, is also named Lentulus, whence it is concluded that he had been adopted by a Lentulus. The Lentuli were Cornelii.

↑126 Cæsar was murdered on the Ides of March, B.C. 44. The circumstances of Cæsar’s death, and the events which follow, are told in the Lives of Cæsar and Antonius. Cicero saw Cæsar fall (Ad Attic. xiv. 14), and he rejoiced.

↑127 An “oblivion” or “non-remembrance” is a declaration of those who have the sovereign power in a state, that certain persons shall be excused for their political acts. It implies that those who grant the amnesty have the power, and that those to whom it is granted are in subjection to them, or have not the political power which the authors of the amnesty assume. After Thrasybulus at Athens had overthrown the Thirty Tyrants as they are called, an amnesty was declared, but the Thirty and some few others were excluded from it (Xenophon, Hellen. ii. 4, 38).

Cicero in his first Philippic (c. 1) alludes to his attempt to bring about a settlement. The senate met on the eighteenth of March in the temple of Tellus: “In quo templo quantum in me fuit jeci fundamenta pacis, Atheniensiumque renovavi vetus exemplum: Græcum etiam verbum usurpavi quo tum in sedandis discordiis erat usa civitas illa, atque omnem memoriam discordiarum oblivione sempiterna delendam censui.”

↑128 P. Cornelius Dolabella, once the husband of Tullia, Cicero’s daughter. He was consul, after Cæsar’s death, with M. Antonius, and in the next year, B.C. 43, he was in Syria as governor. Cassius, who was also in Syria, attacked Dolabella and took Laodicea, where Dolabella was. To avoid falling into the hands of his enemy, Dolabella ordered a soldier to kill him.

↑129 A. Hirtius, or as Plutarch writes the name Irtius, and C. Vibius Pansa were the consuls of B.C. 53. Cicero set out from Rome soon after Cæsar’s death with the intention of going to Greece (Ad Attic. xiv.). He went as far as Syracuse, whence he returned to Rome, which he reached on the last day of August (Ad Diversos, xii. 25; Ad Attic. xvi. 7; Philipp. i. 5; v. 7). Cicero in the passage last referred to speaks of the violent measures of Antonius; “huc etiam nisi venirem Kal. Sept. fabros se missurum et domum meam disturbaturum esse dixit.” On the second of September he delivered his first Philippic in the Senate. It is an evidence of Cicero’s great mental activity that he wrote his Topica, addressed to Trebatius, on shipboard after he had set sail from Velia with the intention of going to Greece. He says that he had no books with him (Topica, c. 1, &c.).

↑130 C. Octavius, the grandson of Cæsar’s younger sister Julia, and the son of C. Octavius, prætor B.C. 61, by Atia, the daughter of M. Atius Balbus and Julia. C. Octavius, the young Cæsar, was born B.C. 63, in the consulship of Cicero. The dictator by his testament left him a large property and his name. Accordingly he is henceforth called C. Julius Cæsar Octavianus, but he is better known as the future Emperor Augustus. At the time of the Dictator’s assassination he was at Apollonia, a town on the coast of Illyricum. He came to Rome on the news of Cæsar’s death with his friend M. Vipsanius Agrippa. Cicero saw him at his Cuman villa on his way to Rome (Ad. Attic. xiv. 11, 12).

↑131 Plutarch probably means Greek drachmæ, for he states the sum in his Life of Antonius, c. 15, in round numbers at 4000 talents. The Septies Millies which Cicero speaks of (Philipp. ii. 37) is a different sum of money.

↑132 Cæsar’s mother had taken for her second husband L. Marcius Philippus. She just lived to see her youthful son consul in B.C. 43.

Octavia, the younger sister of Cæsar, was now the wife of C. Marcellus, who had been consul B.C. 50. After the death of Marcellus, she married M. Antonius (B.C. 40), being then with child by her deceased husband. The Roman law did not allow a woman to marry till ten months after her husband’s death; the object of the rule was to prevent the paternity of a child from being doubtful. Plutarch correctly states the time at ten months (Life of Antonius, c. 31). If Octavia was then with child, as Dion Cassius says (48. c. 3), the reason for the rule did not exist. In later times, at least, the rule was dispensed with when the reason for it ceased, as when a pregnant widow was delivered of a child before the end of the ten months. Ten months was the assumed time of complete gestation (Savigny, System, &c. ii. 181).

↑133 Young Cæsar had raised troops in Campania, and chiefly at Capua among the veteran soldiers of the dictator, who had been settled on lands there (Dion Cassius, 45. c. 12; Cicero, Ad Atticum, xvi. 8). He gave the men five hundred denarii apiece, about eighteen pounds sterling, by way of bounty, and led them to Rome. These men were old soldiers, well trained to their work. The youth who did this was nineteen years of age, a boy, as Cicero calls him; but a boy who outwitted him and everybody else, and maintained for more than half a century the power which he now seized.

↑134 Dreams were viewed in a sort as manifestations of the will of the gods. This dream happened, as Dion Cassius tells (45. c. 2), to Catulus; and he makes Cicero dream another dream. Cicero dreamed that Octavius was let down from heaven by a chain of gold, and was presented with a whip by Jupiter. Suetonius (Octav. Cæsar, c. 94) agrees with Dion Cassius. The whip was significant. Jupiter meant that somebody required whipping, and he put the whip in the hands of a youth who knew how to use it.

↑135 The young man cajoled the old one and made a tool of him. Like all vain men, Cicero was ready to be used by those who knew how to handle him. There is a letter from Brutus to Cicero (Ad Brutum, 16), and one of Brutus to Atticus (Ad Brutum, 17), to the purport here stated by Plutarch. But these letters may be spurious.

↑136 He was at Athens in B.C. 44, when Cicero addressed to him his Officia. He had been a year there (De Offic. i. 1) at the time when the first chapter was written. The poet Horatius was there at the same time. When M. Brutus came to Athens in the autumn of B.C. 44, Cicero joined Brutus, who gave him a command in his cavalry (Plutarch, Brutus, c. 24, 26).

↑137 The consuls were sent to relieve Mutina (Modena), in which Decimus Brutus, the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, was besieged by Antonius. Cicero had recommended the Senate to give Cæsar the authority of a commander. Cæsar received a command with the insignia of a prætor. There were two battles at Mutina, in April, B.C. 43, in which the two consuls fell.

↑138 It is stated by various authorities that Cicero was cajoled with the hopes of the consulship (Dion Cassius, 46. c. 42; Appian, Civil Wars, iii. 82). The testimony of the tenth letter to Brutus (Cicero Ad Brutum, 10) is not decisive against other evidence. Cæsar came to Rome in August, B.C. 43, with his army, and through the alarm which he created, was elected consul with Q. Pedius (Dion Cassius, 16. c. 43, &c.; Appian, Civil Wars, iii. 94).

↑139 After he was elected consul, Cæsar left the city for North Italy, and was joined by Antonius and Lepidus (Appian, Civil War, iii. 96, &c.). M. Æmilius Lepidus, son of M. Lepidus, consul B.C. 78, was consul in B.C. 46, with C. Julius Cæsar. He was elected Pontifex Maximus after Cæsar’s death: he had been declared an enemy of the State by the Senate, but Cæsar had compelled the Senate to annul their declaration against Antonius and Lepidus, as a preparatory step to the union with them which he meditated. Lepidus is painted to the life by Shakespeare (Julius Cæsar, iv. 2):

“Ant. This is a slight unmeritable man,

Meet to be sent on errands.”

↑140 Now Bologna. They met in a small island of the Rhenus, or Lavinius, as the name is in Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 2). The meeting is also described by Dion Cassius (46. c. 45), and here they formed a triumvirate for five years. The number of the proscribed, according to Appian, was three hundred senators and two thousand equites. The power of the triumvirate was confirmed at Rome in legal form (Appian, Civil Wars, iv. 7).

↑141 L. Æmilius Paulus, consul B.C. 50, who is said to have sold himself to the Dictator Cæsar (Life of Cæsar, c. 29). As to his name Paulus, see Drumann (Æmilii). Paulus was allowed to escape to M. Brutus, by the favour of some soldiers. He was as insignificant as his brother the Triumvir. L. Cæsar, consul B.C. 64, was the brother of Julia, the mother of M. Antonius. Julia saved her brother’s life. Lucius was a man of no mark.

↑142 The circumstances of Cicero’s death are told more minutely by Plutarch than by any other writer. He left the city before the arrival of the Triumviri in November, and apparently when the bloody work of the proscription had commenced. He had probably heard of his fate before he reached Tusculum.

↑143 Astura was a small place on the coast of Latium, a little south of Antium. Near Astura a small stream, Fiume Astura, flows into the sea. Cicero had a villa here. The country at the back was a forest. (Westphal, Die Römische Kampagne, and his maps.)

↑144 Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 20) says that the father told his murderers to kill him first, his son did the same, on which they were parted and murdered at the same time. Dion Cassius (47, c. 10) gives a different story. The main fact that they were murdered is not doubtful, but, as is usual, the circumstances are uncertain.

↑145 Or Circeii, now Monte Circello, that remarkable mountain promontory which is the only striking feature on the coast of Latium. The agony of Cicero’s mind is powerfully depicted in his irresolution. The times were such as to make even a brave man timid, but a true philosopher would have shown more resolution. His turning his steps towards Rome and his return are not improbable. He had been doing the same kind of thing all his life.

↑146 So in the text of Plutarch, but Caieta (Gaeta) is meant. Cicero had a villa at Formiæ, near Caieta, his Formianum, which he often mentions and which in his prosperous days was a favourite retreat.

The Appian road passed from Terracina through Fundi (Fondi) and Itri, whence there is a view of Gaeta. The next place is Formiæ, Mola di Gaeta, on the beautiful bay of Gaeta. There are numerous remains about the site of Formiæ, which of course are taken for Cicero’s villa. The site was doubtless near the Mola and the village Castiglione. The Formian villa was destroyed when Cicero was banished, but he received some compensation, and he rebuilt it.

↑147 This Popilius was C. Popilius Lænas, a military tribune, whom Cicero at the request of M. Cælius had once defended (Dion Cassius, 47. c. 11).

↑148 Plutarch’s narrative leads us to suppose that Cicero saw that his time was come and offered his neck to the murderers. Appian’s narrative (Civil Wars, iv. 20) is that Lænas drew Cicero’s head out of the litter and struck three blows before he severed it. He was so awkward at the work that the operation was like sawing the neck off.

Cicero was murdered on the 7th of December, B.C. 73, being nearly sixty-four years of age.

↑149 The same story is told by Appian, except that he mentions only the right hand. The murderer received for his pains a large sum of money, much more than was promised. It is hardly credible that Antonius placed the head of Cicero on a tablet at a banquet (Appian, Civil Wars, iv. 20). Though he hated Cicero and with good reason, such a brutal act is not credible of him, nor is it consistent with the story of the head being fixed on the Rostra; not to mention other reasons against the story that might be urged. Dion Cassius (47. c. 8) says that Fulvia, the wife of Antonius, pierced the tongue of Cicero with one of the pins which women wore in their hair, and added other insults. To make his story probable, he says that it was done before the head was fixed on the Rostra.

↑150 His name was Philogonus. The story about Philogonus is refuted by the silence of Tiro.

Pomponia, the wife of Quintus, was the sister of T. Pomponius Atticus, the friend of Cicero. She and her husband did not live in harmony.

↑151 These were Caius and Lucius, the sons of Cæsar’s daughter Julia by M. Vipsanius Agrippa.

↑152 Cæsar defeated Antonius at the battle of Actium, B.C. 31. Cicero’s son Marcus was made an augur, and he was consul with Cæsar in B.C. 30. He was afterwards proconsul of Asia. The time of his death is unknown. Cicero’s son had neither ambition nor ability. All that is certainly known of him is that he loved eating and drinking, for neither of which had his father any inclination. There are two letters of the son to Tiro extant (Cicero, Ad Diversos, xvi. 21, 25).

The Life of Cicero is only a sketch of Cicero’s character, but a better sketch than any modern writer has made. It does not affect to be a history of the times, nor does it affect to estimate with any exactness his literary merit. But there is not a single great defect in his moral character that is not touched, nor a virtue that has not been signalized. Those who would do justice to him and have not time to examine for themselves, may trust Plutarch at least as safely as any modern writer.

If in these notes I have occasionally expressed an unfavourable opinion directly or indirectly, I have expressed none that I do not believe true, and none for which abundant evidence cannot be produced, even from Cicero’s own writings. It is a feeble and contemptible criticism that would palliate or excuse that which admits not of excuse. It is a spurious liberality that would gloss over the vices and faults of men because they have had great virtues, and would impute to those who tell the whole truth a malignant pleasure in defaming and vilifying exalted merit. This assumed fair dealing and magnanimity would deprive us of the most instructive lessons that human life teaches—that all men have their weaknesses, their failings and their vices, and that no intellectual greatness is a security against them. “It is not absolutely railing against anything to proclaim its defects, because they are in all things to be found, how beautiful or how much to be coveted soever” (Montaigne). The failings of a great man are more instructive than those of an obscure man. They exhibit the weak points at which any man may be assailed, and in some of which no man is impregnable. Cicero’s writings have made us as familiar with him as with the writers of our own country, and there is hardly a European author of modern times who is more universally read than Cicero in some or other of his numerous compositions. His letters alone, which were never intended for publication, and were written to a great variety of persons as the events of the day prompted, furnish a mass of historical evidence, which, if we consider his position and the times in which he lived, is not surpassed by any similar collection. He is thus mixed up with the events of the most stirring and interesting period of his country’s history; and every person who studies that history must endeavour to form a just estimate of the character of a man who is both a great actor in public events and an important witness.

The Life of Cicero by Middleton is a partial work: the evidence is imperfectly examined and the author’s prejudices in favour of Cicero have given a false colouring to many facts. The most laborious life of Cicero is by Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Tullii), in which all the authorities are collected. In the ‘Penny Cyclopædia’ (art. ‘Cicero’) there is a good sketch of Cicero’s political career; and in the ‘Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology,’ edited by Dr. W. Smith, a very complete account of Cicero’s writings, distributed under their several heads.

Demosthenes v. Cicero

↑1 “Cedant arma togæ, concedat laurea linguæ.”

↑2 “Written,” because many of them were never spoken.

↑3 Augustus.

↑4 For some account of the evil repute of those who dealt in these insurances, see vol. ii., Life of Cato Major, ch. 21.

↑5 Plutarch uses the equivalent Greek word for ædile, but we know that Cicero went to Sicily as quæstor.

Demetrius

↑1 Antigonus, surnamed the one-eyed, King of Asia, was the son of Philip of Elymiotis. He was one of the generals of Alexander the Great.

↑2 Hor. Carm. ii. 19.

↑3 This was the holy robe of Athena, carried in procession through Athens at the Panathenaic festival. See Smith’s ‘Dict. of Antiq.,’ s.v.

↑4 A poisonous plant of the convolvulus kind.

↑5 An engine described by Amm. Marcell. 23. 4. 10, and also in Smith’s ‘Dict. of Antiq.’ art. ‘Helepolis.’ See also Athen. v. p. 206. d. for a description of these machines.

↑6 A mina weighed 100 drachmæ, 15·2 oz.

↑7 The Attic talent, which is probably meant, weighed about 57 lbs. avoird.

↑8 This is the famous picture of Ialysus and his dog, spoken of by Cicero and Pliny, in which the foam on the dog’s mouth was made by a happy throw of the sponge, while the painter in vexation was wiping off his previous unsuccessful attempts. (Clough.)

↑9 A nephew of Demosthenes.

↑10 Meaning that Stratokles would be mad not to continue his flattery of Demetrius, because it was so profitable to himself.

↑11 Hereditary chief minister in the mysteries.

↑12 The minor rite. See Smith’s ‘Dict. of Antiq.’ s.v. ‘Eleusinia.’

↑13 Lamia in Greek is the name of a fabulous monster, a bugbear to children.

↑14 A much more decent version of this story will be found in Rabelais, book iii. ch. 37.

↑15 The Thracian Chersonese.

↑16 The capital city of Seleukus, now Antioch.

↑17 Tyre and Sidon.

↑18 The usual Attic corn-measure, containing about 12 gallons.

↑19 A dry measure, containing a sixth of a medimnus, or about 2 gallons.

↑20 By the entrance commonly assigned to the principal person in a drama.—Thirlwall.

↑21 Alexander, Antipater’s younger brother.

↑22 Antigonus, surnamed Gonatas, afterwards King of Macedonia.

↑23 He laid siege to Thebes, the only important city in Bœotia, which seems to have quickly recovered itself after its destruction by Alexander.

↑24 O. Kardia.

↑25 See vol. ii., Life of Pyrrhus, ch. 7.

↑26 See ch. 10.

↑27 Wife of Ptolemy, King of Egypt.

↑28 B.C. 284.

Antonius

↑1 His death is told in the Life of Marius, c. 44.

↑2 The Antonia Gens contained both Patricians and Plebeians. The cognomen of the Patrician Antonii was Merenda. M. Antonius Creticus, a son of Antonius the orator, belonged to the Patricians. In B.C. 74 he commanded a fleet in the Mediterranean against the pirates. He attacked the Cretans on the ground of their connection with Mithridates; but he lost a large part of his fleet, and his captured men were hung on the ropes of their own vessels. He died shortly after of shame and vexation. The surname Creticus was given him by way of mockery. According to Dion Cassius (xlv. 47) he died deeply in debt. He left three sons, Marcus, Caius and Lucius. His eldest son Marcus was probably born in B.C. 83.

↑3 See the Life of Cicero, c. 22.

↑4 C. Scribonius Curio, the son of a father of the same name. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 58. The amount of debt is stated by Cicero (Philipp. ii. 18) at the same sum, “sestertium sexagies.”

↑5 He joined Aulus Gabinius at the end of B.C. 58. Gabinius and L. Calpurnius Piso were consuls in that year.

↑6 He was king and high priest of the Jews. Pompeius had taken him prisoner and sent him to Rome, whence he contrived to make his escape, B.C. 57. Gabinius again sent him prisoner to Rome (Dion Cass. xxxvi. 15; xxxix. 55).

↑7 Ptolemæus Auletes was the father of Cleopatra, and now an exile at Ephesus. His visit to Rome is mentioned in the Life of the younger Cato, c. 35, and in the Life of Pompeius, c. 49. During his exile his daughter Berenice reigned, and she was put to death by her father after his restoration.

↑8 This Greek word literally signifies “outbreak.” It was the narrow passage by which the Serbonian lake was connected with the Mediterranean. This lake lay on the coast and on the line of march from Syria to Pelusium, the frontier town of Egypt on the east.

↑9 Typhon, a brother of Osiris and Isis, was the evil deity of the Egyptians, but his influence in the time of Herodotus must have been small, as he was then buried under the Serbonian lake (Herodotus, iii. 5).

↑10 The Greek name is Erythra, which may be translated Red: the Romans called the same sea Rubrum. In Herodotus the Red Sea is called the Arabian Gulf; and the Erythræan sea is the Indian Ocean. See the Life of Pompeius, c. 38.

↑11 He was the son of Archelaus, the general of Mithridates. See the Life of Sulla, c. 23. He had become the husband of Berenice and shared the regal power with her. Probably Antonius had known Archelaus in his youth, for Archelaus the father went over from Mithridates to the Romans. Dion Cassius (xxxiv. 58) says that Gabinius put Archelaus to death after the capture of Alexandria. This Egyptian campaign belongs to B.C. 55.

↑12 This characteristic appears on the coins of Antonius.

↑13 Decies is literally “Ten times.” The phrase is “Decies sestertium,” which is a short way of expressing “ten times a hundred thousand sesterces.” When Plutarch says “five-and-twenty thousand,” he means drachmæ, as observed in previous notes, and he considers drachmæ as equivalent to Roman Denarii. Now a Denarius is four sesterces, and 25,000 Denarii = 1,000,000 sesterces, Kaltwasser suggests that in the Greek text “sestertium” has been accidentally omitted after “decies;” but “decies” is the reading of all the MSS., and it is sufficient.

↑14 Antonius, after returning from Egypt in B.C. 54, went to Cæsar in Gaul, who was then in winter-quarters after his return from the second British expedition. In B.C. 53 Antonius was again at Rome, and in B.C. 52 he was a Quæstor, and returned to Cæsar in Gaul. In B.C. 50 he was again in Rome, in which year he was made Augur, and was elected Tribunus Plebis for the following year.

Compare with this chapter the Life of Pompeius, c. 58, and the Life of Cæsar, c. 31.

↑15 Quintus Cassius Longinus is called by Cicero a brother of C. Cassius; but Drumann conjectures that he may have been a cousin. After the defeat of Afranius and Petreius by Cæsar B.C. 49, he was made Proprætor of Spain.

↑16 This expression of Cicero occurs in his Second Philippic, c. 22: “ut Helena Trojanis, sic iste huic reipublicæ causa belli, causa pestis atque exitii fuit.” Plutarch’s remark on Cicero’s extravagant expression is just.

As to the events mentioned in this chapter, compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 34, &c.

↑17 Cæsar returned from Iberia (Spain) before the end of B.C. 49. Early in B.C. 48 he crossed over from Brundusium to the Illyrian coast, where he was joined by Antonius and Fufius Calenus.

↑18 Gabinius took his troops by land, and consequently had to march northwards along the Adriatic and round the northern point of it to reach Illyricum. From Plutarch’s narrative it would appear that he set out about the same time as Antonius. Drumann (Cornificii, 3) states that the time of his leaving Italy is incorrectly stated by Plutarch, Appian, and Dion Cassius (xlii. 11), and he places it after the battle of Pharsalus (B.C. 48). Gabinius, after a hard march, reached Salonæ in Dalmatia, where he was besieged by M. Octavius and died of disease.

↑19 L. Scribonius Libo commanded the ships before Brundusium with the view of preventing Antonius from crossing over to Macedonia. He was the father-in-law of Sextus Pompeius, the son of Pompeius Magnus; and Cæsar Octavianus afterwards married Libo’s sister Scribonia, as a matter of policy.

↑20 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 44.

↑21 P. Cornelius Dolabella, the son-in-law of Cicero, who complains of his measures (Ep. Ad Attic. xi. 12, 14, 15; xiv. 21). Dolabella was in debt himself and wished to be relieved. If he had lived in England, he could easily have got relief. The story is told by Dion Cassius (xlii. 29). The Romans occasionally proposed sweeping measures for the settlement of accounts between debtor and creditor. A modern nation has a permanent court for “the relief of insolvent debtors;” and a few years ago a statute was passed in England (7 & 8 Vict. c. 96), which had the direct effect of cancelling all debts under 20l.; the debtors for whose relief it was passed were well pleased, but the creditors grumbled loudly, and it was amended. Those who blame the Roman system of an occasional settlement of debts, should examine the operation of a permanent law which has the same object; and they will be assisted in comparing English and Roman morality on this point by J.H. Elliott’s ‘Credit the Life of Commerce,’ London, Madden and Malcolm, 1845.

↑22 Fadia was the first wife of Antonius. His cousin Antonia was the second. Cicero’s chief testimony against Antonius is contained in his Second Philippic, which is full of vulgar abuse, both true and false.

↑23 She was sometimes called Volumnia, because she was a favourite of Volumnius. Cicero (Ad Div. ix. 26) speaks of dining in her company at the house of Volumnius Eutrapolus.

↑24 Her first husband was P. Clodius, and she was his second wife. She had two children by Clodius, a son and a daughter. The daughter married Cæsar Octavianus B.C. 43 (c. 20). After the death of Clodius she married C. Scribonius Curio, the friend of Antonius, by whom she had one son, who was put to death by Cæsar after the battle of Actium. Curio perished in Africa B.C. 49. In B.C. 46 Antonius married Fulvia, after divorcing Antonia, and he had two sons by her. Fulvia was very rich.

↑25 Cæsar returned from Iberia in the autumn of B.C. 45, after gaining the battle of Munda. He was consul for the fifth time in B.C. 44 with Antonius; and also Dictator with M. Æmilius Lepidus for his Magister Equitum.

↑26 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 61.

↑27 Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 67, and of Brutus, c. 16.

↑28 Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68, and of Brutus, c. 20. Dion Cassius (xliv. 36-49) has given a long oration which Antonius made on the occasion. It is not improbable that Dion may have had before him an oration attributed to Antonius; nor is it at all improbable that the speech of Antonius was published (Cic. Ad Attic. xiv. 11). Meyer (Oratorum Romanorum Frag. p. 455) considers this speech a fiction of Dion and to be pure declamation. He thinks that which Appian has made (Civil Wars, ii. 144, &c.) tolerably well adapted to the character of Antonius. Appian, we know, often followed very closely genuine documents. Shakespere has made a speech for Antonius (Julius Cæsar) which would have suited the occasion well.

↑29 Charon was the ferryman over the river in the world below, which the dead had to pass; hence the application of the term is intelligible. The Romans’ expression was Orcini, from Orcus (Sueton. August. c. 35).

↑30 See the Life of Cicero, c. 43, and Dion Cassius (xlv. 5) as to the matter of the inheritance. A person who accepted a Roman inheritance (hereditas) took it with all the debts: the heir (heres), so far as concerned the deceased’s property, credits and debts, was the same person as himself. There was no risk in taking the inheritance on account of debts, for Cæsar left enormous sums of money: the risk was in taking the name and with it the wealth and odium of the deceased. Cæsar might have declined the inheritance, for he was not bound by law to take it. Cæsar had three-fourths of the Dictator’s property, and Q. Pedius, also a great-nephew of the Dictator, had the remainder.

↑31 See the Life of Cicero, c. 44.

↑32 Consuls in B.C. 43. See the Life of Cicero, c. 45. As to the speech of Cicero, see Dion Cassius, xlv. 18, &c.

↑33 Lepidus was in Gallia Narbonensis. He advanced towards Antonius as far as Forum Vocontiorum, and posted himself on the Argenteus, now the Argens. (Appian, Civil Wars, iii. 83; Dion. Cass. xlvi. 51, &c.; Letter of Munatius Plancus to Cicero, Ad Div. x. 17; Letter of Lepidus to Cicero, Ad Div. x. 34.) Lepidus and Antonius joined their forces on the 29th of May, and Lepidus informed the Senate of the event in a letter, which is extant (Cic. Ad Div. x. 35).

↑34 Cotylon is “cupman,” or any equivalent term that will express a drinker.

↑35 See the Life of Cicero, c. 46.

↑36 Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 2) states how they divided the empire among them; and Dion Cassius, xlvi. 55.

↑37 Cæsar was already betrothed to Servilia, the daughter of P. Servilius Isauricus. When he quarrelled with Fulvia, he sent her back to her mother, still a maid. (Dion Cass. xlvi. 56.)

↑38 The number that was put to death was much larger than three hundred. Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 5) states the number of those who were proscribed and whose property was confiscated at about 300 senators and 2000 equites. The object of the proscription was to get rid of troublesome enemies and to raise money. The picture which Appian gives of the massacre is as horrible as the worst events of the French Revolution. He has drawn a striking picture by giving many individual instances. Dion Cassius (xlvii. 3-8) has also described the events of the proscription.

↑39 This was a crime which would shock the Romans, for the Three not only seized deposits, which the depositary was legally bound to give to the owner, but they seized them in the hands of the Vestals, where they were protected by the sanctity of religion.

↑40 Compare the Life of Brutus, c. 41, &c., as to the events in this chapter.

↑41 See the Life of Brutus, c. 26, &c.

↑42 Antonius crossed over to Asia in B.C. 41. In the latter part of B.C. 42, Cæsar was ill at Brundusium, and in B.C. 41 he was engaged in a civil war with L. Antonius, the brother of Marcus, and Fulvia the wife of Antonius. These are the civil commotions to which Plutarch alludes. Cæsar besieged L. Antonius in Perusia in B.C. 41, and took him prisoner.

↑43 He was a prætor in B.C. 43, and consul in B.C. 39.

↑44 The great distinctions that he received are recorded by Strabo (xiv. p. 648, ed. Casaub.). It is not in modern times only that dancers and fiddlers have received wealth and honours.

↑45 The quotation is from the King Œdipus, v. 4.

↑46 Bacchus had many names, as he had various qualities. As Omestes he was the “cruel;” and as Agrionius the “wild and savage.” One of his festivals was called Agrionia.

↑47 He was an orator, and also something of a soldier, for he successfully opposed Labienus, B.C. 40, when he invaded Asia (c. 28).

↑48 There are many ways of flattery, as there are many ways of doing various things. Plutarch here gives a hint, which persons in high places might find useful. Open flattery can only deceive a fool, and it is seldom addressed to any but a fool, unless the flatterer himself be so great a fool as not to know a wise man from a foolish: which is sometimes the case. But there is flattery, as Plutarch intimates, which addresses itself, not in the guise of flattery, but in the guise of truth, one of the characters of which is plain speaking. It is hard for a man in an exalted station to be always proof against flattery, for it is often not easy to detect it. Nor in the intercourse of daily life is it always easy to distinguish between him who gives you his honest advice and opinion, and him who gives it merely to please you, or, what is often worse, merely to please himself.

↑49 Nothing is known of him, unless he be the person mentioned in c. 59. Kaltwasser conjectures that he may be the Dellius or Delius to whom Horace has addressed an ode. (Carm. iii. 2). See c. 1, note.

↑50 Plutarch alludes to the passage in Homer (Iliad, xiv. 162) where Juno bedecks herself to captivate Jupiter.

↑51 She was now about twenty-eight years of age. Kaltwasser suggests that the words “and Cnæus the son of Pompeius” must be an interpolation, because nothing is known of his amours with Cleopatra. But if this be so, other words which follow in the next sentence must have been altered when the interpolation was made.

↑52 Antonius was at Tarsus on the river Cydnus when Cleopatra paid him this visit, B.C. 41. Shakespere has used this passage of Plutarch in his “Antony and Cleopatra,” act ii. sc. 2—

“The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,

Burnt on the water,” &c.

↑53 Plutarch has given a long list of languages which this learned queen spoke. With Arabic and all the cognate dialects, it is probable enough that she was familiar, but we can hardly believe that she took pains to learn the barbarous language of the wretched Troglodytes, who lived in holes on the west coast of the Red Sea. Diodorus (iii. 32) describes their habits after the authority of Agatharchides.

Cleopatra’s face on the coins is not handsome. On some of them she is represented on the same coin with Antonius.

↑54 He was a son of T. Labienus, who served under Cæsar in Gaul and afterwards went over to Pompeius (Life of Cæsar, c. 34). The father fell in the battle of Munda, B.C. 45.

Labienus, the son, was sent by the party of Brutus and Cassius to Parthia to get assistance from king Orodes. He heard of the battle of Philippi while he was in Parthia and before he had accomplished his mission; and he stayed with the Parthians. In the campaign here alluded to Labienus and the Parthians took Apameia and Antiocheia in Syria. Labienus, after invading the south-western part of Asia Minor (B.C. 40), was forced to fly before Ventidius; and he was seized in Cilicia by a freedman of Julius Cæsar. (Dion Cass. xlviii. 40.)

↑55 Amphissa was a town of the Locri Ozolæ.

Philotas studied at Alexandria, which was then a great school of medicine. We have here an anecdote about Antonius which rests on more direct testimony than many well-received stories of modern days.

The bragging physician must have been a stupid fellow to be silenced by such a syllogism. I have translated πως πυρέττων, like Kaltwasser, “Wer einigermassen das Fieber hat,” &c., which is the correct translation.

The text probably means that Philotas was appointed physician to Antyllus.

↑56 The passage to which Plutarch alludes is in the Gorgias, p. 464.

↑57 A great trade was carried on in those times in dried fish from the Pontic or Black Sea. See Strabo, p. 320, ed. Casaub.

↑58 It was near the end of B.C. 40 that Antonius was roused from his “sleep and drunken debauch.” He sailed from Alexandria to Tyrus in Phoenicia, and thence by way of Cyprus and Rhodes to Athens, where he saw Fulvia, who had escaped thither from Brundusium. He left her sick at Sikyon, and crossed from Corcyra (Corfu) to Italy. (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 52-55.) Brundusium shut her gates against him, on which he commenced the siege of the city. The war was stopped by the reconciliation that is mentioned in the text, to which the news of the death of Fulvia greatly contributed. Antonius had left her at Sikyon without taking leave of her, and vexation and disease put an end to her turbulent life. (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 59.)

↑59 See the Life of Cicero, c. 44, note.

↑60 The meeting with, Sextus Pompeius was in B.C. 39, at Cape Miseno, which is the northern point of the Gulf of Naples.

Sextus was the second son of Pompeius Magnus. He was now master of a large fleet, and having the command of the sea, he cut off the supplies from Rome. The consequence was a famine and riots in the city. (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 67, &c.) Antonius slaughtered many of the rioters, and their bodies were thrown into the Tiber. This restored order; “but the famine,” says Appian, “was at its height, and the people groaned and were quiet.”

↑61 P. Ventidius Bassus was what the Romans call a “novus homo,” the first of his family who distinguished himself at Rome. He had the courage of a soldier and the talents of a true general. When a child he was made prisoner with his mother in the Marsian war (Dion Cass. xliii. 51), and he appeared in the triumphal procession of Pompeius Strabo (Dion Cass. xlix. 21). The captive lived to figure as the principal person in his own triumph, B.C. 38. In his youth he supported himself by a mean occupation. Hoche, when he was a common soldier, used to embroider waistcoats. Julius Cæsar discovered the talents of Bassus, and gave him employment suited to his abilities. In B.C. 43 he was Prætor and in the same year Consul Suffectus. (Drumann, Antonii, p. 439; Gell. xv. 4.)

↑62 Cockfighting pleased a Roman, as it used to do an Englishman. The Athenians used to fight quails.

↑63 The name is written indifferently Hyrodes or Orodes (see the Life of Crassus, c. 18).

Plutarch, on this as on many other occasions, takes no pains to state facts with accuracy. Labienus lost his life and the Parthians were defeated; and that was enough for his purpose. The facts are stated more circumstantially by Dion Cassius (xlviii. 40, 41).

↑64 The president of the gymnastic exercises. Dion Cassius (xlviii. 39) tells us something that is characteristic of Antonius. The fulsome flattery of the Athenians gave him on this occasion the title of the young Bacchus, and they betrothed the goddess Minerva to him. Antonius said he was well content with the match; and to show that he was in earnest he demanded of them a contribution of one million drachmæ as a portion with his new wife. He thus fleeced them of about 2800l. sterling. No doubt Antonius relished the joke as well as the money.

↑65 The sacred olive was in the Erektheium on the Acropolis of Athens. Pausanias (i. 28) mentions a fountain on the Acropolis near the Propylæa; and this is probably what Plutarch calls Clepsydra, or a water-clock. The name Clepsydra is given to a spring in Messenia by Pausanias (iv. 31). Kaltwasser supposes the name Clepsydra to have been given because such a spring was intermittent. Such a spring the younger Pliny describes (Ep. iv. 30).

↑66 The defeat of Pacorus (B.C. 38) is told by Dion Cassius (xlix. 19). The ode of Horace (Carm. iii. 6) in which he mentions Pacorus seems to have been written before this victory, and after the defeat of Decidius Saxa (B.C. 40; Dion, xlviii. 25).

↑67 Commagene on the west bordered on Cilicia and Cappadocia. The capital was Samosata, on the Euphrates, afterwards the birthplace of Lucian. This Antiochus was attacked by Pompeius B.C. 65, who concluded a peace with him and extended his dominions (Appian Mithrid. 106, &c.).

↑68 C. Sossius was made governor of Syria and Cilicia by Antonius. He took the island and town of Aradus on the coast of Phoenice (B.C. 38); and captured Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, in Jerusalem.

↑69 P. Canidius Crassus. His campaign against the Iberi of Asia is described by Dion Cassius (xlix. 24).

↑70 Antonius and Cæsar met at Tarentum (Taranto) in the spring of B.C. 37. The events of this meeting are circumstantially detailed by Appian (Civil Wars, v. 93, &c.). Dion Cassius (xlviii. 54) says that the meeting was in the winter.

↑71 M. Vipsanius Agrippa, the constant friend of Cæsar, and afterwards the husband of his daughter Julia. Mæcenas, the patron of Virgil and Horace.

↑72 Μυοπάρωνες are said to be light ships, such as pirates use, adapted for quick sailing.

↑73 Cæsar spent this year in making preparation against Sextus Pompeius. In B.C. 36 Pompeius was defeated on the coast of Sicily. He fled into Asia, and was put to death at Miletus by M. Titius, who commanded under Antonius (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 97-121).

↑74 The passage to which Plutarch alludes is in the Phædrus, p. 556.

↑75 That is, the Ocean, as opposed to the Internal Sea or the Mediterranean. Kaltwasser proposes to alter the text to “internal sea,” for no sufficient reason.

↑76 This was the Antigonus who fell into the hands of Sossius, when he took Jerusalem on the Sabbath, as Pompeius Magnus had done. (Life of Pompeius, 39; Dion Cassius, xlix. 22, and the notes of Reimarus.) Antigonus was tied to a stake and whipped before he was beheaded. The kingdom of Judæa was given to Herodes, the son of Antipater.

↑77 Plutarch probably alludes to some laws of Solon against bastardy.

↑78 A common name of the Parthian kings (see the Life of Crassus, c. 33). This Parthian war of Antonius took place in B.C. 36.

↑79 See Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles, c. 29. It was an eastern fashion to grant a man a country, or a town and its district, for his maintenance and to administer. Fidelity to the giver was of course expected. The gift was a kind of fief.

↑80 Among the Persians, and as it here appears among the Parthians, “to send a right hand” was an offer of peace and friendship (Xenophon, Anab. ii. 4, who uses the expression “right hands”).

↑81 The desert tract in the northern part of Mesopotamia is meant.

↑82 There is error as to the number of cavalry of Artavasdes either here or in c. 50. See the notes of Kaltwasser and Sintenis: and as to Artavasdes, Life of Crassus, c. 19, 33, and Dion Cassius, xlix. 25.

↑83 No doubt Iberians of Spain are meant.

↑84 Was the most south-western part of Media, and it comprehended the chief part of the modern Azerbijan.

↑85 Dion Cassius (xlix. 25) names the place Phraaspa or Praaspa, which may be the right name. The position of the place and the direction of the march of Antonius are unknown.

↑86 Was a king of Pontus: he was ransomed for a large sum of money. Reimarus says in a note to Dion Cassius (xlix. 25) that Plutarch states that Polemon was killed. The learned editor must have read this chapter carelessly.

↑87 See Life of Crassus, c. 10.

↑88 οἱ γνωριμώτατοι, which Kaltwasser translates “those who were most acquainted with the Romans;” and his translation may be right.

↑89 Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, which is the Roman mode of writing the word. He was the son of Domitius who was taken by Cæsar in Corfinium (Life of Cæsar, c. 34); and he is the Domitius who deserted Antonius just before the battle of Actium (c. 63).

↑90 The Mardi inhabited a tract on the south coast of the Caspian, where there was a river Mardus or Amardus.

Plutarch has derived his narrative of the retreat from some account by an eye-witness, but though it is striking as a picture, it is quite useless as a military history. The route is not designated any further than this, that Antonius had to pass through a plain and desert country. It is certain that he advanced considerably east of the Tigris, and he experienced the same difficulties that Crassus did in the northern part of Mesopotamia. (Strabo, p. 523, ed. Casaub. as to the narrative of Adelphius, and Casaubon’s note.)

↑91 These were used by the slingers (funditores) in the Roman army.

↑92 ἐπ’ οὐρὰν, Sintenis: but the MS. reading is ἀπ’ οὐρᾶς, “from the rear.” See the note of Schaefer, and of Sintenis.

↑93 Contrary to Parthian practice. Compare the Life of Crassus, c. 27.

↑94 These are the soldiers in full armour. Sintenis refers to the Life of Crassus, c. 25. See life of Antonius, c. 49, οἱ δὲ ὁπλῖται … τοῖς θυρεοῖς.

↑95 The Romans called this mode of defence Testudo, or tortoise. It is described by Dion Cassius (xlix. 30). The testudo was also used in assaulting a city or wall. A cut of one from the Antonine column is given in Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities, art. Testudo.

↑96 The forty-eighth part of a medimnus. The medimnus is estimated at 11 gal. 7·1456 pints English. The drachma (Attic) is reckoned at about 9-3/4d. (Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities.) But the scarcity is best shown by the fact that barley bread was as dear as silver. Compare Xenophon (Anab. i. 5, 6) as to the prices in the army of Cyrus, when it was marching through the desert.

↑97 The allusion is to the retreat of the Greeks in the army of Cyrus from the plain of Cunaxa over the highlands of Armenia to Trapezus (Trebizond); which is the main subject of the Anabasis of Xenophon.

↑98 Salt streams occur on the high lands of Asia. Mannert, quoted by Kaltwasser, supposes that the stream here spoken of is one that flows near Tabriz and then joins another river. If this were the only salt stream that Antonius could meet with on his march, the conclusion of the German geographer might be admitted.

↑99 The modern Aras. The main branch of the river rises in the same mountain mass in which a branch of the Euphrates rises, about 39° 47’ N. lat., 41° 9’ E. long. It joins the Cyrus or Kur, which comes from the Caucasus, about thirty miles above the entrance of the united stream into the Caspian Sea. Mannert, quoted by Kaltwasser, conjectures that Antonius crossed the river at Julfa (38° 54’ N. lat.). It is well to call it a conjecture. Any body may make another, with as much reason. Twenty-seven days’ march (c. 50) brought the Romans from Phraata to the Araxes, but the point of departure and the point where the army crossed the Araxes are both unknown.

↑100 The second expedition of Antonius into Armenia was in B.C. 34, when he advanced to the Araxes. After the triumph, Artavasdes was kept in captivity, and he was put to death by Cleopatra in Egypt after the battle of Actium, B.C. 30 (Dion Cassius xlix. 41, &c).

↑101 Compare Dion Cassius, xlix. 51.

↑102 The name is written both Phraates and Phrates in the MSS.

↑103 She went to Athens in B.C. 35.

↑104 In B.C. 34, Antonius invaded Armenia and got Artavasdes the king into his power. The Median king with whom Antonius made this marriage alliance (B.C. 33) was also named Artavasdes. Alexander, the son of Antonius by Cleopatra, was married to Jotape, a daughter of this Median king.

↑105 This is Plutarch’s word. Its precise meaning is not clear, but it may be collected from the context. It was something like a piece of theatrical pomp.

↑106 Or Cidaris. (See Life of Pompeius, c. 33.) The Cittaris seems to be the higher and upright part of the tiara; and sometimes to be used in the same sense as tiara. The Causia was a Macedonian hat with a broad brim. (See Smith’s Dict. of Antiquities.)

↑107 After the defeat of Sextus Pompeius, Lepidus made a claim to Sicily and attempted a campaign there against Cæsar. But this feeble man was compelled to surrender. He was deprived of all power, and sent to live in Italy. He still retained his office of Pontifex Maximus (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 126; Dion Cassius, xlix. 11).

↑108 This is an emendation of Amiot in place of the corrupt word Laurians.

↑109 The preparation was making in B.C. 32. Antonius spent the winter of this year at Patræ in Achæa.

↑110 An account of these exactions is given by Dion Cassius (l. 10). They show to what a condition a people can be reduced by tyranny.

↑111 Such is the nature of the people. It is hard to rouse them; and their patience is proved by all the facts of history.

↑112 It was usual with the Romans, at least with men of rank, to deposit their wills with the Vestals for safe keeping.

↑113 This great library at Alexandria is said to have been destroyed during the Alexandrine war. See the Life of Cæsar, c. 49.

↑114 The translators are much puzzled to explain this. Kaltwasser conjectures that Antonius in consequence of losing some wager was required to do this servile act; and accordingly he translates part of the Greek text “in consequence of a wager that had been made.”

↑115 The only person of the name who is known as an active partizan at this time was C. Furnius, tribune of the plebs, B.C. 50. He was a legatus under M. Antonius in Asia in B.C. 35. Here Plutarch represents him as a partizan of Cæsar. If Plutarch’s Furnius was the tribune, he must have changed sides already. As to his eloquence, there is no further evidence of it than what we have here.

↑116 C. Calvisius Sabinus, who was consul B.C. 39 with L. Marcius Censorinus.

↑117 The name occurs in Horace, 1 Sat. 5; but the two may be different persons. As to the Roman Deliciæ see the note of Coraes; and Suetonius, Augustus, c. 83.

↑118 Dion Cassius (1. 4) also states that war was declared only against Cleopatra, but that Antonius was deprived of all the powers that had been given to him.

↑119 Now Pesaro in Umbria.

↑120 See Pausanias, i. 25. 2.

↑121 The text of Bryan has, “and Deiotarus, king of the Galatians:” and Schaefer follows it. But see the note of Sintenis.

↑122 Actium is a promontory on the southern side of the entrance of the Ambraciot Gulf, now the gulf of Arta. It is probably the point of land now called La Punta. The width of the entrance of the gulf is about half a mile. Nicopolis, “the city of Victory,” was built by Cæsar on the northern side of the gulf, a few miles from the site of Prevesa. The battle of Actium was fought on the 2nd of September, B.C. 31. It is more minutely described by Dion Cassius (l. 31, &c.; li. 1).

↑123 This word means something to stir up a pot with, a ladle or something of the kind. The joke is as dull as it could be.

↑124 Sintenis observes that Plutarch has here omitted to mention the place of Arruntius, who had the centre of Cæsar’s line (c. 66). C. Sossius commanded the left of the line of Antonius. Insteius is a Roman name, as appears from inscriptions. Taurus is T. Statilius Taurus.

↑125 There is some confusion in the text here, but the general meaning is probably what I have given. See the note of Sintenis.

↑126 These were light vessels adapted for quick evolutions. Horace, Epod. i., alludes to them:—

“Ibis Liburnis inter alta navium,

Amice, propugnacula.”

↑127 Is the most southern point of the Peloponnesus, in Laconica. The modern name of Tænarus is Matapan or “head.”

↑128 Dion Cassius (li. 2) gives an account of Cæsar’s behaviour after the battle. He exacted money from the cities; but Dion does not mention any particular cities.

↑129 By “all the citizens” Plutarch means the citizens of his native town Chæronea. The people had to carry their burden a considerable distance, for this Antikyra was on the Corinthian gulf, nearly south of Delphi. This anecdote, which is supported by undoubted authority, is a good example of the sufferings of the people during this contest for power between two men.

↑130 This was a town on the coast in the country called Marmarica. It had a port and was fortified, and thus served as a frontier post to Egypt against attacks from the west.

↑131 See the Life of Brutus, c. 50.

↑132 He was L. Pinarius Carpus, who had fought under him at Philippi. Carpus gave up his troops to Cornelius Gallus, who advanced upon him from the province Africa (Dion. Cass. 1. 5, where he is called Scarpus in the text of Reimarus).

↑133 Or “Sea that lies off Egypt,” that part of the Mediterranean which borders on Egypt. The width of the Isthmus is much more than 300 stadia: it is about seventy-two miles. Herodotus (ii. 158) states the width more correctly at one thousand stadia.

In this passage Plutarch calls the Red Sea both the Arabian gulf and the Erythra (Red), and in this he agrees with Herodotus. The Arabian Gulf or modern Red Sea was considered a part of the great Erythræan Sea or Indian Ocean. Herodotus (ii. 11) says that there is a gulf which runs into the land from the Erythræan sea; and this gulf he calls (ii. 11, 158) the Arabian gulf, which is now the Red Sea. See Anton, c. 3.

↑134 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 41.

↑135 The Pharos was an island opposite to Alexandria, and connected with it by a dike called Heptastadion, the length being seven stadia.

↑136 Shakspere has made a play out of the meagre subject of Timon, and Lucian has a dialogue entitled “Timon or the Misanthropist.” (Comp. Strab. 794, ed. Cas.)

↑137 This was the second day of the third Dionysiac festival, called the Anthesteria. The first day was Pithœgia (πιθοιγία) or the tapping of the jars of wine; and the second day, as the word Choes seems to import, was the cup day.

↑138 This was Herodes I., son of Antipater, sometimes called the Great. He was not at the battle of Actium, but he sent aid to Antonius (c. 61).

↑139 This was the toga virilis, or dress which denoted that a male was pubes, fourteen at least, and had attained full legal capacity. The prætexta, which was worn up to the time of assuming the toga virilis, had a broad purple border, by which the impubes was at once distinguished from other persons.

Cleopatra’s son, Cæsarion, was registered as an Alexandrine. The son of Antonius was treated as a Roman citizen.

↑140 This seems to be the sense of the passage. The Greek for asp is aspis. Some suppose that it is the poisonous snake which the Arabs call El Haje, which measures from three to five feet in length. But this is rather too large to be put in a basket of figs.

↑141 Conjectured by M. du Soul to be Alexander the Syrian, who has been mentioned before.

↑142 He was a native of Alexandria, and had been carried prisoner to Rome by Gabinius. He obtained his freedom, and acquired celebrity as a rhetorician and historian. He was a favourite of Asinius Pollio and of Augustus; but he was too free-spoken for Augustus, who finally forbade him his house (Horat. 1. Ep. l, 19; and the note of Orelli). Life of Pompeius, c. 49.

Dion Cassius (li. 8), who believed every scandalous story, says that Cæsar made love to Cleopatra through the medium of Thyrsus.

↑143 After the battle of Actium, Cæsar crossed over to Samos, where he spent the winter. He was recalled by the news of a mutiny among the soldiers, who had not received their promised reward. He returned to Brundusium, where he stayed twenty-seven days, and he went no further, for his appearance in Italy stopped the disturbance. He returned to Asia and marched through Syria to Egypt (Sueton. Aug. c. 17; Dion Cassius, li. 4).

↑144 The shout of Bacchanals at the festivals. See the Ode of Horace (Carm. ii. 19):

Evoe, recenti mens trepidat metu.

↑145 The fleet passed over to Cæsar on the 1st of August (Orosius, vi. 19). The treachery of Cleopatra is not improbable (Dion Cass. li. 10).

↑146 Compare Dion Cassius, li. 10.

↑147 His name was C. Proculeius. He appears to be the person to whom Horace alludes (Carm. ii. 2).

↑148 Dion Cassius (li. 11) says that Cleopatra communicated to Cæsar the death of Antonius, which is not so probable as Plutarch’s narrative.

↑149 C. Cornelius Gallus, a Roman Eques, who had advanced from the province Africa upon Egypt. He was afterwards governor of Egypt; but he incurred the displeasure of Augustus, and put an end to life B.C. 26. Gallus was a poet, and a friend of Virgil and Ovid. The tenth Eclogue of Virgil is addressed to Gallus.

↑150 Said to have been a Stoic, and much admired by Augustus (Dion Cass. li. 16; Sueton. Aug. 89).

↑151 Probably the same that is mentioned in the Life of Cato the Younger, c. 57.

↑152 The circumstances of the death of Antyllus and Cæsarion are not told in the same way by Dion Cassius (li. 15). Antyllus had been betrothed to Cæsar’s daughter Julia in B.C. 36.

↑153 The words are borrowed from Homer (Iliad, ii. 204):—

Οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη.

There could be no reason for putting Cæsarion to death as a possible competitor with Cæsar at Rome, for he was not a Roman citizen. As it was Cæsar’s object to keep Egypt, Cæsarion would have been an obstacle there.

↑154 There were, as usual in such matters, various versions of this interview: it was a fit subject for embellishment with the writers of spurious history. The account of Plutarch is much simpler and more natural than that of Dion Cassius (li. 12), which savours of the rhetorical.

↑155 He was the son of P. Cornelius Dolabella, once the son-in-law of Cicero, and one of Cæsar’s murderers. His son P. Cornelius Dolabella was consul A.D. 10.

↑156 The word “companions” represents the Roman “comites,” which has a technical meaning. Young men of rank, who were about the person of a commander, and formed a kind of staff, were his Comites. See Horat. I. Ep. 8.

↑157 The story of Dion (li. 14) is that Cæsar, after he had seen the body, sent for the Psylli, serpent charmers, to suck out the poison (compare Lucan, Pharsal. ix. 925). If a person was not dead, it was supposed that the Psylli could extract the poison and save the life.

Dion Cassius also states that the true cause of Cleopatra’s death was unknown. One account was that she punctured her arm with a hair-pin (βελόνη) which was poisoned. But even as to the punctures on the arm, Plutarch does not seem to state positively that there were any. The “hollow comb” is hardly intelligible. Plutarch’s word is κνηστίς, “a scraping instrument of any kind.” One MS. has κιστίς, “a small coffer.” Strabo (p. 795, ed. Casaub.) doubts whether she perished by the bite of a serpent or by puncturing herself with a poisoned instrument. Propertius (iii. 11, 53) alludes to the image of Cleopatra, which was carried in the triumph—

Brachia spectavi sacris admorsa colubris

Et trahere occultum membra soporis iter.

An ancient marble at Rome represents Cleopatra with the asp on her arm. There was also a story of her applying it to the left breast.

Cleopatra was born in B.C. 69, and died in the latter part of B.C. 30. She was seventeen years of age when her father Ptolemæus Auletes died: and upon his death she governed jointly with her brother Ptolemæus, whose wife she was to be. Antonius first saw her when he was in Egypt with Gabinius, and he had not forgotten the impression which the young girl then made on him at the time when she visited him at Tarsus (Appian, Civil Wars, v. 8). Antonius was forty years old when he saw Cleopatra at Tarsus, B.C. 41, and he would therefore be in his fifty-second year at the time of his death (Clinton, Fasti).

↑158 Octavia’s care of the children of Antonius is one of the beautiful traits of her character. She is one of those Roman women whose virtues command admiration.

Cleopatra, the daughter of Antonius and twin sister of Alexander, married Juba II., king of Numidia, by whom she had a son Ptolemæus, who succeeded his father, and a daughter Drusilla, who married Antonius Felix, the governor of Judæa. The two brothers of Cleopatra were Alexander and Ptolemæus.

Antonius, the son of Fulvia, was called Iulus Antonius. He married Marcella, one of the daughters of Octavia. In B.C. 10, Antonius was consul. He formed an adulterous intercourse with Julia, the daughter of Augustus, which cost him his life B.C. 2. Antonius was a poet, as it seems (Horat. Carm. iv. 2, and Orelli’s note).

The elder Antonia, the daughter of Octavia and Antonius, married L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the son of Cneius, who deserted to Cæsar just before the battle of Actium. This Lucius had by Antonia a son, Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, who married Agrippina, the daughter of Cæsar Germanicus. Agrippina’s son, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, was adopted by the emperor Claudius after his marriage with Agrippina, and Lucius then took the name of Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus. As the emperor Nero his infamy is imperishable.

The younger Antonia, the daughter of Octavia and Antonius, married Drusus, the second son of Tiberius Claudius Nero. Tiberius had divorced his wife Livia in order that Caesar Octavianus might become her husband. The virtues of Antonia are recorded by Plutarch and others: her beauty is testified by her handsome face on a medal.

The expression of Plutarch that Caius, by whom he means Caius Caligula, “ruled with distinction,” has caused the commentators some difficulty, and they have proposed to read ἐπιμανῶς, “like a madman” in place of ἐπιφανῶς, “with distinction.” Perhaps Plutarch’s meaning may be something like what I have given, and he may allude to the commencement of Caligula’s reign, which gave good hopes, as Suetonius shows. Some would get over the difficulty by giving to ἐπιφανῶς a different meaning from the common meaning. See Kaltwasser’s note.

A portrait of Antonius (see Notes to Brutus, c. 52) would be an idle impertinence. He is portrayed clear and distinct in this inimitable Life of Plutarch.

Here ends the Tragedy of Antonius and Cleopatra; and after it begins the Monarchy, as Plutarch would call it, or the sole rule of Augustus. See the Preface to the First Volume.

Demetrius v. Antonius

↑1 Of Athens.

Dion

↑1 The various stories about Plato’s slavery are discussed in Grote’s ‘History of Greece,’ part ii. ch. 53.

↑2 Aristomache and Arete.

↑3 Periodical northerly winds or monsoons.

↑4 The ceremony of the libations seems to correspond to our “grace after meat.” See vol. i. Life of Perikles, ch. 7.

↑5 Grote paraphrases this passage as follows:—“A little squadron was prepared, of no more than five merchantmen, two of them vessels of thirty oars, &c.” On consulting Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon, s.v. τριακόντορος, I find a reference to Thuc. iv. 9; where a Messenian pirate triaconter is spoken of, and for further information the reader is referred to the article “πεντηκόντορος (sc. ναῦς), ἡ, a ship of burden with fifty oars,” Pind. P. 4. 436, Eur. I.T. 1124, Thuc. i., 14, &c. But none of these passages bear out the sense of a “vessel of burden.” The passage in Pindar merely states that the snake which Jason slew was as big or bigger than a πεντηκόντορος. Herod, ii. 163, distinctly says “not ships of burden, but penteconters.” In Eur. I.T. 1124, the chorus merely remark that Iphigenia will be borne home by a penteconter, while Thucydides (i. 14) explicitly states that, many generations after the Trojan war, the chief navies of Greece consisted of but few triremes, and chiefly of “penteconters or of long ships equipped like them.” From these passages I am inclined to think that the true meaning of the passage is the literal one, that the soldiers were placed on board of two transports, that the two triaconters, or thirty-oared galleys, were ships of war and acted as convoy to them, and that the small vessel was intended for Dion and his friends to escape in if necessary. In Dem. Zen. a πεντηκόντορος undoubtedly is spoken of as a merchant vessel; but this does not prove that there were no war penteconters in Dion’s time.

↑6 Kerkina and Kerkinitis, two low islands off the north coast of Africa, in the mouth of the Lesser Syrtis, united by a bridge and possessing a fine harbour. ‘Dictionary of Antiquities.’

↑7 The Greek word is κοντός, which is singularly near in sound to the East Anglian “quant.”

↑8 This seems to be the universally accepted emendation of the unmeaning words in the original text. Grote remarks “The statue and sacred ground of Apollo Temenites was the most remarkable feature in this portion of Syracuse, and would naturally be selected to furnish a name for the gate.” ‘Hist. of Greece,’ part ii. ch. lxxxiv. note.

↑9 The main street of Achradina is spoken of by Cicero as broad, straight and long; which was unusual in an ancient Greek city. See Grote. ad. loc.

↑10 The citadel of Syracuse was built upon the island of Ortygia, and was therefore easily cut off by a ditch and palisade across the narrow isthmus by which it was connected with the mainland.

↑11 “He offered them what in modern times would be called a constitution.” Grote.

↑12 On this passage Grote has the following note:—“Plutarch states that Herakleides brought only seven triremes. But the force stated by Diodorus (twenty triremes, three transports and 1500 soldiers) appears more probable. It is difficult otherwise to explain the number of ships which the Syracusans presently appear as possessing. Moreover, the great importance which Herakleides steps into, as opposed to Dion, is more easily accounted for.”

↑13 The Syracusan cavalry was celebrated, and “the knights” here and elsewhere no doubt means Syracusan citizens, though at first this passage looks as if strangers were meant. See ch. 44, where the knights and leading citizens are mentioned together.

↑14 I conceive that the “atrium” or “cavædium” of the house, that is, the interior peristyle or court surrounded with columns, is meant, and that Dion, sitting on one side of this room, saw the apparition behind the columns on the other. An outside portico was a very unusual appendage to a Greek house, and Dion’s house is said to have been especially simple and unpretending, whereas nearly all houses were built with an inner court or “patio,” with its roof supported by columns, and into which the other rooms of the house opened.

Brutus

↑1 L. Junius Brutus, consul B.C. 509, was a Patrician, and his race was extinct in his two sons (Liv. ii. 1-4; Drumann, Junii, p. 1; Dion Cassius, xliv. 12; Dionys. Hal. Antiq. Rom. v. 18).

↑2 Servilia, the wife of M. Junius Brutus, the father of this Brutus, was the daughter of Livia, who was the sister of M. Livius Drusus, tribunus plebis B.C. 91. Livia married for her first husband M. Cato, by whom she had M. Cato Uticensis; for her second husband she had Q. Servilius Cæpio, by whom she became the mother of Servilia. M. Junius Brutus, the father of this Brutus, was the first husband of Servilia, who had by her second husband, D. Junius Silanus, two daughters. Her son Brutus was born in the autumn of B.C. 85. He was adopted by his uncle Q. Servilius Cæpio, whence he is sometimes called Cæpio, and Q. Cæpio Brutus on coins, public monuments, and in decrees (Drumann, Junii).

↑3 Ahala was Magister Equitum to L. Quinctius Cincinnatus. The story belongs to B.C. 439; and it is told by Livius, iv. 13, 14. The true name of Mallius Spurius is Spurius Mælius.

↑4 This passage is obscure in the original. The parentage of M. Junius Brutus, the father of this Brutus, does not appear to be ascertained.

↑5 See the Life of Lucullus, c. 42.

↑6 See the Life of Cicero, c. 4. Cicero mentions Ariston, which is probably the true name, in his Tusculanæ Quæstiones, v. 8.

↑7 Nothing more is known of him.

↑8 The original is obscure. See Sintenis, note; and Schæfer, note. Kaltwasser follows the reading πρὸς τὰς ἐξόδους, which he translates “für den Kriegsdienst.”

↑9 See the Life of the Younger Cato, c. 35, &c.

↑10 Coræs explains the original (σχολαστὴς) to mean “one who is engaged about learning and philosophy.”

↑11 The father of this Brutus was of the faction of Marius, and tribunus plebis B.C. 83. After Sulla’s return he lost all power, and after Sulla’s death Pompeius (B.C. 77) marched against Brutus, who shut himself up in Mutina (Modena). A mutiny among his troops compelled him to open the gates, and Pompeius ordered him to be put to death, contrary to the promise which he had given (Life of Pompeius, c. 16).

The allusion at the beginning of this chapter is to the outbreak between Pompeius and Cæsar, B.C. 49.

↑12 P. Sextius was governor of Cilicia. In the text of Plutarch Sicilia stands erroneously in place of Cilicia: this is probably an error of the copyists, who often confound these names (see Life of Pompeius, c. 61; Cicero, Ad Attic. viii. 14; ix. 7).

↑13 Brutus was a great reader and a busy writer. Drumann (Junii, p. 37) gives a sketch of his literary activity. Such a trifle as an epitome of Polybius was probably only intended as a mere occupation to pass the time. The loss of it is not a matter of regret, any further than so far as it might have supplied some deficiencies in the present text of Polybius. Bacon (Advancement of Learning) describes epitomes thus: “As for the corruptions and moths of history, which are epitomes, the use of them deserveth to be banished, as all men of sound judgment have confessed; as those that have fretted and corroded the sound bodies of many excellent histories, and wrought them into base and unprofitable dregs.”

↑14 The story of Cæsar receiving this note is told in the Life of Cato, c. 24. Cæsar was born on the 12th July, B.C. 100, which is a sufficient answer to the scandalous tale of his being the father of Brutus. That he may have had an adulterous commerce with Servilia in and before B.C. 63, the year of Catiline’s conspiracy, is probable enough.

↑15 This was C. Cassius Longinus, who accompanied Crassus in his Parthian campaign (Life of Crassus, c. 18, &c.). After Cato had retired to Africa, Cassius made his peace with Cæsar (Dion Cassius, xlii. 13).

↑16 Kaltwasser has adopted the correction of Moses du Soul, and has translated the passage “in Nikaea für den König Deiotarus.” The anecdote appears to refer clearly to king Deiotarus, as appears from Cicero’s Letters to Atticus (xiv. 1). See Drumann’s note, Junii, p. 25, note 83. Coræs would read Γαλατῶν for Λιβύων.

↑17 This was the north part of Italy. Cæsar set out for his African campaign in B.C. 47. Brutus held Gallia in the year B.C. 46. See Drumann, Junii, p. 26, note 91, on the administration of Gallia by Brutus.

↑18 Plutarch here alludes to the office of Prætor Urbanus, who, during the year of his office, was the chief person for the administration of justice. The number of prætors at this time was ten (Dion Cassius, xlii. 51), to which number they were increased from eight by Cæsar in B.C. 47. The Prætor Urbanus still held the first rank. The motive of Cæsar may have been, as Dion Cassius says, to oblige his dependents by giving them office and rank. Brutus was Prætor Urbanus in B.C. 44, the year of Cæsar’s assassination.

↑19 This anecdote is told in Cæsar’s Life, c. 62.

↑20 Q. Fufius Calenus was sent by Cæsar before the battle of Pharsalus to Greece (Life of Cæsar, c. 43). Megara made strong resistance to Calenus, and was treated with severity. Dion Cassius (xlii. 14) says nothing about the lions.

↑21 See the Life of Sulla, c. 34, and note to c. 37; and the Life of Cæsar, c. 53, note.

↑22 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 61, and Dion Cassius, xliv. 3, &c.

↑23 His name was Quintus. Ligarius fought against Cæsar at the battle of Thapsus B.C. 46. He was taken prisoner and banished. He was prosecuted by Q. Delius Tubero for his conduct in Africa, and defended by Cicero in an extant speech. Ligarius obtained a pardon from Cæsar, and he repaid the dictator, like many others, by aiding in his murder. It seems pretty certain that he lost his life in the proscriptions of the Triumviri (Appian, Civil Wars, iv, 22, 23).

↑24 Compare the Life of the Younger Cato, c. 65, 73; and as to Favonius, the same life.

↑25 Q. Antistius Labeo was one of the hearers of Servius Sulpicins (Dig. i. tit. 2, s. 2, § 44), and himself a jurist, and the father of a more distinguished jurist, Antistius Labeo, who lived under Augustus. He was at the battle of Philippi, and after the defeat he killed himself, and was buried in a grave in his tent, which he had dug for the purpose (Appian, Civil Wars, iv. 135).

↑26 See the Life of Cæsar, c. 64, and the note.

The signs of Cæsar’s death are mentioned in the Life of Cæsar, c. 63.

↑27 Brutus was first married to Claudia, a daughter of Appius Claudius, consul B.C. 54. It was probably in B.C. 55, and after Cato’s death, that he put away Claudia, for which he was blamed (Cic. Ad Attic. xiii. 9), and married Porcia, the daughter of Cato, and widow of M. Calpurnius Bibulus, the colleague of Cæsar in the consulship B.C. 59. As to the affair of the wound, compare Dion Cassius (xliv. 13 &c.).

↑28 This was the great architectural work of Pompeius (Life of Pompeius, c. 40, note).

↑29 The same story is told by Appian (Civil Wars, ii. 115).

↑30 The circumstances of Cæsar’s death are told in his Life, c. 66; where it is incorrectly said that Brutus Albinus engaged Antonius in conversation. To the authorities referred to in the note to c. 66 of the Life of Cæsar, add Cicero, Phillip. ii. 14, which is referred to by Kaltwasser.

↑31 L. Munatius Plancus, who had received favours from Cæsar, and the province of Transalpine Gaul, with the exception of Narbonensis and Belgica B.C. 44.

As to the arrangement about the provinces after Cæsar’s death, see the Life of Antonius, c. 14.

↑32 Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68, and the note.

↑33 The allusion is to P. Clodius, who fell in a brawl with T. Annius Milo B.C. 52. See the Life of Cicero, c. 52.

↑34 Compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 68.

↑35 Now Porto d’Anzo, on the coast of Latium, thirty miles from Rome. It is now a poor place, with numerous remains of former buildings (Westphal, Die Römische Kampagne, and his two maps).

↑36 These were the Ludi Apollinares (Dion, xlvii. 20), which Brutus had to superintend as Prætor Urbanus. The day of celebration was the fourth of Quintilis or Julius. The games were superintended by L. Antonius, the brother of Marcus, and the colleague of Brutus.

↑37 Compare the Life of Cicero, c. 43, and notes; and the Life of Antonius, c. 16.

↑38 Complaints like these, of the conduct of Cicero, appear in the sixteenth and seventeenth letters of the book which is entitled ‘M. Tullii Epistolarum ad Brutum Liber Singularis;’ but the genuineness of these letters is very doubtful. Plutarch himself (Brutus, 53) did not fully believe in the genuineness of all the letters attributed to Brutus.

↑39 Elea, the Romans called this place Velia. It was on the coast of Lucania, in the modern province of Basilicata in the kingdom of Naples; and the remains are near Castella a mare della Brucca. Velia is often mentioned by Cicero, who set sail from thence when he intended to go to Greece (Life of Cicero, c. 43).

↑40 The passages in Homer are, Iliad, vi. 429 and 491, the parting of Hector and Andromache. The old stories of Greece furnished the painter with excellent subjects, and the simplicity with which they treated them may be inferred from Plutarch’s description. The poet was here the real painter. The artist merely gave a sensuous form to the poet’s conception. The parting of Hector and Andromache is the subject of one of Schiller’s early poems.

↑41 Dion Cassius (xlvii. 20) describes the reception of Brutus at Athens. The Athenians ordered bronze statues of Brutus and Cassius to be set up by the side of the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who had liberated Athens from the tyranny of the Peisistratidæ.

↑42 See the Life of Pompeius, c. 75. Cicero’s son Marcus was attending the lectures of Cratippus B.C. 44, and also, as it appears, up to the time when Brutus came to Athens. Horace, who was now at Athens, also joined the side of Brutus, and was present at the battle of Philippi.

↑43 A town near the southern point of Eubœa. The Roman commander who gave up the money, was the Quæstor M. Appuleius (Cicero, Philipp. x. 11). Plutarch in the next chapter calls him Antistius.

↑44 These are the dying words of Patroclus (Iliad, xvi. 849). Apollo is Leto’s son.

↑45 See the Life of Cicero, c. 43, note; and Dion Cassius (xlvii. 29, &c.).

↑46 A town in Thessalia.

↑47 Q. Hortensius Hortalus, the son of the orator Hortensius, who held the province of Macedonia (B.C. 44), in which Brutus was to succeed him. He was put to death by M. Antonius after the battle of Philippi (c. 28).

↑48 This may be an error of Plutarch’s copyists. His name was P. Vatinius (Dion Cassius, xlvii. 21).

↑49 The Greek soldiers suffered in this way in their retreat from Babylonia over the table-land of Armenia (Xenophon, Anabasis, iv. 5, 7). This bulimy is a different thing from that which modern writers call by that name, and which they describe as a “canine appetite, insatiable desire for food.” The nature of the appetite is exemplified by the instance of a man eating in one day four pounds of raw cow’s udder, ten pounds of raw beef, two pounds of candles, and drinking five bottles of porter (Penny Cyclopædia, art. Bulimia). The subject of Bulimia is discussed by Plutarch (Symposiaca, b. vi. Qu. 8).

↑50 Now Butrinto, was on the main land in the north part of the channel which divides Corcyra (Corfu) from the continent. It was made a Colonia by the Romans after their occupation of Epirus. Atticus, the friend of Cicero, had land in the neighbourhood of Buthrotum.

As to the events mentioned at the end of this chapter, compare Dion Cassius, xlvii. 21-23.

↑51 Compare Dion Cassius, xlvii. 22.

↑52 This was Decimus Brutus Albinus, who fell into the hands of the soldiers of M. Antonius in North Italy, and was put to death by order of Antonius B.C. 43. Compare Dion Cassius (xlvi. 53), and the note of Reimarus.

↑53 Brutus passed over into Asia probably about the middle of B.C. 43, while the proscriptions were going on at Rome. As to Cyzicus, see the Life of Lucullus, c. 9.

↑54 Cassius was now in Syria, whence he designed to march to Egypt to punish Cleopatra for the assistance which she had given to Dolabella.

↑55 The Mediterranean, for which the Romans had no name.

↑56 Xanthus stood on a river of the same name, about ten miles from the mouth. The river is now called Etchen-Chai. Xanthus is first mentioned by Herodotus (i. 176), who describes its destruction by the Persian general Harpagus, to which Plutarch afterwards (c. 31) alludes. Numerous remains have been recently discovered there by Fellowes, and some of them are now in the British Museum (Penny Cyclop. art. Xanthian Marbles, and the references in that article).

The last sentence of this chapter is very confused in the original.

↑57 Compare the Life of Pompeius, c. 77, 80.

↑58 Brutus and Cassius met at Sardis in the early part of B.C. 42.

↑59 The passage to which Plutarch refers is Iliad, i. 259. The character of Favonius is well known from the Lives of Pompeius and Cato the Younger.

↑60 Kaltwasser has a note on the Roman practice of an invited guest taking his shadows (umbræ) with him. Horace alludes to the practice (i. Ep. 5, 28),

——“locus est et pluribus umbris.”

Plutarch discusses the etiquette as to umbræ in his Symposiaca (book vii. Qu. 6).

↑61 The Romans reclined at table. They placed couches on three sides of the table and left the fourth open. The central couch or sofa (lectus medius) was the first place. The other sofas at the adjoining two sides were respectively lectus summus and imus.

↑62 Nothing further seems to be known of him. The name Pella is probably corrupt. The consequence of his condemnation was Infamia, as to the meaning of which term: see Dict. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Infamia. This interview between Brutus and Cassius forms one of the finest scenes in Shakespeare’s play of Julius Cæsar.

↑63 The reading here is probably corrupt. See the note of Sintenis.

↑64 The ghost story is told also in the Life of Cæsar, c. 69.

↑65 Cassius was one of the Romans who had embraced the doctrines of Epicurus, modified somewhat by the Roman character. Cicero in a letter to Cassius (Ad Diversos, xv. 16) rallies him about his opinions; and Cassius (xv. 19) in reply defends them. Cicero says to Cassius, that he hopes he will tell him whether it is in his power, as soon as he chooses to think of Cassius, to have his spectrum (εἴδωλον) present, before him, and whether, if he should begin to think of the island Britannia, the image (spectrum) of Britannia will fly to his mind.

Lucretius expounded the Epicurean doctrines in his poem De Rerum Natura. In his fourth book he treats of images (simulacra):

“Quæritur in primis quare quod quoique libido

Venerit, extemplo mens cogitet ejus id ipsum.

Anne voluntatem nostram simulacra tuentur,

Et simulac volumus, nobis occurrit imago?”—iv. 781, &c.

The things on which the mind has been engaged in waking hours, recur as images during sleep:

“Et quo quisque fere studio defunctus adhæret,

Aut quibus in rebus multum sumus ante moratei

Atque in ea ratione fuit contenta magis mens,

In somnis eadem plerumque videmur obire:

Causidicei causas agere et componere leges,

Induperatores pugnare ac proelia obire,” &c.—iv. 963.

He has observed in a previous passage, that numerous images of things wander about in all directions, that they are of a subtile nature, and are easily united when they meet; they are of a much more subtile nature than the things which affect the sight, for they penetrate through the pores of bodies, and inwardly move the subtile nature of the mind. He then adds:

“Centauros itaque et Scyllarum membra videmus,

Cerbereasque canum fauceis simulacraque eorum

Quorum morte obita tellus amplectitur ossa.”—iv. 734, &c.

The doctrine which Lucretius inculcated as to the deities, admitted their existence, but denied that they concerned themselves about mundane affairs; and they had nothing to do with the creation of the world. It is one of the main purposes of the poem to free men from all religious belief, and to show the misery and absurdities that it breeds.

A belief in dæmons would be inconsistent with such doctrines; and as to the gods, Cassius means to say, that though he did not believe in their existence, he almost wished that there were gods to aid their righteous cause.

As to the opinions of Cassius, compare the Life of Cæsar, c. 66.

↑66 C. Norbanus Flaccus and L. Decidius Saxa, two legates of Antonius, who had been sent forward with eight legions, and had occupied Philippi. The town of Philippi lay near the mountain-range of Pangæus and Symbolum, which was the name of a place at which Pangæus joins another mountain, that stretches up into the interior. Symbolum was between Neapolis (new city) and Philippi. Neapolis was on the coast opposite to Thasus: Philippi was in the mountain region, and was built on a hill; west of it was a plain which extended to the Strymon (Appian, Civil Wars, iv. 1205; Dion Cassius. xlvii. 35). Philippi was originally called Krenides, or the Springs, then Datus, and lastly Philippi by King Philippus, of Macedonia, who fortified it. Appian’s description of the position of Philippi is very clear.

↑67 A lustration was a solemn ceremony of purification, which was performed on various occasions, and before a battle: see Livy, xxix. 47.

The omens which preceded the battle are recorded by Dion Cassius, xlvii. 49.

↑68 M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, of a distinguished Roman family, was a son of Messala who was consul B.C. 53. After the battle of Philippi he attached himself to M. Antonius, whom he deserted to join Octavianus Cæsar. He fought on Cæsar’s side at the battle of Actium (c. 53). He died somewhere between B.C. 3 and A.D. 3. Messala was a poet and an historian. His history of the Civil Wars, after the death of the Dictator Cæsar, was used by Plutarch.

↑69 See the note of Sintenis, who proposes to read κεκλημένος for κεκλημένον, to prevent any ambiguity, such as Kaltwasser discovered in the passage. It was the birthday of Cassius (Appian, Civil Wars, iv, 113).

↑70 Plutarch here quotes the Memoirs of Cæsar. It is of no great importance who saw the dream, and perhaps there was no dream at all. Cæsar wished to have an excuse for being out of the way of danger. Dion Cassius (xlvii. 41) says that it was Cæsar’s physician who had the dream, but he does not mention his name. See the notes of Reimarus.

↑71 The true name may be Briges. The Briges were a Thracian tribe (Stephan. Byzant., Βρίγες), who are mentioned by Herodotus (vii. 73). The Macedonian tradition was that they were the same as the Phrygians; that so long as they lived in Europe with the Macedonians they kept the name of Briges, and that when they passed over into Asia they were called Phryges.

↑72 Drumann (Geschichte Roms, i. 516, n. 84) assumes that it is P. Volumnius Eutrapelus, a boon companion of Antonius. Several of Cicero’s letters to him are extant (Ad Div. vii. 32, 33).

↑73 Plutarch has handled the character of Brutus with partiality. He could not be ignorant of his love of money and of the oppressive manner in which he treated his unlucky creditors. Drumann (Junii, p. 20, &c.) has collected the evidence on this point. Though Brutus was an austere man and affected philosophy, his character is not free from the imputation of ingratitude to Cæsar, love of power, and avarice. He seems to have been one of those who deceive themselves into a belief of their own virtues, because they are free from other people’s vices. The promise of plunder to his soldiers is not excusable because Antonius and Cæsar did worse than he intended to do. Plutarch here alludes to many of the Italians being driven out of their lands, which were given to the soldiers who had fought on the side of Cæsar and Antonius at Philippi. The misery that was occasioned by this measure was one of the chief evils of the Civil Wars. The slaughter in war chiefly affected the soldiers themselves, and if both armies had been destroyed, the people would only have been the better for it. The misery that arose from the ejection of the hard-working husbandmen reached to their wives and children. But a country which had a large army on foot which is no longer wanted, must either pay them out of taxes and plunder, or have a revolution. Necessity was the excuse for Cæsar and Antonius, and the same necessity would have been the excuse of Brutus, if he had been victorious. Defeat saved him from this necessity.

↑74 The ships which were bringing aid to Cæsar from Brundusium under the command of Domitius Calvinus. They were met and defeated by L. Statius Marcus.

↑75 Nothing seems to be known about him. Of course he is not the Volumnius mentioned in c. 45.

↑76 See the Life of Cato the Younger, c. 73.

↑77 See the Life of Antonius, c. 70.

↑78 The verse is from the Medea of Euripides (v. 332), in which Medea Is cursing her faithless husband Jason. The educated Romans were familiar with the Greek dramatists, whom they often quoted. (Compare the Life of Pompeius, c. 78.) Appian says that Brutus intended to apply this line to Antonius (Civil Wars, iv. 130).

The other verse, which Volumnius forgot, was remembered by somebody else, if it be the verse of which Florus (iv. 7) has recorded the substance, “that virtue is not a reality, but a name.” Dion Cassius (xlvii. 49, and the note of Reimarus) also has recorded two Greek verses which Brutus is said to have uttered; but he does not mention the verse which Plutarch cites. The substance of the two verses cited by Dion is this:

“Poor virtue, empty name, whom I have serv’d

As a true mistress; thou art fortune’s slave.”

Volumnius might not choose to remember these verses, as Drumann suggests, in order to save the credit of his friend.

↑79 See c. 11, and the Life of the younger Cato, c. 65, 73.

↑80 Brutus was forty-three years of age when he died. Velleius (ii. 72) says that he was in his thirty-seventh year, which is a mistake.

The character of Brutus requires a special notice. It is easy enough to write a character of a man, but not easy to write a true one. Michelet (Histoire de la Revolution Française, ii. 545), speaking of the chief actors of the revolution in 1789. ’90, ’91, says: “We have rarely given a judgment entire, indistinct, no portrait properly speaking; all, almost all, are unjust; resulting from a mean which is taken between this and that moment in a person’s life, between the good and the bad, neutralising the one by the other, and making both false. We have judged the acts, as they present themselves, day by day, hour by hour. We have given a date to our judgments; and this has allowed us often to praise men, whom at a later time we shall have to blame. Criticism, forgetful and harsh, too often condemns beginnings which are laudable, having in view the end which it knows, of which it has a view beforehand. But we do not choose to know this end; whatever this man may do to-morrow, we note for his advantage the good which he does to-day: the end will come soon enough.” This is the true method of writing history; this is the true method of judging men. Unfortunately we cannot trace the career of many individuals with that particularity of date and circumstance which would enable us to do justice. Plutarch does not draw characters in the mass in the modern way: he gives us both the good and the bad, in detail: but with little regard sometimes to time and circumstance. He has treated Brutus with partiality: he finds only one act in his life to condemn (chap. 46). The great condemnation of Brutus is, that acting in the name of virtue, he did not know what it was; that fighting for his country, he was fighting for a party; his Roman republic was a republic of aristocrats; his people was a fraction of the Roman citizens; he conceived no scheme for regenerating a whole nation: he engaged in a death struggle in which we can feel no sympathy. His name is an idle abused theme for rhetoric; and his portrait must be drawn, ill or well, that the world may be disabused.

Drumann (Geschichte Roms, Junii, p. 34) has carefully collected the acts of Brutus; and he has judged him severely, and, I think, truly.

Brutus had moderate abilities, with great industry and much learning: he had no merit as a general, but he had the courage of a soldier, he had the reputation of virtue, and he was free from many of the vices of his contemporaries; he was sober and temperate. Of enlarged political views he had none; there is not a sign of his being superior in this respect to the mass of his contemporaries. When the Civil War broke out, he joined Pompeius, though Pompeius had murdered his father. If he gave up his private enmity, as Plutarch says, for what he believed to be the better cause, the sacrifice was honourable: if there were other motives, and I believe there were, his choice of his party does him no credit. His conspiracy against Cæsar can only be justified by those, if there are such, who think that a usurper ought to be got rid of in any way. But if a man is to be murdered, one does not expect those to take a part in the act who, after being enemies have received favours from him, and professed to be friends. The murderers should at least be a man’s declared enemies who have just wrongs to avenge. Though Brutus was dissatisfied with things under Cæsar, he was not the first mover in the conspiracy. He was worked upon by others, who knew that his character and personal relation to Cæsar would in a measure sanctify the deed; and by their persuasion, not his own resolve, he became an assassin in the name of freedom, which meant the triumph of his party, and in the name of virtue, which meant nothing.

The act was bad in Brutus as an act of treachery; and it was bad as an act of policy. It failed in its object—the success of a party, because the death of Cæsar was not enough; other victims were necessary, and Brutus would not have them. He put himself at the head of a plot, in which there was no plan: he dreamed of success and forgot the means. He mistook the circumstances of the times and the character of the men. His conduct after the murder was feeble and uncertain; and it was also as illegal as the usurpation of Cæsar. “He left Rome as prætor without the permission of the Senate; he took possession of a province which, even according to Cicero’s testimony, had been assigned to another; he arbitrarily passed beyond the boundaries of his province, and set his effigy on the coins.” (Drumann.) He attacked the Bessi in order to give his soldiers booty, and he plundered Asia to get money for the conflict against Cæsar and Antonius, for the mastery of Rome and Italy. The means that he had at his disposal show that he robbed without measure and without mercy; and never was greater tyranny exercised over helpless people in the name of liberty than the wretched inhabitants of Asia experienced from Brutus the “Liberator” and Cassius “the last of the Romans.” But all these great resources were thrown away in an ill-conceived and worse executed campaign.

Temperance, industry, and unwillingness to shed blood are noble qualities in a citizen and a soldier; and Brutus possessed them. But great wealth gotten by ill means is an eternal reproach; and the trade of money-lending, carried on in the names of others, with unrelenting greediness, is both avarice and hypocrisy. Cicero, the friend of Brutus, is the witness for his wealth, and for his unworthy means to increase it.

Reflecting men in all ages have a philosophy. With the educated Greeks and Romans, philosophy was religion. The vulgar belief, under whatever name it may be, is never the belief of those who have leisure for reflection. The vulgar rich and vulgar poor are immersed in sense: the man of reflection strives to emerge from it. To him the things which are seen are only the shadows of the unseen; forms without substance, but the evidence of the substantial: “for the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made” (Epistle to the Romans, i. 20). Brutus was from his youth up a student of philosophy and well versed in the systems of the Greeks. Untiring industry and a strong memory had stored his mind with the thoughts of others, but he had not capacity enough to draw profit from his intellectual as he did from his golden treasures. His mind was a barren field on which no culture could raise an abundant crop. His wisdom was the thoughts of others, and he had ever ready in his mouth something that others had said. But to utter other men’s wisdom is not enough: a man must make it his own by the labour of independent thought. Philosophy and superstition were blended in his mind, and they formed a chaos in his bewildered brain, as they always will do; and the product is Gorgons and Hydras and Chimeras dire. In the still of night phantoms floated before his wasted strength and wakeful eyes; perhaps the vision of him, the generous and the brave, who had saved the life of an enemy in battle, and fell by his hand in the midst of peace. Conscience was his tormentor, for truth was stronger than the illusions of self-imputed virtue. Though Brutus had condemned Cato’s death, he died by his own hand, not with the stubborn resolve of Cato, who would not yield to a usurper, but merely to escape from his enemies. A Roman might be pardoned for not choosing to become the prisoner of a Roman, but his grave should have been the battlefield, and the instrument should have been the hands of those who were fighting against the cause which he proclaimed to be righteous and just. Cato’s son bettered his father’s example: he died on the plain of Philippi by the sword of the enemy. Brutus died without belief in the existence of that virtue which he had affected to follow: the triumph of a wrongful cause, as he conceived it, was a proof that virtue was an empty name. He forgot the transitory nature of all individual existences, and thought that justice perished with him. But a true philosopher does not make himself a central point, nor his own misfortunes a final catastrophe. He looks both backwards and forwards, to the past and the future, and views himself as a small link in the great chain of events which holds all things together. Brutus died in despair, with the courage, but not with the faith, of a martyr.

When men talk of tyranny and rise against it, the name of Brutus is invoked; a mere name and nothing else. What single act is there in the man’s life which promised the regeneration of his country and the freedom of mankind? Like other Romans, he only thought of maintaining the supremacy of Rome; his ideas were no larger than theirs; he had no sympathy for those whom Rome governed and oppressed. For his country, he had nothing to propose; its worn-out political constitution he would maintain, not amend; indeed, amendment was impossible. Probably he dreaded anarchy and the dissolution of social order, for that would have released his creditors and confiscated his valuable estates. But Cæsar’s usurpation was not an anarchy: it was a monarchy, a sole rule; and Brutus, who was ambitious, could not endure that. It may be said that if the political views of Brutus were narrow, he was only like most of his countrymen. But why then is he exalted, and why is his name invoked? What single title had he to distinction except what Cæsar gave him? A man of unknown family, the son of a woman whom Cæsar had debauched, pardoned after fighting against his mother’s lover, raised by him to the prætorship, and honoured with Cæsar’s friendship—he has owed his distinction to nothing else than murdering the man whose genius he could not appreciate, but whose favours he had enjoyed.

His spurious philosophy has helped to save him from the detestation which is his due; but the false garb should be stripped off. A stoic, an ascetic, and nothing more, is a mere negation. The active virtues of Brutus are not recorded. If he sometimes did an act of public justice (c. 35), it was not more than many other Romans have done. To reduce this philosopher to his true level, we ask, what did he say or do that showed a sympathy with all mankind? Where is the evidence that he had the feeling of justice which alone can regenerate a nation? But it may be said, why seek in a Roman of his age what we cannot expect to find? Why then elevate him above the rest of his age and consecrate his name? Why make a hero of him who murdered his benefactor, and then ran away from the city which he was to save—from we know not what? And why make a virtuous man of him who was only austere, and who did not believe in the virtues that he professed? As to statesmanship, nobody has claimed that for him yet.

“The deputy of Arras, poor, and despised even by his own party, won the confidence of the people by their belief in his probity: and he deserved it. Fanatical and narrow-minded, he was still a man of principles. Untiring industry, unshaken faith, and poverty, the guarantee of his probity, raised him slowly to distinction, and enabled him to destroy all who stood between him and the realisation of an unbending theory. Though he had sacrificed the lives of others, he scorned to save his own by doing what would have contradicted his principles: he respected the form of legality, when its substance no longer existed, and refused to sanction force when it would have been used for his own protection” (Lamartine, Histoire des Girondins, liv. 61, ix.). A great and memorable example of crime, of fanaticism, and of virtue; of a career commenced in the cause of justice, in truth, faith and sincerity; of a man who did believe in virtue, and yet spoiled the cause in which he embarked, and left behind him a name for universal execration.

Treachery at home, enmity abroad, and misconduct in its own leaders, made the French Revolution result in anarchy, and then in a tyranny. The Civil Wars of Rome resulted in a monarchy, and there was nothing else in which they could end. The Roman monarchy or the Empire was a natural birth. The French Empire was an abortion. The Roman Empire was the proper growth of the ages that had preceded it: they could produce nothing better. In a few years after the battle of Philippi, Cæsar Octavianus got rid of his partner Antonius; and under the administration of Augustus the world enjoyed comparative peace, and the Roman Empire was established and consolidated. The genius of Augustus, often ill appreciated, is demonstrated by the results of his policy. He restored order to a distracted state and transmitted his power to his successors. The huge fabric of Roman greatness resting on its ancient foundations, only crumbled beneath the assaults that time and new circumstances make against all political institutions.

↑81 Velleius (ii. 71, quoted by Kaltwasser) states that some of the partisans of Brutus and Cassius wished Messala to put himself at the head of their party, but he declined to try the fortune of another contest.

↑82 Compare the Life of Antonius, c. 22. Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 135) makes the same statement as Plutarch about the body of Brutus. It is not inconsistent with this that his head was cut off in order to be sent to Rome and thrown at the feet of Cæsar’s statue, as Suetonius says (Sueton. August. 13). Dion Cassius adds (xlvii. 49) that in the passage from Dyrrachium a storm came on and the head was thrown into the sea.

↑83 Nikolaus of Damascus, a Peripatetic philosopher, and a friend of Augustus, wrote a universal history in Greek, in one hundred and forty-four books, of which a few fragments remain. There is also a fragment of his Life of Augustus. The best edition is that of J.C. Orelli, Leipzig, 1804, 8vo.; to which a supplement was published in 1811.

↑84 The work of Valerius Maximus is dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius. The death of Porcia is mentioned in lib. iv. c. 6, 5. Appian (Civil Wars, iv. 136) and Dion Cassius (xlvii. 49) give the same account of Porcia’s death.

↑85 Plutarch here evidently doubts the genuineness of the letter attributed to Brutus. The life of Brutus offered good materials for the falsifiers of history, who worked with them after rhetorical fashion. There are a few letters in the collection of Cicero which are genuine, but the single book of letters to Brutus (M. Tullii Ciceronis Epistolorum ad Brutum Liber Singularis) is condemned as a forgery by the best critics. It contains letters of Cicero to Brutus, and of Brutus to Cicero; and a letter of Brutus to Atticus. Genuine letters of Brutus, written day by day, like those of Cicero, would have formed the best materials from which we might judge him.

Artaxerxes

↑1 A despatch rolled in a peculiar manner. See vol. ii. Life of Lysander, ch. 19.

↑2 The battle of Kunaxa was fought on the 7th of September 401 B.C.

↑3 The title of a great Persian officer of State.

↑4 Egypt revolted from Persia B.C. 358. See vol. iii. Life of Agesilaus, ad. fin.

↑5 A people of Media on the Caspian Sea.

Aratus

↑1 See Grote on Epameinondas. “The muscularity, purchased by excessive nutriment, of the Bœotian pugilist.” (Hist. of Greece, part ii. ch. lxxvii.)

↑2 See vol. iii. Life of Agesilaus, c. 13, note.

↑3 Ptolemy, King of Egypt.

↑4 The reading Adria is obviously wrong. Droysen suggests Andros; but Thirlwall much more reasonably conjectures that the word should be Hydrea, observing that the geographical position of Andros does not suit the account given in the text. Clough prefers to read Andros, saying that “Aratus would hardly be thought to have gone from Hydrea to Eubœa, which is near enough to Andros to make the supposition in this case not unnatural.” But I think that this argument makes just the other way, for the object of Aratus’s slaves was to tell the Macedonian officer that their master was gone to a place so far away that it would be useless to attempt to follow him.

↑5 The word which I have here translated “portraits” generally means statues, but not necessarily. Probably most of the despots were commemorated by statues.

↑6 Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander, I suppose is meant.

↑7 This Alexander was the son of Kraterus, and grandson of Alexander the Great’s general of that name.

↑8 A common precaution against surprise. See above, ch. viii.

↑9 This was Demetrius II., the son of Antigonus Gonatas, who succeeded his father on the throne of Macedonia, B.C. 239.

↑10 Apparently the great seal of the league is meant, which we must suppose was entrusted to the general for the time being.

↑11 I., ii. 607.

↑12 Philip’s object in this expedition was to make himself master of Apollonia and Oricum.

↑13 “He was forced to burn his ships and retreat overland, leaving his baggage, ammunition, and a great part of the arms of his troops in the enemy’s hands.” (Thirlwall’s History, ch. lxiv).

Galba

↑1 See Merivale’s ‘History of the Romans under the Empire,’ ch. liii. vol. vi. page 142, note.

↑2 Quintus Catulus Capitolinus.

↑3 Nero set a price upon the head of Vindex, whose designs were speedily revealed to him, and though the forces of the Gaulish province were disposed to follow their chief, the more powerful legions of Lower Germany, under Virginius Rufus, were in full march against them. The armies met at Vesontio, and there Virginius and Vindex at a private interview agreed to conspire together, but their troops could come to no such understanding; the Virginians attacked the soldiers of Vindex, and almost cut them to pieces. Vindex thereupon, with the haste and levity of his race, threw himself upon his sword, and the rebellion seemed for a moment to be crushed. Merivale’s ‘History of the Romans under the Empire,’ vol. vi. ch. lv.

↑4 Nero died on the 9th of June, A.D. 68.

↑5 The gold ring was presented by the Roman emperors in much the same way as the insignia of an order of chivalry is given by modern sovereigns. Under the republic it had been the distinguishing mark of the equestrian order, and its possession still continued to raise its recipients to the rank of ‘eques,’ cf. Plin. H.N. 33, 2, and Paulus i. 5, de jure anul.

↑6 Clough well remarks that here we may observe the beginning of a state-post, which still exists on the continent of Europe, by which all government couriers, &c., were forwarded free of expense. The modern terms of “diplomacy,” “diplomatist,” &c., is derived from the “diplomata,” or folded and sealed dispatches carried by such persons.

↑7 Narbonne.

↑8 Tacitus sums up the characters of these two men after his manner. “Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco, the one the worst, the other the laziest of men, &c.” Tac. Hist. i. 6.

↑9 No doubt Galba’s personal appearance offered a striking contrast to that of “the implacable, beautiful tyrant” Nero. See infra, ch. 15, and Tac. Hist. i. 7

↑10 ‘Tanquam innocentes,’ Tac. Hist. i. 6.

↑11 More properly “rowers,” men employed to row in ships of war, who regarded it as promotion to become legionary soldiers.

↑12 Vinius had engaged to marry the daughter of Tigellinus, who was a widow with a large dower.

↑13 ‘Hordeonius Flaccus,’ Tac. Hist. i. 12, 53, etc.

↑14 Tigellinus, we have learned from the last chapter but one, was living at Rome. Moreover he was never in command of any legions; and evidently some legions in the provinces are meant. Clough conjectures that we should read Vitellius instead of Tigellinus; and this I think very reasonable.

↑15 This seems to be a mistake, as Asiaticus was a freedman of Vitellius. See Tac. (Hist. ii. 57)

↑16 Of sesterces.

↑17 A.D. 69.

↑18 The First Legion, in Lower Germany.

↑19 At Cologne.

↑20 Tac. (Hist. i. 62).

↑21 Suetonius (Otho, 4) calls him Seleukus.

↑22 So I have ventured to translate “speculator.” The speculatores under the empire were employed as special adjutants, messengers, and body-guards of a general.

↑23 Counting inclusively in the Roman fashion.

↑24 The Miliarium Aureum, or Golden Milestone. London Stone was established by the Romans in Britain for the same purpose.

↑25 This habit of the ancient Romans, of being carried about Rome in litters, survives to the present day in the Pope’s “sedia gestatoria.”

↑26 We learn from Tacitus that this man was the standard-bearer (vexillarius) of a cohort which still accompanied Galba. Tac. (Hist. i. 41).

↑27 Galba before leaving the palace had put on a light, quilted tunic. Suet. (Galba, ch. 19).

↑28 She was obliged to pay for it. Tac. (Hist. i. 47).

↑29 Patrobius was a freedman of Nero who had been punished by Galba. The words “and Vitellius” are probably corrupt.

↑30 Argius was Galba’s house-steward. He buried his master’s body in his own private garden. Tac. (Hist. i. 49).

Otho

↑1 This life must be read as the sequel to that of Galba.

↑2 See Life of Galba, ch. viii., note.

↑3 Tac. (Hist. i. 80, 82, s. 99).

↑4 A body of troops, consisting of two centuriae (Polyb. ii. 23, 1), and consequently commanded by two centurions.

↑5 Tacitus (Hist. i. 83, 84) gives Otho’s speech at length.

↑6 Almost literally translated by Plutarch from Tacitus (Hist. i. 71)

↑7 Tac. (Hist. i. 86).

↑8 Caius Julius Cæsar.

↑9 Tac. (Hist. i. 86).

↑10 These are more particularly described in Tac. (Hist. ii. 21).

↑11 I imagine that Cæcina made himself disliked by using signs instead of speaking, not that he had forgotten his language, but because he did not choose to speak to the provincial magistrates. Tacitus (Hist. ii. 20) says that he conducted himself modestly while in Italy.

↑12 We learn from Tacitus (Hist. ii. 20) that her name was Salonina. He adds that she did no one any harm, but that people were offended with her because she rode upon a fine horse and dressed in scarlet.

↑13 “At every place where he halted his devouring legions, and at every place which he was induced to pass without halting, this rapacious chief required to be gratified with money, under threats of plunder and conflagration.” Merivale (History of the Romans, ch. lvi.)

↑14 Tacitus (Hist. i. 87) describes Julius Proculus as active in the discharge of his duties at Rome, but ignorant of real war. He was, Tacitus adds, a knave and a villain, who got himself preferred before honest men by the unscrupulous accusations which he brought against them.

↑15 Tac. Hist. ii. 30.

↑16 Tacitus, (Hist. ii. 39) says that Otho was not present, but sent letters to the generals urging them to make haste. He adds that it is not so easy to decide what ought to have been done as to condemn what was actually done.

↑17 Tac. (Hist. ii. 37).

↑18 Tac. (Hist. ii. 43). The legions were the 21st “Rapax,” and the 1st “Adjutrix.”

↑19 Their journey was, no doubt, back to Rome.

573

INDEX.

Abantes, i. Theseus, ch. 5.

Abantidas of Sikyon, iv. Aratus, ch. 2.

Abas, river, iii. Pompeius, ch. 35.

Abdera, iii. Alexander, ch. 52.

Abœokritus, iv. Aratus, ch. 16.

Abolus, river in Sicily, i. Timoleon, ch. 34.

Abra, iv. Cicero, ch. 28.

Abriorix the Gaul, iii. Cæsar, ch. 24.

Abrotonon, i. Themistokles, ch. 1.

Abouletes, iii. Alexander, ch. 68.

Abydos, i. Alkibiades, chs. 27, 29; iii. Cæsar, ch. 69.

Academia, a garden at Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 32; Solon, ch. 1; ii. Sulla, ch. 12; Kimon, ch. 13.

——, a school of philosophy, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1; Lucullus, ch. 42; Comparison of Kimon and Lucullus, ch. 1; iii. Phokion, ch. 4; iv. Cicero, ch. 4; Dion, chs. 14, 20, 22, 47, 52; Brutus, ch. 2.

Academus, i. Theseus, ch. 32.

Acerræ, ii. Marcellus, ch. 6.

Achæans of Phthiotis, i. Perikles, ch. 17; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 31; Flamininus, ch. 10.

Achæan harbour, ii. Lucullus, ch. 12.

Achæa and Achæans, i. Perikles, chs. 17, 19; Cato Major, ch. 9; Philopœmen, chs. 9, 12, 14, 16, and after; Flamininus, chs. 13, 17; Agesilaus, ch. 22; iv. Agis, chs. 13, 15; Kleomenes, ch. 3, and after; Demosthenes, ch. 17; Dion, ch. 23; Aratus, chs. 9, 11, and after.

Achaicus, surname of Mummius, ii. Marius, ch. 1.

Acharnæ, i. Themistokles, ch. 24; Perikles, ch. 33.

‘Acharnians,’ play of Aristophanes, i. Perikles, ch. 30.

Achelous, i. Perikles, ch. 19.

Achillas, an Egyptian, iii. Pompeius, chs. 77-80; Cæsar, ch. 49.

Achilles, i. Theseus, ch. 34; Camillus, ch. 13; Alkibiades, ch. 23; ii. Aristeides, ch. 7; Philopœmen, ch. 1; Pyrrhus, chs. 1, 13, 22; Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 4; iii. Pompeius, ch. 29; Alexander, chs. 5, 15, 24.

——, a Macedonian, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

Achradina, in Syracuse, i. Timoleon, ch. 21; ii. Marcellus, ch. 18; iv. Dion, chs. 29, 30, 35, 42.

Acilius, a historian, i. Romulus, ch. 21; ii. Cato Major, ch. 22.

——, Glabrio, Manius, ii. Sulla, ch. 12; Cato Major, chs. 12, 14.

——, a friend of Brutus, iv. Brutus, ch. 23.

——, a soldier of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, ch. 16.

Aciris, river in Lucania, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 16.

Acrillæ, ii. Marcellus, ch. 18.

Acrocorinthus, the citadel of Corinth, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 16, 19; Aratus, ch. 16, and after.

574 Acron, king of the Ceninetes, killed by Romulus, i. Romulus, ch. 16; Comparison, ch. 1.

Actium, iv. Antonius, chs. 62, 63, 71.

Ada, queen of Caria, iii. Alexander, ch. 22.

Adeimantus, an Archon, i. Themistokles, ch. 5; an Athenian general, i. Alkibiades, ch. 36.

Adiabeni, ii. Lucullus, chs. 26, 27.

Admetus, king of the Molossians, i. Themistokles, ch. 24; king of Pheræ, i. Numa, ch. 4.

Adonis, festival of, i. Alkibiades, ch. 18; iii. Nikias, ch. 13.

Adramyttium, iv. Cicero, ch. 4.

Adranum, i. Timoleon, chs. 12, 16.

Adranus, i. Timoleon, ch. 12.

Adrastean hills, ii. Lucullus, ch. 9.

Adrastus, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Adria, a town of the Tyrrhenians, i. Camillus, ch. 16.

——, a corrupt reading in Aratus, iv. Aratus, ch. 12.

Adrianus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 17.

Adrumetum, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 59.

Æakides, son of Arybas, father of Pyrrhus, king of the Molossians, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

——, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 1, 2.

Æakus, i. Theseus, ch. 10.

Ædepsus, ii. Sulla, ch. 26.

Ædui, iii. Cæsar, ch. 26.

Ægæ, i. Themistokles, ch. 26.

Ægeis, Attic tribe, i. Alkibiades, ch. 21.

Ægeste, town in Sicily. _See_ Egesta.

Ægeus, father of Theseus, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 4, 12, 13, 17, 22; Comparison, ch. 6.

Ægialia, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 31, 32.

Ægias, banker at Sikyon, iv. Aratus, chs. 18, 19.

Ægikoreis, Attic tribe, i. Solon, ch. 23. _See_ Aigikoreis.

Ægina, i. Themistokles, chs. 4, 15, 17, 19; Perikles, chs. 8, 34; ii. Aristeides, ch. 8; Lysander, chs. 9, 14; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 4; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 26.

Ægium, ii. Cato Major, ch. 12; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 17, 25; Aratus, ch. 42.

Ægle, daughter of Panopeus, i. Theseus, chs. 20, 29.

Ægospotami, i. Alkibiades, ch. 36; ii. Lysander, chs. 9-12; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 21.

Ælia, wife of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 6.

Ælii, i. Æmilius, ch. 5.

Ælius, Sextus, ii. Flamininus, ch. 2.

Ælius Tubero, i. Æmilius, chs. 5, 27, 28.

Æmilia, daughter of Æneas, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

——, wife of Africanus, i. Æmilius, ch. 2.

——, stepdaughter of Sulla and wife of Pompeius, ii. Sulla, ch. 33; iii. Pompeius, ch. 9.

Æmilii, i. Numa, ch. 8; Æmilius, ch. 2.

Æmilius, son of Pythagoras, _ibidem_.

——, Quintus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 21.

——, Lucius. _See_ Paulus.

——, Marcus (Lucius Æmilius Mamercinus), i. Camillus, ch. 42.

——, Marcus Lepidus, i. Æmilius, ch. 38.

——, a crier, i. Æmilius, ch. 38.

——, quaestor (censor?), i. Numa, ch. 9.

Ænaria (now Ischia), off the coast of Campania, ii. Marius, chs. 37. 40.

Æneas, i. Romulus, ch. 2; Comparison, ch. 5; Camillus, ch. 20.

Ænus, in Thrace, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 11.

Æolus, islands of, i. Camillus, ch. 8.

Æquians, i. Camillus, chs. 2, 33, 35; Coriolanus, ch. 39.

Æropus, a friend of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 8; a king of Macedonia, iv. Demetrius, ch. 20.

Æschines, orator, iv. Demosthenes, chs. 4, 9, 12, 15, 16, 22, 24.

575 Æschines of Lampra, ii. Aristeides, ch. 13.

——, scholar of Sokrates, i. Perikles, chs. 24, 32; ii. Aristeides, ch. 25.

Æschylus, an Argive, iv. Aratus, ch. 25.

——, kinsman of Timoleon, i. Timoleon, ch. 4.

——, the poet, i. Theseus, ch. 1; Romulus, ch. 9; Themistokles, ch. 14; ii. Aristeides, ch. 3; Kimon, ch. 8; iii. Pompeius, ch. 1; Alexander, ch. 8; iv. Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 2; Demetrius, ch. 35.

Æsculapius, i. Numa, ch. 4; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

Æsion, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 11.

Æson, a river, i. Æmilius, ch. 16.

Æsopus, tragic poet, iv. Cicero, ch. 5.

——, the fabulist, i. Solon, chs. 6, 28; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 34; iii. Crassus, ch. 32; iv. Aratus, chs. 30, 38.

Æsuvian meadow, i. Poplicola, ch. 9.

Æthra, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 4, 6, 7, 34.

Ætolia and Ætolians, ii. Cato Major, ch. 13; Philopœmen, chs. 7, 15; Flamininus, chs. 7-10, 15; iii. Alexander, ch. 49; iv. Agis, ch. 13; Kleomenes, chs. 10, 18, 34; Demetrius, ch. 40; Aratus, frequent.

Afidius, ii. Sulla, ch. 31.

Afranius, consul B.C. 60, iii. Sertorius, ch. 19; Pompeius, chs. 34, 36, 44, 67; Cæsar, chs. 36, 41, 53.

Agamemnon, i. Perikles, ch. 28; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21; Lysander, ch. 15; iii. Nikias, ch. 5; Sertorius ch. 1; Agesilaus, chs. 6, 9; Pompeius, ch. 67; Cæsar, ch. 41; Comparison, ch. 4.

Agariste, mother of Perikles, i. Perikles, ch. 3.

Agatharchus, a painter, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Agathoklea, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 33.

Agathokles, son of Lysimachus, iv. Demetrius, chs. 31, 46, 47. Of Syracuse, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 9, 14; iv. Demetrius, ch. 25.

Agave, iii. Crassus, ch. 33, note.

Agesias of Acharnæ, ii. Aristeides, ch. 13.

Agesilaus I., king of Sparta, iii. ; Life and Comparison with Pompeius, i. Lykurgus, chs. 12, 29; Timoleon, ch. 36; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 16, 21, 30; Flamininus, ch. 11; Lysander, chs. 22-27, 30; Kimon, chs. 10, 19; iii. Phokion, ch. 3; iv. Agis, chs. 3, 4, 14; Artaxerxes, ch. 20.

——, uncle of Agis IV., iv. Agis, chs. 6, 9, 12, 13, 16, 19; Comparison, ch. 194.

Agesipolis I., king of Sparta, son of Pausanias, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 4; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 20, 24; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

——, II., king of Sparta, son of Kleombrotus, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Agesistrata, mother of Agis IV., iv. Agis, chs. 4, 20.

Agiadæ, ii. Lysander, chs. 24, 30.

Agias, at Argos, iv. Aratus, ch. 29.

Agiatis, daughter of Gylippus, iv., Kleomenes, chs. 1, 22.

Agis I., king of Sparta, ii. Lysander, chs. 24, 30; iv. Agis. ch. 33.

——, II., king of Sparta, son of Archidamus II., i. Lykurgus, chs. 11, 18, 19, 28, 29; Alkibiades, chs. 24, 25, 34, 38; ii. Lysander, chs. 9, 14, 22; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 1-4.

——, III., king of Sparta, son of Archidamus III., iii. Agesilaus, ch. 15; iv. Agis, ch. 3; Demosthenes, ch. 24.

——, IV., king of Sparta, son of Eudamidas, iv. Life and Comparison with the Gracchi; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 40; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 1; Aratus, ch. 31.

Agnus, Attic township, i. Theseus, ch. 13.

Agraulai, i. Themistokles, ch. 23.

576 Agraulos, i. Alkibiades, ch. 15.

Agrigentum, i. Timoleon, ch. 35; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 22; iv. Dion, ch. 26.

Agrippa, Marcus Vipsanius, iv. Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 33; Antonius, chs. 35, 65, 66, 73, 87; Brutus, ch. 27; Galba, ch. 25.

——, Menenius, i. Coriolanus, ch. 6.

Agrippina, iv. Antonius, ch. 87; Galba, ch. 14.

Agylæus, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 8.

Ahala, Servilius, iv. Brutus, ch. 1.

Ahenobarbus, the first of the name, i. Æmilius, ch. 26. _See_ Domitius.

Ajax, i. Theseus, ch. 29; Solon, ch. 10; Alkibiades, ch. 1; iii. Pompeius, ch. 72.

Aidoneus, king of the Molossians, i. Theseus, chs. 31, 35.

Aiantis, Attic tribe, ii. Aristeides, ch. 19.

Aipeia, i. Solon, ch. 26.

Aithra. _See_ Æthra.

Aius Locutius, i. Camillus, ch. 30.

Akademus, i. Theseus, ch. 32. _See_ Academia.

Akamantis, Athenian tribe, i. Perikles, ch. 3.

Akanthians, ii. Lysander, chs. 1, 18.

Akestodorus, i. Themistokles, ch. 13.

Akontium, ii. Sulla, chs. 17, 19.

Akræ, iv. Dion, ch. 27.

Akrillæ. _See_ Acrillæ.

Akrotatus I., king of Sparta, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

——, II., king of Sparta, grandson of Akrotatus I., ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 26, 28; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Akrourian mountain, iii. Phokion, ch. 33.

Akte, iv. Aratus, ch. 40.

Alba, in Latium, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 7, 9, 27, 28; Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, ch. 1; Pompeius, chs. 53, 80; Cæsar, ch. 60; iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

Albans, i. Romulus, ch. 2; Camillus, ch. 17. Alban farm, ii. Sulla, ch. 31. Alban hills, iv. Cicero, ch. 31. Alban mount, ii. Marcellus, ch. 22.

Albani of the Caucasus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 26; iii. Pompeius, chs. 34, 35, 38, 45; iv. Antonius, ch. 34.

Albinus, Decimus Brutus. _See_ under Brutus.

——, or Albinius, Lucius, i. Camillus, ch. 21.

——, Spurius Postumius, consul B.C. 110, ii. Marius, ch. 9.

Aleas, ii. Lysander, ch. 28.

Alesia, iii. Cæsar, ch. 27.

Alexander of Antioch, iv. Antonius, ch. 46.

——, son of Antony and Cleopatra, iv. Antonius, ch. 54.

——, son of Kassander, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 6, 7; iv. Demetrius, ch. 36; Comparison of Demetrius and Antonius, 5.

——, an Aristotelian philosopher, a teacher of Crassus, iii. Crassus, ch. 3.

——, grandson of Kraterus, iv. Aratus, ch. 17.

——, son of Demetrius, iv. Demetrius, ch. 53.

——, a freedman, iii. Pompeius, ch. 4.

——, a young Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 58.

——, I., king of Macedon, ii. Aristeides, ch. 15; Kimon, ch. 14.

——, II., king of Macedon, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 26-28.

——, the Great, iii. Life; i. Theseus, ch. 5; Camillus, ch. 19; Æmilius, ch. 23; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 34; Aristeides, ch. 11; Philopœmen, ch. 4; Flamininus, chs. 7, 21; Pyrrhus, chs. 8, 11, 19; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 4; Eumenes, chs. 1, 6, 7; Agesilaus, ch. 15; Pompeius, chs. 2, 34, 45; Comparison of Pompeius and Agesilaus, ch. 2; Cæsar, ch. 11; Phokion, chs. 9, 17, 18, 22; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 9, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, &c.; Demetrius, chs. 10, 57725, 27, 29, 37; Antonius, chs. 6, 80; Comparison of Demetrius and Antonius, ch. 4; Kleomenes, ch. 31.

Alexander, son of Priam, iv. Galba, ch. 19.

——, the Myndian, ii. Marius, ch. 17.

——, son of Perseus, i. Æmilius, ch. 37.

——, of Pheræ, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 26, 31, 32.

——, son of Polysperchon, iii. Phokion, ch. 33; iv. Demetrius, ch. 9.

——, son of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 9.

——, son of Roxana, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 4.

——, general of the Thracians, i. Æmilius, ch. 18.

Alexandria and Alexandrians, ii. Lucullus, ch. 2; iii. Pompeius, ch. 49; Alexander, ch. 26; Cæsar, ch. 48; Cato Minor, ch. 35; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 37, 39; Antonius, chs. 69, 71, and after.

Alexandropolis, iii. Alexander, ch. 9.

Alexandristes, ii. Alexander, ch. 24.

Alexas of Laodicea, iv. Antonius, ch. 72.

——, a Syrian, perhaps, same as preceding, iv. Antonius, ch. 66.

Alexikrates, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 5.

Alexippus, iii. Alexander, ch. 41.

Alfenus Varus, general of Vitellius, iv. Otho, ch. 12. _See_ Alphenus.

Alkæus, an epigrammatist, ii. Flamininus, ch. 9.

——, of Sardis, iii. Pompeius, ch. 37.

Alkander, a Spartan, i. Lykurgus, ch. 10.

Alketas, king of the Molossians, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

——, iii. Eumenes, chs. 5, 8; Alexander, ch. 55.

Alkibiades, i. Life and Comparison with Coriolanus; Lykurgus, ch. 15; Numa, ch. 8; Perikles, chs. 20, 37; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 4; Aristeides, ch. 7; Flamininus, ch. 11; Lysander, chs. 3, 4, 10, 11; Comparison of Lysander and Sulla ch. 4; iii. Nikias, chs. 9-15; Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, chs. 2, 3; Agesilaus, ch. 3; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 1, 27; Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 4; Antonius, ch. 70.

Alkidamas, an orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 5.

Alkimenes, an Achæan, iv. Dion, ch. 23.

Alkimus, a promontory in Attica, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Alkimus, an Epirot, iv. Demetrius, ch. 21.

Alkmæon, in command of the Athenians, i. Solon, chs. 11, 30.

——, of Agraulæ, i. Themistokles, ch. 23; ii. Aristeides, ch. 25.

——, son of Amphiaraus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1; iv. Aratus, ch. 3.

Alkmæonidæ, i. Perikles, ch. 33.

Alkman, a Lacedæmonian poet, i. Lykurgus, ch. 27; ii. Sulla, ch. 36.

Alkmena, mother of Herakles, i. Theseus, ch. 7; Romulus, ch. 28; ii. Lysander, ch. 28.

Allia, river, i. Camillus, chs. 18, 19.

Allobroges, iv. Cicero, ch. 18.

Alopekæ, township in Attica, i. Themistokles, ch. 32; Perikles, ch. 11; ii. Aristeides, ch. 1.

Alopekus, or Fox-hill, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Alphenus Varus, iv. Otho, ch. 12.

Alsæa, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 7.

Alykus, son of Skeiron, i. Theseus, ch. 32.

Amantius (Matius?), friend of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, ch. 50.

Amanus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 39; iv. Cicero, ch. 36; Demetrius, ch. 48.

Amarsyas, i. Theseus, ch. 17.

Amathus, i. Theseus, ch. 20.

Amazons, i. Theseus, chs. 26-28; Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, ch. 1; Perikles, ch. 31; ii. Lucullus, ch. 23; iii. Pompeius, ch. 35; Alexander, ch. 46; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 19.

578 Amazoneum, at Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 27; at Chalkis, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Ambiorix, or Abriorix, iii. Cæsar, ch. 24.

Ambrakia in Acarnania, i. Perikles, ch. 16; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6.

Ambrones, a Celtic tribe, ii. Marius, chs. 15. 19. 20.

Ambustus, Q. Fabius, i. Numa, ch. 12; Camillus, ch. 4.

Ameinias, of Dekeleia, i. Themistokles, ch. 14; Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, ch. 2.

——, a Phokian, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 29.

Ameria, in Umbria, ii. Marius, ch. 17.

Amestris, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 2, 3, 27.

Amisus, a town in Pontus, i. Lucullus, chs. 14, 15, 19, 32, 33; iii. Pompeius, ch. 38.

Ammon, ii. Lysander, chs. 20, 25; Kimon, ch. 8; iii. Nikias, ch. 13; Alexander, chs. 26, 27, 47, 50.

——, son of Zeus and Pasiphæ, iv. Agis, ch. 9.

Ammonius, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Amnæus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 19.

Amœbeus, iv. Aratus, ch. 17.

Amompharetus, i. Solon, ch. 10; ii. Aristeides, ch. 17.

Amorgos, iv. Demetrius, ch. 11.

Amphares, iv. Agis, chs. 18-21.

Amphiaraus, i. Aristeides, chs. 3, 19; iv. Aratus, ch. 3.

Amphikrates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 22.

Amphiktyons, i. Solon, ch. 11; Themistokles, ch. 20; ii. Cato Major, ch. 12; Sulla, ch. 12; Kimon, ch. 8.

Amphilochia, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6.

Amphipolis, i. Lykurgus, ch. 24; Æmilius, chs. 23, 24; ii. Kimon, ch. 8; iii. Nikias, chs. 9, 10; Pompeius, ch. 74.

Amphissa, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18; Antonius, ch. 28.

Amphitheus, ii. Lysander, ch. 27.

Amphitrope, i. Aristeides, ch. 26.

Amphitryon, ii. Lysander, ch. 28.

Amulius, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 6-9, 21; Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, ch. 1.

Amykla, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1; Lykurgus, ch. 15.

Amyklas, iv. Agis, ch. 9.

Amyntas, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 20.

——, envoy of Philip, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18.

——, king of Lycaonia and Galatia, iv. Antonius, chs. 61, 63.

Anaitis (Artemis), iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 27.

Anakes, i. Theseus, ch. 33; Numa, ch. 13.

Anacharsis, i. Solon, ch. 5.

Anakreon, i. Perikles, ch. 27.

Analius, Lucius, iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 2.

Anaphlystus, ii. Kimon, ch. 17.

Anapus, i. Timoleon, ch. 21; iii. Nikias, 16; iv. Dion, ch. 27.

Anaxagorus, a philosopher, i. Themistokles, ch. 2; Perikles, chs. 4, 5, 6, 8, 16, 32; ii. Lysander, ch. 12; iii. Nikias, ch. 23.

Anaxandrides, of Delphi, ii. Lysander, ch. 18.

Anaxarchus, a philosopher, iii. Alexander, chs. 8, 28, 32.

Anaxenor, iv. Antonius, ch. 24.

Anaxidamus, of Chæronea, ii. Sulla, chs. 17, 1719.

Anaxilas, i. Solon, ch. 10.

Anaxilaus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 31.

Anaximenes, i. Poplicola, ch. 9; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28; Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 2.

Anaxo, i. Theseus, ch. 29; Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, ch. 6.

Ancharia, iv. Antonius, ch. 31.

Ancharius, ii. Marius, ch. 43.

Ancus Marcius, i. Coriolanus, ch. 1.

Andokides, i. Themistokles, ch. 32; Alkibiades, ch. 21; Nikias, ch. 13.

Androgeus, i. Theseus, ch. 15, 16; Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, ch. 1.

579 Androkleon, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

Androkles, i. Alkibiades, ch. 19.

Androkleides, an Epirot, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

——, an author, ii. Lysander, ch. 8.

——, a Bœotian, ii. Lysander, ch. 27.

Androkottus, iii. Alexander, ch. 62.

Androkrates, i. Aristeides, ch. 11.

Androkydes, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 25.

Andromache, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 29; iii. Alexander, ch. 51; iv. Brutus, ch. 23.

Andromachus, of Carrhæ, iii. Crassus, ch. 29.

——, of Tauromenium, i. Timoleon, ch. 10.

Andron, i. Theseus, ch. 25.

Andronikus, ii. Sulla, ch. 26.

Andros, i. Themistokles, ch. 21; Perikles, ch. 11; Alkibiades, ch. 35; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 2, and (?) iv. Aratus, ch. 12.

Androtion, a writer, i. Solon, ch. 15.

——, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

Angelus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

Anicius, Lucius, i. Æmilius, ch. 13.

Anienus, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58.

Anio, i. Poplicola, ch. 21; Camillus, ch. 41; Coriolanus, ch. 6.

Annalius. _See_ Analius.

Anius, a river in Epirus, iii. Cæsar, ch. 38.

Annius, Caius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 7.

——, who killed Antonius the orator, ii. Marius, ch. 44.

——, Milo. _See_ Milo.

——, Titus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 14.

Annius Gallus, iv. Otho, chs. 7, 8, 13.

Antæus, i. Theseus, ch. 11; iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

Antagoras, i. Aristeides, ch. 23.

Antalkidas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 12; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 15, 30; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 23, 26, 32; iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 21, 22.

Antemna, or Antemnæ, i. Romulus, ch. 17; ii. Sulla, ch. 30.

Antenor, i. Numa, ch. 8.

Anthedon, ii. Sulla, ch. 26.

Anthemion, i. Alkibiades, ch. 4; Coriolanus, ch. 14.

Anthemokritus, i. Perikles, ch. 30.

Antho, i. Romulus, ch. 3.

Anticato, iii. Cæsar, ch. 54; iv. Cicero, ch. 39.

Antikleides, iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

Antikrates, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 35.

Antikyra, iv. Demetrius, ch. 24.

——, a town in Phokis, iv. Antonius, ch. 68.

Antigenes, chief of the Asgyraspids, iii. Eumenes, chs. 13, 16; Alexander, ch. 70.

——, a writer, iv. Alexander, ch. 46.

Antigenidas, iv. Demetrius, ch. 1.

Antigone, daughter of Philip and Berenike, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 4, 5, 9.

——, of Pydna, iii. Alexander, ch. 48.

Antigonea, iv. Aratus, ch. 45.

Antigonis, Attic tribe, iv. Demetrius, ch. 10.

Antigonus, father of Demetrius Poliorketes, i. Romulus, ch. 17; Æmilius, chs. 8, 33; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 1, 2; Pyrrhus, chs. 4, 8; iii. Sertorius, ch. 1; Eumenes, chs. 3, 8, and following; Comparison of Eumenes and Sertorius, ch. 2; Alexander, ch. 77; Phokion, chs. 29, 30; iv. Demetrius throughout; Comparison of Demetrius and Antonius, ch. 1; Aratus, ch. 54.

——, Gonatas, son of Demetrius, i. Æmilius, ch. 8; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 26, 29, 30, and following; iv. Demetrius, chs. 39, 40, 51, 53; Aratus, chs. 4, 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 23-25, 34, 41.

——, Doson, king of Macedonia, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11; Æmilius, ch. 8; ii. Philopœmen, chs. 6, 7; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 16, 20, and following; Aratus, ch. 38, and following.

580 Antigonus, king of the Jews, iv. Antonius, ch. 36.

Antilibanus, iii. Alexander, ch. 24.

Antimachus, poet of Kolophon, i. Timoleon, ch. 36; ii. Lysander, ch. 18.

——, poet of Teos, i. Romulus, ch. 12.

Antioch on the Orontes, near Daphne, capital of Syria, ii. Lucullus, ch. 21, and note; iii. Pompeius ch. 40; Cato Minor, ch. 13; iv. Demetrius, ch. 32; Galba, ch. 13.

——, of Mygdonia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 32.

Antiochis, an Athenian tribe, ii. Aristeides, chs. 1, 5.

Antiochus of Askalon, ii. Lucullus, chs. 28, 42; iv. Cicero, ch. 4; Brutus, ch. 2.

——, Athenian pilot, i. Alkibiades, chs. 10, 35; ii. Lysander, ch. 5; Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 4.

——, of Commagene, iv. Antonius, ch. 34.

——, I., Soter, son of Seleukus, iv. Demetrius, chs. 20, 31, 38, 51.

——, III., the Great, i. Æmilius, chs. 4, 7; ii. Cato Major, chs. 12, 13, 14; Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, chs. 2, 5; Philopœmen, ch. 17; Flamininus, chs. 9, 15, 16, 17, 20; Sulla, ch. 12; Lucullus, chs. 11, 31; iii. Crassus, ch. 26.

Antiope, i. Theseus, chs. 26, 27; Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, ch. 6.

Antiorus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31.

Antipater, governor of Macedonia, i. Camillus, ch. 19; Comparison of Alkibiades and Coriolanus, ch. 3; Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, ch. 2; iii. Eumenes, chs. 3, 4, 6, 8, 12; Agesilaus, ch. 15; Alexander, chs. 11, 39, 46, 47, 74, 77; Phokion, chs. 1, 17, 23, 25-31; iv. Agis, ch. 2; Demosthenes, chs. 27-29; Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 5; Demetrius, chs. 14, 47; Comparison of Antonius and Demetrius, ch. 1.

Antipater, son of Kassander, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6; Demetrius, chs. 36, 37.

——, of Tarsus, ii. Marius, ch. 46; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 8.

——, of Tyre, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 4.

Antiphanes, comic poet, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 9.

Antiphates, i. Themistokles, ch. 18.

Antiphilus, iii. Phokion, chs. 24, 25.

Antiphon, an orator, i. Alkibiades, ch. 3; iii. Nikias, ch. 6; iv. Antonius, ch. 28.

——, a criminal, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 14.

Antisthenes, i. Lykurgus, ch. 30; Perikles, ch. 1; Alkibiades, ch. 1.

Antistia, wife of Appius Claudius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 4.

——, wife of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 4, 9.

Antistius (Appuleius?), in command of ships, iv. Brutus, ch. 25.

——, father-in-law of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 4, 9.

Antium, i. Romulus, ch. 14; Fabius, ch. 2; Coriolanus, chs. 9, 13, 39; iv. Brutus, ch. 21.

Anton, son of Hercules, iv. Antonius, ch. 4.

Antonia, iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

Antonias, flagship of Cleopatra, iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

Antonius, Marcus, the orator, ii. Marius, ch. 44; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; iv. Antonius, ch. 1.

——, Creticus, father of the triumvir, iv. Antonius, ch. 1.

——, Caius, son of the orator, iii. Cicero, chs. 11, 12, 16; iv. Antonius, ch. 1.

——, Caius, brother of the triumvir, iv. Antonius, chs. 15, 22; Brutus, ch. 26, and after.

——, Lucius, brother of the triumvir, iv. Antonius, ch. 15.

——, Iulus, son of Marcus Antonius and Fulvia, iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

581 Antonius, Publius, more properly Caius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 4.

——, Lucius Antonius Saturninus, who rebelled against Domitian, i. Æmilius, ch. 25.

——, murderer of Sertorius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 26.

——, Marcus, the triumvir, iv. Life and Comparison; i. Numa, ch. 20; Æmilius, ch. 38; iii. Pompeius, chs. 58, 59; Cæsar, ch. 30, and after; Cato Minor, ch. 73; iv. Cicero, ch. 41, and after; Demetrius, ch. 1; Brutus, chs. 18-24, 38, 41, and after; Comparison of Brutus and Dion, ch. 5.

——, Honoratus, iv. Galba, ch. 14.

Antyllius, Q., iv. C. Gracchus, chs. 13, 14; Comparison, ch. 5.

Antyllus, iv. Antonius, chs. 71, 81, 87.

Anytus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 3; Coriolanus, ch. 14.

Aollius, or Avillius. _See_ Avillius.

Aous. _See_ Anius.

Apama, wife of Seleukus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 31.

——, daughter of Artaxerxes, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 27.

——, daughter of Artabazus, wife of Ptolemy, iii. Eumenes, ch. 1.

Apellas, a Macedonian, iv. Aratus, ch. 48.

Apelles, the painter, iii. Alexander, ch. 4; iv. Demetrius, ch. 22; Aratus, ch. 13.

Apellikon, of Teos, ii. Sulla, ch. 26.

Apemantes, iv. Antonius, ch. 70.

Aperantians, ii. Flamininus, ch. 15.

Aphetai, i. Themistokles, ch. 7.

Aphidnæ, i. Theseus, chs. 31-33; comparison, ch. 6.

Aphidnus, i. Theseus, ch. 33.

Aphytæ, ii. Lysander, ch. 20.

Aphrodite, i. Numa, ch. 19.

Aphepsion, an Archon, ii. Kimon, ch. 8.

Apis, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 34.

Apollodorus, governor of Babylon, iii. Alexander, ch. 73.

——, the Phalerian, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 46.

——, a Sicilian, iii. Cæsar, ch. 49.

——, a writer, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

——, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15; comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 3.

Apollokrates, iv. Dion, chs. 37, 40, 41, 51, 56.

Apollonia, in Mysia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 11.

——, in Sicily, i. Timoleon, ch. 24.

——, in Epirus, ii. Sulla, ch. 27; iii. Cæsar, chs. 37, 38; iv. Cicero, ch. 4343; Antonius, ch. 16; Brutus, chs. 22, 25, 26.

Apollonides, iv. Demetrius, ch. 50.

——, a philosopher, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 65, 66, 69, 70.

Apollonius, son of Molon, iii. Cæsar, ch. 3; iv. Cicero, ch. 4.

——, despot of Zenodotia, iii. Crassus, ch. 17.

Apollophanes, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 12.

Apollothemis, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31.

Aponius, iv. Galba, ch. 8.

Apothetæ, or the “Exposure,” a chasm under Mount Taygetus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 15.

Appian Road, iii. Cæsar, ch. 5.

Appius Claudius (Cæcus), ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 18, 19.

——, Claudius, consul B.C. 212, i. Comparison of Fabius and Perikles, ch. 2; ii. Marcellus, chs. 13, 14.

——, Claudius, consul B.C. 177, i. Poplicola, ch. 7.

——, Claudius, consul B.C. 143, i. Æmilius ch. 38; Tib. Gracchus, chs. 4, 9, 13.

——, Claudius, consul B.C. 54, iii. Pompeius, ch. 57.

——, Claudius, ii. Sulla, ch. 29.

——, Clodius, sent by Lucullus to Tigranes, ii. Lucullus, chs. 19, 21, 29.

——, Clausus, i. Poplicola, chs. 21, 22, same as Appius Claudius; Coriolanus, ch. 19.

582 Appius, governor of Sardinia, iii. Cæsar, ch. 21.

——, Marcus, iv. Cicero, ch. 26.

Apsephion, in text Aphepsion, Archon at Athens, ii. Kimon, ch. 8.

Apsus, ii. Flamininus, ch. 3.

Aptera, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 30.

Apuleius, Lucius, i. Camillus, ch. 12.

Apulia, ii. Marcellus, ch. 24.

Aquæ Sextiæ, ii. Marius, ch. 18.

Aquillii, i. Poplicola, chs. 3, 4, and after.

Aquillius, Manius, ii. Marius, ch. 14.

——, Gallus, P., tribune of the people, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 43.

Aquinius, Marcus, iv. Cicero, ch. 27.

Aquinum, iv. Otho, ch. 5.

Aquinus, iii. Sertorius, ch. 13.

Arabia and Arabians, i. Theseus, ch. 5; ii. Lucullus, ch. 21, and after; iii. Crassus, chs. 28, 29, and after; Pompeius, ch. 44, and after; Alexander, ch. 24; iv. Antonius, ch. 37, and after; Arabia Nabathea, iv. Antonius ch. 2730.

Arachosia, iii, Eumenes, ch. 19.

Arakus, ii. Lysander, ch. 7.

Arar, iii. Caesar, ch. 18.

Araterion, i. Theseus, ch. 35.

Arateum, iv. Aratus, ch. 53.

Aratus of Sikyon, iv. Life and Comparison; ii. Philopœmen, chs. 1, 8; iv. Agis, ch. 15; Kleomenes, chs. 3, 4, 6, 15-17, 20, 25.

——, son of the preceding, iv. Aratus, chs. 49-54.

Araxes, ii. Lucullus, ch. 26; iii. Pompeius, chs. 33, 34; iv. Antonius, chs. 49, 52.

Arbakes, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 14.

Arbela, i. Camillus, ch. 19; iii. Pompeius, ch. 36; Alexander, ch. 31.

Arcadia and Arcadians, i. Theseus, ch. 32; Numa, ch. 18; the Arcadian months, Coriolanus, ch. 3; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 4, 20, and after; Philopœmen, ch. 13; Agesilaus, chs. 15, 22, 30, 32; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 3, and after; Demosthenes, ch. 27; Demetrius, ch. 25; Aratus, ch. 34.

Archedamus, an Ætolian, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

Archedemus, an Ætolian, ii. Comparison of Titus and Philopœmen, ch. 2.

——, a friend of Archytas, iv. Dion, ch. 18.

Archelaus, general of Antigonus Gonatas, iv. Aratus, ch. 22.

——, of Delos, ii. Sulla, ch. 22.

——, general of Mithridates, ii. Marius, ch. 34; Sulla, chs. 11, 15-17, 19-24; Comparison, ch. 4; Lucullus, chs. 3, 8, 9, 11.

——, king of Cappadocia, iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

——, an Egyptian general, son of the preceding, iv. Antonius, ch. 3.

——, a writer, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

——, a poet, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

——, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 5.

——, in Phokis, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Archeptolis, half-brother of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

——, son of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Archestratus, an Athenian, i. Alkibiades, ch. 16; ii. Lysander, ch. 19.

——, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 33.

——, a dramatic poet, i. Aristeides, ch. 1.

Archias, an Athenian, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 10.

——, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 5, 7-11; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 23.

——, a Thurian, iv. Demosthenes, chs. 28, 29.

Archibiades, iii. Phokion, ch. 10.

Archibius, iv. Antonius, ch. 86.

Archidamia, grandmother of Agis, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 27; iv. Agis, chs. 4, 20; perhaps not both the same.

583 Archidamidas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 19.

Archidamus II., king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 19; Perikles, chs. 8, 29, 33; ii. Kimon, ch. 16; iii. Crassus, ch. 2; Agesilaus, chs. 1, 2; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 27.

——, III., king of Sparta, i. Camillus, ch. 19; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 25, 33, 39, 40; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

——, IV., king of Sparta, iv. Agis, ch. 3; Demetrius, ch. 35.

——, V., king of Sparta, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 1, 5; comparison, ch. 5.

‘Archilochi,’ play by Kratinus, ii. Kimon, ch. 10.

Archilochus, i. Theseus, ch. 5; Numa, ch. 4; Perikles, chs. 2, 27; ii. Marius, ch. 21; iii. Phokion, ch. 7; Cato minor, ch. 7; Demetrius, ch. 35; Galba, ch. 27.

Archimedes, ii. Marcellus, chs. 14-19.

Archippe, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Archippus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1.

Architeles, i. Themistokles, ch. 7.

Archonides, iv. Dion, ch. 42.

Archytas, ii. Marcellus, ch. 14; iv. Dion, chs. 18, 20.

Ardea, i. Camillus, chs. 17, 23, 24.

Ardettus, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Areius or Arius, iv. Antonius, ch. 80.

Areopagus, i. Solon, chs. 19, 31; Themistokles, ch. 10; Perikles, chs. 7, 9; ii. Kimon, chs. 10, 15; iii. Phokion, ch. 16; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 14, 26; Cicero, ch. 24.

Aretæus, iv. Dion, ch. 31.

Arete, i. Timoleon, ch. 33; iv. Dion, chs. 6, 31, 51, 58.

Arethusa in Macedonia, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31.

——, iv. Antonius, ch. 37.

Areus I., king of Sparta, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 26, 27, 29, 30, 32; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Areus II., king of Sparta, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Argas, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 4.

Argileonis, i. Lykurgus, ch. 24.

Arginusæ, i. Perikles, ch. 37; ii. Lysander, ch. 7.

Argo, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

Argos and Argives, i. Lykurgus, ch. 7; Alkibiades, chs. 14, 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 24; Philopœmen, chs. 12, 18; Pyrrhus, ch. 29, and after; iii. Nikias, ch. 10; Agesilaus, ch. 31; Pompeius, ch. 24; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 17, and after; Demetrius, ch. 25; Aratus throughout.

Argius, Galba’s freedman, iv. Galba, 1128.

Argyraspids, iii. Eumenes, chs. 13, 16, 17, 19.

Ariadne, i. Theseus, chs. 19-21; Comparison, ch. 1.

Ariæus, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 11.

Ariamenes, i. Themistokles, ch. 14.

Ariamnes, iii. Crassus, ch. 21.

Ariarathes II., king of Cappadocia, iii. Eumenes, ch. 3.

——, son of Mithridates, ii. Sulla, ch. 11; Pompeius, ch. 37.

——, iii. Pompeius, ch. 42.

Ariaspes, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 29, 30.

Arimanius, i. Themistokles, ch. 28.

Ariminum, ii. Marcellus, ch. 4; iii. Pompeius, ch. 60; Cæsar, chs. 32, 33; Cato Minor, ch. 52.

Arimnestus, a Platæan, ii. Aristeides, ch. 11.

——, a Spartan, ii. Aristeides, ch. 19.

Ariobarzanes, ii. Sulla, chs. 5, 22, 24; iv. Cicero, ch. 36; Demetrius, ch. 4.

Ariomandes, ii. Kimon, ch. 12.

Ariovistus, iii. Cæsar, ch. 19.

Ariphron, i. Alkibiades, chs. 1, 3.

Aristænetus, Aristæus, or Aristænus, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 17.

Aristagoras, ii. Lucullus, ch. 10.

Aristander, iii. Alexander, chs. 2, 25, 33, 50, &c.

584 Aristeas of Argos, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 30, 32.

——, of Prokonnesus, i. Romulus, ch. 28.

Aristeides, i. Life and Comparison; i. Themistokles, chs. 3, 5, 11, 12, 16, 20; Perikles, ch. 7; Comparison of Alkibiades and Coriolanus, chs. 1, 3; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 4; Kimon, chs. 5, 6, 10; iii. Nikias, ch. 11; Comparison, ch. 1; Phokion, chs. 3, 7; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 14.

——, a Lokrian, i. Timoleon, ch. 6.

——, author of Milesian Tales, iii. Crassus, ch. 32.

——, son of Xenophilus, i. Aristeides, ch. 1.

Aristion, i. Numa, ch. 9; ii. Sulla, chs. 12-14, 23; Lucullus, ch. 19.

——, Corinthian pilot, iii. Nikias, chs. 20, 25.

Aristippus of Argos, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 30; iv. Aratus, chs. 25, 30.

——, of Cyrene, iv. Dion, ch. 19.

Aristobulus, Alexander’s historian, iii. Alexander, chs. 15, 18, 46, 74; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 23.

——, king of Judæa, ii. Pompeius, chs. 39, 44; iv. Antonius, ch. 3.

Aristodemus, of Miletus, iv. Demetrius, chs. 8, 17.

——, despot of Megalopolis, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

——, founder of the royal houses of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1, and note; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19.

Aristodikus, i. Perikles, ch. 10.

Aristogeiton, companion of Harmodius, i. Aristeides, ch. 27.

——, an Athenian sycophant, iii. Phokion, ch. 10; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

Aristokleitus, ii. Lysander, ch. 2.

Aristokrates, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

——, son of Hipparchus, a Spartan writer, i. Lykurgus, chs. 4, 31; ii. Philopœmen, ch. 16.

Aristokrates, a rhetorician, iv. Antonius, ch. 69.

Aristokritus, iii. Alexander, ch. 10.

Aristomache, i. Timoleon, ch. 33; iv. Dion, chs. 6, 7, 14, 34, 51, 58.

Aristomachus, Achæan general, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 4.

——, despot of Argos, iv. Aratus, chs. 25, 35, 44.

——, of Sikyon, iv. Aratus, ch. 5.

Aristomenes, i. Romulus, ch. 25; iv. Agis, ch. 21.

Ariston of Keos, i. Themistokles, ch. 3; Aristeides, ch. 2.

——, of Chios, ii. Cato Major, ch. 18; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 10.

——, a Corinthian pilot, iii. Nikias, chs. 20, 25.

——, captain of the Pæonians, iii. Alexander, ch. 39.

——, friend of Peisistratus, i. Solon, ch. 30.

Aristonikus, admiral of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 11.

——, of Marathon, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28.

Aristonikus of Pergamus, iv. Flamininus, ch. 21; Tib. Gracchus, ch. 20.

Aristonous, ii. Lysander, ch. 18.

Aristophanes, the comic poet, i. Themistokles, ch. 19; Perikles, ch. 30, the verses; Alkibiades, ch. 16; ii. Kimon, ch. 16; iii. Nikias, chs. 4, 8; iv. Demetrius, ch. 12; Antonius, ch. 70.

——, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 51.

Aristophon, archon at Athens, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 24.

——, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 7.

——, a painter, i. Alkibiades, ch. 16.

Aristoteles, of Argos, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 20; Aratus, ch. 44.

——, a logician, iv. Aratus, ch. 3.

——, of Sikyon, iv. Aratus, 33.

Aristotle, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 16, 25; Lykurgus, chs. 5, 6; Solon, chs. 11, 31; Themistokles, ch. 10; Camillus, ch. 22; Perikles, chs. 9, 10, 25; 585Comparison of Alkibiades and Coriolanus, ch. 3; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 3, 18; Aristeides, ch. 27; Comparison, ch. 2; Lysander, ch. 2; Sulla, ch. 26; Kimon, ch. 10; iii. Nikias, chs. 1, 2; Crassus, ch. 3; Alexander, chs. 7, 8, 17, 52, 54, 55, 74, 77; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 9; Cicero, ch. 24; Dion, ch. 22.

Aristoxenus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31; Timoleon, ch. 15; ii. Aristeides, ch. 27; iii. Alexander, ch. 4.

Aristratus, iv. Aratus, ch. 13.

Aristus, iv. Brutus, ch. 2.

Arkesilaus, philosopher, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1; iv. Aratus, ch. 5.

——, a Spartan, iv. Agis, ch. 18.

Arkissus, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 13.

Armenia, and Armenians, i. Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Sulla, ch. 5; Kimon, ch. 3; Lucullus, chs. 9, 21, 24, 25, 27, 31, and after; Eumenes, chs. 4, 5, 16; Crassus, chs. 18, 22, 32; iii. Pompeius, chs. 31-34, 39, 44; Cæsar, ch. 50; iv. Cicero, ch. 10; Demetrius, ch. 46; Antonius, chs. 34, 37-39, 41, 49, 50, 54, 56.

Armenian Carthage, ii. Lucullus, ch. 32.

Armilustrum, i. Romulus, ch. 23.

Arnakes, i. Themistokles, ch. 16; ii. Aristeides, ch. 9.

Arpates, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 30.

Arpinum, ii. Marius, ch. 3; iv. Cicero, ch. 8.

Arrhenides, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 25.

Arrhidæus, son of Philip, and himself called Philip, iii. Alexander, chs. 10, 77; compare iii. Eumenes, ch. 12; and Phokion, ch. 33.

Arrius, Quintus, iv. Cicero, ch. 15.

Arruntius, iv. Antonius, ch. 66.

Arsakes, ii. Sulla, ch. 5; iii. Crassus, chs. 18, 27; Pompeius, ch. 76; iv. Comparison of Demetrius and Antonius, ch. 1.

Arsakidæ, iii. Crassus, ch. 32.

Arsames, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 30.

Arsanias, ii. Lucullus, ch. 31.

Arsian Grove, i. Poplicola, ch. 9.

Arsikas, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 1.

Arsis, iii. Pompeius, ch. 7.

Artabanus, i. Themistokles, ch. 27.

Artabazes. _See_ Artavasdes.

Artabazus, father of Barsine, iii. Eumenes, ch. 1; Alexander, ch. 21.

——, a Persian, ii. Aristeides, ch. 19.

Artagerses, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 9.

Artasyras, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 12.

Artauktes, i. Themistokles, ch. 13.

Artavasdes, king of Armenia, same as Artabazes, iii. Crassus, chs. 19, 22, 23; iv. Antonius, chs. 37, 39, 50; Comparison, ch. 5.

Artaxas, ii. Lucullus, ch. 31.

Artaxata, ii. Lucullus, ch. 31.

Artaxerxes I., Longimanus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 37; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 1.

——, II., Mnemon, iv. Life; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 30.

Artemidorus of Knidos, iii. Cæsar, ch. 65.

——, a Greek, ii. Lucullus, ch. 15.

Artemisia, i. Themistokles, ch. 14.

Artemisium, i. Themistokles, chs. 7, 8, 9; Alkibiades, ch. 1.

Artemius of Kolophon, iii. Alexander, ch. 51.

Artemon, i. Perikles, ch. 27.

Arthmiadas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 5.

Arthmias of Zelea, i. Themistokles, ch. 6.

Artorius, Marcus, iv. Brutus, ch. 41.

Aruns, son of Porsena, i. Poplicola, ch. 19.

——, a Tuscan, i. Camillus, ch. 15.

——, son of Tarquin, i. Poplicola, ch. 9.

Aruveni, iii. Cæsar, chs. 25, 26.

Arverni. _See_ Aruveni.

Arybas, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Arymbas, iii. Alexander, ch. 2.

Asbolomeni, ii. Kimon, ch. 1.

Ascalis. _See_ Askalis.

Ascanius, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Asculum in Apulia, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 21.

586 Asculum, in Picenum, iii. Pompeius, ch. 4, and after.

Asea or Alsea, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 7.

Asia, frequent. The Asiatic orators, iv. Cicero, ch. 4. The Asiatic style of speaking, iv. Antonius, ch. 2.

——, daughter of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Asiaticus, iv. Galba, ch. 20.

Asinarus and Asinaria, iii. Nikias, ch. 28.

Asinius Pollio, iii. Pompeius, ch. 72; Cæsar, chs. 32, 46, 52; Cato Minor, ch. 53; iv. Antonius, ch. 9.

Askalis, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

Askalon, ii. Lucullus, ch. 42; iv. Cicero, ch. 4; Brutus, ch. 2.

Asklepiades, a grammarian, i. Solon, ch. 1.

——, son of Hipparinus, iii. Phokion, ch. 22.

Asopia, i. Solon, ch. 9.

Asopus, river in Bœotia, ii. Aristeides, chs. 11, 15.

——, father of Sinope, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Aspasia, i. Perikles, chs. 24, 25, 30, 32.

——, or Milto, of Phokæa, i. Perikles, ch. 24; iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 26, 27, 28.

Aspendus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 26.

Aspetus, a name of Achilles, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Aspis, at Argos, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 32; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 17, 21.

Assus and Assia, ii. Sulla, chs. 16, 17.

Assyria, ii. Lucullus, ch. 26; iii. Crassus, ch. 22.

Astenius, of Kolophon, iii. Alexander, ch. 51.

Asterie, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Asteropus, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 10.

Astura, iv. Cicero, ch. 47.

Astyanax, iv. Brutus, ch. 23.

Astyochus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 25.

Astypalæa, i. Romulus, ch. 28.

Astyphilus, ii. Kimon, ch. 18.

Asylus, a god, i. Romulus, ch. 9.

Ateius, tribune of the people, iii. Crassus, ch. 16.

Ateius, Marcus, or Teius, ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

Atellius, iv. Brutus, ch. 39.

Athamania, and Athamanes, ii. Flamininus, ch. 15; iii. Pompeius, ch. 66.

Athanis, i. Timoleon, chs. 23, 37.

Athenodorus, surnamed Cordylio, a stoic philosopher, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 10, 16.

Athenodorus of Imbros, iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

——, son of Sandon, i. Poplicola, ch. 17.

Athenophanes, iii. Alexander, ch. 35.

Athens and the Athenians, frequent.

Athos, iii. Alexander, ch. 72.

Atilius. _See_ Attilius.

Atiso or Adige, ii. Marius, ch. 23.

Atlantic islands, iii. Sertorius, ch. 8.

——, ocean, i. Timoleon, ch. 20; iii. Sertorius, ch. 8; Eumenes, ch. 2; Cæsar, ch. 23.

Atlantis, i. Solon, ch. 31.

Atossa, daughter of Artaxerxes II., iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 23, 26, 27, 30, and after.

Atreus, ii. Kimon, ch. 7; iv. Cicero, ch. 5.

Atropatene and Atropatenians (Satrapenians), ii. Lucullus, ch. 31; iv. Antonius, ch. 38.

Attaleia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 76.

Attalus, uncle of Kleopatra, wife of Philip, iii. Alexander, chs. 9, 10.

——, iii. Alexander, ch. 55.

——, I., king of Pergamus, ii. Flamininus, ch. 6; iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

——, iii. Philometor, i. Camillus, ch. 19; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 14; Demetrius, ch. 20.

Attes or Attis, i. Numa, ch. 4; iii. Sertorius. ch. 91.

Attia, mother of Augustus, iv. Cicero, ch. 44; Antonius, ch. 31.

Attica, frequent. _See_ especially i. Theseus, first chapters.

Atticus, Cicero’s correspondent, iv. Cicero, ch. 45; Brutus, chs. 26, 29.

587 Atticus, Julius, iv. Galba, ch. 26.

Attilia, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 7, 9, 24.

Attiliis, a probable correction for Hostilii, ii. Comparison of Cato and Aristeides, ch. 1.

Attilius, Vergilio, iv. Galba, ch. 26.

——, Marcus (more correctly Caius), i. Numa, ch. 20.

——, iv. Brutus, ch. 39.

Attis, i. Numa, ch. 4; iii. Sertorius, ch. 1.

Attius. _See_ Tullus and Varus.

Aufidius, Tullus, i. Coriolanus, ch. 22, and after.

——, a lieutenant of Sertorius, iii. Sertorius, chs. 26, 27.

Aufidus, i. Fabius, ch. 15.

Augustus. _See_ Cæsar.

Aulis, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21; Lysander, ch. 27; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 6.

Aurelia, mother of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, ch. 9, and after; iv. Cicero, ch. 28.

Aurelius, Caius (in text Onatius), iii. Crassus, ch. 12; Pompeius, ch. 23.

——, Quintus, ii. Sulla, ch. 31.

Autokleides, iii. Nikias, ch. 23.

Autocthones, i. Theseus, ch. 3.

Autoleon, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 9.

Autolykus, an athlete, ii. Lysander, ch. 15.

——, founder of Sinope, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Automatia, i. Timoleon, ch. 36.

Auximum, iii. Pompeius, ch. 6.

Aventine, i. Romulus, chs. 9, 20; Numa, ch. 15; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 15.

Avillius, i. Romulus, ch. 14.

Axiochus, i. Perikles, ch. 24.

Axius, Crassus, iv. Cicero, ch. 25.

——, a river in Macedonia, iv. Demetrius, ch. 42.

Babyca, i. Lykurgus, ch. 6; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 17.

Babylon, Babylonia, Babylonians, ii. Lucullus, ch. 26; iii. Crassus, ch. 17; comparison, ch. 4; Eumenes, ch. 3; Alexander, chs. 35, 57, 69, 73; iv. Demetrius, ch. 7; Antonius, ch. 45; Artaxerxes, ch. 7.

Babylonian tapestry, ii. Cato Major, ch. 4.

Bacchæ of Euripides, iii. Crassus, ch. 33.

Bacchiadæ, ii. Lysander, ch. 1.

Bacchides, ii. Lucullus, ch. 18.

Bacchylides, i. Numa, ch. 4.

Bacillus, Lucius, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

Bactria, Bactrians, iii. Crassus, ch. 16; Comparison, ch. 4; iv. Antonius, ch. 37.

Bactrian horse, iii. Alexander, ch. 32.

Baebius, M., i. Numa, ch. 22.

Baetica, iii. Sertorius, chs. 8, note, 12.

Baetis, the Guadalquivir, ii. Cato Major, ch. 10; iii. Sertorius, chs. 8, 12.

Bagoas, iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

Baiæ, ii. Marius, ch. 34.

Balbus, ii. Sulla, ch. 29.

——, Cæsar’s friend, iii. Cæsar, ch. 50.

——, Postumius Balbus, probably Albus, i. Poplicola, ch. 22.

Balinus or Kebalinus, iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

Balissus, iii. Crassus, ch. 23.

Balte, i. Solon, ch. 12.

Bambyke, or Hierapolis, iv. Antonius, ch. 37.

Bandius, ii. Marcellus, chs. 10, 11.

Bantia, ii. Marcellus, ch. 29.

Barbius, iv. Galba, ch. 24.

Barca, a friend of Cato, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 37.

——, in Hannibal’s army, i. Fabius, ch. 17.

——, Hamilcar, ii. Cato Major, ch. 8.

Bardyæi, ii. Marius, chs. 43. 44.

Bardyllis, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 9.

Bargylians, ii. Flamininus, ch. 12.

Barsine, daughter of Artabazus, wife of Alexander, iii. Eumenes, ch. 1; Alexander, ch. 21.

588 Barsine, sister of preceding, wife of Eumenes, iii. Eumenes, ch. 1.

Barinus, Publius, iii. Crassus, ch. 9. Publius Varinius Glaber was his name.

Basillus, Lucius, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

Basilica Pauli. _See_ Paulus.

——, Porcia, ii. Cato Major, ch. 19.

Bastarnæ or Basternæ, i. Æmilius, chs. 9, 12.

Bataces, ii. Marius, ch. 17.

Batalus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 4.

Batavians, iv. Otho, ch. 12.

Bathykles, i. Solon, ch. 4.

Batiates, Lentulus, iii. Crassus, ch. 8.

Baton, iv. Agis, ch. 15.

Battiadæ, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Bedriacum, iv. Otho, chs. 11, 13.

Belaeus, ii. Marius, ch. 40.

Belbina, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 4.

Belgæ, iii. Pompeius, ch. 51; Cæsar, ch. 20.

Belitaras, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 19.

Bellerophon, i. Coriolanus, ch. 32.

Bellinus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

Bellona, ii. Sulla, chs. 7, 27, 30; iv. Cicero, ch. 13.

Beluris, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

Beneventum, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 25.

Berenike of Chios, wife of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 18.

Berenike, wife of Ptolemy, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 4, 6.

Berenikis, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6.

Berœa, i. Pyrrhus, ch. 11; iii. Pompeius, ch. 64; iv. Demetrius, ch. 44.

Berytus, iv. Antonius, ch. 51.

Bessus, iii. Alexander, ch. 42.

Bestia, Calpurnius, consul B.C. 111, ii. Marius, ch. 9.

——, a tribune, iv. Cicero, ch. 23.

Bias of Priene, i. Solon, ch. 4.

Bibulus, Calphurnius, consul B.C. 59, iii. Pompeius, chs. 47, 48, 54; Cæsar, ch. 14; Cato Minor, chs. 25, 31, 32, 47, 54; iv. Antonius, ch. 5.

Bibulus, step-son of Brutus, iv. Brutus, chs. 13, 23.

——, Publicius, a tribune, ii. Marcellus, ch. 27.

Bion, i. Theseus, ch. 26.

Birkenna, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 9.

Bisaltæ, i. Perikles, ch. 11.

Bisanthe, i. Alkibiades, ch. 36.

Bithynia and Bithynians, i. Numa, ch. 4; Alkibiades, chs. 29, 37; ii. Cato Major, ch. 9; Flamininus, ch. 20; Sulla, chs. 11, 22; Comparison, ch. 5; Lucullus, ch. 6, and after; iii. Sertorius, chs. 23, 24; Pompeius, ch. 30; Cæsar, chs. 1, 50; iv. Brutus, chs. 19, 28.

Bithys, iv. Aratus, ch. 34.

Biton, i. Solon, ch. 27.

Blossius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 8, 17, 20.

Bocchoris, iv. Demetrius, ch. 27.

Bocchus, king of Mauritania, ii. Marius, chs. 10. 32; Sulla, chs. 3, 5, 6.

——, king of Mauritania, iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Bœdromia, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Bœorix, ii. Marius, ch. 25.

Bœotia and Bœotians, frequent. _See_ particularly ii. Pelopidas, chs. 14-24; some passages in Themistokles, Perikles, and Alkibiades; ii. Aristeides, ch. 19, and after; Lysander, ch. 27, and after; Sulla, chs. 15-21; Kimon, chs. 1, 2; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 6, 26, and after; Phokion ch. 23, and after; iv. Demetrius, ch. 39; Aratus, chs. 16, 50. Bœotian months, i. Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 25; Aristeides, ch. 19.

Bola and the people of Bola, i. Coriolanus, ch. 28.

Bolla or Bovillæ, i. Coriolanus, ch. 29.

Bona Dea, iii. Cæsar, ch. 9; iv. Cicero, ch. 19.

Bononia, iv. Cicero, ch. 46.

Boutes, i. Romulus, ch. 21; ii. Kimon, ch. 7.

589 Bosporus, kingdom of, ii. Sulla, ch. 11; Lucullus, ch. 24; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Pompeius, ch. 32; Kimmerian Bosporus, i. Theseus, ch. 27; iii. Pompeius, ch. 38, &c.

Bottiæans, i. Theseus, ch. 16.

Boukephalus, iii. Alexander, chs. 6, 32, 44, 61.

Boukephalia, iii. Alexander, ch. 61.

Brachylles, ii. Flamininus, ch. 6.

Brasidas, i. Lykurgus, chs. 24, 30; ii. Lysander, chs. 1, 18; iii. Nikias, ch. 9.

Brauron, i. Solon, ch. 10.

Brennus, i. Camillus, chs. 17, 22, 28, 29.

Briges, iv. Brutus, ch. 45.

Britain and Britons, iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 4; Pompeius, ch. 51; Cæsar, chs. 16, 23; Cato Minor, ch. 51; but some read _Germans_.

Britomartus or Viridomarus, i. Romulus, ch. 16; ii. Marcellus, chs. 6, 7, 8.

Brixellum, iv. Otho, chs. 5, 10, 18.

Brundusium or Brundisium, i. Aemilius, ch. 1636; ii. Cato Major, ch. 14; Sulla, ch. 27; iii. Crassus, ch. 17; Pompeius, chs. 27, 62, 65; Cæsar, chs. 35, 37, 38, 39; Cato Minor, ch. 15; iv. Cicero, chs. 32, 39; Antonius, chs. 7, 35, 62; Brutus, ch. 47.

Bruti (Bruti and Cumæi), iii. Cæsar, ch. 61.

Bruttii and Bruttium, i. Fabius, chs. 21, 22; Timoleon, chs. 16, 20; iii. Crassus, ch. 6; Cato Minor, ch. 52.

Bruttius Sura, ii. Sulla, chs. 11, 12.

Brutus, Lucius Junius, i. Poplicola, chs. 7, 7, 9, 10, 16; iii. Cæsar, ch. 61; iv. Brutus, chs. 1, 9.

——, Titus and Tiberius, sons of Lucius, i. Poplicola, ch. 6.

——, first tribune of the people, i. Coriolanus, chs. 7, 13.

——, consul B.C. 138, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 21.

Brutus, prætor in the time of Marius, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

——, father of the following, iii. Pompeius, chs. 7, 16; iv. Brutus, ch. 4.

——, Marcus, iv. Life and Comparison with Dion; iii. Pompeius, chs. 16, 64, 80; Cæsar, chs. 46, 54, 57, 64-69; Cato Minor, chs. 36, 73; i. Cicero, chs. 42, 43, 45, 47; Comparison, ch. 4; Antonius, chs. 11, 13-15, 21, 22; comparison, ch. 2; Dion, chs. 1, 2.

——, Decimus Albinus, iii. Cæsar, chs. 64, 66; iv. Antonius, ch. 11; Brutus, chs. 12, 17 (note), 38.

——, a bailiff, iv. Brutus, ch. 1.

——, name of a book, iv. Brutus, chs. 2, 13.

Bubulci, i. Poplicola, ch. 11.

Bucephalus. _See_ Boukephalus.

Busiris, i. Theseus, ch. 11.

Butas, freedman of Cato, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 70.

——, a poet, i. Romulus, ch. 21.

Buteo, Fabius, i. Fabius, ch. 9.

Butes, more properly spelt Boutes, ii. Kimon, ch. 7.

Buthrotum, iv. Brutus, ch. 26.

Byllis, iv. Brutus, ch. 26.

Byzantium and Byzantines, i. Perikles, ch. 17; Alkibiades, ch. 31; ii. Aristeides, ch. 23; Kimon, chs. 6, 9; iii. Nikias, ch. 22; Alexander, ch. 9; Phokion, ch. 14; Cato Minor, chs. 34, 36; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 17; Cicero, ch. 34.

Cabira. _See_ Kabeira.

Cabeiri. _See_ Kabeiri.

Cadiz, iii. Sertorius, ch. 8, note.

Cadmea. _See_ Kadmeia.

Cadmus, son of Agenor, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Cadusians, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 9, 24.

Cæci, Roman surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Cæcias wind, iii. Sertorius, ch. 17.

590 Cæcilia, mother of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 1.

——, wife of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 6. _See_ Metella.

Cæcilius, a mistake for M. Cælius, iv. Cicero, ch. 36.

Cæcilius, a Sicilian, iv. Cicero, ch. 7; Comparison, ch. 1.

——, the rhetorician, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 3.

Cæcina, iv. Otho, chs. 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 18.

Cædicius, Marcus, i. Camillus, ch. 14, 30.

Cælius, M. Rufus, curule ædile, B.C. 51, iv. Cicero, ch. 36.

Cæninenses. _See_ Ceninenses.

Cænum. _See_ Kænum.

Cæpio, Q. Servilius, i. Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Marius, chs. 16. 19; Lucullus, ch. 27; iii. Sertorius, ch. 3.

——, Servilius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 47; Cæsar, ch. 14.

——, Q. Servilius, brother of Cato Minor, iii. Cato, chs. 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 15.

Cæsar, (Caius Julius Cæsar), iii. Life; i. Romulus, chs. 17, 20; Numa, ch. 19; ii. Marius, ch. 6; Lucullus, ch. 42; iii. Crassus, chs. 3, 7, 13, 17, 25; Comparison, ch. 4; Pompeius, chs. 10, 25, 45, 46, 51, 56; Comparison, ch. 1; Alexander, ch. 1; iii. Cato, chs. 24, 26, 27, 31, 33, 41, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 58, 61-66, 68, 72, 73; iv. Cicero, 20-24, 29, 37-39; Antonius, chs. 5-15, 25; Brutus, frequent; Comparison, ch. 2; Otho, chs. 4, 9, 13.

——, Lucius, uncle of Antonius, iv. Cicero, ch. 46; Antonius, chs. 19, 20.

——, Lucius, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 66.

——, Sextus Julius, ii. Sulla, ch. 5.

——, Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus, commonly called Augustus, i. Numa, ch. 19; Poplicola, ch. 18; Perikles, ch. 1; ii. Marcellus, ch. 30; iii. Alexander, ch. 69; Cæsar, chs. 67, 69; Cato Minor, ch. 73; iv. Cicero, chs. 43-47, 49; Comparison, chs. 3, 4; Antonius, frequent; Brutus, frequent; comparison, ch. 5; Galba, ch. 3.

——, as a title of the emperors, frequent in iv. Galba and Otho.

——, Caius (Caligula), iv. Antonius, ch. 87; Galba, ch. 9.

Cæsars, family of the, ii. Marius, ch. 6.

Cæsarion, iii. Cæsar, ch. 49; iv. Antonius, chs. 54, 81, 82.

Caieta (in text Capitæ), iv. Cicero, ch. 47.

Caius Cæsar. _See_ Caligula.

Calaici, iii. Cæsar, ch. 12.

Calauria. _See_ Kalauria.

Calenus, Q. Fufius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 43; iv. Brutus, ch. 8.

Caligula. _See_ Cæsar.

Callimachus. _See_ Kallimachus.

Callisthenes, freedman of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 43.

Callistus, iv. Galba, ch. 9.

Calpurnia, wife of Cæsar, iii. Pompeius, ch. 47; Cæsar, chs. 63, 64; iv. Antonius, ch. 15.

Calpurnii, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Calpurnius Bibulus, consul, B.C. 59. _See_ Bibulus.

——, Lanarius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 7.

——, Piso. _See_ Piso.

Calpus, son of Numa, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Calvinus, Domitius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 68; Cæsar, chs. 44, 50.

Calvisius, C. Calvisius Sabinus, consul B.C. 39, follower of Cæsar Augustus, iv. Antonius, chs. 58, 59.

——, Sabinus, iv. Galba, ch. 12.

——, _See_ Domitius.

Cambyses, iii. Alexander, ch. 26.

Camerinum, ii. Marius, ch. 28.

Cameria, i. Romulus, ch. 24.

Camillus, Marcus Furius, i. Life and Comparison; i. Romulus, ch. 29; Numa, ch. 9; Fabius, ch. 3; ii. Marius, ch. 1; iv. Galba, ch. 29.

591 Camillus, Lucius, son of preceding, i. Camillus, ch. 35.

——, a boy in Jupiter’s temple, i. Numa, ch. 7.

Campania, i. Fabius, ch. 6; Comparison, ch. 2; ii. Marcellus, ch. 26; Sulla, ch. 27; iii. Crassus, ch. 22; Cato Minor, ch. 33; iv. Cicero, chs. 6, 26.

Campanian soldiers, iv. Dion, ch. 27.

Campus Martius, or field of Mars, i. Poplicola, ch. 8; ii. Sulla, ch. 38; Lucullus, ch. 43; iii. Pompeius, chs. 15, 23, 53; Cato Minor, chs. 41, 42; iv. Cicero, ch. 44.

Camulatus, iv. Brutus, ch. 49.

Camurius, iv. Galba, ch. 27.

Canethus, i. Theseus, ch. 25.

Canidius, lieutenant of Antonius, iv. Antonius, chs. 34, 42, 56, 63, 65, 67, 68, 71.

——, more correctly Caninius, tribune of the people, iii. Pompeius, ch. 49.

——, perhaps Caninius, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 35-37; iv. Brutus, ch. 3.

Caninius Revillus, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58.

Cannæ, i. Fabius, chs. 9, 15, 16; Æmilius, ch. 2; ii. Marcellus, chs. 9, 10, 13.

Cannicius, iii. Crassus, ch. 11.

Canopus, i. Solon, ch. 26; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 37; Antonius, ch. 29; comparison, ch. 3.

Canopic mouth of the Nile, iii. Alexander, ch. 26.

Cantharus. _See_ Kantharus.

Canuleia, i. Numa, ch. 10.

Canus, iv. Galba, ch. 16.

Canusium, ii. Marcellus, chs. 9, 25.

Canutius, iv. Brutus, ch. 21.

Capaneus. _See_ Kapaneus.

Capena and Capenates, i. Camillus, chs. 2, 17.

Caphis. _See_ Kaphis.

Capitæ, i.e. Caieta, iv. Cicero, ch. 47.

Capito, Fonteius, iv. Antonius, ch. 15.

——, iv. Galba, ch. 15.

Capitolinus, ædile with Marcellus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 2.

——, Quintius, dictator, i. Camillus, ch. 36.

——, Marcus Manlius, i. Camillus, chs. 27, 36.

Cappadocia and Cappadocians, ii. Marius, chs. 31. 34; Sulla, chs. 9, 11, 22; Comparison, ch. 5; Lucullus, chs. 14, 21, 26, 30; iii. Crassus ch. 18; Sertorius, ch. 23; Eumenes, chs. 3, 5, 6, and throughout; Pompeius, chs. 35, 45; Alexander, ch. 18; Cæsar, ch. 30; Cato Minor, ch. 73; iv. Cicero, ch. 36; Comparison, ch. 3; Demetrius, ch. 4; Antonius, ch. 61.

Caprarii, i. Poplicola, ch. 11.

Caprotinæ, Nonae, i. Romulus, ch. 29; Numa, ch. 2.

Capua, i. Fabius, ch. 17; Comparison, ch. 2; ii. Sulla, ch. 27; iii. Crassus, chs. 8, 9; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 8.

Carbo, Cnæus Papirius, consul B.C. 85 and 84, ii. Marius, ch. 16; Sulla, chs. 22, 28; iii. Sertorius, chs. 6, 7, 22; Pompeius, chs. 5, 6, 7, 10; iv. Brutus, ch. 29.

Cardia. _See_ Kardia.

Caria and Carians, i. Theseus, ch. 8; Themistokles, ch. 1; ii. Aristeides, ch. 19; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 9, 10; Alexander, chs. 10, 22; iv. Cicero, ch. 36; Demetrius, ch. 46; Aratus, ch. 12; Artaxerxes, chs. 10, 14.

Carinna or Carinnas, iii. Pompeius, ch. 7.

Carmania. _See_ Karmania.

Carmenta, i. Romulus, ch. 21.

Carmentalia, i. Romulus, ch. 21.

Carmental Gate, i. Camillus, ch. 25.

Carneades. _See_ Karneades.

Carnutes, iii. Cæsar, ch. 25.

Carrhæ, iii. Crassus, chs. 25, 27, 29.

Carthage and Carthaginians. _See_ the lives of i. Fabius, Timoleon; ii. Marcellus, Cato Major, chs. 26, 27; 592Pyrrhus, chs. 14, 22, 23, 24; iv. Caius Gracchus, ch. 11; also, i. Camillus, ch. 19; their unlucky days, Perikles, ch. 20; Alkibiades, ch. 17; ii. Flamininus, ch. 1; Marius, ch. 40; Lucullus, ch. 32 (the Armenian Carthage); iii. Nikias, ch. 12; Cæsar, ch. 57; Tib. Gracchus, ch. 4; Comparison, ch. 3; Dion, ch. 52.

Carthage, New, iii. Sertorius, ch. 7.

Carvilius, Spurius, i. Comparison of Romulus and Theseus, ch. 6; Comparison of Lykurgus and Numa, ch. 3.

Caryatides, dance of, carved on Klearchus’s ring, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 18.

Carystus, iv. Brutus, ch. 24.

Casca, iii. Cæsar, ch. 66; iv. Brutus, chs. 15, 17, 45.

Casilinum, i. Fabius, ch. 6.

Casinatum, i. Fabius, ch. 6.

Caspian Sea, ii. Lucullus, ch. 26; iii. Pompeius, chs. 33, 36; Alexander, ch. 44; Cæsar, ch. 58; iv. Comparison of Demetrius and Antonius, ch. 1.

Cassius, Caius Cassius Longinus, friend of Brutus, iii. Crassus, chs. 18, 20, 22, 28, 29; Pompeius, ch. 16; Cæsar, chs. 57, 62, 64, 66, 68, 69; iv. Cicero, ch. 42; Antonius, chs. 11, 13-16, 21, 22, 25; comparison, ch. 2.

——, Quintus, tribune of the people, iv. Antonius, chs. 5, 6.

——, Sabaco, ii. Marius, ch. 5.

——, Scæva, iii. Cæsar, ch. 16.

——, Caius Cassius Longinus Verus, proconsul of Gaul on the Po, iii. Crassus, ch. 9.

Castlo or Castulo, iii. Sertorius, ch. 3.

Castus, iii. Crassus, ch. 11.

Cataonia, iv. Demetrius, ch. 48.

Catalepsis, iv. Cicero, ch. 40.

Catana. _See_ Katana.

Catilina, Lucius Sergius, ii. Sulla, ch. 32; Lucullus, ch. 38; iii. Crassus, ch. 13; Cæsar, ch. 7; Cato Minor, ch. 22; iv. Cicero, chs. 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 24; Comparison, ch. 3; Antonius, ch. 2; Brutus, ch. 5.

Cato, the name, ii. Marius, ch. 1.

——, great-grandfather of the censor, Cato Major, ii. Cato Major, ch. 1.

——, Marcus, the censor, known as Cato Major, ii. Life and Comparison; i. Coriolanus, ch. 8; Æmilius, ch. 5; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 1; Flamininus, chs. 18, 19; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 1.

——, Marcus, son of preceding, i. Æmilius, ch. 21; compare, ii. Cato Major, chs. 20, 24, where his son is mentioned.

——, Salonius or Salonianus, younger son of the Censor, ii. Cato Major, chs. 24, 27.

——, Marcus, son of preceding, grandfather of Cato Minor, ii. Cato Major, ch. 27 (but the consul was his brother Lucius).

——, (Minor), iii. Life; ii. Cato Major, ch. 27; Lucullus, chs. 28, 40-43; iii. Crassus, chs. 7, 14, 15; Comparison, chs. 2, 3; Pompeius, chs. 40, 44, 45, 48, 52, 54, 56, 65, 67, 76; Cæsar, chs. 3, 8, 13, 21, 22, 28, 41, 52, 54; Phokion, chs. 3, 4; iv. Cicero, chs. 21, 23, 35, 39; Comparison, ch. 1; Antonius, ch. 5; Brutus, chs. 2, 3, 5, 6, 12, 13, 29, 34, 40; Otho, ch. 13.

——, Marcus, son of Cato Minor, iv. Brutus, ch. 49; compare, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 73.

Catos, ii. Cato Major, ch. 19; iii. Crassus, ch. 14.

Catuli, iii. Crassus, 814; iv. Cicero, ch. 1.

Catulus, Lutatius, consul B.C. 102, ii. Marius, chs. 14. 23-27, 44; Sulla, ch. 4.

——, Lutatius, consul, B.C. 78, i. Poplicola, ch. 15; ii. Sulla, ch. 34; iii. Crassus, ch. 13; Pompeius, chs. 59315, 16, 17, 25, 30; Cæsar, chs. 6, 7; Cato Minor, ch. 16; iv. Cicero, chs. 21, 29; Galba, ch. 3.

Caucasus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 14; iii. Pompeius, chs. 34, 35; Cæsar, ch. 58; iv. Demetrius, ch. 7; Antonius, ch. 34; Comparison, ch. 1.

Caulonia, i. Fabius, ch. 22; iv. Dion, ch. 26.

Caunus. _See_ Kaunus.

Celer, Celeres, i. Romulus, chs. 10, 26; Numa, ch. 7.

——, Quintus Metellus, i. Romulus, ch. 11; Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, Quintus Metellus, son of the preceding, iv. Cicero, chs. 16, 29.

Celsus, Clodius, iv. Galba, ch. 13.

——, Marius, iv. Galba, chs. 25, 26, 27; Otho, chs. 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13.

Celtiberians, ii. Cato Major, ch. 10; Marius, ch. 3; iii. Sertorius, ch. 3.

Celts, and the Celtic nation, i. Romulus, ch. 17; Camillus, ch. 15; ii. Marius, ch. 11; iii. Sertorius, ch. 3; Pompeius, ch. 7. (But the Greek words Celt and Celtic are often translated Gaul and Gallic).

Celtorii, i. Camillus, ch. 15.

Celto-Scythians, ii. Marius, ch. 11.

Cenchreæ. _See_ Kenchreæ.

Ceninenses, i. Romulus, chs. 16, 17; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8.

Censorinus, Marcius, i. Coriolanus, ch. 1.

——, ii. Sulla, ch. 5.

——, Lucius, consul B.C. 39, iv. Antonius, ch. 24.

——, iii. Crassus, ch. 25.

Centaurs, i. Theseus, chs. 29, 30; Comparison, ch. 1; iv. Agis, ch. 1.

Ceos. _See_ Keos.

Cerameicus. _See_ Kerameikus.

Cercina, ii. Marius, ch. 40. _See_ Kerkina.

Cereate, Cereatum, or Cirrheatæ, in the text corruptly Cirrheato, ii. Marius, ch. 3.

Ceressus. _See_ Keressus.

Cermalus, Cermanus, or Germanus, i. Romulus, ch. 3.

Cethegus, the companion of Catilina, iii. Cæsar, ch. 7; Cato Minor, ch. 22; iv. Cicero, chs. 16, 19, 22, 30.

——, Cornelius, consul B.C. 204, ii. Marcellus, ch. 5.

——, Publius Cornelius, B.C. 181, i. Numa, ch. 22.

——, C. Cornelius, ii. Lucullus, chs. 5, 6.

Chabrias, i. Camillus, ch. 19; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 37; Phokion, chs. 6, 7; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

Chæron, founder of Chæronea, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

——, of Megalopolis, iii. Alexander, ch. 3.

Chærondas, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 24.

Chæronea and Chæroneans, i. Theseus, ch. 27; Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 18; Lysander, ch. 29; Sulla, chs. 11, 16-18, 23; Kimon, chs. 1, 2; Lucullus, chs. 3, 11; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 17; Alexander, chs. 9, 12; Phokion, ch. 16; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 19, 21; Aratus, ch. 16.

Chalastra, iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

Chaldæans, ii. Marius, ch. 42; Sulla, chs. 5, 37; Lucullus, ch. 14; iii. Alexander, ch. 73; iv. Galba, ch. 23.

Chalkaspides, ii. Sulla, chs. 16, 19.

Chalkedon, i. Alkibiades, chs. 30, 31; ii. Lucullus, chs. 8, 9.

Chalkidians in Thrace, i. Lykurgus, ch. 29; iii. Nikias, ch. 6; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 9.

Chalkis and Chalkidians of Eubœa, i. Theseus, ch. 35; Perikles, ch. 23; ii. Philopœmen, ch. 17; Flamininus, chs. 10, 16; Sulla, chs. 19, 20; iv. Demetrius, ch. 43.

Chalkodon, i. Theseus, ch. 35.

Chalkus, Dionysius so called, a poet, iii. Nikias, ch. 5; also a nickname in iv. Demosthenes, ch. 11.

594 Chaonians, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 19, 28.

Characitanians. _See_ Charicatani.

Chares, an Athenian, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 2; iii. Phokion, chs. 5, 7, 14; iv. Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 3; Aratus, ch. 16.

——, of Mitylene, iii. Alexander, chs. 20, 24, 46, 54, 55, 70; Phokion, chs. 5, 7, 9, 10.

——, a river in Argolis, iv. Aratus, ch. 28.

Charicatani, iii. Sertorius, ch. 17.

Charidemus, the general, iii. Sertorius, ch. 1.

——, the orator, iii. Phokion, chs. 16, 17; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 23.

Charikles, an Athenian, iii. Nikias, ch. 4.

——, son-in-law of Phokion, iii. Phokion, chs. 21, 22, 33, 35.

Chariklo, i. Theseus, ch. 10.

Charilaus, i. Lykurgus, chs. 3, 19; called also Charillus, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 10; Comparison of Agis and Kleomenes with the Gracchi, ch. 5.

Charimenes, iv. Aratus, ch. 25.

Charinus, i. Perikles, ch. 29.

Charmion, iv. Antonius, chs. 60, 85.

Charon of Lampsakus, i. Themistokles, ch. 27.

——, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 7-10, 13, 25.

Charonitæ, iv. Antonius, ch. 15.

Charops, ii. Flamininus, ch. 4.

Charybdis, iv. Dion, ch. 18.

Cheiron, i. Perikles, ch. 4.

Cheirones, i. Perikles, ch. 3.

Chelidonian Islands, ii. Kimon, chs. 12, 13.

Chersonesus and Chersonnesians, i. Perikles, chs. 11, 19; ii. Lysander, chs. 5, 9, 10, 12; Kimon, ch. 14; Lucullus, chs. 4, 23; iii. Eumenes, ch. 18; Comparison, ch. 1; Phokion, ch. 14; iv. Demetrius, ch. 31.

Chersonese, Syrian, iv. Demetrius, ch. 50.

Chian wine, iv. Demetrius, ch. 19.

Chileon, i. Themistokles, ch. 6.

Chilon, ii. Cato Major, ch. 20.

Chilonis, daughter of Leonidas II., iv. Agis, chs. 17, 18.

——, daughter of Leotychides, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 26, 27, 28.

Chios and the Chians, i. Theseus, ch. 20; Themistokles, ch. 32; Alkibiades, chs. 11, 24, 35; ii. Aristeides, ch. 23; Kimon, chs. 4, 9, 12; Lucullus, ch. 3; iii. Phokion, ch. 6; Brutus, ch. 33.

Chlidon, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 8.

Chœrilus, ii. Lysander, ch. 18.

Choes, Athenian festival, iv. Antonius, ch. 70.

Cholargus, i. Perikles, chs. 3, 13; iii. Nikias, ch. 11.

Chrysantes, ii. Comparison of Pelopidas and Marcellus, ch. 3.

Chrysermas, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 36.

Chrysippus, iv. Aratus, ch. 1.

Chrysis, iv. Demetrius, ch. 24.

Chrysogonus, freedman of Sulla, iv. Cicero, ch. 3.

——, a flute-player, i. Alkibiades, ch. 32.

Chthonian gods, i. Romulus, ch. 22.

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, iv. Life and Comparison with Demosthenes; i. Æmilius, ch. 10; ii. Cato Major, ch. 17; Flamininus, ch. 18; Lucullus, chs. 41, 42, 43; iii. Crassus, chs. 3, 13; Pompeius, chs. 42, 46, 49, 59, 63; Cæsar, chs. 3, 4, 7, 14, 54, 57, 58, 59; Phokion, ch. 3; Cato Minor, chs. 19, 22, 40, 55; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 1; Demosthenes, ch. 3; Antonius, chs. 2, 6, 17, 19, 20, 22; Comparison, ch. 5; Brutus, chs. 12, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28.

——, son of the orator, iv. Cicero, chs. 45, 49; Brutus, chs. 24, 26.

——, Quintus, brother of the orator, iii. Cæsar, ch. 24; iv. Cicero, chs. 20, 33, 47, 48.

595 Cilicia and Cilicians, i. Themistokles, ch. 31; ii. Lysander, ch. 9; Kimon, ch. 18; Lucullus, chs. 6, 21, 23, 33; iii. Crassus, ch. 10; Sertorius, chs. 7, 9; Pompeius, chs. 24, 26, 28, 30, 33, 44, 59; Alexander, ch. 17, and after; Cæsar, ch. 2; iv. Cicero, ch. 36; Comparison, ch. 3; Demetrius, chs. 31, 32, 47, 48; Antonius, chs. 25, 36, 54, 61; Brutus, ch. 4.

Cimber, Tillius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 66; iv. Brutus, chs. 17, 19.

Cimbri, i. Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Marius, chs. 11. 15. 23. 25. 26. 27. 39. 44; Lucullus, ch. 38; iii. Sertorius, ch. 2; Cæsar, chs. 5, 18, 19, 26; iv. Otho, ch. 15.

Cimmerians, ii. Marius, ch. 11.

Cimmerian Bosphorus, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Cimon. _See_ Kimon.

Cineas. _See_ Kineas.

Cingonius Varro, iv. Galba, ch. 14.

Cinna, Lucius, consul, B.C. 87, ii. Marius, chs. 41. 42. 44; Sulla, chs. 10, 12, 22; iii. Crassus, chs. 4, 5; Sertorius, chs. 4, 5, 6; Pompeius, chs. 3, 5; Cæsar, chs. 1, 68; iv. Cicero, ch. 17; Brutus, ch. 29.

——, a poet, friend of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, ch. 68; iv. Brutus, chs. 20, 21 ——, the conspirator, iii. Cæsar, ch. 68, note; iv. Brutus, chs. 18, 20, 25.

——, perhaps brother of the preceding, iv. Brutus, ch. 18.

Circe, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Circeii or Circeum, i. Coriolanus, ch. 28; ii. Marius, ch. 36; iii. Cæsar, ch. 58; iv. Cicero, ch. 47.

Cirrha and Cirrhæans. _See_ Kirrha.

Cirrheato (Cereate), ii. Marius, ch. 3.

Claros, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

Clastidium, ii. Marcellus, ch. 6.

Claudia, wife of Tib. Gracchus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 4.

Claudii, i. Poplicola, ch. 21; Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Claudius. _See_ Appius.

Claudius Cæsar, emperor, iv. Antonius, ch. 87; Galba, chs. 12, 22.

Clausus. _See_ Appius.

Cleanthes. _See_ Kleanthes.

Cleopatra, wife of Philip of Macedon, iii. Alexander, chs. 9, 10.

——, sister of Alexander the Great, ii. Eumenes, ch. 8; Alexander, chs. 25, 68.

——, daughter of Mithridates, wife of Tigranes, ii. Lucullus, ch. 22.

——, Queen of Egypt, iii. Cæsar, ch. 48, 49; Cato Minor, ch. 35; iv. Antonius, chs. 10, 32, and after; Comparison, chs. 1, 3.

——, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra, iv. Antonius, chs. 36, 87.

Clepsydra, spring at Athens, iv. Antonius, ch. 34.

Clodia, wife of Lucullus, sister of Publius Clodius, ii. Lucullus, ch. 38.

——, called Quadrantaria, another sister, iv. Cicero, ch. 29.

——, daughter of P. Clodius and Fulvia, iv. Antonius, ch. 20.

Clodius, a writer, i. Numa, ch. 1.

——, Publius, the tribune, ii. Lucullus, ch. 34; iii. Pompeius, chs. 46, 48, 49; Cæsar, chs. 9, 10, 14; Cato Minor, chs. 19, 31, 32, 33, 34, 40, 45; iv. Cicero, chs. 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34; Antonius, chs. 2, 10; Brutus, ch. 20.

Clodius, a commander in the servile war, iii. Crassus, ch. 9.

——, iv. Antonius, ch. 18.

——, a deserter, iv. Brutus, ch. 47.

——, Celsus, of Antioch, iv. Galba, ch. 13.

——, Macer, iv. Galba, chs. 6, 13, 15.

Clœlia, i. Poplicola, ch. 19.

——, wife of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 6.

Clœlius, more properly Cælius (C. Cælius Caldus), iii. Pompeius, ch. 17.

Clœlian or Cluilian ditches (Fossæ Cluiliæ), i. Coriolanus, ch. 30.

Clunia, iv. Galba, ch. 6.

596 Clusium, i. Numa, ch. 12; Poplicola, ch. 16; Camillus, ch. 17.

Cluvius Rufus, iv. Otho, ch. 3.

Cnidus. _See_ Knidus.

Cocceius, more properly Salvius Cocceianus, Otho’s nephew, iv. Otho, ch. 16.

Cocles, Horatius, i. Poplicola, ch. 16.

Cœle-Syria, iv. Antonius, chs. 36, 54.

Cœlius. _See_ Clœlius.

Colchis, ii. Lucullus, ch. 14; iii. Pompeius, chs. 30, 32, 34, 44.

Collatinus, i. Poplicola, chs. 1, 3, 4, 6, 7.

Colline Gate, i. Numa, ch. 10; Camillus, ch. 22; ii. Sulla, ch. 29.

Cominius, consul, i. Coriolanus, chs. 8, 10.

——, Pontius, i. Camillus, chs. 25, 26.

Comitium, i. Romulus, chs. 11, 19.

Comius, i. Solon, ch. 31.

Commagene, iii. Pompeius, ch. 44; iv. Antonius, chs. 34, 61.

Consa or Cossa, in Etruria, ii. Flamininus, ch. 1.

Considius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 14.

Consta, Publius, perhaps Cotta, iv. Cicero, ch. 26.

Consus, i. Romulus, ch. 14.

Copillius, ii. Sulla, ch. 4.

Coponius, iii. Crassus, ch. 28.

Coracesium, iii. Pompeius, ch. 28.

Corcyra, i. Themistokles, ch. 24; Perikles, ch. 28; Timoleon, ch. 8; Æmilius, ch. 36; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 9, 11; Cato Minor, ch. 38; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 17.

Corduba, iii. Cæsar, ch. 17.

Corfinium, iii. Cæsar, ch. 34.

Corfinius, or Cornificius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 43.

Corinth and the Corinthians. _See_ many passages in i. Timoleon; iv. Kleomenes and Aratus; and for general history, i. Perikles, ch. 29; Alkibiades, chs. 14, 18; ii. Cato Major, ch. 12; Philopœmen (its destruction), ch. 21; compare Lysander, ch. 1; Kimon, ch. 17; iii. Nikias, chs. 6, 10, 19, 20, 25; Agesilaus, chs. 15, 17, 21, 22; Cæsar, ch. 57; iv. Agis, ch. 15; Demosthenes, ch. 17; Demetrius, chs. 15, 25, 43, 51, 53; Dion, chs. 1, 53. The meeting of the seven wise men, i. Solon, ch. 4; Corinth, Chalkis, and Demetrias, ii. Flamininus, ch. 10; Nero at Corinth, the same, ch. 12; Diogenes at Corinth, iii. Alexander, ch. 14; the Isthmus, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58; Simonides’s verse, iv. Dion, ch. 1.

Coriolanus, i. Life and Comparison with Alkibiades.

Corioli, i. Coriolanus, chs. 8, 9.

Cornelia, daughter of Scipio, mother of the Gracchi, ii. Marius, ch. 34; iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 1, 4, 8; C. Gracchus, chs. 4, 13, 19.

——, wife of Marius, ii. Marius, ch. 34.

——, daughter of Cinna, wife of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, chs. 1, 5.

——, daughter of Metellus Scipio, wife of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 55, 66, 73, 79.

Cornelii, ii. Marius, ch. 1. The three Cornelii, iv. Cicero, ch. 17. For others of the name, _see_ Cethegus, Cossus, Dolabella, Laco, Lentulus, Merula, Scipio, Sulla.

Cornelius, Caius, an augur at Padua, iii. Cæsar, ch. 47.

——, Nepos, historian, ii. Marcellus, ch. 30; Comparison of Marcellus, and Pelopidas, ch. 1; Lucullus, ch. 43; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 21.

——, freedman of Sulla, iii. Cæsar, ch. 1.

——, Cnæus, consul with Marcellus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 6.

Cornificius, Lucius, iv. Brutus, ch. 27.

Cornutus, ii. Marius, ch. 43.

Corsica, iii. Pompeius, chs. 26, 66.

Corvinus, Messala, iv. Brutus, chs. 40, 41, 42, 45, 53.

——, or Corvus, Valerius, consul six times, ii. Marius, ch. 28.

Cos. _See_ Kos.

597 Cosconius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 51.

Cossinus, iii. Crassus, ch. 9.

Cossus, Cornelius, i. Romulus, ch. 16; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8.

——, Licinius, i. Camillus, ch. 4.

Cotta, or Constans, iv. Cicero, ch. 26.

——, prætor in Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 12.

——, (?) consul B.C. 119, ii. Marius, ch. 4.

——, Lucius, Aurelius, consul B.C. 65, censor B.C. 64, iv. Cicero, ch. 27.

Cotta, Marcus Aurelius, consul B.C. 74, ii. Lucullus, chs. 5, 8.

——, lieutenant of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, ch. 24.

Cotylon, iv. Antonius, ch. 18.

Crassianus, Caius, a centurion, iii. Pompeius, ch. 71. C. Crassinius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 44.

Crassus, i. Fabius, ch. 25.

——, Publius Licinius, i. Æmilius, ch. 9.

——, Publius, father-in-law of Caius Gracchus, and Pontifex Maximus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 21; and, under the name of Licinius, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 16 (?) ——, son of the preceding, brother of Caius Gracchus’s wife, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 15.

——, Marcus, iii. Life and Comparison with Nikias; ii. Sulla, chs. 28, 29, 30; Lucullus, chs. 36, 38, 40, 42; iii. Nikias, ch. 1; Pompeius, chs. 31, 43, 51, 53; Cæsar, chs. 11, 13, 14, 21; Cato Minor, chs. 19, 41; iv. Cicero, chs. 15, 25, 26, 36; Antonius, chs. 34, 37, 46; Brutus, ch. 43.

——, Publius, son of the above, iii. Crassus, chs. 13, 25, 26; Pompeius, ch. 55; iv. Cicero, chs. 33, 36.

——, Publius Licinius Crassus Junianus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 70.

——, (M. Licinius Crassus Frugi Magnus), father of Piso, adopted by Galba, iv. Galba, ch. 23.

Cratippus, a philosopher, iv. Brutus, ch. 24, and note. _See_ Kratippus.

Cremona, iv. Otho, chs. 7, 8.

Crete and the Cretans, i. Theseus, ch. 5, and after to 22; Lykurgus, chs. 4, 11, 31; Solon, ch. 12; Æmilius, chs. 15, 23, 32 (Cretan targets); ii. Marcellus, ch. 20: Philopœmen, chs. 7, 13, 14; Pyrrhus, chs. 27, 29 (Cretan javelin), 30, 32; Lysander, ch. 20, (Cretan against Cretan), 28 (the Cretan storax); Lucullus, ch. 2; iii. Eumenes, ch. 18 (Nearchus the Cretan); Agesilaus, ch. 34; Pompeius, ch. 29; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 6, 21 (Cretan soldiers); C. Gracchus, ch. 16 (Cretan archers); Dion, ch. 53; Brutus, ch. 19; Artaxerxes, ch. 21; Aratus, chs. 29, 48, 50 (Cretan Sea).

Crispinus (T. Quintius), colleague of Marcellus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 29.

——, Rufus, first husband of Poppæa, iv. Galba, ch. 19.

——, killed by the Prætonians, iv. Otho, ch. 3.

Crœsus, i. Solon, chs. 27, 28; Comparison, ch. 1.

Crustumerium, i. Romulus, ch. 17.

Culeo, Terentius, ii. Flamininus, ch. 18.

Culleo, iii. Pompeius, ch. 49.

Cuma, in Campania, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 8, 17, 20.

——, in Æolia. _See_ Kyme.

Cumæi, iii. Cæsar, ch. 61.

Cunaxa. _See_ Kunaxa.

Cures, i. Numa, ch. 3; compare i. Romulus, ch. 29, and i. Solon, ch. 12.

Curio, lieutenant of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 14; iii. Cæsar, ch. 8; Cato Minor, ch. 14; iv. Antonius, ch. 2.

——, son of preceding, iii. Pompeius, ch. 58; Cæsar, chs. 29, 30, 31; Cato Minor, ch. 46; iv. Antonius, chs. 2, 5.

Curius (Manius Curius Dentatus), ii. 598Cato Major, chs. 2, 8; Comparison, chs. 1, 4; Pyrrhus, ch. 25.

Curtius, Marcus, i. Romulus, ch. 1.

Curtian Gulf, i. Romulus, ch. 18; iv. Galba, ch. 27.

Cyclades, ii. Sulla, ch. 11; iv. Demetrius, chs. 30, 53.

Cyclops, i. Poplicola, ch. 16; iv. Galba, ch. 1.

Cydnus, river of Cilicia, iv. Antonius, ch. 25. _See_ Kydnus.

Cyprus and Cyprians, i. Theseus, ch. 20; Solon, ch. 26; Themistokles, ch. 30; Perikles, ch. 10 (Kimon’s death) 25; ii. Flamininus, ch. 11 (Kimon’s battles); Lysander, ch. 11; Kimon, chs. 12, 18; Lucullus, chs. 3, 43; iii. Pompeius, chs. 48, 77, 80; Alexander, chs. 24, 29, 32; Cæsar, ch. 21; Cato Minor, chs. 34, and after to 45; iv. Cicero, ch. 34; Demetrius, chs. 5, 15-19 (Cyprian cuirasses), 21, 33, 35; Antonius, chs. 36, 54; Brutus, ch. 3; Artaxerxes, ch. 21.

Cyrene and Cyreneans, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1; Lucullus, ch. 2; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 56; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 31, 36; Demetrius, ch. 53; Antonius, ch. 61; Dion, ch. 19.

Cyrnus or Cyrus, river of Asia. _See_ Kyrnus.

Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy, i. Solon, ch. 28; iii. Alexander, chs. 30, 69; iv. Antonius, ch. 6; Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 3.

——, the younger, son of Darius Nothus, i. Perikles, ch. 24; Alkibiades, ch. 35; ii. Lysander, chs. 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 18, 24; Comparison, ch. 4; iv. Antonius, ch. 6; Artaxerxes, chs. 1-4, 6-15, 17, 20, 26.

Cytheris, iv. Antonius, ch. 9.

Cyzicus and Cyzicenians. _See_ Kyzikus.

Dædalus, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

Daimachus, i. Comparison of Solon and Poplicola, ch. 4; ii. Lysander, ch. 12.

Daktyli, i. Numa, ch. 15.

Dalmatia, iv. Otho, ch. 4.

Damagoras, ii. Lucullus, ch. 3.

Damascus, iii. Alexander, chs. 20, 24, 48.

Damastes, i. Theseus, ch. 10.

——, a historian, i. Camillus, ch. 19.

Damippus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 18.

Damochares, iv. Agis, chs. 18, 19.

Damokleides, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 8, 11.

Damokles. _See_ Demokles.

Damokrates, a Platæan hero, ii. Aristeides, ch. 11.

——, a Spartan, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 4.

Damon, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 22.

—-—-, a musician, i. Perikles, ch. 3; ii. Aristeides, ch. 1; iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

Damonides, i. Perikles, ch. 9.

Damophantus, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 7.

Damoteles, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 28.

Damyrias, i. Timoleon, ch. 31.

Danaus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 32.

Dandamis, iii. Alexander, chs. 8, 65.

Dandarians, ii. Lucullus, ch. 16.

Danube, i. Æmilius, ch. 9; ii. Cato Major, ch. 12; where the text has Istria; iii. Alexander, chs. 11, 36.

Daochus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18.

Daphne, daughter of Amyklas, iv. Agis, ch. 9.

——, (Antioch on Daphne). _See_ Antioch.

Dardanians, of Illyria, i. Æmilius, ch. 9.

Dardanus, founder of Troy, i. Camillus, ch. 20.

——, Brutus’s shield-bearer, iv. Brutus, ch. 51.

——, in the Troad, ii. Sulla, ch. 24.

Darius I., son of Hystaspes, i. Themistokles, ch. 4; ii. Aristeides, ch. 5.

——, II., Nothus, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 3.

——, III., Codomannus, i. Camillus, ch. 19; 599iii. Agesilaus, ch. 15; iii. Alexander, chs. 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 29, 30, 31, 37, 38, 42, 43; Phokion, ch. 17.

Darius, son of Artaxerxes II., iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 26, 29.

Daskylitis, lake, ii. Lucullus, ch. 9.

Dassaretis, ii. Flamininus, ch. 3.

Datis, ii. Aristeides, ch. 5.

Dechas, iv. Agis, ch. 19.

Decies, a sum of money, iv. Antonius, ch. 4.

Decimus. _See_ Brutus.

Decius, an Italian, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 17.

Deianeira, i. Perikles, ch. 24.

Deidameia, wife of Peirithous, i. Theseus, ch. 30.

——, sister of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 1, 4, 7; iv. Demetrius, chs. 25, 30, 32, 53.

Deimachus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Deinarchus, i. Timoleon, chs. 21, 24; iii. Phokion, ch. 33; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 30.

Deinias, who killed Abantidas, iv. Aratus, ch. 3.

——, a historian, iv. Aratus, ch. 29.

Deinokrates, ii. Philopœmen, chs. 18-21; Flamininus, ch. 17.

Deinomache, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1.

Deinon, i. Themistokles, ch. 27; iii. Alexander, ch. 36; iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 6, 9, 10, 13, 19, 22.

Deioneus, i. Theseus, ch. 8.

Deiotarus, iii. Crassus, ch. 17; Pompeius, ch. 73; Cato Minor, chs. 12, 15; iv. Antonius, ch. 63; Brutus, ch. 6.

Deirades, Attic deme, i. Alkibiades, ch. 25.

Dekeleia, i. Themistokles, ch. 14; Alkibiades, chs. 23, 34; ii. Lysander, ch. 9; Kimon, ch. 8.

Delium, i. Alkibiades, ch. 7; ii. Lysander, ch. 29; Sulla, ch. 22; iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

Dellius, iv. Antonius, chs. 25, 59.

Delos, i. Theseus, ch. 21; Perikles, ch. 12; ii. Aristeides, ch. 25; Sulla, ch. 22; iii. Nikias, ch. 3.

Delos, a mountain in Bœotia, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 16.

Delphi and Delphians, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 5, 16, 26; Romulus, ch. 28; Lykurgus, chs. 5, 28; Numa, ch. 9; Solon, chs. 4, 11; Camillus, chs. 4, 8; Perikles, ch. 21; Fabius, ch. 18; Timoleon, chs. 8, 20; Æmilius, chs. 28, 36; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8; Aristeides, ch. 20; Philopœmen, chs. 2, 10; Flamininus, ch. 12; Lysander, chs. 18, 25, 26; Sulla, chs. 12, 29; Kimon, ch. 17; iii. Nikias, ch. 13; Agesilaus, ch. 19; Alexander, chs. 3, 14, 37, 74; Phokion, ch. 8; Agis, ch. 11; Cicero, ch. 5; Demetrius, chs. 10, 31; Aratus, ch. 53.

Delphinium, at Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 12; at Chalkis, ii. Flamininus, ch. 16.

Demades, i. Solon, ch. 17; iii. Phokion, chs. 1, 16, 20, 22, 26, 27, 30; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 27; Demosthenes, chs. 8, 10, 11, 13, 23, 30; Galba, ch. 1.

Demænetus, i. Timoleon, ch. 37.

Demaratus, father of Tarquinius Priscus, i. Romulus, ch. 16; Poplicola, ch. 7.

——, a friend of Philip and Alexander, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 15; iv. Alexander, chs. 9, 38, 56.

——, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 19.

——, of Rhodes, iii. Phokion ch. 18.

Demaretus, i. Timoleon, chs. 22, 24, 27.

Demeas, son of Demades, iii. Phokion, ch. 30.

Demetrias, Attic tribe, iv. Demetrius, ch. 10.

——, the new name of Sikyon, iv. Demetrius, ch. 25.

——, a fortified town in Thessaly, ii. Flamininus, ch. 10; iv. Demetrius, ch. 53; Brutus, ch. 25.

Demetrius I., Poliorketes, son of Antigonus, iv. Life and Comparison with Antonius; 600i. Æmilius, ch. 8; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 4, 7, 10, 11, 12; iii. Eumenes, ch. 18; Demosthenes, ch. 13.

Demetrius, son of preceding, king of Cyrene, iv. Demetrius, ch. 53.

——, surnamed Leptus, or the Thin, another son of Poliorketes, iv. Demetrius, ch. 53.

——, II., son of Antigonus Gonatas, i. Æmilius, ch. 8; iv. Aratus, ch. 17.

——, son of Philip III. of Macedon, i. Æmilius, ch. 8; ii. Flamininus, ch. 9.

——, an attendant of Cassius, iv. Brutus, ch. 45.

——, of Magnesia, iv. Demosthenes, chs. 15, 27.

——, a Peripatetic philosopher, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 65, 66, 69, 70, 75 ?, 76 ?, 79 ?, 80 ?

——, a Syracusan herald, i. Timoleon, ch. 39.

——, Phalereus, i. Theseus, ch. 23; Lykurgus, ch. 22; Solon, ch. 23; ii. Aristeides, chs. 1, 5, 27; iii. Phokion, ch. 35; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 9, 11, 14; Demetrius, chs. 8, 9.

——, freedman of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 2, 40; Cato Minor, ch. 13.

——, of Pharos, iv. Aratus, ch. 50.

——, surnamed Pheidon, iii. Alexander, ch. 54.

Demiurgi, i. Theseus, ch. 25.

Demo, iv. Demetrius, chs. 24, 27.

Demochares of Lenkonoe, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 30; Demetrius, ch. 24.

——, of Soli, iv. Demetrius, ch. 27.

Demokles, iv. Demetrius, ch. 24.

Demokleides, iv. Demetrius, ch. 13.

Demokritus, i. Timoleon, ch. 1.

Demoleon, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Demon, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, chs. 23, 27.

——, a historian, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

Demonax, ii. Lucullus, ch. 9.

Demophilus, iii. Phokion, ch. 38.

Demophoon, i. Theseus, ch. 28; Solon, ch. 26.

Demopolis, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Demosthenes, father of the orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 4.

——, the orator, iv. Life and Comparison with Cicero; i. Alkibiades, ch. 10; ii. Cato Major, chs. 2, 4; Pyrrhus, ch. 14; iii. Alexander, ch. 11; Phokion, chs. 5, 7, 9, 15, 17, 26, 27, 29; iv. Cicero, ch. 24.

——, an Athenian general, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1; iii. Nikias, chs. 7, 8, 20, 21, 28.

Demostratus, an Athenian orator, i. Alkibiades, ch. 18; iii. Nikias, ch. 12.

——, (? Erasistratus), son of Phæax, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 15.

Demus, i. Theseus, ch. 22.

Densus, Sempronius, iv. Galba, ch. 26.

Derketæus, iv. Antonius, ch. 78.

Derkyllidas, i. Lykurgus, chs. 12, 14; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 20.

Derkyllus, iii. Phokion, ch. 32.

Deukalion, i. Theseus, ch. 19; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Dexithea, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Dexius, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 17. _See_ Decius.

Diadematus, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Diagoras, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 34.

Diakrii, i. Solon, ch. 13.

Diamperes, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 32.

Dicomes, king of the Getæ, iv. Antonius, ch. 63.

Dikæarchia, ii. Sulla, ch. 37.

Dikæarchus, i. Theseus, chs. 21, 32; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19.

Didius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 3.

——, iii. Cæsar, ch. 56.

Didyma, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

Didymus, i. Solon, ch. 1.

Dieutychides, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Dindymene, i. Themistokles, i. 30.

Diodorus the geographer, i. Theseus, ch. 36; Themistokles, ch. 32; ii. Kimon, ch. 16.

——, son of Sophax, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

601 Diogeiton, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 35.

Diogenes, step-son of Archelaus, ii. Sulla, ch. 21.

——, general of Demetrius II., governor of Peiræus, iv. Aratus, ch. 34.

——, of Sinope, philosopher, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31; Fabius, ch. 10; Timoleon, ch. 15; iii. Alexander, chs. 14, 65.

——, a Stoic philosopher, ii. Cato Major, ch. 22.

Diokles of Megara, i. Theseus, ch. 10.

——, of Peparethus, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 9.

——, one of four Syrians, iv. Aratus, chs. 18, 20.

——, son of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Diokleides, i. Alkibiades, ch. 20.

Diomedes, the hero, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

——, an Athenian, i. Alkibiades, ch. 12.

——, Cleopatra’s servant, iv. Antonius, ch. 76.

Dion, iv. Life and Comparison with Brutus, i. Timoleon, chs. 1, 13, 22, 33; Comparison, ch. 22; ii. Aristeides, ch. 1; iii. Nikias, chs. 14, 23.

Dionassa, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Dionysius of Kolophon, i. Timoleon, ch. 36.

——, of Corinth, i. Timoleon, ch. 24.

——, of Halikarnassus, i. Romulus, ch. 16; Comparison of Alkibiades and Coriolanus, ch. 2; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 17, 21.

——, of Messene, iii. Alexander, ch. 73.

——, of Magnesia, iv. Cicero, ch. 4.

——, the elder, despot of Syracuse, i. Solon, ch. 20; Timoleon, chs. 6, 15; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 31, 34; Cato Major, ch. 24; Lysander, ch. 2; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 33; iv. Dion, chs. 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 21, 53; Galba, ch. 1.

——, the younger, despot of Syracuse, i. Timoleon, chs. 1, 7, 8, 11, 13-16; Comparison, ch. 1; iii. Nikias, ch. 23; iv. Dion, chs. 2, 6-9, 11-14, and following; Comparison, chs. 2, 3, 4.

——, one of four Syrians, iv. Aratus, ch. 20.

——, Chalkus, iii. Nikias, ch. 5.

Dionysodorus, iv. Aratus, ch. 1.

Diopeithes, an Athenian, i. Perikles, ch. 32.

——, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 7; iv. Comparison of Cicero and Demosthenes, ch. 3.

——, a Spartan, ii. Lysander, ch. 22; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 8.

Diophanes, general of the Achæans, iii. Philopœmen, ch. 16; Flamininus, ch. 17; Comparison, ch. 3.

——, of Mitylene, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 20.

Diophantus of Amphitrope, ii. Aristeides, ch. 26.

Dioskuri, the, i. Theseus, ch. 32; Coriolanus, ch. 2; Æmilius, chs. 23, 25; ii. Lysander, chs. 12, 18; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 27; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 2.

Dioskorides, i. Lykurgus, ch. 10; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 35.

Diphilides, or Philides, i. Themistokles, ch. 5.

Diphilus, an Athenian, iv. Demetrius, ch. 46.

——, comic poet, iii. Nikias, ch. 1.

Diphridas, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 17.

Dipylum, ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

Dirke, iv. Demetrius, ch. 45.

Dium, iv. Demetrius, ch. 36.

Dodona, i. Themistokles, ch. 28; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1; Lysander, ch. 25; iii. Phokion, ch. 28.

Dog’s tomb at Salamis, i. Themistokles, ch. 10; ii. Aristeides, ch. 5.

Dokimus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 8.

Dolabella, Cnæus Cornelius, consul B.C. 81; friend of Sulla, ii. Sulla, chs. 28, 29; Comparison, ch. 2; iii. Cæsar, ch. 4.

602 Dolabella, Cicero’s son-in-law, consul with M. Antonius B.C. 44, iii. Cæsar, chs. 51, 62; iv. Cicero, ch. 43; Antonius, chs. 9, 10, 11; Brutus, chs. 2, 8, 25.

——, son of preceding, iv. Antonius, ch. 84.

——, iv. Galba, ch. 23; Otho, ch. 5.

Doliola, i. Camillus, ch. 20.

Dolopians, i. Theseus, ch. 36; ii. Flamininus, ch. 15; Kimon, ch. 8.

Domitian the emperor, i. Numa, ch. 19; Poplicola, ch. 15; Æmilius, ch. 25.

Domitius (Ahenobarbus, of the party of Marius), consul B.C. 96, iii. Pompeius, chs. 10, 11, 12.

——, (Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus), consul B.C. 54, brother-in-law of Cato Minor, iii. Crassus, ch. 15; Comparison, ch. 2; Pompeius, chs. 52, 57, 67; Comparison, ch. 4; Cæsar, chs. 29, 34, 35, 42, 44; Cato Minor, chs. 41, 42; iv. Cicero, ch. 38.

——, (Ahenobarbus Cnæus, son of Lucius, the preceding), iv. Antonius, chs. 40, 56, 63.

——, (Lucius, son of Cnæus, the preceding), married to Antonia, iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

——, Ahenobarbus (Cnæus, son of Lucius, the preceding), married to the younger Agrippina, iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

——, (Lucius Domitius Nero Germanicus), the emperor Nero, son of Cnæus, the preceding, iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

——, (Lucius, or Calvisius), iii. Sertorius, ch. 12. _See_ note.

——, Calvinus (Cnæus), consul B.C. 53, iii. Pompeius, chs. 54, 69, where the text has Calvinus Lucius; Cæsar, chs. 44, 50; iv. Brutus, ch. 47.

Dorians, i. Lykurgus, ch. 10 (a Doric word); Perikles, ch. 17 (Dorians in Asia Minor); ii. Lysander, ch. 5 (Dorian character), ch. 24; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 31; iv. Agis, ch. 21; Kleomenes, ch. 16; Aratus, chs. 2, 9.

Doris, country of the Dorians, i. Themistokles, ch. 9.

——, wife of Dionysius the elder, iv. Dion, ch. 3.

Dorylaus, general of Mithridates, ii. Sulla, ch. 20; Lucullus, ch. 17.

Doson, surname of Antigonus, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Douris of Samos, historian, i. Perikles, ch. 28; Alkibiades, ch. 32; ii. Lysander, ch. 18; iii. Eumenes, ch. 1; Agesilaus, ch. 3; Alexander, chs. 15, 46; Phokion, chs. 4, 17; Demosthenes, chs. 19, 23.

Drako, i. Solon, chs. 17, 19, 25.

Drakontides, i. Perikles, ch. 32.

Dromichaites, iv. Demetrius, chs. 39, 52.

Dromokleides, iv. Demetrius, ch. 34.

Drusus, Livius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 2; C. Gracchus, chs. 8-11.

——, Livius (son of preceding, uncle of Cato Minor), iii. Cato Minor, chs. 1, 2.

——, son of Livia, brother of the emperor Tiberius, iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

Dyme, iii. Pompeius, ch. 28; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 14; Aratus, chs. 11, 47.

Dyrrhachium, ii. Sulla, ch. 27; iii. Pompeius, ch. 74; Cæsar, chs. 16, 35; Cato Minor, chs. 53-55; iv. Cicero, ch. 32; Brutus, ch. 53, where Sintenis, ed. 2, reads Epidamnus.

Ebro, or Iberus, iii. Sertorius, ch. 16.

Echekrates, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 16.

——, a sophist, iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

Echedemia, i. Theseus, ch. 32.

Echedemus, i. Theseus, ch. 32.

Ecregma, iv. Antonius, ch. 8.

Edessa, iv. Demetrius, ch. 43.

Edonians, iii. Alexander, ch. 2.

Egeria, i. Numa, chs. 4, 13, 15.

Egesta, iii. Nikias, chs. 1, 12, 14.

603 Egnatius, iii. Crassus, ch. 27.

Egypt and Egyptians. For history, _see_ i. Themistokles, ch. 31; Perikles, chs. 20, 37; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 4; Kimon, ch. 18; Lucullus, ch. 2; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Crassus, ch. 13; Eumenes, ch. 8; Agesilaus, chs. 36-40; Pompeius, ch. 77; Comparison, ch. 5; Alexander, chs. 29, 40; Cæsar, chs. 45, 55; Cato Minor, chs. 35, 56; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 21, and after; Demetrius, chs. 18, 53; Antonius, chs. 3, 33, 36, and after to the end; Brutus, chs. 6, 18, 33; Artaxerxes, chs. 22, 24; Aratus, chs. 4, 12, 15, 46; Galba, chs. 2, 14; Otho, ch. 15; also i. Romulus, ch. 12 (the month Choiac); Lykurgus, ch. 4 (his visit to Egypt); Numa, ch. 4 (an Egyptian dogma), 14 (the Egyptian wheels), 18 (the Egyptian months); Solon, ch. 2 (Plato’s visit to Egypt), ch. 26 (Solon’s visit); iii. Nikias, ch. 9 (its productiveness of good and ill); iv. Demetrius, ch. 27 (the story of Bocchoris); Antonius, ch. 27 (the Egyptian dialect).

Eion, ii. Kimon, chs. 6, 8.

Eiresione, i. Theseus, ch. 22.

Eirenes, i. Lykurgus, ch. 16, 17.

Ekbatana, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 30; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 15; Alexander, chs. 35, 72; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 14; Artaxerxes, ch. 27.

Ekdelus, iv. Aratus, chs. 5, 7.

Ekdemus, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1.

Eknomon, iv. Dion, ch. 26.

Ekphanes, iv. Agis, ch. 6.

Ekprepes, iv. Agis, ch. 10.

Elaius in Chersonesus, ii. Lysander, ch. 9.

Elatea, ii. Sulla, ch. 16; iii. Phokion, ch. 33; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18.

Elatus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 7.

Elea or Velia, i. Perikles, ch. 4; Timoleon, ch. 35; iv. Brutus, ch. 23.

Eleius, i. Perikles, ch. 29; ii. Kimon, ch. 16.

Elektra, ii. Lysander, ch. 15.

Elephenor, i. Theseus, ch. 35.

Eleusis, i. Theseus, chs. 10, 29; Themistokles, ch. 15; Perikles, ch. 13; Alkibiades, chs. 22, 34; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 14; Aristeides, chs. 5, 11; Sulla, ch. 6; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 24; Alexander, ch. 31; Phokion, chs. 6 28; iv. Demetrius, ch. 33.

Eleutheræ, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Eleutheria, festival of, ii. Aristeides, ch. 21.

Elicium or Ilicium, i. Numa, ch. 15.

Elimiæ or Elimia, i. Æmilius, ch. 9.

Elis and Eleans, i. Lykurgus, chs. 19, 30; Alkibiades, ch. 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 24; Philopœmen, ch. 7; iii. Nikias, ch. 10; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 3, 5.

Elpinike, i. Perikles, ch. 10, 28; ii. Kimon, chs. 4, 14, 15.

Elymæans, iii. Pompeius, ch. 36.

Elysian fields, iii. Sertorius, ch. 8.

Emathion, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Empedokles, iv. Demetrius, ch. 5.

Empylus, iv. Brutus, ch. 2.

Enarsphorus, i. Theseus, ch. 30.

Endeis, i. Theseus, ch. 10.

Endymion, i. Numa, ch. 4.

Engyium, ii. Marcellus, ch. 20.

Enna, ii. Marcellus, ch. 20.

Enyo, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

Epameinondas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 12; Fabius, ch. 27; Coriolanus, ch. 4; Comparison, ch. 3; Timoleon, ch. 36; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 3, and after; Marcellus, ch. 21; Comparison, chs. 1, 2; Aristeides, ch. 1; Cato Major, ch. 8; Comparison, ch. 4; Philopœmen, chs. 3, 14; Comparison of Sulla and Lysander, ch. 4; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 19, 27-35; Phokion, ch. 3; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 20; Aratus, ch. 19.

Epaphroditus, freedman of Augustus, iv. Antonius, ch. 79.

604 Epaphroditus (Felix), surname of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 34.

Eperatus, iv. Aratus, ch. 48.

Ephesus and Ephesians, i. Alkibiades, chs. 8, 12, 29; ii. Marcellus, ch. 21; Flamininus, ch. 21; Lysander, chs. 3, 5, 6; Sulla, ch. 26; Lucullus, chs. 23, 25; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 7; Alexander, ch. 3; Cato Minor, ch. 14; iv. Demetrius, ch. 30; Antonius, chs. 24, 56, 58.

Ephialtes, an Athenian, i. Perikles, chs. 7, 9, 10, 16; ii. Kimon, chs. 10, 13, 15; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 14.

——, an Athenian orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 23.

——, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 41.

Ephorus, a historian, i. Themistokles, ch. 27; Camillus, ch. 19; Perikles, ch. 27; Alkibiades, ch. 32; Timoleon, ch. 4; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 17; Lysander, chs. 16, 20, 25, 30; Kimon, ch. 12; iv. Dion, chs. 35, 36.

Epicharmus, i. Numa, ch. 8; Poplicola, ch. 15.

Epidamnus. _See_ Dyrrhachium.

Epidaurus and Epidaurians, i. Theseus, ch. 8; Perikles, ch. 35; ii. Sulla, ch. 12; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 19, 20; Aratus, chs. 24, 44.

Epigethes, iv. Aratus, ch. 32.

Epigonus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 3.

Epikles, i. Themistokles, ch. 5.

Epikrates of Acharnæ, i. Themistokles, ch. 24.

——, the bearded, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 30.

Epikurus, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 38.

——, the philosopher, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 20; Comparison of Kimon and Lucullus, ch. 1; iii. Cæsar, ch. 66; iv. Demetrius, ch. 34; Brutus, chs. 37, 39.

Epikydes, son of Euphemides, an Athenian demagogue, i. Themistokles, ch. 6.

Epikydides, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 15.

Epilykus, i. Perikles, ch. 36.

Epimenides, i. Solon, ch. 12.

Epipolæ, i. Timoleon, ch. 21; iii. Nikias, ch. 17, 21; iv. Dion, chs. 27, 29.

Epirus and Epirots. _See_, in general, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 1-13, 17; and i. Theseus, ch. 31; Themistokles, ch. 24; Æmilius, ch. 29; ii. Flamininus, chs. 3, 5; iii. Alexander, chs. 9, 68; Cæsar, ch. 37; iv. Demetrius, chs. 36, 41; Antonius, ch. 62; Aratus, ch. 51.

Epitadeus, iv. Agis, ch. 5.

Epitimus, i. Perikles, ch. 36.

Epitragia, i. Theseus, ch. 13.

Epixyes, i. Themistokles, ch. 30.

Epizephyrii. _See_ Lokri Epizephyrii.

Epoche, philosophical term, iv. Cicero, ch. 40.

Erasistratus, father of Phæax, i. Alkibiades, ch. 13.

——, iv. Demetrius, ch. 38.

Eratosthenes, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1; Themistokles, ch. 27; iii. Alexander, chs. 3, 31; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 9, 30.

Erechtheus, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 13, 19, 32; Comparison, ch. 6.

Eretrieus, i. Themistokles, ch. 11.

Ergadeis, Attic tribe, i. Solon, ch. 23.

Ergiuus, iv. Aratus, chs. 18-21, 33.

Ergoteles, i. Themistokles, ch. 26.

Erianthus, ii. Lysander, ch. 15.

Ericius, ii. Sulla, chs. 16, 17, 18.

Erigyius, iii. Alexander, ch. 10.

Eros, iv. Antonius, ch. 76.

Eryx, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 22; Marius, ch. 40.

Eteokles, ii. Lysander, ch. 19.

Ethiopia, iv. Antonius, chs. 27, 61.

Etruria and Etrurians, or Etruscans, Tyrrhenia and Tyrrhenians (which are the Greek words), Tuscany and Tuscans, i. Romulus, chs. 2, 25; Poplicola, chs. 7, 13, 16, 18, 19 (the war with Porsena); 605Camillus, chs. 2, 12 (the war with Veii), 15, 16 (the original Tuscan territory), 19, 37, 33; Perikles, ch. 20; Fabius, chs. 2, 3; Æmilius, ch. 6 (the Tuscan Sea); ii. Marcellus, chs. 28, 29; Marius, chs. 11, 41; Sulla, ch. 7 (an Etruscan doctrine); iii. Pompeius, ch. 26 (the Tyrrhenian Sea), 27; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 8; Cicero, chs. 10, 14, 15; Antonius, ch. 61.

Etymokles, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 25.

Eubœa, i. Theseus, chs. 5, 35; Solon, ch. 9; Themistokles, chs. 7, 8; Perikles, chs. 7, 22, 23; Comparison, ch. 2; ii. Flamininus, ch. 10; Sulla, chs. 11, 23; iii. Phokion, chs. 12, 13; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 17; Aratus, ch. 12.

Eualkus, a Spartan, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 30.

Eubulus, iii. Phokion, ch. 7.

Euchidas, ii. Aristeides. ch. 20.

Eudæmon, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Eudæus or Eulæus, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

Eudamidas I., king of Sparta, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

——, II., king of Sparta, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

——, a Spartan, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Eudamus, Captain of the elephants, iii. Eumenes, ch. 16.

Eudemus of Cyprus, iv. Dion, ch. 22.

——, of Pergamus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 14.

Eudoxus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 14.

Euergetes, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11. _See_ Ptolemæus.

Euius or Evius, a flute-player, iii. Eumenes, ch. 2.

Eukleia, ii. Aristeides, ch. 20.

Eukleidas, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 6; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 11, 28; Comparison, ch. 5.

——, a Spartan, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 5.

Eukleides, archon at Athens B.C. 403, ii. Aristeides, ch. 1.

Eukleides or Eurykleidas, in power at Athens, iv. Aratus, ch. 41.

——, a Corinthian, i. Timoleon, ch. 13.

Euktus, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

Eulæus, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

Eumelus, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

Eumenes of Kardia, iii. Life and Comparison with Sertorius; iii. Sertorius, ch. 21; iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

——, II., king of Pergamns, ii. Cato Major, ch. 8; Flamininus, ch. 21.

Eumolpus and Eumolpidæ, i. Alkibiades, chs. 22, 33, 34; ii. Sulla, ch. 13.

Euneos, i. Theseus, ch. 26.

Eunomus the Thriasian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 6.

——, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Eunus, ii. Sulla, ch. 36.

Eupatrids, i. Theseus, ch. 25, 32; ii. Sulla, ch. 1.

Euphemides, i. Themistokles, ch. 26.

Euphorion, i. Solon, ch. 1.

Euphranor, iv. Aratus, ch. 6.

Euphrantides, i. Themistokles, ch. 13; ii. Aristeides, ch. 9.

Euphrates, ii. Sulla, ch. 5; Lucullus, chs. 21, 24, 36; iii. Crassus, ch. 17; Pompeius, chs. 32, 33, 76; Alexander, chs. 29, 31, 73; iv. Demetrius, ch. 7; Antonius, chs. 30, 61.

Euphronius, iv. Antonius, ch. 72.

Eupolemus, i. Timoleon, ch. 32.

Eupolia, daughter of Agesilaus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19.

——, daughter of Melesippides, wife of Archidamus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 1.

Eupolis, i. Perikles, chs. 3, 24; Alkibiades, ch. 13; ii. Kimon, ch. 15; iii. Nikias, ch. 4.

Euripides, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 15, 29; Lykurgus, ch. 31; Comparison, ch. 3; Solon, ch. 22; Fabius, ch. 17; Alkibiades, chs. 1, 11; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 3, 29; Marcellus, ch. 21; Comparison, ch. 3; 606Pyrrhus, chs. 9, 14; Lysander, ch. 15; Sulla, ch. 4; Kimon, ch. 4; iii. Nikias, chs. 17, 29; Crassus, ch. 33; Comparison, ch. 4; Alexander, chs. 8, 10, 51, 53; Cato Minor, ch. 52; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 1, 7; Demetrius, chs. 14, 45; Comparison, ch. 3; Brutus, ch. 51.

Euripus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Europe, i. Themistokles, ch. 16; Camillus, ch. 15; Perikles, ch. 17; ii. Aristeides, ch. 9; Pyrrhus, ch. 12; iii. Pompeius, ch. 45; Alexander, ch. 9; compare iv. Brutus, ch. 36.

Eurotas, i. Lykurgus, chs. 11, 14; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 17, 24, 30; Comparison, ch. 2; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 19, 31, 34.

Eurydike, sister of Phila, wife of Ptolemæus I., iv. Demetrius, ch. 46.

——, wife of Demetrius, iv. Demetrius, chs. 14, 53.

Eurybiades, i. Themistokles, chs. 7, 11, 17; ii. Aristeides, ch. 8.

Eurykles, a Spartan, iv. Antonius, ch. 67.

——, a Syracusan, iii. Nikias, ch. 28.

Eurykleides, an Athenian, iv. Aratus, ch. 41.

——, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 8.

Eurylochus, iii. Alexander, ch. 41.

Eurymedon, an Athenian officer, iii. Nikias, chs. 20, 21.

——, river of Pamphylia, ii. Flamininus, ch. 11; Kimon, ch. 12.

Eurypon and Eurypontidæ, i. Lykurgus, ch. 2; ii. Lysander, chs. 24, 30; iii. Comparison of Agesilaus and Pompeius, ch. 2; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Euryptolemus, kinsman of Perikles, i. Perikles, ch. 7; probably the same as Euryptolemus, son of Megakles, Kimon’s wife’s father, ii. Kimon, chs. 4, 16.

Euryptolemus, cousin of Alkibiades, i. Alkibiades, ch. 32.

Eurysakes, i. Solon, ch. 10; Alkibiades, ch. 1.

Eurysthenes, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Eurytus, i. Theseus, ch. 8.

Euterpe, mother of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 1.

Euthippus, ii. Kimon, ch. 17.

Euthydemus, iii. Nikias, ch. 20.

Euthymus, a Leucadian, i. Timoleon, ch. 30.

——, an officer of Hiketes, i. Timoleon, ch. 32.

——, of Thespiæ, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 34.

Eutyches, ii. Sulla, ch. 34.

Eutychus, iv. Antonius, ch. 65.

Euxine Sea, or Pontus, i. Theseus, ch. 26; Perikles, ch. 20; ii. Marius, chs. 34. 45; Lucullus, ch. 4; iii. Pompeius, ch. 32; Alexander, ch. 44.

Evagoras, ii. Lysander, ch. 11.

Eualkus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 30.

Evander, the Arcadian, i. Romulus, chs. 13, 21.

——, a Cretan, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

——, Hill of, near Messene, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 18.

Evangelus, servant of Perikles, i. Perikles, ch. 16.

——, a writer on tactics, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 4.

Evanthes, of Samos, i. Solon, ch. 11.

Evergetes, or Euergetes, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Evius, or Euius, iii. Eumenes, ch. 2.

Exathres, iii. Alexander, ch. 43.

Exekestides, i. Solon, ch. 1.

Fabia, sister of Terentia, Cicero’s wife, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 19.

Fabii, i. Camillus, chs. 17, 18, 19; Fabius, ch. 1; iii. Cæsar, ch. 15.

Fabius, son of Hercules, i. Fabius, ch. 1.

——, Pontifex Maximus, i. Camillus, ch. 21.

——, Ambustus, Q., i. Numa, ch. 12; Camillus, chs. 4, 17, 18.

607 Fabius Pictor, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 9, 14; Fabius, ch. 18.

——, Rullus Maximus, five times consul, last in B.C. 295, i. Fabius, ch. 1; iii. Pompeius, ch. 13.

——, Buteo, dictator, i. Fabius, ch. 9.

——, Maximus Verrucosus, i. Life and Comparison with Perikles; i. Perikles, ch. 2; Æmilius, ch. 5; ii. Marcellus, chs. 9, 21, 25; Cato Major, chs. 2, 3; iii. Comparison of Agesilaus and Pompeius, ch. 4.

——, Maximus, son of preceding, i. Fabius, ch. 24; Compare i. Æmilius, ch. 5; he is the father by adoption of the following.

——, Maximus, son of Æmilius Paulus, i. Æmilius, chs. 5, 15, 35, 73 ?.

——, Maximus Allobrogicus, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 6.

——, Adrianus, lieutenant of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 35.

——, Maximus, consul B.C. 45, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58.

——, Valeus, commanding for Vitellius, iv. Galba, chs. 10, 15, 22; Otho, chs. 5, 6, 7, 11, 13.

——, Fabulus, or Fabullus, murderer of Galba, iv. Galba, ch. 27.

Fabricius, Caius, consul, ii. Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, chs. 1, 4; Pyrrhus, chs. 18, 20, 21; iv. Galba, ch. 29.

Falerii and Falerians, i. Camillus, ch. 9; Fabius, ch. 2.

Faliscans, people of the district of Falerii, i. Camillus, chs. 2, 5, 9, 10; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 3.

Fannia, ii. Marius, ch. 38.

Fannius, a historian, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 4.

——, Caius, iv. C. Gracchus, chs. 8, 12.

Fausta, daughter of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 34.

Faustulus, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 11.

Faustus, son of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 34; iii. Pompeius, chs. 42, 47; Comparison, ch. 1; Cæsar, ch. 14; iv. Cicero, ch. 27; Brutus, ch. 9.

Favonius, Marcus, iii. Pompeius, chs. 57, 60, 73; Comparison, ch. 4; Cæsar, chs. 21, 33, 41; Cato Minor, chs. 32, 46; iv. Brutus, chs. 11, 34.

Felix, surname of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 34.

Fenestella, ii. Sulla, ch. 28; iii. Crassus, ch. 5.

Ferentine Gate, or Grove, i. Romulus, ch. 24.

Fidenæ, and Fidenates, i. Romulus, chs. 17, 24, 25; Poplicola, ch. 22; Camillus, ch. 17.

Fidentia, ii. Sulla, ch. 27.

Fimbria, ii. Flamininus, ch. 21; Sulla, chs. 12, 23, 24, 25; Lucullus, chs. 3, 6, 34, 35; iii. Sertorius, ch. 23.

Firmani, ii. Cato Major, ch. 13.

Flaccus, Hordeonius, iv. Galba, chs. 10, 18, 22.

——, Valerius, consul B.C. 195, ii. Cato Major, chs. 3, 10, 16, 17.

——, Valerius, consul with Marius, afterwards killed by Fimbria, ii. Marius, ch. 28; Sulla, chs. 12, 23; Lucullus, ch. 7.

——, Q. Horatius, the poet, ii. Lucullus, ch. 39.

Flamen Quirinalis. _See_ Quirinalis.

Flamininus, Lucius, ii. Cato Major, ch. 17; Flamininus, chs. 3, 18, 19.

——, Titus Quintius, ii. Life and Comparison with Philopœmen; i. Æmilius, ch. 8; ii. Cato Major, chs. 12, 19; Comparison, ch. 1; Philopœmen, chs. 2, 14-17; Sulla, ch. 12.

——, Caius, i. Fabius, chs. 2, 3; ii. Marcellus, chs. 4, 6.

Flaminian Circus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 27; Lucullus, ch. 37.

608 Flavius, tribune of the people, iii. Cæsar, ch. 61.

——, Sabinus, brother of Vespasian, iv. Otho, ch. 5.

——, commanding Brutus’s engineers, iv. Brutus, ch. 51.

——, tribune of the soldiers, ii. Marcellus, ch. 26.

——, Gallus, iv. Antonius, ch. 43.

Flora, iii. Pompeius, chs. 2, 53.

Florus, Mestrius, iv. Otho, ch. 14.

Fonteius Capito, iv. Antonius, ch. 36.

——, killed in Germany, iv. Galba, ch. 15.

Fossæ Cluiliæ, i. Coriolanus, ch. 30.

Fox Hill, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Fregellæ and Fregellans, ii. Marcellus, ch. 29; Comparison, ch. 3; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 3.

Frentani, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 16.

Fufidius, or Afidius, ii. Sulla, ch. 31; iii. Sertorius, ch. 12; compare chs. 26, 27.

Fulcinia, mother of Marius, ii. Marius, ch. 3.

Fulvia, a noble lady, iv. Cicero, ch. 16.

——, wife of Antony, iv. Antonius, frequent.

Fulvian, Basilica, the, iii. Cæsar, ch. 29.

Fulvius, Quintus, consul and dictator, i. Comparison of Fabius and Perikles, ch. 2; ii. Marcellus, chs. 24, 25.

——, Cnæus, proconsul, ii. Marcellus, ch. 24.

——, Marcus Fulvius Flaccus, consul 125 B.C., iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 18, and probably ch. 21; Flavius Flaccus, ch. 18; C. Gracchus, chs. 10-18, where his son is also mentioned.

——, tribune of the people, ii. Flamininus, ch. 2.

Furii, i. Camillus, ch. 1.

Furius. _See_ Camillus.

——, Lucius, colleague with Camillus, ch. 37.

Furius, consul with Flamininus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 4.

——, an officer in the Servile war, iii. Crassus, ch. 9.

Furnius, iv. Antonius, ch. 58.

Fusco, meaning of, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Gabiene, iii. Eumenes, ch. 15.

Gabii, i. Romulus, ch. 5; Camillus, ch. 29.

Gabinius, Aulus, consul B.C. 58, iii. Pompeius, chs. 25, 27, 48; Cato Minor, ch. 33; iv. Cicero, chs. 30, 31; Antonius, chs. 3, 7.

——, an officer of Sulla, ii. Sulla, chs. 16, 17.

Gades, or Cadiz, iii. Sertorius, ch. 8.

Gæsatæ, ii. Marcellus, chs. 3, 6, 7.

Gæsylus, iv. Dion, ch. 49.

Gaius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 42.

Galate, or Akrourium, a mountain in Phokis, iii. Phokion, ch. 33.

Galatia, ii. Marius, ch. 31; Lucullus, chs. 14, 33; iii. Crassus, ch. 17; Pompeius, chs. 30, 31, 33; Cato Minor, ch. 15; iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Galba, Servius, serving under Æmilius Paulus, afterwards consul, ii. Æmilius, chs. 30, 31; Cato Major, ch. 15; Comparison, ch. 1.

——, lieutenant of Sulla, i. Sulla, ch. 17.

——, Caius, Sulpicius, prætor, iv. Cicero, ch. 19.

——, an officer under Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, ch. 51.

——, Sulpicius, grandfather of the emperor, cited as a historian, i. Romulus, ch. 17.

——, Sulpicius, the emperor, iv. Life; Otho, chs. 1, 6.

Galepsus, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

Gallus, Annius, general of Otho, iv. Otho, chs. 5, 7, 8, 13.

——, friend of Augustus, iv. Antonius, ch. 79.

——, Flavius, lieutenant of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 42.

609 Gallus, Q. Considius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 14.

Gandaritans, iii. Alexander, ch. 62.

Ganges, iii. Alexander, ch. 62.

Gargettus, i. Theseus, chs. 13, 35.

Gaugamela, where the battle of Arbela was fought, iii. Alexander, ch. 31.

Gaul and the Gauls. Capture of Rome by the Gauls, i. Camillus, chs. 15-20, 22, 23, 25-29, 40, 41, and compare Romulus, chs. 17, 22, 29; Numa, chs. 1, 12; Fabius, ch. 17. The war before the second Punic war, ii. Marcellus, chs. 3-8, and the Comparison, and compare i. Romulus, ch. 16; Fabius, ch. 2. The war with the Cimbri in Gaul, ii. Marius, chs. 11-27, and compare iii. Sertorius, ch. 3. Cæsar’s campaigns in Gaul, iii. Cæsar, ch. 15, and after; and compare iii. Crassus, chs. 14, 16, and the Comparison, ch. 4; Pompeius, chs. 48, 51, 52, 57, 59, 64, 66, 67; Cato Minor, chs. 33, 45, 49, 51; iv. Cicero, ch. 30; Antonius, ch. 5. The Gauls in Greece, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 22, 26, 28, 30, and compare ii. Kimon, ch. 1; Comparison of Agis and Kleomenes and the Gracchi, ch. 2; Aratus, ch. 38. Gauls near the Danube, i. Æmilius, chs. 9, 11. Gallic horse, ii. Lucullus, ch. 28; iii. Crassus, chs. 17, 25; iv. Antonius, chs. 37, 41; and compare Pompeius, ch. 7. Gauls in the Servile War, iii. Crassus, chs. 8, 9; the revolt of Gaul, iv. Galba, chs. 4, 6, 10, 11, 18, 22; Otho, chs. 6, 7. Also i. Solon, ch. 2; Æmilius, ch. 6; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 15; iii. Pompeius, ch. 8; iv. Cicero, chs. 10, 12, 18; Antonius, chs. 18, 61. Ravenna in Gaul, ii. Marius, ch. 2. Transalpine, ii. Marius, ch. 11; iii. Pompeius, ch. 48; Cæsar, ch. 14. Cisalpine Gaul, or Gaul on the Po, ii. Lucullus, ch. 5; iii. Crassus, ch. 9; Sertorius, ch. 4; Pompeius, chs. 16, 48; Cæsar, chs. 14, 21, 25, 31, 32; iv. Cicero, ch. 10; Brutus, chs. 6, 19; Comparison, ch. 5. Gallia Narbonensis, iii. Sertorius, ch. 12. The Gallic dress, iv. Otho, ch. 6.

Gaza, iii. Alexander, ch. 25; iv. Demetrius, ch. 5.

Gedrosia, iii. Alexander, ch. 67.

Gegania, a vestal, i. Numa, ch. 10.

——, mother-in-law of Thalæa, i. Comparison of Lykurgus and Numa, ch. 3.

Gela, i. Timoleon, ch. 35; ii. Kimon, ch. 8; iv. Dion, ch. 26.

Gelæ, iii. Pompeius, ch. 35.

Gelanor, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 32.

Geleontes, Attic tribe, i. Solon, ch. 23.

Gellianus, sent by Nymphidius into Spain, iv. Galba, chs. 9, 13.

Gellius, Lucius Gellius Poplicola, consul B.C. 72, iii. Crassus, ch. 9; Pompeius, ch. 22; Cato Minor, ch. 8; iv. Cicero, ch. 26.

——, Marcus, senator, iv. Cicero, ch. 27.

Gelon, an Epirot, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 5.

——, i. Coriolanus, ch. 16; Timoleon, ch. 23; iv. Dion, ch. 5.

Geminius, companion of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 2, 16.

——, companion of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 59.

——, of Terracina, ii. Marius, ch. 38.

Genthius, i. Æmilius, chs. 9, 13.

Genucius, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 3.

Geradas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 14.

Geræstus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 6.

Gerandas, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 25.

Geranea, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 20; Aratus, ch. 31.

Gergithus, iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

Germanicus, son of Drusus, iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

——, surname of Nero, iv. Antonius, ch. 87; of Vitellius, iv. Galba, ch. 22.

610 Germanus. _See_ Cermalus.

Germany and the Germans, i. Æmilius, ch. 25; ii. Marius, ch. 11; iii. Crassus, ch. 9; Comparison of Crassus and Nikias, ch. 4; Pompeius, ch. 67; Cæsar, chs. 18, 19, 22, 23, 58; Cato Minor, ch. 51; iv. Galba, chs. 3, 6, 13, 15, 18, 22, 23; Otho, chs. 10, 12, 18.

Getæ, iv. Antonius, ch. 63.

Gigis, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 19.

Gisco, a Carthaginian commander, i. Timoleon, ch. 30.

——, with Hannibal at Cannæ, i. Fabius, ch. 15.

Glabrio, Manius Acilius, consul B.C. 191, ii. Cato Major, chs. 12, 14; Philopœmen, chs. 17, 21; Flamininus, ch. 15; Sulla, ch. 12.

——, Manius, ii. Sulla, ch. 33; iii. Pompeius, ch. 30; compare ch. 25.

Glaucia, ii. Marius, ch. 28; Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 1.

Glaucus, Pontius, poem by Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 2.

Glaukias, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 3.

Glaukippus, son of Hypereides, iii. Phokion, ch. 4.

Glaukus, a physician, iii. Alexander, ch. 72.

——, in the Trojan war, iv. Dion, ch. 1.

Glykon, an Athenian, i. Perikles, ch. 31.

Gnathaina, i. Æmilius, ch. 8; iv. Aratus, ch. 54.

Gnossus, in Crete, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

Goats’ Island, i. Perikles, ch. 25.

——, Marsh, i. Romulus, chs. 27, 29.

——, rivers, ii. Lysander, chs. 9-12.

Gobryas, a Persian, ii. Kimon, ch. 12.

Gomphi, iii. Caesar, ch. 41.

Gonatas. _See_ Antigonus.

Gongylus, a Corinthian, iii. Nikias, ch. 19.

Gordian Knot, iii. Alexander, ch. 18.

Gordius, a Cappadocian, ii. Sulla, ch. 5.

Gordyene, ii. Lucullus, chs. 11, 26, 29, 30; iii. Alexander, ch. 31.

Gorgias, of Leontini, ii. Kimon, ch. 10.

——, a rhetorician, iv. Cicero, ch. 24.

——, a general of Eumenes, iii. Eumenes, ch. 7.

Gorgidas, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 12, 13, 19.

Gorgo, wife of Leonidas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 12.

Gorgoleon, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 17.

Gorgus, i. Timoleon, ch. 35.

Gortyna, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 13; Pyrrhus, ch. 27.

Gouras, ii. Lucullus, ch. 32.

Gracchi, the, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 4, 8; C. Gracchus, chs. 4, 18.

——, Tib. Sempronius, the father of the Gracchi, ii. Marcellus, ch. 5; Cato Major, ch. 12; iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 1, 4, 17.

——, Tiberius, iv. Life and Comparison with Agis and Kleomenes; Agis, ch. 2; C. Gracchus, chs. 1, 14, 15.

——, Caius, iv. Life and Comparison with Agis and Kleomenes; Agis, ch. 2; Tib. Gracchus, chs. 2, 13, and after.

Græcinus, a friend of Sertorius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 26.

Granikus, i. Camillus, ch. 19; iii. Alexander, ch. 16.

Granius, step-son of Marius, ii. Marius, chs. 35. 37.

——, Petro, iii. Cæsar, ch. 16.

Grypus, a surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11; ii. Marius, ch. 1.

Gyarta, iv. Dion, ch. 37.

Gylippus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 29; Perikles, ch. 22; Alkibiades, ch. 23; Comparison of Æmilius and Timoleon, ch. 2; ii. Lysander, ch. 16; iii. Nikias, chs. 18-21, 26-28; iv. Dion, ch. 49.

——, father of Agiatis, iv. Kleomenes, ch. i.

Gylon, grandfather of Demosthenes, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 4.

611 Gymnosophists, i. Lykurgus, ch. 4; iii. Alexander, chs. 64, 65.

Gyrisoeni, iii. Sertorius, ch. 3.

Gythium, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 14; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 29.

Hæmon, rivulet in Bœotia, i. Theseus, ch. 27; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 19.

Hæmus, mountain in Thrace, iii. Alexander, ch. 2.

Hagnon of Teos, iii. Alexander, chs. 22, 40, 55.

——, an Athenian, i. Perikles, ch. 32; perhaps the same as the father of Theramenes, ii. Lysander, ch. 14; iii. Nikias, ch. 2.

Hagnonides, iii. Phokion, chs. 29, 33-35, 38.

Hagnothemis, iii. Alexander, ch. 77.

Hagnus or Agnus, Attic township, i. Theseus, ch. 13.

Halæ, burial place of Timon, iv. Antonius, ch. 70.

Halææ, in Bœotia, ii. Sulla, ch. 26.

Haliartus, ii. Lysander, chs. 28, 29; Comparison, ch. 9.

Halikarnassus, i. Themistokles, ch. 1; iii. Alexander, ch. 17; iv. Demetrius, ch. 7.

Halimus, Attic township, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Halkyoneus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 34.

Halonesus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 9.

Halykus, river in Sicily. _See_ Lykus.

Hamilcar, a Carthaginian, i. Timoleon, ch. 25.

——, surnamed Barca, i. Fabius, ch. 17; ii. Cato Major, ch. 8.

Hannibal, i. Romulus, ch. 22; Perikles, ch. 2; Fabius, chs. 2, 3, 5, and after; Æmilius, ch. 7; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 2; Marcellus, chs. 1, 9, 10, and after, 24, 25, and after; Comparison, chs. 1, 2, 3; Cato Major, chs. 1, 12; Comparison, ch. 5; Flamininus, chs. 9, 13, 20, 21; Pyrrhus, ch. 8; Lucullus, ch. 31; iii. Sertorius, chs. 1, 23; Agesilaus, ch. 15; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 1; Otho, ch. 15.

Hanno, i. Timoleon, ch. 19.

Harpalus, a commander of light troops, i. Æmilius, ch. 15.

——, Alexander’s lieutenant, iii. Alexander, chs. 8, 10, 35, 41; Phokion, chs. 21 22; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 25; Comparison, ch. 3.

Hasdrubal, a Carthaginian, i. Timoleon, ch. 25.

——, brother of Hannibal, ii. Flamininus, ch. 3.

Hebrews, iv. Antonius, ch. 27.

Hedylium, ii. Sulla, ch. 16.

Hekalus, Hekaline, or Hekale, i. Theseus, ch. 14.

Hekatæus, despot of Kardia, iii. Eumenes, ch. 3.

——, the Sophist, of Miletus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 19.

——, of Eretria (perhaps of Abdera), a writer, iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

Hekatompedon, a name for the Parthenon, i. Perikles, ch. 13; ii. Cato Major, ch. 5, where it is translated Parthenon; a place in Syracuse, iv. Dion, ch. 45.

Hektor, i. Theseus, ch. 34; iii. Pompeius, ch. 29; iv. Brutus, ch. 23; Aratus, ch. 3.

Hegemon, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, chs. 33, 35.

Hegesias, a writer, iii. Alexander, ch. 3.

Hegesipyle, daughter of Olorus, mother of Kimon, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Hegesistratus, i. Solon, ch. 31.

Helen, i. Theseus, chs. 29, 31, 32, 34; Comparison, ch. 6; Solon, ch. 4; iv. Antonius, ch. 6; Galba, ch. 19.

Helenus, son of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 9, 32, 33, 34.

Helikon, the mountain, ii. Lysander, ch. 29; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 18.

——, an artist, iii. Alexander, ch. 32.

——, of Kyzikus, iv. Dion, ch. 19.

612 Helikus, perhaps Helisson in Arcadia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 23.

Heliopolis, in Egypt, i. Solon, ch. 26.

Helius, Nero’s favourite, iv. Galba, ch. 17.

Hellanikus of Mitylene, i. Theseus, chs. 17, 25, 26, 27, 31; Alkibiades, ch. 21.

——, a Sicilian, iv. Dion, ch. 42.

Hellespont, i. Themistokles, ch. 16; Perikles, ch. 17; Alkibiades, chs. 26, 27, 28, 30; ii. Aristeides, ch. 9, 10; Lysander, chs. 9, 20, 24; Sulla, ch. 23; Lucullus, ch. 12; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 8, 16; Alexander, chs. 15. 16; Phokion, ch. 14.

Helvetians, iii. Cæsar, ch. 18.

Helvia, mother of Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 1.

Helvidius Priscus, iv. Galba, ch. 28.

Hemathion, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Henioche, i. Theseus, ch. 25.

Hephæstion, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 34; iii. Eumenes, chs. 1, 2; Alexander, chs. 28. 39. 41. 47. 49. 54. 55. 72. 74.

Hephæus, mountain, perhaps Tifata, ii. Sulla, ch. 27.

Heptachalkum, at Athens, ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

Heræa, in Arcadia, ii. Lysander, ch. 22; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 7.

Heræum, temple of Hera on a promontory near Corinth, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 22; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 20.

Heraklea, in Bithynia, ii. Kimon, ch. 6; Lucullus, ch. 13.

——, in Italy, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 16.

——, in Thessaly, ii. Flamininus, ch. 15; iv. Demetrius, ch. 23.

Herakleides, of Cuma, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 23.

——, of Pontus, i. Solon, chs. 1, 22, 31; Themistokles, ch. 27; Camillus, ch. 22; Perikles, chs. 27, 35; iii. Alexander, ch. 26.

——, a Syracusan, iii. Nikias, ch. 24.

——, a Syracusan, iv. Dion, chs. 12, 32, 33, 37, 38, 45, 47, 48, 49, 53.

Herakleum, at Patræ, iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

Herakleitus, i. Romulus, ch. 28; Camillus, ch. 19; Coriolanus, ch. 38.

Herakles, or Hercules, frequent. _See_ especially i. Life of Theseus. Pillars of Herakles or Hercules, i. Timoleon, ch. 20; iii. Nikias, ch. 12; Pompeius, ch. 25; Alexander, ch. 68; iv. Aratus, ch. 14.

——, son of Alexander and Barsine, iii. Eumenes, ch. 1.

Hercynian, forest, ii. Marius, ch. 11.

Hereas of Megara, i. Theseus, chs. 20, 32; Solon, ch. 10.

Herennius, lieutenant of Sertorius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 18.

——, Caius, and the family of the Herennii, ii. Marius, ch. 5.

——, a centurion, iv. Cicero, ch. 48.

Herippidas, a Spartan, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 13; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 11.

Hermæus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 17.

Hermagoras, iii. Pompeius, ch. 42.

Herminius, i. Poplicola, ch. 16.

Hermione, daughter of Menelaus and Helen, i. Comparison of Lykurgus and Numa, ch. 3.

——, a town in Argolis, and Hermionians, i. Themistokles, ch. 5; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; Alexander, ch. 36; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 19; Aratus, ch. 34.

Hermippus, philosopher and historian, i. Lykurgus, chs. 5, 22; Solon, chs. 2, 6, 11; iii. Alexander, ch. 54; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 11, 28, 30.

——, a comic poet, i. Perikles, chs. 32, 33.

Hermokrates, a Syracusan, iii. Nikias, chs. 1, 16, 28; iv. Dion, ch. 3.

Hermolaus, iii. Alexander, ch. 55.

Hermon, an Athenian, i. Alkibiades, ch. 25.

——, a Syracusan, iii. Nikias, ch. 1.

Hermotimus, i. Perikles, ch. 24.

613 Hermus, an Athenian, i. Theseus, ch. 26.

Hermes, precincts of, in Attica, said to be alluded to in i. Theseus, chs. 10, 11; and iii. Phokion, ch. 22.

Hero, first cousin of Aristotle, iii. Alexander, ch. 55.

Herodes, king of Judæa, iv. Antonius, chs. 61, 71, 72.

——, friend of Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 24.

Herodorus of Pontus, i. Theseus, chs. 26, 29, 30; Romulus, ch. 9.

Herodotus, a Bithynian, i. Numa, ch. 4.

——, of Halikarnassus, the historian, i. Themistokles, chs. 7, 17, 21; ii. Aristeides, chs. 16, 19; Comparison, ch. 2.

Herophytus of Samos, ii. Kimon, ch. 9.

Herostratus, iv. Brutus, ch. 24.

Hersilia, i. Romulus, chs. 14, 18, 19; Comparison, ch. 6.

Hesiod, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 16, 20; Numa, ch. 4; Solon, ch. 2; Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, ch. 3; iv. Galba, ch. 16.

Hestiæa, i. Themistokles, ch. 8; Perikles, ch. 23.

Hesychia, priestess at Klazomenæ, iii. Nikias, ch. 13.

Hexapylon, gate at Syracuse, ii. Marcellus, ch. 19.

Hidrieus. _See_ Idrieus.

Hiempsal, king of Numidia, ii. Marius, ch. 40; iii. Pompeius, ch. 12.

Hieræ. _See_ Hietæ.

Hierapolis, in Syria, iii. Crassus, ch. 17; iv. Antonius, ch. 37.

Hiero, a soothsayer, iii. Nikias, ch. 5.

——, despot of Syracuse, i. Themistokles, ch. 24; ii. Marcellus, chs. 8, 14.

Hieronymus of Kardia, a historian, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 17, 21, 27; iii. Eumenes, ch. 12; iv. Demetrius, ch. 39.

Hieronymus of Carrhæ, iii. Crassus, ch. 25.

——, of Rhodes, a writer, ii. Aristeides, ch. 27; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 13.

——, despot of Syracuse, ii. Marcellus, ch. 13.

Hietæ, i. Timoleon, ch. 30.

Hiketes, despot of Leontini, i. Timoleon, chs. 7, 8, 9, and after to ch. 933.

——, a Syracusan, iv. Dion, ch. 58.

Himera and Himeræans, i. Timoleon, ch. 23; iii. Pompeius ch. 10.

Himeræus, brother of Demetrius Phalereus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28.

Hipparchus, the father of Asklepiades, iii. Phokion, ch. 22.

——, of Cholargus, iii. Nikias, ch. 11.

——, Antonius’s freedman, iv. Antonius, chs. 67, 73.

——, a Spartan, i. Lykurgus, chs. 4, 31.

Hipparete, i. Alkibiades, ch. 8.

Hipparinus, father of Dion, iv. Dion, ch. 3.

——, son of Dion, iv. Dion, ch. 31.

Hippias, an Epirot, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

——, a comedian, iv. Antonius, ch. 9.

——, of Elis, the sophist, i. Lykurgus, ch. 22; Numa, ch. 1.

Hippitas, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 37.

Hippo, despot of Messina, i. Timoleon, chs. 34, 37.

——, a Syracusan, iv. Dion, ch. 37.

Hippodameia, wife of Pelops, i. Theseus, ch. 7.

Hippokles, father of Pelopidas, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 3.

Hippokoon, i. Theseus, ch. 31.

Hippokrates, an Athenian general, iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

——, the mathematician, i. Solon, ch. 2.

——, the physician, ii. Cato Major, ch. 23.

——, the father of Peisiatratus, i. Solon, ch. 30.

——, a Spartan, i. Alkibiades, ch. 30.

——, commander in Syracuse, ii. Marcellus, chs. 14, 18.

614 Hippolyte, the Amazon, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Hippolytus, son of Theseus, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 28; Numa, ch. 4.

Hippomachus, the wrestling-master, iv. Dion, ch. 1.

Hippomedon, a Spartan, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Hipponikus, a friend of Solon, i. Solon, ch. 15.

——, the father of Kallias, i. Perikles, ch. 24; Alkibiades ch. 248.

Hipponium, Hippo, or Vibo, in Lucania, iv. Cicero, ch. 32.

Hipposthenidas, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 8.

Hirtius, consul with Pansa, B.C. 43, i. Æmilius, ch. 38; iv. Cicero, chs. 43, 45; Antonius, ch. 17.

Homer, i. Theseus, chs. 5, 16, 20, 25, 34; Lykurgus, chs. 1, 4; Solon, chs. 10, 25, 30; Fabius, ch. 19; Alkibiades, ch. 7; Coriolanus, ch. 32; Timoleon, ch. 36; Æmilius, chs. 28, 34; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 1, 18; Marcellus, ch. 1; Cato Major, ch. 27; Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, ch. 3; Philopœmen, chs. 1, 4, 9; Pyrrhus, ch. 22; Marius ch. 11; Kimon, ch. 7; iii. Nikias, ch. 9; Sertorius, ch. 8; Agesilaus, ch. 5; Alexander, ch. 26; Phokion, ch. 17; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 9; Tib. Gracchus, ch. 21; Demetrius, ch. 42; Antonius, ch. 25; Brutus, ch. 34; Galba, ch. 19. Quotations without the name, i. Theseus, ch. 2; Coriolanus, ch. 22; Timoleon, ch. 1; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 13, 29; iii. Nikias, ch. 5; Pompeius, chs. 29, 72; Alexander, chs. 28, 54; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 34; Demosthenes, ch. 12; Dion, ch. 18; Brutus, chs. 23, 24.

Homoloichus of Chæronea, ii. Sulla, chs. 17, 19.

Honoratus, Antonius, iv. Galba ch. 14.

Hoplacus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 16.

Hoplias, river in Bœotia, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Hoplites, river, at Haliartus, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Horatius, the poet, under the name of Flaccus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 39.

——, Marcus, consul, i. Poplicola, chs. 7, 14, 15.

——, Cocles, i. Poplicola, ch. 16.

Horcomosium, at Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Hordeonius Flaccus, commanding in Germany, iv. Galba, chs. 10, 18, 22.

Hortensius, lieutenant of Sulla, ii. Sulla, chs. 15, 16, 17, 19.

——, Quintus, the orator, ii. Sulla, ch. 35; Lucullus, ch. 1; iii. Cato Minor, chs. 25, 52; Cicero, chs. 7, 35.

——, son of the orator, iii. Cæsar, ch. 32; iv. Antonius, ch. 22; Brutus, chs. 25, 28.

Hostilius, grandfather of Tullus the king, i. Romulus, chs. 14, 18.

——, Tullus, king of Rome, i. Romulus, ch. 18; Numa, chs. 21, 22; Coriolanus, ch. 1.

——, a Roman general, i. Æmilius, ch. 9.

——, Lucius, i. Romulus, ch. 22.

Hyacinthia, Spartan festival, ii. Aristeides, ch. 10.

Hyacinthus, son of Amyklas, i. Numa, ch. 4.

Hybla, a fortress in Sicily, iii. Nikias, ch. 15.

Hybreas, an orator, iv. Antonius, ch. 24.

Hydaspes, iii. Alexander, chs. 60, 61.

Hydrum, perhaps a false reading for Cyprus, ii. Kimon, ch. 13.

Hykkara, in Sicily, i. Alkibiades ch. 39; iii. Nikias, ch. 15.

Hyllus, son of Herakles, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Hymen, i. Romulus, ch. 15.

Hypates, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 11.

Hyperbates, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 14.

615 Hyperbolus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 13; ii. Aristeides, ch. 7; iii. Nikias, ch. 11; Comparison, ch. 2.

Hyperboreans, i. Camillus, ch. 22.

Hypereides, Athenian orator, iii. Phokion, chs. 4, 7, 10, 17, 23, 26, 27, 29; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 12, 13, 28.

Hypsæus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 55; Cato Minor, ch. 47.

Hypsichidas, i. Solon, ch. 10.

Hypsikratia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 32.

Hypsion, a hero, ii. Aristeides, ch. 11.

Hyrkania, ii. Lucullus, ch. 36; iii. Crassus, ch. 21; Comparison, ch. 4; Pompeius, chs. 34, 35, 36, 38; Alexander, chs. 44, 47; Cæsar, ch. 58.

Hyrodes, king of Parthia, iii. Crassus, chs. 18, 22, 31, 33; iv. Antonius, ch. 37.

Iacchus, i. Themistokles ch. 15; Camillus, ch. 19; Alkibiades, ch. 34; iii. Phokion, ch. 28.

Iaccheum, the, ii. Aristeides, ch. 27.

Ialysus, founder of Ialysus in Rhodes, iv. Demetrius, ch. 22. The town is mentioned as the birthplace of Timokreon, i. Themistokles, ch. 21.

Iapyia, i. Theseus, ch. 16; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 25; iv. Dion, ch. 25.

Iarbas, iii. Pompeius, ch. 12.

Iber, or Ebro, iii. Sertorius, ch. 16.

Iberians of Spain. _See_ Spain.

——, a people of Asia, ii. Lucullus, chs. 26, 31; iii. Pompeius, chs. 34, 44; iv. Antonius, ch. 34.

Ibykus, i. Comparison of Lykurgus and Numa, ch. 3.

Icelus, Marcianus, iv. Galba, chs. 7, 20.

Ichnæ, iii. Crassus, ch. 25.

Ida, mountain, i. Numa, ch. 15; iii. Eumenes, ch. 8.

Idæus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 13.

Idas, brother of Lynkeus, i. Theseus, ch. 31.

Idomeneus, the historian, i. Perikles, chs. 10, 35; ii. Aristeides, chs. 1, 4, 10; iii. Phokion, ch. 4; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 15, 23.

Idrilus, or Hidrilus, prince of Caria, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 13.

Ignatius, or Egnatius, iii. Crassus, ch. 27.

Iktinus, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Ilia, daughter of Numitor, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 8.

——, wife of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 6.

Ilicium, i. Numa, ch. 15.

Ilium and Ilians, ii. Lucullus, chs. 10, 12. _See_ also Troy and Trojans.

Illyria and Illyrians, i. Æmilius, chs. 9, 12, 31; ii. Philopœmen, ch. 6; Pyrrhus, chs. 3, 9, 34 (an Illyrian sword); iii. Pompeius, chs. 48, 59; Alexander, chs. 3, 9, 11; Cæsar, chs. 14, 31; Cato Minor, ch. 33; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 10, 27, 28; Comparison, ch. 2; Demetrius, ch. 53; Antonius, chs. 56, 61; Illyrian soldiers, iv. Aratus, ch. 38; Illyrian legion, iv. Galba, ch. 25.

Imbros, iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

India and Indians, iii. Alexander, chs. 13, 55, 57, 59, 62-66, 69; compare Eumenes, ch. 1. Other historical passages are iv. Demetrius, chs. 7, 32. _See_ also i. Lykurgus, ch. 4; Æmilius, ch. 12; iii. Crassus, ch. 16; Comparison, chs. 2, 4; Pompeius, ch. 70; iv. Antonius, chs. 37, 81. Indian kings, iv. Comparison of Dion and Brutus, ch. 4.

Indus, river, iii. Alexander, ch. 66.

Ino, daughter of Kadmus, i. Camillus, ch. 5.

Inora, castle of Mithridates, iii. Pompeius, ch. 32.

Insteius, Marcus, iv. Antonius, ch. 65.

Insubrian Gauls, ii. Marcellus, chs, 3, 4, 6.

Iolaus, son of Antipater, iii. Alexander, chs. 74, 77.

616 Iolaus, companion of Herakles, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 18.

Iolkus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 53.

Ion of Chios, poet and historian, i. Theseus, ch. 20; Perikles, chs. 5, 28; Comparison of Alkibiades and Coriolanus, ch. 2, where Sintenis reads Dion; ii. Kimon, chs. 5, 9, 16; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 3.

——, a Macedonian, i. Æmilius, ch. 26.

——, son of Xuthus, i. Solon, ch. 23.

Ionia and Ionians, i. Themistokles, chs. 9, 26; Perikles, chs. 17, 24, 28; Alkibiades, chs. 23, 24, and after; ii. Aristeides, ch. 26; Lysander, ch. 23; Kimon, chs. 12, 14; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 24; Antonius, ch. 30; Brutus, ch. 32.

——, and Peloponnesus, i. Theseus, ch. 25. Ionian Salamis, i. Solon, ch. 10.

——, women, i. Themistokles, ch. 26; Perikles, ch. 23; Alkibiades, ch. 36; ii. Lucullus, ch. 18; Crassus, ch. 32; Phokion, ch. 19; iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 26, 27; Ionian luxury, i. Lykurgus, ch. 4.

——, sea, i. Æmilius, ch. 36; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 15 (in the Greek text); Sulla, ch. 20; iii. Cæsar, ch. 37; Antonius, chs. 7, 30, 61, 62.

Iope, daughter of Iphikles, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Iophon, son of Peisistratus, ii. Cato Major, ch. 24.

Ios, an island, iii. Sertorius, ch. 1.

Ioxus and Ioxids, descended from Theseus, i. Theseus, ch. 8.

Iphikles, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Iphikrates, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 2; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 22; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 24; Galba, ch. 1.

Iphitus, i. Theseus, ch. 6; Lykurgus, chs. 1, 22.

Ipsus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 4; iv. Demetrius, ch. 33.

Iptha, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

Iras, Cleopatra’s maid, iv. Antonius, chs. 65, 85.

Irtius, A. Hirtius, consul B.C. 43, iv. Cicero, ch. 43.

Isæus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 5.

Isauricus, P. Servilius Vatia, consul B.C. 79, ii. Sulla, ch. 28; iii. Pompeius, ch. 14; Cæsar, ch. 7.

——, Servilius, son of the preceding, iii. Cæsar, ch. 37.

Isias, a Corinthian, i. Timoleon, ch. 21.

——, son of Phœbidas, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 34.

Isidorus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 12.

Isis, iv. Antonius, chs. 54, 74.

Ismenias, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 5.

——, a Theban (son of the preceding?), ii. Pelopidas, chs. 27, 29; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

——, a flute-player, i. Perikles, ch. 1; iv. Demetrius, ch. 1.

Ismenus, river in Bœotia, iv. Demetrius, ch. 45.

Isodike, wife of Kimon, ii. Kimon, chs. 4, 16.

Isokrates the orator, i. Alkibiades, ch. 12; ii. Cato Major, ch. 23; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 5; Comparison, ch. 2.

Isomantus, river in Bœotia, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Issorium, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 32.

Issus, iii. Alexander, chs. 24, 32.

Isthmus of Corinth, i. Theseus, chs. 8, 25; Themistokles, chs. 9, 11, 12, 17, 21; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; Alexander, ch. 14; Cæsar, ch. 58; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 20; Demetrius, chs. 25, 31, 39; Aratus, chs. 16, 44.

Isthmian games, the, i. Theseus, ch. 25; Solon, ch. 23; Themistokles, ch. 21; Timoleon, ch. 26; ii. Flamininus, chs. 10, 12; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 21.

Istrus, historian, i. Theseus, ch. 34; iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

617 Italia, daughter of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Italus, father of Roma, Romulus, i. Themistokles, ch. 2.

Italy and Italians, frequent.

Ithagenes of Samos, i. Perikles, ch. 25.

Ithome, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 24; Kimon, ch. 17; iv. Aratus, ch. 50.

Iulis, town in the island of Keos, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 1.

Ixion, iv. Agis. ch. 1.

Janiculum, i. Numa, ch. 22; ii. Marius, ch. 42.

Janus, i. Numa, chs. 19, 20.

Jason, the hero, i. Theseus, chs. 19, 29; ii. Kimon, ch. 3.

——, of Pheræ, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 28.

——, of Tralles, an actor, iii. Crassus, ch. 33.

Juba I., king of Numidia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 76; Cæsar, chs. 52, 53, 55; Cato Minor, chs. 56, 57, 67-73.

——, II., king of Numidia, son of preceding, and a historian, i. Romulus, chs. 14, 15, 17; Numa, chs. 7, 13; ii. Comparison of Pelopidas and Marcellus, ch. 1; Sulla, ch. 16; iii. Sertorius, ch. 9; Cæsar, ch. 55; iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

Jubius, probably Quintus Vibullius Rufus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 65.

Judæa and the Jews, iii. Pompeius, chs. 39, 44; iv. Cicero, ch. 7; Antonius, chs. 3, 36, 61, 71; Galba, ch. 13; Otho, chs. 4, 15.

Jugurtha, king of Numidia, ii. Marius, chs. 7. 8. 10. 11. 12; Sulla, chs. 3, 6; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 18.

Junonia, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 11.

Julia, mother of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 2.

——, wife of Marius, aunt of Cæsar, ii. Marius, ch. 5; Cæsar, chs. 1, 5.

——, wife of Pompeius, daughter of Cæsar, iii. Pompeius, chs. 49, 53, 70; Cæsar, chs. 14, 23, 55; Cato Minor, ch. 32.

Julia, daughter of Augustus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 30; iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

Julius, Censor, i. Camillus, ch. 13.

——, Proculus, i. Romulus, ch. 28; Numa, chs. 2, 5.

——, Salinator, iii. Sertorius, ch. 7.

——, Atticus, iv. Galba, ch. 26.

Junia, sister of Brutus, wife of Cassius, iv. Brutus, ch. 7.

Junius, Marcus, dictator, i. Fabius, ch. 9.

——, governor of Asia, iii. Cæsar, ch. 2.

——, Brutus. _See_ Brutus.

——, Silanus, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 21, 23; iv. Cicero, chs. 14, 19, 20, 21.

——, or Julius, Vindex, commanding in Gaul, iv. Galba, chs. 4, 5, 6, 10, 18, 22, 29.

Kabeira, ii. Lucullus, chs. 14, 15, 18; Comparison, ch. 3.

Kabeiri, ii. Marcellus, ch. 30.

Kadmeia, the citadel of Thebes, i. Theseus, ch. 29; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 5, 6, 12, 13, 16; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 23; Alexander ch. 11; Phokion, ch. 26.

——, sister of Neoptolemus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 5.

Kænum, iii. Pompeius, ch. 37.

Kalanus, iii. Alexander, chs. 8, 65, 69.

Kalauria, i. Timoleon, ch. 31; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; Phokion, ch. 29; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 29, 30.

Kallæschrus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 33.

Kalliades, iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

Kallias, the torchbearer, i. Perikles, ch. 24; ii. Aristeides, chs. 5, 25; Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, ch. 4; Kimon, ch. 13.

——, the rich, i. Perikles, ch. 24; Alkibiades, ch. 8; Kimon, ch. 4.

——, of Syracuse, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 5.

618 Kallibius, ii. Lysander, ch. 15.

Kallidromus, mountain, ii. Cato Major, ch. 13.

Kallikles, son of Arrhenides, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 25.

——, a money-lender, iv. Phokion, ch. 9.

Kallikrates, an Athenian architect, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

——, a Spartan, i. Aristeides, ch. 17.

——, a Spartan, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 35.

——, a Syracusan, iii. Nikias, ch. 18.

Kallikratidas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 30; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 2; Lysander, chs. 5, 6, 7; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

Kallimachus, ii. Comparison of Cato and Aristeides, ch. 2.

——, an engineer, ii. Lucullus, chs. 19, 32.

——, a Syracusan, iii. Nikias, ch. 18.

——, the poet, iv. Antonius, ch. 70.

Kallimedon, the “crab,” iii. Phokion, chs. 27, 33, 35; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 27.

Kallinikus, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11; ii. Marius, ch. 1.

Kalliphon, ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

Kallippides, i. Alkibiades, ch. 32; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 21.

Kallippus, i. Timoleon, ch. 11; Comparison of Timoleon and Æmilius, ch. 2; iii. Nikias, ch. 14; iv. Dion, chs. 17, 28, 54, 56, 58.

Kallisthenes, an Athenian orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 23.

——, a freedman of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 43.

——, an Olynthian philosopher and historian, i. Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 17; Aristeides, ch. 27; Sulla, ch. 36; Kimon, chs. 12, 13; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 34; Alexander, chs. 27, 33, 52-54.

Kallistratus, an Athenian orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 5.

——, attendant on Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 17.

Kallistus. _See_ Callistus.

Kalydonia, iv. Aratus, ch. 16.

Kalydonian boar, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Kamarina, iv. Dion, ch. 27.

Kambyses. _See_ Cambyses.

Kanethus, i. Theseus, ch. 25.

Kantharus, iii. Phokion, ch. 28.

Kapaneus, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 3.

Kaphis, ii. Sulla, ch. 12.

Kaphisias of Sikyon, a friend of Aratus, iv. Aratus, ch. 6.

——, a musician, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 8.

Kaphyæ, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 4; Aratus, ch. 47.

Kappadokia. _See_ Cappadocia.

Karanus, iii. Alexander, ch. 2.

Kardia and Kardians, iii. Sertorius, ch. 1; Eumenes, chs. 1, 3.

Karia. _See_ Caria.

Karmania, iii. Alexander, ch. 67.

Karneades, ii. Cato Major, ch. 22; Lucullus, ch. 42; iv. Cicero, ch. 4.

Karyatides. _See_ Caryatides.

Karystus. _See_ Carystus.

Kassander, i. Pyrrhus, chs. 3, 5; iii. Eumenes, ch. 12; Alexander, ch. 74; Phokion, chs. 31, 32; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 13, 31; Demetrius, chs. 8, 18, 23, 31, 36, 37, 45.

Kassandra, daughter of Priam, iv. Agis, ch. 9.

Kassandrea, iv. Demetrius, ch. 45.

Kataonia. _See_ Cataonia.

Katana, i. Timoleon, chs. 13, 18, 19, 34; ii. Marcellus, ch. 30; iii. Nikias, chs. 15, 16; iv. Dion, ch. 58.

Kaulonia, iv. Dion, ch. 26. _See_ Caulonia.

Kaunus, iii. Nikias, ch. 29; iv. Demetrius, ch. 49; Artaxerxes, chs. 11, 12.

Kebalinus, or Balinus, iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

Kekrops, i. Comparison of Theseus and Romulus, ch. 6.

Kelænæ, iii. Eumenes, ch. 8; iv. Demetrius, ch. 6.

Kelts. _See_ Celts.

Kenchreæ, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 38; 619iv. Demetrius, ch. 23; Aratus, chs. 29, 44.

Keos, i. Themistokles, chs. 3, 5; Timoleon, ch. 35; ii. Aristeides, ch. 2: iii. Nikias, ch. 2; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 1.

Kephalon, iv. Aratus, ch. 52.

Kephalus, a lawgiver, i. Timoleon, ch. 24.

Kephisodorus, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 11.

Kephisodotus, iii. Phokion, ch. 19.

Kephisus, river of Attica, i. Theseus, ch. 12; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 31.

——, river of Bœotia, ii. Sulla, chs. 16, 20; iii. Alexander, ch. 9; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 19.

Kerameikus, ii. Sulla, ch. 14; Kimon, ch. 5; iii. Phokion, ch. 34; iv. Demetrius, ch. 11.

Keraunian mountains, iii. Phokion, ch. 29.

Keraunus, Ptolemy, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 22.

Keressus, i. Camillus, ch. 19.

Kerkina, iv. Dion, ch. 25.

Kerkyon, i. Theseus, chs. 11, 28.

Kilikia and Kilikians. _See_ Cilicia.

Killes, iv. Demetrius, ch. 6.

Kimon, son of Miltiades, ii. Life and Comparison with Lucullus; i. Theseus, ch. 36; Themistokles, chs. 5, 20, 24, 30; Perikles, chs. 5, 7, 9, 10, 16, 27; Comparison, chs. 1, 3; Alkibiades, chs. 19, 22; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 4; Aristeides, chs. 23, 25; Cato Major, ch. 5; Flamininus, ch. 11; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 13.

——, called Koalemus, father of Miltiades, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Kineas, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 13.

——, minister of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 14, 15, 18, 20, 21, 22.

Kirrha, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31; Numa, ch. 4; Solon, ch. 11.

Kissus, iii. Alexander, ch. 41.

Kissousa, ii. Lysander, ch. 28.

Kithæron, ii. Aristeides, chs. 11, 14; Lysander, ch. 28; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 23.

Kitium, ii. Kimon, ch. 19; Comparison, ch. 1; iii. Alexander, ch. 32; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 2.

Kius, iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

Klarius, i. Solon, ch. 26.

Klaros. _See_ Claros.

Klazomenæ, i. Alkibiades, ch. 28; iii. Nikias, ch. 13.

Kleænetus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 24.

Kleander, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1.

Kleandrides, i. Perikles, ch. 21; iii. Nikias, ch. 28.

Kleanthes, a physician, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 70.

——, a philosopher, i. Alkibiades, ch. 6.

Klearchus, a Macedonian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18.

——, a Spartan, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 8, 13, 18.

Kleidemus, i. Theseus, chs. 19, 27; Themistokles, ch. 10; ii. Aristeides, ch. 19.

Kleinias, i. Solon, chs. 8, 15.

——, father of Alkibiades, i. Alkibiades, chs. 1, 11.

——, father of Aratus, iv. Aratus, chs. 2, 8.

Kleisthenes, i. Perikles, ch. 3; ii. Aristeides, ch. 2; Kimon, ch. 15.

Kleitarchus, i. Themistokles, ch. 27; iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

Kleitomachus, iv. Cicero, chs. 3, 4.

Kleitorians, i. Lykurgus, ch. 2; Kleitorid, ii. Kimon, ch. 16.

Kleitus, the black, iii. Alexander, chs. 13, 16, 50, 51.

——, a Macedonian, iii. Phokion, chs. 34, 35.

——, servant of Brutus, iv. Brutus, ch. 52.

Kleobis, i. Solon, ch. 27.

Kleokritus, ii. Aristeides, ch. 8.

Kleodæus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Kleomantes, a Spartan, iii. Alexander, ch. 50.

Kleombrotus I., king of Sparta, son of Pausanias, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 13, 20, 23; 620Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 4; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 24, 26, 28; iv. Agis, chs. 3, 21.

Kleombrotus II., king of Sparta, son-in-law of Leonidas, iv. Agis, chs. 11, 16, 17, 18.

Kleomedes, i. Romulus, ch. 28.

Kleomedon, iv. Demetrius, ch. 24.

Kleomenes, an Athenian, ii. Lysander, ch. 14.

——, a Spartan, i. Solon, ch. 10.

——, II., king of Sparta, son of Kleombrotus, iv. Agis, ch. 3.

——, III., king of Sparta, son of Leonidas, iv. Life and Comparison with the Gracchi; ii. Philopœmen, ch. 5; iv. Agis, ch. 2; Aratus, chs. 35-40, 44.

Kleon of Athens, i. Perikles, chs. 33, 35; iii. Nikias, chs. 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9; Comparison, chs. 2, 3; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 2; Demetrius, ch. 11.

Kleon of Halikarnassus, ii. Lysander, ch. 25; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 20.

——, despot of Sikyon, iv. Aratus, ch. 2.

Kleonæ, i. Timoleon. ch. 4; ii. Kimon, ch. 17; iii. Phokion, ch. 29; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 19; Demosthenes, ch. 28; Aratus, ch. 28.

Kleonike, ii. Kimon, ch. 6.

Kleonides, iv. Demetrius, ch. 15.

Kleonymus, son of Kleomenes II. of Sparta, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 26, 27; iv. Agis, ch. 3; Demetrius, ch. 39.

——, son of Sphodrias, Agesilaus, chs. 25, 28.

Kleopater, iv. Aratus, ch. 40.

Kleopatra. _See_ Cleopatra.

Kleophanes, iii. Phokion, ch. 13.

Kleophantus, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Kleoptolemus of Chalkis, ii. Flamininus, ch. 16.

Kleora, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19.

Klimax, iii. Alexander, ch. 17.

Klion, iv. Aratus, ch. 2.

Klymene, i. Theseus, ch. 34.

Knakion, i. Lykurgus, ch. 6; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 17.

Knidos, i. Alkibiades, ch. 27; ii. Kimon, ch. 12; Lucullus, ch. 3; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 17; Cæsar, ch. 48; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 21.

Knossus, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

Koalemus, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Kodrus, i. Solon, ch. 1.

Koenus, iii. Alexander, ch. 60.

Kolchis, i. Theseus, ch. 29; ii. Lucullus, ch. 14; iii. Pompeius, chs. 30, 32, 34, 45.

Kolias, i. Solon, chs. 7, 8.

Kollytus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 11.

Kolonis, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 18.

Kolophon, i. Timoleon, ch. 36; ii. Lysander, ch. 18; Lucullus, ch. 3.

Komias, i. Solon, ch. 32.

Konius, iii. Alexander, ch. 60.

Konnidas, i. Theseus, ch. 4.

Konon, friend of Solon, i. Solon, ch. 15. ——, Athenian general, i. Alkibiades, ch. 37; ii. Lysander, ch. 11; Sulla, ch. 6; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 17, 23; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 21.

Konopion, iii. Phokion, ch. 37.

Kora, daughter of Aidoneus, i. Theseus, ch. 31.

Korkyna, i. Theseus, ch. 20.

Korkyra. _See_ Corcyra.

Korœbus, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Koronea, i. Perikles, ch. 17; Alkibiades, ch. 1; ii. Lysander, ch. 29; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 15, 18.

Korrhabus, or Korrhagus, son of Demetrius, iv. Demetrius, ch. 53.

Korrhæus, Korrhabus, or Korrhagus, father of Demetrius’s mother Stratonike, iv. Demetrius, ch. 2.

Korynetes, i. Theseus, ch. 8, Comparison, ch. 1.

Kos, i. Solon, ch. 4; Alkibiades, ch. 27; ii. Lucullus, ch. 3.

Kosis, iii. Pompeius, ch. 35.

Kossæans, iii. Alexander, ch. 72.

Kotys, iii. Agesilaus, chs. 10, 11.

621 Kranium, at Corinth, iii. Alexander, ch. 14.

Krannon, i. Camillus, ch. 19; iii. Phokion, ch. 26; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28; Demetrius, ch. 10.

Kraterus, Alexander’s general, iii. Eumenes, chs. 5, 6, 7, 8; Alexander, chs. 40. 41. 47. 55; Phokion, chs. 18, 26; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28; Demetrius, ch. 14.

——, brother of King Antigonus Gonatas, ii. Aristeides, ch. 26; Kimon, ch. 13.

Krates, iv. Demetrius, ch. 46.

Kratesiklea, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 6, 22, 38.

Kratesipolis, iv. Demetrius, ch. 9.

Kratinus, i. Solon, ch. 25; Perikles, chs. 3, 13; Kimon, chs. 9, 10.

Kratippus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 75; iv. Cicero, ch. 24; Brutus, ch. 24.

Kraugis, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1.

Kreon, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 29; Compare iii. Alexander, ch. 35.

Kreophylus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 4.

Krimesus, i. Timoleon, chs. 27, 28.

Kritias, i. Lykurgus, ch. 9; Alkibiades, chs. 33, 38; ii. Kimon, chs. 10, 16.

Krito, ii. Aristeides, ch. 1.

Kritolaidas, i. Solon, ch. 10.

Kritolaus, i. Perikles, ch. 7.

Krobylus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 17.

Krommyon, i. Theseus, ch. 9.

Kronion, i. Theseus, ch. 12.

Kroton, i. Romulus, ch. 28; iii. Alexander, ch. 34; iv. Cicero, ch. 18.

Ktesias, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 11, 13, 18, 21.

Ktesibius, a writer, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 5.

Ktesium, ii. Kimon, ch. 8.

Ktesiphon, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 24.

Ktesippus, iii. Phokion, ch. 7; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

Kunaxa, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 8.

Kyanean islands, ii. Kimon, ch. 13.

Kybernesia, i. Theseus, ch. 17.

Kybisthus, i. Solon, ch. 7.

Kychreus, i. Theseus, ch. 10, Solon, ch. 9.

Kydnus, river of Kilikia, iii. Alexander, ch. 19. _See_ Cydnus.

Kyknus, i. Theseus, ch. 11.

Kyllarabis, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 32; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 17, 26.

Kylon, i. Solon, chs. 12, 13.

Kyme, i. Themistokles, ch. 25; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 23.

Kynægyrus, ii. Comparison of Cato and Aristeides, ch. 2.

Kyniske, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 20.

Kynosarges, i. Themistokles, ch. 1.

Kynoskephalæ, i. Theseus, ch. 27; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 32; Flamininus, ch. 8.

Kynossema, in Salamis, i. Themistokles, ch. 10; ii. Aristeides, ch. 5.

Kypselus, iv. Aratus, ch. 3.

Kyrnus, river of Asia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

Kyrrhestis, plain of, iv. Demetrius, ch. 48.

Kythera, iii. Nikias, ch. 6; Comparison, ch. 3; Agesilaus, ch. 32; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 31.

Kyzikus, i. Alkibiades, chs. 24, 28; ii. Lucullus, chs. 9, 10, 12, 33; iv. Dion, ch. 19; Brutus, ch. 28.

Labeo, friend of Brutus, iv. Brutus, chs. 12, 51.

Labici, i. Coriolanus, ch. 28.

Labienus, officer of Cæsar in Gaul, iii. Pompeius, chs. 64, 68; Cæsar, chs. 18, 34; Cato Minor, ch. 56; iv. Cicero, ch. 38.

——, commanding among the Parthians (son of preceding), iv. Antonius, chs. 28, 30, 33.

Lacedæmonius, son of Kimon, i. Perikles, ch. 28; ii. Kimon, ch. 16.

Lacedæmon and Lacedæmonians, i. Theseus, chs. 32, 34; Romulus, ch. 16; Lykurgus throughout, and elsewhere continually. For Lacedæmonian habits _see_, besides Lykurgus, ii. Lysander, chs. 1, 19; 622Agesilaus, ch. 1; iv. Agis, ch. 11; and Kleomenes, ch. 1. Lacedæmonian women, i. Lykurgus, chs. 13, 14; Alkibiades, ch. 1; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 27, 28; iv. Agis, chs. 6, 7; Kleomenes, ch. 22. _See_ also Laconia.

Lacetani, a people of Spain, ii. Cato Major, ch. 11.

Lachares, despot of Athens, iv. Demetrius, ch. 33.

——, a Spartan, iv. Antonius, ch. 67.

Lachartus, a Corinthian, ii. Kimon, ch. 17.

Lacinium, temple of Juno in Bruttium, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

Laco, Cornelius, a favourite of Galba, iv. Galba, chs. 13, 25, 26, 27, 29.

Laconia, i. Lykurgus, ch. 8, and after; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 24; Philopœmen, ch. 16; Pyrrhus, ch. 27; iii. Nikias, ch. 6; Agesilaus, chs. 23, 28, 31, 32; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 4, 10, 18, 21, 23, 26, 29, 31; Demetrius, ch. 35; Aratus, ch. 35. _See_ also Agis, ch. 8.

Lakia, an Attic township, and the Lakiadas, i. Alkibiades, ch. 22; Kimon, chs. 4, 10.

Lakratides, an Athenian, i. Perikles, ch. 35.

Lakratidas, a Spartan Ephor, ii. Lysander, ch. 30.

Lakritus, the orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28.

Lælius, Caius, friend of Scipio, surnamed Sapiens, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 7; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 8.

——, contemporary with Cicero, iv. Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 4.

——, iv. Antonius, ch. 18.

Lænas, Popilius, a senator, iv. Brutus, chs. 15, 16.

Lærtes, father of Ulysses, iv. Cicero, ch. 40.

Lævinus, M. Valerius, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 16, 17, 18.

Lais of Corinth, i. Alkibiades, ch. 39; iii. Nikias, ch. 15.

Laius, father of Œdipus, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 19.

Lamachus, an Athenian general, i. Perikles, ch. 19; Alkibiades, chs. 1, 17, 20; iii. Nikias, chs. 12, 14, 15, 18.

——, the Myrinæan, an orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 9.

Lamia, iv. Demetrius, chs. 10, 16, 19, 24, 25, 27; Comparison, ch. 3.

——, a town in Thessaly, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1; iii. Eumenes, ch. 3; Phokion, chs. 23, 26; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 27; Demetrius, ch. 10.

Lampito, wife of Archidamus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 1.

Lampon, Athenian diviner, i. Perikles, ch. 6.

Lamponius, the Lucanian general, ii. Sulla, ch. 29; Comparison, ch. 4.

Lamprias, Plutarch’s grandfather, iv. Antonius, ch. 28.

Lampsakus, i. Themistokles, ch. 29; Alkibiades, ch. 36; ii. Lysander, chs. 9, 11, 12.

Lamptra, or Lampra, Attic township, ii. Aristeides, ch. 13; iii. Phokion, ch. 32.

Lanarius, Calpurnius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 7.

Lanassa, daughter of Agathokles, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 9, 10.

——, daughter of Kleodæus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Langobritæ, a people of Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 13.

Langon, in Elis, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 14.

Laodike, daughter of Priam, i. Theseus, ch. 34; ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Laodikæa, in Syria, iv. Antonius, ch. 72.

Laomedon, an Athenian, ii. Kimon, ch. 9.

——, of Orchomenus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 6.

——, king of Troy, iii. Nikias, ch. 1; Sertorius, ch. 1.

623 Laphystius, a Syracusan, i. Timoleon, ch. 37.

Lapithæ, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Larissa, in Thessaly, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 26; Sulla, ch. 23; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 16; Pompeius, ch. 73; iv. Demetrius, chs. 29, 37; Brutus, ch. 6.

——, in Syria, iv. Antonius, ch. 37.

——, river in Elis, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 7.

Lartius, Titus, i. Poplicola, ch. 16; (another of the name), Coriolanus, chs. 8, 9, 10.

Larymna, town in Bœotia, ii. Sulla, ch. 26.

Lathyrus, surname of Ptolemæus VIII., i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Latins, i. Romulus, chs. 2, 4, 5, 8, 23, 26, 29; Numa, ch. 7 (the early connection of Greek and Latin), 9, 19; Poplicola, chs. 7, 21; Camillus, chs. 33, 34 (the Latin feast days or holidays), 10, 42; Coriolanus, chs. 3, 24, 28, 30; Æmilius, ch. 25; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8; Pyrrhus, ch. 23; iv. C. Gracchus, chs. 9, 10; Cicero, ch. 1.

Latinus, Titus, i. Coriolanus, ch. 24.

——, son of Telemachus, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Lattamyas, i. Camillus, ch. 19.

Laurentia, Acca, and another Laurentia, i. Romulus, chs. 4, 5, 7.

Laurentum, in Latium, i. Romulus, chs. 23, 24.

Laurium, in Attica, i. Themistokles, ch. 4; iii. Nikias, ch. 4.

Lauron, in Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 18; Pompeius, ch. 18.

Laverna, ii. Sulla, ch. 6.

Lavici, in Latium. _See_ Labici.

Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Lavinium, i. Romulus, ch. 23; Coriolanus, chs. 29, 30.

Lebadea, in Bœotia, ii. Lysander, ch. 28; Sulla, chs. 16, 17.

Lecanius, iv. Galba, ch. 27.

Lechæum, port of Corinth, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 20; Aratus, ch. 24.

Lektum, promontory in the Troad, ii. Lucullus, ch. 3.

Leges, a Scythian tribe, iii. Pompeius, ch. 35.

Lemnos, i. Perikles, ch. 25; ii. Aristeides, ch. 27; Lucullus, ch. 12.

Lentuli, iii. Pompeius, ch. 73 (Spinther and Crus).

Lentulus, Cornelius, at Cannæ, i. Fabius, ch. 16.

——, Clodianus, Cn. Cornelius, consul with L. Gellius Poplicola, B.C. 72, and censor with him, B.C. 70, iii. Crassus, ch. 9; Pompeius, ch. 22.

——, Marcellinus, Cn. Cornelius, consul B.C. 56, iii. Crassus, ch. 15.

——, Sura, Cornelius, accomplice of Catilina, iii. Cæsar, ch. 7; Cato Minor, chs. 22, 26; iv. Cicero, chs. 17, 18, 22, 24, 30; Antonius, ch. 2.

——, Spinther, P. Cornelius, consul, B.C. 57, with Pompeius at Pharsalia, iii. Pompeius, chs. 49, 67, 73; Cæsar, ch. 42; iv. Cicero, chs. 33, 38.

——, Spinther, son of the preceding, iii. Cæsar, ch. 67.

——, Crus, Lucius, consul B.C. 49, iii. Pompeius, chs. 59, 73, 80; Cæsar, chs. 29, 33; iv. Antonius, ch. 4.

——, Cornelius, lieutenant of Flamininus, ii. Flamininus, ch. 12.

——, the same as Dolabella, Cicero’s son in-law, a Lentulus by adoption, iv. Cicero, ch. 41.

——, Batiates, at Capua, iii. Crassus, ch. 8.

Leo, Valerius, Cæsar’s host at Milan, iii. Cæsar, ch. 17.

Leobotes of Agraulæ, son of Alkmæon, i. Themistokles, ch. 23.

Leochares, sculptor, iii. Alexander, ch. 40.

Leokrates, an Athenian, i. Perikles, ch. 16; Comparison, ch. 1; Aristeides, ch. 20.

624 Leon, father of Antalkidas, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 21.

——, of Byzantium, iii. Nikias, ch. 21; Phokion, ch. 4.

Leonidas, Alexander’s tutor, iii. Alexander, chs. 5, 22, 25.

——, a Spartan, i. Lykurgus, ch. 3.

——, I., king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, chs. 13, 19; Themistokles, ch. 9; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21; iv. Agis, ch. 14; Kleomenes, ch. 2; Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

——, II., King of Sparta, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 40; iv. Agis, chs. 3, 7, 10, 11, 12, 18, 19, 21; Kleomenes, chs. 1, 3.

Leonnatus, Alexander’s officer, iii. Eumenes, ch. 3; Alexander, chs. 21, 40; Phokion, ch. 25.

——, a Macedonian, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 16.

Leontidas, or Leontiades, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 5, 6, 7, 11; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 23.

Leontini, in Sicily, i. Timoleon, chs. 1, 16, 21; ii. Marcellus, ch. 14; Pyrrhus, ch. 22; iii. Nikias, chs. 12, 14, 16; iv. Dion, chs. 39, 40, 42.

Leontis, Attic tribe, i. Themistokles, ch. 1; ii. Aristeides, ch. 5.

Leos, an Athenian, i. Theseus, ch. 13.

Leosthenes, i. Timoleon, ch. 6; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1; iii. Phokion, chs. 7, 23, 24; Demosthenes, ch. 27; Comparison, ch. 3.

Leotychides, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 12; Themistokles, ch. 21; ii. Comparison of Kimon and Lucullus, ch. 3.

——, son of Agis II., i. Alkibiades, ch. 23; ii. Lysander, ch. 22; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 3, 4; Comparison, chs. 1, 2.

——, a Spartan, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 26.

Lepida, wife of Metellus Scipio, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 7.

Lepidus, Marcus Æmilius, president of the Senate, i. Æmilius, ch. 38.

Lepidus, Marcus, consul B.C. 78, ii. Sulla, chs. 34, 38; iii. Pompeius, chs. 15, 16, 31; Comparison, ch. 1.

——, Marcus, the triumvir, iii. Cæsar, chs. 63, 67; iv. Cicero, ch. 46; Antonius, chs. 6, 10, 18, 19, 30, 55; Brutus, chs. 19, 37.

Leptines, brother of Dionysius the elder, i. Timoleon, ch. 15; iv. Dion, chs. 9, 11.

——, who killed Kallippus, iv. Dion, ch. 58, perhaps the same as Leptines, despot of Apollonia, i. Timoleon, chs. 15, 24.

Leptus, name of one of the sons of Demetrius, iv. Demetrius, ch. 53.

Lerna, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 15; Aratus, ch. 39.

Lesbos and the Lesbians, i. Perikles ch. 17; Alkibiades, chs. 12, 24; ii. Aristeides, ch. 23; iii. Nikias, ch. 6; Pompeius, ch. 66.

Leucaria, the wife of Italus, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Leukas and Leukadians, i. Themistokles, ch. 24; Timoleon, chs. 8, 15; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 17, Dion, ch. 22.

Leukon, a hero, ii. Aristeides, ch. 11.

Leukonoe, Attic township, iv. Demetrius, ch. 24.

Leukothea, i. Camillus ch. 5.

Leuktra, i. Lykurgus, ch. 30; Camillus, ch. 19; Coriolanus, ch. 4; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 20, 25, 30; Comparison, chs. 1, 2; Lysander, ch. 18; Comparison, ch. 4; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 15, 28, 40; iv. Agis, ch. 21; Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

Leuktridæ, daughters of Skedasus, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 20.

Leuktron, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 20; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 6.

Leukus, river, i. Æmilius, chs. 16, 21.

Libo, iv. Antonius, ch. 7.

Libya, frequent, as also Africa, by which word it has been frequently translated. _See_ parts of the lives of i. Marius, Sulla, chs. 1, 3; iii. Sertorius, ch. 9; Pompeius, 625Cæsar, Cato Minor, and iv. Antonius. The Libyan fifer, ii. Lucullus, ch. 10; Libyssa’s earth, ii. Flamininus, ch. 20; Proconsulate of Galba, iv. Galba, ch. 3.

Libys, a Spartan, iv. Agis, ch. 6.

Libyssa, in Bithynia, ii. Flamininus, ch. 20.

Lichas, a Spartan, ii. Kimon, ch. 10.

Licinia, wife of C. Gracchus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 21; C. Gracchus, chs. 15, 17.

——, a Vestal, iii. Crassus, ch. 1.

Licinius, Cossus, i. Camillus, ch. 4.

——, Publius, commanding in Macedonia, i. Æmilius, ch. 9.

——, servant of Tib. Gracchus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 2.

——, friend of C. Gracchus, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 16 (Publius Crassus?).

——, Macer, impeached by Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 9.

——, Philonicus, i. Æmilius, ch. 38.

——, Stolo, i. Camillus, ch. 39.

Ligarius, Caius, friend of Brutus, iv. Brutus, ch. 11.

——, Quintus, defended by Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 39.

Ligurians, or Ligustines, i. Fabius, ch. 2; Æmilius, chs. 6, 18, 31, 39; ii. Marius, chs. 15. 19.

Likymnius, tomb of, at Argos, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 34.

Lilybæum, i. Timoleon, ch. 25.

Limnæus, iii. Alexander, ch. 63.

Limnus of Chalastra, iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

Lindus, in Rhodes, ii. Marcellus, ch. 30.

Lingones, iii. Cæsar, ch. 26.

Liparæans, i. Camillus, ch. 8.

Liris, river, ii. Marius, ch. 37.

Lissus, iv. Antonius, ch. 7.

Livia, wife of Augustus, iv. Antonius, chs. 83, 87; Galba, chs. 3, 19.

Livius, Marcus, commanding at Tarentum, i. Fabius, ch. 23.

——, Postumius, i. Romulus, ch. 29.

Livius, the historian, i. Camillus, ch. 6; ii. Marcellus, chs. 12, 24, 30; Comparison, ch. 1; Cato Major, ch. 17; Flamininus, chs. 18, 20; Sulla, ch. 6; Lucullus, chs. 28, 31; iii. Cæsar, chs. 47, 63.

——, Drusus. _See_ two of the name under Drusus.

Loibethra, iii. Alexander, ch. 14.

Lokri Epizephyrii, in Italy, ii. Marcellus, ch. 29.

Lokris and Lokrians, in Greece, i. Perikles, ch. 17; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 16; Aristeides, ch. 20; Flamininus, chs. 6, 10; iv. Dion, ch. 3; Aratus, ch. 16.

Lollius, Marcus, a quæstor, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 16.

Lothronus, or Vulturnus, i. Fabius, ch. 6.

Luca, in Etruria, iii. Crassus, ch. 14; Pompeius, ch. 51; Cæsar, ch. 21.

Lucania and Lucanians, i. Fabius, ch. 20; Timoleon, ch. 34; ii. Marcellus, ch. 24; Pyrrhus, chs. 13, 16, 25; Sulla, ch. 29; iii. Crassus, chs. 9, 10, 11; Cato Minor, ch. 20; iv. Cicero, ch. 31; Brutus, ch. 23.

Lucanis, lake, iii. Crassus, ch. 11.

Luceres, Roman tribe, i. Romulus, ch. 20.

Lucilius, tribune of the people, iii. Pompeius, ch. 54.

——, who surrendered himself at Philippi to save Brutus, iv. Antonius, ch. 69; Brutus, ch. 50.

Lucinus, Sextus, ii. Marius, ch. 45.

Lucretia, wife of Numa, i. Numa, ch. 21.

——, wife of Collatinus, i. Poplicola, chs. 7, 12.

Lucretius, Titus, consul, i. Poplicola, chs. 7, 16, 22.

——, Lucius, i. Camillus, ch. 32.

——, Ofella, ii. Sulla, chs. 29, 33; Comparison, ch. 2.

Lucullus, Lucius, ii. Life and Comparison with Kimon; i. Camillus, ch. 19; ii. 626Cato Major, ch. 24; Flamininus, ch. 21; Marius, ch. 34; Sulla, chs. 6, 11, 27; Kimon, chs. 2, 3; iii. Crassus, chs. 11, 16, 26; Comparison, ch. 4; Pompeius, chs. 2, 20, 30, 31, 32, 45, 48; Comparison, ch. 4; Cato Minor, chs. 19, 29, 31, 54; iv. Cicero, chs. 29, 31.

Lucullus, Marcus, brother of Lucullus, ii. Sulla, ch. 27; Lucullus, chs. 1, 37, 43; iii. Cæsar, chs. 4, 10.

——, title of a book by Cicero, ii. Lucullus, ch. 42.

Luculli, the two, iii. Cæsar, ch. 15.

Lucumo, an Etruscan noble, ii. Camillus, ch. 15.

Luperci and Lupercalia, i. Romulus, ch. 21; Numa, ch. 19; iii. Cæsar, ch. 61; iv. Antonius, ch. 12.

Lusitania and Lusitanians, iii. Sertorius, chs. 10, 11, 12; Comparison, ch. 1; Cæsar, ch. 12; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 21; Galba, ch. 20.

Lusius, Caius, nephew of Marius, ii. Marius, ch. 14.

Lutatius Catulus. _See_ Catulus.

Lycaonia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23; iii. Eumenes, ch. 9; Pompeius, ch. 30; iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Lyceum, at Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 27; ii. Sulla, ch. 12; iii. Phokion, ch. 38.

Lydia and Lydians, i. Theseus, ch. 6; Romulus, ch. 2; Solon, ch. 27; Themistokles, ch. 30; Æmilius, ch. 12; ii. Aristeides, ch. 17; Lysander, chs. 3, 6; Kimon, ch. 9; iii. Nikias, ch. 1; Eumenes, ch. 8; Agesilaus, ch. 10; Alexander, ch. 17; iv. Demetrius, ch. 46; Antonius, ch. 30; Artaxerxes, ch. 2.

Lydiades, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 6; Aratus, chs. 30, 35, 37.

Lykaion, mountain in Arcadia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 5; Aratus, ch. 36.

Lykia, or Lycia, iii. Alexander, chs. 17, 37; iv. Brutus, chs. 30, 31, 32.

Lykomedes, descendants of, i. Themistokles, ch. 1.

——, an Athenian, i. Themistokles, ch. 15.

——, king of Skyros, i. Theseus, ch. 35; ii. Kimon, ch. 8.

Lykon, of Skarphia, an actor, iii. Alexander, ch. 29.

——, a Syracusan, iv. Dion, ch. 57.

Lykophron, a Corinthian, iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

——, son of Alexander of Pheræ, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 35.

Lykortas, the father of Polybius the historian, ii. Philopœmen, chs. 20, 21.

Lykurgus, an Athenian, i. Solon, ch. 29.

——, the Athenian orator, ii. Flamininus, ch. 12; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 1; Phokion, chs. 7, 17; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 23.

——, of Byzantium, i. Alkibiades, ch. 31.

——, the lawgiver, i. Life and Comparison with Numa; i. Theseus, ch. 1; Numa, ch. 4; Solon, chs. 16, 22; Alkibiades, ch. 23; ii. Aristeides, ch. 2; Comparison, ch. 3; Philopœmen, ch. 16; Lysander, ch. 1; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 26, 33; Phokion, ch. 20; iv. Agis, chs. 5, 6, 9, 19; Kleomenes, chs. 10, 12, 18; Comparison, chs. 2, 5.

Lykus, a river in Phrygia, iv. Demetrius, ch. 46.

——, a river in Pontus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 15.

——, a river in Sicily, i. Timoleon, ch. 34.

——, in Macedonia, ii. Flamininus, ch. 4.

Lygdamis, ii. Marius, ch. 11.

Lynkeus, brother of Idas, i. Theseus, ch. 31.

——, of Samos, iv. Demetrius, ch. 27.

Lysander of Alopekæ, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

627 Lysander, the Spartan general, ii. Life and Comparison with Sulla; i. Lykurgus, ch. 30; Alkibiades, chs. 35-39; ii. Flamininus, ch. 11; iii. Nikias, ch. 28; Agesilaus, chs. 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 20; Comparison, ch. 2; iv. Agis, ch. 14.

——, son of Lybis, a Spartan, iv. Agis, chs. 6,8, 1, 12, 13, 14, 19.

Lysandridas of Megalopolis, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 24.

Lysanoridas, a Spartan, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 13.

Lysias, the orator, ii. Cato Major, ch. 7.

Lysikles, the sheepdealer, i. Perikles, ch. 24.

Lysidike, daughter of Pelops, i. Theseus, ch. 7.

Lysimachus, an Acarnanian, Alexander’s tutor, iii. Alexander, chs. 5, 24.

——, father of Aristeides, i. Themistokles, chs. 3, 12; ii. Aristeides, chs. 1, 25.

——, the son of Aristeides, ii. Aristeides, ch. 27.

——, grandson of Aristeides, ii. Aristeides, ch. 27.

——, general of Alexander, and king of Thrace, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 6, 11, 13; iii. Alexander, chs. 46, 55; iv. Demetrius, chs. 12, 18, 20, 25, 27, 31, 35, 39, 44, 46, 48, 51, 52.

——, a companion of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 29.

Lysippus, general of the Achæans, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 12.

——, the sculptor, iii. Alexander, chs. 4, 16, 40.

Macedonia and Macedonians. _See_ in general, the lives of i. Æmilius Paulus, ii. Flamininus, Pyrrhus, iii. Alexander, Phokion, iv. Kleomenes, Demosthenes, Demetrius, Aratus, and the Comparisons. Also, i. Theseus, ch. 5; Camillus, ch. 19; Timoleon, ch. 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 26; Aristeides, ch. 15; Cato Major, chs. 12, 15; Philopœmen, chs. 6, 8, 9, 12, 15; Sulla, chs. 11, 12, 23, 27; Kimon, chs. 2, 14; iii. Eumenes, chs. 4, 5; Agesilaus, ch. 16; Pompeius, chs. 34, 64; Cæsar, chs. 4, 39; Phokion, ch. 1; Cato Minor, ch. 9; iv. Cicero, chs. 12, 30, 47; Comparison, ch. 4; Antonius, chs. 7, 21, 22, 54, 63, 67; Brutus, chs. 4, 24, 25, 28; Galba, ch. 1.

Macedonian months, iii. Alexander, chs. 3, 16, 75, 76. The Macedonian dialect, iii. Eumenes, ch. 14; Alexander, ch. 51; iv. Antonius, ch. 27; The Macedonian hat, iv. Antonius, ch. 54; compare, iii. Eumenes, ch. 6; iv. Demetrius, ch. 41.

Macedonicus, surname, ii. Marius, ch. 1. _See_ Metellus.

Macer, Licinius, impeached by Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 9.

——, Clodius, iv. Galba, chs. 6, 13, 15.

Machairones, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 35.

Machanidas, despot of Sparta, ii. Philopœmen, chs. 9, 10, 12.

Machares, son of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 24.

Macrinus, a surname, ii. Marius, ch. 1.

Makaria, daughter of Herakles, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21.

Makrae or Akrae, in Sicily, iv. Dion, ch. 27.

Mæcenas, iv. Comparison of Demosthenes and Cicero, ch. 3; Antonius, ch. 35.

Mæcius or Marcius, a hill in Latium, i. Camillus, chs. 33, 34.

Mædi and Mædike, in Thrace, i. Æmilius Paulus, ch. 12; ii. Sulla, ch. 23; iii. Alexander, ch. 9.

Mælius, Spurius, killed by Ahala, iv. Brutus, ch. 1.

Mæotis, the lake, ii. Marius, ch. 11; Sulla, ch. 11; Lucullus, ch. 16; iii. Pompeius, ch. 35; Alexander, ch. 44; Antonius, ch. 56.

628 Magæus, a Persian, i. Alkibiades, ch. 39.

Magas, brother of Ptolemæus Philopator, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 33.

Magnesia, a town in Caria, i. Themistokles, chs. 29, 30, 31.

——, and the Magnesians, in Thessaly, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 35; Flamininus, chs. 10, 12, 15.

Magnus, surname of Pompeius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 12; Pompeius, ch. 13.

Mago, a Carthaginian, i. Timoleon, chs. 17, 18, 20.

Maia, mother of Mercury, i. Numa, ch. 19.

Malaca, now Malaga, in Spain, iii. Crassus, ch. 6.

Malchus, king of Arabia, iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Malea, in Laconia, ii. Sulla, ch. 11; iv. Agis, ch. 8; Aratus, ch. 12.

Malian Gulf, i. Perikles, ch. 17.

Malkitas, or Malkitus, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 35.

Malli, an Indian people, iii. Alexander, chs. 63, 68.

Mamerci, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Mamercus, despot of Katana, i. Timoleon, chs. 13, 30, 31, 34, 37.

——, son of Numa, i. Numa, chs. 8, 21.

——, son of Pythagoras, i. Numa, ch. 8; Æmilius, ch. 2.

Mamertines of Messina, in Sicily, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 23, 24; iii. Pompeius, ch. 10.

Mamurius, i. Numa, ch. 13.

Mancinus, Caius Hostilius, consul B.C. 137, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 5, 7.

Mandonium. _See_ Manduria.

Mandrokleidas, a Spartan, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 26.

——, son of Ekphanes, iv. Agis, chs. 6,9, 1.

Manduria or Mandonium, a town in Italy, iv. Agis, ch. 1.

Mania, name of Demo the courtesan, iv, Demetrius, ch. 27.

Manilius, a tribune, friend of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 30; iv. Cicero, ch. 9.

Manilius, disgraced by Cato Major, ii. Cato Major, ch. 17.

Manius Acilius, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 17; Flamininus, chs. 15, 16.

——, Curius. _See_ Curius.

——, (?) i.e. Aquillius (in Plutarch’s text Marius), ii. Lucullus, ch. 4.

——, Curius, a tribune, ii. Flamininus, ch. 2.

Manlius, consul 105 B.C., defeated by the Cimbri, ii. Marius, ch. 19.

——, a comrade of Catilina, iv. Cicero, chs. 14, 15, 16.

——, Lucius, a soldier, ii. Cato Major, ch. 13.

——, Lucius (Manilius ?), iii. Sertorius, ch. 12.

——, Capitolinus, Marcus, i. Camillus, chs. 27, 36.

——, Torquatus, i. Fabius, ch. 9.

——, Titus, consul B.C. 235, i. Numa, ch. 20.

——, Torquatus, ii. Sulla, ch. 29.

——, an officer under Sertorius, iii. Sertorius, chs. 26, 27.

——, a consular, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 10.

Manthes, i. Themistokles, ch. 1.

Mantinea, in Arcadia, and Mantineans, i. Numa, ch. 13; Alkibiades, chs. 15, 19; Comparison, ch. 2; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 4; Philopœmen, chs. 1, 11; iii. Nikias, ch. 10; Agesilaus, chs. 15, 30, 33; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 5, 14, 23; Demetrius, chs. 25, 35; Aratus, chs. 36, 39, 44, 45.

Marathon, i. Theseus, chs. 14, 25, 30, 32, 35; Themistokles, ch. 3; Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Aristeides, chs. 5, 7, 16; Comparison, chs. 2, 5; Flamininus, ch. 11; Kimon, ch. 5; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28; Aratus, ch. 16.

Marathus, who gave name to Marathon, i. Theseus, ch. 32.

629 Marcellinus, iii. Crassus, ch. 15; Pompeius, ch. 51. _See_ Lentulus.

Marcellus, a Roman surname, ii. Marius, ch. 1.

——, Marcus Claudius, father of Marcellus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 1.

——, Marcus Claudius, five times consul in the second Punic War, ii. Life and Comparison with Pelopidas; i. Romulus, ch. 15; Fabius, chs. 19, 21, 22; ii. Flamininus, chs. 1, 18; iii. Crassus, ch. 11.

——, Marcus, son of the general, ii. Marcellus, chs. 2, 29, 30.

——, Marcus, consul B.C. 51, iii. Cæsar, ch. 29; iv. Cicero, ch. 15.

——, C. Claudius, consul B.C. 50, iii. Pompeius, ch. 69 (or his cousin of the same name, consul B.C. 49, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 18); iv. Antonius, ch. 5.

——, C. Claudius, consul B.C. 49, iii. Pompeius, ch. 58.

——, C., first husband of Octavia, the sister of Augustus, iv. Marcellus, ch. 30; iv. Cicero, ch. 44; Antonius, chs. 31, 87.

——, son of the preceding, adopted by Augustus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 30; iv. Antonius, ch. 87.

——, Claudius, lieutenant of Marius, ii. Marius, chs. 20. 21.

Marcia, wife of Cato Minor, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 25, 37, 52.

Marcian heights, i. Camillus, chs. 33, 34.

Marcianus, new name of Icelus, iv. Galba, ch. 7.

Marcii, i. Coriolanus, ch. 1.

Marcius, kinsman of Numa, i. Numa, chs. 5, 6, 21.

——, father of Ancus, Marcius, i. Numa, ch. 21.

——, Ancus, i. Numa, chs. 9, 21.

——, Caius. _See_ Coriolanus.

——, Caius consul with Scipio Nasica, B.C. 162, ii. Marcellus, ch. 5.

——, Publius and Quintus who supplied Rome with water, i. Coriolanus, ch. 1.

Marcius Censorinus, _ibidem_.

——, Philippus, censor, i. Æmilius, ch. 38.

——, Rex, brother-in-law to Clodius, iv. Cicero, ch. 29.

——, in Catilina’s conspiracy, iv. Cicero, ch. 16.

——, in Pompeius’s camp, iv. Cicero, ch. 38.

Mardians, a people of Asia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 31; iv. Antonius, chs. 41, 47, 48.

Mardion, an eunuch, iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

Mardonius, the Persian, i. Themistokles chs. 4, 16; ii. Aristeides, chs. 5, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Margian steel, iii. Crassus, ch. 24.

Margites, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 23.

Marica, grove of, ii. Marius, ch. 39.

Marikas, comedy by Eupolis, iii. Nikias, ch. 4.

Marius, father of C. Marius, ii. Marius, ch. 3.

——, ii. Life; Flamininus, ch. 21; Sulla, chs. 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17; Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 4; Lucullus, chs. 4, 38; iii. Crassus, ch. 24; Sertorius, chs. 2, 4, 5, 6; Pompeius, chs. 8, 13; Comparison, ch. 4; Cæsar, chs. 1, 5, 15, 19; iv. Antonius, ch. 1; Brutus, ch. 29; Otho, ch. 9. Marius’s mules, ii. Marius, ch. 13.

——, the younger, son of the preceding, ii. Marius, ch. 35 (where _see_ note), 46; Sulla, chs. 27-29, 32; iii. Sertorius, ch. 6; Pompeius, ch. 13; Cæsar, ch. 1.

——, Marcus, killed by Catilina, ii. Sulla, ch. 32.

——, Marcus or Varius, Sertorius’s envoy to Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 12; iii. Sertorius, ch. 24.

——, Celsus, commanding for Otho, iv. Galba, chs. 25, 26, 27; Otho, chs. 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 13.

630 Marphadates, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 73.

Marrucini, i. Æmilius, ch. 20.

Marseilles, Massalia, or Massilia, in Gaul, i. Solon, ch. 2; ii. Marius, ch. 21; iii. Cæsar, ch. 16.

Marsi, and the Marsic War, i. Fabius, ch. 20; ii. Lucullus, chs. 1, 2; iii. Crassus, ch. 6; Sertorius ch. 4; iv. Cicero, ch. 3.

Marsi, uncertain, ii. Sulla, ch. 4.

Marsyas, a writer, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18.

Marsyas, a Syracusan, iv. Dion, ch. 9.

Martha, a Syrian woman, ii. Marias, ch. 17.

Martialis, a tribune of the prætorian guard, iv. Galba, ch. 25.

Martianus, iv. Galba, ch. 9.

Marullus, tribune of the people, iii. Cæsar, ch. 61.

Masabates, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 17.

Masinissa, king of Numidia, ii. Cato Major, ch. 26.

Masistius, a Persian, ii. Aristeides, ch. 14.

Maso, Papirius, father-in-law of Æmilius, i. Æmilius, ch. 5.

Massilia. _See_ Marseilles.

Mauricus, a senator, iv. Galba, ch. 8.

Mauritania and Moors in Africa, ii. Marius, ch. 41; iii. Sertorius, chs. 8, 9, 13, 27.

Maximus, a Roman surname, iii. Pompeius, ch. 13; compare i. Fabius, ch. 1.

Mazæus, a Persian, iii. Alexander, chs. 32, 39.

Medea, i. Theseus, ch. 12; iii. Alexander, chs. 10, 35.

Media and the Medes. _See_ in general the lives of i. Themistokles; ii. Kimon, Aristeides, Lucullus, chs. 9, 14, and after; iii. Alexander; iv. Antonius, ch. 27, and after, and Artaxerxes. Also, i. Æmilius, ch. 25; Eumenes, chs. 16, 18; Agesilaus, ch. 23; iv. Antonius, ch. 54. Also iii. Pompeius, chs. 34, 36, 44; iv. Demetrius, ch. 46.

Mediolanum, or Milan, ii. Marcellus, ch. 7; iii. Cæsar, ch. 17; iv. Comparison of Dion and Brutus, ch. 5.

Medius, a companion of Alexander and Antigonus, iii. Alexander, ch. 74; iv. Demetrius, ch. 19.

Megabacchus (perhaps Megabocchus), iii. Crassus, 25.

Megabates, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 11.

Megabazus, iii. Alexander, ch. 42.

Megakles, the archon, who killed Kylon, i. Solon, ch. 12.

——, the son of Alkmæon, chief of the Parali, i. Solon, chs. 29, 30.

——, grandfather of Alkibiades, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1.

——, father of Euryptolemus, ii. Kimon, chs. 4, 16.

——, friend of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 16, 17.

——, Dion’s brother, iv. Dion, ch. 28.

Megaleas, or Megaleus, a Macedonian, iv. Aratus, ch. 48.

Megalophanes, or Demophanes, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1.

Megalopolis and the Megalopolitans, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 20; Philopœmen, chs. 1, 5, 13, 14, 18, 21; Pyrrhus, ch. 26; iv. Agis, ch. 3; Kleomenes, chs. 4, 6, 12, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 36; Aratus, chs. 5, 30, 36, 38.

Megara and the Megarians, historical notices, i. Theseus, chs. 10, 20, 25, 27, 32; Solon, chs. 8-11; Comparison, ch. 4; Themistokles, ch. 13; Perikles, ch. 27, and after; Alkibiades, ch. 31; ii. Aristeides, chs. 14, 20; Philopœmen, ch. 12; iii. Nikias, ch. 6; Cæsar, ch. 43; Phokion, ch. 15; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 17; Demetrius, chs. 9, 30, 39; Brutus, ch. 8. The Megarian territory is also mentioned, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 13; Kimon, ch. 17; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 27; iv. Agis, ch. 13; Aratus, ch. 31. 631Anecdotes, ii. Lysander, ch. 22; Philopœmen, ch. 2; iii. Phokion, ch. 37; iv. Antonius, ch. 23; Dion, ch. 17.

——, a fort in Macedonia, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

——, a town in Sicily, ii. Marcellus, chs. 18, 20.

Megellus, i. Timoleon, ch. 35.

Megistonous, step-father of Kleomenes, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 7, 11, 21; Aratus, chs. 38, 41.

Meidias, accused by Demosthenes, i. Alkibiades, ch. 10; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 12.

——, an Athenian exile, ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

Melanippus, a son of Theseus, i. Theseus, ch. 8.

Melanopus, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 13.

Melantas, a Persian, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 19.

Melanthius, a poet, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

——, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 19.

Melanthus, a painter of the Sikyonian school, iv. Aratus, ch. 12.

Melas, a river in Bœotia, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 15; Sulla, ch. 20.

Meleager, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Melesias, the father of Thucydides, i. Perikles, ch. 8; iii. Nikias, ch. 2.

Melesippides, a Spartan, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 1.

Melibœa, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 29.

Melikerta, i. Theseus, ch. 25.

Melissus of Samos, philosopher, i. Themistokles, ch. 2; Perikles, chs. 26, 27.

Melite, a district of Athens, i. Solon, ch. 10; Themistokles, ch. 22; iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

Meliteia, a town in Thessaly, ii. Sulla, ch. 20.

Mellaria, in Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 12.

Mellon, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 7, 8, 12, 13, 25; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 24.

Melos and Melians, i. Alkibiades, ch. 16; ii. Lysander, ch. 14; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 3.

Memmius Gemellus, Caius, tribune of the people, ii. Lucullus, ch. 37; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 6.

——, Caius, husband of Pompeius’s sister, iii. Sertorius, ch. 21; Cato Minor, ch. 29.

Memnon, general of Darius, iii. Alexander, chs. 18, 21.

Memphis, ii. Lucullus, ch. 2.

Menander, put to death by Alexander, iii. Alexander, ch. 57.

——, friend of Antigonus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 9.

——, Athenian general, i. Alkibiades, ch. 36; perhaps the same as ——, Athenian general, iii. Nikias, ch. 20.

——, comic poet, iii. Alexander, ch. 17.

——, general of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 17.

Menas, the pirate, iv. Antonius, ch. 32.

Mende, in Macedonia, iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 4.

Mendes, in Egypt, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 38.

Menedemus, a chamberlain of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 16.

Menekleides, an orator, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 25.

Menekrates, a physician, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 21.

——, a writer, i. Theseus, ch. 26.

——, a pirate, iv. Antonius, ch. 32.

Menelaus, in Sophokles, iv. Demetrius, ch. 45. Harbour of Menelaus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 40.

——, brother of Ptolemæus I., iv. Demetrius, chs. 15, 16.

Menemachus, officer of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 17.

Menenius Agrippa, i. Coriolanus, ch. 6.

Menesthes, i. Theseus, ch. 17.

Menestheus, son of Peteus, who led the Athenians at Troy. _See_ Menestheus.

632 Menestheus, son of Iphikrates, iii. Phokion, ch. 7.

Menexenus, i. Perikles, ch. 24.

Meninx, an island on the coast of Africa, ii. Marius, ch. 40.

Menippus, an Athenian, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

——, of Caria, iv. Cicero, ch. 4.

Menœkeus, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21.

Menœtius, father of Patroklus, ii. Aristeides, ch. 20.

Menon, father of Theano, i. Alkibiades, ch. 22.

——, a sculptor, i. Perikles, ch. 31.

——, the Thessalian in the service of Cyrus the younger, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 18.

——, the Thessalian, commanding in the Lamian war, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1; iii. Phokion, ch. 25.

Mentor, in Alexander’s service, iii. Eumenes, ch. 2.

Menyllus, a Macedonian, iii. Phokion, chs. 28, 30, 31.

Meriones, the Homeric hero, ii. Marcellus, ch. 20.

Merope, daughter of Erechtheus, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

Merula, Cornelius, consul B.C. 87, ii. Marius, chs. 41. 45.

Mesopotamia, ii. Lucullus, chs. 21, 30; iii. Crassus, chs. 17, 18, 19, 28; Pompeius, ch. 44; iv. Demetrius, ch. 7; Antonius, ch. 34.

Messala, a family name, i. Comparison of Solon and Poplicola, ch. 1.

——, father of Valeria, Sulla’s wife, ii. Sulla, ch. 35.

——, Marcus Valerius, consul B.C. 53, iii. Pompeius, ch. 54.

——, Corvinus, M. Valerius, son of the preceding, iv. Brutus, chs. 40, 41, 42, 45, 53.

Messapians, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 13, 16; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Messina, in Sicily, i. Alkibiades, ch. 22; Timoleon, chs. 20, 30, 34; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 23; iii. Nikias, ch. 18; Pompeius, ch. 10; Cato Minor, ch. 53; iv. Dion, chs. 48, 58.

Messene or Messenia, in Peloponnesus, i. Romulus, ch. 26 (story of Aristomenes); Lykurgus, chs. 7, 27 (the revolt); ii. Pelopidas, chs. 24, 25, 31 (the restoration); Philopœmen, chs. 12, 18, 19, 20, 21; Flamininus, ch. 17; Comparison, chs. 1, 3; Kimon, ch. 17; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 34, 35; Alexander, ch. 73, a (Messenian); iv. Agis, ch. 21 (Aristomenes); Kleomenes, chs. 5, 10, 12, 24; Comparison, ch. 5; Demosthenes, ch. 13; Demetrius, ch. 33; Aratus, chs. 47, 49, 50, 51. In ii. Philopœmen and Flamininus, iv. Kleomenes, Demetrius and Aratus, the allusion is generally to Messene, the new city.

Mestrius Florus, i. Otho, ch. 14.

Metagenes of Xypete, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Metapontum, in Lucania, i. Fabius, ch. 19.

Metella, wife of Sulla, ii. Sulla, chs. 6, 13, 22, 33, 34, 35, 37; iii. Pompeius, ch. 9; Cato Minor, ch. 3. She is Cæcilia Metella.

Metelli, ii. Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 1; iii. Cæsar, ch. 15.

——, the family of the, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 26.

Metellus, Quintus, Macedonicus, ii. Marius, ch. 1; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 2; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 14.

——, Diadematus, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, L. Cæcilius, called Dalmaticus, father of Sulla’s wife, consul B.C. 119, ii. Marius, ch. 4; Sulla, ch. 6, note; iii. Pompeius, ch. 2.

——, Q. Cæcilius, surnamed Numidicus, consul B.C. 109, i. Comparison of Alkibiades and Coriolanus, ch. 4; ii. Marius, chs. 7. 8. 10. 28. 29. 30. 31. 42; Lucullus, ch. 1; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 32.

633 Metellus Pius, Q., son of Numidicus, consul B.C. 80, ii. Cato Major, ch. 24; Marius, ch. 42; Sulla, ch. 28; Lucullus, ch. 6; iii. Crassus ch. 6; Comparison, ch. 3; Sertorius, chs. 1, 12, 13, 19, 21, 22, 27; Pompeius, chs. 8, 17, 18, 19; Cæsar, ch. 7.

——, Creticus, Q. Cæcilius, consul B.C. 69, iii. Pompeius, ch. 29.

——, tribune of the people, son of the preceding, iii. Pompeius, ch. 62; Comparison, ch. 3; Cæsar, ch. 35.

——, Celer, Quintus, i. Romulus, ch. 9; Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, Celer, Quintus, son by adoption of the preceding, iv. Cicero, chs. 16, 29.

——, Nepos, tribune with Cato, brother of the preceding, iii. Cæsar, ch. 21; Cato Minor, chs. 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29; iv. Cicero, chs. 23, 26.

——, Scipio, son of Scipio Nasica, adopted by Metellus Pius, father of Cornelia, wife of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 62, 66, 67, 69, 76; Comparison, chs. 1, 4; Cæsar, chs. 16, 30, 39, 42, 44, 52, 53, 55; Cato Minor, chs. 7, 47, 56-58, 60, 67, 68, 70-72; iv. Cicero, ch. 15; Brutus, ch. 6; Otho, ch. 13.

—-—, Caius, ii. Sulla, ch. 31.

Methydrium, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 4.

Metilius, a tribune, i. Fabius, chs. 8, 9.

Meton, the astronomer, i. Alkibiades, ch. 17; iii. Nikias, ch. 13.

——, a Tarentine, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 13.

Metrobius, in a quotation, ii. Kimon, ch. 10.

——, an actor, ii. Sulla, chs. 2, 36.

Metrodorus, of Skepsis, ii. Lucullus, ch. 22.

——, a dancer, iv. Antonius, ch. 24.

Micipsa, king of Numidia, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 2.

Midas, king of Phrygia, i. Poplicola, ch. 15; ii. Flamininus, ch. 20; iii. Alexander, ch. 18; Cæsar, ch. 9.

Mieza, a city in Macedonia, iii. Alexander, ch. 7.

Mikion, powerful at Athens, iv. Aratus, ch. 41.

——, a Macedonian, iii. Phokion, ch. 25.

Miliarium Aureum, iv. Galba, ch. 24.

Miletus, i. Solon, chs. 4, 6, 12; Perikles, chs. 24, 28; Alkibiades, ch. 23; ii. Lysander, chs. 6, 8, 19; iii. Alexander, ch. 17; Cæsar, ch. 2; iv. Demetrius, ch. 46. A Milesian mantle, i. Alkibiades, ch. 23. Milesian women, i. Perikles, ch. 24; ii. Lucullus, ch. 18; iii. Crassus, ch. 32.

Milan. _See_ Mediolanum.

Milo, Annius, Cicero’s friend, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 47; iv. Cicero, chs. 33, 35.

——, a Macedonian general, i. Æmilius, ch. 16.

Miltas of Thessaly, iv. Dion, chs. 22, 24.

Miltiades, i. Theseus, ch. 6; Themistokles, chs. 3, 4; ii. Aristeides, chs. 5, 16, 26; Comparison, ch. 2; Kimon, chs. 4, 5, 8; iv. Demetrius, ch. 14.

Milto, surnamed Aspasia by Cyrus the younger, i. Perikles, ch. 24; compare iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 26.

Mimallones, iii. Alexander, ch. 2.

Mimnermus, i. Comparison of Solon and Popicola, ch. 1.

Mindarus, Spartan admiral, i. Alkibiades, chs. 27, 28.

Minoa, on the coast of Megara, iii. Nikias, ch. 6; Comparison, ch. 3.

——, in Sicily, iv. Dion, chs. 25, 26.

Minos, king of Crete, i. Theseus, chs. 16, 17, 19; Numa, ch. 4; ii. Cato Major, ch. 23; compare iv. Demetrius, ch. 42.

Minotaur, i. Theseus, chs. 15-17.

Minturnæ, ii. Marius, chs. 37. 38.

634 Minucius, Caius, a private citizen, i. Poplicola, ch. 3.

——, dictator, ii. Marcellus, ch. 5.

——, Marcus, master of the horse, i. Fabius, chs. 4, 5, 7-13; Comparison, ch. 2.

Minucius, Thermus, tribune with Cato, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 27, 28.

Misenum, promontory, ii. Marius, ch. 34; iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 19; Antonius, ch. 32.

Mithras, the Persian god, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; Alexander, ch. 30; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 4.

Mithridates, son of Ariobarzanes, founder of the kingdom of Pontus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 4.

——, king of Pontus, i. Numa, ch. 9; ii. Flamininus, ch. 21; Marius, chs. 31. 34. 41. 45; Sulla, chs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 20-24, 27; Comparison, chs. 4, 5; Lucullus, chs. 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13-19, 21-24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 34, 35, 37; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Crassus, ch. 16; Sertorius, chs. 23, 24; Pompeius, chs. 24, 30, 32, 33, 35-39, 41, 42, 44; Cæsar, ch. 50.

——, king of Commagene, iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

——, cousin of Monæses, iv. Antonius, ch. 46.

——, a Persian, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 11, 14-16.

——, of Pontus, iv. Galba, chs. 13, 15.

Mithrobarzanes, ii. Lucullus, ch. 25.

Mithropaustes, cousin of Xerxes, i. Themistokles, ch. 29.

Mitylene, i. Solon, ch. 14; ii. Lucullus, ch. 4; iii. Pompeius, chs. 42, 74, 75; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 8.

Mnasitheus, iv. Aratus, ch. 7.

Mnemon, a surname, ii. Marius, ch. 1; compare iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 1.

Mnesikles, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Mnesiphilus of Phrearri, i. Themistokles, ch. 2.

Mnesiptolema, i. Themistokles, chs. 30, 32.

Mnestheus, i. Theseus, chs. 32, 35.

Mnestra, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Mœrokles, an orator, iv. Demosthenes, chs. 13, 23.

Mœsia, iv. Otho, chs. 4, 8, 15.

Molon (_see_ Apollonius), iii. Cæsar, ch. 3; iv. Cicero, ch. 4.

Molus, or Morius, a river in Bœotia, ii. Sulla, chs. 17, 19.

Molossians, in Epirus, i. Theseus, chs. 31, 35; Themistokles, ch. 24; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 19, 30; iv. Demetrius, ch. 25.

Molossus, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 14.

Molpadia, an Amazon, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Monæses, iv. Antonius, chs. 37, 46.

Moneta, Juno, i. Romulus, ch. 20; Camillus, ch. 36.

Monime of Miletus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 18; iii. Pompeius, ch. 37.

Mons Sacer, i. Coriolanus, ch. 6.

Morius. _See_ Molus.

Moschic mountains, iii. Pompeius, ch. 34.

Mothakes, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 8.

Mothone, beyond Malea, iv. Aratus, ch. 12.

Mounychus, i. Theseus, 34.

Mucia, wife of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 42.

Mucianus, governor of Syria, iv. Otho, ch. 4.

Mucii, the, iv. Cicero, ch. 3.

Mucius Scævola, i. Poplicola, ch. 17.

——, Scævola, the lawyer, ii. Sulla, ch. 36; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 9.

——, father-in-law of the younger Marius, ii. Marius, ch. 35.

——, tribune with Tib. Gracchus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 13, 18.

Mummius, Caius, an officer of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

——, Achaicus, Lucius, consul B.C. 146, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 21; Marius, ch. 1; Lucullus, ch. 19; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 3.

——, a lieutenant of Crassus, iii. Crassus, ch. 10.

635 Munatius Plancus (Titus), iii. Pompeius, ch. 55; Cato Minor, ch. 48; iv. Cicero, ch. 25.

Munatius Plancus (Lucius, brother of the preceding), ii. Cato Minor, ch. 30; (according to Drumann), iv. Antonius, chs. 18, 58; Brutus, ch. 19.

——, Rufus, friend of Cato Minor, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 9, 30, 36, 37.

Munda, field of battle in Spain, iii. Cæsar, ch. 56.

Munychia, port of Athens, i. Solon, ch. 12; ii. Sulla, ch. 15; iii. Phokion, chs. 17, 31; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28; Demetrius, chs. 8, 10, 34; Aratus, ch. 34.

Murcus, iv. Galba, ch. 27.

——, L. Statius, iv. Brutus, ch. 47.

Murena, Lucius Licinius, lieutenant of Sulla, ii. Sulla, chs. 17, 18, 19.

——, L. Licinius, consul B.C. 62, ii. Lucullus, chs. 15, 19, 25, 27; iii. Cato Minor, chs. 21, 28; iv. Cicero, chs. 14, 35; Comparison, ch. 1.

Musæus, ii. Marius, ch. 36.

Museum, hill at Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 27; iv. Demetrius, ch. 34.

Mutina, now Modena, iii. Pompeius, ch. 16; iv. Antonius, ch. 17.

Mycenæi, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9; iv. Aratus, ch. 29.

Mygdonike, ii. Lucullus, ch. 32.

Mykenæ. _See_ under Mycenæi.

Mylæ, in Sicily, i. Timoleon, ch. 37.

Mylassa, iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

Myous, i. Themistokles, ch. 29.

Myriandrus, iii. Alexander, ch. 72.

Myron of Phyla, i. Solon, ch. 12.

——, a general of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 17.

Myronides, an Athenian general, i. Perikles, chs. 16, 24; Comparison, ch. 1; ii. Aristeides, chs. 10, 20.

Myrtilus, a cupbearer, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 5.

——, a writer, iv. Aratus, ch. 3.

Myrto, daughter of Menœtius, sister of Patroklus, ii. Aristeides, ch. 21.

——, grand-daughter of Aristeides, ii. Aristeides, ch. 27.

Mysians, i. Theseus, ch. 5.

Nabathæan Arabs, iii. Pompeius, ch. 67; iv. Demetrius, ch. 7; Antonius, ch. 36.

Nabis, despot of Sparta, ii. Philopœmen, chs. 12, 14, 19; Flamininus, ch. 13; Comparison, ch. 3.

Naples, Neapolis and Neapolitans, ii. Marcellus, ch. 10; Lucullus, ch. 39; Comparison, ch. 1; iii. Pompeius, ch. 57; iv. Cicero, ch. 8; Brutus, ch. 21.

Naphtha, iii. Alexander, ch. 35.

Narbo, in Gaul, and Gallia Narbonensis, iii. Sertorius, ch. 12; iv. Galba, ch. 11.

Narnia, in Umbria, i. Flamininus, ch. 1.

Narthakius, mountain in Thessaly, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 16.

Nasica, Publius Scipio, consul B.C. 162, i. Æmilius, chs. 15-18, 22, 26; ii. Marcellus, ch. 5; Cato Major, ch. 27.

——, Publius, pontifex maximus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 13, 19, 20, 21.

Naukrates, a Lycian, iv. Brutus, ch. 30.

Naupaktus, ii. Flamininus, ch. 15.

Nauplia, in Argolis, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 31.

Nausikrates, an orator, ii. Kimon, ch. 19.

Nausithous, of Salamis, i. Theseus, ch. 17.

Naxos, an island in the Ægean sea, i. Theseus, ch. 20; Themistokles, ch. 25; Camillus, ch. 19; Perikles, ch. 11; iii. Nikias, ch. 3; Phokion, ch. 6.

——, in Sicily, iii. Nikias, ch. 16.

Nealkes, a painter, iv. Aratus, ch. 13.

636 Neander, an Epirot, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

Neanthes, a writer, i. Themistokles, chs. 1, 29.

Neapolis, a quarter of Syracuse, ii. Marcellus, ch. 19.

——, in the territory of Agrigentum, iv. Dion, ch. 49.

Nearchus, Alexander’s admiral, iii. Eumenes, chs. 2, 18; Alexander, chs. 10. 66. 68. 73-75.

——, a philosopher, ii. Cato Major, ch. 2.

Nektanebis, or Nektanabis, an Egyptian king, iii. Agesilaus, chs. 37-40.

Neleus of Skepsis, ii. Sulla, ch. 26.

Nemea and the Nemean games, i. Perikles, ch. 19; Timoleon, ch. 20; ii. Philopœmen, ch. 11; Flamininus, ch. 12; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 17; Aratus, chs. 7, 27, 28.

——, a courtesan, i. Alkibiades, ch. 16.

Nemesis, a play of Kratinus, i. Perikles, ch. 3.

——, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 18; Marius, ch. 23.

Neochorus, of Haliartus, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Neodamodes, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 6.

Neokles, father of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 1; ii. Aristeides, ch. 2.

——, son of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Neon, a Bœotian, i. Æmilius, ch. 23.

——, a Corinthian, i. Timoleon, ch. 18.

Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1; iii. Alexander, ch. 2.

——, (I., king of the Molossians), ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 2.

——, (II., king of the Molossians, grandson of the preceding), ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 4, 5.

——, captain of Alexander’s guard, iii. Eumenes, chs. 1, 4-7.

Neoptolemus, general of Mithridates, ii. Marius, ch. 34; Lucullus, ch. 3.

Nepos, Cornelius, the historian, ii. Marcellus, ch. 30; Comparison, ch. 1; Lucullus, ch. 43; iv. Tiberius Gracchus, ch. 21.

——, Metellus, tribune with Cato, proconsul in Iberia, iii. Cæsar, ch. 21; Cato Minor, chs. 20, 21, 26, 27, 28, 29; iv. Cicero, chs. 23, 26.

Nero, Lucius Domitius Germanicus, the emperor, ii. Flamininus, ch. 12; iv. Antonius, ch. 87; Galba, throughout; Otho, chs. 1, 3, 5, 18.

——, adopted as a title by Otho, iv. Otho, ch. 3.

Nerrii, a Gaulish tribe, iii. Cæsar, ch. 20.

Nestor, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 18; Cato Major, ch. 15; iv. Brutus, ch. 34.

Nicomedes, or Nikomedes, king of Bithynia, ii. Sulla, chs. 22, 24.

——, king of Bithynia, iii. Cæsar, ch. 1.

Nicomedia, or Nikomedia, in Bithynia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 13.

Nicopolis, a rich lady, ii. Sulla, ch. 2.

——, near Actium, iv. Antonius, ch. 62.

Nicostrate, the name of Carmenta, i. Romulus, ch. 21.

Nikæa, wife of Alexander, in possession of the Acrocorinthus, iv. Aratus, ch. 17.

——, in Bithynia, i. Theseus, ch. 26.

Nikagoras, of Troezen, i. Themistokles, ch. 10.

——, the Messenian, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 35.

Nikanor, a friend of Antigonus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 17.

——, sent by Kassander to Munychia, iii. Phokion, chs. 30, 32, 33.

Nikarchus, Plutarch’s great-grandfather, iv. Antonius, ch. 68.

Nikator. _See_ Seleukus.

Nikeratus, father of Nikias, i. Alkibiades, ch. 13; iii. Nikias, ch. 2.

637 Nikeratus, of Heraklea, a poet, ii. Lysander, ch. 18.

Nikias, iii. Life and Comparison with Crassus; i. Alkibiades, chs. 1, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 4; Aristeides, ch. 7; Flamininus, ch. 11.

——, steward of Ptolemy Auletes, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 39.

——, of Engyion, ii. Marcellus, ch. 20.

——, a friend of Agesilaus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 13.

Nikodemus, a Messenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 13.

——, a blind cripple, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 3.

Nikogenes, i. Themistokles, chs. 26, 28.

Nikokles, a friend of Phokion, iii. Phokion, chs. 17, 35, 36.

——, despot of Sikyon, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1; iv. Aratus, chs. 3, 4, 6, 7.

Nikokreon, king of Salamis in Cyprus, iii. Alexander, ch. 29.

Nikolaus, a philosopher, iv. Brutus, ch. 53.

Nikomache, daughter of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Nikomachus, an Asiatic Greek, iii. Crassus, ch. 25.

——, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

——, a painter, i. Timoleon, ch. 36.

Nikomedes, married to Sybaris, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Nikon, a runaway slave of Kraterus, iii. Alexander, ch. 42.

Nikonides of Thessaly, ii. Lucullus, ch. 10.

Niger, a friend of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 53.

——, a surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Nigidius, Publius, a philosopher, friend of Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 20.

Nile, i. Solon, ch. 26; ii. Sulla, ch. 20; iii. Alexander, ch. 26, 36.

Niphates, mountain in Armenia, iii. Alexander, ch. 31.

Nisæa, port of Megara, i. Solon, ch. 12; iii. Nikias, ch. 6; Phokion, ch. 15.

Nisæan horse, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 11.

Nisibis, in Mesopotamia, ii. Lucullus, chs. 32, 36; Comparison, ch. 3.

Nola, ii. Marcellus, chs. 10, 11, 12; Sulla, ch. 9.

Nonæ Caprotinæ, i. Romulus, ch. 29; Camillus, ch. 33.

Nonakris, iii. Alexander, ch. 77.

Nonius, son of Sulla’s sister, ii. Sulla, ch. 10.

Nonnius, iv. Cicero, ch. 38.

Nora in Cappadocia, iii. Eumenes, ch. 9.

Norbanus, consul B.C. 83, ii. Sulla, ch. 27; iii. Sertorius, ch. 6.

——, commanding under Antonius, iv. Brutus, ch. 38.

Norici, ii. Marius, ch. 15.

Novum Comum, iii. Caesar, ch. 29.

Numa Pompilius, i. Life and Comparison with Lykurgus; i. Theseus, ch. 1; Romulus, chs. 18, 20, 21; Camillus, chs. 18, 20, 31; Coriolanus, chs. 1, 25, 39; Æmilius, ch. 2; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8; iii. Caesar, ch. 58; Phokion, ch. 3.

Numantia and Numantians, i. Æmilius, ch. 22; ii. Marius, chs. 3. 13; Lucullus, ch. 38; iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 21; C. Gracchus, ch. 15; Comparison, ch. 3.

Numerius, a friend of Marius, ii. Marius, ch. 35.

——, perhaps Numerius Magius, a friend of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 63.

Numidia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 12; a Numidian horseman, iv. Otho, ch. 11.

Numidians in the Carthaginian service, i. Fabius, chs. 11, 12; Timoleon, ch. 28; Marcellus, chs. 12, 30; Comparison, ch. 3. Numidian kings, ii. Cato Major, ch. 26; 638Marius, chs. 32. 40; Sulla, ch. 3; iii. Cæsar, chs. 52, 53, 55 (King Juba); iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 18.

Numistro, ii. Marcellus, ch. 24.

Numitor, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 6-9.

Nussa (Nurscia), a Sabine city, iii. Sertorius, ch. 2.

Nymphæum, near Apollonia, ii. Sulla, ch. 27.

Nymphidia, mother of the following, iv. Galba, chs. 9, 14.

Nymphidius Sabinus, prefect of the prætorian guard, iv. Galba, chs. 2, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 23, 29.

Nypsius, commander of the garrison of Syracuse, iv. Dion, chs. 41, 44, 46.

Nysa, iii. Alexander, ch. 58.

Nysæus, despot of Syracuse, i. Timoleon, ch. 1.

Nyssa, sister of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 18.

Oarses, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 1.

Ochus, son of Artaxerxes II., iii. Alexander, ch. 69; iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 26, 28, 30.

Octavia, sister of Augustus, i. Poplicola, ch. 17; ii. Marcellus, ch. 20; iv. Cicero ch. 44, note; Antonius, chs. 31, 33, 35, 53, 54, 56, 57, 83, 87.

Octavianus, Augustus Cæsar, iv. Antonius, chs. 11, 16. _See_ Cæsar.

Octavius, i.e. Octavianus, who was so called by Brutus, iv. Brutus, ch. 29.

——, the father of Augustus, iv. Cicero, ch. 44.

——, Caius, a pretended conspirator, iii. Cæsar, ch. 67.

——, Cnæus, who took Perseus, i. Æmilius, ch. 26.

——, Nepos, Cnæus, consul B.C. 87, ii. Marius, chs. 41. 42. 45; Sulla, ch. 12; iii. Sertorius, ch. 4.

——, consul B.C. 75, governor of Cilicia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 6.

Octavius, Lucius, lieutenant of Pompeius in Crete, iii. Pompeius, ch. 29.

——, Marcus, tribune of the people, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 10, 11, 12, 15; C. Gracchus, ch. 4.

——, Marcus, lieutenant of Antonius at Actium, iv. Antonius, ch. 65.

——, Marcus, son of Cn. Octavius, consul B.C. 50, in Africa with Cato, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 65.

——, lieutenant of Crassus, iii. Crassus, chs. 29, 30, 31.

——, of African descent, iv. Cicero, ch. 26.

Odysseus, in Latin Ulysses, i. Romulus, ch. 1; Solon, ch. 30; Alkibiades, ch. 21; Coriolanus, ch. 21; ii. Marcellus, ch. 20; Cato Major, ch. 9; Lysander, ch. 20; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 5.

Œdipus, in Sophokles, iv. Demetrius, ch. 46; Œdipus’s fountain, ii. Sulla, ch. 19.

Œnanthes, an Egyptian, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 33.

Œnarus, i. Theseus, ch. 20.

Œneadæ, people of Acarnania, i. Perikles, ch. 19; iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

Œnopion, i. Theseus, ch. 20.

Œta, i. Perikles, ch. 17.

Ofella, Lucretius, ii. Sulla, chs. 29, 33; Comparison, ch. 2.

Oia, Attic township, i. Perikles, ch. 9.

Oinous, i. Lykurgus, ch. 6.

Olbiani, in Mauritania, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

Olbius, i. Themistokles, ch. 26.

Oligyrtus, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 26.

Olizon, i. Themistokles, ch. 8.

Olokrus, a mountain, i. Æmilius, ch. 20.

Olorus, the name, ii. Kimon, ch. 4. A Thracian king, _ibidem_. Olorus the father of Thucydides, _ibidem_.

Olthakus, chief of the Dandarii, ii. Lucullus, ch. 16.

639 Olympia and the Olympic games, i. Theseus, ch. 25; Lykurgus, chs. 1 (Olympic truce), 21 (usage for Spartan victors, compare iii. Agesilaus, ch. 28), 22 (Olympic truce); Numa, ch. 1, institution of the games and visit of Pythagoras, ch. 8; Solon, ch. 23 (reward for Athenian victors compare ii. Aristeides, ch. 27); Themistokles, chs. 5, 17, 25, (Hiero’s tent); Alkibiades, ch. 12; compare iv. Demosthenes, ch. 1; Æmilius, ch. 28 (Pheidias’s Zeus); ii. Pelopidas, ch. 34; Aristeides, chs. 11, 27; Cato Major, ch. 5 (Kimon’s race-horses); Sulla, ch. 12; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 13, 20 (Kyniske); Alexander, chs. 3, 4 (Philip’s victory); Cato Minor, ch. 46; iv. Agis, ch. 11 (the oracle); Demosthenes, chs. 1, 9; Demetrius, ch. 11; List of victors, i. Numa, ch. 1.

Olympias, wife of Philip, mother of Alexander, iii. Eumenes, chs. 12, 13; Alexander, chs. 2, 3, 9, 10, 25, 39, 68, 77; iv. Demetrius, ch. 22.

Olympic games. _See_ Olympia.

Olympiodorus, an Athenian, ii. Aristeides, ch. 14.

Olympus, a mountain in Thessaly, i. Æmilius, chs. 13, 14, 15.

——, in Cilicia or Lycia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

——, a physician, iv. Antonius, ch. 82.

Olynthus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 9.

Omises, a Persian, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 4.

Omestes, Dionysus, ii. Aristeides, ch. 9; iv. Antonius, ch. 24.

Omphale, i. Theseus, ch. 6; Perikles, ch. 24.

Onatius, Aurelius, iii. Crassus, ch. 12.

Oneia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 20.

Onesikritus, Alexander’s, historian, iii. Alexander, chs. 8, 15, 46, 60, 61, 65, 66.

Onomarchus, with Antigonus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 18.

——, a Phokian, i. Timoleon, ch. 30.

Onomastus, Otho’s freedman, iv. Galba, ch. 24.

Opheltas, a king of the Bœotians, ii. Kimon, ch. 1.

——, king of Cyrene, iv. Demetrius, ch. 14.

Opimius, L. consul B.C. 121, iv. C. Gracchus, chs. 11, 13, 14, 16, 17.

Oppius, C., Cæsar’s friend, iii. Pompeius, ch. 10; Cæsar, ch. 17.

Opuntian Lokrians, ii. Flamininus, ch. 5.

Orchalian hill, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Orchomenus, in Arcadia, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 4, 7, 23, 26; Aratus, chs. 38, 45.

——, in Bœotia, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 16, 17, 18; Comparison, ch. 1; Lysander, ch. 28; Sulla, chs. 20, 21, 22, 26; Kimon, ch. 2; Lucullus, chs. 3, 11; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 18.

Oreitæ, iii. Alexander, ch. 66.

Orestes, ii. Aristeides, ch. 10.

——, L. Aurelius, consul B.C. 126, iv. C. Gracchus, chs. 1, 2.

Oreus, in Eubœa, i. Æmilius, ch. 9.

Orexartes, river in Scythia, iii. Alexander, ch. 45.

Orfidius, iv. Otho, ch. 12.

Oricum, i. Æmilius, ch. 30; iii. Pompeius, ch. 65; Cæsar, ch. 37.

Orneus, i. Theseus, ch. 3.

Ornis, near Corinth, iv. Aratus, ch. 19.

Ornytus, i. Theseus, ch. 8.

Oroandes, of Crete, i. Æmilius, ch. 26.

Orobazus, Parthian ambassador, ii. Sulla, ch. 5.

Oromazes, or Oromasdes, Persian god, iii. Alexander, ch. 30; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 29.

Orontes, a Persian, iv. Aratus. ch. 3; (the same?) Artaxerxes, ch. 27.

Oropus, ii. Cato Major, ch. 22; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 5.

640 Orpheus and Orphic rites, ii. Comparison of Kimon and Lucullus, ch. 1; iii. Alexander, ch. 2; Cæsar, ch. 9.

Orsodates, iii. Alexander, ch. 57.

Orthias, Artemis, i. Theseus, ch. 31; Lykurgus, ch. 17.

Orthagoras, a prophet, i. Timoleon, ch. 4.

Orthopagus, near Chæronea, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Oryssus, a Cretan, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 30.

Osca (Huesca in Spain), iii. Sertorius, ch. 13.

Oschophoria, i. Theseus, chs. 22, 23.

Ostanes, younger son of Darius Nothus, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 5, 22.

Ostia, port of Rome, ii. Marius, chs. 35. 42; iii. Cæsar, ch. 58; iv. Otho, ch. 3.

Otacilius, brother of Marcellus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 2.

Otho, Marcus Salvius, the emperor, iv. Life; Galba, chs. 19, 20, 23-28.

——, Lucius Roscius, author of the Lex Roscia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 25; iv. Cicero, ch. 13.

Otryæ in Phrygia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 8.

Ovation, ii. Marcellus, ch. 22.

Ovicula, nickname of Fabius, i. Fabius, ch. 1.

Ouliades of Samos, ii. Aristeides, ch. 23.

Oxathres, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 5.

Oxus, river in Asia, iii. Alexander, ch. 57.

Oxyartes, son of Abouletes, satrap of Susiana, iii. Alexander, chs. 58, 68.

Paccianus, C., lieutenant of Sulla, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

Paccius, ii. Cato Major, ch. 10.

Paches, Athenian general, ii. Aristeides, ch. 26; iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

Pachynus, promontory in Sicily, iv. Dion, ch. 25.

Pacianus, Vibius, iii. Crassus, chs. 4, 5.

Pacorus, son of Hyrodes, iii. Crassus, ch. 33; iv. Antonius, ch. 34.

Padua, or Patavium. _See_ Patavium.

Padus, the river Po, in Greek, Eridanus, i. Romulus, ch. 17; ii. Marcellus, ch. 6; Marius, ch. 24; iii. Crassus, ch. 9; Pompeius, ch. 16; Cæsar, chs. 20, 21, 25; iv. Brutus, ch. 19; Otho, chs. 5, 10.

Pæania, township of Demosthenes, iv. Demosthenes, chs. 20, 27.

Paeon of Amathus, i. Theseus, ch. 20.

Pæonia and Pæonians, i. Æmilius, ch. 18; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 9; iii. Pompeius, ch. 41, where _see_ Mr. Long’s note; Alexander, ch. 39.

Pæstnm, or Poseidonia, a Greek colony in Lucania, i. Æmilius, ch. 39; ii. Kimon, ch. 18.

Pagasæ, port of Thessaly, i. Themistokles, ch. 20.

Paidaretus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 24.

Palatine hill, Palatium, or Palace, at Rome, i. Romulus, chs. 1, 18, 20, 22; Poplicola, ch. 20 (Clœlia’s statue); Camillus, ch. 32 (Romulus’s staff); iii. Sertorius, ch. 24; C. Gracchus, ch. 12 (his house); iv. Cicero, ch. 8 (his house), 16, 22; Galba, chs. 1, 3, 24, 25.

Palestine, ii. Lucullus, ch. 14; iii. Crassus, ch. 16; Pompeius, ch. 44.

Pallantium, in Arcadia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 4; Aratus, ch. 35.

Pallas, brother of Ægeus, i. Romulus, ch. 3.

Pammenes, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 18, 26.

Pallene, i. Theseus, ch. 13.

Pamphilus, a painter of the Sikyonian school, iv. Aratus, ch. 12.

Pamphylia, in Asia Minor, ii. Kimon, ch. 12; iii. Pompeius, ch. 76; Alexander, ch. 17; iv. Brutus, ch. 3.

Pan, i. Numa, ch. 4; ii, Aristeides, ch. 11.

Panætius, a philosopher, ii. Aristeides, ch. 1; Kimon, ch. 4; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 13.

641 Panaitios, i. Themistokles, ch. 12.

Panaktum, in Attica, i. Alkibiades, ch. 14; iii. Nikias, ch. 10; iv. Demetrius, ch. 23.

Pandion, king of Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 13.

Pandosia, in Italy, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 16.

Pannonia and Pannonians, iv. Otho, chs. 4, 8, compare iii. Pompeius, ch. 41, note.

Panope or Panopeus, a town in Phokis, ii. Lysander, ch. 29; Sulla, ch. 16.

Panopeus, father of Ægle, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Pansa, C. Vibius, consul B.C. 43, i. Æmilius, ch. 38; iv. Cicero, chs. 43, 45; Antonius, ch. 17.

Pantauchus, Demetrius’s general, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 7; iv. Demetrius, ch. 41.

Panteus, a Spartan, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 23, 38.

Panthoides of Chios, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

——, a Spartan, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 16.

Paphlagonia, in Asia Minor, ii. Sulla, ch. 23; Lucullus, ch. 33; iii. Eumenes, chs. 3, 6; Agesilaus, ch. 11; Pompeius, ch. 44; Alexander, ch. 18; iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Paphos, in Cyprus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 35.

Papiria, wife of Æmilius Paulus, i. Æmilius, ch. 5.

Papirius, Marcus, i. Camillus, ch. 22.

——, Maso, i. Æmilius, ch. 5.

Pappus, a historian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 30.

Parætonium, iv. Antonius, ch. 69.

Paralus, son of Perikles, i. Perikles, ch. 36.

Paranæa, in Macedonia, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6.

Parapotamii, in Phokis, ii. Sulla, ch. 16.

Paris, son of Priam, i. Theseus, ch. 34; Comparison, ch. 6; ii. Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 4; Alexander, ch. 15 (Paris’s harp); iv. Comparison of Demetrius and Antonius, ch. 3; Galba, ch. 19 (under the name of Alexander).

Pariskas, attending upon Cyrus, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 12.

Parma, a town in Italy, ii. Marius, ch. 27.

Parmenides, i. Perikles, ch. 4.

Parmenio, Alexander’s general, iii. Alexander, chs. 3, 10, 19, 22, 29, 31-33, 39, 48-50.

Parnassus, ii. Sulla, ch. 15.

Parrhasius, a painter, i. Theseus, ch. 4.

Parthenon, i. Perikles, ch. 13; ii. Cato Major, ch. 5; iv. Demetrius, chs. 23, 26; Comparison, ch. 4.

Parthia and the Parthians. _See_ especially the lives of iii. Crassus, chs. 2, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23-32, with the Comparison; and iv. Antonius, chs. 25, 27, 30-55, and the Comparison; also, ii. Sulla, ch. 6 (an embassy); Lucullus, chs. 14, 30, 36; iii. Nikias, ch. 1; Eumenes, ch. 18; Pompeius, chs. 28, 36, 38, 39, 52, 53, 55, 60, 64, 66; Alexander, ch. 45; Cæsar, chs. 28 (Crassus’s death), 58, 60; iv. Cicero, ch. 36; Demetrius, ch. 20; Brutus, chs. 7, 22, 43; Comparison, ch. 4.

Parysatis, wife of Darius Nothus, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 6, 14, 16, 17, 23.

Pasakas, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 9.

Pasargadæ, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 3.

Paseas, father of Kleon, despot of Sikyon, iv. Aratus, chs. 2, 3.

Pasikrates, king of Soli in Cyprus, iii. Alexander, ch. 29.

Pasiphae, wife of Minos, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

——, oracle of, iv. Agis, ch. 9; Kleomenes, ch. 19.

Pasiphon, a writer, iii. Nikias, ch. 4.

642 Pasitigris, the river Tigris, iii. Eumenes, ch. 14.

Passaron, in the Molossian country, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 5.

Pataikos, i. Solon, ch. 6.

Patara, iv. Brutus, chs. 2, 32.

Patavium, or Padua, iii. Cæsar, ch. 47.

Patræ, in Achaia, i. Alkibiades, ch. 15; ii. Cato Major, ch. 12; iv. Antonius, ch. 60; Aratus, ch. 47.

Patrobius, favourite of Nero, iv. Galba, chs. 17, 28.

Patrokles, friend of Seleukus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 47.

Patroklus, the hero, i. Theseus, ch. 34; ii. Aristeides, ch. 21; iii. Alexander, ch. 54; compare ch. 15.

Patron, companion of Evander, i. Romulus, ch. 13.

Patronis, in Phokis, ii. Sulla, ch. 15.

Paulinus Suetonius, Roman general, iv. Otho, chs. 5, 7, 8, 11, 13.

Paulus, Lucius Æmilius, father of Æmilius Paulus, killed at Cannæ, i. Fabius, chs. 14, 16; Æmilius, ch. 2; ii. Marcellus, ch. 10.

——, Æmilius, also Lucius, i. Life and Comparison with Timoleon; Timoleon, ch. 1; ii. Cato Major, chs. 15, 20, 24; Sulla, ch. 12; iv. Aratus, ch. 54; Galba, ch. 1.

——, consul B.C. 50, brother of Lepidus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 58; Cæsar, ch. 29; iv. Cicero, ch. 46; Antonius, ch. 19. The Basilica Pauli, iii. Cæsar, ch. 29; iv. Galba, ch. 26.

Pausanias, the assassin of Philip, iii. Alexander, ch. 10; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 22.

——, the physician, iii. Alexander, ch. 41.

——, an officer of Seleukus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 50.

——, son of Kleombrotus, regent of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 19; Themistokles, chs. 21, 23; ii. Aristeides, chs. 11, 14-18, 20, 23; Comparison, ch. 2; Kimon, ch. 6; Comparison, ch. 3; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Pausanius, son of Pleistoanax, king of Sparta, ii. Lysander, chs. 14, 28, 29, 30; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Pedalium, in Chersonesus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Pedum, in Latium, i. Coriolanus, ch. 28.

Pegæ, i. Perikles, ch. 19; iv. Aratus, ch. 43.

Peiræus, the port of Athens, i. Themistokles, chs. 10, 19 (its construction), 32; Perikles, ch. 8 (Ægina its eyesore); Alkibiades, ch. 26; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 14; Lysander, chs. 14, 15 (its destruction); Sulla, chs. 12, 14 (its siege and capture), 26; Comparison, ch. 4; iii. Nikias, ch. 30; Agesilaus, ch. 24; Phokion, ch. 32; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 1 (the eyesore), 6, 27; Demetrius, chs. 8 (his entrance), 34, 43; Brutus, ch. 28; Aratus, chs. 33, 34.

Peiraic gate at Athens, the, i. Theseus, ch. 27; ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

Peirithous, the hero, i. Theseus, chs. 20, 30.

Peirithois, Attic township, i. Alkibiades, ch. 13; iii. Nikias, ch. 11.

Peisander, an Athenian, i. Alkibiades, ch. 26.

——, a Platæan hero, ii. Aristeides, ch. 11.

——, the brother-in-law of Agesilaus, iii. Agesilaus, chs. 10, 17.

Peisianakteum, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Peisistratus, despot of Athens, i. Solon, chs. 1, 7, 8, 10, 29, 30, 31; Comparison of Solon and Poplicola, ch. 3; Perikles, chs. 3, 7; ii. Aristeides, ch. 2; Cato Major, ch. 24.

Pelagon, a Eubœan, i. Themistokles, ch. 7.

Pelasgus, i. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Pelasgi, i. Romulus, ch. 1.

Peleus, i. Theseus, ch. 10; iii. Alexander, ch. 5.

643 Pelias, father of Akastus, ii. Sulla, ch. 36.

Peligniansin Italy, i, Æmilius, ch. 20.

Pella, town in Macedonia, i. Æmilius, ch. 23; iii. Eumenes, ch. 3; Alexander, ch. 60; iv. Demetrius, ch. 43.

——, Lucius, disgraced by Brutus, iv. Brutus, ch. 35.

Pellene, in Achaia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 17; Aratus, chs. 31, 32, 39, 54.

——, in Laconia, iv. Agis, ch. 8.

Pelopidas, ii. Life and Comparison with Marcellus; i. Timoleon, ch. 36; ii. Aristeides, ch. 1; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 24; iv. Aratus, ch. 16; Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

Peloponnesus and the Peloponnesians, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 6, 25, and elsewhere frequent.

Peloponnesian War, the, i. Lykurgus, ch. 27 (Thucydides’s history); Perikles, ch. 29; Coriolanus, ch. 14; ii. Aristeides, ch. 1; Lysander, chs. 3, 29; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 27; Antonius, ch. 70.

Pelops, son of Tantalus, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 7; Pelopidæ, ii. Marius, ch. 1.

——, of Byzantium, iv. Cicero, ch. 24.

Pelusium, in Egypt, iii. Pompeius, ch. 77; iv. Antonius, chs. 3, 74; Brutus, ch. 33.

Penelope, wife of Lysimachus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 25.

Peneus, river in Thessaly, ii. Flamininus, ch. 3.

Pentapyla, at Syracuse, iv. Dion, ch. 29.

Pentelic marble, i. Poplicola, ch. 15.

Penteleum, in Arcadia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 17; Aratus, ch. 39.

Pentheus, king of Thebes, iii. Crassus, ch. 33.

Peparethus, in the Ægean Sea, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 8.

Perdikkas, king of Macedon, iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 2.

Perdikkas, Alexander’s general, iii. Eumenes, chs. 1, 3, 4, 5, 8; Alexander, chs. 15, 41, 77; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 31.

Pergamia, in Crete, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31.

Pergamus, or Pergamum, in Mysia, ii. Sulla, chs. 11, 23; Lucullus, ch. 3; iii. Cæsar, ch. 2; Cato Minor, ch. 10; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 21; Antonius, ch. 58 (the library); Brutus, ch. 2.

Periander, despot of Corinth, i. Solon, chs. 4, 12; iv. Aratus, ch. 3.

Peribœa, mother of Ajax, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Perigoune, daughter of Sinis, i. Theseus, ch. 8.

Perikles, i. Life and Comparison with Fabius; i. Lykurgus, ch. 16; Themistokles, chs. 2, 10; Alkibiades, chs. 1, 3, 6, 14, 17; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 4; Aristeides, chs. 1, 24, 25, 26; Cato Major, ch. 8; Kimon, chs. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17; iii. Nikias, chs. 2, 3, 6, 9, 23; Comparison, ch. 1; Pompeius, ch. 63; Phokion, ch. 7; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 6, 9, 13, 20; Cicero, ch. 39.

Perikleides, a Spartan envoy, ii. Kimon, ch. 16.

Perinthus, in Thrace, iii. Alexander, ch. 70; Phokion, ch. 14; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 17.

Peripatetics, ii. Sulla, ch. 26; iv. Cato Minor, chs. 67, 69; Cicero, ch. 24; Brutus, ch. 24.

Periphemus, a hero of Salamis, i. Solon, ch. 9.

Periphetes, i. Theseus, ch. 8.

Periphoretus, name of Artemon, i. Perikles, ch. 27.

Peripoltas, a prophet, ii. Kimon, ch. 1.

——, surname of Damon, _ibidem_.

Peritas, Alexander’s dog, iii. Alexander, ch. 61.

Perpenna Vento, iii. Sertorius, chs. 15, 26, 27; Pompeius, chs. 10, 18, 20.

644 Perrhæbia, part of Thessaly, and Perrhæbæ, its inhabitants, i. Æmilius, ch. 15; ii. Flamininus, ch. 10.

‘Persæ,’ of Æschylus, i. Themistokles, ch. 14.

Persæus, a philosopher, commanding in Corinth; iv. Aratus, chs. 18, 23.

Persephassia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 10.

Perseus, the hero, ii. Kimon, ch. 3.

——, king of Macedon, i. Æmilius, chs. 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 23, 24, 26, 33, 34, 37; Comparison, ch. 1; ii. Cato Major, chs. 15, 20; iv. Demetrius, ch. 53; Aratus, ch. 54.

Persis, or Persia proper, iii. Eumenes, ch. 14; Alexander, chs. 37, 69; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 7.

Persians, the. _See_ in general the lives of i. Themistokles, ii. Aristeides, Kimon, iii. Agesilaus, Alexander, Artaxerxes and the Comparisons. Also, i. Solon, ch. 28; Camillus, ch. 19; Perikles, chs. 24, 25; Alkibiades, chs. 23, 24; ii. Æmilius, ch. 25 (Medes); ii. Pelopidas, ch. 30; Cato Major, ch. 13; Flamininus, ch. 7; Lysander, chs. 3, 4, 23, 24; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 3; Pompeius, chs. 32, 34; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 20; Antonius, ch. 37; Brutus, ch. 31. Persian women, iii. Eumenes, ch. 1; Alexander, ch. 21; iv. Demetrius, ch. 31. Persian language, i. Themistokles, ch. 29; Artaxerxes, ch. 11. Persian habits, iii. Eumenes, ch. 6; the dress, iii. Alexander, chs. 31, 45, 51; the money, ii. Kimon, ch. 10; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 15; Artaxerxes, ch. 4. Compare Media and the Medes.

Persia, Artemis, ii. Lucullus, ch. 24.

Pessinus, in Galatia, ii. Marius, ch. 17; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 15.

Petelia, in Bruttium, ii. Marcellus, ch. 29. Mountains of Petelia, iii. Crassus, ch. 11, where _see_ note. Petelian Grove, i. Camillus, ch. 36.

Peteus, son of Orneus, i. Theseus, ch. 32.

Peticius, a shipmaster, iii. Pompeius, ch. 73.

Petilia. _See_ Petelia.

Petilius, a prætor, i. Numa, ch. 22.

Petillii, two brothers, tribunes, of the people, ii. Cato Major, ch. 15.

Petinus, favourite of Nero, iv. Galba, ch. 17.

Petra, in Arabia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 41; iv. Antonius, ch. 69.

Petra, in Thessaly, i. Æmilius, ch. 15.

Petrachus, above Chæronea, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Petro, Granius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 16.

Petronius, lieutenant of Crassus, iii. Crassus, chs. 30, 31.

——, Turpilianus, iv. Galba, chs. 15, 17.

Peukestas, iii. Eumenes, chs. 13-16; Alexander, ch. 41, 42, 63.

Phæa, or Phaia, the sow of Krommyon, i. Theseus, ch. 9.

Phæax of Salamis, i. Theseus, ch. 17.

——, son of Erasistratus, an Athenian, i. Alkibiades, ch. 13; iii. Nikias, ch. 11; Agesilaus, ch. 15.

Phædimus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 16.

Phædo, archon at Athens, i. Theseus, ch. 36.

Phædra, wife of Theseus, i. Theseus, ch. 28.

Phænarete, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 5.

Phæstus, in Crete, i. Solon, ch. 12.

Phaethon, first king of the Molossians, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Phalerum, port of Athens, i. Theseus, chs. 17, 22; Themistokles, ch. 12; ii. Aristeides, ch. 27; iv. Demetrius, chs. 8, 9 (Demetrius the Phalerean).

Phalinus, a Zakynthian, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 13.

\[Pg 645] Phanius of Eresus, historian, i. Solon, ch. 32.

——, of Lesbos, historian, i. Solon, chs. 14; Themistokles, ch. 1, 7, 13, 27, 29.

Phanippus, archon at Athens in the year of Marathon, ii. Aristeides, ch. 5.

Phanodemus, historian, i. Themistokles, ch. 13; Kimon, chs. 12, 19.

Phantasia, philosophical term, iv. Cicero, ch. 40.

Pharax, a Spartan, i. Timoleon, ch. 11; Comparison, ch. 2; iv. Dion, chs. 48, 49.

Pharmacusa, island near Miletus, iii. Cæsar, ch. 1.

Pharnabazus, a Persian satrap, i. Alkibiades, chs. 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 37, 39; ii. Lysander, chs. 19, 20, 24; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, 23; iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 21, 24, 27.

——, the son of Artabazus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 7.

Pharnakes, son of Mithridates, iii. Pompeius, ch. 41; Cæsar, ch. 50.

Pharnakia or Phernakia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 18.

Pharnapates, a Parthian, iv. Antonius, ch. 33.

Pharos, at Alexandria, iii. Alexander, ch. 26; Cæsar, ch. 49; iv. Antonius, chs. 29, 69.

Pharsalus, Pharsalia and Pharsalians, i. Perikles, ch. 36; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 27, 32; Agesilaus, ch. 16; iii. Pompeius, chs. 68, 71; Comparison, ch. 4; Cæsar, chs. 42, 52, 62; Cato Minor, chs. 55, 66; iv. Antonius, chs. 8, 62; Brutus, ch. 6; Otho, ch. 13.

Pharyges, a village in Phokis, iii. Phokion, ch. 33.

Phaselis, in Lycia, ii. Kimon, ch. 12; iii. Alexander, ch. 17.

Phasis, river, ii. Lucullus, ch. 33; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Pompeius, ch. 34.

Phayllus, the athlete, iii. Alexander, ch. 34.

Phegæa, Attic township, i. Alkibiades, ch. 22.

Pheidias, the sculptor, i. Perikles, chs. 2, 13, 31, 32; Æmilius, ch. 28.

Pheidon, name of Demetrius, iii. Alexander, ch. 54.

Pheneum, or Pheneus, in Arcadia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 17; Aratus, ch. 39.

Pheræ, in Achæa, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 14.

——, in Thessaly, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 26, 28, 35; iv. Galba, ch. 1.

Pherebœa, i. Theseus, ch. 29.

Pherekles, at Dodona, ii. Lysander, ch. 25.

Phereklus, son of Amarsyas, i. Theseus, ch. 17.

Pherekydes, a historical writer, i. Theseus, chs. 19, 26.

——, the philosopher, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21; Sulla, ch. 36; iv. Agis, ch. 10.

Pherendates, Persian general, ii. Kimon, ch. 12.

Pherenikus, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 5, 7.

Pheristus of Elea, i. Timoleon, ch. 35.

Phernakia. _See_ Pharnakia.

Phila, daughter of Antipater, wife of Demetrius, chs. 14, 22, 27, 31, 32, 37, 45, 46, 53; Comparison, ch. 1.

Philadelphus, a surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, king of Paphlagonia, iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Philaidæ, the township of Peisistratus, so named from Philæus, son of Ajax, i. Solon, ch. 10.

Philagrus, tutor of Metellus Nepos, iv. Cicero, ch. 27.

Philargyrus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 38.

Philarus, river in Bœotia, ii. Lysander, ch. 29.

Philathenæus, surname of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 23.

Philetas, a poet, i. Perikles, ch. 2.

646 Philides, or Diphilides, a horse-dealer, i. Themistokles, ch. 5.

Philinna, mother of Philip Arrhidæus, iii. Alexander, ch. 77.

Philippi, town and battlefield, in Macedonia, ii. Sulla, ch. 23; iii. Cæsar, ch. 69; Cato Minor, ch. 73; iv. Antonius, ch. 69; Brutus, chs. 24, 28, 36, 37, 38, 53.

Philippides, comic poet, iv. Demetrius, chs. 12, 25.

Philip II., king of Macedonia, father of Alexander the Great. _See_ the Lives of iii. Alexander, chs. 1-6, 9, 10, 12, 16, 27, 28, 50, 53; Phokion, chs. 9, 12, 14-17, 29; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 9, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22; Comparison, ch. 3. Some additional particulars are given in i. Perikles, ch. 1; Timoleon, ch. 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 26; iii. Eumenes, ch. 1; iv. Demetrius, chs. 22, 42. He is mentioned also in i. Camillus, ch. 19; Æmilius, ch. 12; iii. Sertorius, ch. 1; Eumenes, chs. 16, 18; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 31; Demetrius, chs. 10, 20, 25; Comparison, ch. 4; Aratus, chs. 13, 23.

——, III., Arrhidæus, son of Philip II., iii. Eumenes, ch. 13; compare Alexander, chs. 10, 77.

——, IV., son of Kassander, iv. Demetrius, ch. 36.

——, V., son of Demetrius II., i. Æmilius, chs. 7, 8; ii. Cato Major, chs. 12, 17; Philopœmen, chs. 8, 12, 14, 15; Flamininus, chs. 2-10, 14; Comparison, ch. 1; iv. Demetrius, ch. 3; Aratus, chs. 16, 46-52, 54.

——, the Acarnanian, iii. Alexander, ch. 19.

——, son of Antigonus, brother of Demetrius, iv. Demetrius, ch. 23.

——, of Chalkis, iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

——, first husband of Berenike, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 4.

Philip, the herald of festivals, iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

——, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 5, 7, 10, 11.

——, left in India, iii. Alexander, ch. 60; he is supposed by some to be the father of Antigonus; compare, iv. Demetrius, ch. 2.

Philippus, freedman of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 78, 80.

——, Marcius, censor, i. Æmilius, ch. 38.

——, Lucius, attached to Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 2, 17.

——, father of Marcia, and step-father of Augustus, consul B.C. 56, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 25, 39; iv. Cicero, ch. 44.

Philistus, in some places wrongly spelt Philistius, i. Timoleon, ch. 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 34; iii. Nikias, chs. 1, 19, 28; Alexander, ch. 8; iv. Dion, chs. 11, 14, 19, 25, 35, 36, 37.

Phillidas, a Theban, iii. Pelopidas, chs. 7, 9, 10, 11.

Philo, builder of the arsenal at Athens, ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

——, a philosopher, ii. Lucullus, ch. 42; iv. Cicero, chs. 3, 4.

——, the Theban, a writer, iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

Philobœotus, near Elatea, ii. Sulla, ch. 16.

Philochorus, an Attic historian, i. Theseus, chs. 14, 16, 17, 19, 26, 35; iv. Nikias, ch. 23.

Philocyprus, king in Cyprus, i. Solon, ch. 26.

Philokles, a writer, i. Solon, ch. 1.

——, an Athenian general, ii. Lysander, chs. 9, 13; Comparison, ch. 4.

Philokrates, an Athenian orator, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 16.

——, servant of C. Gracchus, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 17.

Philoktetes, the hero, i. Themistokles, ch. 8; compare the quotation in i. Solon, ch. 20, which is from the ‘Philoktetes’ of Sophokles.

647 Philologus (properly Philogonus), freedman of Cicero’s brother, iv. Cicero, chs. 48, 49.

Philombrotus, archon at Athens, i. Solon, ch. 14.

Philomelus of Lamptra, iii. Phokion, ch. 32.

——, of Phokis, i. Timoleon, ch. 30.

Philometor, Attalus, i. Camillus, ch. 19; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 14; Demetrius, ch. 20.

Philoneikus, a Thessalian, iii. Alexander, ch. 6.

Philonicus, Licinius, i. Æmilius, ch. 38.

Philopœmen, ii. Life and Comparison with Flamininus; Flamininus, chs. 1, 13, 17; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 24; Aratus, ch. 24.

Philostephanus, a writer, i. Lykurgus, ch. 22.

Philostratus, a philosopher, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 67; iv. Antonius, ch. 80.

Philotas of Amphissa, a physician, friend of Plutarch’s grandfather, iv. Antonius, ch. 28.

——, son of Parmenio, iii. Alexander, chs. 10, 11, 31, 40, 48, 49.

Philotis or Tutula, i. Romulus, ch. 29; Camillus, ch. 33.

Philoxenus, officer of Alexander, iii. Alexander, ch. 22.

——, a dithyrambic poet, iii. Alexander, ch. 8.

——, son of Ptolemy of Macedonia, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 27.

Phlius, in Peloponnesus, i. Perikles, ch. 4; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 24; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 19, 26; Aratus, chs. 35, 39.

Phlogidas, a Spartan, ii. Lysander, ch. 16.

Phlogius, a hero, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Phlyæ, an Attic township, i. Solon, ch. 12; Themistokles, ch. 1, also ch. 15 (the temple of Apollo with the laurel crown at Phlyæ).

Phœbidas, a Spartan, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 5, 6, 15; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 23, 24, 34; Comparison, ch. 1.

Phœbis, a _mothax_, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 8.

Phœnicia and the Phœnicians, i. Perikles, chs. 26, 28; Alkibiades, chs. 25, 26; Timoleon, chs. 9, 11, 34; Æmilius, ch. 12; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 22; Lysander, ch. 9; Sulla, ch. 17 (a Phœnician word); Kimon, chs. 12, 13, 18; Lucullus, ch. 21; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 37; Pompeius, chs. 32, 33, 44; Alexander, chs. 17, 24, 29; iv. Antonius, chs. 30, 36, 54, 64.

Phœnix, Achilles’s tutor, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 1; iii. Alexander, chs. 5, 24.

——, of Tenedos, iii. Eumenes, ch. 7.

——, a Theban, iii. Alexander, ch. 11.

Phokæa and the Phokæans, in Ionia, i. Perikles, ch. 24; ii. Lysander, ch. 5; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 26.

Phokion, iii. Life and Comparison with Cato Minor; i. Timoleon, ch. 6; iii. Alexander, ch. 39; iv. Agis, ch. 2; Demosthenes, chs. 10, 14; Aratus, ch. 19.

Phokis and Phokians, i. Themistokles, ch. 9; Perikles, chs. 17, 21; Flamininus, ch. 10; Lysander, chs. 15, 27, 28, 29; Sulla, chs. 12, 15; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 17, 28; Alexander, ch. 11; Phokion, ch. 33; Demosthenes, chs. 12, 18; Aratus, ch. 50.

Phokus, friend of Solon, i. Solon, ch. 14.

——, son of Phokion, iii. Phokion, chs. 20, 30, 36, 38.

Phorbas, i. Romulus, ch. 2; Numa, ch. 4.

Phormio, the admiral, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1.

——, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15; Comparison, ch. 3.

Phraata, city in Media, iv. Antonius, chs. 38, 39, 50.

Phraates, king of Parthia, iii. Pompeius, chs. 33, 38; compare, ii. Lucullus, ch. 30.

648 Phraates, son of Hyrodes, grandson of the preceding, king of Parthia, iii. Crassus, ch. 33; iv. Antonius, chs. 37, 38, 40, 41, 52.

Phrasikles, nephew of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, chs. 32.

Phrearri, Attic township, i. Themistokles, chs. 1, 5.

Phrixus, a Spartan, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 32.

Phrygia and the Phrygians, i. Numa, ch. 4 (the fable of Attis); Themistokles, ch. 30; Alkibiades, ch. 37; ii. Flamininus, ch. 20 (defeat of Antiochus); Kimon, ch. 9; Lucullus, ch. 8; iii. Eumenes, ch. 3; Agesilaus, chs. 9, 10, 11; Pompeius, ch. 30; Alexander, ch. 18 (Gordium); Cæsar, ch. 9 (Bona Dea); Phokion, ch. 29 (countryman searching for Antigonus); iv. Demetrius, chs. 5, 46.

Phrynichus, an Athenian general, i. Alkibiades, ch. 25.

——, a comic poet, i. Alkibiades, ch. 20; Nikias, ch. 4.

——, tragic poet, i. Themistokles, ch. 5.

Phrynis, a musician, iv. Agis, ch. 10.

Phthia, the wife of Admetus, i. Themistokles, ch. 24.

——, the mother of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

——, or Phthiotis, in Thessaly, i. Perikles, ch. 17; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 31, 35; Flamininus, ch. 10.

Phylakia, in Attica, iv. Aratus, ch. 34.

Phylakion, mistress of Stratokles, iv. Demetrius, ch. 11.

Phylarchus, the historian, i. Themistokles, ch. 32; Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 27; iv. Agis, ch. 9; Kleomenes, chs. 5, 28, 30; Demosthenes, ch. 27; Aratus, ch. 38.

Phyle, in Attica, ii. Lysander, chs. 21, 27; iv. Demetrius, ch. 23.

Phyllius, a Spartan, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 28.

Physkon. _See_ Fusco.

Phytalid race, or Phytalidæ, in Attica, i. Theseus, ch. 12.

Picenum and Picentines, in Italy, ii, Marcellus, ch. 4; iii. Crassus, ch. 10; Pompeius, ch. 6.

Picinæ, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

Pictor, Fabius, the historian, i. Romulus, chs. 3, 9, 14; Fabius, ch. 18.

Picus, a demigod, i. Numa, ch. 4.

Pierion, a poet, iii. Alexander, ch. 50.

Pigres, iii. Eumenes, ch. 6.

Pinarii, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Pinarius, i. Comparison of Lykurgus and Numa, ch. 3.

——, Carpus, L., iv. Antonius, ch. 69, note.

Pinarus, a river of Cilicia, iii. Alexander, ch. 20.

Pindar, i. Theseus, ch. 28; Romulus, ch. 28; Lykurgus, ch. 20; Numa, ch. 4; Themistokles, ch. 8; ii. Marcellus, chs. 21, 29; Marius, ch. 29; iii. Nikias, ch. 1; Alexander, ch. 11; iv. Demetrius, ch. 42; Aratus, ch. 1.

Pindarus, freedman of Cassius, iv. Antonius, ch. 22; Brutus, ch. 43.

Pinus, son of Numa, ancestor of the Pinarii, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Pisa, in Elis, i. Perikles, ch. 2.

Pisaurum, in Umbria, iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

Pisidians, i. Themistokles, ch. 30; iii. Alexander. ch. 18.

Pisis of Thespia, iv. Demetrius, ch. 39.

Piso, called Caius by Plutarch, really Lucius, a historian, i. Numa, ch. 21; ii. Marius, ch. 45.

——, consul B.C. 67, iii. Pompeius, ch. 27; Cæsar, ch. 7; iv. Cicero, ch. 19.

——, Marcus Pupius, consul B.C. 61, iii. Pompeius, ch. 43; Cato Minor, ch. 30.

649 Piso, L, Calpurnius, consul B.C. 58, father-in-law of Cæsar, iii. Pompeius, chs. 47, 48; Cæsar, chs. 14, 37; Cato Minor, ch. 34; iv. Cicero, chs. 30, 31.

——, Frugi, C. Calpurnius, Cicero’s son-in-law, iv. Cicero, chs. 31, 41.

——, adopted by Galba, iv. Galba, chs. 23, 25, 27, 28.

Pissuthnes, a Persian, i. Perikles, ch. 25.

Pitane, ii. Lucullus, ch. 3.

Pittakus, despot of Mitylene, i. Solon, ch. 14.

Pittheus, father, of Æthra, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 4, 7, 19.

Pityussa, island near Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 7.

Pixodarus of Karia, iii. Alexander, ch. 10.

Placentia, in Italy, iv. Otho, ch. 6.

Plancus, Titus Munatius, Bursa, iii. Pompeius, ch. 55; Cato Minor, ch. 48; iv. Cicero, ch. 25.

——, Lucius Munatius, Bursa, brother of the preceding, iv. Antonius, chs. 18, 58; Brutus, ch. 19.

Platæa and Platæans, i. Themistokles, ch. 16; Camillus, ch. 19; Æmilius, ch. 25; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 15, 25; Aristeides, chs. 1, 5, 11, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21; Comparison, chs. 2, 5; Flamininus, ch. 11; Lysander, ch. 28; Comparison, ch. 4; Kimon, ch. 13; iii. Alexander, chs. 11, 34; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Plato, comic poet, i. Themistokles, ch. 32; Perikles, chs. 4, 7; Alkibiades, ch. 13; iii. Nikias, ch. 11; iv. Antonius, ch. 70.

——, the philosopher, i. Comparison of Romulus and Theseus, ch. 1; Lykurgus, chs. 5, 7, 15, 16, 28, 29; Numa, chs. 8, 11, 20; Solon, chs. 2, 26, 31, 32; Themistokles, chs. 4, 32; Perikles, chs. 8, 15, 24; Alkibiades, chs. 1, 4; Coriolanus, ch. 15; Comparison, ch. 3; Timoleon, ch. 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 18; Marcellus, ch. 14; Aristeides, chs. 1, 25; Cato Major, chs. 2, 7; Philopœmen, ch. 14; Marius, chs. 2. 46; Lysander, chs. 2, 18; Lucullus, ch. 2; Comparison, chs. 1, 2; iii. Nikias, chs. 1, 23; Phokion, 34; Cato Minor, ch. 68; iv. Comparison of Agis and Kleomenes and the Gracchi, ch. 2; Demosthenes, ch. 5; Cicero, chs. 2, 24; Comparison, ch. 3; Demetrius, chs. 1, 32; Antonius, chs. 29, 36; Dion, chs. 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 18-22, 24, 52, 53; Galba, ch. 1.

Pleistarchus, brother of Kassander, iv. Demetrius, chs. 31, 32.

Pleistinus, brother of Faustulus, i. Romulus, ch. 10.

Pleistoanax, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 19; Perikles, ch. 22; iv. Agis, ch. 3.

Plemmyrium, in Sicily, iii. Nikias. ch. 20.

Plotinus, iii. Crassus, ch. 1.

Plutarchus of Eretria, iii. Phokion, chs. 12, 13.

Po, or Padus, the river, in Greek Eridanus, i. Romulus, ch. 17; ii. Marcellus, ch. 6; Marius, ch. 24; iii. Crassus, ch. 9; Pompeius, ch. 16; Cæsar, chs. 20, 21, 25; iv. Brutus, ch. 19; Otho, chs. 5, 10.

Polemarchus, iii. Alexander, ch. 69.

Polemon, a Macedonian, iii. Eumenes, ch. 8.

——, king of Pontus, iv. Antonius, chs. 38, 61.

——, a geographer, iv. Aratus, ch. 13.

Poliarchus, i. Themistokles, ch. 19.

Pollichus, a Syracusan, iii. Nikias, ch. 24.

Pollio, Asinius, friend of Cæsar, iii. Pompeius, ch. 72; Cæsar, chs. 32, 46, 52; Cato Minor, ch. 53; iv. Antonius, ch. 9.

——, prefect of the Prætorians, iv, Otho, ch. 18.

Pollis, a Spartan, iv. Dion, ch. 5.

650 Polus of Ægina, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28.

Polyænus, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 10.

Polyalkes, i. Perikles, ch. 30.

Polybius, the historian, i. Æmilius, chs. 15, 16, 18; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 17; Comparison, ch. 1; Cato Major, chs. 9, 10; Philopœmen, chs. 16, 21; Flamininus, ch. 8, (note on Macedonian phalanx); iv. Kleomenes, chs. 25, 27; Tib. Gracchus, ch. 4; Brutus, ch. 4; Aratus, ch. 38.

Polydektes, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, chs. 1, 2.

Polydorus, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, chs. 6, 8.

Polyeuktus, son of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

——, of Sphettus, iii. Phokion, chs. 5, 9; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 10, 13, 21.

Polygnotus, the painter, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Polygnotus’s tower, iv. Aratus, chs. 6, 7.

Polyidus, a Platæan hero, ii. Aristeides, ch. 11.

Polykleitus, the sculptor, i. Perikles, ch. 2.

——, a historian, iii. Alexander, ch. 46.

——, a favourite of Nero, iv. Galba, ch. 17.

Polykrates of Samos, i. Perikles, ch. 26; ii. Lysander, ch. 9; compare i. Camillus, ch. 37, note.

——, of Sikyon, friend of Plutarch, iv. Aratus, ch. 1.

——, son of the preceding, _ibidem_.

Polykratidas, i. Lykurgus, ch. 24.

Polykrite, grand-daughter of Aristeides, ii. Aristeides, ch. 27.

Polykritus of Mende, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 21.

Polymachus of Pella. _See_ Polemarchus.

Polymedes, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 23.

Polyphron, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 29.

Polysperchon, one of those who killed Kallippus, iv. Dion, ch. 58, where the text has Polyperchon.

——, Alexander’s general, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 8; iii. Eumenes, chs. 12, 13; Phokion. chs. 31, 32, 33; iv. Demetrius, ch. 9.

Polystratus, present at the death of Darius, iii. Alexander, ch. 43.

Polytion, companion of Alkibiades, i. Alkibiades, chs. 19, 22.

Polyxenus, married to a sister of Dionysius the elder, iv. Dion, ch. 21.

Polyzelus, brother of the despot Gelon, iii. Nikias, ch. 27.

——, of Rhodes, i. Solon, ch. 15.

Pomaxathres, iii. Crassus, ch. 33.

Pomentium, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58.

Pompædius Sillo, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 2.

Pompeia, wife of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, chs. 5, 9, 10; iv. Cicero, ch. 28.

Pompeii, in Campania, iv. Cicero, ch. 8.

——, the, a Roman family, ii. Marius, ch. 1.

Pompeius, Aulus, a tribune, ii. Marius, ch. 17.

——, Strabo, Cnæus, father of Pompeius the Great, iii. Pompeius chs. 1, 4.

——, Cnæus, the Great, iii. Life and Comparison with Agesilaus; _see_ also ii. Sulla, chs. 28, 33, 38; Comparison, ch. 2; Lucullus, chs. 1, 4, 35, 36, 38-40; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Crassus, chs. 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 21; Comparison, ch. 3; Sertorius, chs. 1, 12, 15, 18-21, 27; Comparison, ch. 2; Cæsar, chs. 5, 14, 21, 23, 28, 29, 33-46, 48, 56, 57, 69; Cato Minor, chs. 10, 13, 14, 25, 29, 30, 41-43, 45-48, 52-56; iv. Cicero, chs. 8, 9, 12, 18, 27, 30, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40; Comparison, ch. 3; Antonius, chs. 5, 6, 8, 10, 21, 33, 62; Brutus, chs. 4, 6, 9, 11, 14, 17, 25, 29, 33, 40; 651Comparison, ch. 4. The day of his death is given in i. Camillus, ch. 19; and his name occurs in i. Numa, ch. 19; iii. Alexander, ch. 1; iv. Otho, ch. 9.

Pompeius, Cnæus, son of Pompeius the Great, iii. Pompeius, ch. 62; Cato Minor, chs. 55, 59; iv. Antonius, ch. 25.

——, Sextus, younger son of Pompeius the Great, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 56; iv. Antonius, chs. 32, 35, 55.

——, Sextus, nephew of Pompeius the Great, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 3.

——, Quintus, consul B.C. 88, ii. Sulla, chs. 6, 8.

——, an opponent of Tib. Gracchus, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 14.

Pompilia, daughter of Numa, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Pompilius. _See_ Numa.

Pompo, son of Numa, ancestor of the Pomponii, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Pomponia, wife of Quintus Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 49.

Pomponius, father of Numa, i. Numa, ch. 3.

Pomponii, the, i. Numa, ch. 21.

Pomponius, prætor in the year of the battle of Thrasymene, i. Fabius, ch. 3.

——, a friend of C. Gracchus, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 16.

——, taken by Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 15.

Pontius, ii. Sulla, ch. 27.

——, Cominius, who climbed the Capitol, i. Camillus, chs. 25, 26.

——, Glaucus, iv. Cicero, ch. 2.

Pontus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 11; ii. Aristeides, ch. 26; Marius, chs. 11 (Pontic Scythia), 31; Lysander, ch. 26; Sulla, chs. 11, 24; Lucullus, chs. 10, 13, 23, 24, 33-35; iii. Sertorius, ch. 23; Eumenes, ch. 3 (the Euxine sea); Pompeius, chs. 31, 34, 41, 44; Cæsar, chs. 50, 55, 58 (the Euxine); Cato Minor, ch. 31; iv. Demetrius, ch. 4; Antonius, ch. 29; Galba, chs. 13, 15. The Pontic trumpeter, ii. Lucullus, ch. 10. _See_ also the Euxine. Pontus signifies sometimes the sea, and sometimes the kingdom on its Asiatic shore.

Popilius Lænas, C., concerned in killing Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 48.

——, an opponent of the Gracchi, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 4.

——, Lænas, a senator, iv. Brutus, chs. 15, 16.

——, Caius, iii. Cæsar, ch. 5.

Publius Valerius Publicola, or Poplicola, i. Life and Comparison with Solon; i. Romulus, ch. 16; Coriolanus, ch. 33.

——, Marcus Valerius, brother of Poplicola, i. Poplicola, ch. 14.

Poppæa, wife of Crispinus, Otho, and Nero, iv. Galba, ch. 19; a name given to Sporus, iv. Galba, ch. 9.

Porcia, sister of Cato Minor, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 2, 41.

——, daughter of Cato Minor, wife of Brutus, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 25, 73; iv. Brutus, chs. 13, 15, 23, 53.

Porcii, the, i. Poplicola, ch. 11. The Basilica Porcia, ii. Cato Major, ch. 19; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 5.

Porcius, i.e. Cato’s son, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 73. _See_ Cato.

Porsena, king of Clusium, i. Poplicola, chs. 16-19; Comparison, ch. 4.

Porus, an Indian king, iii. Alexander, chs. 60, 61, 62.

Poseidonia or Pæstum, ii. Kimon, ch. 18.

Poseidonius, historian of Perseus, i. Æmilius, chs. 19, 21.

——, of Rhodes, philosopher and historian, i. Fabius, ch. 19; ii. Marcellus, chs. 1, 9, 20, 30; Marius, chs. 1. 45; iii. Pompeius, ch. 42; iv. Cicero, ch. 4; Brutus, ch. 1.

652 Postuma, or Posthuma, Sulla’s daughter, ii. Sulla, ch. 37.

Postumius Balbus, i. Poplicola, ch. 22.

——, Tubertus, i. Poplicola, ch. 20.

——, Tubertus, i. Camillus, ch. 2.

——, Spurius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 8.

——, a soothsayer, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

——, _See_ Livius and Albinus.

Postumus, a surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, in Greek Opsigonus, i.e. Mucius Scævola, i. Poplicola, ch. 17.

Potamon of Lesbos, historian, iii. Alexander, ch. 61.

Potamus, ii. Aristeides, ch. 27.

Potheinus, the eunuch, iii. Pompeius, chs. 77, 80; Cæsar, chs. 48, 49; iv. Antonius, ch. 60.

Potidæa, i. Perikles, ch. 29; Alkibiades, ch. 7; iii. Alexander, ch. 3.

Potitus, Valerius, envoy to Delphi, i. Camillus, ch. 8.

Præcia, i. Lucullus, ch. 6.

Præneste, in Latium, i. Camillus, ch. 37; ii. Marius, ch. 46; Sulla, chs. 28, 29, 32.

Præsiæ, an Indian people, iii. Alexander, ch. 62.

Pranichus, a poet, iii. Alexander, ch. 50.

Praxagoras, a Neapolitan, iii. Pompeius, ch. 57.

Praxiergidæ, Attic priestly family, i. Alkibiades, ch. 34.

Priam, king of Troy, iv. Agis, ch. 9.

Priene, in Ionia, i. Solon, ch. 4; Perikles, ch. 25; iv. Antonius, ch. 57.

Prima, daughter of Romulus, i. Romulus, ch. 14.

Priscus, name of Cato, ii. Cato Major, ch. 1.

——, Helvidius, iv. Galba, ch. 28.

Proculeius, a friend of Augustus, iv. Antonius, chs. 77, 78, 79.

Proculus, a surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Proculus, Julius, i. Romulus, ch. 28; Numa, chs. 2, 5.

——, Otho’s general and prefect of the Prætorians, iv. Otho, chs. 7, 8, 11, 13.

Prokles, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Prokounessus, or Procounesus, an island in the Propontis, i. Romulus, ch. 28; Alkibiades, ch. 28.

Prokroustes, name of Damastes, i. Theseus, ch. 10; Comparison, ch. 1.

Prolyta, daughter of Agesilaus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19.

Promachus, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 70.

Promathion, a historian, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Prometheus, in Æschylus, Pompeius, ch. 1.

Prophantus, a Sikyonian, iv. Aratus, ch. 2.

Propontis, ii. Lucullus, ch. 6.

Protagoras, the sophist, i. Perikles, ch. 36; iii. Nikias, ch. 23.

Proteus, iii. Alexander, ch. 39.

Prothous, a Lacedæmonian, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 28.

Prothytes, a Theban, iii. Alexander, ch. 11.

Protis, founder of Marseilles, i. Solon, ch. 2.

Protogenes of Kaunus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 2.

Protus, a pilot, iv. Dion, ch. 25.

Proxenus, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 57.

Prusias, king of Bithynia, ii. Flamininus, ch. 20.

Prytanis, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Psammon, an Egyptian philosopher, iii. Alexander, ch. 27.

Psenophis of Heliopolis, i. Solon, ch. 26.

Psiltukis, island in the Indian Sea, iii. Alexander, ch. 66.

Psyche, wife of Marphadates, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 73.

653 Psylli, in Libya, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 56.

Psyttaleia, near Salamis, ii. Aristeides, ch. 9.

Ptœodorus of Megara, iv. Dion, ch. 17.

Ptolemais, daughter of Ptolemæus Lagous, married to Demetrius, iv. Demetrius, chs. 32, 46, 53.

Ptolemæus I., Soter, son of Lagous, Alexander’s general, king of Egypt, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 4, 6, 11; iii. Eumenes, chs. 1, 5; Alexander, chs. 10, 38, 46; iv. Demetrius, chs. 5-9, 15-19, 21, 22, 25, 31, 35, 38, 44; Comparison, ch. 3; also, Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, II., Philadelphus, king of Egypt, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 8; iv. Aratus, chs. 4, 12, 15, 41; also, Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, III., Euergetes I., king of Egypt, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 8; iv. Agis, ch. 7; Kleomenes, chs. 19, 22, 31, 33; Aratus, chs. 24, 41; also, Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, IV., Philopator, king of Egypt, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 33-38; Demetrius, ch. 43.

——, V., Epiphanes, king of Egypt, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 13.

——, VII., Physkon or Euergetes II., king of Egypt, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 1; also, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, VIII., Lathyrus, king of Egypt, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

——, XI., Auletes, king of Egypt, ii. Lucullus, chs. 2, 3; Pompeius, ch. 49; Cato Minor, chs. 34, 35; iv. Antonius, ch. 3.

——, XII., son of the preceding, brother of Cleopatra, king of Egypt, iii. Pompeius, chs. 77, 79; compare Cæsar, chs. 48, 49.

——, king of Cyprus, son of Lathyrus, brother of Auletes, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 34, 35, 36; iv. Brutus, ch. 3.

——, prefect of Alexandria, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 37.

Ptolemæus, cousin of Antigonus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 10.

——, son of Antonius and Cleopatra, iv. Antonius, ch. 54.

——, son of Chrysermas, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 36, 37.

——, Keraunus, king of Macedonia, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 22.

——, king of Macedonia, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 26.

——, attendant on Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 17.

——, son of Pyrrhus, ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 9, 28, 30.

——, a soothsayer, iv. Galba, ch. 23.

Plotiüm, in Bœotia, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 16.

Publicus Bibulus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 27.

Publicola. _See_ Poplicola.

——, lieutenant of Antonius at Actium, iv. Antonius, ch. 65.

Publicia, iv. Cicero, ch. 41, note.

Puteoli. _See_ Dikæarchia.

Pydna, in Macedonia, i. Themistokles, ch. 25; Æmilius, chs. 16, 23, 24; iii. Alexander, ch. 48.

Pylades, a musician, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 11.

Pylius, an Athenian, i. Theseus, ch. 33.

Pylos, harbour in Messenia, i. Alkibiades, ch. 14; Coriolanus, ch. 14; iii. Nikias, chs. 7, 9, 10; Comparison, chs. 2, 3.

Pyramia, in Thyreatis, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 32.

Pyramus, river, iii. Alexander, ch. 20.

Pyrenees, i. Camillus, ch. 15; iii. Sertorius, chs. 7, 15, 18.

Pyrilampes, an Athenian, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Pyrrha, wife of Deukalion, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Pyrrhus, surname of Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

——, son of Neoptolemus, king of Epirus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

——, king of Epirus, ii. Life and 654Comparison with Marius; ii. Cato Major, ch. 2; Flamininus, chs. 5, 20, 21; iii. Sertorius, ch. 23; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 18; Demetrius, chs. 25, 31, 36, 40, 41, 43, 44, 46; Otho, ch. 15.

Pythagoras, the philosopher, i. Numa, chs. 1, 8, 22; Æmilius, ch. 2; iii. Alexander, ch. 65; Pythagorean sect, i. Numa, chs. 11, 14, 22; ii. Cato Major, ch. 2; Dion, chs. 11, 18.

——, the soothsayer, iii. Alexander, ch. 73.

Pytheas, an Athenian orator, iii. Phokion, ch. 21; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 8, 20, 27; Comparison, ch. 1.

Pythium, i. Æmilius, ch. 15.

Pythodorus, i. Themistokles, ch. 26.

——, the torchbearer, iv. Demetrius, ch. 26.

Pythokles, condemned with Phokion, iii. Phokion, ch. 35.

——, descended from Aratus, iv. Aratus, ch. 1.

Pythokleides, a musician, i. Perikles, ch. 3.

Pytholaus, one of Thebe’s three brothers, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 35.

Pythian games, the, i. Solon, ch. 11; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 34; Lysander, ch. 18; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19; iv. Demetrius, ch. 40.

Pythia, the, i. Theseus, ch. 26; Lykurgus, ch. 5; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 19; Cicero, ch. 5; compare iii. Alexander, ch. 14.

Python, the dragon, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 16.

——, a flute-player, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 8.

——, an officer of Alexander, iii. Alexander, ch. 75.

——, of Byzantium, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 9.

Pythonike, mistress of Harpalus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 22.

Pythopolis, in Bithynia, i. Theseus, ch. 26.

Quadrans, a coin, i. Poplicola, ch. 23.

Quadrantaria. _See_ Clodia.

Quinda, the treasure town in Cilicia, iii. Eumenes, ch. 13; iv. Demetrius, ch. 32.

Quintio, Cato’s freedman, ii. Cato Major, ch. 21.

Quintius Capitolinus, in text Quintus, i. Camillus, ch. 36.

——, Lucius, tribune and prætor, ii. Lucullus, chs. 5, 33.

——, Titus, Flamininus. _See_ Flamininus.

——, Lucius, brother of Flamininus, ii. Cato Major, ch. 17; Flamininus, chs. 18, 19.

Quirinal Flamen, i. Numa, ch. 7.

——, hill, i. Romulus, ch. 29; Numa, ch. 14.

Quirinus, i. Romulus, chs. 28, 29; Numa, ch. 2; Camillus, ch. 20; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8.

Quirites, i. Romulus, ch. 29; Numa, ch. 3.

Ratumena, gate of Rome, i. Poplicola, ch. 13.

Ravenna, in Gaul, ii. Marius, ch. 2.

Regia, at Rome, i. Romulus, ch. 29; Numa, ch. 14.

Remonium, or Remonia, on the Aventine, i. Romulus, ch. 9.

Remus, brother of Romulus, i. Romulus, chs. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11; Comparison, chs. 3, 5.

Revilius, Caius Caninius, consul for a day, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58.

Rex, Marcius, husband of Tertia, iv. Cicero, ch. 29.

——, a surname of the Mamerci, or Mamercii (Marcii), i. Numa, ch. 21.

Rhadamanthus, i. Theseus, ch. 16; ii. Lysander, ch. 28.

Rhamnenses, Roman tribe, i. Romulus, ch. 20.

Rhamnus, in Attica, iii. Phokion, ch. 25; iv. Demetrius, ch. 33.

655 Rhamnus, freedman of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 48.

Rhea, daughter of Numitor, i. Romulus, ch. 3.

——, mother of Sertorius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 2.

Rhegium, and Rhegines, i. Fabius, ch. 22; Alkibiades, ch. 20; Timoleon, chs. 9, 10, 11, 19; iii. Crassus, ch. 10; iv. Dion, chs. 26, 58.

Rhenea, iii. Nikias, ch. 3.

Rhine, or Rhenus, iii. Cæsar, chs. 18, 19, 22; iv. Otho, ch. 12.

Rhodes and Rhodians, i. Themistokles, ch. 21; Perikles, ch. 17; ii. Marius, ch. 29; Lucullus, chs. 2, 3; iii. Pompeius, ch. 42; Alexander, ch. 32; Cæsar, ch. 3; Phokion, ch. 18; Cato Minor, chs. 35, 54; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 24; Cicero, chs. 4, 36, 38; Demetrius, chs. 21, 22, 24; Brutus, chs. 3, 30, 32.

Rhodogoune, daughter of Artaxerxes, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 27.

Rhodon, tutor of Cæsarion, iv. Antonius, ch. 81.

Rhœsakes, a Persian at Athens, ii. Kimon, ch. 10.

——, a Persian at the Granikus, iii. Alexander, ch. 16.

Rhœteum, in Arcadia, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 23.

Rhone, or Rhodanus, i. Solon, ch. 2; ii. Marius, ch. 15; iii. Sertorius, ch. 3; Cæsar, ch. 17.

Rhossus, in Syria, iv. Demetrius, ch. 32.

Rhus, at Megara, i. Theseus, ch. 27.

Rhymnitalkes, the Thracian, i. Romulus, ch. 17.

Rhyndakus, river in Bithynia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 11.

Rhyntakes, a bird, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 19.

Rignarium, or Remonium, i. Romulus, ch. 9.

Riphæan mountains, i. Camillus, ch. 15.

Roma, a Trojan woman, i. Romulus, ch. 2; Roma, wife of Latinus, and Roma, daughter of Italus, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Romanus, son of Ulysses, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Rome and Romans, frequent. _See_ also under Latins. Roma Quadrata, i. Romulus, ch. 9; Grecian and Roman learning, iii. Sertorius, ch. 14; Roman months, i. Romulus, chs. 12, 21, 27; Numa, chs. 2, 18, 19; iii. Cæsar, chs. 37, 59, 63.

Romulus, i. Life and Comparison with Theseus; Theseus, chs. 1, 2; Numa, chs. 2, 5, 16, 18, 19; Poplicola, chs. 7, 6; Camillus, chs. 31, 32, 33; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8; iii. Pompeius, ch. 25; Phokion, ch. 3.

Romus, king of the Latins; and Romus, son of Hemathion, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Roscius, two brothers of the name, iii. Crassus, ch. 31.

——, defended by Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 3.

——, the actor, ii. Sulla, ch. 36; iv. Cicero, ch. 5.

——, L. Roscius Otho, opponent of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 25.

Roxana, wife of Alexander, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 4; Alexander, chs. 47, 77.

——, sister of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 18.

Roxanes, a Persian, i. Themistokles, ch. 29.

Rubicon, iii. Pompeius, ch. 60; Cæsar, chs. 20, 32.

Rubrius, Marcus, with Cato at Utica, iii. Cato Minor chs. 62, 63.

——, tribune of the people, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 10.

——, prætor in Macedonia, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 9.

Rufinus, Sulla’s ancestor, ii. Sulla, ch. 1.

656 Rufus, Claudius, iv. Otho, ch. 3.

——, Lucius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 19.

——, Virginius, commanding in Germany, iv. Galba, chs. 6, 10, 18, 22; Otho, chs. 1, 18.

Rullus Maximus, Fabius, i. Fabius, ch. 1; iii. Pompeius, ch. 13.

Rumilia, and the fig-tree Ruminalis, i. Romulus, ch. 4.

Rustius (Roscius?), iii. Crassus, ch. 32.

Rutilius, the historian, consul B.C. 105, ii. Marius, chs. 10. 28; iii. Pompeius, ch. 37.

Sabaco, Cassius, friend of Marius, ii. Marius, ch. 5.

Sabbas, an Indian king, iii. Alexander, ch. 64.

Sabines, a people of Italy, i. Romulus, chs. 14-21, 23, 29; Comparison, chs. 1, 4; Numa, chs. 1-3, 6, 17; Poplicola, chs. 1, 14, 20-22; Coriolanus, chs. 5, 33; ii. Cato Major, ch. 1; iii. Sertorius, ch. 2; Pompeius, ch. 4; Cæsar, ch. 1.

Sabinus, friend of Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 25.

——, Calvisius, in Caligula’s time, iv. Galba, ch. 12.

——, Flavius, Vespasian’s brother, iv. Otho, ch. 5.

——, Nymphidius, prefect of the prætorian guard, iv. Galba, chs. 2, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 23, 29.

——, Q. Titurius, officer in Cæsar’s army, iii. Cæsar, ch. 24.

Sacculio, a buffoon, iv. Brutus, ch. 45.

Sadalas, king of Thrace, iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Sagra, in Italy, i. Æmilius, ch. 25.

Saguntum, in Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 21.

Sais, in Egypt, i. Solon, ch. 26.

Salamis, island near Athens, i. Theseus, chs. 10, 17; Solon, chs. 8-10, 12, 31; Comparison, ch. 4; Themistokles, chs. 10, 12-14; Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21; Aristeides, chs. 8, 9, 10, 16; Cato Major, ch. 5; Comparison, ch. 2; Flamininus, ch. 11; Lysander, chs. 9, 15; Kimon, chs. 4, 5, 13; iii. Alexander, ch. 29; Phokion, ch. 32; iv. Aratus, chs. 24, 34; Salaminian trireme, the, i. Perikles, ch. 7; compare i. Themistokles, ch. 7; Alkibiades, ch. 21.

——, in Cyprus, iii. Alexander, ch. 34; iv. Demetrius, chs. 16, 35.

Salii, Roman priests, i. Numa, chs. 12, 13.

Salinator, Julius, iii. Sertorius, ch. 7.

Salinæ, in Campania, iii. Crassus, ch. 9.

Salius, a dancing-master, i. Numa, ch. 13.

Sallustius, the historian, ii. Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 3; Lucullus, chs. 11, 33.

Sallutio, Scipio, iii. Cæsar, ch. 52.

Salonius, a clerk, client and father-in-law of Cato Major, ii. Cato Major, ch. 24.

——, or Salonianus, Cato, son of Cato Major, ii. Cato Major, chs. 24, 27.

Salovius, leader of the Pelignians, i. Æmilius, ch. 20.

Saluvii, ii. Marius, ch. 18, note.

Salvenius, soldier of Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Salvius, a centurion, one of Pompeius’s murderers, iii. Pompeius, chs. 78, 79.

Samnites, a people of Italy, ii. Marcellus, ch. 24; Cato Major, ch. 2; Pyrrhus, chs. 13, 20, 21, 24; Sulla, ch. 29; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 7.

Samon, an Epirot, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 5.

Samos and Samians, in Ionia, i. Themistokles, ch. 2; Perikles, chs. 8, 24, 25, 26, 28; Comparison, ch. 2; Alkibiades, chs. 25, 26, 35; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 2; 657Aristeides, chs. 23, 25; Lysander, chs. 5, 6, 8, 14, 18; Kimon, ch. 9; Lucullus, ch. 3; iii. Alexander, ch. 28; iv. Antonius, ch. 56; Brutus, ch. 2.

Samosata, in Commagene, iv. Antonius, ch. 34.

Samothrace, in the Ægean, i. Numa, ch. 13; Camillus, ch. 20; Æmilius, chs. 23, 26; ii. Marcellus, ch. 30; Lucullus, ch. 13; iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; Alexander, ch. 2.

Sandauke, sister of Xerxes, i. Themistokles, ch. 13; ii. Aristeides, ch. 9.

Sandon, father of Athenodorus, i. Poplicola, ch. 17.

Sapha, in Mesopotamia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 22.

Sappho, the poetess, iv. Demetrius, ch. 38.

Sardinia, ii. Cato Major, ch. 6; iii. Pompeius, chs. 16, 26, 50, 66; Cæsar, ch. 21; iv. Caius Gracchus, chs. 1, 2; Comparison, ch. 3; Antonius, ch. 32; Sardonic laugh, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 12; Sardinians for sale, i. Romulus, ch. 25.

Sardis, in Lydia, i. Solon, chs. 27, 28; Themistokles, chs. 29, 31; Alkibiades, ch. 27; ii. Aristeides, ch. 5; Lysander, chs. 4, 6, 9; iii. Eumenes, ch. 8; Agesilaus, chs. 10, 11; Pompeius, ch. 37; Alexander, ch. 17; Phokion, ch. 18; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 20; Demetrius, ch. 46; Brutus, chs. 34, 35.

Sarmentus, Cæsar’s page, iv. Antonius, ch. 59.

Sarpedon, Cato’s tutor, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 1, 3.

Satibarzanes, eunuch of Artaxerxes, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 12.

Satiphernes, a Persian, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 11.

Satrapeni, a corrupt reading, probably Atropateni, ii. Lucullus, ch. 31.

Satria, in Latium, i. Camillus, ch. 37.

Satureius, Publius, tribune of the people, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 19.

Saturninus, Lucius, ii. Marius, chs. 14. 28. 29. 30; Comparison of Lysander and Sulla, ch. 1.

Satyrus, a Corinthian, i. Timoleon, ch. 4.

——, the actor, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 7.

Scæva, Cassius, soldier of Cæsar, iii. Cæsar, ch. 16.

Scævola, Mucius, i. Poplicola, ch. 17.

——, Mucius, the lawyer, ii. Sulla, ch. 36; Tib. Gracchus, ch. 9.

Scauri, iv. Cicero, ch. 1.

Scaurus, former husband of Metella, Sulla’s wife, ii. Sulla, ch. 23; iii. Pompeius, ch. 9.

Scipio, Cornelius, master of the knights to Camillus, i. Camillus, ch. 5.

——, Cnæus Cornelius, ii. Marcellus, chs. 6, 7.

——, Africanus, Cornelius, the elder, i. Fabius, chs. 25, 26, 27; Comparison, ch. 2; Æmilius, chs. 2, 5; ii. Comparison of Pelopidas and Marcellus, ch. 1; Cato Major, chs. 3, 11, 15, 24; Comparison, chs. 1, 2, 5; Flamininus, chs. 3, 18, 21; Pyrrhus, ch. 8; Marius, ch. 1; iii. Crassus, ch. 26; Pompeius, ch. 14; iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 1, 4, 8, 17; C. Gracchus, ch. 19; Galba, ch. 29.

——, Africanus, the younger, son of Æmilius Paulus (Æmilianus), i. Romulus, ch. 27; Æmilius, chs. 5, 22; ii. Cato Major, chs. 15, 26; Marius, chs. 3. 12. 13; Lucullus, ch. 28; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 7; iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 1, 4, 7, 8, 13, 21; C. Gracchus, ch. 10.

——, Lucius, Asiaticus, brother of the elder Africanus, ii. Cato Major, chs. 15, 18; Flamininus, ch. 21; Lucullus, ch. 11; iii. Crassus, ch. 26.

658 Scipio, Lucius Cornelius, Asiaticus, consul B.C. 83, ii. Sulla, ch. 28; iii. Sertorius, ch. 6; Pompeius, ch. 7.

——, Nasica, Publius, son-in-law of the elder Africanus, i. Æmilius, chs. 15-18, 22, 26; ii. Marcellus, ch. 5; Cato Major, ch. 27.

——, Nasica, Publius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, chs. 13, 19, 20, 21.

——, Sallutio, iii. Cæsar, ch. 52.

——, Metellus (Quintus Cæcilius Metellus Pius Scipio, prætor, B.C. 94), father-in-law of Pompeius, (_see_ Metellus), iii. Pompeius, chs. 62, 66, 67, 69, 76; Comparison, chs. 1, 4; Cæsar, chs. 16, 30, 39, 42, 44, 52, 53, 55; Cato Minor, chs. 7, 47, 56-58, 60, 67, 68, 70-72; iv. Cicero, ch. 15; Brutus, ch. 6; Otho, ch. 13.

Scipios, iii. Sertorius, ch. 1; Pompeius, ch. 8; Cæsar, chs. 15, 52.

Scotussa, or Skotussa, in Thessaly, i. Theseus, ch. 27; Æmilius, ch. 8; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 29; Flamininus, ch. 7; iii. Pompeius, ch. 68; Cæsar, ch. 43.

Scribonia, mother of Piso, iv. Galba, ch. 23.

Scrofa, quæstor with Crassus, iii. Crassus, ch. 11.

Scylla and Charybdis, iv. Dion, ch. 18.

Scythes, slave of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 78.

Scythia and Scythians, i. Theseus, ch. 1; ii. Marius, ch. 11; Sulla, ch. 16; iii. Crassus, chs. 21, 24; Pompeius, chs. 41, 45, 70; Alexander, chs. 45. 46; Cæsar, ch. 58; iv. Demetrius, ch. 19.

Secundus, Otho’s secretary, iv. Otho, ch. 9.

Seleukia, or Seleukeia, on the Tigris, ii. Lucullus, ch. 22; iii. Crassus, chs. 17, 18, 21, 32.

——, or Seleukeia, in Syria, or Cilicia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 77.

Selenkus I., Nikator, general of Alexander and king of Syria, i. Æmilius, 33; ii. Cato Major, ch. 12; Lucullus, ch. 14; iii. Alexander, chs. 42. 62. 76; iv. Demetrius, chs. 7, 18, 25, 29, 31-33, 38, 44, 46-53.

Seleukus II., Kallinikus, iv. Agis, chs. 3,7, 1.

——, Cleopatra’s steward, iv. Antonius, chs. 74, 83.

Selinus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 19.

Sellasia, in Laconia, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 6; iv. Agis, ch. 8; Kleomenes, chs. 23, 27, 31; Aratus, ch. 46.

Selymbria, in Thrace, i. Alkibiades, ch. 30.

Sempronius, Tiberius, ii. Cato Major, ch. 12.

——, Densus, iv. Galba, ch. 26.

Seneca, the philosopher, iv. Galba, ch. 20.

Senecio, Sossius. _See_ Sossius.

Senones, a tribe of Gauls, i. Camillus, ch. 15.

Sentius, governor of Macedonia, ii. Sulla, ch. 11.

Septimius, a tribune, one of Pompeius’s murderers, iii. Pompeius, chs. 78, 79.

——, iv. Galba, ch. 14.

Septimuleius, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 17.

Sequani, a tribe of Gauls, ii. Marius, ch. 24; iii. Cæsar, chs. 20, 26.

Serapion, a boy, iii, Alexander, ch. 39.

Serbonian Marsh, iv. Antonius, ch. 3.

Sergius, an actor, iv. Antonius, ch. 9.

Seriphus, in the Ægean, i. Themistokles, ch. 18.

Serranus, in text Soranus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 7.

Sertorius, Quintus, iii. Life and Comparison with Eumenes; ii. Marius, chs. 1. 44; Lucullus, chs. 5, 6, 8, 12; iii. Crassus, ch. 11; Pompeius, chs. 17-20, 31.

Servii, iv. Galba, ch. 3.

Servilia, sister of Cato Minor, 659mother of Marcus Brutus, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 1, 2, 5, 53; iv. Brutus, chs. 1, 21, 24, 25, 29, 53.

Servilia, another sister of Cato Minor, wife of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 38; iii. Cato Minor, chs. 24, 29, 54.

Servilii, iii. Cæsar, ch. 62.

Servilius, Ahala, iv. Brutus, ch. 1.

——, the augur, ii. Lucullus, ch. 1.

——, Cæpio, iii. Pompeius, ch. 47; Cæsar, ch. 14.

——, Cæpio, Cato’s half-brother, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 1, 2, 3, 8, 11, 15.

——, Vatia Isauricus, P., consul B.C. 79, iii. Cæsar, ch. 7; and probably ii. Sulla, ch. 28; iii. Pompeius, ch. 14.

—-, Isauricus, consul B.C. 48, son of preceding, iii. Cæsar, ch. 37.

——, Marcus, a consular, i. Æmilius, ch. 31.

——, a prætor, ii. Sulla, ch. 9.

——, lieutenant of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 34.

Servius Tullius, king of Rome, i. Numa, ch. 10.

——, ii. Sulla, ch. 10.

Sessorium, at Rome, iv. Galba, ch. 28.

Sestius, iv. Brutus, ch. 4.

Sestos, in Thrace, i. Alkibiades, chs. 36, 37; ii. Lysander, chs. 9, 10, 14; Kimon, ch. 9.

Setia, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58.

Seuthas, servant of Aratus, iv. Aratus, ch. 5.

Sextilius’s waters, Aquæ Sextiæ, in Gaul, ii. Marius, ch. 18.

Sextilius, governor of Africa, ii. Marius, ch. 40.

——, lieutenant of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 25.

——, a prætor seized by pirates, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24.

Sextius, Lucius, first plebeian consul, i. Camillus, ch. 42.

Sextius, Publius, defended by Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 26.

——, Sulla, a Carthaginian, i. Romulus, ch. 15.

——, Tidius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 64.

Sibyrtius, governor of Arachosia, iii. Eumenes, ch. 19.

Sibyrtius’s gymnasium, i. Alkibiades, ch. 3.

Sicily, and Sicilians. _See_, in general, for history, the lives of Timoleon, Marcellus, Nikias, chs. 1, 12-30; Dion and the Comparisons; also, i. Alkibiades, chs. 17-20, 23, 32, 39; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 14, 22-24; iii. Pompeius, chs. 10, 11, 20, 26, 50, 61, 66; Cæsar, ch. 52; Cato Minor, chs. 53, 57; iv. Cicero, chs. 1, 6-8, 31; Comparison, ch. 3; iv. Antonius, chs. 32, 62. For other notices, i. Theseus, ch. 19 (Dædalus’s visit); Lykurgus, ch. 30; Themistokles, ch. 24 (his visit); Camillus, ch. 19 (a date); Perikles, chs. 20, 21; Fabius, chs. 22, 26; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 31; Cato Major, ch. 3; Marius, ch. 40; Lysander, chs. 3, 16; Sulla, ch. 36 (Eunus the slave); Kimon, ch. 8 (Æschylus there); iii. Crassus, chs. 10, 26; Agesilaus, chs. 3, 33; iv. Demetrius, ch. 25.

Sicilians, native, or Aborigines, iii. Nikias, ch. 15; Sicilian manufactures, ii. Lysander, ch. 2; iii. Alexander, ch. 32; Sicilian fat, iii. Nikias, ch. 1.

Sicinius Vellutus, tribune of the people, i. Coriolanus, chs. 13, 18.

——, tribune of the people, iii. Crassus, ch. 7.

Sidon, in Syria, iv. Demetrius, ch. 32; Antonius, ch. 51.

Sigliuria, i. Poplicola, ch. 16.

Signia, in Italy, ii. Sulla, ch. 28.

Sikinnus, a Persian, i. Themistokles ch. 12.

Sikyon and Sikyonians, i. Numa, ch. 4 (Hippolytus); Perikles, ch. 19; 660ii. Cato Major, ch. 22; Philopœmen, ch. 1; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 17, 19, 20; Demetrius, chs. 16, 25; Antonius, ch. 30 (Fulvia’s death), and Aratus throughout. The Sikyonian school of painting, iv. Aratus, ch. 13.

Silanion, a sculptor, i. Theseus, ch. 4.

Silanus, D. Junius, husband of Servilia, Cato’s sister, and Brutus’s mother, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 21, 22; iv. Cicero, chs. 14, 19, 20.

——, Marcus, driven away by Cleopatra, iv. Antonius, ch. 59.

Silenus, a youth in Pontus, iii. Lysander, ch. 26.

Silicius, Publius, proscribed, iv. Brutus, ch. 27.

Sillakes, a Parthian, iii. Crassus, chs. 21, 23.

Silo, Pompædius, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 2.

——, Publius, ii. Marius, ch. 33.

Silvia, daughter of Numitor, i. Romulus, ch. 3.

Silvium, in Apulia, ii. Sulla, ch. 27.

Simætha, at Megara, i. Perikles, ch. 30.

Simmias, accuser of Perikles, i. Perikles, ch. 35.

——, companion of Philopœmen, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 10.

Simnus, a Macedonian, iii. Alexander, ch. 49.

Simonides, the poet, i. Theseus, chs. 10, 17; Lykurgus, ch. 1; Themistokles, chs. 1, 5, 15; Timoleon, ch. 37; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 1; iv. Dion, ch. 1; Aratus, ch. 45.

Simylus, a poet, i. Romulus, ch. 17.

Sinis, the robber, i. Theseus, chs. 8, 25, 29; Comparison, ch. 1.

Sinnaca, in Babylonia, iii. Crassus, ch. 29.

Sinope, daughter of Asopus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

——, in Pontus, i. Perikles, ch. 20; ii. Lucullus, ch. 23; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Pompeius, ch. 42.

Sinora, or Inora, in Pontus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 32.

Sinuessa, in Italy, ii. Marcellus, ch. 26; iv. Otho, ch. 2.

Sippius, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 3.

Siris, river in Lucania, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 16.

Sisenna, a historian, ii. Lucullus, ch. 1.

Sisymithres, a Persian, iii. Alexander, ch. 58.

Skambonidæ, Attic township, i. Alkibiades, ch. 22.

Skandeia, in the island of Kythera, iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 4.

Skapte Hyle, in Thrace, ii. Kimon, ch. 4.

Skarphia, in Lokris, iii. Alexander, ch. 29.

Skedasus of Leuktra, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 20, 21.

Skeiron, i. Theseus, chs. 10, 25, 32; Comparison, ch. 1.

Skellius, companion of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 66.

Skenite Arabs, ii. Lucullus, ch. 21.

Skepsis, in Mysia, ii. Sulla, ch. 23; Lucullus, ch. 22.

Skiathus, island in the Ægean Sea, i. Themistokles, ch. 7.

Skillustis, island in the Indian Sea, iii. Alexander, ch. 66.

Skione, in Macedonia, ii. Lysander, ch. 14.

Skiradion, in Salamis, i. Solon, ch. 9.

Skiraphidas, a Spartan, ii. Lysander, ch. 16.

Skirus, of Salamis, i. Theseus, ch. 17.

Skopas, the Thessalian, ii. Cato Major, ch. 18.

Skopads, the, ii. Kimon, ch. 10.

Skotussa. _See_ Scotussa.

Skyros, island in the Ægean Sea, i. Theseus, ch. 35; ii. Kimon, chs. 8.

Skythes, a Spartan, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 16.

661 Smyrna, in Ionia, iii. Sertorius, ch. 1; iv. Brutus, chs. 28, 30.

Sokles of Pedia, i. Themistokles, ch. 14.

Sokrates, i. Lykurgus, ch. 30; Perikles, chs. 13, 24; Alkibiades, chs. 1, 3, 4, 6, 17; ii. Aristeides, chs. 1, 25, 27; Cato Major, chs. 7, 20, 23; Marius, ch. 46; Lysander, ch. 2; iii. Nikias, chs. 13, 23; Alexander, ch. 65; Phokion, ch. 38.

Solœis, an Athenian, i, Theseus, ch. 26.

Soli, in Cilicia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 28; iv. Demetrius, chs. 20, 27.

——, in Cyprus, i. Solon, ch. 26; iii. Alexander, ch. 29.

Solon, the Athenian lawgiver, i. Life and Comparison with Poplicola; Poplicola, ch. 9; Themistokles, ch. 2; iii. Phokion, ch. 7; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 18; Antonius, ch. 36.

——, of Platæa, iii. Phokion, ch. 33.

Solonium, ii. Marius, ch. 35.

Sonchus of Sais, i. Solon, ch. 26.

Sophanes of Dekeleia, ii. Comparison of Aristeides and Cato, ch. 2; Kimon, ch. 8.

Sophax, son of Herakles, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

Sophene, in Armenia, ii. Lucullus, chs. 24, 29; iii. Pompeius, ch. 33.

Sophokles, the poet, i. Numa, ch. 4; Comparison, ch. 3; Solon, ch. 20; Perikles, ch. 8; Timoleon, ch. 38; ii. Kimon, ch. 8; iii. Nikias, ch. 15; Pompeius, ch. 78; Alexander, chs. 7, 8; Phokion, ch. 1; iv. Agis, ch. 1; Demosthenes, ch. 7; Demetrius, chs. 45, 46; Antonius, ch. 24; Artaxerxes, ch. 28.

Sophrosyne, daughter of Dionysius the elder, iv. Dion, ch. 6.

Soranus, probably Serranus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 7.

Sorix, a mime, ii. Sulla, ch. 36.

Sornatius, lieutenant of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, chs. 17, 24, 30, 35.

Sosibius, favourite of Ptolemæus Philopator, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 33-35.

——, a writer, i. Lykurgus, ch. 24.

Sosigenes, iv. Demetrius, ch. 49.

Sosis, a Syracusan, iv. Dion, chs. 34, 35.

Sosistratus, a Syracusan, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 23.

Soso, iv. Aratus, chs. 2, 3.

Sossius, a lieutenant of Antonius, iv. Antonius, ch. 34.

——, Senecio, i. Theseus, ch. 1; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 1, 30; Dion, ch. 1.

Soter, a surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Sotion, a writer, iii. Alexander, ch. 61.

Sous, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1.

Spain and Spaniards (Iberia and Iberians), i. Lykurgus, ch. 4 (his supposed voyage thither); Fabius, chs. 7, 25 (Scipio); Timoleon, ch. 28 (Spanish troops); Æmilius, chs. 4, 6 (their mixture with the Ligurians); ii. Marcellus, ch. 12; Comparison, ch. 3; Cato Major, chs. 5, 10, 11; Comparison, ch. 2; Flamininus, ch. 3; Marius, chs. 1. 3. 6. 14; Lucullus, chs. 5, 8, 34; iii. Crassus, chs. 4, 7, 11, 15; Sertorius and theComparison throughout; Pompeius, chs. 13, 17-20 (campaign against Sertorius), 29, 38, 52-63, 65, 66, 67; Cæsar, ch. 5 (quæstor there), ch. 11 (proprætor there), 21, 36 (defeat of Afranius), 56 (battle of Munda); Cato Minor, chs. 31, 43, 59; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 5; Caius Gracchus, ch. 6; Cicero, ch. 38; Antonius, chs. 7, 10, 11, 37, 61; Galba, chs. 3, 5, 6, 9, 13, 22; Otho, ch. 3.

Spanos, iii. Sertorius, ch. 11.

Sparamixes, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 15.

662 Sparta, i. Theseus, ch. 31; Lykurgus, ch. 1, and frequent throughout all the lives. _See_ also Lacedæmon and Laconia.

Spartacus, iii. Crassus, chs. 8-11; Comparison, ch. 3; Pompeius, ch. 31; Cato Minor, ch. 8.

Sparton, at Koronea, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19.

——, a Rhodian, iii. Phokion, ch. 18.

Spendon, a poet, i. Lykurgus, ch. 27.

Spercheius, river, i. Theseus, ch. 24.

Speusippus, the philosopher, iv. Dion, chs. 17, 22, 35.

Sphærus, or Sphairus, the philosopher, i. Lykurgus, ch. 5; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 2, 11.

Sphakteria, off the coast of Messenia, i. Alkibiades, ch. 14; iii. Nikias, ch. 7.

Sphettus, Attic township, i. Theseus, ch. 13; iii. Phokion, ch. 9; iv. Demetrius, ch. 13.

Sphines, the proper name of Kalanus the Indian philosopher, iii. Alexander, ch. 65.

Sphodrias, a Spartan, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 14; Agesilaus, chs. 24-26, 28; Comparison, ch. 1.

Sphragitides, nymphs, ii. Aristeides, chs. 11, 19.

Spicilius, a gladiator, iv. Galba, ch. 8 Spinther, Lentulus, consul B.C. 57, iii. Pompeius, chs. 49, 67, 73; Cæsar, ch. 42; iv. Cicero, chs. 33, 38.

——, Lentulus, his son, iii. Cæsar, ch. 67.

Spithridates, a Persian, ii. Lysander, ch. 24; Agesilaus, chs. 8, 11.

——, a Persian, iii. Alexander, chs. 16, 50.

Sporus, iv. Galba, ch. 9.

Spurinna, commanding for Otho, iv. Otho, chs. 5, 6.

Spurius Postumius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 8.

——, Vettius, i. Numa, ch. 7.

Stageira, in Macedonia, iii. Alexander, ch. 7.

Staphylus, son of Theseus, i. Theseus, ch. 20.

Stasikrates, an architect, iii. Alexander, ch. 72.

Statianus, iv. Antonius, ch. 38.

Statilius, an Epicurean philosopher, iv. Brutus, ch. 12.

Statira, wife of Artaxerxes II., iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 5, 6, 17, 19.

——, wife of Darius, iii. Alexander, ch. 30.

——, daughter of Darius, married to Alexander, iii. Alexander, chs. 70, 77.

——, sister of Mithridates, ii. Lucullus, ch. 18.

Statyllius, or Statilius, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 65, 73; iv. Brutus, ch. 51.

Steiria, Attic township, i. Alkibiades, ch. 26.

Steiris, a town in Phokis, ii. Kimon, ch. 1.

Stephanus, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

——, a page, iii. Alexander, ch. 35.

Stertinius, a probable correction for Titilius, lieutenant of Flamininus, ii. Flamininus, ch. 12.

Stesilaus of Keos, i. Themistokles, ch. 3; ii. Aristeides, ch. 2.

Stesimbrotus of Thasos, a writer, i. Themistokles, chs. 2, 4, 24; Perikles, chs. 8, 13, 26, 36; ii. Kimon, chs. 4, 14, 16.

Sthenis of Himera, iii. Pompeius, ch. 10.

——, the sculptor, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Stilpon of Megara, iv. Demetrius, ch. 9.

Stoic philosophers, ii. Cato Major, ch. 22; Lucullus, ch. 39; iii. Cato Minor, chs. 4, 10, 65; Doctrines, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 31, 68; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 2; Cicero, chs. 4, 25; Comparison, ch. 1.

Stolo, Licinius, tribune of the people, i. Camillus, ch. 39.

663 Storax trees, Cretan, ii. Lysander, ch. 28.

Strabo, philosopher and historian, ii. Sulla, ch. 26; Lucullus, ch. 28; Cæsar, ch. 63.

——, father of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, chs. 1, 4.

Strato, a rhetorician, iv. Brutus, chs. 52, 53.

Stratokles, an Athenian, iv. Demetrius, chs. 11, 12, 24.

Stratonike, daughter of Korrhagus, wife of Antigonus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 2.

——, daughter of Demetrius, married to Seleukus and to Antiochus, iv. Demetrius, chs. 31, 32, 38, 51, 53.

——, one of the wives of Mithridates, iii. Pompeius, ch. 36.

Stratonikus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 30.

Strœbus, Kallisthenes’s reader, iii. Alexander, ch. 54.

Strymon, river, ii. Kimon, ch. 6.

Stymphæa, in Macedonia, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6.

Sucro, river in Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 19; Pompeius, ch. 19.

Suetonius Paulinus, iv. Otho, chs. 5, 7, 8, 11, 13.

Suevi, a German people, iii. Pompeius, ch. 51; Cæsar, ch. 23.

Sugambri, a German people, iii. Cæsar, ch. 22.

Suillii, a Roman name, i. Poplicola, ch. 11.

Sulla, Lucius Cornelius, ii. Life and Comparison with Lysander. _See_ also the contemporary and nearly contemporary lives, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11; ii. Marius, chs. 1. 10. 25. 26. 32. 34. 35. 41. 45; Lucullus, chs. 1, 3, 4, 19, 43; iii. Crassus, chs. 2, 6; Sertorius, chs. 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 18, 23; Pompeius, chs. 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21; Comparison, ch. 1; Cæsar, chs. 1, 3, 5, 6, 14, 15, 37; Cato Minor, chs. 3, 17, 18; iv. Cicero, chs. 3, 4, 10, 12, 14, 17, 27; also i. Poplicola, ch.15; ii. Flamininus, ch. 21; iv. Antonius, ch. 1; Brutus, ch. 9; Otho, ch. 9.

Sulla, Sextius, a Carthaginian, i. Romulus, ch. 15.

Sulpicius, consular tribune, i. Camillus, ch. 28.

——, Quintus, pontifex maximus, ii. Marcellus, ch. 5.

——, commanding in Macedonia, ii. Flamininus, ch. 3.

——, tribune of the people, ii. Marius, chs. 34. 35; Sulla, chs. 8, 9, 10.

——, interrex and consul B.C. 51, iii. Pompeius, ch. 54; Cato Minor, ch. 49.

——, Caius, a prætor, iv. Cicero, ch. 19.

——, Galba. _See_ Galba.

Sunium iv. Aratus, ch. 34.

Superbus. _See_ Tarquinius.

Sura, Lentulus, accomplice of Catilina, iii. Cæsar, ch. 7; Cato Minor, chs. 22, 26; iv. Cicero, chs. 17, 18, 22, 24, 30; Antonius, ch. 2.

——, Bruttius, ii. Sulla, ch. 11.

Surena, commander of the Parthians, iii. Crassus, chs. 21, 23, 29-33.

Susa, in Persia, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 30; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 4; Agesilaus, ch.15; Alexander, chs. 36, 37, 70; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 14; Artaxerxes, ch. 7.

Susamithres, uncle of Pharnabazus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 39.

Sutrium, in Etruria, i. Camillus, chs. 33, 35.

Sybaris and Sybarites, i. Perikles, ch. 11; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 1; iii. Crassus, ch. 32.

——, daughter of Themistokles, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Symbolum, near Philippi, iv. Brutus, ch. 38.

Synalus, a Carthaginian commander, iv. Dion, chs. 25, 26, 29.

664 Syncatathesis, philosophical term, iv. Cicero, ch. 40.

Syracuse and Syracusans. _See_, in general, the Lives of i. Timoleon and iv. Dion; ii. Marcellus, chs. 13-23; iii. Nikias, chs. 14-30, and the Comparisons; also, i. Alkibiades, chs. 17, 22, 23; ii. Pyrrhus, chs. 9, 14, 22; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 27; Cato Minor, ch. 53.

Syria and Syrians, i. Æmilius, ch. 7; ii. Philopœmen, ch. 17; Flamininius, ch. 17; these passages refer to the war with Antiochus. Also, ii. Lucullus, ch. 14 (Tigranes), 21, 23 (Cappadocian Syrians); iii. Crassus, chs. 15, 16, 29; Pompeius, chs. 33, 38, 39, 45, 52, 62; Alexander, chs. 20, 25; Cæsar, chs. 49, 50; Cato Minor, chs. 13, 43; iv. Cicero, chs. 12, 26, 30, 36, 43; Demetrius, chs. 5, 6, 15, 31, 32, 48; Antonius, chs. 3, 5, 27, 28, 30, 34, 36, 53, 54, 56, 74, 84; Brutus, ch. 28; Aratus, chs. 12, 18 (four Syrian brothers), 24, 33; Galba, ch. 13; Otho, chs. 4, 15. Cœle-Syria, iv. Antonius, chs. 36, 54; a Syrian woman, ii. Marius, ch. 17; Syriae, iv. Antonius, chs. 27, 46. The Syrian Chersonese, iv. Demetrius, chs. 50, 52.

Syrmus, king of the Triballi, iii. Alexander, ch. 11.

Syrtis, iv. Dion, ch. 25.

Syrus, son of Apollo and Sinope, ii. Lucullus, ch. 23.

Tachos, king of Egypt, iii. Agesilaus, chs. 36, 37, 38.

Tacita, one of the Muses, i. Numa, ch. 8.

Tænarus, promontory in Laconia, iii. Pompeius, ch. 24; Phokion, ch. 29; iv. Kleomenes, chs. 22, 38; Antonius, ch. 67.

Tagonius, the Tagus, iii. Sertorius, ch. 17.

Talasius and Talasio, i. Romulus, ch. 15; iii. Pompeius, ch. 4.

Talauria, in Cappadocia, ii. Lucullus, ch. 19.

Tamyæ, in Eubœa, iii. Phokion, ch. 12.

Tanagra, in Bœotia, i. Perikles, ch. 10; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 15; Kimon, ch. 17.

Tanais, the river Don, iii. Alexander, ch. 45.

Tanusius, a writer, ii. Cæsar, ch. 22.

Tarchetius, king of Alba, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Tarcondemus, king of Cilicia, iv. Antonius, ch. 61.

Tarentum, in Italy, i. Fabius, chs. 21-23; Comparison, ch. 2; ii. Marcellus, chs. 21, 25; Cato Major, chs. 2, 14; Philopœmen, ch. 9 (Tarentine mercenaries); Flamininus, ch. 1; Pyrrhus, chs. 13, 16, 21, 22, 24; Sulla, ch. 27; iii. Alexander, ch. 22 (a Tarentine slave-merchant); iv. Kleomenes, ch. 6 (Tarentine mercenaries); C. Gracchus, ch. 8; Cicero, ch. 39; Antonius, chs. 35, 62.

Taroutius, a friend of Varro, i. Romulus, ch. 12.

Tarpeia, daughter of Tarpeius, i. Romulus, chs. 17, 18.

——, a vestal, i. Numa, ch. 10.

Tarpeius, a Roman captain, i. Romulus, ch. 17.

Tarpeian hill, i. Romulus, ch. 28; Numa, ch. 7; ii. Marius, ch. 45.

Tarquinia, a vestal, i. Poplicola, ch. 8.

Tarquinius, son of Demaratus (Tarquinius Priscus), i. Romulus, ch. 16, 18; Poplicola, chs. 7, 15.

——, Superbus, i. Comparison of Lykurgus and Numa, ch. 3; Poplicola, chs. 1-3, 9, 13, 16, 18; Coriolanus, ch. 2; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 15.

——, Collatinus, i. Poplicola, chs. 1, 13, 4, 7.

Tarquins, the, i. Poplicola, ch. 3; Comparison, ch. 4; 665Æmilius, ch. 25; iv. Brutus, ch. 1.

Tarracina or Terracina, in Latium, iii. Cæsar, ch. 58.

Tarrutius, i. Romulus, ch. 5.

Tarsus, in Cilicia, ii. Marius, ch. 46; iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 8; Demetrius, ch. 47.

Tatia, daughter of Tatius, i. Numa, chs. 3, 21.

Tatius, king of the Sabines, i. Romulus, chs. 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24; Numa, chs. 2, 5, 17.

Taurea, i. Alkibiades, ch. 16.

Taurion, officer of Philip III. of Macedon, iv. Aratus, ch. 52.

Tauromenium in Sicily, i. Timoleon, chs. 10, 11.

Taurus, mountain in Asia, i. Æmilius, ch. 7; ii. Lucullus, chs. 24, 25, 27, 31; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Pompeius, ch. 28; iv. Demetrius, ch. 47.

——, a Cretan, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

——, Titus Statilius, lieutenant of Augustus at Actium, iv. Antonius, ch. 65.

Taxiles, king of a part of India, iii. Alexander, chs. 59, 65.

——, general of Mithridates, ii. Sulla, chs. 15, 19; Lucullus, chs. 26, 27.

Taygetus, in Laconia, i. Lykurgus, chs. 14, 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 30; Kimon, ch. 16; iv. Agis, ch. 8.

Technon, servant of Aratus, iv. Aratus, chs. 5, 7, 20.

Tectosages, ii. Sulla, ch. 4.

Tegea, in Arcadia, i. Theseus, ch. 31; ii. Aristeides, chs. 12, 16, 19; Lysander, ch. 30; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 34; iv. Agis, chs. 3, 12, 16; Kleomenes, chs. 4, 14, 17, 22, 23, 26.

Tegyra, in Bœotia, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 16, 17, 19; Comparison, ch. 1; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 27.

Teireus, a eunuch, iii. Alexander, ch. 30.

Teius, Marcus, ii. Sulla, ch. 14.

Telamon, son of Æakus, i. Theseus, ch. 10.

Telamo, in Etruria, ii. Marius, ch. 41.

Telekleides, the comic poet, i. Perikles, chs. 3, 16; iii. Nikias, ch. 4.

——, a Corinthian, i. Timoleon, ch. 7.

Telemachus, a Corinthian, i. Timoleon, ch. 13.

——, son of Ulysses, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Telephus, son of Herakles, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Teles, i. Perikles, ch. 33.

Telesides, a Syracusan, iv. Dion ch. 42.

Telesinus the Samnite, ii. Sulla, ch. 29; Comparison, ch. 4.

Telesippa, iii. Alexander, ch. 41.

Telestus, iii. Alexander, ch. 8.

Teleutias, half-brother of Agesilaus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 21.

Tellus, i. Solon, ch. 27; Comparison, ch. 1.

Telmessus, in Lycia, iii. Alexander, ch. 2.

Temenitid, gate of Syracuse, iv. Dion, ch. 29.

Tempe, in Thessaly, i. Themistokles, ch. 7; ii. Flamininus, ch. 3; iii. Pompeius, ch. 73.

Tenedos, island of, ii. Lucullus, ch. 3; iii. Eumenes, ch. 7.

Tenos, island in the Ægean, i Themistokles, ch. 12.

Tenteritæ, a German nation, iii. Cæsar, ch. 22.

Teos and Teians, in Ionia, i. Romulus, ch. 12; ii. Sulla, ch. 26; iii. Alexander, ch. 40.

Teratius, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Terentia, wife of Cicero, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 19; iv. Cicero, chs. 8, 20, 29, 30, 41.

Terentius Culeo, tribune of the people, ii. Flamininus, ch. 18.

——, Culeo, friend of Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 49.

——, Lucius, in the tent with Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 3.

666 Terentius, murderer of Galba, iv. Galba, ch. 27.

Teribazus, iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 5, 7, 24, 27-29.

Termerus, a robber, i. Theseus, ch. 11.

Terminus, i. Numa, ch. 16.

Terpander, poet and musician, i. Lykurgus, chs. 20, 29; iv. Agis, ch. 10.

Tertia, daughter of Æmilius Paulus, i. Æmilius, ch. 10; ii. Cato Major, ch. 20.

——, sister of Clodius, iv. Cicero, ch. 29.

Tethys, i. Romulus, ch. 2.

Tetrapolis, in Attica, i. Theseus, ch. 14.

Teukrus, an informer, i. Alkibiades, ch. 20.

Teutamus, commander of the Argyraspids, iii. Eumenes, chs. 13, 16, 17.

Teutones, a German people, ii. Marius, chs. 11. 15. 18. 20. 24; iii. Sertorius, ch. 3; Cæsar, ch. 18.

Thais, mistress of Ptolemæus, iii. Alexander, ch. 38.

Thalæa, wife of Pinarius, i. Comparison of Lykurgus and Numa, ch. 3.

Thalamæ, in Laconia, Agis, ch. 9.

Thales, a Cretan, i. Lykurgus, ch. 4.

——, of Miletus, i. Solon, chs. 2-6, 12.

Thallus, son of Kineas, an Athenian, iii. Phokion, ch. 13.

Thapsakus, in Mesopotamia, iii. Alexander, ch. 68.

Thapsus, in Africa, iii. Cæsar, ch. 53; Cato Minor, ch. 58.

——, in Sicily, iii. Nikias, ch. 17.

Thargelia, an Ionian lady, i. Perikles, ch. 24.

Tharrhypas, king of Epirus, i. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

Thasos and Thasians, ii. Kimon, ch. 14; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 11 (Thasian stone); iv. Demetrius, ch. 19; Brutus, chs. 38, 44.

Theagenes, a Theban, iii. Alexander, ch. 12.

Theano, priestess at Athens, i. Alkibiades, ch. 22.

Thearidas of Megalopolis, iv Kleomenes, ch. 24.

Thearides, husband of Arete, iv. Dion, ch. 6.

Thebe, daughter of Jason, wife of Alexander despot of Pheræ, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 28, 31, 35.

Thebes and the Thebans, in Bœotia, i. Theseus, ch. 29 (his expedition thither); Lykurgus, chs. 13, 28, 30; Solon, ch. 4; Themistokles, ch. 20; Camillus, ch. 19 (date of its destruction by Alexander); Fabius, ch. 27 (funeral of Epameinondas); Alkibiales, ch. 2 (flute-playing); ii. Pelopidas and the Comparison throughout; Aristeides, chs. 16, 18, 19; Flamininus, ch. 6 (his entrance); Lysander, chs. 27, 28, 29 (his death); Sulla, ch. 19; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 4, 18, and after, and the Comparison; Alexander, chs. 11-13; Phokion, chs. 17, 27; Demosthenes, chs. 9, 17, 18, 20, 23; Demetrius, chs. 9, 39, 40, 45, 46; Dion, ch. 17; Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

Theban, the Sacred Band, ii. Pelopidas, chs. 18-23; iii. Alexander, ch. 9.

Themiskyra, in Pontus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 14.

Themistokles, i. Life; Theseus, ch. 6; Perikles, ch. 7; Alkibiades, ch. 37; Comparison, ch. 1; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 4, 21; Aristeides, chs. 2-5, 7-9, 11, 22, 24, 25, 26; Cato Major, ch. 8; Comparison, chs. 1, 2, 5; Flamininus, ch. 20; Lysander, ch. 14; Kimon, chs. 5, 8, 10, 12, 16; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Comparison of Nikias and Crassus, ch. 3; Pompeius, ch. 63; 667Comparison, ch. 4; Phokion, ch. 8; iv. Comparison of Demosthenes, and Cicero, ch. 4; Antonius, chs. 37, 46.

Themistokles, a fellow-student with Plutarch, i. Themistokles, ch. 32.

Theodektes, iii. Alexander, ch. 17.

Theodorus, the Atheist, iii. Phokion, ch. 38.

——, the hierophant, i. Alkibiades, ch. 33.

——, tutor of Antyllus, iv. Antonius, ch. 81.

——, of Phlegæa, i. Alkibiades, chs. 19, 22.

——, of Tarentum, iii. Alexander, ch. 22.

Theodotes, uncle of Herakleides, iv. Dion, chs. 12, 45, 47.

Theodotus of Chios, a rhetorician in Egypt, iii. Pompeius, chs. 77, 80; Cæsar, ch. 48; iv. Brutus, ch. 33.

——, a prophet, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6.

Theogeiton of Megara, ii. Aristeides, ch. 20.

Theokritus, a prophet, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 22.

Theomnestus, iv. Brutus, ch. 24.

Theophanes, the Lesbian, iii. Pompeius, chs. 37, 42, 49, 76, 78; iv. Cicero, ch. 38.

Theophilus, Antonius’s steward, iv. Antonius, ch. 67.

——, an armourer, iii. Alexander, ch. 32.

Theophrastus, a Macedonian officer in Corinth, iv. Aratus, ch. 23.

——, the philosopher, i. Lykurgus, ch. 10; Solon, ch. 31; Perikles, chs. 23, 35, 38, 40 ?; Themistokles, ch. 25; Alkibiades, ch. 10; ii. Aristeides, ch. 24; Lysander, chs. 13, 19; Sulla, ch. 26; iii. Nikias, chs. 10, 11; Sertorius, ch. 13; Agesilaus, chs. 2, 36; Cato Minor, ch. 37; iv. Agis, ch. 2; Demosthenes, chs. 10, 17; Cicero, ch. 24.

Theopompus, the historian, i. Themistokles, chs. 19, 25, 31; Alkibiades, ch. 32; Timoleon, ch. 3; ii. Lysander, chs. 16, 30; Agesilaus, chs. 10, 31, 32, 33; iv. Demosthenes, chs. 4, 14, 18, 21, 25; Dion, ch. 24.

Theopompus of Knidos, the collector of Mythi, iii. Cæsar, ch. 48.

——, the comic poet, ii. Lysander, ch. 13.

——, king of Sparta, i. Lykurgus, chs. 6, 7, 20, 30; iv. Agis, ch. 21.

——, a Theban, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 8.

——, a Spartan, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 17.

Theoris, a priestess, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 14.

Theorus, i. Alkibiades, ch. 1.

Theramenes, the son of Hagnon, i. Alkibiades, chs. 1, 31; ii. Lysander, ch. 14; iii. Nikias, ch. 2; iv. Cicero, ch. 39.

Theriklean ware, i. Æmilius, ch. 33.

Thermodon, a rivulet in Bœotia, afterwards called Hæmon, i. Theseus, ch. 27; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 19.

——, a river of Pontus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 14; iii. Pompeius, ch. 35.

——, a hero, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 19.

Thermopylæ, the pass, i. Themistokles, ch. 9; ii. Cato Major, ch. 13; Flamininus, chs. 5, 11, 15; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 27; Alexander, ch. 11; iv. Demetrius, chs. 23, 40.

Thermus, Minucius, ii. Cato Minor, chs. 27, 28.

Thersippus, i. Solon, ch. 31.

Therykion, a Spartan, iv. Kleomenes, chs. 8, 31.

Theseus, i. Life and Comparison with Romulus; i. Solon, ch. 26; ii. Sulla, ch. 13; Kimon, ch. 8.

Thespiæ, in Bœotia, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 14; Lysander, ch. 28; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 24; iv. Demetrius, ch. 39.

Thespis, i. Solon, ch. 29.

Thesprotians, in Epirus, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

668 Thessalonica, in Macedonia, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 11; iv. Brutus, ch. 46.

Thessalonika, wife of Kassander, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 6; iv. Demetrius, ch. 36.

Thessalus, the son of Kimon, i. Perikles, ch. 29; Alkibiades, chs. 19, 22; ii. Kimon, ch. 16.

——, son of Peisistratus, ii. Cato Major, ch. 24.

——, an actor, iii. Alexander, chs. 10, 29.

Thessaly and Thessalians, i. Theseus, chs. 28, 34; Romulus, ch. 2; Themistokles, chs. 7, 20; Camillus, ch. 19 (date of their defeat by the Bœotians); Perikles, ch. 17; Alkibiades, ch. 23; Æmilius, chs. 7, 9; Pelopidas, chs. 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35; Aristeides, chs. 8, 10; Flamininus, chs. 5, 7, 9 (the battle of Kynoskephalæ), 10; Pyrrhus, chs. 1 (Menon), 7, 12, 14 (Kineas), 17; Sulla, chs. 11 (kingdom of Mithridates), 15, 20, 23, 27; Kimon, ch. 1 (migration into Bœotia), 8, 14; Lucullus, ch. 10 (Nikonides, the engineer), 23 (Autolykus, the hero); iii. Agesilaus, ch. 16; Pompeius, ch. 66 (Pharsalia); Comparison, ch. 4; Alexander, chs. 6 (Boukephalus), 11, 24 (Thessalians at Issus), 23 (Thessalians at Arbela), 42; Cæsar, chs. 39, 41, 48 (the campaign of Pharsalia); Phokion, ch. 25 (Menon); Cato Minor, ch. 55; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18 (Daochus); Demetrius, ch. 40; Dion, ch. 22 (Miltas); Brutus, ch. 25; Galba, ch. 1.

Theste, sister of Dionysius the younger, iv. Dion, ch. 21.

Thetis, shrine of, in Thessaly, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 32.

Theudippus, iii. Phokion, chs. 35, 36.

Thimbron, a Spartan, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 20.

Thoas, an Athenian, i. Theseus, ch. 26.

Thoinon, a Syracusan, ii. Pyrrhus ch. 23.

Thonis, an Egyptian woman, iv. Demetrius, ch. 27.

Thor, Phœnician name for a cow, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Thoranius, lieutenant of Metellus, iii. Sertorius, ch. 12.

Thorax of Larissa, iv. Demetrius, ch. 29.

——, a Spartan, ii. Lysander, chs. 9, 19.

Thrace and Thracians, i. Theseus, ch. 16 (Bottiæans); Romulus, ch. 17 (Rhymnitalkes); Themistokles, ch. 1 (his mother a Thracian); Perikles, chs. 11, 17, 19; Alkibiades, chs. 23, 30, 36, 37; Æmilius, chs. 15, 16, 18 (Thracian soldiers), 32 (Thracian shields); ii. Cato Major, ch. 12; Flamininus, ch. 12; Pyrrhus, ch. 11; Lysander, chs. 16, 20; Sulla chs. 11 (kingdom of Mithridates), 15; Kimon, chs. 4 (his Thracian blood), 7, 14; Lucullus, ch. 28 (Thracian horse); iii. Nikias, ch. 6; Crassus, chs. 8, 9, 11 (the servile war); Eumenes, ch. 7; Agesilaus, ch. 16; Alexander, ch. 2 (bacchantes), 12, 72 (Mount Athos); Phokion, ch. 28; Cato Minor, ch. 11 (his brother’s death); iv. Demosthenes, chs. 29, 30; Demetrius, chs. 39 (Dromichætes), 44, 52 (Dromichætes); Antonius, chs. 61, 63.

Thrakia, a village near Kyzikus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 9.

Thrasea, L. Thrasea Pætus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 25.

Thrason, i. Alkibiades, ch. 36.

Thrasybulus, the son of Thrason, i. Alkibiades, ch. 36.

——, of Steiria, who drove out the “Thirty,” i. Alkibiades, chs. 1, 26; ii. Pelopidas, chs. 7, 13; Lysander, chs. 27, 28; iv. Aratus, ch. 16.

669 Thrasydæus, envoy of Philip of Macedon, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 18.

Thrasyllus, an Athenian, i. Alkibiades, ch. 29.

Thrasymenus, Lake, i. Fabius, ch. 3.

Thriasian gate, called the “Double Gate,” i. Perikles, ch. 30.

——, plain, i. Themistokles, ch. 15; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 8; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 24; iv. Aratus, ch. 33.

Thucydides, son of Melesias, i. Perikles, chs. 6, 8, 11, 14, 16; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Nikias, chs. 2, 11; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 13.

——, son of Olorus, the historian, i. Lykurgus, ch. 27; Themistokles, chs. 25, 27; Perikles, chs. 9, 15, 16, 28, 34; Fabius, ch. 1; Alkibiades, chs. 6, 11, 13, 20; Comparison, ch. 2; ii. Aristeides, ch. 24; Cato Major, ch. 2; Kimon, ch. 4; iii. Nikias, chs. 1, 4, 19, 20, 28; Agesilaus, ch. 33; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 6.

Thurii, in Italy, i. Perikles, ch. 11; Alkibiades, chs. 22, 23; Timoleon, chs. 16, 19; iii. Nikias, ch. 5; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 28.

Thurium, in Bœotia, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Thuro, mother of Chæron, the founder of Chæronea, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Thyatira, in Lydia, ii. Sulla, ch. 25.

Thyestes, iv. Cicero, ch. 5.

Thymaitadæ, Attic township, i. Theseus, ch. 19.

Thyrea, in Argolis, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 32; iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

Thyrsus, freedman of Augustus, iv. Antonius, ch. 73.

Tibareni, in Pontus, ii. Lucullus, chs. 14, 19.

Tiber, the river, i. Romulus, ch. 1; compare ch. 3; Camillus, ch. 18; Fabius, ch. 1; Æmilius, ch. 30; iii. Cæsar, ch. 58; iv. Otho, ch. 4; compare i. Poplicola, ch. 19; iii. Cato Minor, ch. 39. The island in the Tiber, iv. Otho, ch. 4.

Tiberius’s house, iv. Galba, ch. 24.

Tiberius and Titus, sons of Lucius Brutus, i. Poplicola, ch. 6.

Tidius Sextus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 64.

Tifata, in text Hephæus, mountain in Campania, ii. Sulla, ch. 27.

Tigellinus, Nero’s favourite, iv. Galba, chs. 2, 8, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29; Otho, ch. 2.

Tigranes II., king of Armenia, i. Camillus, ch. 19; ii. Sulla, ch. 27; Lucullus, chs. 9, 14, 19, 21-23, 25, 26, 28-36; Comparison, ch. 3; iii. Crassus, chs. 16, 26; Pompeius, chs. 28, 30, 32, 33, 36, 45, 67; Comparison, ch. 3.

——, III., king of Armenia, iii. Pompeius, chs. 33, 45, 48.

Tigranocerta, in Armenia, ii. Lucullus, chs. 25, 26, 27, 29, 36; Comparison, ch. 3.

Tigris, river in Asia, ii. Lucullus, chs. 22, 24; Comparison, ch. 3.

Tigurini, Helvetian tribe, iii. Cæsar, ch. 18.

Tillius Cimber, iii. Cæsar, ch. 66; iv. Brutus, chs. 17, 19.

Tilphussa, a mountain and spring in Bœotia, ii. Lysander, ch. 28; Sulla, ch. 20.

Timæa, wife of Agis, i. Alkibiades, ch. 23; ii. Lysander, ch. 22; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 3.

Timæus, a friend of Andokides, i. Alkibiades, ch. 21.

——, the Sicilian historian, i. Lykurgus, chs. 1, 31; Timoleon, chs. 4, 10, 36; Comparison, ch. 2; iii. Nikias, chs. 1, 19, 28; iv. Dion, chs. 6, 14, 31, 36.

Timagenes, a historian, iii. Pompeius, ch. 49; iv. Antonius, ch. 72.

Timagoras, an Athenian, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 30; iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 22.

Timandra, i. Alkibiades, ch. 39.

Timanthes (not the painter), iv. Aratus, chs. 12, 22.

Timesileus, despot of Sinope, i. Perikles, ch. 20.

670 Timesitheus, i. Camillus, ch. 8.

Timodemus, father of Timoleon, i. Timoleon, chs. 3, 39.

Timoklea, a Theban lady, iii. Alexander, ch. 12.

Timokleides, a Sikyonian, iv. Aratus, ch. 2.

Timokrates, an Athenian, iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

——, married to Dion’s wife, Arete, iv. Dion, chs. 21, 26, 28.

——, envoy of Artaxerxes, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 20.

Timokreon of Rhodes, the poet, i. Themistokles, ch. 21.

Timolaus, a Spartan, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 15.

Timoleon, i. Life and Comparison with Æmilius Paulus; Camillus, ch. 19; iv. Dion, ch. 58.

Timon, the misanthrope, i. Alkibiades, ch. 16; iv. Antonius, chs. 69, 70, 71.

——, of Phlius, a writer, i. Numa, ch. 8; Perikles, ch. 4; iv. Dion, ch. 17.

Timonassa of Argos, ii. Cato Major, ch. 24.

Timonides of Leukas, Dion’s friend, iv. Dion, chs. 22, 30, 31, 35.

Timophanes, Timoleon’s brother, i. Timoleon, chs. 3, 4.

Timotheus, son of Konon, i. Timoleon, ch. 36; ii. Pelopidas, ch. 2; Sulla, ch. 6; iv. Demosthenes, ch. 15.

——, a Macedonian soldier, iii. Alexander, ch. 22.

——, the poet, ii. Philopœmen, ch. 11; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 14; iv. Agis, ch. 10; Demetrius, ch. 42.

Timoxenus, general of the Achæans, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 20; Aratus, chs. 38, 47.

Tinge, wife of Antæus, iii. Sertorius, ch. 9.

Tinnius, ii. Marius, ch. 38.

Tiribazus, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 23.

Tiro, Cicero’s freedman, iv. Cicero, chs. 41, 49.

Tisamenus of Elis, ii. Aristeides, ch. 11.

Tisander, i. Perikles, ch. 36.

Tisias, an Athenian, i. Alkibiaides, ch. 12.

Tisiphonus, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 35.

Tissaphernes, Persian Satrap, i. Alkibiades, chs. 23-28; Comparison, ch. 2; ii. Lysander, ch. 4; iii. Agesilaus, chs. 9, 10; iv. Artaxerxes, chs. 3, 4, 6, 18, 20, 23.

Tithora, in Phokis, ii. Sulla, ch. 15.

Tithraustes, a Persian, ii. Kimon, ch. 12.

——, a Persian, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 10.

Titianus, iv. Otho, chs. 7, 8, 13.

Titienses, Roman tribe, i. Romulus, ch. 20.

Titillius. _See_ Stertinius.

Titinius, a friend of Cassius, iv. Brutus, ch. 43.

Titius, a quæstor, iv. Antoninus, ch. 42; a consular, iv. Antonius, ch. 58.

——, Quintus, ii. Sulla, ch. 17.

Titus of Kroton, iv. Cicero, chs. 18, 19.

Titurius Sabinus, Q., with Cæsar in Gaul, iii. Cæsar, ch. 24.

Tityos, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 16.

Toleria, in Latium, i. Coriolanus, ch. 28.

Tolmæas, i. Perikles, ch. 18.

Tolmides, an Athenian general, i. Perikles, chs. 16, 18; Comparison, chs. 1, 3; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 19.

Tolumnius, king of the Etruscans, i. Romulus, ch. 16; ii. Marcellus, ch. 8.

Torquatus, the name, ii. Marius, ch. 1.

——, serving under Sulla, ii. Sulla, ch. 29.

——, Manlius, i. Fabius, ch. 9.

Torune, in Epirus, iv. Antonius, ch. 62.

Trachis, in Thessaly, i. Theseus, ch. 30.

Tragia, or Goat’s island, near Samos, i. Perikles, ch. 25.

671 Tragiskus, a Cretan, iv. Aratus, ch. 29.

Tralles, a town in Lydia, iii. Crassus, ch. 33; Agesilaus, ch. 16; Cæsar, ch. 47.

Trapezus, in Pontus, iii. Eumenes, ch. 3.

Trebatius, friend of Cæsar, iii. Cicero, ch. 37.

Trebellius, tribune with Dolabella, iv. Antonius, ch. 9.

Trebia, river in Italy, i. Fabius, chs. 2, 3.

Trebonianus, iv. Galba, ch. 15.

Trebonius, Caius, conspirator with Brutus, iii. Pompeius, ch. 52; Cato Minor, ch. 43; iv. Antonius, ch. 13; Brutus, chs. 17, 19.

——, ii. Marius, ch. 14.

Triarius, lieutenant of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 35; iii. Pompeius, ch. 39.

Triballi, a Thracian tribe, iii. Alexander, ch. 11.

Triopian Cape, ii. Kimon, ch. 12.

Tripylus, iv. Aratus, ch. 41.

Tritæa, in Achæa, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 16; Aratus, ch. 11.

Tritymallus, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 19.

Troas, mother of Æakides, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 1.

——, daughter of Æakides, _ibidem_.

Troad, the, ii. Sulla, ch. 24; Lucullus, chs. 3, 12. The game called Ludus Trojanus, iii. Cato Minor, ch. 3. _See_ Troy.

Trœzen, town of Argolis, i. Theseus, chs. 3, 6, 19, 29, 34, 36; Comparison, chs. 1, 6; Themistokles, ch. 10; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 19; Demosthenes, ch. 26; Aratus, chs. 1, 24.

Troglodytes, in Æthiopia, iv. Antonius, ch. 27.

Trophonius, ii. Aristeides, ch. 19; Sulla, ch. 17.

Troy and Trojans, i. Theseus, ch. 34; Romulus, chs. 1, 2, 3; Comparison, ch. 6; Solon, ch. 4; Camillus, chs. 19 (date of the taking of Troy), 20 (the Palladium); ii. Kimon, ch. 7, (verses); Lucullus, chs. 10, 12 (Ilium); iii. Nikias, ch. 1; Sertorius, ch. 1; Alexander, ch. 15; iv. Antonius, ch. 6; Dion, ch. 1.

Tubero, Ælius, a son-in-law of Æmilius, i. Æmilius, chs. 5, 27, 28.

——, the Stoic, son of preceding, ii. Lucullus, ch. 39.

Tubertus, Postumius, i. Poplicola, ch. 20.

——, Postumius, i. Camillus, ch. 2.

Tudertia, town in Umbria, iii. Crassus, ch. 6.

Tuditanus, a writer, ii. Flamininus, ch. 14.

Tullia, Cicero’s daughter, iv. Cicero, ch. 41.

Tullius, iv. Cicero, ch. 1.

Tullus Attius, leader of the Volscians, iv. Cicero, ch. 1; called Tullus Aufidius, i. Coriolanus, ch. 22, and after.

——, L. Volcatius, consul B.C. 66, iii. Pompeius, ch. 60.

——, a friend of Cicero, iv. Cicero, ch. 29.

——, Hostilius, king of Rome, i. Romulus, ch. 18; Numa, chs. 21, 22; Coriolanus, ch. 1.

Turpilianus, Petronius, iv. Galba, chs. 15, 17.

Tunnondas, i. Solon, ch. 14.

Turpillius, friend and officer of Metellus, ii. Marius, ch. 8.

Tuscans and Tuscany. _See_ Etruria and Etruscans.

Tusculum, a town of Latium, i. Camillus, ch. 38; ii. Cato Major, ch. 1; Lucullus, chs. 39, 43; iii. Pompeius, ch. 57; Cæsar, ch. 41; iv. Cicero, chs. 40, 47.

Tutola, or Tutula, i. Romulus, ch. 29; Camillus, ch. 33.

Tyche, in Syracuse, ii. Marcellus, ch. 18.

Tydeus, an Athenian, i. Alkibiades, chs. 36, 37; ii. Lysander, ch. 10.

672 Tyndareus, i. Theseus, chs. 31, 32.

Typhon, ii. Pelopidas, ch. 21; iv. Antonius, ch. 3.

Tyrannio, a grammarian, ii. Sulla, ch. 26; Lucullus, ch. 19.

Tyre, in Phœnicia, iii. Alexander, chs. 24, 25; iv. Demetrius, ch. 32.

Tyrrhenia. _See_ Etruria.

Tyrtæus, i. Lykurgus, ch. 6; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 2.

Uliades of Samos, ii. Aristeides, ch. 23. _See_ Ouliades.

Ulysses, Ulixes, or, in Greek, Odysseus, i. Romulus, ch. 1; Solon, ch. 30; Alkibiades, ch. 21; Coriolanus, ch. 22; ii. Marcellus, ch. 20; Cato Major, ch. 9; Marius, ch. 11; Lysander, ch. 20; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 5.

Umbri, iii. Crassus, ch. 6.

Umbricius, iv. Galba, ch. 24.

Usipes, or Usipetes, iii. Cæsar, ch. 22.

Utica, ii. Marius, ch. 8; iii. Pompeius, chs. 11, 13; Cæsar, ch. 54; Cato Minor, chs. 58-72.

Vaccæi, a people of Spain, iii. Sertorius, ch. 21.

Vaga, in Numidia, ii. Marius, ch. 8.

Vagises, iii. Crassus, ch. 18.

Valens. _See_ Fabius.

Valentia, in Spain, iii. Pompeius, ch. 18.

Valeria, sister of Poplicola, i. Coriolanus, ch. 33.

——, daughter of Poplicola, i. Poplicola, chs. 7, 19.

——, daughter of Messala, married to Sulla, ii. Sulla, chs. 35, 36, 37.

Valerius, family name, i. Comparison of Solon and Poplicola, ch. 1.

——, of Antium, i. Romulus, ch. 14; Numa, ch. 22; ii. Flamininus, ch. 18.

Valerius Corvinus, six times consul, ii. Marius, ch. 28.

——, Flaccus, consul and censor, ii. Cato Major, chs. 3, 10, 16, 17.

——, Flaccus, consul B.C. 100, ii Marius, ch. 28; Sulla, chs. 12, 20, 23; Lucullus, chs. 7, 34.

——, Leo, iii. Cæsar, ch. 17.

——, Maximus, Marcus, brother of Poplicola, i. Poplicola, chs. 5, 5; Coriolanus, ch. 5; iii. Pompeius, ch. 13.

——, Maximus, a historian, ii Marcellus, ch. 34 ?; iv. Brutus, ch. 53.

——, Messala Corvinus. _See_ Messala ——, Potitus, i. Camillus, ch. 4.

——, Quintus, put to death by Pompeius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 10.

——, a legendary hero, i. Poplicola ch. 1.

Vargunteius, iii. Crassus, ch. 28.

Varinus, Publius. _See_ Barinus.

Varius, called Cotylon, iv. Antonius ch. 18.

Varro, Terentius, consul B.C. 216, i. Fabius, chs. 14, 15, 16, 18.

——, Terentius, the writer, i. Romulus, chs. 12, 16; iii. Cæsar, ch. 36.

——, Cingonius, iv. Galba, ch. 14.

Varus, Alfenus, iv. Otho, ch. 12.

——, Attius, iii. Cato Minor, chs. 56, 57, 67.

Vatinius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 52; Cato Minor, ch. 42; iv. Cicero, chs. 9, 26; Brutus, ch. 25.

Veii, town in Etruria, and Veientes, Veientines, or Veientani, i. Romulus, chs. 25, 27; Poplicola, ch. 13; Camillus, chs. 2-5, 7, 11, 17, 18, 24, 31.

Velabrum, at Rome, i. Romulus, ch. 5.

Velesius, i. Numa, ch. 5.

Velia, part of the Palatine hill at Rome, i. Poplicola, chs. 10, 10.

——, or Elea, in Lucania, i. Perikles, ch. 4; Timoleon, ch. 35; iv. Brutus, ch. 23.

673 Velitræ, in Latium, i. Camillus, ch. 42; Coriolanus, chs. 12, 13.

Vellutus, Sicinius, i. Coriolanus, chs. 7, 13, 18.

Ventidius, two brothers of the name, iii. Pompeius, ch. 6.

——, Bassus, P., consul suffectus B.C. 43, iv. Antonius, chs. 33, 34.

Vento, Perpenna, iii. Sertorius, chs. 15, 26, 27; Pompeius, chs. 10, 18, 20.

Venusia, in Apulia, i. Fabius, ch. 16; ii. Marcellus, ch. 29.

Verania, wife of Piso, iv. Galba, ch. 28.

Vercellæ, in Gaul, ii. Marius, ch. 25.

Verenia, one of the first vestals, i. Numa, ch. 10.

Vergentorix, king of the Gauls, iii. Cæsar, chs. 25-27.

Vergilio, Atilius, iv. Galba, ch. 26.

Verginius, C., prætor in Sicily, iv. Cicero, ch. 32.

Verres, prætor of Sicily, iv. Cicero, chs. 7, 8.

Verrucosus, nickname of Fabius, i. Fabius, ch. 1.

Vespasianus, the emperor, i. Poplicola, ch. 15; iv. Otho, chs. 4, 5.

Vettius, Spurius, interrex, i. Numa, ch. 7.

——, C, Veturius, defended by C. Gracchus, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 1.

——, ii. Lucullus, ch. 42.

Veturius, Caius, sentenced to death, iv. C. Gracchus, ch. 3.

——, Publius, one of the first quæstors, i. Poplicola, ch. 12.

——, Mamurius, i. Numa, ch. 13.

——, an _optio_, iv. Galba, ch. 24.

Vetus, Antistius, iii. Cæsar. ch. 5.

Vibius Pacianus, iii. Crassus, chs. 4, 5.

——, a Sicilian, iv. Cicero, ch. 32.

Vibo, in Lucania, iv. Cicero, ch. 32.

Vica Pota, i. Poplicola, ch. 10.

Villius, Caius, iv. Tib. Gracchus, ch. 20.

——, Tappulus, Publius, ii. Flamininus, ch. 12.

Vindicius, a slave, i. Poplicola, chs. 4-7.

Vindius, iii. Pompeius, ch. 6.

Vindex, commanding in Gaul, iv. Galba, chs. 4-6, 10, 18, 22, 29.

Vinius, Titus, Galba’s favourite, iv. Galba, chs. 4, 7, and after to the end.

Virgilia, wife of Coriolanus, i. Coriolanus, chs. 33-35.

Virginius, a tribune of the people, ii. Sulla, ch. 10.

Virginius Rufus, commanding in Germany, iv. Galba, chs. 6, 10, 18, 22; Otho, chs. 1, 18.

Viridomarus. _See_ Britomartus.

Vitellii, i. Poplicola, ch. 3.

Vitellius, the emperor, i. Poplicola, ch. 15; iv. Galba, chs. 22, 23, 27; Otho, ch. 4, and after throughout.

——, Lucius, iv. Otho, ch. 4.

Voconius, lieutenant of Lucullus, ii. Lucullus, ch. 13.

——, father of three daughters, iv. Cicero, ch. 27.

Volsci, or Volscians, i. Camillus, chs. 2, 17, 33-35; Coriolanus, chs. 8, 9, 12, 13, 21, and after; Comparison, chs. 1, 3; iv. Cicero, ch. 1.

Volumnia, mother of Coriolanus, i. Coriolanus, chs. 4, 33-36.

Volumnius, Publius, a philosopher, friend of Brutus, iv. Brutus, chs. 51, 52.

——, a mime, iv. Brutus, ch. 45.

Vopiscus, a surname, i. Coriolanus, ch. 11.

Vulturnus, or Lothronus, river in Campania, i. Fabius, ch. 6.

Xanthippides, ii. Aristeides, ch. 5.

Xanthippus, father of Perikles, i. Themistokles, chs. 10, 21; Perikles, ch. 3; Alkibiades, ch. 1; ii. Aristeides, ch. 10; Cato Major, ch. 5.

——, son of Perikles, i. Perikles, chs. 24, 36.

674 Xanthus and Xanthians, iii. Alexander, ch. 17; iv. Brutus, chs. 2, 30, 31.

Xenagoras, son of Eumelus, i. Aemilius, ch. 15.

Xenarchus, a writer, iii. Nikias, ch. 1.

Xenares, iv. Kleomenes, ch. 3.

Xenokles of Adramyttium, iv. Cicero, ch. 4.

——, of Cholargos, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

——, an exile of Sikyon, iv. Aratus, ch. 5.

——, a Spartan, iii. Agesilaus, ch. 16.

Xenokrates, an Academic philosopher, ii. Flamininus, ch. 12; Marius, ch. 2; Comparison of Kimon and Lucullus, ch. 1; iii. Alexander, ch. 8; Phokion, chs. 4, 27, 29.

Xenodochus of Kardia, iii. Alexander, ch. 51.

Xenophantus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 53.

Xenophilus, ii. Aristeides, ch. 1.

——, a captain of robbers, iv. Aratus, ch. 6.

Xenophon, commanding in Chalkidike, iii. Nikias, ch. 6.

——, the writer, i. Lykurgus, ch. 1; Alkibiades, ch. 32; ii. Marcellus, ch. 21; Comparison, ch. 3; Lysander, ch. 15; Agesilaus, chs. 9, 19, 20, 34; Comparison, ch. 2; iv. Antonius, ch. 45; Artaxerxes, chs. 4, 8, 9, 13.

Xerxes, i. Themistokles, chs. 4, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 27; ii. Aristeides, chs. 8, 10; Comparison, ch. 5; Sulla, ch. 15; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 16; Alexander, chs. 37, 38; Artaxerxes, chs. 1, 2; Xerxes in a toga, ii. Lucullus, ch. 39.

Xuthus, a flute-player, iv. Antonius, ch. 24.

Xypete, Attic township, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Zaleukus, i. Numa, ch. 4.

Zakynthus, ii. Flamininus, ch. 17; iii. Nikias, ch. 23; iv. Dion, chs. 22, 23, 57; Artaxerxes, ch. 13.

Zarbienus, ii. Lucullus, chs. 21, 29.

Zaretra, iii. Phokion, ch. 13.

Zela, iii. Cæsar, ch. 50.

Zelea, i. Themistokles, ch. 6.

Zeno of Kitium, i. Lykurgus, ch. 31; iii. Phokion, ch. 5; iv. Kleomenes, ch. 2; Aratus, ch. 23.

——, a Cretan, iv. Artaxerxes, ch. 21.

——, Eleatic philosopher, i. Perikles, chs. 4, 5.

Zenodotia, iii. Crassus, ch. 17.

Zenodotus, i. Romulus, ch. 14.

Zeugma, iii. Crassus, ch. 19, 27.

Zeuxidamus, ii. Kimon, ch. 16; iii. Agesilaus, ch. 1.

Zeuxis, i. Perikles, ch. 13.

Zoilus, iv. Demetrius, ch. 21.

Zopyrus, tutor of Alkibiades, i. Lykurgus, ch. 15; Alkibiades, ch. 1.

——, a Macedonian, ii. Pyrrhus, ch. 34.

Zoroaster, i. Numa, ch. 4.

Zosime, iii. Pompeius, ch. 45.